Incanus

Juan Sebastián Armas is better known as Incanus.

History: Me and IF

It all began, back to the very begining, on an old school's friends project; it was conceived among friends, never really developed, then abandoned for university pursuits, and finally brought back on my own first professional years (computing and such, not quite original, I know). And so it was that, still way back (July 1998), I coded my first adventure game.

Well... such as it was. I didn't had many resources, back then: no Internet access, hardly a PC to work on... so (knowing zilch about parser languages) I dusted off an old 80's game programming theory book (..!..) and made up a little program on QBasic 1.1 (God, was it all precarious) with the bones of an IF: parser, places, objects, vocabulary and a few NPCs (actually, objects + vocabulary).

The resulting mongrel of a game was played and criticiced by a few close friends and relations... but I never persued it any further.

Cut to 6 years later, on or about mid 2004, my interest on IF revives... so I resurrected said adventure, using InformATE (spanish library for Inform 6.30).

As for what happened since then, read on...

Author Credits

So far, I've created the following Adventure Games:

• La Mansión (06-Jan-2005; Z-code; Spanish). Webpage.
  My first adventure game. It's a mystery and sci-fi (I hope) game that takes place on an old manor, with many rooms, many corners... and many a strange thing (suspense...). You can see the tech specs here.
• El Protector (20-Jul-2005; Z-code; Spanish). Webpage.
  A small ecologycal survival tale, sci-fi style, takes place on a strange world with vast savanas... and merciless Hunters prowling. You can see the tech specs here.
• Goteras (23-Jun-2006; Z-code; Spanish). Webpage.
  A "hard" sci-fi short tale; the "disaster in space" classic... with some humorous twists. You can see the tech specs here.
• Macetas (30-Aug-2007; Z-code; Spanish). FICOMP winner: awarded Best Adventure and Best Story. Webpage.
  A "hard" sci-fi long tale; you finally arrive at the mining asteroid... and a taxing company's assignment awaits you. Sequel to Goteras. You can see the tech specs here.
• Afuera (21-Dec-2007; Z-code; Spanish).Webpage.
  A sci-fi short tale; you're a prisoner, a convicted criminal, doing time in the higher levels of the Pyramid, and now you're getting ready to go... Outside. III Mini Comp entry. You can see the tech specs here.

Keep in mind: these games are in Spanish, and I won't be translating them to English any time soon.

Review and Article Credits

• SPAC #41 - A Testing Methodology. Generic methodology to perform an IF game testing. Article in Spanish.
• SPAC #49 - An Adventure Craft Methodology. Generic methodology to create an IF game. Article in Spanish.
• Adventure Genres, published on SPAC 2.0. Article in Spanish.

Organizational Credits

• Mantains InformATE! Inform's spanish translation library InformATE webpage.
• Mantains WikiCAAD - The Spanish IFWiki.
• Betatested CellarDoor, a Z-machine and Glulx interpreter for PalmOS.

Links

• Author's page (Spanish)
• Author's page (English)
• Author's blog (Spanish)
• Baf's Guide listing for Incanus
• IFDB's listing for Incanus

Interviews

• SPAC #44 - Interview with Incanus by Antonia Visiedo about himself, his works and collaboration with the spanish IF Community. (Spanish)
• SPAC #51 - Interview with Incanus by Depresiv about himself, his works and collaboration with the spanish IF Community. (Spanish)
• SPAG #49 - Incanus is interviewed, along with several members of the Spanish IF community. (English)