We've occasionally played a game here where players write the commands and responses for a non-existent interactive fiction game. I thought it might be fun to play an actual IF game this way. We are going to play a game called Lost Pig (And Place Under Ground). I chose this game because you can't die or get into an unwinnable state, making it ideal for playing in this way. (You can, however, lock yourself out of getting 100% completion, but that's not a huge deal.) Plus the game is hilarious and often rewards ridiculous behavior. The character we control is a green, rather dim-witted orc named Grunk. To play, simply make a post with the command you want to give in bold, like this:

> EAT CAKE

This is to make it stand out from any commentary you might write along with your command. I will feed your command into the game and copy-paste what comes out into the thread. You don't have to wait for the response to a previous player's command in order to submit one of your own. When I post, I'll run all the commands that have been posted that haven't been made irrelevant by previous commands and post the responses.

Here we go:



Pig lost! Boss say that it Grunk fault. Say Grunk forget about closing gate. Maybe boss right. Grunk not remember forgetting, but maybe Grunk just forget. Boss say Grunk go find pig, bring it back. Him say, if Grunk not bring back pig, not bring back Grunk either. Grunk like working at pig farm, so now Grunk need find pig.

Lost Pig
And Place Under Ground
Release 2 / Serial number 080406 / Inform v6.30 6/11 / ZCODE-1-070917-994E
(For help, use "HELP".)

Outside
Grunk think that pig probably go this way. It hard to tell at night time, because moon not bright as sun. There forest to east and north. It even darker there, and Grunk hear lots of strange animal. West of Grunk, there big field with little stone wall. Farm back to south.

> WEST
Grunk not allowed in field. That probably OK, because Grunk not think pig tall enough to climb over wall.



I forgot to mention something I wanted to bring up from the help info:

Conversation in this game is topic-based. You can ASK, TELL, or TALK TO characters about different things Grunk has seen or heard about during the course of the story.... When you're returning to a place you've visited before, you can use the GO TO command to attempt to go there directly. Likewise, this can also be used to locate characters who are currently in places you're already familiar with.

> SOUTH

Forest dark. Grunk need light. Go get torch.

OOC
That look alright? Still a bit unsure of how to play this game.
/OOC

No, we're not creating the game, we're playing an actual interactive fiction game which already exists. You just give the commands, I plug them into the game and paste what it spits out into the thread. Basically, we're playing a real IF game co-op. But I can use the command you gave:

> SOUTH
Grunk get in big trouble if Grunk go back with no pig.

> GO TO LANTERN
Grunk not know where that at.

Bah, I figured as much. Let's see... Grillick's command was Go To Lantern.... Since we don't know where the lantern is, I propose we

Search for Source of Light

> SEARCH FOR SOURCE OF LIGHT
Grunk not know where that at.

Having played this before, I can tell you that the game will give you a hint in about four more turns... :)

Well, having exhausted all four cardinal directions, and given the game's name...

> GO DOWN

Ah, clever thinking, but...

> DOWN
Grunk not see any place to go that way.