A
Andrew Plotkin
eblong.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Andrew Plotkin (Zarf) writes about interactive fiction, Infocom history, rule-based programming and tools such as the Quixe interpreter.
What HN saysHN commenters recommend his interactive fiction game Spider and Web as a great starter game, and link his Infocom catalog and other work.
69HN people shared it
42linked it in comments
39stories submitted
1.2Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Obsessively Complete Infocom Catalog7 people · 229 points · first shared 2019 · 53 comments on HN
- 2Lists and Lists: Basics of Lisp through interactive fiction (1996)6 people · 135 points · first shared 2010 · 23 comments on HN
- 3Zarf’s Interactive Fiction (2017)5 people · 180 points · first shared 2011 · 50 comments on HN
- 4Thoughts on Rule-Based Programming5 people · 81 points · first shared 2009 · 9 comments on HN
- 5Quixe: A VM for Interactive Fiction Written in JavaScript5 people · 46 points · first shared 2011 · 6 comments on HN
- 6Rule-Based Programming in Interactive Fiction4 people · 186 points · first shared 2009 · 21 comments on HN
- 7Tangle4 people · first shared 2015
- 8The Visible Zorker3 people · 12 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 9PlotEx: a tool for exploring puzzle plot constraints3 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 10Glulx3 people · first shared 2011
- 11Werewolf2 people · 18 points · first shared 2012 · 11 comments on HN
- 12The Zarfian Cruelty Scale, Revisited2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 13Seltani: An online, shared, text-based, open-source fan project based on the My2 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 14Mind Chess2 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 15Lists.tar.Z2 people · first shared 2014
What HN people wrote when they linked it
waisbrot · 2026-04-13
"Spider and Web" is quite short, pretty easy, mostly gives good hints. A great starter-game, I think. I also love Zarf's writing.
https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/
nathell · 2024-10-28
If you like it, be sure to also check out Andrew Plotkin’s ‘Lighan ses Lion’ [0], an entry in WalkthroughComp run by Emily Short [1]. It’s not a game, just a transcript of a fictitious game, but well worth checking out for a chuckle... or as a brain teaser.
Also, the Beast puzzle in ’The Edifice’ [2] by Lucian Paul Smith comes to mind.
[0]: https://www.eblong.com/zarf/zplet/lighan.html
[1]: https://www.ifwiki.org/WalkthroughComp
[2]: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=4tb9soabrb4apqzd
kianryan · 2023-01-21
Infocom adventure games are some of the grand-daddy's of text adventures.
Zork is by far the most well known, but also pretty infamous are Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Leather Godesses' of Phobos and A Mind Forever Voyaging.
As a warm-up, I'd recommend Moonmist. It's a mystery game listed as a "Beginner" game, and is great for introducing elements of the Infocom system.
The feelies are available to view here:
https://gallery.guetech.org/greybox.html
There are a collection of game files here:
https://eblong.com/infocom/
My preferred player is still Frotz. It compiles and runs on practically anything, my Psion, my Pis, Windows, everything.
https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/frotz
raldi · 2023-01-21
Spider and Web, https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/
Without giving anything away: It does something brilliant that wouldn't be possible in any other storytelling medium.
Impossible · 2021-11-25
I agree with similar level of immersion, I actually think a lot of parser IF would translate to VR well (at a much greater cost). I thought that Andrew Plotkin's dual transform might make for a good VR game, for example https://eblong.com/zarf/if.html
mcphage · 2019-04-12
It's not on this page, but Zarf's System's Twilight is a fantastic puzzle game, one of my favorites. It was the first shareware game I paid for, way way back in the day (early 90s). (https://www.eblong.com/zarf/twilight/index.html)
dsr_ · 2013-06-24
And anything that Zarf writes or recommends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Plotkin
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html
cju · 2013-06-05
No really a board game but Werewolf (a.k.a. Mafia) is great. It's fun and simple to learn. However it depends a lot on the quality of the game organizer and the athmosphere he is able to provide.
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/werewolf.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29
nathan_douglas · 2026-05-05
Same. I'm also a big fan of the wild poster [1], too.
[1] https://eblong.com/infocom/maps/zork-1-poster.jpg (big)
djsavvy · 2026-05-04
Description for those who were confused, like me: https://eblong.com/infocom/visi/
hackyhacky · 2026-04-10
If you enjoyed this, you might like Mind Chess, which can be played without a board and pieces [1]:
Consider Mind Chess. Two players face each other. One says "Check." The other says "Check." The first says "Check." This continues until one of them says, instead, "Checkmate." That player wins -- superficially. In fact, the challenge is to put off checkmate for as long as possible, while still winning. This may be better stated: you truly win Mind Chess if you call "Checkmate" just before your opponent was about to.
[1] http://www.eblong.com/zarf/essays/mindgame.html
ndiddy · 2025-11-11
The source code for most Infocom games is public, they did write them in ZIL. https://eblong.com/infocom/
KerrAvon · 2024-01-07
There are multiple versions of mainframe Zork available on GitHub. See https://eblong.com/infocom/#zorkmdl for this and everything else Infocom.
moonshinefe · 2023-11-23
Awesome, thanks. I was getting some sort of version error with the game file I was trying, but https://eblong.com/infocom/gamefiles/zork1-r119-s880429.z3 did the trick (renamed to zork.iml and copied into the vm).
Also in case anyone else is new to simh, you put the files in question in a folder then run path/to/pdp11.exe wherever simh installed it. CTRL+E is how you suspend the VM and can give it further commands from a simh> prompt, then the 'c' command to continue. Once inside the pdp11 vm "DIR" to confirm the stuff you're copying actually exists.
