Lampward
cd ..

Shade

Andrew Plotkin · 2000

You are packing for a flight that leaves in a few hours. Your apartment is small. Something is wrong with it.

Play

SAVE creates a named Lampward checkpoint on this device. Nothing is saved automatically.

  • Z-code
  • Psychological
  • Parser
  • About 45 minutes
  • 106 KB

About

Shade takes place in a single studio apartment in the small hours of the morning. You have a plane to catch, a bag to find, a glass of water to fetch. The game asks you to do very ordinary things.

It is a one-room game in the way a held breath is a pause. Plotkin uses the constraint to make the familiar go quietly wrong, and the whole piece takes well under an hour. Going in knowing nothing further is the right way to play it.

Tags

  • Classic
  • One room
  • Psychological
  • Short

History

This chronology includes the world around Shade: background that may predate the game, its creation and publication, and later editions, research, and preservation. An early date is historical context, not necessarily a game release.

  1. Publication

    Shade published — by Andrew Plotkin

    The publication year for the work itself. Earlier entries are historical background, not earlier releases of the game.

  2. Lampward

    Playable release — Release 3

    The exact release Lampward currently serves. It may be a later edition or port of an older work.

Documents & sources

  • reference · Reference

    Shade on IFDB

    Reviews and release history for Plotkin's one-room game.

    IFDB

  • reference · Reference

    Shade at the author's site

    Andrew Plotkin's own page for the game, where he continues to host Release 3 and offers it for free play and download. This is the public statement Lampward's hosting basis rests on.

    eblong.com

  • reference · Reference

    Shade on IFWiki

    Background on the game and its place in Plotkin's work.

    IFWiki

Rights to these documents are separate from rights to the game. Lampward links to archives it may not mirror, and says so rather than implying it holds a copy.

Credits & License

Credits
Andrew Plotkin.
Playing
Shade — Release 3, Z-code 5, serial 001127
IFID ZCODE-3-001127-C86D
License
The game's own ABOUT text grants free distribution of the unchanged story file while prohibiting sale or inclusion in a for-profit collection without the author's written permission.
Use
The author permits the game to be distributed freely, but it may not be sold or included in any for-profit collection without his written permission. Lampward hosts it noncommercially on that basis.
Source
Notices

Copyright © 2000 Andrew Plotkin.

Shade may be distributed freely, but it may not be sold, nor included in any for-profit collection, without written permission from the author, Andrew Plotkin.

Artwork
No cover art is used; the title card is generated by Lampward.

Rights to the game binary, to cover art, and to any documentary material on this page are separate. A permission covering one does not cover the others.

More bibliographic detail: this title on IFDB