Appletell | Apple, Mac, iPhone, iPod | News, Rumors, Reviews, How-Tos

Category: Adventure Game
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.