You're an 8-year-old who's just noticed that aliens have landed in your backyard. The first game to use the features offered by HTML-TADS, Arrival does so in B-movie style, as suggested by the title: the pictures and sounds strive for silliness rather than realism. The pictures are drawings that appear to be those of an 8-year-old, and the sounds are effects that you might hear in an Ed Wood movie--and the whole thing is immensely funny. The game is arguably even better, however; some of the puzzles are difficult, but not unfairly so, and there are plenty of Easter eggs that play on your parents' refusal to notice the aliens or their ship. The aliens themselves are a scream, and you can access their web page while on the ship, which is just as funny. Worth playing with or without the HTML features (they're built into the game file in the latest release).

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (09 Feb 2001)

1998-09-30 arrival.gam (230.95 KB)

TADS executable (version: Release 1, original competition entry)

1998-09-29 arrival.rs0 (634.48 KB)

multimedia file

1998-10-12 arrival.rs1 (2.68 MB)

multimedia file

1998-10-07 bug.txt (535 bytes)

Author's warning about bug in competition release

1998-09-26 walkthru.txt (1.45 KB)

Walkthrough

1998-12-23 arrsrc.zip (110.15 KB)

TADS source code (version: Release 2)

1998-12-23 arrival.zip (852.26 KB)

TADS executable (version: 2)

Scenes from a handful of ordinary lives alternate with chapters of a child's colorful science-fantasy. Sweet and sad, and complex enough that you may need to go through it twice in order to fully understand how all the fragments fit together. Very story-driven, with menu-based conversations and virtually no puzzle content. My only complaint is that it isn't terribly interactive - indeed, you're practically driven through it on tracks, and any actions that you don't take tend to be rendered unnecessary. But the story is intriguing enough, and well-written enough, and moving enough, that this seems a small quibble. This is probably the most successful example I've seen of interactivity at the service of fiction, rather than vice versa.

The author intended this game to be played with colored text. Although I normally dislike such things, I agree that it works in this case. A monochrome version is also provided for those who feel differently.

(NB: The first release of this game credits Opal O'Donnell as the author. This was a deliberate deception on the part of the real author, carried out with the permission of the real Opal O'Donnell.)

Rating: *****

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (30 Jun 2000)

1998-10-07 bug.txt (639 bytes)

Way to avoid a bug in the competition release

1998-09-14 photobw.z5 (183.50 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: competition release, black and white version)

1998-09-13 photopia.z5 (184.00 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: competition release)

1998-09-16 read1st.txt (1.57 KB)

blurb

2002-03-31 photo201.zip (639.67 KB)

Glulx executable (version: 2.01, optional graphics, bundled with Windows runtime)

1998-12-25 photopia.exe (235.95 KB)

MS-DOS executable (version: Release 1.22)

2001-07-13 ACgamesForPalm.zip (638.44 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: 1.22, ported by Trevor Menagh, converted to PalmOS .prc file)

1998-12-25 photopia.z5 (189.50 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: Release 1.22)

1999-12-20 fotopia.z5 (209.00 KB)

Z-code 5 executable in Spanish (translated by José Luis Díaz)

2000-07-02 photopia.sol (3.79 KB)

Walkthrough

An Inform tutorial (partially) disguised as a text adventure; partially inspired by Andrew Plotkin's somewhat similar Scheme tutorial Lists and Lists. Has a couple of basic puzzles and simple characters, but not really meant to be played as a game; useful primarily as a self-teaching tool for budding Inform programmers. Possibly the most self-referential game in the archive.

Rating: Not rated

Reviewed by R. Serena Wakefield (12 Jul 2000)

1998-09-25 informat.wlk (3.43 KB)

walkthrough

1998-09-29 informat.z5 (136.00 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: Release 1, original competition entry)

1998-12-12 Informat.z5 (138.00 KB)

Z-code executable (version: release 2)

Gentle children's story with plenty of whimsy. You're in a land of nursery rhymes come to life--Humpty Dumpty is trying to get down from that wall, for instance--and you can't seem to find your mother, either. Generally appropriate for kids, though a few of the puzzles might be too difficult, and there are some red herrings that might be confusing. Lots of alternate solutions, lots of replayability; at the end, in fact, you're given suggestions for replaying, specifically how to get through the game without causing so much (or so little) trouble. Well-crafted and well-written, with a hint menu.

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Duncan Stevens (16 Jul 2000)

1998-09-28 loose.z5 (199.50 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: Release 1, original competition entry)

1998-12-03 loose.z5 (201.50 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: Release 2)

This is one of those games that you just have to see to understand. There's nothing else quite like it, although Michael Berlyn's Suspended bears some similarities. In a vast, hivelike robotic factory, a malfunctioning machine struggles to avoid being being captured and reprogrammed. All text is in a pseudo-computery style, heavy on punctuation and mixed with error messages and line noise, and the main challenge is to figure out how to interpret the information you're given. (People using text-to-speech software might find this insurmounable.) Warehouse IV is full of activity even when you just wander around, so figuring out how things work and how to interact with them is your second challenge. Even when you have that knowledge, logistics can be sticky. Multiple paths lead to very different conclusions, all of which are somewhat anticlimactic. I'd recommend this one especially for techies, particularly if they're into Lego Mindstorms.

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (11 Sep 2000)

1998-12-13 bmch.zip (169.56 KB)

TADS executable (version: 1.2)

1998-12-10 opa-opa.exe (79.23 KB)

MS-DOS executable in Spanish (requires QBASIC)

1998-12-10 elportal.exe (121.22 KB)

MS-DOS executable in Spanish (version: 1.0)