Whom The Telling Changed

Whom The Telling Changed
Game

Main links	Play online IFDB
Published	31 March 2005
Credits
Author	Aaron A. Reed
Reception
Events	XYZZY Awards 2005 Winner: Best Individual NPC XYZZY Awards 2005 Finalist: Best Use of Medium Spring Thing 2005 1st of 6
IFDB rating	4 out of 5 (65 ratings)
Gameplay
Interaction style	Parser
Literary genre	Drama
Language	English
Accessibility	Colour: none. Graphics: none. Sound: none.
Technical details
Authoring system	Inform 6
Format	Z-code 8
IFID	ZCODE-1-050330-5FD6, ZCODE-2-051204-63BA
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How it begins

Tonight is the night of the storytelling, a night in which your tribe comes together to hear the wisdom of ancient tales. And they will need wisdom, because strangers have appeared with unknown intentions. Will you shape the story to change others, or will the story end up changing you?

Notable features

In the first moves of the game, the player determines both the player character's occupation and his/her gender through in-game actions.
The game makes heavy use of a conversation system in which topics that can be discussed are highlighted. Simply typing the highlighted word will steer the conversation a certain way.
There are multiple endings, based on what message the player character found in the story of Gilgamesh, and whether (s)he was able to convince his/her fellow tribesmen of that message.
Sometimes, it is hard to see what effect mentioning a certain keyword will have on the progress of the story. At other times, the game makes this more explicit.

Versions

Release 1

Date: 31 March 2005

Whom The Telling Changed (Aaron A. Reed; 31-Mar-2005; Z-code 8).
- Beta-testing by James Cunningham, Michael Fransioli, and Henrik Jensen.
- Release 1 / Serial number 050330 / Inform v6.30 Library 6/11 S
- IFID: ZCODE-1-050330-5FD6
  IFID links: IFDB
- Spring Thing 2005: 1st place of 6 entries.
- XYZZY Awards 2005: Winner of Best Individual NPC (the storyteller). Finalist for Best Use of Medium.

Release 2

Date: December 2005 (uncertain)

Whom The Telling Changed (Aaron A. Reed; c.Dec-2005; Z-code 8).
- IFID: ZCODE-2-051204-63BA
  IFID links: IFDB

Note 1: There's probably been a few versions released.

Note 2: Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition 2006: Was a Finalist.

Note 3: Whom the Telling Changed was also published as part of the Electronic Literature Collection Volume One in October 2006. See the collection's Whom the Telling Changed page.

Links

N.B. Many IF Archive games are temporarily unavailable in the UK.

Note: To refer to this game from another page, you can type {{game citation|Whom The Telling Changed}}. This will display as Whom The Telling Changed (Aaron A. Reed; 2005; Inform 6; Z-code).