
Curses, Release 12
==================

The long-awaited, expanded "Curses" is now out.

It is quite a lot larger and more luxurious: 224K of story file
instead of 128K.  (This makes it larger than "Trinity", for instance.)

"Curses", for those who will otherwise email me to ask, is a game
designed to run on any Infocom-standard interpreter.  The game is
a single (binary) file,

  if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform/curses.z5

at the FTP site ftp.gmd.de.  However, to play it you do need an
interpreter.  General (very portable) ANSI C source for these
can be found in if-archive/infocom/interpreters, as can executables
for some machines.  It is not difficult to get an interpreter going,
and once you have, you can also play the story files from the
"Lost Treasures of Infocom" games, so it isn't a total waste of
time even if you hate "Curses".

The previous release (10) will still be available as

  if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform/old_curses.z3

for those unfortunates with very primitive interpreters which cannot
manage .z5 files.


As "Curses" opens, you're hunting about in the attic of your family
home, looking for a tatty old map of Paris (you're going on holiday
tomorrow) and generally trying to avoid all the packing.  Aunt Jemima
is potting daisies and sulking; the attics are full of endless
distractions and secrets; Greek myths, horoscopes, sixth-century
politics, a less than altogether helpful demon, a mysterious bomb plot,
photography, ritual, poetry and a dream or two all get in your way; and
somehow you keep being reminded of your family through the ages, and
all its Curses...

...could it be that even you are Cursed?


"Curses" is not shareware, it's free: I wrote it for fun and to
write a game "as games should be written".  (But it is copyright, and its
source code is not available.)  The only slight moral obligation I put on
players is to ask them to write to me with any bugs or potential
improvements they can.


Graham Nelson
Oxford University, UK
June 1st, 1994
