Update, July 2015 — the link to the original is dead. The IFDB entry from the Hamlet text game points to a link that also seems to be dead.
Who really killed Hamlet’s dad? What does King Richard III want with a horse anyway? And where did the gravedigger get that gorgeous pink dress? Avenge your father, defeat your evil uncle and ascend the throne of Denmark in William Shakespeare’s long undiscovered text adventure. —Robin Johnson —The Most Lamentable and Excellent Text Adventure of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Online Residence of Robin Johnson)
Very nice, Scott-Adamsesque implementation of Hamlet as a text adventure. Doesn’t shoot nearly as high as Graham Nelson’s verson of The Tempest (game | my review) but the JavaScript interface looks very smooth. I’ve got a long-dormant work-in-progress that features a character with a speech impediment, so I was amused to see Johnson’s treament of Ophelia.
Dear Miss Dix, I am a young lady of Scandinavian origin, and I am in a quandary.
I am not exactly broody, but I am kind of pondery.
I got a twenty-five waist and a thirty-five bust,
And I am going with a chap whose folks are very uppercrust.
He is the intellectual type, which I wouldn’t want to disparage,
Because I understand they often ripen into love after marriage,
But here I am all set
For dalliance,
And what do I get?
Shilly-shalliance.
Just when I think he’s going to disrobe me with his eyes,
He gets up off the davenport and sighs.
Every time I let down my hair,
He starts talking to himself or the little man who isn’t there.
Every time he ought to be worrying about me,
Why, he’s worrying about his mother, that’s my mother-in-law to be,
And I say let’s burn that bridge when we come to it, and he says don’t I have any sin sense,
Her uncle and her live in incense.
Well, with me that’s fine,
Let them go to their church and I’ll go to mine.
But no, that’s not good enough for Mr. Conscience and his mental indigestion,
He’s got to find two answers for every question.
If a man is a man, a girl to him is a girl, if I correctly rememma,
But to him I am just a high pathetical dilemma.
What I love him in spite of
Is, a girl wants a fellow to go straight ahead like a locomotive and he is more like a loco-might-of.
Dear Miss Dix, I surely need your advice and solace,
It’s like I was in love with Henry Wallace.
Well, while I eagerly await your reply I’m going down to the river to pick flowers. I’ll get some rosemary if I can’t find a camellia.
Yours truly, Ophelia
THE STRANGE CASE OF THE LOVELORN LETTER WRITER
Ogden Nash