Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling

A Few Underplayed Pieces from the Archive

Recent discussions got me thinking about some rather substantial games that rarely get mentioned, and that I suspect a lot of people may not have played. Here are a few I liked but rarely hear people talk about:

First Things First, J. Robinson Wheeler. Many years in the making, this is a time-travel story — but unlike Moebius, All Things Devours, Vicious Cycles, and many other examples, it runs on a long loop rather than a short one. Instead of jaunting a few minutes back and forth at a critical time, you’re taking a leap of decades, seeing trees be planted and grow, seeing the building of a house and then what it looks like when completed, and so on.

Adventurer’s Consumer Guide, Øyvind Thorsby. One of my favorite games that not very many people seem to have played. An unabashed puzzlefest, but a highly enjoyable one: not too linear, with several interesting objects that have multiple uses. Thorsby has a theory about IF that doesn’t need the player to overuse the EXAMINE verb, which means that the feel and pace of this one is a little atypical — but it’s a strong design and well worth trying out.

Return to Ditch Day, Mike Roberts. A puzzle fest, and an extremely polished one, with lots of conveniences built into the gameplay. It was a flagship example of what TADS 3 could do, and its quality still outshines a lot of what’s out there.

Blighted Isle, Eric Eve. An expansive game about a shipwrecked man and a strange isle that seems somewhat out of time. There’s a lot to do in this one, and several possible paths through major plot points.

Want to see (or suggest) others? This IFDB poll for “forgotten gems” has more.

Save the Date (Paper Dino / Chris Cornell)

Save the Date is a Ren’Py game where you learn from repetition. The date you’re going on, with a woman named Felicia, keeps going wrong (to say the least), and you need to keep replaying in order to try to make it come out better. Felicia starts off as a bit of a cipher, but she develops a more interesting character over the course of the game, much of which consists of conversation between the two of you.

This is a replay game on the order of Shrapnel or (to a lesser degree) Rematch: some state from earlier playthroughs is preserved, which means that the game actually offers you new opportunities for action after you’ve played through certain branches.

It sort of has to work this way because it’s Ren’Py; you don’t have the parser’s opportunity to conceal commands whose use will only be obvious after a couple of playthroughs. Contrast Lock & Key or Make It Good, where a “winning” playthrough is theoretically possible even the first time you open the game, but would require phenomenal luck for anyone to accomplish without foreknowledge. Parser-based versions of this concept tend to be substantially harder than Save the Date.

Underneath the date concept, Save the Date is actually a piece about interactive storytelling, and I will talk more about how after the spoiler space. You may want to play it yourself; it’s not a large time commitment, and I am about to spoil it very thoroughly in order to discuss it.

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MORE Events

I know, I have recently posted about upcoming things. But there are more! Here’s an updated schedule of IF-related events in the near future. There’s also a terrific, ongoing IF events calendar over here.

Nov 1: Deadline to register to present at the Villanova VuPop conference on interactive fiction. This conference itself will be held in the Falvey Memorial Library, Villanova University, June 9th 2014.

Nov 4, London: Digital Conversations @ British Library: Interactive Narratives. I will be in the audience.

Nov 5, 5 PM, UMass Lowell Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) will present a public reading of Adam Cadre’s award-winning interactive fiction “Photopia.” This event will occur in Olsen Hall, on the North Campus, in Room 311. Everyone is welcome.

Nov 9, Boston: I talk about Versu at the PR-IF meeting: this is in particular a chance to check out the tools and play experience. Attendance is free and all are welcome, but make sure you check out the instructions about how to get to the room where it’s being held, as the MIT campus can be a little confusing.

November 12, 5 PM, UMass Lowell will offer an introduction to the writing of interactive fiction. Everyone is welcome.

Nov 15-17, New York: I talk about narrative design in Versu at PRACTICE. Andrew Plotkin will also be attending. This conference does have a substantial registration cost.

I will separately be doing a gameplay-and-tools demo in New York on an adjacent day, if possible without the stiff admission price. Date and time still being worked out, but if you want to make sure you’re notified of the details, let me know and I’ll add you to the mailing list.

Nov 16, Toronto: WordPlay fest! Jim Munroe and the Hand Eye Society show off games with and about words.

Nov 20, online: Next meeting of Chris Crawford’s interactive storytelling discussion group, Phrontisterion. This is free to attend. I will not myself be there because I will be at

Nov 20, Oxford: Graham Nelson and I are speaking about publishing IF at an evening on transmedia publishing, run by the Oxford Publishing Society. This is free to members of said society; individual memberships are 25 GBP, it appears.

Dec 7-8, London: AdventureX. I will be demonstrating Versu gameplay and tools. Jon Ingold will be talking about Sorcery!. Dave Gilbert will be there. The conference is free.

IF Comp 2013 Roundup

And here is the bit where, traditionally, I post my best-of-comp recommendations, as well as some thoughts about the field overall. To avoid spoiling, actual content goes after the break.

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IF Comp 2013: Saving John (Josephine Tsay)

Saving John is a hypertext game about traversing the memories of a dying(?) man. It’s not terribly long to read through, but the author recommends several encounters with the text for best effect. Review after the break.

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IF Comp 2013: Tex Bonaventure and the Temple of the Water of Life (Truthcraze)

Tex Bonaventure and the Temple of the Water of Life is a parser-based adventure with an Indiana Jones theme you can presumably already see coming just from the title. Expect ludicrous archaeology. (One day, ONE DAY, someone will write an archaeology game with commands like LABEL POTSHERD and CLEAN BONES WITH SOFT TOOTHBRUSH and METICULOUSLY DESCRIBE SOIL TEXTURE IN NOTEBOOK. Jacqueline Lott, I’m looking at you.)

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