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Zugzwang

by Magnus Olsson

Episode 17 of Textfire 12-pack
1998
Game, Joke
Inform 6

(based on 11 ratings)
2 reviews18 members have played this game. It's on 1 wishlist.

About the Story

Out of the TextFire "12-pack", this is an April's Fool game "demo" in which you get to play a pawn in a chess game - at the very end. Incorporates a very nifty variation on the status line to show the positions of the chess pieces after each move.
[--blurb from The Z-Files Catalogue]

Ratings and Reviews

5 star:
(0)
4 star:
(1)
3 star:
(5)
2 star:
(5)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating: based on 11 ratings
Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 2
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
An entertaining chess simulation from the textfire 12 pack., May 26, 2017*

The Textfire Demo 12-pack was released on April Fool's in 1998, claiming to be demos of an upcoming commercial studio called Textfire.

In this game, you play a pawn in a chess game. The game shows you the chess board. The storyline is actually pretty entertaining; it's fun being a pawn. This was a joke demo; it actually would be great to do a chess game where you saw inside all the character's heads, their thought process, etc.

* This review was last edited on June 5, 2017
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A snack., May 6, 2022

Zugzwang puts you in the position of a chess piece close to the end of a game. Sounds quirky? It definitely is.

The game is extremely short (10 turns) and extremely linear (two paths). For me that's a classic candidate for 1, max 2 stars. The game is so quirky though - the setting alone is unique, but there's also dialogue between the individual chess pieces, IF-style description of the events, optional examining - it still sucks as a game, but it has so much potential, and as a "proof of concept" it sort of shines. I constantly had to think of a Romeo and Juliet story unfolding through a chess game. Too bad this is just a (term used by game) demo.

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1 Off-Site Review

Baf's Guide


Chess--at least, a few moves of it--implemented for the Z-machine, though it's not really a Z-Abuse as such. The board is represented in a status line of sorts, but you still enter your commands as text. Cleverly done; might be even better if implemented as full-blown chess exercise. This was one of the games in the 1998 April Fool's hoax called Textfire.

-- Duncan Stevens

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