Wow

[yendi]

Last night, I played Violet, the winning game in this year's IFComp.

Damn, that was good.

It's a one-room game, with fun, logical puzzles, some emotionally brutal moments, lots of humor, and good writing throughout. And it's especially worth reading for anyone who has been in academia. Or who's ever sat staring at a blank sheet of paper/word processor screen.

(Note: To run the game, you'll need Spatterlight if you've got a Mac; I'm not sure what you'd use on Windows or Linux, but there are definitely apps out there for those operating systems).

Comments

[ckd]

Looks like it'll run in Frotz on the iPhone/iPod touch.

[lordrexfear.livejournal.com]

Ooh... how would one make that work? (I have that)

[ckd]

Just use Frotz's ability to browse IFDB, search for Violet, and download it. Simplicity indeed.

[fmi-agent.livejournal.com]

Hey, cool! I liked Violet too for its writing, humor, characters (although the puzzles were a little maddening and I had to resort to hints/walkthrough). You might also like the third place game, Everybody Dies (http://nomediakings.org/games/everybody_dies_takes_bronze_at_ifcomp.html), which also has good writing. It's got a little bit of surrealism and a little bit of Clerks in it.

[gardenfey.livejournal.com]

Hey, do you have a recommendation for Wii games for kids? I'm looking to find ideas for Christmas presents for my kids.

[yendi]

Zack and Wiki in the Quest for Barbaras's Treasure -- it's cute, funny, but has some wonderful puzzles.

Warioware Smooth Moves has some gross humor (nose picking, etc), but is a blast for kids (and short attention spans).

All of the Mario games (Kart, Galaxy, Super Smash Brothers Brawl) are a lot of fun, too.

[gardenfey.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[ewin.livejournal.com]

Gonna give it and maybe Floatpoint a try...

[ewin.livejournal.com]

THAT was awesome.

Floatpoint wouldn't run on gargoyle... need to find some more of those, though.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

graarh. I cannot figure out how to make .zblorb files run on Ubuntu (I refuse to install the entire KDE package to try Kwest).

but the other games sound cool too.

[yendi]

I think that Gargoyle is the interpreter that's supposed to work for Linux.

There's also an online version of the game.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

thanks! looking at Gargoyle.

I've seen the online version before -- now that you point to it, i think that maybe marnanel pointed to parchment before too (derived from something he wrote?).

but I'd love to be able to do it offline. IF on the train!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

https://launchpad.net/~radix seems to have supported an Ubuntu package. The Launchpad ability to host your own package archives is pretty awesome.