External Links
- worlds.zip
Contains worlds.gam
Or download worlds.zip, unzip it, and run the game in a TADS interpreter. (The file is compressed with ZIP.) - worlds-apart-21.hqx
Includes HyperTADS 1.1.3 for the Mac. (Not the current game version.)
To play, you can download worlds-apart-21.hqx, unzip it, and run the game in a TADS interpreter. (The file is encoded in Macintosh Bin/Hex format.)
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About the Story
For over 20 years, I dreamed about an alternate universe I called the Higher World. For three of those years, I poured almost all of my creative energy into a novel-length story set in that universe. Worlds Apart is the result. But it is not a novel in the traditional sense of the word. It is an interactive tale in which you play the leading part, solving problems and learning about yourself along the way.
The only catch is, you'll need to use a computer to experience it.
Worlds Apart is a descendant of old-fashioned computer text adventures. It was designed using a very powerful interactive fiction language called TADS, which produces games quite similar in look and feel to the legendary Infocom adventures. As with those, you interact with Worlds Apart via a text parser, which accepts simple commands like "sit on the chair" and "ask the wizard about magic".
Yet Worlds Apart differs from traditional adventure games almost as much as it differs from a plain novel. It is first and foremost about self-discovery, not puzzle-solving, and is set in a richly detailed gameworld. This gameworld is filled with optional discoveries: while there is a central story which all players will experience, the majority of Worlds Apart is optional! The more you explore, the more you will find. This exploration includes both probing the world around you using your six senses, and speaking with the other characters.
-- blurb from the game's web site
Page Update History
6 Off-Site Reviews
Brass Lantern
The story is revealed through cleverly meshed flashbacks and the game is full of interlinked themes and symbols that add dimension to the experience. The most satisfying of the game's puzzles are meta-puzzles, requiring the player to think outside the game whilst moving through the game--not in the sense of relating acts to an external system (the meta puzzle of 'what does it mean?') but in the sense that there is often little way of providing feedback on some of these puzzles--you either get it or don't--so the 'working out' of the puzzles goes on externally. (Sam Barlow)
All of this aside, "Worlds Apart" is a tremendously ambitious work, in that it attempts to deal not only with a physical environment but also with social realities, family history, and even spiritual state. It is scrupulously implemented. I ran into nothing I would qualify as a game-play bug, and there is a very large set of examinable scenery objects and of conversation topics. Though I think the story has some flaws, I hope it receives a wide audience. Considerable craft went into its creation; it is markedly different from anything else currently available; and it provides useful data for the discussion of character background and world-building in interactive fiction. (Emily Short)
See the full review
IF-Review
Casting a Critical Eye
A lot of the difficulty with Worlds is that it never lets up. The same tone and mood persists virtually throughout, and it's such a big game that this gets tiring after a while. You start craving some comic interludes or some random, messy violence. Well, I did, at least. (Yes, there is some violence, but it doesn't feel distinct enough from the piece to provide a sufficient contrast). Although the ending manages to maintain much of its clout despite this, I get the impression that a little change of pace about midway would have breathed some vibrancy back into it. Early on in the game, Worlds seems very alive and engaging; the majority of the later scenes are intrinsically no less so, but by the time they're reached I, at least, had been exhausted by the style and found it difficult to get new things out of it. This objection doesn't make the style or verbosity any the less worthy, however; it just makes it more difficult. [...] In short, Worlds isn't my cup of tea, in terms of themes, mood, or content. However, there's plenty that I have to admire about it: scope, detail, the quality of both code and prose.
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Play This Thing!
It takes place in a science-fiction world Suzanne Britton spent years thinking about and developing. Its plot episodes are there in large part to illuminate the world she has imagined, rather than the other way around. Implementation is deep and meticulous. There is a great deal to learn, and a great deal to dig into.
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SPAG
There is much to like about Worlds Apart, in the end--in quantity and quality, the detail that went into the worldbuilding is unmatched in any work of IF in recent memory, and it's unlikely that any player will catch all, or even most, of the story on the first try. If it's a little inaccessible at first, that comes with the territory--i.e., introducing the player into a highly complex and well-developed world--and it's hardly a fatal flaw. In its interactivity and in the quality of its storytelling, Worlds Apart is a remarkable accomplishment.
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Adventure Gamers
[...] requires a lot of patience, but is ultimately absorbing and extremely unique.
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The Home of Lost Tales
Excellent piece of Interactive Fiction, set in an incredibly detailed universe
This game has entered my top-ten list of all time favourites. Surreal but without the surrealism getting annoyingly out of control (such as I felt happened in "Losing your grip"). I wonder about how it will do in the Xyzzy awards... - I think there are some awards it deserves to get, but with some it will be a close fight (I think) with other games... We'll see...
As for me I'm eagerly waiting for the sequel...
On the whole, great job, Suzanne! Keep them coming. :-)
See the full review
Game Details
Current Version: 3.0
License: Freeware
Development System: TADS 2
Baf's Guide ID: 403
| IFIDs: | TADS2-A6433F0484ACC53329296C7E41358BFF |
| TADS2-378CDF30424E1289BEFF36DBE4B02B38 | |
| TADS2-A509366AFF98D36257822BFD42302F90 | |
| TADS2-D4F2C670824FCD4236E0D6A3037082E9 |
