The 2025 Interactive Fiction Competition Is Over | Azhdarchid
Highlighting some favorites from the comp.| Azhdarchid
---| The Digital Antiquarian
Highlighting some favorites from the comp.| Azhdarchid
Back when I was a kid, after I solved an Infocom game, I'd print out a transcript of a "perfect" playthrough. And, as it happened, I kept this box of printouts through all the moves and decades since. The box sits right now on my shelf of Preserved ...| Zarf Updates
To explain today’s game we need to go back to 1982 and a company from the London area, Rabbit Software, which I’ve written about before. To recap: they were a mail order company that spun off from a computer shop early in 1982, quite quickly filling their catalog with solicited content. They had some drama […]| Renga in Blue
I’ve finished the game; my previous post is needed for context. The creatures here all very standard-issue (troll, dragon, minotaur) and the author even has in the title (“Odysseys” plural) the implication that this is a mash-up of sorts, but at the very least I think we can pin him on thinking of Clash of […]| Renga in Blue
This is the follow-up to Herrick Venture #1: Escape. Unfortunately, I have not found any more historical material since last time, so I generally just have to hope Richard E. Herrick Jr. is alive and tries to Google himself sometime (which has happened before with other authors!) Unlike the first game, this only has a […]| Renga in Blue
Bedrooms all over the country were becoming overwhelmed by battered boxes of early computer equipment, bought under the dubious auspices of “helping with our homework” before being turned over full-time to the more pressing task of completing 3D Monster Maze before morning registration. — Bob Fischer Upon the release of the ZX80 and ZX81 computers, […]| Renga in Blue
I’ve finished the game, and as I suspected, I was running into a single small issue (a problem with the parser, really). My previous posts are needed to make sense of this one. Last time I had the issue of needing to replace two cables. I could replace one of them (with a wire scavenged […]| Renga in Blue
(Continued from my previous posts.) I’m likely extremely close to the end, but given I still need to tackle the “strategic” layer (and check the alternate difficulty levels) I’ll have enough content for a long final post next time even if I’m only a turn away from victory. My big break — taking me almost […]| Renga in Blue
(Continued from my previous post. The official WordPress reader has a bug with Soundcloud embeds, so if the last post seemed strangely short you might want to check it before moving on.) Be prepared, this is going to be a long one. Rather than laying out the territory first and then tackling puzzles, I’m going […]| Renga in Blue
A bicycle can get you from New York to LA, so will a jet plane. In one sense they are the exact same thing; in another they are nothing alike. In one sense we are working within traditional genres — mystery, fantasy, science fiction — and in another we are still teaching ourselves, laying out […]| Renga in Blue
Engine Failure is a type-in that first appeared in Personal Computer World (April 1983) and then in the spin-off Personal Computer Games, the same as Adventure in 1K. Personal Computer World was ve…| Renga in Blue
This article tells part of the story of Looking Glass Studios. There was some discussion about it: “Wow, gosh, it’d sure be nice if we were making more money and selling more copies so we could do crazy games of the type we want, as opposed to having to worry about how we’re going to […]| The Digital Antiquarian
I had a long talk recently with some nice folks at the DOS Game Club podcast. Our subject was one from the early days of this site, the Infocom game Planetfall. Maybe some of you will find it interesting. You can get it from the DOS Game Club homepage, or more than likely wherever you get your other podcasts. My thanks to the hosts for their kind invitation, and to the other guests for their patience with my historical rambling! (I’m told that this is the longest episode of the podcast ever.)| The Digital Antiquarian
Reviews of Backpackward, Willy's Manor, and Monkeys and Car Keys.| Azhdarchid
More IFComp 2025 reviews including Saltwrack, Promises of Mars, A Rock's Tale| Azhdarchid
Today’s post you could think of as a “bonus game”. It appears in the April 1983 edition of Personal Computer World, followed by the first issue of Personal Computer Games that summer (same publisher) and is directly next to the game I was going to be writing about next. To explain in context, when the […]| Renga in Blue
(Continued from my previous post.) The thing I’ve found most fascinating studying the various incarnations of Adventure is the almost philosophical difference in approaches to where the expan…| Renga in Blue
More IFComp reviews featuring johnlock I mean arthurot, horsexploitation, and computer toucher fiction| Azhdarchid
On this batch of reviews: bad UI as design, losing the bug war, the trees crave blood| Azhdarchid
