When I began this blog, I was big on ideas. And talk. Many of my earlier posts focused on ideas which I thought might help broaden the audience base of interactive fiction. Among them were suggestions which included: increasing collaboration with people who wanted to write reciprocal fiction, but not code it creating ‘plug-and-play’ tools, such as code templates … Continue reading
I love the digital era; growing up with the baud and the bandwidth. But no amount of downloadable content can beat receiving a personalised package in the mail… especially when that package contains a copy of Aaron Reed’s book, Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. Heading off to work this morning, that’s exactly what I found on the front porch. … Continue reading
One of the major thoughts impressed upon me while watching the documentary Get Lamp was the need to be mindful of how text-to-speech programs interpret and read interactive fiction games. It was never detailed, but I got the impression that there are a large number of ideosyncrasies required for authoring IF so that it’s compliant for use … Continue reading
Yesterday, ’Planet-IF’ lit up with a couple of posts about the digital version of Aaron Reed’s new book, Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. Buying the book was always on my list of must-get IF-ery. But the portentous alignment of iPad and digital version managed to dramatically elevate my desire to get it (despite the fact that, for the next few weeks, I don’t really have the … Continue reading
Almost a week ago I watched the 100+ minute video of the IF suite panel discussing ‘outreach’ (http://gameshelf.jmac.org/2010/04/pax-east-2010-the-if-videos-mo.html). There were some very intelligent and insightful things said, but the one comment that stuck in my head was Andrew Plotkin’s expression of disappointment regarding the ‘success’ of his 2004 work, The Dreamhold. Ever since I began this … Continue reading
I’ve just emailed through my three entries for TWIF Plus (http://dhakajack.templaro.com/twifplus). They’re titled, ‘Different’, ‘If Suicide’ and ‘Gruesome’. While I don’t think my entries are particularly ground-breaking by any stretch, the process of writing them was an enjoyable and enlightening experience. The need to squeeze just one or two more characters out of a line of code caused a considerable amount of … Continue reading
Apparently, there were enough people like myself for Jack, the organiser of TWIF, to add a little plus to the twitter-sized IF competition (http://dhakajack.templaro.com/). For the next week or so, TWIF+ will be accepting entries as something of a side exhibition, continuing to throw down the challenge of creating an entire work of interactive fiction in 140 characters … Continue reading