Based on a novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky, Metro 2033 takes place 20 years after an apocalyptic event that wipes out most of the human race. It's being developed for THQ by Ukrainian studio 4A Games. [THQ Games on Flickr]

The io9 poll is flawed. It's a popularity contest, pure and simple, an attempt to win page views by rewarding readers for having popular opinions . . . It is no measure of how threatening a particular creature is.

To really look at a hierarchy of threat, we need to start from the perspective of a potential victim and work our way up from there . . . Now, I've looked into classification schemes for antagonists before, so would like to take these last few minutes to look into a Monster and Antagonist Relative Classification scheme. Each creature would get classified across multiple categories and by referring to their MARC record, one could get a sense of just how much trouble they're in for. We'll keep it simple and quick and just break things down into three axises, Scope, Modus Operandi, and Power Level.

He then goes on to describe, in awesome detail, all the ways that these axises work, for example:

To start with, we need to determine the monster's Scope. This represents how close you need to be to the monster to be threatened by it. That haunted house might have the power to animate clown dolls and trees, but if you live two towns over, you're not that much at risk.

1. Personal - The creature only threatens those within arms reach. It may move about, but as long as you are not where it is, even if that just means locking yourself in the closet behind a hopefully sturdy door, you should be fine. Examples: Jack Torrence, Not Yet A Zombie Jason, Michael Meyers.

2. Local - The creature threatens a region. While it may only be a danger to you if you personally encounter it, its nature is such that it could be anywhere. As long as you are in its local territory, your life is at risk. If you flee, you should be okay. Examples: Pyramid Head, a haunted house, Leprechaun.

3. Regional/Reach - Like Local, but expand the creature's area of threatening influence to a wider swath. You do not need to be near the creature to be at risk. If you are marked by the creature, it can get you at even greater distances. Examples: Dracula, Samara from The Ring, Freddy.

4. Worldwide - Whether you know it or not, you are currently being threatened by this creature as you go about living your normal, every day life. It might take an extraordinary act to get its attention (reading forgotten lore, reciting a rhyme to a mirror at midnight, etc) but it doesn't matter where you are, it can reach out and get you. Examples: Cthulhu, Aliens, International Cults.

5. Reality - Not only are you threatened, but the entire fabric of reality is threatened by the creature. Examples: Nyarlathotep, Satan, Ogdru Hem

I have been schooled - and you must read the rest. In fact, I would like to be part of this guy's next RPG campaign.

via MetaFilter

Of course this indictment of LARPing in the USA is itself an exercise in role-playing. "Kalle" is Viennese performance artist Johannes Grenzfurthner, who loves to mix geek culture with bizarro art and strange scholarly endeavors.

via Larpen Tumblr

The next Aliens Vs. Predator game isn't due out from Sega until next spring, but some fans on the Sega forum discovered what appears to be new concept art. Besides the lovely spaceport above, there's a lush jungle. And a scene of a poor Colonial Marine getting dragged away while an Alien and Predator prepare to throw down — which is almost worthy of one of the Old Masters, what with the Marine's uplifted face, filled with horror.

The fact that the AVP movies are dead remains a very Good Thing. But maybe one more AVP game could be worthwhile? We can hope, anyway. More art at the link. [SEGA Forums]

Not surprisingly, Bushnell's novel in progress is about a "video game designer in the future," and it's "a hilarious experiment," he tells Switched.com. He won't go into much more detail, other than to promise there'll be some awesome action sequences. Bushnell has come out against ultra-violent video games like Grand Theft Auto because it's not constructive or cathartic to portray violence against a cop, sex worker or pimp. But it's okay to show someone killing zombies, because "they're already dead!"