The Outcast box was styled to look like a movie poster. Riffing on the same theme, Infogrames’s head Bruno Bonnell called it “the first videogame that really tries to be an interactive movie,” leaving one to wonder whether he had somehow missed the first nine years of the 1990s, during which countless games tried desperately to be just that. Ironically, Outcast actually has very few of the characteristics that had become associated with the phrase: no rigidly linear plot, no digitized h...| The Digital Antiquarian
Today in IFComp reviews: different kinds of sad islands and the X-Men| Azhdarchid
In this set of reviews: Subway takes, JG Ballard nightmare hour, very-slightly-exaggerated portrayal of the job application experience.| Azhdarchid
Reviews of 'The Wise-Woman's Dog', '3XXX', and 'The Semantagician's Assistant'| Azhdarchid
Reviews of 'The Olive Tree', 'valley of glass', 'Anne of Green Cables' and 'The Witch Girls'.| Azhdarchid
This post assumes some familiarity with the original Adventure; if you haven’t yet seen, my series on the Software Toolworks version (the only one that paid the authors Crowther and Woods) is…| Renga in Blue
"The Game Formerly Known as Hidden Nazi Mode" turns 15 years this month. A look back at the game and its reception.| Gold Machine
(Continued from my previous post.) I have only made a little progress, but I thought I’d at least give an update. I went through my verb list and found only a very small list… READ, OPE…| Renga in Blue
Warp Your Own Way, by Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio, became the first interactive fiction to ever win a Hugo Award!| Troy Press
Scarthorpe is the sort of town where even the dogs carry flick knives, where there’s only one road in, and it’s a one way street!!! This is the second adventure game by Pete Cooke, afte…| Renga in Blue
Here's a bit of trivia from the Infocom source code collection. All modern parser-IF tools let you type X as an abbreviation for EXAMINE. It's such a familiar shortcut that we forget that most Infocom games didn't work that way. Back when we ...| Zarf Updates
(Continued from my previous posts.) While I’ve made a fair amount of progress I’ve also hit two points that make me wonder if the game is too buggy to complete. Updates to the map are s…| Renga in Blue
I'm going to the World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle! And speaking! It's the first Worldcon I've attended since 2009 (Montreal). After the Hadean Lands kickstarter, I figured I should spend my travel budget on game dev conferences rather ...| Zarf Updates
Hadean Lands is on sale as part of the Boston-Based Indies bundle on Steam. That's a 15% discount for five titles: Hadean Lands (me!) Monster Loves You Too! (Dejobaan) MewnBase (Cairn4) Million Monster Militia (Space Capsule) Loki's Revenge ...| Zarf Updates
Here's a new toy: a Discord bot that plays IF games. Say you've got a group of people who want to play an IF game together. You'd log into the IFTF Discord and go to the #zarfbot-9000 channel. (That's where the bot is currently running.) Type ...| Zarf Updates
A quick reminder: today is is the last day to register for NarraScope 2025 if you want to attend in person. (Remote attendance will be open until June 18th.) If you want the conference rate at the University City Study hotel, you need to grab ...| Zarf Updates
(Continued from my previous posts.) I have the One Ring to rule them all, that means the rest of this ought to be easy, right? My count otherwise is unchanged: 4 out of 9 Man-Rings, 0 out of 3 Elf-…| Renga in Blue
(Continued from my last post.) The grey-rain curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise. — Re…| Renga in Blue
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor w…| Renga in Blue
Today, we move back in time to 1975: personal computers were only starting to become real; the Altair wasn’t out until the very end of the year. This means if you wanted to play a coin-op gam…| Renga in Blue
(Continued from my previous post.) Last time I left off having trouble with getting both the ring (for the girlfriend) and a diving suit (apparently needed due to the kidnapping). The solution is o…| Renga in Blue
"According to Cain" placed #1 on Winter is Coming's "The 10 scariest free interactive fiction games to enjoy this winter."| Jim Nelson
✨Save the Date: 25/09/25✨ I’m excited to announce that YOU ARE ODYSSEUS is now available to pre-order! You can order wherever you normally order your books, but here are my favourite (UK) links: Bl…| Greek Myth Comix
---| The Digital Antiquarian
---| The Digital Antiquarian
Bonus surprise post! Yes, I arise from my slumber for at least a little while. This is the sequel to Japan’s first graphical adventure game, using the same first-person-with-directions view a…| Renga in Blue
In this final essay on Steve Meretzky's Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Drew Cook considers the difference between titillation and comic joy.| Gold Machine
In part 2 of Gold Machine's 3-part series about Infocom's Leather Goddesses of Phobos, we examine its worldbuiding and play.| Gold Machine
