I recently wrote about Bob Bates’ commercial parser IF game Thaumistry for PC Gamer. Bob was kind enough to speak with me about the project for context.
A couple of other observations came up in that conversation with Bob that couldn’t go into the PC Gamer article because they involved spoilers or too much detail about parser IF implementation, but I thought I’d discuss them briefly here.
I’ll do the spoilery bits last, with additional warning, for those who might not have played the game but intend to do so in the future.
Other references.
- I also talked a bit about the game for Rock Paper Shotgun back when it was still in development
- Andrew Plotkin has shared his views on the game’s design
- Steam page with player reviews
- IFDB page, also with player reviews
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 