Bronze

Fantasy Fort Speed-IF Gruff Participant XYZZY Awards 2006 Finalist - Best Use of Medium

Explore a large castle in this story based on The Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.

Bronze
Author(s)	Emily Short
Publisher(s)	n/a
Release date(s)	21-Jan-2006; 01-Mar-2006
Authoring system	Inform 7
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 a young girl or woman returning to the castle of the Beast after a seven day visit home with your sisters and taciturn father. It's actually a relief to get away from their concerns and suspicions.

The game asks if you've played interactive fiction before. If you answer no, this turns "novice mode" on (see notable features below).

You are empty-handed and stand at the drawbridge that crosses the moat outside the castle gate. Although you've spent several years here, your brief absence has made it seem strange to you again. It's time to go back inside.

Notable Features

(Most of these features are only in the expanded version of the game, although the Speed-IF version does have the color-coded compass rose.)

• The left side of the three-line high status bar lists your location, the region that the location is in, and a statistic of how many rooms you have searched. In the speed-if version, there are 31 rooms; in the expanded version, there are 55 rooms.
• The right side of the status bar has a color-coded ASCII graphic compass rose. Unexplored directions are in red; explored directions are in the default color.
• Has an optional "novice mode" feature. Key words in descriptions are set in boldface, and extra command help is provided in the form of a list of suggestions after every game response. This can be turned off with the "novice mode off" command.
• New verbs:
  • GO TO (room) will walk the PC back to any previously seen room.
  • FIND (object) will likewise walk you to any previously seen item.
  • LOOK (direction) lets you look into the next room.
  • ROOMS and OBJECTS will list all the rooms and objects you've seen, respectively.
  • THINK ABOUT (object) will sometimes give you more information about that item.
• Adaptive hinting.
• Multiple endings.

Versions

The Speed-IF version

• Bronze (Emily Short; 21-Jan-2006; Z-code). Speed-IF Gruff.
  • Version info: Release 1 / Serial number 060121 / Inform 7 build 3E48 (I6/v6.30 lib 6/10N)

The Expanded version

• Bronze (Emily Short; 01-Mar-2006; Z-code).
  • Version info: Release 9 / Serial number 060225 / Inform 7 build 3F37 (I6/v6.30 lib 6/10N)
  • Note: This version was released along with Damnatio Memoriae and The Reliques of Tolti-Aph as sample works for Inform 7, before Inform 7 itself was released.
  • XYZZY Awards 2006: Finalist for Best Use of Medium.

Further versions

• The current release number is 13.
  • Note: As the source code of Bronze is available and Inform 7 irremediably changes between builds, this work of interactive fiction needs to be updated often.

Links

General Info

• Bronze Homepage, at the Inform 7 Examples project. The website contains links to the story file, a .pdf manual, a .pdf map, a .txt walkthrough, a 'Making of Bronze' page, and the source text.
  • Previous homepages: [1], [2], [3].
• Bronze (archived) - at Baf's Guide
• Bronze - at IFDB.

Reviews

• Review (archive) by Daniel Hemmens. October 2010.
• Review (archive) by Paul O'Brian for IF-Review. May 2006.
• Bronze - at IFReviews.org

Spoilers

• ClubFloyd transcript.

Fractured Fairy Tales series by Emily Short
Bronze (2006)	Glass (2006)	Alabaster (2009)	Indigo (2011)