Jun 16, 2011

Fragile Shells

You don't know how long you've been hammering against the station's wall, but you stop as soon as you realize what you've been doing. You let your gloved hands fall by your sides and pause, confused.

Happily, you don't suffer from amnesia; only a concussion. Less happily you are alone, in space and quite obviously about to die. A severely damaged space station isn't the safest place to be, and you are apparently an astronaut (of the researching sort) trapped in exactly such a station. Your mission is pretty simple: survive by, well, escaping the room. Fragile Shells by Stephen Granade is, after all, a glorious escape-the-room text adventure (piece of interactive fiction if you prefer), that impressively goes far beyond what we've come to expect from the genre.

Fragile Shells, you see, despite taking place in a severely constrained space, manages, to not only tell a tale, but also to describe an impressively fleshed out world; even more impressively it lets you discover both tale and world without resorting to bland, non-interactive exposition in what can only be described as a fine example of interactive storytelling. This is a very puzzle-y game too. It's not overtly difficult, but it does require paying attention, following subtle hints, exploring everything and even a bit of lateral thinking. Mind you, the game is never unfair; it's refreshingly challenging instead.

You can grab Fragile Shells via the Interactive Fiction Database where the game's source code is also available. The game is -traditionally- freeware and to enjoy it you will need an i-f player. I'd suggest you give the excellent Gargoyle a try. Alternatively, you can always enjoy Fragile Shells online.    

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10 comments:

  1. Never did understand why the correct term is suppose to be interactive fiction when interactive fiction could actually be applied to any game with a fictional story and any text adventure based in fact would not be technically an IF title.

    But then this is true of many of the "correct" titles of things.

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  2. The intricacies of the average terminus technicus is indeed above me dear Jonathon. I'm just more accustomed to the term text-adventure. I feel it implies the puzzlier nature of games such as, uhm, well, these.

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  3. I dunno that it's the correct term, but Infocom called their games "interactive fiction" back in the day and that term then got appropriated and propagated by the IF community in the late 80s-early 90s. If you want to make a division between IF focusing on story and text adventures on traditional puzzling, I'd definitely agree that Fragile Shells is more text adventure than interactive fiction.

    (And thanks for the play and review, gnome!)

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  4. (it was a real pleasure dear Stephen; excellent game, excellent)

    Indeed, Infocom did call their games interactive fiction as opposed to most European developers that preferred the term text adventure. I'm glad we more or less agree on what separates the term nowadays though.

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  5. I always pronounced it as "if" for years. It wasn't until last year when I went to PAX that I heard everyone refer to it as "eye eff".

    I like the term "first person thinker" myself. :)

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  6. A first person thinker! Yes. I like that. A lot.

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  7. Ah! Beat it without hints. A very interesting game.

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  8. Glad you liked it dear Ithmeer. And congrats too!

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  9. Why yes, Wadjet, but I think the original term was second person thinker, as opposed to first person shooter, because many IFs were and are written in the second person. Maybe I'm wrong.

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  10. Still, it would make sense dear David...

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