Meanwhile, Bushnell is also coming back to video games, co-founding a new company called Reality Gap. He says that company's major innovation is to have a single in-game currency that will work across all of its games. So if you make tons of ducats in a medieval fantasy game, you can transfer that wealth to a space-adventure game and use to buy ray guns. (At least, that's what he seems to be saying.) Bushnell says a made-up currency was Chuck E. Cheese's major innovation back in the day:

The [game] token system was very key to the success of Chuck E. Cheese. It's something you can promote. You don't want to give away quarters, but with tokens, you can give away games. It gives you some very interesting flexibility to do cool and interesting things.

[Switched]

According to the website for the in-development MMO Perpetuum:

In the not-too-distant future, a strange anomaly opens the gates of the universe for humans. With this new technology, energy, information and atomic size objects can be transported to anywhere in space.

The most intriguing of all new discoveries is an Earth-like planet, where humanity discovers a new source of energy, vital to its unbroken advancement. However, this planet is inhabited by a synthetic, robot-like life form. Their technology and resources are the goal of humanity's new conquest.

Players may take part in various areas of the project. They may fight on the front lines for new territories, develop the already established infrastructure, trade goods or services, or even set their own goals and set up their own corporations.

There's a ton more info at the website, including some screenshots and a complete future history of the next 200 years of human development. Let's just hope the finished project looks as kick-ass as this concept art of alien landscapes, robots, teleportation gear and stations.

After seeing District 9, we're sad we'll never get to see Halo done by Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jackson, because those are some storytelling and visual-effects chops. The truth is, video game movies don't have to suck — as long as someone better than Uwe Boll is in the director's chair, and you avoid the kind of bizarre decisions that went into giving us Doom.

So here are the ten movies that have a better chance of reaching screens than Halo right now - some of which might even be great.

The game: Dead Space.
Who's in? D.J. Caruso, director of Disturbia and Eagle Eye (and in line to direct Y: The Last Man) was announced as director of this film recently.
What's the Hollywood summary? As Variety puts it, "Set in deep space in the 26th Century, the thriller focuses on an engineer who responds to a distress signal from a mining ship, only to find it infested with monstrous creatures called Necromorphs, human corpses that have been re-animated by an alien virus. The engineer and his team retrofit most of their weapons from tools on the mining ship, and try to stay alive long enough to discover the "hive mind" that is controlling the creatures."
Is it really more likely than Halo? There's a production deal, but nobody's written a script yet, and Caruso still wants to make a Y movie. He's also in pre-production on a movie called Jack The Giant Killer, and working on The Defenders, according to IMDB.

The game: BioShock
Who's in? Gore Verbinsiki, director of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies. With a screenplay by John Logan (Gladiator, Star Trek: Nemesis).
What's the Hollywood summary? Says Variety, "Story takes place in the underwater city Rapture, where a pilot crash-lands near a secret entrance and becomes involved in a power struggle."
Is it really more likely than Halo? Maybe not. Back in April, Universal put the project on hold due to concerns about its high budget (around $160 million.) But Variety adds: "All parties vow that "Bioshock" will not become another "Halo," the would-be live-action adaptation of the Microsoft game that was canceled when Universal and Fox got cold feet over budget fears." So there you go. They vow. And Verbinski bailed out of Pirates 4 to do this project, so he's motivated.

The game: Duke Nukem
Who's in? Depth Entertainment, the studio that produced Max Payne. (So if you liked Max Payne, you're all set.)
What's the Hollywood summary? No details are available, but basically a wisecracking guy fights aliens. Says Scott Miller with 3-D Realms: "We're taking an all-new direction this time around. I haven't seen that old material in years, and can't even remember what it was about. So, we're starting from scratch on a story. Our first order of business is to create a Duke Nukem storyverse, which is similar to a story bible, and fleshes out all of the characters, their histories, motives, and gives a very detailed description of the Duke Nukem "universe." Once this is created, we then have the foundation to create a story and a script. This storyverse document will also be useful for future projects."
Is it really more likely than Halo? Max Payne got made, didn't it? Picture Mark Wahlberg in a tank top.

