End of October Link Assortment

Upcoming Events.

November 4, the SF Bay Area Meetup gets together to look at a few IF Comp games and possibly the start of Bob Bates’ Thaumistry as well.

Also November 4, the Baltimore/DC IF Meetup discusses the Comp game Alice Aforethought.

November 9, Hello Words meets in Nottingham to write IF.

PROCJAM, the procedural generation jam, runs now through November 12. It is very friendly, very informal, and will accept items that might not technically be games, if that’s what you’d prefer to do.

November 11-12 is AdventureX in London, where there will be talks about narrative games of all kinds including IF.

Also November 10-11 in Pittsburgh, Demosplash is a huge demoscene party.

November 15 is the next PR-IF meetup in Cambridge, MA.

Wordplay 2017 takes place in the Toronto reference library under the guidance of the Hand Eye Society, November 18. The event always features talks focused on word-based gameplay as well as a showcase of submitted games.

IF Comp continues, with judging running through mid-November.

Articles, Podcasts, Reviews

There’s plenty to read about the IF Comp games as reviewers continue to engage with those. I particularly enjoyed Sam Ashwell’s thoughts about survival and crafting mechanics in his review of Textcraft: Alpha Island. Dhakajack has also been covering a large selection of the games, and you can find further discussion of individual games on the intfiction forum.

Meanwhile The Short Game podcast covers some favorites from IF Comp as well.

Also recommended: Jimmy Maher on Kinoautomat and Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective.

From Stella Wisdom, some slides on the British Library’s support for, co-creation of, and curation of literary games including interactive fiction. The British Library has been a great supporter, including making Rob Sherman writer in residence for a time and housing the London edition of WordPlay, and running a weeklong IF training camp this past summer. This slide set includes even a few other projects I wasn’t previously aware of.

New Releases.

Mentioned earlier on this blog on their October 26 release were Don’t Make Love, the praying mantis conversation game, and Bury Me, My Love, the Lifeline-esque piece about communication with a Syrian refugee.

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Seedship, the colonization game that’s been available for web for a while, is now out for Android. I really enjoyed this one — it feels deceptively simple but there are a load of entertaining procedural outcomes. A phone or tablet seems like a good format for it, too — it’s a fun piece to while away a few minutes.

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New from Choice of Games is The Superlatives: Aetherfall, which looks to be a steampunk/superhero mashup:

Lead a superpowered team of “Superlatives” to defend 19th-century Victorian London! Battle a Martian warship, clockwork monsters, and nefarious inventors.

The Superlatives: Aetherfall is a 260,000-word interactive novel by Alice Ripley. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

The prestigious Society for the Advancement of Individuals of Superlative Talent and the Protection of the Queen has invited you to become their newest member! But on the very day the Society plans to initiate you, unknown Villains destroy the Society headquarters and kidnap your colleagues. As the sole remaining full member of the Superlative Society, you must initiate new recruits to investigate the abduction.

Meet your team: Nimble—faster than lightning; Wailer—a “banshee” with sharp blades and sonic shriek attacks; Arturek—the gruff Martian warrior; Tua—a Venusian who commands the power of plants; and Black Orchid—a strangely familiar new recruit. Your efforts are bolstered by your faithful clockwork assistant, Gatsby, and your always-butting-in rival, Hallow.