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Interactive Fiction Database
The Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB) is a database of metadata and reviews of interactive fiction. In November 2023, the database contained 12,969 game listings, 12,784 member reviews, 51,762 member ratings, and 17,040 registered members. Some games can be played in the web browser using links on the IFDB web site. History The database was founded by Michael J. Roberts in 2007. The IFDB is currently (2023) maintained by the IFDB committee of the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation (IFTF). Top games The top 10 games on the IFDB Top 100 list, using an IMDb style Bayes estimator to calculate weighted ratings based on all IFDB ratings, are (2023): # '' Counterfeit Monkey'', by Emily Short # '' Anchorhead'', by Michael Gentry # '' Hadean Lands'', by Andrew Plotkin # ''Superluminal Vagrant Twin'', by C.E.J. Pacian # '' 80 Days'', by inkle and Meg Jayanth # ''Open Sorcery'', by Abigail Corfman # ''Worldsmith'' by Ade McT # '' The Wizard Sniffer'', by Buster Hudson # '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spans formal techniques and practical considerations, including data modeling, efficient data representation and storage, query languages, security and privacy of sensitive data, and distributed computing issues, including supporting concurrent access and fault tolerance. A database management system (DBMS) is the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze the data. The DBMS software additionally encompasses the core facilities provided to administer the database. The sum total of the database, the DBMS and the associated applications can be referred to as a database system. Often the term "database" is also used loosely to refer to any of the DBMS, the database system or an appli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Woods
Donald Woods (1933–2001) was a South African journalist and activist. Donald or Don Woods may also refer to: * Donald Woods (actor) (1906–1998), Canadian-born American film and television actor * Donald Devereux Woods (1912–1964), British microbiologist * Don Woods (programmer) Donald R. Woods (born April 30, 1954) is an American hacker and computer programmer. He is best known for his role in the development of the '' Colossal Cave Adventure'' game. Biography Early programming career Woods teamed with James M. Lyon ... (born 1954), computer programmer and co-author of the game ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' * Don Woods (American football) (born 1951), American football player * Don Woods (meteorologist) (1928–2012), American weatherman See also * Donald Wood (1933–2015), Canadian politician, businessman and farmer * Donald Wood-Smith, professor and doctor {{hndis, Woods, Don ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
XYZZY Awards
The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year prior to the award ceremony is eligible for nomination to receive an award. The decision process takes place in two stages: members of the interactive fiction community nominate works within specific categories and sufficiently supported nominations become finalists within those categories. Community members then vote among the finalists, and the game receiving a plurality of votes is given the award in an online ceremony. Since 1997 the XYZZY Awards have become one of the most important events within the interactive fiction community. Together with events like the Interactive Fiction Competition and Spring Thing, the XYZZY Awards provide opportunities for the community to encourage and reward the creation and development of new works wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spring Thing
Spring Thing is an annual competition to highlight works of text adventure games and other literary works, also known as Interactive Fiction. Adam Cadre, author of several works of Interactive Fiction, including ''Photopia'' and '' Varicella'', announced the Spring Thing in 2001, both to promote works that would be longer than those entered into the Interactive Fiction Competition, and to encourage authors to submit works to the general public during other times of the year. It was run in 2002 and 2003, but Cadre did not host it the following year. Greg Boettcher picked up the slack, and hosted the Spring Thing from 2005 until 2013. {{As of, 2022, Aaron A. Reed runs the competition and has been doing so since 2014. As with the better-known Interactive Fiction Competition, works submitted to the Spring Thing must be released as freeware or public domain. Unlike that competition's limit of two hours per work, judges may spend as much time as necessary with an entry in the Spring T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interactive Fiction Competition
The Interactive Fiction Competition (also known as IFComp) is one of several annual competitions for works of interactive fiction. It has been held since 1995. It is intended for fairly short games, as judges are only allowed to spend two hours playing a game before deciding how many points to award it. The competition has been described as the " Super Bowl" of interactive fiction. Since 2016 it is operated by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation (IFTF). Organization In 2016, operation of the competition was taken over by thInteractive Fiction Technology Foundation The lead organizer 2014-2017 was Jason McIntosh, and in 2018 it was Jacqueline Ashwell. Categories Although the first competition had separate sections for Inform and TADS games, subsequent competitions have not been divided into sections and are open to games produced by any method, provided that the software used to play the game is freely available. In addition to the main competition, the entries tak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graham Nelson