The game: Area 51
Who's in? Comics god Grant Morrison was hired to write the screenplay in 2007 for Paramount Pictures. No director or stars are attached, though.
What's the Hollywood summary? Says Variety, "Set in the U.S. government's most top-secret military facility, storyline revolves around a hazardous materials specialist who is called in to investigate a viral outbreak that could be extra-terrestrial in nature."
Is it really more likely than Halo? Um, well... there's been no movement since Morrison was attached as screenwriter in 2007.

The game: Mass Effect
Who's in? Avi Arad, former head of Marvel movies and producer of the Spider-Man and X-Men movies, signed on last September.
What's the Hollywood summary? The story follows Commander Shepherd and his crew as they save alien species from the systematic eradication that a random species must face every 50,000 years from a pitiless mechanical foe. And a crusty bureaucray stands in their way at every turn.
Is it really more likely than Halo? Arad has a track record of getting movies made, obvously — but there's been no news in almost a year.

The game: inFAMOUS
Who's in? It was announced in late July8 that Sheldon Turner, writer of The Longest Yard remake and Up In The Air, pitched a movie adaptation and Sony picked it up. Former Marvel exec Avi Arad (and Ari Arad) will produce.
What's the Hollywood summary? Says the Hollywood Reporter, "inFAMOUS centers on bike messenger Cole MacGrath, who survives an explosion that destroys entire blocks of Empire City only to find he has new electricity-derived super powers."
Is it really more likely than Halo? Sony seems highly motivated to make it happen, especially since sister company Sony Computer Entertainment published the game, from Sucker Punch Prods.

The game: Asteroids
Who's in? It was just announced that Lorenzo di Bonaventura (G.I. Joe) will be producing, with a screenplay by Matthew Lopez (Race To Witch Mountain.) No director or stars yet. (Insert your own joke about various Hollywood stars who could play convincing chunks of space rock.)
What's the Hollywood summary? Says di Bonaventura, "We've crafted a really strong, deep mythology for the thing. Without divulging too much about it, it's two lead characters – two brothers – who have to go through a seminal experience to figure out their relationship, against this huge backdrop."
Is it really more likely than Halo? Well, G.I. Joe did pretty well. So, yeah.

The game: World Of Warcraft
Who's in? Sam Raimi is signed up to direct, after he's done making Spider-Man 4. Charles Roven (The Dark Knight) is producing.
What's the Hollywood summary? Says the Guardian, Warcraft "is set in a medieval-style fantasy world called Azeroth populated by humans and such Lord of the Rings-style races as orcs, trolls and dwarves, but also the undead and blood elves. Players must choose whether to join the nefarious Horde or the Alliance faction."
Is it really more likely than Halo? It's pretty much a done deal. Raimi is supervising the start of production while he works on Spidey. It may even be decent.

The game: Gears Of War
Who's in? Len Wiseman (Live Free Or Die Hard) is directing, from a script by Chris Morgan (Wanted), with Bowen and Godfrey of Temple Hill producing for New Line. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson won't star, because "a Doom connection would not be smart for us," says Wiseman. But he's hoping Kate Beckinsale will play Maria, the doomed wife of second-in-command Dominic Santiago.
What's the Hollywood summary? Wiseman told Comic Con that the movie will include Emergence Day, when the enemy Locusts emerged from underground and revealed themselves to the human inhabitants of the distant planet Sera. That would make the movie a prequel to the games, which take place long after Emergence Day. Also, Wiseman says there would be more bad-ass female soldiers.
Is it really more likely than Halo? It's still in the early stages, but Wiseman seems pretty determined to make it a reality.

The game: The Sims
Who's in? John Davis (Norbit, Eragon) is producing for Fox, with a screenplay by Brian Lynch.
What's the Hollywood summary? A couple of kids get their hands on the Sims Enhancement Pack, says Davis, and then mayhem results: "What they realize is that they can scan their world in, because this is the most life-like, real Sims game ever. As they are playing this, they are all of a sudden realising [that] what they are playing on the game is having an effect on the real world. So in effect, through the game, they are able to control their world. It's wish fulfillment, and obviously it turns against them."
Is it really more likely than Halo? It was announced in 2007 and has been stalled since then. But never underestimate Hollywood's sadism.

