Comments on the Spring Thing game Milk of Paradise after the cut. They are mildly spoilery, and if you’re judging Spring Thing you will probably not want to read them until you have formed your own opinion. So I am doing my usual thing with competition reviews and cutting my RSS feed length to summary form so that my remarks don’t show up in Planet-if.
Call now for your free Ginsu knife set.
I got some email this morning from a middle-school teacher who is interested in using Inform in the classroom, but wants some help in getting up to speed with it. Here’s the text of the request:
Do you know of any sources I could check out that might offer workshops,
conferences, etc. (especially in the summer), that I might be able to
attend and get some training on the program? Is there anybody out there
doing that, or is it mainly a “learn it for yourself” situation? I’d
really like to get in a small group setting with an expert who can take
me through the basics while we’re in the same room.
I was about to write back and say, no, no one does that — but it occurs to me that I don’t know that for certain. Does anyone out here know of such a thing?
SPAG #54 is out, and is really interesting — there’s a great mix of content, and I continue to be glad that Jimmy Maher is seeking out material beyond just reviews. I especially like reading about game design and creation processes, so the issue with the comp winner interviews is always a favorite with me.
I was a little surprised, or taken aback, or something, by one piece of David Monath’s review of Blue Lacuna (though there was lots else that I did agree with). His comments (as his review warns) are maybe a little spoilery, so I will put them after the cut-tag:
I almost posted about this a few weeks ago, but then didn’t really like the way the post came out, so killed it. But Chris’ post over here made me realize I’m still curious, if anyone feels like answering:
What is the biggest thing getting in the way of finishing and releasing your favorite WIP?
(In my case: I need to finish and release Alabaster before I go back to working on the older, bigger piece that relies on the same conversation extension. Which I guess could loosely be translated “lack of focus” or “bad habit of thinking that I can whip out small projects in between working on big ones”.)
Because apparently someone’s dream version of me refused to answer this question:
I pronounce Galatea “gal-uh-TEE-uh”.
This is an anglicized, not a classical pronunciation. Also, not binding on anyone else.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 