Vespers is an interactive fiction game written in 2005 by Jason Devlin that placed first at the 2005 Interactive Fiction Competition. It also won the XYZZY Awards for Best Game, Best NPCs, Best Setting, and Best Writing.
Set in a 15th-century Italian monastery, it is chiefly a horror-themed morality game, where the player takes moral decisions, which then affect the ending. However, whilst playing the game, it isn't obvious that these are moral dilemmas, and the game actively encourages the player to take the evil path. [1]
Vespers has won the following awards: [2]
 | This section needs to be updated.(June 2022) |
Vespers3D is an in-progress remake of the game created using the Torque Game Engine. The written text interface is being carried over from the original but the remake team are adding 3D animated graphics, voice acting and music. [3]
The Interactive Fiction Competition 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.
Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines. Versions 1 through 5 were released between 1993 and 1996. Around 1996, Nelson rewrote Inform from first principles to create version 6. Over the following decade, version 6 became reasonably stable and a popular language for writing interactive fiction. In 2006, Nelson released Inform 7, a completely new language based on principles of natural language and a new set of tools based around a book-publishing metaphor.
Text Adventure Development System (TADS) is a prototype-based domain-specific programming language and set of standard libraries for creating interactive fiction (IF) games.
Graham A. Nelson 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).
Photopia is a piece of literature by Adam Cadre rendered in the form of interactive fiction, and written in Inform. It has received both praise and criticism for its heavy focus on fiction rather than on interactivity. It won first place in the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition. Photopia has few puzzles and a linear structure, allowing the player no way to alter the eventual conclusion but maintaining the illusion of non-linearity.
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.
Blue Chairs is an interactive fiction game by American author Chris Klimas.
Spider and Web is a piece of interactive fiction written by Andrew Plotkin.
Slouching Towards Bedlam is an interactive fiction game that won the first place in the 2003 Interactive Fiction Competition. It is a collaboration between American authors Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster. Slouching Towards Bedlam was finalist for eight 2003 XYZZY Awards, winning four: Best Game, Setting, Story, and Individual NPC. The game takes place in a steampunk Victorian era setting. Its title is inspired by a line from "The Second Coming", a poem by W. B. Yeats.
The Frenetic Five is a series of three text adventures about a band of superheroes, all made with TADS version 2 and distributed as freeware. The series was created by Neil deMause for the Interactive Fiction Competition.
The Dreamhold is an interactive fiction game by Andrew Plotkin released in 2004. Its primary purpose is to be a tutorial to interactive fiction, and because of that the "core" of the game is relatively easy to finish.
The Space Under the Window is a 1997 interactive fiction game by Andrew Plotkin. The game is part of a collaborative art piece, also entitled "The Space Under the Window", by Kristin Looney – each piece had to have this title, but was otherwise unconstrained.
Jon Ingold is a British author of interactive fiction and co-founder of inkle, where he co-directed and co-wrote 80 Days, and wrote Heaven's Vault and Overboard!. His interactive fiction has frequently been nominated for XYZZY Awards and has won on multiple occasions, including Best Game, Best Story and Best Setting awards for All Roads in 2001. Ingold's works are notable for their attention to the levels of knowledge that the player and player character have of the in-game situation, with the effect often depending on a player who understands more than the character or vice versa. Ingold has also written a number of plays, short stories and novels.
Hunter, in Darkness is a 1999 interactive fiction game by Andrew Plotkin, written in Inform. It won the "Best Individual Puzzle" and "Best Setting" categories in the 1999 XYZZY Awards, and came in eighth overall in the 1999 Interactive Fiction Competition.
Anchorhead is a Lovecraftian horror interactive fiction game, originally written and published by Michael S. Gentry in 1998. The game is heavily inspired by the works and writing style of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly the Cthulhu mythos.
Shade is a psychological horror interactive fiction game written and published by Andrew Plotkin in 2000.
Savoir-Faire is a piece of interactive fiction written by Emily Short, about a magician in 18th-century France searching his aristocratic adoptive father's house. It won the Best Game, Best Story, Best Individual Player Character and Best Puzzles awards at the 2002 Xyzzy Awards, and was a finalist for four other categories. Puzzles in the game require the player to make "leap[s] of inference" between objects with similar functions. The game was generally praised for its unique use of magical powers and its high-quality implementation. A mini-game follow-up, Damnatio Memoriae, was released in 2006.
Earth and Sky is an interactive fiction trilogy written and produced by American author Paul O'Brian about the adventures of a brother and sister who gain superpowers while searching for their lost parents. Games in the series have won awards in the annual Interactive Fiction Competition and received an XYZZY Award.
Floatpoint is a 2006 work of interactive fiction written by Emily Short about a diplomat sent to an endangered colony to discuss evacuation options and terms of cohabitation. It is written in Inform 7 and won the 2006 annual Interactive Fiction Competition. Floatpoint also won 2006 XYZZY Awards for Best Settings and Best NPCs. The game was generally praised for its use of multiple endings.
Eric Eve is an author, interactive fiction writer, and New Testament scholar at Harris Manchester College in Oxford. He is known in the interactive fiction community for his writings on TADS 3, including three tutorial/reference books and several articles for Brass Lantern, a site that hosts articles about and reviews of interactive fiction. He has also authored eleven interactive fiction games, several of which have won awards at various competitions. In the academic field, Eric Eve has also written two books relating to the New Testament, The Healer from Nazareth: Jesus' Miracles in Historical Context and The Jewish Context of Jesus' Miracles.