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Anchorhead (game)
''Anchorhead'' is a Lovecraftian horror interactive fiction game, originally written and published by Michael S. Gentry in 1998. The game is heavily inspired by the works and writing style of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly the Cthulhu mythos. ''Anchorhead'' takes place in a fictional New England town of the same name, where the unnamed protagonist and her husband, a professor and aspiring writer, have relocated to in order to take possession of his ancestral family home. Through historical investigation of the town and her husband's family, the protagonist uncovers a conspiracy to perform a ritual that will summon a Great Old One and put the planet in jeopardy. The protagonist must stop the ritual from occurring and save her husband. The game story takes place across three days, with the first two corresponding to whole days and the third day divided into a number of segments. There is no time limit in the first two days; each day ends when the player has completed a required ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Z-machine
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions (called story files or Z-code files) and could therefore port its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a Z-machine implementation for that platform. With the large number of incompatible home computer systems in use at the time, this was an important advantage over using native code or developing a compiler for each system. History and design Nomenclature and conventions The "Z" of Z-machine stands for ''Zork'', Infocom's first adventure game. Infocom used file extensions of .dat (Data) and .zip (ZIP = Z-machine Interpreter Program), but the latter clashed with the widespread use of .zip for PKZIP-compatible archive files starting in the 1990s, after Activision had closed Infocom. Infocom produced six versions of the Z-machine. Files using versions 1 a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of XYZZY Awards By Category
The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year prior to the award ceremony is eligible for nomination to receive an award. The decision process takes place in two stages: members of the interactive fiction community nominate works within specific categories and sufficiently supported nominations become finalists within those categories. Community members then vote among the finalists, and the game receiving a plurality of votes is given the award in an online ceremony. Since 1997, the XYZZY Awards have become one of the most important events within the interactive fiction community. Together with events like the Interactive Fiction Competition and Spring Thing, the XYZZY Awards provide opportunities for the community to encourage and reward the creation and development of new work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Source Code
In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only understands machine code, source code must be Translator (computing), translated before a computer can Execution (computing), execute it. The translation process can be implemented three ways. Source code can be converted into machine code by a compiler or an assembler (computing), assembler. The resulting executable is machine code ready for the computer. Alternatively, source code can be executed without conversion via an interpreter (computing), interpreter. An interpreter loads the source code into memory. It simultaneously translates and executes each statement (computer science), statement. A method that combines compilation and interpretation is to first produce bytecode. Bytecode is an intermediate representation of source code tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-player Character
A non-player character (NPC) is a character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster (or referee) rather than by another player. In video games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer (instead of a player) that has a predetermined set of behaviors that potentially will impact gameplay, but will not necessarily be the product of true artificial intelligence. Role-playing games In traditional tabletop role-playing games such as ''Dungeons & Dragons'', an NPC is a character portrayed by the gamemaster (GM). While the player characters (PCs) form the narrative's protagonists, non-player characters can be thought of as the "supporting cast" or "extras" of a roleplaying narrative. Non-player characters populate the fictional world of the game, and can fill any role not occupied by a player character. Non-player characters might be alli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arkham
Arkham () is a fictional city situated in Massachusetts, United States. An integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers. Arkham House, a publishing company started by two of Lovecraft's correspondents, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, takes its name from this city as a tribute. Arkham Asylum, a fictional mental hospital in DC Comics' Batman mythos, is also named after Lovecraft's Arkham. In Lovecraft's stories Arkham is the home of Miskatonic University, which features prominently in many of Lovecraft's works. The institution finances the expeditions in the novellas, '' At the Mountains of Madness'' (1936) and '' The Shadow Out of Time'' (1936). Walter Gilman, of "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1933), attends classes at the university. Other notable institutions in Arkham are the Arkham Historical Society and the Arkham Sanitarium. It is said in " Herbert Wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miskatonic River
Arkham () is a fictional city situated in Massachusetts, United States. An integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers. Arkham House, a publishing company started by two of Lovecraft's correspondents, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, takes its name from this city as a tribute. Arkham Asylum, a fictional mental hospital in DC Comics' Batman mythos, is also named after Lovecraft's Arkham. In Lovecraft's stories Arkham is the home of Miskatonic University, which features prominently in many of Lovecraft's works. The institution finances the expeditions in the novellas, ''At the Mountains of Madness'' (1936) and ''The Shadow Out of Time'' (1936). Walter Gilman, of "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1933), attends classes at the university. Other notable institutions in Arkham are the Arkham Historical Society and the Arkham Sanitarium. It is said in " Herbert West— ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Festival (short Story)
