In 1998 on
April Fools' Day, the
Interactive Fiction Archive posted an article listing recent additions. Among those additions was a 12-pack of interactive games from a company called
TextFire, Inc. The titles were:
(The first discrepancy is that there were 14 games in the package.)
People downloaded and played the "demos", and quite a few noticed other multiple discrepancies, such as quirks in the authors' bios, claims of annual events from the company, and the relative shallow nature of the demos themselves.
A great deal of speculation on the games went on in several fora over the true nature of the origin, intent, and nature of the games, and the hoax was eventually revealed to all. On the 20th of April, Cody Sandifer admitted that he and a few accomplices performed the prank. A more complete explanation of the situation can be found in the TextFire wu.
Related links:
http://www.igs.net/~tril/if/humor/textfire/
http://www.plover.net/~textfire/