What comes to mind when you think of an "Infocom Game"?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Because the road to finishing Cyberganked is unclear, and because I finally had a small idea for another small, hour-long game, I may take a break and work on this other idea instead.

Something I have never done is really, REALLY think about what people liked when it came to Infocom games. A lot of mine are interactive stories. But is there a quality or two that comes to mind when you think that Infocom games had?

Some examples:
Because they didn't have infinite space, the writing is terse, where mine usually isn't. I am trying to work on that.

The look of them was either white text on a blue background, which Hugo doesn't quite nail, because screens are SO massive now, but also I want to say white text on a gray background. I am in the mood for letting players choose whatever color combinations they want (and I think Hugor allows this) but that is another thing.

And of course, the puzzle design was meant to make you think and for the Infocom games I played, the puzzles were more important than the characters.

I am curious what else people think about. It is a style of game I would like to consider for a small dose.

[AArdvark]

Hmmmm, Infocom games. They were funny in a low key way and definitely story driven. But don't make the puzzles too hard because nobody has that kind of attention span anymore. I can remember thinking about HHGG puzzles at work and writing down possible things to try when I got home.

I was not a fan of the C64 80 columns, too hard to read, so being able to use Times New Roman in green on a black background would be great.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Thank you. That was exactly what I was looking for!

[AArdvark]

What kind of genre were you thinking for this one?

[Flack]

Something I have never done is really, REALLY think about what people liked when it came to Infocom games. A lot of mine are interactive stories. But is there a quality or two that comes to mind when you think that Infocom games had?

My impression of Infocom games is probably wrong, mostly because I was a kid when I experienced them. I think of bit, story-driven games. I think of well-written games, with above-average vocabulary. I think the name Infocom brought some sort of quality guarantee. Again these are all just kind of impressions I had. Like the original Scott Adams adventures, when I think of Infocom games I think that the setting is an integral part of the story and game.

[Jizaboz]

with above-average vocabulary.

I agree with everything you and Vaark have said but this really is a random good point. I was 12 or 13 when I was getting into The Lost Treasures of Infocom after playing Return to Zork. I recall being forced to remember the spelling of so many new words and being force to type correctly; absolutely loved it.

I don't have much else to add here really aside from when I made my first game (Hallow Eve) I was completely obsessed with making a game much like an Infocom game. I crafted these puzzles with weight limits and some really odd or random solutions. I figured players would at least get one of the 3 or 4 endings and replay to get the "best ending" days, weeks or months later. Instead my friend Keith beat it with the best ending in like 2 days lol. Keith is a smart dude though!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

What kind of genre were you thinking for this one?

SCI-FI BABY

[AArdvark]

I'm writing a short detective story involving aliens and a ventriloquist dummy. Would that work as an interactive fiction basis?

[Flack]

I think just about anything can be a good setting for an IF game, you just have to make it feel natural and not like a forced gimmick.

I'm planning on going to that retro computer gathering Boatfest again next year and I'm sorta/kinda planning to write an IF game to release there. I'm thinking of doing a pseudo treasure hunt where you have to find five people in the game who I also know will be at the show, and then give each of those five people little pieces of paper with part of a password that needs to be reassembled and form a real word that would need to be told to me in real life for the final prize.

[Roody_Yogurt]

In my opinion, it's not easy to clearly define what makes an Infocom game feel like an Infocom game. While part of me feels like there was an economy of text, there's a world of difference between some of the early games and some of the late era games like Zork Zero, and while some games did a great job of implementing the important things mentioned in a room, some games were quite awful in that respect.

(Also, as a person who initially played Infocom games in 40 column mode on an Apple II, sometimes I wish it was easier to replicate that in modern games. One of the first things I did when learning ZIL was figure out how I could replicate that behavior with an old version of DOS Frotz.)

I think the best thing an author could do to replicate the feel is to copy some of the documentation tricks; have a manual that lists default and custom commands (I know that these days, we often put this information in the game itself but it's also kind of nice to have it externally, and include a transcript to a fake alternate game that shares a similar theme (and possibly have the transcript show off some of the non-standard commands the game uses).

[Jizaboz]

I think the best thing an author could do to replicate the feel is to copy some of the documentation tricks; have a manual that lists default and custom commands (I know that these days, we often put this information in the game itself but it's also kind of nice to have it externally, and include a transcript to a fake alternate game that shares a similar theme (and possibly have the transcript show off some of the non-standard commands the game uses).

Yes sir! I'm grad I at least thought of that one when making Hallow Eve. Infocom manuals always hinted at unique commands to use; it's best to just add them as actions to try somewhere in the documentation rather than the player do the "guess the verb" or "how to word command" game.