The Grumpy Cricket

• ***The Grumpy Cricket (And Other Enormous Creatures)**** is a lighthearted interactive fiction game by John Goerzen[1].

As interactive fiction, it's like an e-book, but the reader is also the player, guiding the exploration of the world.

The Grumpy Cricket is designed to be friendly for a first-time player of interactive fiction. There is no way to lose the game or to die. There is an in-game hint system providing context-sensitive hints anytime the reader types HINT. There are splashes of humor throughout that got all three of my kids laughing.

I wrote it in 2023 for my kids, which then ranged in age from 6 to 17.

The Grumpy Cricket is Free Software.

For the best experience, download and play on your device:

• The latest version can be downloaded from its page at the Internet Archive[2]. Generally, you'll want the .z8 file.
• To run the .z8 file, you'll need a Z-code interpreter[3] for your system. On Debian[4], run `apt-get install frotz` and then `frotz the-grumpy-cricket.z8` to play.
• The source code is available on Salsa[5].

This came is also listed on the Interactive Fiction Database[6].

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(c) 2022-2024 John Goerzen