System's Twilight: An Abstract Fairy Tale is a graphical interactive fiction

Interactive fiction

Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...

 computer game created by Andrew Plotkin

Andrew Plotkin

Andrew Plotkin , also known as Zarf, is a central figure in the modern interactive fiction community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other utilities for the design, production, and running of IF games, Plotkin is...

 in 1993.

Summary

The game is a combination of puzzle and story, combining several different kinds of logic puzzles and word puzzles. The puzzles include variations of Set

SET (game)

Set is a real-time card game designed by Marsha Falco in 1974 and published by Set Enterprises in 1991. The deck consists of 81 cards varying in four features: number ; symbol ; shading ; and color...

 and Black Box

Black Box (game)

Black Box is a game of "hide and seek" for one or two players, which simulates shooting rays into a black box to deduce the locations of atoms hidden inside. It was created by Eric Solomon. The board game was published by Waddingtons from the mid 1970s and by Parker Brothers in the late 1970s...

, as well as many others. The overarching story is an allegory

Allegory

Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...

 in which the player and other characters are programs in a broken, dysfunctional computer environment.

Originally, Plotkin released System's Twilight as shareware

Shareware

The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...

. Since 2000, it has been re-released as binary-only freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

. It runs only on the Mac OS

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

 Classic environment, but can be run in emulation

Emulator

In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...

 on other platforms.

External links

• System's Twilight
• System's Twilight Hint Guide by Wei-Hwa Huang
  Wei-Hwa Huang
  Wei-Hwa Huang is an award-winning American puzzler and member of the US Team for the World Puzzle Federation....