9:05 (Part 1 of 3) Jerz Interactive Fiction Playthrough

Peter, age 11, and his father play through a text adventure game.

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• fiction
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• 9:05
• adam
• cadre
• text
• adventure
• dennis
• jerz
• seton
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[Dylinmaust]

I very much enjoyed seeing Mr. Cadre's comment on this video. I attempted to convey the same message in my blog entry. That struggle of "getting each foot down the right pant leg while in a hurry" is really exemplified by 9:05. Every detail matters. Each command must be as specific as possible. This is really something people don't think about in their everyday routine. Koster addresses this in his book, "A Theory of Games," by questioning how people get ready in the morning.

[DGJerz]

@Dylinmaust Yes, the pacing of this game was deliberately slow in the beginning, in order to make you (the player) pay attention to something that will become much more important when you (the protagonist) accomplish a certain goal.

[ravenlips36]

I like the fact that your son was playing the game because it really shows that even simple games like a word game can keep the child's attention. I like the idea of designing your own game, I think you are only limited by your imagination.

[DGJerz]

@ravenlips36 In some ways the game does look simple, but in other ways, this kind of game is very complex, both to design and to play.

[felluponthieves]

While I'm sure this is entertaining to some, I don't find games like this appealing to me. I enjoy creating visual art and being told by a game that I can or can't do something without any sort of direction or otherwise would probably just frustrate me.

[DGJerz]

@felluponthieves Fair enough... there is a community of blind gamers who love this genre of game, precisely because the visuals are unimportant! Back in the day, this was how people interacted with computers -- you typed out a command, the computer typed back a response, which you had to read carefully to figure out whether it did what you intended to do, or whether maybe your typo or a completely wrong command meant you accomplished nothing. Computers weren't for visual thinkers back then.

[Kristianstill1]

Thanks to you both for taking the time to play and share that experience. Hopefully being able to see a real player 'think' will help me, show teachers the value of IF.

[drkinferno72]

i think it was december of 1999 was the first version, febuary 2000 was the update

[DGJerz]

@allyssayanniello How true -- these are not "shut off your brain" games. You can flip through the pages of a novel without actually comprehending the story, but unless you fully understand what's going on in an IF game, you can't make it progress.

[DGJerz]

@CellarDoor38241 The Choose Your Own Adventure games were deliberately created to package this kind of experience for a broader audience; the first-ever COYA book was called "The Cave of Time," so even the setting was an echo. If you get a little farther in 9:05, you'll see the author has put in some wonderful misdirection... Peter really enjoys it when he discovers it (so you can at least watch him and see how he likes it).

[CellarDoor38241]

I really liked the first text-based game. I found myself really getting into the action and wanted to play to find out what happens. I like these kinds of puzzles- puzzles that are challenging, but not too challenging that I can't understand them. I agree with Allyssa; the first game reminded me of a 'Pick Your Own Adventure!' book. There was an element of mystery that drew me in and intrigued me. However, there wasn't much of a choice in this game. The stories at least gave you a choice.

[allyssayanniello]

It encouraged me to see that playing these text-based adventures was frustrating for your son as well as myself, because I had started these games thinking they would easy and was quickly proven wrong. I see that like any type of new game, it takes a substantial amount of initial investment in order to master the basic mechanics of it. I imagined it would be a bit like R.L. Steins' 'Pick Your Own Adventure!' story, and in a way, they are.