The Trotting Krip Mailbag...It's Not Just A Mailbag, It's An Experience

Week two of our grand mailbag arrives not one, but TWO days late. Well, that's a pity, but I say it's better late than never. For those of you just joining us, let me explain to you the grand concept behind this bag o' trash: Weird people send us E-mail. A good bit of it. We print their E-mails. If they ask questions, we try to answer them. If they flame us, we moan and weep and flame the suckers back. If they comment favorably on the site, we offer them a lifetime subscription to the exclusive e-zine Trotting Krips Monthly(not available in stores, via Internet, or through this special offer) and kiss their ass a bit. You get the idea. The mailbag is a lot of fun. Since this is the second week of its existence, you might be thinkin' to yourself: "Hey! There must have been a mailbag put out during week #1!" Wow! You're right! There was one! And you can read it by browsing through the stupendous archives

You can get printed in our mailbag by writing us(duh) at trottingkrips@zombieworld.com Make our day. Hell, make YOUR day. Make everybody's day. Just write!

Cool beans. With competition furor in full swing this week, a lot of our E-mail this week concerns that hallowed institution and its 1999 incarnation in particular. Read and enjoy. Note that our responses are in italics.

Dear Trotting Krips:

I read the little rant in the forum with some interest. I pretty much agree with you, the competition is cool and I don't want it to be done away with, but at the same time it's not an effective indicator of the entire "scene." It's just a special fun'n'games event that shouldn't be made out to be more than it is. However, I've gotta say, I'm REALLY looking forward to play the games next week(or this week...hey...what the heck day is it it anyway). BTW, the rest of the site's pretty cool also.

It's funny to be answering this on the day the games were released, but life's full of funny little things. That's what makes it bearable, right? Sure! I have to admit that even I, the self-proclaimed activist for all interactive fiction, meager and great, am quickly being caught up in this whole comp fever thing. There are some pretty good games this year, like in every other year. And Mikko Vuorinen's kicks ass! I beat it in twenty minutes, but I enjoyed every second. It's also cool that Rybread Celsius is starting to seem more and more like some avante-garde genius who is out to invent a wholly new style of writing rather than some dolt who insists on producing crappy adventure games everybody hates playing.

Dear Trotting Krips:

Hi. First of all, GREAT site. I visit it often to read all the reviews, and the other great features that are being added constantly. I think this mailbag is a great idea, and I hope all future mailbags follow the same formula the first one did. It had just the right blend of nonsensical humor and "serious" queries to make for good reading. I'm writing specifically about one of my favorite Infocom games that everyone else seems to consider an abomination: "Plundered Hearts." Why don't people like this one?? I think it's GREAT...it totally appeals to the secret trashy romance reader inside of me. I like Plotkin, too, but he doesn't do THAT for me! Anyway, I would love to see a review of "Plundered Hearts" from a "Krip" perspective, if that would be possible. Please be kind towards the dear game for me if you can! Bye bye and keep on kripping! :-)

Danke for the compliments. I do intend to review more Infocom games in the future. Maybe "Plundered Hearts." Maybe not, though, cuz I kinda thought it sucked. I've been wrong before, howevah. Actually, what you could do for us is write up a little review of "Plundered Hearts" yourself - we'd be glad to put it up.

Dear Trotting Krips:

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
where are the warez?
the search engine said that i could get a copy of ea sports nhl 98, but i sure as hell dont see it anymore. i frickin hate web sites that advertise crap they dont have. dumbass

One must be polite when replying to someone with such a dignified and respectable moniker as "Oilboy", eh? I don't know where this one came from, but it's a bit funny in a strange and unusual way, so here it is. He should have just picked up his free warez copy of EA Sports' NHL 98 from http://www.trottingkrips.com/hack/warez/warez/porn/warez/bannerwarez/abba/waresthewarez/nhl98.zip. Just how hard is it to get that right?

Dear Trotting Krips:

Please do tell us what the "Trotting Krip" approach to the competition is going to be!!?! I'm excited: the most irreverent of IF review sites tackles the most traditional and hallowed institution in the genre! Sparks will fly and blood will spill. I think the Comp is going to be great this year. Maybe even better than last year's, though I bet Adam Cadre isn't entering because he's already released "Varicella". Adam is my favorite IF writer of all time, by the way, and I think Varicella at least deserves a nine out of ten. I would personally give it a ten along with "Photopia." But, umm, I'm getting off topic here. I'll check back when it's comp time!

Dear Trotting Krips:

I seem to be stuck in a space ship with some three headed freak, a hot chick, and a whacky robot(named "Marvin", but that's a matter of course). It's really cool. Kind of gold colored, got lots of neat technologically advanced "features" like Infinite Improbability Drives, a talking computer, and no tea. What should I do? I mean, yeah, this is definitely a cooler place to hang than that last dump I was at that had all the smelly underwear, crappy poetry, and green, wart-infested alien lifeforms, but I'm getting lonely up here. Maybe if I could find that hot chick...

Say, where I have I heard of this Nassar guy before?

Dear Trotting Krips:

I've enjoyed the site immensely. You guys seem to share my own views on interactive fiction: it doesn't matter if the game is written in AGT or Alan, Inform or TADS, with graphics or without. If it's good, it's worth playing! I'm curious to know, however, if you guys are willing to take the next big step and start reviewing text adventures written for older systems that are now playable via emulators. I do not know if either of you are aware of what emulation is, nor do I know if you approve of it(actually, I take that back. I swear I've found a couple references to emulation on this site, so I'm pretty sure you guys at least know what is. That's what made me write!). All I know is that there are a WEALTH of adventure games that have probably never been reviewed by anyone but are outstanding programs certainly worthy of being featured on this site, but most people haven't played them simply because they were written originally for the Commodore 64 or Apple II. Granted, there's a great big legal gray area around "emulation" so I can't fault anyone who doesn't want anything to do with it, but in my opinion classic games are classic games, and they should continue to be enjoyed until they can no longer be. Dare I hope?