magazines/SPAG/SPAG.FAQ

The SPAG Frequently Asked Questions File (FAQ)

version 2.6, June 17, 2001
Maintained by Paul O'Brian (obrian@colorado.edu)

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What is SPAG?

SPAG is an informative e-zine designed primarily to keep the gaming
public aware of text adventures available today. Most of the space
is devoted to reviews. Since the number of such games is small, SPAG
has no regular publishing schedule. It tends to emerge more or less
quarterly.

SPAG was founded by G. Kevin "Whizzard" Wilson, and is currently
edited by Paul O'Brian.

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What about graphic adventures? 

SPAG is devoted to games whose primary medium is text. This
doesn't mean that its reviews can't discuss games that contain
graphics, as long as the text element is essential. Today's purely
graphic adventure games, however, are "out of scope". Besides, they
attract so much attention from the mainstream gaming community that
they don't need any special promotion.

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What does SPAG stand for?

As you may have guessed, SPAG is an acronym. It means "The Society for
the Promotion of Adventure Games". Originally, the 'P' was for
"Preservation"; however, in early 1997 a growing consensus that text
adventures weren't in immediate danger of extinction any more led to a
name change. As the previous answer indicates, SPAG's focus is on the
subset of adventure games known as text adventures, but SPTAG just
doesn't have the same ring. 

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Does SPAG have a Constitution?

Why yes, as a matter of fact, it does! It's amazing how frequently that
question is asked. Here is the SPAG Constitution:

"The Society for the Promotion of Adventure Games is hereby formed in
order to maintain and encourage the spread of text adventures to a new
generation, and to reintroduce the Infocom fans of the 70s and 80s to
this versatile art form.  World domination would be nice too, if
there's time for it."

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Cool. How do I join?

Well, actually you don't. There is no formal Society, just a loose
association of the contributors and readers of the SPAG 'zine. In a
sense, you join SPAG by reading it and/or writing for it.

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What is SPAG's format?

Each month's issue will begin with an editorial, any articles or letters
to the editor, and a news section reporting new games and recent
developments in the IF community. After that come the reviews, which
will make up the bulk of any issue. Some issues will include a "SPAG
Specifics" section after the regular reviews. This section is devoted to
in-depth analyses of IF, with spoilers included. Lastly, at the end of
each issue will be the SPAG submission policy and any closing notes. 

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Didn't there used to be a scoreboard or something?

For its first eight years, SPAG featured a scoreboard, a chart listing
the scores that SPAG readers gave to various IF games. The scoreboard
was discontinued as of issue #29 (June 20th, 2002), but the final
results are still available on the SPAG website. 

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How did the scoring system work for the Readers' Scoreboard?

The scale worked like this: there are 4 categories, and readers awarded
up to 2 points in each. The categories are:

Atmosphere
          0 - Little or no attempt at atmosphere.
         .5 - A few nice touches.
          1 - Good Atmosphere.
        1.5 - Feels like you're there.
          2 - Edge of your seat the whole way.

Gameplay  0 - Frustrating to play, poor parser, few synonyms.
         .5 - A little better.  Still pretty unbearable.
          1 - Good parser.  Not too hard to figure out.
        1.5 - Good parser.  Most 'ease of use' commands implemented.
          2 - Excellent gameplay.  Understands almost everything you try.

Writing   0 - Poorly written.  Lots of spelling errors, sloppily done.
         .5 - Some effort put into the writing.  Still terrible.
          1 - Few or no spelling errors.  Stumbles along shakily.
        1.5 - Good grammar, prose flows well, absorbing writing.
          2 - Excellent prose and style, on a par with that in "The
              Witness".

Plot      0 - Poorly planned, incoherent plot.
         .5 - Rudimentary plot, adds little to game.
          1 - Developed, simple plot.  Fairly linear.
        1.5 - Complex plot, well planned and implemented.
          2 - Excellent plot.  Twists and turns, holds you on the edge of 
              seat.  Enough freedom for the player to feel free to try
              things easily.

NOTE: These point values are merely benchmarks.  Readers could award any
value between 0 and 2 so long as they kept it down to one decimal
place.  This scoring system is loosely based on the Olympic system.

The other 2 points are discretionary, and could be awarded on the basis
of thoroughness, realism, or anything else the voter feels is important
to a text adventure. These are wildcard points, meant to encompass all
the little things in a good game. These five categories add up to a
maximum of 10 points. This is the total score. 