Graham A. Nelson (born 1968) is a British mathematician, poet, and the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction (IF) games. He has authored several IF games, including ''Curses'' (1993) and ''Jigsaw'' (1995). Education In 1994, Nelson received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Oxford under the supervision of Simon Donaldson. Writing Nelson co-edited ''Oxford Poetry'' and in 1997 received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors for his poetry. he was managing editor of Legenda, the imprint of the Modern Humanities Research Association ( MHRA). Interactive fiction Nelson is the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction (IF) games. He has also authored several IF games, including ''Curses'' (1993) and ''Jigsaw'' (1995), using the experience of writing ''Curses'' in particular to expand the range of verbs that Inform is capable of understanding. Personal life Nelson is married to IF writer Emily Short. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curses (video Game)
''Curses'' is an interactive fiction computer game created by Graham Nelson in 1993. Appearing in the beginning of the non-commercial era of interactive fiction, it is considered one of the milestones of the genre. Writing for ''The New York Times'', Edward Rothstein described the game as "acclaimed." Plot The player plays the part of the current owner of Meldrew Hall. In the course of searching the attic for an old tourist map of Paris, the protagonist steps into a surreal adventure to uncover a centuries-old curse that has been placed on the Meldrew family. The goal of the game is to find the missing map, and thus annul the curse. Development ''Curses'' was originally developed on an Acorn Archimedes using Acorn C/C++, before Nelson moved to his Inform programming language, which was simultaneously released. It was the first non-test game developed in the language. It is distributed without charge as a Z-Code executable. The Inform source code is not publicly available. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Woods (programmer)
Donald R. Woods (born April 30, 1954) is an American hacker and computer programmer. He is best known for his role in the development of the ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' game. Biography Early programming career Woods teamed with James M. Lyon while both were attending Princeton in 1972 to produce the unprecedented, excursive INTERCAL programming language. Later, he worked at the Stanford AI lab (SAIL), where among other things he became the SAIL contact for, and a contributor to, the Jargon File. He also co-authored "The Hacker's Dictionary" with Mark Crispin, Raphael Finkel, and Guy L. Steele Jr."The computer contradictionary" by Stan Kelly-Bootle Work on ''Adventure'' Woods discovered the ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' game by accident on a SAIL computer in 1976. After contacting the original author by the (now antiquated) means of sending an e-mail to crowther@''sitename'', where ''sitename'' was every host listed on ARPANET, he heard back from William Crowther shortly afterw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Crowther (programmer)
William Crowther (born 1936) is an American computer programmer, caver, and rock climber. He is the co-creator of ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' from 1975 onward, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of video game design and inspired the text adventure game genre. Biography During the early 1970s, Crowther worked at defense contractor and internet pioneer Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), where he was part of the original small ARPAnet development team. His implementation of a distributed distance vector routing system for the ARPAnet was an important step in the evolution of the internet. Crowther met and married Pat Crowther while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a B.S. in physics in 1958. Adventure Following his divorce from his wife, Crowther used his spare time to develop a text-based adventure game in Fortran on BBN's PDP-10. He created it as a diversion his daughters Sandy and Laura could enjoy when they came ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colossal Cave Adventure
''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake. The original game, written in 1975 and 1976, was based on Crowther's maps and experiences caving in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the longest cave system in the world; further, it was intended ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lost Pig
''Lost Pig'' is a comedic work of interactive fiction about an orc retrieving an escaped pig. It was created by Admiral Jota and released as freeware. It took first place in the 2007 Interactive Fiction Competition with an average score of 8.27. ''Lost Pig'' won best game, best writing, best individual non-player character, and best individual player character in the 2007 XYZZY Awards. ''Lost Pig'' finished with 18.7% of the votes for the Audience Award in the interactive fiction category in the 2008 Jay Is Games Best of Casual Gameplay awards, placing it second after ''Violet''. The game has been described as "hilarious" by reviewers for ''The Onion'' '' A.V. Club'' and Jay Is Games. Emily Short Emily Short is an interactive fiction (IF) writer. She is perhaps best known for her debut game ''Galatea'' and her use of psychologically complex non-player characters (NPCs). Short has been called "a visionary in the world of text-based ga ... described it as "superbly cra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Cadre
Adam Cadre (born February 5, 1974, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction. Biography Cadre's 1998 piece ''Photopia'' pioneered a new direction in interactive fiction, removing the puzzle and resource-management elements that had previously been dominant; it has been cited as "hugely influential to IF development" and "important to video games as a whole, to the advancement of our understanding of the interactive medium." His next IF work, 1999's '' Varicella'', won several XYZZY Awards and became the subject of academic study. His game '' 9:05'' is commonly seen as a solid entry point for people wanting to engage with interactive fiction. Chief among his non-interactive work is a novel, ''Ready, Okay!'' (2000). Lyttle Lytton Contest The ''Lyttle Lytton Contest'', run by Adam Cadre, is a diminutive derivative of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