Here we go! More babbling about IF! In my last post, I talk a little bit about my long-term Twine project. It’s quite ambitious, and it will likely be a while before even the prologue is in a playable state. Luckily, I tripped and fell headfirst into an awesome opportunity completely by chance that is […]| History Will Say This Was Just a Book Blog
The Gold Machine interprets and critiques interactive texts via literary and cultural analysis, beginning with Infocom’s games from the 1980’s.| Gold Machine
A many years ago, the IF Archive existed, and it was an FTP site. It lived at ftp.gmd.de. That was a long time ago. (1992, but who's counting.) Slightly less long ago, the World Wide Web existed, and I said "I bet there could be a web mirror ...| Zarf Updates
Here we embark on the final part of the trilogy from the ZX81 Adventure Tape 1 as published by Phipps Associates and written by Mike Farley (see previously: Greedy Gulch, Pharaoh’s Tomb). The…| Renga in Blue
Shockingly, this game’s name does not clash with one I’ve already played yet; we had Pharaoh’s Curse and King Tut’s Tomb but never put the two together. CASA has one other g…| Renga in Blue
In October I wrote: This leaves me with two big IFTF roles: Treasurer and IF Archive lead. I'm happy with the IF Archive job; I figure I'll hold onto that for a while. But it's getting to be time to hand off the Treasurer job. I've been doing ...| Zarf Updates
Here's a little something I've been working on: The Visible Zorker! This screenshot has spoilers for Zork 1. This whole project is spoilers for Zork 1. That's the point. Really, go give it a shot. It's a toy. You can read the rest of this ...| Zarf Updates
In 1988, a contest was run by the Adventureland BBS out of Lexington, Kentucky called The Great American Adventure Search. ADVENTURELAND, the largest public domain Adventure base in America, is loo…| Renga in Blue
In this final post about Infocom's Trinity, Drew considers philosophical responses to its rather bleak conclusion.| Gold Machine
When bad things happen to all sorts of people. The Tragic Plane Crash and Other Myths “Tragedy” is a word that gets repeated often in our media. When something horrific happens, it is called a tragedy. Plane crashes, we are told, are tragedies, and so are collapsing buildings. You might think I’m going somewhere pedantic […] The post The Dearth of Tragedy appeared first on Gold Machine.| Gold Machine
The best ending is not the ending. Depraved Indifference as a Cosmic Horror For the past handful of posts, I’ve maintained the position that humanity is, separate from humans as individuals, a kind of inexorable force, a destructive tendency or eventuality visited upon the earth. In fact, I’ve consistently preferred the term “creation” over “earth” […] The post Suffer the Children appeared first on Gold Machine.| Gold Machine
Another Pull at an Old Thread Recent discussions have attempted to bolster a few, key ideas. The first and most controversial, given the present critical landscape, is that while historical detail informs our understanding of humanity, it isn’t, in and of itself, a theme or interpretive “code wheel” that can unlock the meaning of Trinity. […] The post Now I Am Become Death appeared first on Gold Machine.| Gold Machine
Examining the Libra episode of Infocom's Trinity, which features a swarm of lemmings at a Soviet atomic test site.| Gold Machine
My Interactive Fiction Competition entry Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe was reviewed by Justin Kim at The Final Arc. Highlights: On one hand, it’s a game about dealing with the duality of superficial popularity vs meaningful respect as a career writer. On another hand, it’s a mystery about the last days of famed […]| Jim Nelson
This is what it says on the tin: a game about birding. (I started properly birding a year and change back, which is the surest sign I have become middle-aged. The link to ebird.org in this game shows up in … Continue reading →| These Heterogenous Tasks
An initial foray into the small vignettes that inform the dramatic and thematic heart of Trinity, beginning with a very memorable dolphin.| Gold Machine
Today is the start of the Interactive Fiction (IF) Competition 2024, which includes my latest IF title, Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe. Over 67 titles are entered in the competition this year. The great thing about IF Comp is that anyone can play and be a judge.| Jim Nelson
On the Interactive Fiction Community Forum, author Brian Rushton has been at work completing his series reviewing every game to win the XYZZY and IF Comp awards. He recently posted his review of According to Cain, the most recent game to win the XYZZY: Your game, the player’s, while fraught with occasional physical danger, is […]| Jim Nelson
Forgot to mention it here—a couple weeks back, I was interviewed by otistdog (“Mad Scientist”) at the Interactive Fiction Community Forum about According to Cain. Sample from the Q&A: Q: What was it about the Cain and Abel story that attracted you as a subject?JN: Two brothers fighting over the affection of their parents and […]| Jim Nelson