"The Festival" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft written in October 1923 and published in the January 1925 issue of ''Weird Tales''. Inspiration The story was inspired by Lovecraft's first trip to Marblehead, Massachusetts, in December 1922. Lovecraft later called that visit "the most powerful single emotional climax experienced during my nearly forty years of existence." The narrator's path through Kingsport corresponds to a route to the center of Marblehead; the house with the overhanging second story is probably based on Marblehead's 1 Mugford Street. The church in the story is St. Michael's Church (Marblehead, Massachusetts), St. Michael's Episcopal Church on Frog Lane. Built in 1714, it is the oldest Anglican Communion, Anglican church in New England that is still standing at its original site. The church is on a modest hill; for most of the 18th century, it had a steeple. Its crypt, where parishioners were interred, remains. Since Lovecraft visited the church (as evi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Music Of Erich Zann
"The Music of Erich Zann" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in December 1921, it was first published in ''National Amateur'', March 1922. The story is an account of the enigmatic Erich Zann, an elderly musician whose unique and unworldly melodies draw the curiosity of a young university student. Plot Due to lack of funds, a student studying metaphysics abroad is forced to take up lodging in a cheap apartment building on a street named the "Rue d'Auseil". The street is not far from his university and is bordered by a river, dark warehouses and a large wall, and is described as being very steeply inclined, as if being on a cliff. The student cannot see what lies on the other side of the wall, as only a single window on the top floor of his building looks over it. Along with the building's disabled landlord, Blandot, one of the few other tenants is an old German man named Erich Zann. The old man is mute and plays the viol with a local theater orche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dunwich Horror
"The Dunwich Horror" is a cosmic horror novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of ''Weird Tales'' (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts. It is considered one of the core stories of the Cthulhu Mythos. Plot In the desolate, decrepit Massachusetts village of Dunwich, Wilbur Whateley is the hideous son of Lavinia Whateley, a deformed and unstable albino, and an unknown father. Strange events surround Wilbur's birth and precocious development; he matures at an abnormal rate, reaching manhood within a decade. Locals shun him and his family, and animals fear and despise him due to his repellent appearance and an unnatural, inhuman odor emanating from his body. All the while his grandfather, a sorcerer called only Old Whateley, indoctrinates him into certain dark rituals and the study of witchcraft. Various locals grow suspicious after Old Whateley buys more and more cat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debugging
In engineering, debugging is the process of finding the Root cause analysis, root cause, workarounds, and possible fixes for bug (engineering), bugs. For software, debugging tactics can involve interactive debugging, control flow analysis, Logfile, log file analysis, monitoring at the application monitoring, application or system monitoring, system level, memory dumps, and profiling (computer programming), profiling. Many Programming language, programming languages and Programming tool, software development tools also offer programs to aid in debugging, known as debuggers. Etymology The term ''bug'', in the sense of defect, dates back at least to 1878 when Thomas Edison wrote "little faults and difficulties" in his inventions as "Bugs". A popular story from the 1940s is from Admiral Grace Hopper. While she was working on a Harvard Mark II, Mark II computer at Harvard University, her associates discovered a moth stuck in a relay that impeded operation and wrote in a log book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Programming
Computer programming or coding is the composition of sequences of instructions, called computer program, programs, that computers can follow to perform tasks. It involves designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of procedures, by writing source code, code in one or more programming languages. Programmers typically use high-level programming languages that are more easily intelligible to humans than machine code, which is directly executed by the central processing unit. Proficient programming usually requires expertise in several different subjects, including knowledge of the Domain (software engineering), application domain, details of programming languages and generic code library (computing), libraries, specialized algorithms, and Logic#Formal logic, formal logic. Auxiliary tasks accompanying and related to programming include Requirements analysis, analyzing requirements, Software testing, testing, debugging (investigating and fixing problems), imple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Level (video Gaming)
In video games, a level (also referred to as a map, mission, stage, course, or round in some older games) is any space available to the player during the course of completion of an objective. Video game levels generally have progressively increasing difficulty to appeal to players with different skill levels. Each level may present new concepts and challenges to keep a player's interest high to play for a long time. In games with linear progression, levels are areas of a larger world, such as Green Hill Zone. Games may also feature interconnected levels, representing locations. Although the challenge in a game is often to defeat some sort of character, levels are sometimes designed with a movement challenge, such as a jumping puzzle, a form of obstacle course. Players must judge the distance between platforms or ledges and safely jump between them to reach the next area. These puzzles can slow the momentum down for players of fast action games; the first ''Half-Life'''s penul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
