Tag Archives: Jon Ingold

Interactive Fiction

All Roads

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Author: Jon Ingold
Year: 2001
Development System: Inform
Cruelty Rating: Merciful
Length of Play: 1-2 Hours

My Rating: 6

Awards: Best Game, Best Story, Best Setting — 2001 XYZZY Awards
1st Place — 7th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition

I normally am a sucker for anything involving time travel and paradoxes and I tend to prefer linear gameplay. Jon Ingold is also one of my favorite authors. So All Roads should be right up my alley. I judged the 2001 IF competition and remember giving this one a score of “6” and then being surprised it took first place and won a whole slew of XYZZY awards. I decided to play it again recently to see if time would change my mind, but I left once again feeling underwhelmed.

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Interactive Fiction

Fail-Safe

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Author: Jon Ingold
Year: 2000
Development System: Inform
Cruelty Rating: Cruel (but the game is so short it doesn’t matter)
Length of Play: 1-2 Hours

My Rating: 8

I’ve always enjoyed games that take place in space, especially on failing space vessels (e.g. Mission Critical, Seedship). I fell immediately for Fail-Safe’s hook, which entails playing the role of mission control talking to the lone survivor on a failing space vessel.

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