Curses is an interactive fiction computer
game created by Graham Nelson in 1993.
It was originally developed on an Acorn Archimedes
using Acorn C/C++, before Nelson moved to
his Inform programming language, which was
simultaneously released.
It was the first non-test game developed in
the language.
It is distributed without charge as a Z-Code
executable.
Writing for The New York Times, Edward Rothstein
described the game as "acclaimed."
The Inform source code is not publicly available.
Appearing in the beginning of the non-commercial
era of interactive fiction, it is considered
one of the milestones of the genre.
The player takes the part of an English aristocrat
called Victor Meldrew.
In the course of searching the attic for an
old tourist map of Paris, Meldrew steps into
a surreal adventure to uncover a centuries-old
curse that has been placed on the family.
The goal of the game is to find the missing
map, and thus annul the curse.
== Innovations ==
Curses contains some innovations that contribute
to its appeal.
Managing the player's inventory by automatically
placing items in a container to make room
for an object needed in hand (such as placing
an item in the rucksack when reading an entry
in a book), eliminating the tedium of having
to manually drop one item before picking up
another.
Commands places and objects, displaying all
the locations visited and all the objects
seen during the game.
== See also ==
Jigsaw (video game), another Graham Nelson
game that serves as a loose sequel to Curses
Turtle (robot) (a voice-operated form of the
robot appears in one of the game's more difficult
puzzles
