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A Change in the Weather is a 1995 work of interactive fiction by Andrew Plotkin, in which the player-character is caught in a rainstorm while out in the countryside. It won the Inform category at the inaugural 1995 Interactive Fiction Competition. The game was included on Activision's 1996 commercial release of Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom.
The game is unusual in that its objective - to prevent a bridge, that the hero crosses early in the game, from being destroyed by the storm - is not apparent from the outset. The player has the option of simply walking away at the start of the game and never crossing the bridge, which ends the game immediately. Once the bridge has been crossed, the game ends immediately if the bridge is destroyed - although the ending states that the player character was able to safely return by other means, regardless. Likewise, if the player manages to save the bridge, they are simply returned to the start location, where all they can do is to leave by the same means that was available at the very start of the game, yielding the same ending message, but with an additional quote at the end. The game is thus taken to represent a literary message about the intrinsic value of personal experiences. (Wikipedia)

Appearing in the beginning of the non-commercial era of interactive fiction, it is considered one of the milestones of the genre. The player takes the part of an English aristocrat called Meldrew. In the course of searching the attic for an old tourist map of Paris, Meldrew steps into a surreal adventure to uncover a centuries-old curse that has been placed on the family. The goal of the game is to find the missing map, and thus annul the curse. (Wikipedia)

An example game implemented in several different interactive fiction systems.
The various implementations have been made as similar as possible. That is, things like object names and room descriptions should be identical, and the general flow of the game should be pretty comparable. Having said that, the games are implemented using the native capabilities of the various systems, using features that a beginner might be expected to master; there shouldn't be any need to resort to assembler routines, library hacks, or other advanced techniques. The target is to write naturally and simply, while sticking as closely as possible to the goal of making the games directly equivalent.
"Cloak of Darkness" is not going to win prizes for its prose, imagination or subtlety. Or scope: it can be played to a successful conclusion in five or six moves, so it's not going to keep you guessing for long. (On the other hand, it may qualify as the most widely-available game in the history of the genre.) There are just three rooms and three objects.

The Foyer of the Opera House is where the game begins. This empty room has doors to the south and west, also an unusable exit to the north. There is nobody else around.
The Bar lies south of the Foyer, and is initially unlit. Trying to do anything other than return northwards results in a warning message about disturbing things in the dark.
On the wall of the Cloakroom, to the west of the Foyer, is fixed a small brass hook.
Taking an inventory of possessions reveals that the player is wearing a black velvet cloak which, upon examination, is found to be light-absorbent. The player can drop the cloak on the floor of the Cloakroom or, better, put it on the hook.
Returning to the Bar without the cloak reveals that the room is now lit. A message is scratched in the sawdust on the floor.
The message reads either "You have won" or "You have lost", depending on how much it was disturbed by the player while the room was dark.
The act of reading the message ends the game.
And that's all there is to it...

(Source: Author´s website. http://www.firthworks.com/roger/cloak/)

Vespers is an interactive fiction game written in 2005 by Jason Devlin that placed first at the 2005 Interactive Fiction Competition. It also won the XYZZY Awards for Best Game, Best NPCs, Best Setting, and Best Writing. Set in a 15th century Italian monastery, it is chiefly a horror-themed morality game, where the player takes moral decisions, which then affect the ending. However, whilst playing the game, it isn't obvious that these are moral dilemmas, and the game actively encourages the player to take the evil path.

Varicella is a 1999 work of interactive fiction by Adam Cadre, distributed in z-code format as freeware. It is set in an alternate history which features roughly modern technology mixed with Renaissance-style principalities and court politics. The characters of Varicella use contemporary language from their home in a Renaissance castle, continuing the contrast between old and new. The player character is Primo Varicella, palace minister in Piedmont, who has to get rid of several rivals for the regency following the death of the king. The international situation in the game is described in passing: Piedmont is part of a loose confederation of kingdoms that make up a Carolingian League and is engaged in a war against the Republic of Venice. It won four XYZZY Awards in 1999 including the XYZZY Award for Best Game, and was nominated for another four.