Pass the Banana

From IFWiki

Comedy Surreal One-room IF Comp 1999 33rd of 37

Pass the Banana
Author(s)	Admiral Jota
Publisher(s)	n/a
Release date(s)	1999
Authoring system	Inform 6
Platform(s)	Z-code 5
Language(s)	English
License(s)	Public domain
Multimedia
Color	none
Graphics	none
Sound/Music	none
Ratings
Cruelty scale	Merciful

How It Begins

Yes, we have no bananas.

You might be anyone carrying nine bananas. You are in the Adventurer's Lounge, which is decorated with candles, hand-drawn maps, a trophy case, plentiful seating, and there's a closet to the north. You also see a giant flaming head, a monkey and Melvin the Robot here.

(No goal is explicitly stated, but the game is called Pass the Banana. You might try that.)

Notable Features

• Several IF and ifMUD in-jokes. For example:
  • The setting, the Adventurer's Lounge, is from ifMUD. It is likewise normally decorated with candles, maps, trophy case, etc.
  • The size of the story file is 69,105 bytes.
  • Monkey jokes have always been popular on ifMUD, and passing bananas from one player to another was (once upon a time) an occassional activity there. Round brackets, "(" and ")", were sometimes called bananas, and some of the bananas passed would be just have a round bracket character for its name.
  • The description of Melvin mentions Floyd, the robot first seen in Planetfall (Infocom).
  • The response "Eat the banana? How unseemly!" is a nod to Varicella (Adam Cadre; 1999; Z-code).
  • One secret ending's rank is a nod to Varicella (Adam Cadre; 1999; Z-code).
• The NPCs can be talked to via ask-tell, but it's mostly just "ask".
• The maximum score is 10, including one last lousy point.

Versions

Release 1 (Competition entry)

• Pass the Banana (Admiral Jota; 1999; Z-code 5).
  • Release 1 / Serial number 990921 / Inform v6.15 Library 6/7
  • IFID: ZCODE-1-990921-479F
    Babel: metadata, download. (Babel services at IF Archive are not yet available.)
  • IF Comp 1999: 33rd place of 37 entries.
  • Download banana.z5 ( ftp, random) from the IF Archive - The story file.
  • Or play it online at ifiction.org.

Links

General info

• Pass the Banana - at Baf's Guide.
• Pass the Banana - at IFDB.

Reviews

• Pass the Banana - at SPAG.
• Pass the Banana - at IF Ratings.
• Review - by Paul O'Brian.
• Review - by Mike Roberts.
• Review - by Dan Shiovitz.

Spoilers

• Download banana.wlk ( ftp, random) from the IF Archive - Plaintext walkthrough by the author.