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We don't usually do straight game news on ExtremeTech, but I'1000 going to take a gamble with a post about 1 that harkens back to a time many ET readers may recall: the heyday of interactive fiction, from companies like Infocom and Adventure International. In add-on to owning an Atari 800 as a child and playing all manner of hardware-sprite-infused 8-bit games and colorful RPGs, I besides loved IF titles like Enchanter, The Hitchhiker'southward Guide to the Milky way, and Borderline. Games like these had no graphics, audio, or animation; instead, they were entirely text-based, and employed classic storytelling and (equally the 80s wore on) increasingly sophisticated tongue processing to provide a rich, fiction-similar feel you could actually play using the computer keyboard.

Now there's a new game in the aforementioned genre chosen Hadean Lands ($eleven.99) — and from what I'm seeing, if y'all have any nostalgia at all for interactive fiction, it'southward certainly worth your time and money. The game originally came out for iOS, and has just landed on Steam for PCs.

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Here's the story: You're stuck on an isle on an alien planet with no breathable atmosphere. Your spaceship'southward hull is cracked and the residual of the coiffure is missing. Yous're an amateur alchemist, and abracadabra really works. Tin you figure out how survive?

Acclaimed IF programmer Andrew Plotkin built Hadean Lands on Inform 7, an open-source, object-oriented IF organisation based on natural language. And on a bones level, Hadean Lands draws from computer gaming's text-based roots in the 1970s and 1980s. The game presents you with a description of the room or situation you're in, including whatever objects yous may see (and this is literally the start of the game, so I'thou non giving anything away):

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So yous type in what you want to do side by side, using elementary or verbose commands:

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But several things of note drag Hadean Lands beyond a 1980s text adventure, without detracting from the concept or muddying the waters in whatsoever way. The game contains many puzzles that require you lot combine various items, using peculiar rituals and formulas that go beyond annihilation I grew up playing in their level of composure and artistic aspiration. A built-in map (fractional picture on top) shows y'all the layout of the spaceship, and lets you toggle the room labels and your current location. The interface is completely minimalist, only beautifully done, with bonny fonts and colors.

A unmarried index carte (pictured below), complete with an awesome Zork reference, gives you many of the most mutual (just nowhere well-nigh comprehensive) available commands. It's all pretty self-explanatory if you've ever played an interactive fiction game before, and there'southward a built-in tutorial only in case yous oasis't.

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Finally, in that location'due south the single item of DLC — and it's amusing. For an extra $34.99, you become a certificate you can print out and hang on your wall that pledges yous're not going to ask for whatsoever hints or read spoilers, and commit to solving the game yourself. I observe this hilarious — no calling 900 numbers for audio hints at $1.99 per minute! Or await, I guess that's for people nevertheless living in 1989. Nonetheless, the DLC doesn't deliver any actual game content, and is largely an in-joke, but yous could besides remember of it as a donation to support Plotkin'south hard piece of work. After all, Infocom games each cost $forty in the 1980s, and that's not counting inflation.

I'm admittedly just getting into the game myself, and am already stumped by some of the puzzles. But as a long-ago enthusiast of this genre, I'm actually psyched near it. Hadean Lands is available at present on Steam. No word still on whether Plotkin'south releasing a v.25-inch diskette version with feelies.