I sat down with Buckell at WorldCon last week. First we talked about Arctic Rising, and where he is with it.

Buckell said:

It's a near-future cyberpunk ecothriller. I'm just working on the first third of it. It's the first of two books I'm doing for Tor, and both will be ecothrillers.

I'm trying to write something that's [politically] moderate ecological SF. I did something similar in short fiction in the last year, with my story in Metatropolis, and now I'm taking it into novel form. Some people called me a raging liberal for writing [that story]. But I want to piss off liberals and conservatives – all of their solutions are problematic. Dogma gets in the way of what need to be done about the environment.

There are already responses on the ground to what we're facing that are agnostic – in third world, for example, where people have already figured out ways to reduce your impact on the earth. It's criminal that it's hard for me to find a showerhead that doesn't have an on-off switch that's detachable. I grew up on a boat and all the showerheads were like that. Now I routinely use oodles of water because my showerhead doesn't turn off. Little things like that add up. In St. Thomas, people get water by catching rainwater on the roof.

I realized that there are not many people interested in engaging with this stuff. It's in the political background and in science magazines. But there's not as much engagement with it in science fiction as I've been hoping for. That's why I want to do a James Bondesque adventure with climate change. I love adventure. What I hate about polemical novels is two characters talking to each other.

I asked Buckell if he'd consider doing another franchise tie-in like he did with the Halo novel, and he said that he only did the Halo book because he truly loves Halo. There are few other franchises he feels that way about, but, he admitted, "If anybody was ever to ask me to do something Wolverine-related - good grief I'd do it in a heartbeat."

Instead of playing in other people's franchises, he's interested in creating his own. He said:

You become a mini-consortium if you can. Given how much fun I've had with Halo games, comics, and reading and writing Halo books, I'd love to do different media with my stuff. There's a possible chance of a graphic short story adaptation coming up for me. I would completely dig seeing cross media stuff happen with my work.

One of the most arresting aspects of Buckell's writing is his facility with fight scenes, which are incredibly hard to write well. I asked him what his secret is for planning and executing one of his trademark action-packed scenes. He said:

Fight scenes are all about the stakes. If you took a Jackie Chan movie and novelize it, it would be weird. In fiction, you have to figure out the consequences of the fight scene. What the stakes are, what led the characters there. You need to consider the emotional side of the fight to make it feel like it's a major problem the character has to overcome.

As an action-oriented, blow-things-up writer from the beginning, my juvenalia is filled with fight scenes, but I wasn't able to make them interesting until I figured out they exist in a larger context. The reader is reading it like "oh crap oh crap" and that's what provides the tension. Really effective fight scenes are no more than a paragraph – the important parts are the anticipation and fallout. The shorter you write, the faster it feels to the reader. A page-long fight is the equivalent of slow motion – you've brought the book to a standstill. You can do it stylistically in a John Woo flash, but if you want a balls-to-the-wall, ugly, brief human thing, you've got a paragraph to get to of the action, and then you need to get back into stakes.

When I write fight scenes, I spend time trying to draw out the environment [the characters] are in. Tim Powers taught me that characters need to interact with the physicality of the environment. A fight scene lets you block out the physical nature of something. They climb around in it, and that lets you describe the interior of an airship. You get to provide exposition as well as a fight scene or moments of drama. More effective to have a character back up and fall over a couch than to say "There's a room and a couch and then they fight."

