Shade (interactive fiction)
Encyclopedia
Shade is a work of interactive fiction
released in 2000 by Andrew Plotkin
. The author describes it as a "one-room game set in your apartment". Shade won the 2000 XYZZY Award
for Best Setting. Shade has been described as "technically innovative" for "opt[ing] out of conventional light modeling" and "dispens[ing] with conventional spatial navigation." Instead of conventional navigation, "[t]he player location is indicated through nuance and shifting emphasis." Emily Short
described Shade as "the closest I've come to being able to play an episode of the Twilight Zone
. It works through dread: we want to know what comes next, and we are certain that it won't be good."
Emily Short also experimented with a single-room setting in her work Galatea, where story is advanced through dialog with a single Non-Player Character
.
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
released in 2000 by Andrew Plotkin
Andrew Plotkin
Andrew Plotkin , also known as Zarf, is a central figure in the modern interactive fiction community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other utilities for the design, production, and running of IF games, Plotkin is...
. The author describes it as a "one-room game set in your apartment". Shade won the 2000 XYZZY Award
XYZZY Award
The XYZZY Awards are an event to recognize extraordinary interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards or Grammy Awards but for a far smaller community. The XYZZY Awards have been presented yearly in the early spring since 1996 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of XYZZYnews...
for Best Setting. Shade has been described as "technically innovative" for "opt[ing] out of conventional light modeling" and "dispens[ing] with conventional spatial navigation." Instead of conventional navigation, "[t]he player location is indicated through nuance and shifting emphasis." Emily Short
Emily Short
Emily Short is the pseudonym of an interactive fiction writer, perhaps best known for her debut game Galatea and her use of psychologically complex NPCs, or non-player game characters...
described Shade as "the closest I've come to being able to play an episode of the Twilight Zone
Twilight zone
-Television series and spinoffs:*The Twilight Zone, the anthology television series and its franchise:**The Twilight Zone , the 1959–1964 original television series***Twilight Zone: The Movie, a 1983 film based on the original series...
. It works through dread: we want to know what comes next, and we are certain that it won't be good."
Emily Short also experimented with a single-room setting in her work Galatea, where story is advanced through dialog with a single Non-Player Character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
.