I've actually never gotten anything like this running before, very cool.
scruffyherder · 2023-11-23
You can go one step further on Windows and compile the games from source!
You'll want to use ZILF
https://virtuallyfun.com/2019/04/17/so-the-infocom-source-code-base-wa…
This site has a far more extensive and interesting list of the Infocom games
https://eblong.com/infocom/
As for simh I did keep binaries on the old sourceforge page ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/simh/ ) although it's not the aggressive new one on github. I know people cry about sourceforge but they went under new management years ago and fired everyone responsible for that piggyback fiasco.
Akronymus · 2022-05-25
Also, lists and lists, in terms of learning something via a text game. (cant check the actual link atm because work firewall) http://eblong.com/zarf/ftp/lists.tar.Z
iainmerrick · 2022-01-09
One nifty thing you can do with snapshots in games is use it for save/restore/undo.
See for example the Z-machine used for interactive fiction, and its younger cousin Glulx: https://www.eblong.com/zarf/glulx/Glulx-Spec.html#saveformat
(Apart from that, I’d note that Glulx and the Z-machine are both terrific examples of detailed VM specifications. Glulx is impressive because it was built by one person, the Z-machine possibly even more impressive as it was reverse-engineered by insanely dedicated Infocom fans.)
abecedarius · 2020-12-26
Along sort of those lines, here's a text adventure teaching Lisp with a built-in interpreter: https://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/lists/
mintplant · 2019-04-12
Huh? Inform 7, the primary authoring tool for interactive fiction, can compile games to a a static webpage out-of-the-box. It's had this capability for years.
Andrew Plotkin, featured in this submission, wrote the Quixe interpreter [0] for this purpose, which is bundled into Inform 7.
The Interactive Fiction Database [1] has—again, for years—an instant "Play Online" button on the listing of any supported game, powered by Parchment [2], which is even older than Quixe.
You must not have checked very thoroughly.
[0] https://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/quixe/
[1] https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=2xyccw3pe0uovfad
[2] https://iplayif.com/
gwillen · 2019-04-12
Zarf also invented the game Capture the Flag With Stuff, played twice a year by hundreds of people at Carnegie Mellon University.
Current rules (2017 edition): http://www.cmukgb.org/ctfws/
Zarf's original rules (1995): https://eblong.com/zarf/capture-flag-rules.html
Harvard's spinoff: http://www.hrsfa.org/photos/lotze/ctfws/harvard-rules2.html
malloryerik · 2019-03-20
How could you run a TextWorld game in a web browser? Use a Glulx file interpreter like Quixe?
https://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/quixe/
sblom · 2017-04-17
Andrew Plotkin (aka Zarf) wrote and published PlotEx[1] while working on Hadean Lands.
[1] http://eblong.com/zarf/plotex/
ChicagoDave · 2017-03-16
A colleague, Thilo Planz, is working on an Interactive Fiction VM based on the Glulx specification (1) called glulx-wasm (2). If completed, this will be integrated with fyrevm-web, a web platform for glulx+channel IO stories.
(1) http://www.eblong.com/zarf/glulx/
(2) https://github.com/thiloplanz/glulx-wasm/
vmorgulis · 2016-03-20
Very interesting. I can add Inform 7 and rule-based programming of text-based fiction:
http://eblong.com/zarf/essays/rule-based-if/
http://inform7.com/
david-given · 2015-09-14
...and if you're interested in doing more than playing games, there's assorted abusive things you can do with the Z-Machine.
Here's an ANS Forth: https://code.google.com/p/zmforth/
Here's Andrew Plotkin's infamous Lisp tutorial (complete with Lisp implementation for the Z-machine): http://www.eblong.com/zarf/zweb/lists/
I ported a C compiler to it, poorly, and made it play chess: http://cowlark.com/vbcc-z-compiler/
And, of course, you can design processors to run it on real hardware: https://github.com/charcole/Z3
Kronopath · 2015-01-23
Spider and Web is a work of genius. But I'll warn you: if you have any interest at all in playing it, stop reading about it. Go in knowing as little as possible, and just work your way through. You'll do fine.
You can even play it for free online, so you have no excuse: http://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/tangle/
I just impulsively picked up the Hadean Lands bundle after reading this article too. I look forward to playing it.
listic · 2014-12-01
I'm a bit sad that Undum [0] didn't receive attention [1] that Twine did. I think it's more (arguably the most, to date) modern and user-friendly take on interactive fiction, which should have long since moved to the web, like these two platforms show us.
[0] http://undum.com/
[1] Here are all three interactive pieces made with Undum:
* The Play, A dress rehearsal gone horribly wrong, by Deirdra Kiai http://squinky.me/theplay/
* Almost Goodbye, by Aaron A. Reed http://almostgoodbye.textories.com/
* The Matter of the Monster, by Andrew Plotkin http://eblong.com/zarf/zweb/matter/
CyberShadow · 2014-05-10
Here's an interactive one:
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/zweb/lists/
Bit dated, though :)
starwed · 2012-04-26
>We wanted to use Javascript so that the game could run in your browser.
But there are already at least two javascfipt interpreters for games written in Inform 7 already!
http://code.google.com/p/parchment/
http://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/quixe/
limmeau · 2011-04-24
There have been some approaches to client-side image generation in computer games [1][2], but they're not very successful commercially.
1. http://ifarchive.jmac.org/
2. http://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/