Over at RobotViking, io9 pal Ed Grabianowski freaks out with glee:

MechWarrior will return to PCs and show up on the Xbox 360 someday soon, and BattleTech co-creator Jordan Weisman is at the helm once again. Are we ready for an intense tactical mech war game in destructible urban environments, with three of your friends joining your assault lance? Yes. Yes we are. . . . To summarize what we know at this point: the game is a reboot, not a sequel. It takes place at the beginning of the Fourth Succession War. Multi-player is a major priority, and they really want to have a four-player co-op mode so you can team up with your friends and form a full lance. Better video game technology will make the game more tactically rich, and improve the feel of "piloting a giant war machine" rather than "being a giant robot." Players will have to use different types of mechs to accomplish various battlefield goals - tactical information will be crucial, so scout mechs will have a vital role even at higher levels of gameplay. No more "lock on, fire and forget." You'll have to actively acquire and maintain targets, and the dense urban environments (which appear to blow up nicely) make for great hit and run tactics.

via Robot Viking

Virtual Worlds was on hand with a dozen MechWarrior simulator pods. These surprisingly sophisticated sims let players climb into the cockpit of an 80-ton walking war machine for just $6 per mission. Read about it here.

An upcoming starship tactical battle game called With Hostile Intent was on display. Although the official rules haven't been released yet, publisher Ninja Magic had some great looking painted ships to show off. There's a gallery of them over at Robot Viking.

Twilight Creations debuted their new invasion game, Martians!!! Based on the same game design as their popular and venerable Zombies!!! series, the game pits the human players against a horde of conquering alien greys. Watch out for the crop circles.

I also got a chance to try out Race for the Galaxy, an interstellar empire building card game. It has some interesting and elegant game mechanics, and the card art features some cool space stations, aliens and futuristic weapons.

Finally, while it's not strictly sci-fi, a new mass combat miniatures game called Arcane Legions generated a lot of interest. The game is based on an alternate history in which Egypt, Rome and the Chinese Han Dynasty battle in a world filled with living mythology, and it has one of the coolest game mechanics I've seen in a long time.

I have to say I kind of like the alien, menacing look of the earlier designs, but I bet the svelte newer version will be a lot easier to maneuver. [The Cult Of Rapture via GameSetWatch]

Our winner was Kielen Marquette, who wrote this story with illustrations. About the story, Marquette wrote:

Everything was done ingame, and the screencaps are all unretouched. I used a mix of readily available user content, and some of my own as well. Most of the poses were from pose object hacks, and well, pretty much everything else was just lots of decorating and fiddling.

Click through the pictures to read Maquette's winning story, and to find out about our runner-up.

They hadn't even made it to the appetizers when the shooting started.

"Tell me again why you brought me here!" Alise yelled over the noise of gunshots and shattering glass. "Is that hard to have a date somewhere that isn't going to get shot up?" She peeked around the edge of the table top and fired off 3 quick rounds, just barely ducking back before an answering salvo took off the edge of the table. Next to her, Jareth grunted.

"Look, how is this MY fault?" A blaster came sliding across the floor, dropped by the guy at the next table who hadn't gotten quite far enough behind cover. Jareth grabbed the blaster, and pointing blindly over his head and past the table edge, opened fire. "This is a nice place, Alise. Or, well, it was." Yanking his hand back down, and crouching down a little farther, he glanced around. The room was riddled with holes and little fires were smoldering in tablecloths and drapes. "Not so nice now, I suppose."

"You suppose?!?" She smacked him. "Seriously, this is the last time you pick. This is the fourth time this month we've done this. Can we go now?"

Jareth glanced around. "Go where? There isn't exactly a great way to get out of here."

She glared at him. "I'm not really picky. Just somewhere with less shooting. "

He waved a hand at the trashed room. "Well, any ideas on how to do that? It's a bit busy out there right now."

She glanced around the edge of the table again, and fired off a few more shots before ducking away again.

"Do you have anything that blows up?"

He turned and looked at her. "What?"

She sounded out each word clearly. "Do you have something that will blow up?"

He gave her a dirty look before turning and firing a few shots around his edge of the table. "Why do you just assume I carry around explosives? Just because I'm on a bomb squad doesn't mean I carry around grenades all day. What do you think I am, woman?"

"Look, Jareth. I happen to know you're carrying a grenade, ok? You really shouldn't slouch like that. Your shirt rides up and I can see all the stuff tucked in your waist band." He turned bright red, and reached back to yank his shirt down.

