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.

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Tropes used in Spider and Web include:

• 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.
• Bolivian Army Ending
• 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".
  • And "tango".
• 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 your escape from the chair.
• Wham! Line: "tango".
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: You're sent in with cool gadgets that border on Applied Phlebotinum.