Hi again, Eriorg:
Yes, of course you can copy my e-mail to the french
Forum, although I didn’t know that I was actually
saying something interesting In fact, It would be
interesting if you could give me an overview of the
opinions from the people in the Forum once you’ve
pasted it there.
About the « feel » of Spanish-spoken IF compared to
English-spoken IF… Well, what I’m going to say is
nothing but a subjective perception based on a very
personal opinion (…so I don’t think it would be
worth mentioning in IfWiki ).
In a sense I think that spanish-spoken IF works are a
bit more « amateurish », less « polished » than the usual
english-spoken ones. Now for the good things:
I think there’s one thing that all Hispanic countries
(Spain and most of South America) have in common,
which is the capability of their inhabitants to laugh
about themselves. And this shows in Spanish-spoken IF:
It’s full of anti-heroes and wannabes. Pretty common
people thrown in the middle of a stressing situation.
Many works of IF are in fact comedies.
Also, when it’s serious, adult-oriented IF, there’s
another thing I like even more: the passion. One thing
I use to notice in english-spoken adventures is the
fact that almost no IF work talks about something that
really worries the IF writer. Serious IF tends to be a
reflection on art, interactivity, moral options,
etc… but they don’t usually talk about something
that really « touches » the IF writer. There are
exceptions, of course, like Losing Your Grip by
Stephen Granade. But still, I see they are afraid of
being really sincere or really exhibitionist in an IF
work. In Losing Your Grip, for example, the author
covers his own experiences with such a thick layer of
metaphore that it’s difficult to understand what has
really happened « in there ». (Photopia, if you are
going to mention it, is in my opinion just a story. A
beautiful story, yes, a touching story that talks
about real human pains, yes, but I don’t think that
this story has anything to do with Adam Cadre)
Well, it’s not that common to see it also in spanish
IF, but still: sometimes you can see a lot of the
author in his/her work. (In « A veces… » by Jenesis,
or in « Ocaso Mortal » by Dhan, or « La Musa » by Grendel,
or my own « El Archipielago » - yes, I know, that’s
blatant publicity ) And I haven’t been able to find
something similar like that anywhere else but here.
Also, another difference: We give much more importance
to the story than to the technology or the
interactivity. So, for example, one of the most well
known authors writes his works in Spectrum for an
emulator.
There are more differences, I guess but these are
the ones I can think of right now.
Are fantasy/SF/Lovecraftian games the great
majority of old and modern Spanish IF games?
Well, since you have made some statistics, I will do
something similar:
Commercial IF (1984-1992)
I think I have found all 28 comercial text adventures
published in Spain. They are:
9 fantasy adventures (I’ve included « Alicia en el País
de las Maravillas »)
9 sci-fi adventuress (One of them is an adaptation of
« The Time Machine »)
5 historical adventures (Included « Don Quijote »)
and 5 present-time adventures. (3 of them are
detective stories, one is a « search of a pyramid » and
one is based on a children’s comic).
As you can see, there haven’t been that many comercial
adventures.
Amateur IF (1984-1992)
First of all: most of these games were written by
people with ages ranging from 13 to 18 years old. So
(except for some rare gems) they are crappy, stupid
and under-implemented. Due to the amount of them I’ve
found, I’ve been less « cautious » in their
categorization. From the 169 I’ve found in « Proyecto
B.A.S.E »:
13 games I don’t know nothing about them.
12 surreal (which in most cases mean: games made by
people so young that they don’t make any sense at all)
21 historical/mythological (1 of them is in fact
Lovecraftian horror, but I’ve put it in here since
it’s set in the 1920s)
54 present time (12 of them are lovecraftian horror,
and 5 of them are non-lovecraftian horror)
56 fantasy (lazy fantasy, I’d say)
13 are sci-fi (I’ve included one of them which in fact
is another star wars parody)
As you can see, there’s quite a few lovecraftian
games. I don’t know why is it so. Maybe it’s due to
the huge success that « Call of Ctulhu », the RPG game,
had in Spain. Or maybe because of the CRL text
adventures (« Jack the Ripper », « Dracula », « Wolfman »
and so on…)
Modern IF (2000-2007)
I will select all winners of the Hispanic Prizes
(Premios Hispanos) as a good approach to the kind of
themes used in « modern » spanish interactive fiction:
2000
Al Otro Lado (Lumpi) – Experimental
Del otro lado (Jarel) – Fantasy
La sentencia (Zak) – Historical (based on « the pit & the pendulum »)
Fuego de Dragón (JSJ) – Fantasy (erotic)
Abalanzate (Sirrus) – Present time
Olvido Mortal (Akbarr) – Fantasy (in fact, drama. There’s a translation
by Nick Monfort: Dead Reckoning)
2001
Por la necedad humana (Urbatain) – Experimental, Drama, Historical
El octavo pasajero (Jarel) – Comedy, Sci-Fi
¿La sentencia? (Zak) – Self-parody of « La Sentencia ». Experimental.
Ocaso mortal (dhan) – Surreal
2002
Misterio en el Último Hogar (Kano&Kambre) – Fantasy (Tolkien, in fact)
Insomnio de una noche de verano (Jarel) – Present time (comedy)
Mediana evasión (Raul « El Lula ») – Fantasy (Tolkien, again)
Cirith Ungol (Jarel) – Fantasy (Tolkien, again. If you wonder,
this year there was a Tolkien comp)
« A veces… » (Jenesis) – Surreal, Drama.
2003
La Sombra de la Luna Negra (Depresiv) – Present time, Lovecraftian Horror
El extraño caso de Randolph Dwight (Urbatain) – 19th century, Lovecraftian Horror
Duende (Fray Fernando) – Experimental
El libro que se aburría (Jenesis) – Fantasy
La Aventura Rural (Grendel) – Present time
2004
El Archipiélago (Depresiv) – Fantasy / Present time. Drama
Una pequeña historia de Navidad (Lenko) – Fantasy (Christmas-themed)
« La Cara Oculta de la Luna » (KRAC) – Present time (Psicological horror)
2005
Dr. Van Halen: Último Acto (Josep Coletas) – Historical (Horror)
El trono de Inglaterra (Selena y Baltasar) – Historical
Romanfredo (Aryekaix) – Fantasy (Experimental)
Los alegres hombres de Sherwood (Vingthor)-- Historical
dddddd_crj (dddddd) – Experimental
‹ Sarimek › (Jarel) – Fantasy
So: 11 fantasy works, 6 « historical », 6
surreal/experimental, 1 Sci-Fi and 5 works set in the
present.
As a resume: lots of « fantasy » works, not as much
« sci-fi » as I thought and quite a lot more
« experimental » or « surreal » than I expected.
By the way: I’m enjoying this quite a lot. I’m
learning a lot about the French Community, and also
learning a lot about my own at the same time
Hope to read from you soon!
Depresiv