"Fine. " He handed her one of the grenades. "Stop whining and blow something up." She gave him her sweetest smile, pulled the pin and flung the grenade over the top of the table. He rolled over, tucking his arm over her head.

A huge blast shook the restaurant, and shards of wood and metal flew everywhere. After a few moments, he moved away, and peeked around the edge of the table. Most of the debris had missed them, and instead of the squad of mechs that had been there before, the floor was littered with metal body parts.
"I think we're good. You all in one piece over there?" She sat up, shoving her hair back from her face.

"No thanks to you." She stood up and started brushing herself off. He stood up and scowled at her.
"No thanks to me?? Who had the grenade, missy? You'd be full of holes right now if it wasn't for me." She stopped fiddling with her jumpsuit long enough to return the dirty look.
"If it weren't for you, I'd be home right now, not standing in a shot up restaurant."
He snorted and started walking towards the back door, detouring around broken chairs and tables.
"You'd just be sitting at home, staring at a blank screen and thinking about how bored you were. Shootouts are better than reruns, sweetheart."

She followed him through the room and through the double doors to the kitchen. It was deserted. They headed towards the back, Jareth snagging an egg roll from a plate as he passed.
"Maybe I like reruns." Alise commented as they pushed open the back door. Jareth laughed.
"No you don't. You like being with me. Blowing things up, getting shot at, wreaking havoc, those are way more fun." She wrinkled her nose at him and slipped her hand around his elbow.
"Could we maybe just once have a quiet date, Jareth? You're right, it gets the blood pumping and all, but really, I'd like to just have a normal date every once in a while. No robots." She sounded a little sad. "Is it too much to ask?" He sighed.

"I guess not. Tomorrow night then?" She smiled up at him.
"I'd love that." They came to a stop in front of a telephone booth. They turned to face each other, and Jareth leaned down and kissed her.
"I'll see you tomorrow night then." He said quietly.

Stepping into the phone booth, he picked up the handset. "End program."
The dark street faded, along with the phone booth, Alise, and everything else around him. He was standing in a cold, black room, his hand on the only visible panel. He pressed a button, and the door next to him swished open. He stepped out, and started down the hall to his quarters with a quiet sigh.
"Damn holodeck."

Our runner-up was Darth Angelus, whose machinima series "Chronicles of Humanity" incorporates some movies from the Sims, but also from several other games. So he couldn't quite qualify for our contest, which required people to use only the Sims. But here is a great piece of Darth's series:

You probably already knew that Spock and Nero created an alternate universe, where Vulcan got vulcanized and James Kirk's dad died when he was born. So the TNG continuity still exists, just as an alternate reality. But just in case you got confused, here's a chart to explain it all for you. Also, is this the first time we've seen official dates for the events of J.J. Abrams' recent Trek movie?

[Star Trek Online]

Most people have experienced text adventures (also known as interactive fiction) in some way: the phrase "you are likely to be eaten by a grue" still strikes fear into many hearts. The same way a well-written novel can conjure up detailed and engrossing pictures in the mind of a reader, so, too, can a good text adventure.

The first experiment with interactive fiction, ADVENT (or Colossal Cave Adventure), and the first commercial text adventure, Adventureland, were the model for future games of this format. Both were fantasy games with increasingly widening worlds to explore. From there, though, one company dominated the text adventure market: Infocom.

In addition to their humor, their unconventional packaging (including "feelies," odd little artifacts from the game), and their innovative interface, Infocom also developed a reputation for creating large and strange virtual worlds. They also inspired independent creators to take up the mantel of creating text-based worlds. Here are some of the most expansive and iconic of those worlds.

Zork

The first version of Zork was written in the late 70's, but since then, the world of Zork has expanded into something giant and complex. The game is divided into three parts, all set in the vast Zork universe. In part 1, throughout your quest to collect treasures and become the Dungeon Master, you explore a fiendishly complex maze, an ancient ruined temple, a portion of the "Land of the Dead," and a flood control dam, all part of a great Underground Empire.