Finally, there are two seperate categories, rated the same as the
other five, that do not count in the total score, and are averaged
only with other votes on the same category.  These two are:

Characters   0 - No NPCs, or cardboard caricatures.
            .5 - Uninteresting NPCs.
             1 - Stereotypical NPCs, not developed too much.
           1.5 - Interesting NPCs, some background.
             2 - Well-developed cast of characters.  Realistic.

Puzzles      0 - Illogical puzzles.  Poorly implemented, or there is not
                 enough info in the game to solve them.
            .5 - Illogical, requires bizarre actions to solve.
             1 - Logical, uninteresting and add little to the game.
           1.5 - Logical, interesting.
             2 - Logical, fascinating, well implemented.  No 'guess the
	         word' puzzles.

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What do those strange "notes" mean?

Availability codes:

	C   - Commercial, no price given.
	C30 - Commercial, with a fixed price of US$30.
	F   - Freeware (including Public Domain).
	S20 - Shareware, registration costs $20.
	ARC - Available on the IF archive at ifarchive.org (and mirrors).
	
Platform codes show on which computers and operating systems you can
play the game. Some games are distributed as executable files
only. Such files are generally quite platform-specific.

	A   - Runs on Amigas.
	AP  - Runs on Apple IIs.
	GS  - Runs on Apple IIGS.
	AR  - Runs on Acorn Archimedes.
	I   - Runs on IBM compatibles under MS-DOS or Windows.
	M   - Runs on Macs.
	64  - Runs on Commodore 64s.
	ST  - Runs on Atari STs.

Other games are distributed as system-independent game files, that
require a special interpreter to run. Interpreters exist for a number
of different platforms, depending on which game system was used to
produce the game file. In some cases, you can extract a game file from
an executable, thus enabling you to play it on other platforms.

ADVSYS - Written with Advsys. Interpreters for MS-DOS and Mac
         are available from the IF-archive, as well as interpreter
         source code.
            
   AGT - The original AGT interpreters are available for MS-DOS,
         Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST. However, availability is strongly
         dependent on which version of AGT was used!

         There is also a portable interpreter called AGiliTy
         that can be used to play all (or almost all) AGT games.
         The IF archive contains the source for AGiliTy as well
         as compiled versions for MS-DOS, Linux, Mac and Amiga.

  ALAN - Written with ALAN. Interpreters are available for
         MS-DOS, Mac, Amiga, HP-UX, Solaris and Linux.

   ETC - Has been ported to quite a number of languages and development
         systems, and is present in many locations on the archive. 

   HUG - Written with Hugo.  Runs on:
         Windows (9x/NT), MS-DOS, BeOS, Linux/Unix, and Amiga,
         Acorn, Macintosh, and OS/2. The interpreter can also be 
         compiled for any platform for which a wxWindows, Glk, or
         stdio library is available. 
	
   INF - Infocom or Inform game. (Infocom invented the format,
         Inform is a freeware compiler that uses the same format).
         There are a large number of different interpreters for
         most existing computers, from mainframes to pocket-sized
         PDA's. See the IF-archive for more information. Interpreter
         source code available.

   MAG - Magnetic Scrolls. These (commercial) games were originally
         distributed as C64 and Amiga executables. There is now
         a portable interpreter, Magnetic, available for other
         platforms as well, including MS-DOS and Amiga. Interpreter
         source available.
	      
   TAD - Written with TADS.  The IF-archive contains interpreters
         for the following platforms:
                AmigaDOS, NeXT, MS-DOS, Atari ST/TT/Falcon, DECstation
                (MIPS) Ultrix, IBM RT, Linux, Macintosh,
                SGI Iris/Indigo running Irix, Sun 4 (Sparc)
                running SunOS or Solaris 2, Sun 3, OS/2, Acorn
                Archimedes.
         The interpreter source code is available so it can be
         ported to other platforms (including most Unix variants).

Other computers will be added as pointed out to the editor. Readers are
asked to notify the editor if any games are available on a platform for
which SPAG does not list them.

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What is SPAG's submission policy?

Reviews, letters and ratings should be sent by email to Paul O'Brian,
obrian@colorado.edu. ASCII text format is preferred, but MS Word and
other formats will be accepted as attachments. If in doubt, query first.

