(text adventure game)
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If your machine is incompatible, you can download and play the game offline. Details are available, along with instructions of how to play, at the bottom of this page.
Varosha is a text adventure game based on the part of Gazimagusa (Ammochostos) in northern Cyprus that has been abandoned and inaccessible since the intervention of the Turkish military in August 1974.
The area had hitherto been the centre of the nascent tourism industry in Cyprus. As its population was almost exclusively Greek Cypriot, the UN resolved that Varosha could not be settled by anyone except its original community. As the island was divided with Greek Cypriots having to flee south of the Attila line, Varosha was hurriedly vacated and remains unoccupied to this day.
The district is fenced off, heavily guarded and patrolled by troops, who impose a strict ban on photography around its perimeter. Limited photographic and video documentation is, however, available, showing the present (or at least, recent) state of Varosha; this is mostly taken by people periodically managing to break through the fence without being noticed. Far more information is available in text form, though of course, this is not entirely reliable as it based on very few people’s accounts and is mixed with a good deal of rumour and speculation.
Within Cypriot politics and the so-called Cyprus Problem dispute, Varosha is used as a bargaining chip by one side, and as a propaganda tool by the other. Tourists can go on boat tours and buy entry into looking towers from nearby villages, where they are given the opportunity to look into the “ghost town” with binoculars and read various accounts of atrocities and memories of how the district had previously been.
Quite a considerable amount of mythology has built up about Varosha, spurred on in recent years through discussion forums on the web. It is, of course, difficult to distinguish how closely this represents its actual condition, as visiting as well as photographing the area is disallowed.
The game reconstructs the district in its present state, in the form of an interactive fiction. Source material has been used that may or may not bear relation to the real place. Some of this involves guess work from pre-1974 maps and information, the rest is from unverifiable second-hand accounts and hearsay evidence.
Vokzal is releasing the game in versions adding material from different sources with each release. The version currently available is the first (version 0.1) and uses information from:
http://wikimapia.org/1109056/Varosha-Mara%C5%9F-%CE%92%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%8E%CF%83%CE%B9%CE%B1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varosha_(Famagusta)
http://www.magusa.org/mix/Gazimagusa.jpg
http://vokzal.info/varosha/varosha.bmp
Download
Varosha version 0.1 (z8 file)
To play, you’ll need to install a Z-Machine interpreter, such as
Frotz (Linux), Zoom (Mac/Linux), Spatterlight (Mac) or Windows Frotz (Windows).
There is a more comprehensive list at http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/FAQ#How_can_I_download_and_play_IF.3F
How to play
A few example commands are “go”, “enter”, “examine”, “touch”, “take”, “drop”, “climb”, “eat”, “push”, “attack”, “look”, “inventory”.
eg
You are stood outside a building.
> enter building
You are now inside the building.
> look
There is a rat scurrying around.
> attack rat
You kill the rodent with your bare hands.
> take rat
Taken.
> inventory
You are carrying:
a dead rat
> eat rat
It tastes vile.
More in-depth instructions are at http://www.brasslantern.org/beginners/playta1.html