Events
IF Comp games are currently available to play and judge. Anyone can participate in judging — so if you want to be part of that, check out the website for instructions. The judging period runs through November 15.
November 6 is the next meetup of the San Francisco Bay Area IF Group.
Starting November 15, fos1 is hosting a jam for TADS games, which will run through early 2022. This is intended to invite more authors to try out the TADS system and put some fresh energy into that ecosystem.
Articles, Podcasts, Etc
Arcweave is a branching narrative design tool; its creators have also started a new YouTube series about interactive fiction, starting with a look at Spider & Web by Giannis G. Georgiou.
The Short Game podcast is covering some games from IF Comp 2021. At the time of this post, their Part One episode is the only one available, but more coverage of more games may be forthcoming.
Stacey Mason’s dissertation on Responsiveness in Narrative Systems is now available. (Disclosure: I was on her committee.) In the dissertation, she offers both a theoretical exploration of ideas of agency and responsiveness in interactive narrative and a discussion of the practical tooling and design she has been developing lately – and starts off with a strong argument for why this pairing of theory and practice is essential to advance the field.
Via arnicas, A Guided Journey through Non-Interactive Story Generation is a massive overview of narrative generation systems. (Also, if this type of research interests you, or you’re into related topics around text generation et al, I very much recommend arnicas’ newsletter.)
Releases
Speculative fiction author and long-time IF creator Yoon Ha Lee has released An Amiable Planet, a Twine piece running about 20 minutes and set in his hexarchate universe.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 