A SPAG review should be an intelligent discussion of a piece of
interactive fiction, and it should be written in polished prose. Within
those guidelines, all publishable reviews will be accepted as long as
they deal with a game that satisfies a (rather broad) definition of
"text adventure" or "interactive fiction". Reviews of games that have
already been reviewed three or more times in SPAG will only be accepted
if they make a significant original contribution to the discussion of
those games. Authors may not review their own games.

SPAG employs a "no-spoiler" policy for reviews, with the exception of
reviews intended for SPAG Specifics (see below). This policy has been
stretched a bit in the past, but now that SPAG Specifics exists, the no-
spoiler policy will be enforced rather more strictly.

SPAG Specifics is a small section that appears in some issues of SPAG.
This section is devoted to in-depth criticism of text adventures and
has no restrictions on spoilers, recognizing that avoidance of spoilers
can sometimes hinder the detailed examination of a piece of interactive
fiction. Specifics reviews are required to provide in-depth analysis to
justify their use of spoilers. 

Reviews should be preceded by a standardized "header" as described below.

SPAG also occasionally publishes articles. If you'd like to submit an
article for the next issue of SPAG, query first.

SPAG does not pay anything for contributions. Authors retain the
rights to their works. SPAG accepts reviews that have been published
before, but original works are preferred.

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You mentioned something about a review header?

An example of a header follows:

NAME: Cutthroats
AUTHOR: Infocom
EMAIL: ???
DATE: September 1984
PARSER: Infocom Standard
SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2
URL: Not available.
VERSION: Release 23

DATE: When the game was released.  Month and year are preferred.
VERSION: What release is being reviewed, when applicable.
     This information is usually found on the title screen of the game.
URL: Where the game can be found on the Internet.  Obviously, Cutthroats
     shouldn't be available on the net, so here's an example for "The
     Light: Shelby's Addendum":
     URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/shelby.zip
     This will make the magazine a little friendlier for Web browsers.
EMAIL: The e-mail address of the game author (if known), not
     the reviewer.
AVAILABILITY: usually either Commercial ($price), Shareware ($price),
     or Freeware.  If the commercial price varies in stores, then
     it will just say Commercial.  If it has been released in a
     collection, this line should say so.  Lastly, if it is available on
     ifarchive.org, the line should add "IF Archive". Add "(Demo)" if
     it's a demo version.

When submitting a review, try to fill in as much of this info as you
can.  Also, scores are still desired along with the reviews, so send
those along if you so choose.  The scores will be used in the ratings
section.

Thanks to Gareth Rees for the header format. 

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How is SPAG distributed?

SPAG is primarily distributed via a mailing list. To subscribe,
send email to majordomo@df.lth.se with the line:

subscribe spag <your e-mail address here>

To be removed from the list, send an email message to the same address
with the line

unsubscribe spag <your e-mail address here>

SPAG is also available from the if-archive:

ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/magazines/SPAG/

Finally, SPAG has a web page of its own which includes all published
issues, a partial index of reviews, and HTML tables displaying the
Readers' Scoreboard. The web site is:

http://www.sparkynet.com/spag

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Why don't you just post SPAG to <some newsgroup>?

The current policy is to distribute SPAG via the mailing list, and
just post pointers on Usenet. One reason for this is keeping track
of the number of readers (currently over 400).

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Where can I get back issues of SPAG?

Through anonymous FTP on ifarchive.org, in /if-archive/magazines/SPAG/.
Just login as 'anonymous' and give your e-mail address as your password.
The archive is kept current now, so don't worry about asking for the
latest copy when you subscribe (which we still strongly encourage you
do.) Back issues are also available from the web page, at
http://www.sparkynet.com/spag.

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Revision History

v 2.0 970917 - FAQ taken over by Magnus Olsson. Major revision.
v 2.1 970918 - Added ADVSYS and ALAN to platform codes.
v 2.2 990820 - FAQ taken over by Paul O'Brian. Minor revision.
v 2.3 991203 - Revision to scoring info and web page address
v 2.4 000925 - Updated submission policy
v 2.5 010925 - Changed GMD references to IF Archive
v 2.6 020617 - Updated FAQ to reflect discontinuation of scoreboard
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Thank you for helping to keep text adventures alive!