- Frenetic Five
The Frenetic Five is a series of three
text adventures about a band ofsuperhero es, all made withTADS version 2 and distributed asfreeware . The series was created byNeil deMause for theInteractive Fiction Competition .Games
*"The Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang" (1997;
TADS 2).
**IF Comp 1997: 13th place. Winner ofXYZZY Award for Best NPCs 1997. Also finalist forXYZZY Award for Best Individual PC atXYZZY Awards 1997.
**Sturm and Drang ("und" is the German word for "and") are a pair of supervillains who intend to use a machine called the "melodramaturge" to imbue the world with excessive excitement.
*"The Frenetic Five vs. Mr. Redundancy Man" (1999; TADS 2).
**Finalist forXYZZY Award for Best Individual Puzzle and XYZZY Award for Best NPCs at the XYZZY Awards 1999.
**Mr. Redundancy Man's evil scheme is to tie the planet Earth inred tape .*"The Frenetic Five vs. the Seven Deadly Dwarves" (2002; TADS 2).
**Finalist for XYZZY Award for Best NPCs at the XYZZY Awards 2002.
**The Seven Deadly Dwarves' evil plan is to blow up the mine's power plant. This is the only Frenetic Five game with amaze .Characters
* Brett, aka "Improv": The player. Improv is the leader of the group, and a dedicated
MacGyver fan with a similar ability to devise improbable solutions to challenges encountered during the course of the game.* Antonia, aka "Pastiche": According to FF1, every one of Pastiche's body parts has a different superpower. Was nicknamed "Swiss Army" in
high school . She can: move (or "phase") her hand through solid objects; singhumor ous variations of many songs; breakplywood doors up to 1centimeter in thickness (FF2); heatlasagna bytelepathy (FF2); instantaneously slice and diceroot vegetable s, such aspotato es (FF3); disperse gory messes (FF3); discern compass directions underground (FF3). To offset Pastiche's many superpowers, she also has a number of weaknesses: she cannot phase throughrope , and all her powers are inhibited nearwheat products, such aspasta .* Deborah, aka "The Clapper": Able to find any object by clapping her hands and naming it, making it beep if it is nearby. The least-used in the three games, she does not even appear in the third.
* Mitchel, aka "Lexicon", aka "Lex": A walking
dictionary . Lex knows nearly all of the words of theEnglish language , and can deduce which verbs are needed for puzzles. His is Mr. Redundancy Man, whose orations are torture for Lex.* Pete, aka "Newsboy": The youngest of the
pentet , Newsboy is a walking RSS feed, constantly receiving headlines from an unidentified source.* Cecily: The weekend desk worker at SuperTemps. Fills in for Bob in FF3.
* Medic Alert: Beeps loudly to alert the authorities. Fills in for Clapper in FF3.
External links
* [http://www.demause.net/if.html Neil deMause: Interactive Fiction] (includes the Frenetic Five games)
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