Yesterday, the 2022 XYZZY final awards were announced. If you don’t know, the XYZZY Awards are given yearly for interactive fiction. They’re sometimes called the Academy Awards for interactive fiction. I was blown away to learn that According to Cain won Best Game and Best Implementation for 2022. Cain was also nominated for Best Writing, […]| Jim Nelson
The 2022 XYZZY Awards for interactive fiction is now accepting nominations. The XYZZY Awards is one of the oldest video game award on the books. It first started in 1997 and has been held yearly since. It’s often called the Oscars for interactive fiction. If you’ve played even one interactive fiction game first released in […]| Jim Nelson
This morning I learned that my interactive fiction game According to Cain was selected for the 2023 Interactive Fiction Top 50. This is a poll run by Victor Gijsbers every four years since 2011, and generally attracts interactive fiction enthusiasts and authors (most of whom gather now at intfiction.org). The goal of the poll is […]| Jim Nelson
The recorded video of my NarraScope 2023 talk—”According to Cain: From concept to completion”—is now up: Or, watch it on YouTube. Published 29 August 2023. Last updated 28 August 2023.| Jim Nelson
As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog entry or two, I’ve started experimenting with Interactive Fiction or IF in order to practice branching narratives and improve my writing. There’s something very…| History Will Say This Was Just a Book Blog
A definitive book about the first half-century of interactive fiction.| aaronareed.net
This accessible academic textbook chronicles the legacy the adventure game genre has left behind on the contemporary gaming landscape. A generation of designers grew up playing these games, which are rarely studied today as a comprehensive body of work, and their DNA lives on not only in the work of contemporary auteurs but also in the form of dozens of daughter genres, from visual novels to walking simulators to escape rooms to puzzle platformers. We make the case that the genre has always b...| aaronareed.net
Apologies for the radio silence — I had some major work things to get to pushing up to the end of the year, and my brain just hasn’t gotten back in gear yet. The Project will continue n…| Renga in Blue
In this second of two posts about critical reactions to Infocom's Trinity, Gold Machine considers content published after 2010.| Gold Machine
Mask of the Rose is a dating-and-murder-mystery virtual novel set in Failbetter’s Fallen London universe. In line with that genre, it typically gives the player between two and four dialogue …| Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
A map I made for the interactive fiction game Anchorhead.| Tobias V. Langhoff
Events September 1. The yearly IF Comp is now accepting submissions for this fall. If you intend to enter, you should indicate that by September 1 (so tomorrow — though I imagine most people w…| Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
I’ve been unusually quiet lately and not even following my usual link assortment schedule – apologies for that, especially to people who’ve sent me interesting links lately. I do mean t…| Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
Gold Machine takes a look at reviews of Trinity from years ranging from 1994 to 2010 before drawing some tentative conclusions.| Gold Machine
It’s once again IF Comp season; I’ll be doing some reviews. (Disclosure: I’m married to the lead organiser of the competition.) This is Graham Walmsey’s adaptation of Buchan…| These Heterogenous Tasks
Goat Game is a tightly-crafted piece about complicity and corporate careers, the difficulty of effecting change, and how this intersects with how you relate to people. The characters are all anthro…| These Heterogenous Tasks
The Last Night of Alexisgrad is a choice-based game for two players. This is an unusual but venerable format – the first I’m aware of is the Duel Master series, first published 1986, wh…| These Heterogenous Tasks
This game is not in any way a reference to Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan; rather, it’s a straightforward space-adventure story that has, y’know, actual space mermaids in it. It&#…| These Heterogenous Tasks
I made a game. It’s called Scents & Semiosis. It’s a piece of interactive fiction about perfume, memory, and the process of assigning or re-evaluating personal symbolic associations…| These Heterogenous Tasks
The good people (Pseudavid, Twine) is a piece of horror, or of horrific magic realism. A couple, Alice and Daniel, take their first holiday together; they are from different cultures, and the relat…| These Heterogenous Tasks
Black Sheep (Nic Barkdull and Matt Borgard, Twine) is a cyberpunk mystery. Your father – head of a Singularity-focused corporation with a cult following – has died, and your sister has …| These Heterogenous Tasks
