Shade
 Drama  Home  One-room |
 Finalist - Best Game, Best Writing, Best Story, Best Individual PC, Best Use of Medium |
A short one room game by Andrew Plotkin that casts the player inside a cramped apartment, completing a few remaining house chores before leaving for an arts festival called "Death Valley Om," realizing the tragic truth at the end.
This is Andrew Plotkin's entry in the 6th Annual IF Competition in 2000, where it garnered tenth place. It also tied with Emily Short's Metamorphoses for the third place for the Miss Congeniality award during the same competition.
| Shade | |
|---|---|
| |
| Author(s) | Andrew Plotkin |
| Publisher(s) | n/a |
| Release date(s) | 2000 |
| Authoring system | Inform |
| Platform(s) | Z-code |
| Language(s) | English |
| License(s) | Freeware |
| Multimedia | |
| Color effects | none |
| Graphics | none |
| Sound/Music | none |
| Ratings | |
| Cruelty scale | Merciful |
How It Begins
You are an undefined person in a small, dim apartment, preparing to leave on a trip to California. There are various things in your apartment to explore and interact with. However, as you continue to explore and find your missing plane tickets, the game advances into a spooky theme; rooms and objects begin suspiciously changing, adding to the atmosphere. Before long, the cliché beginning apartment IF game becomes an interesting story, with an ending to be deciphered by the players.
Notable Features
Versions
Competition release
- Shade (Andrew Plotkin as "Ampe R. Sand"; 2000; Z-code).
- Release 2 / Serial number 000925 / Inform v6.21 Library 6/10
- IFID: ZCODE-2-000925-3AA8
IFID links: IFDB - IF Comp 2000: 10th place of 53 entries. Also tied with 3rd place with Metamorphoses (Emily Short) for Miss Congeniality.
- XYZZY Awards 2000: Winner of Best Setting; also a finalist for Best Game, Best Writing, Best Story, Best Individual PC, and Best Use of Medium.
- Download shade.z5 from the IF Archive - The story file.
Release 3
- Shade (Andrew Plotkin; 2000; Z-code).
- Release 3 / Serial number 001127 / Inform v6.21 Library 6/10
- IFID: ZCODE-3-001127-C86D
IFID links: IFDB - Download shade.z5 from the IF Archive - The z-machine story file.
- Download Shade-R3.hqx from the IF Archive - A Mac OS Application (encoded in Macintosh Bin/Hex format.)
Links
General Info
- Shade listing at Zarfhome.
- Shade (archived) - at Baf's Guide
- Shade - at IFDB
Reviews
- Shade - at SPAG.
- Shade - at IF Ratings.
- Review by Jeremy Douglass for Electronic Book Review.
- Review by Paul O'Brian.
- Review by Dan Shiovitz.
- Review (archive) by Emily Short for Play This Thing!
- Review by Duncan Stevens.
- Review by Corneilius S. Herrmann
Spoilers
- Shade walkthrough by David Welbourn.
- SPAG #23 - Contains a SPAG Specifics analysis by Duncan Stevens.
- Download shade-src.tar.Z from the IF Archive - Source code, compressed in "tarball" format.
- ClubFloyd transcript (2014, NightFloyd).
- ClubFloyd transcript (2014).
- ClubFloyd transcript (2021).