Spider and Web

""Don't be absurd," he says. "You're no more a sightseer than the Old Tree in Capitol Square; and if you'd had enough sense to walk away from that door, you wouldn't be here. You don't and you didn't and are; we caught you. And you're going to start by telling me how you got through that door. Do you understand me?""

- The Interrogator, Spider and Web

Spider And Web is an independently written work of Interactive Fiction created by Andrew Plotkin, which won five of the 1998 Xyzzy Awards and was a finalist for four more. The story is told through a series of flashbacks by an Unreliable Narrator - who also happens to be the protagonist, an unnamed, captured spy, on an unknown mission against an unidentified country in the near future, and equipped with a wide variety of sophisticated tools.

The game may be found here.


 * Alien Sky: One of the pictures in the interrogator's office shows that this world has two moons. One of the interrogator's lines also mentions that there are two moons, and no-one's landed on either yet.
 * This makes it likely that the game takes place at a later stage in the history of the world in the same author's game So Far, which also has two moons.
 * Deconstruction Game
 * Framing Device: Your interrogation.
 * Heroic Mime: Not quite, but the majority of the interrogation is carried out through the interrogator using equipment to read your mind in induced flashbacks; uncommonly for an Interactive Fiction game, your only dialogue options are "yes" and "no".
 * Nintendo Hard
 * Not So Different: Your interrogator tries this on you.
 * No Name Given: You, and your interrogator's only referred to by his title: with'
 * Undead Author: Possible to achieve by dying in a flashback... upon which the interrogator will call you on it and let you retry.
 * Unreliable Narrator: You. Figuring out your cover story (and your real story) is the biggest challenge in the game.
 * Wham! Episode: Everything after.
 * Wham! Line:.
 * Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: You're sent in with cool gadgets that border on Applied Phlebotinum.
 * Wham! Line:.
 * Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: You're sent in with cool gadgets that border on Applied Phlebotinum.