Appletell reviews Frotz for iPhone, iPod touch
by at April 3, 2009 6:36 am
Sections: iPhone, iPhone OS, SDK and hacks, iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, iPod, iPod touch, Reviews
|
Sign up for the FREE Tell Membership and receive benefits that include the digital edition of Tell Magazine sent straight to your inbox, product giveaways, coupons and much more!
Developer: Craig Smith
Requirements: iPhone 2.0 software
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch
File Size: 8MB
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
Price: Free
You are on the Appletell website. There is an old man here. He is using an old computer, and appears to be enjoying himself.
> Examine old man.
Wow, is he old. Looks to be about 37.
> Examine old computer
The old computer is hooked up to a black and white television set. There are some words on the screen, describing a location and the objects in it. The old man types something, and the description changes. You’d almost guess that the old man is playing a computer game, except for one thing: there are no graphics.
> Steal computer.
You cannot steal the computer, the old man is using it.
> Kill old man.
You have nothing to kill the old man with.
> Ask old man about computer.
The old man tells you that he’s playing a text adventure, which was once the biggest thing in personal computer gaming, before the advent of graphics.
> Accuse old man of being a damn liar.
The old man waves his arms and tells you that no, no, text adventures were very popular in the last century, with titles like Zork, Planetfall, and Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy being some of the greatest games he’s ever played. Players had to type in short sentences to interact with the game descriptions.
> Punch old man.
You knock him out cold.
> Search old man.
The old man is carrying: an iPod touch.
> Examine iPod touch
The iPod touch is off.
> Turn iPod on
You turn the iPod touch on. There is a program running on it.
> Examine program
The program is Frotz, which allows you to play text adventures on the iPod touch (or iPhone). It comes pre-loaded with several new and fun games written by fans of interactive fiction, and there are other games as well.
> Get other games
Getting other games is relatively easy, since Frotz contains a gateway to the Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB), where many other people have uploaded (for free), the stories they’ve created. Once you find a game you like, you can download and install it to Frotz from inside the program itself.
One problem, though, is that Frotz doesn’t play every type of IF out there: only those that have been encoded in the Z-machine format. And the IFDB gateway doesn’t make it terribly easy to see which games are written in that format.
> Get Infocom games.
Er, yes… you can’t download any commercially developed games from the IFDB; only games that have been created by fans and updloaded. But there are lots of those.
> Play a game.
(time passes.)
You play text adventures for a while. You find that they can be as challenging and fun as the old man said they were. Like everything else, some of the games are well-written and funny, and others are pretty bad. The included games are good, and there are ratings on the IFDB to help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
> Get wheat.
It’s just an expression. You have been playing text adventures for a while. You decide to save your game so that you can return to it later.
> Go north.
You walk north into a dark room.
DARK ROOM
It is dark in here. Pitch dark. Really, incredibly dark.
> Use iPod as flashlight.
You have been playing text adventures so long that battery is drained.
It is very dark. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.
> What is a Grue?
You’re about to find out.
Download Frotz
Related Posts