Play This Thing! is running my review of Gimme Friction Baby. (Not interactive fiction, or anything close to it.)
Month: March 2008
Child’s Play review
Assorted News
There is indeed an IF Art Show again this year; deadline, May 2.
Play This Thing! is reviewing Photopia (not my review, this time, but I thought people might be interested).
Jeff Nyman has another interesting post on his IF classes, this time on why his next class will be using TADS 3 rather than Inform 7.
Grandtextauto points to Hypertextopia, a program especially for the creation of “axial” hypertexts — there’s one main line of narrative to follow, with what might be considered footnotes, expansions, or embellishments. I wasn’t thrilled with the couple of examples I briefly looked at, but it represents a possibly-interesting alternative take on how hypertext design might be done.
Still Alive
For months now I’ve been hearing about the astonishing storytelling power of Portal, along with its fabulous physics and game design.
I hardly ever play mainstream commercial video games — I don’t have the hardware to run it well, for one thing — but I was really curious about Portal, so recently when I got a chance to play it on friends’ XBox, I took it.
What follows is spoilery and also probably doesn’t make that much sense unless you’ve played.
PC Plus article out
The current issue of PC Plus (in the UK) is carrying a tutorial I wrote on interactive prose and description. (Code samples in Inform, but the design advice applies to other languages as well.) This is one of two; the second piece, on action design, is due (I think!) for next month.
Another Play This Thing Review
Play This Thing is now running my review of Treasures of a Slaver’s Kingdom by S. John Ross.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 