An that's all just part 1. Parts 2 and 3 take you to more mazes, a carousel, a volcano, a museum, an immense "Land of Shadows," and more, encountering wizards, thieves, and the infamous grue. The tone of the games is lighthearted and full of jokes. The combined effect makes the Zork trilogy totally engrossing, one of the first fully immersive virtual worlds. (Play part 1 here)

Bureaucracy

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams worked closely with Infocom to create two different games. The first, and more well known, was based off of his famous Hitchhiker series, but the second was set in an entirely different, entirely scarier world.

It's called Bureaucracy, and in it, you are a confused citizen trying to file a change of address card. This simple task spirals into a complex, infuriating adventure in a fully formed world disconcertingly similar to the real one. In the world of Bureaucracy, your lunch order is lost due to a computer crash, your mail is scattered throughout the various houses you visit, you are almost eaten by a tribe of cannibals, and you eventually enlist the help of a hacker to finally get your address changed.

The thing that makes the world of Bureaucracy so engrossing is that it starts as a routine exploration of the town you find yourself in, but it quickly develops into a giant web of confusion and manipulation. It feels a little like waking up and finding yourself in a parallel world where everyday tasks take a SWAT team to accomplish.

Trinity

Trinity opens on a quiet English park about to be blasted by a nuclear explosion. Your job is to escape into a parallel universe of sorts and explore the mystery of how the bomb came to be launched at the park that day. What follows is a journey through nuclear test sites of the past and future and the surreal landscapes of another dimension, a sort of speculative history and future of the development of nuclear weapons.

Trinity is an unabashedly political game. It was released in 1986, and it's a commentary on the nuclear age. But it's also an exploration of a strange dimension with it's own rules, a blend of fiction and reality. Figuring out these rules means fully delving into Trinity's strange world.

A Mind Forever Voyaging

In a strange experiment with the virtual worlds of text adventures, A Mind Forever Voyaging presents a laboratory creating its own simulated virtual world. This research team has created a virtual city to model a new plan for economic and social development. You control an artificial intelligence named PRISM, and your job is to delve into the virtual town to observe conditions under this new plan.

The game progresses through years in the simulated city, and you observe the slow growth of dystopia. It's an unconventional entry in the text adventure canon. There are very few puzzles and the ultimate goal seems merely to observe and learn from the failures of the research team. The game essentially presents you with a declining world for you to explore and try to understand.

Curses

With the fall of Infocom in the late 80's, text adventures and interactive fiction seemed to be on the decline. But there was a minor resurgence in the format not long after. Graham Nelson's 1993 game, Curses, is considered a standout in that resurgence.

In Curses, you are a wealthy Englishman searching through the attic of your recently inherited house for a map. Of course things get complex from there, but the bulk of the richness of the environment comes from the clearly carefully conceived mansion, Meldrew Hall. In exploring the house, it seems to come alive with its own history. Curses is worth checking out for this section alone. (Play it here)

These games, among others, show the power of text to develop immersive and complex virtual worlds.

Further reading: The Cursor Is Your Friend In Scifi Text Adventure Games

This week io9 is launching "The Sims Go Scifi" contest, where you show us screengrabs from the best scifi scenarios you've created in The Sims. Our panel of distinguished judges will pick a winner, who gets a copy of The Sims 3, as well as $250 to spend at an online store of your choice so you can give your own life a makeover as well as your Sim life.

Here are the rules:

1. Create a scifi scenario in The Sims, and take screengrabs (no more than 8) or movies (no more than 2) from it to show us your scene or story.
2. Include a written description explaining the story and how you made it happen.
3. Submit your screengrabs and description to scifisimscontest@io9.com by midnight PST on June 9.

We will publish the top three stories, and hand over the game and cash to our first place winner.

You can see more of Paquette's work at his website. And his blog, with shiny new work, is here.