#andrew plotkin

[psilocervidae]

I lied. I actually don't like sex. Put your clothes back on, we're playing Andrew Plotkin's classic 1998 text adventure spy thriller Spider and Web. I hope you like non-conventional story structures and commentary about the futility of war.

[squorttle-pox]

CALLING ALL FANFIC WRITERS to write for the Spider and Web fandom please please pretty please with four cherries on top 🙏

[magnetictapedatastorage]

On the whole, it was worth the trip. The plains really were broad and grain-gold, if scarred with fences and agricultural crawlers. The mountains were overwhelming. And however much of the capital city is crusted with squat brick and faceless concrete hulks, there are still flashes of its historic charm. You've seen spires above the streets -- tiny green parks below tenements -- hidden jewels of fountains beyond walls. Any bland alley can conceal balconies wrought into iron gardens, fiery mosaics, a tree or bed of flowers nurtured by who knows who. This alley, however, is a total washout. It ends in flat bare dirty brick, and you've found nothing but a door which lacks even the courtesy of a handle. Maybe you should call it a day.

-- Spider And Web, by Andrew Plotkin

[overthinkingvideogames]

Your load is too heavy: Zork deep reading

This past weekend a screenshot went around Twitter (my part of Twitter at least!) weight = num_items * Max_held_mult; if( weight

The clear reading of this code (as the screenshot says) is that the inventory limit in Zork 1 is random, not a fixed number of items. Each item you pick up makes it more likely that you'll hit a "holding too many things" error. But since it's a random chance, you can just try again -- it might work next time.

This was passed around in a commentary cloud of "This game was unfair," "games in the 80s were terrible," and so on. (See this NeoGAF thread, for example.)

This is fascinating! I played Zork, as I played all the Infocom games, and I didn't remember this inventory detail. It felt dimly familiar when I was reminded of it, though.

Research time!

Om Zork’s inventory limits and game design.

[hurterbots]

suffering rn how the xxxx do I advance in spider and web I'm stuck in the white hallways I got the package I'm trying to figure out the tools I'm tweaking out do I crawl in the vents? how???? should I start taking notes????????

[incorrectclassicbookquotes]

So the game Mafia was created in about 1987 but the variant of that called Werewolf was created in 1997 by Andrew Plotkin. I was born in 1997 so the Werewolf version is as old as I am.

[kahran042]

I wonder if that's the Andrew Plotkin?

[believerindaydreams]

Strange Airlock

This chamber is not hexagonal, but it reminds you of a hexagon in all directions, if that makes sense. Perhaps it doesn't.

...behold, everything I love and hate about text adventures