Nick Montfort is interviewed on a podcast by First Wall Rebate.
The author of “There’s a Snake in the Bathtub” offers a (spoilery) rationale for his creation.
Tag: The Baron
Money and Ambition
Victor Gijsbers recently posted about the peculiar comments “The Baron” has received: viz., that an independently designed, morally thoughtful game isn’t “feasible” in the present market conditions — even though “The Baron” exists and therefore has passed the feasibility test in the only meaningful sense.
For a long time I, like Victor, have been annoyed by the “market forces tell all” mentality that says that projects are only successful when they earn money and that artists prove their artistic credentials by selling their material widely. This tends to be contrasted with the “critical success” method of determining the value of material: something is good if it elicits the praise and admiration of a small cadre of those whose opinions matter. Bonus points if cat-fights arise between competing groups of critics.
Cover Art Drive
IF Cover Art Drive is now officially running. From now until April 30, I am collecting IF cover art on Flickr. There are a few pieces already there, but more will be posted as they’re contributed.
The idea here is to try to collect contributions of art to serve as cover images for existing IF. There are two reasons to do this: first, to make IFDB more attractive and less pure-text; and second, so that people writing about IF on indie game blogs and websites will have something other than a screenshot of raw text with which to illustrate their articles. (More about the rationale for this is here.)
[Edit: for reference, a list of how things stand.]
Cover art submitted and accepted, or submitted by author:
- The Act of Misdirection, by Callico Harrison
- An Act of Murder, by Chris Huang
- Ad Verbum, by Nick Montfort
- Adventurer’s Consumer Guide, by Øyvind Thorsby
- All Hope Abandon, by Eric Eve
- All Roads, by Jon Ingold
- And the Waves Choke the Wind, by Gunther Schmidl
- Attack of the Yeti Robot Zombies, by Øyvind Thorsby
- Augmented Fourth, by Brian Uri!
- Bad Machine, by Dan Shiovitz
- Balances, by Graham Nelson
- The Baron, by Victor Gijsbers
- The Beetmonger’s Journal, by Scott Starkey
- Being Andrew Plotkin, by J. Robinson Wheeler
- Blighted Isle, by Eric Eve
- Blue Lacuna, by Aaron Reed
- Breath Pirates, by Mike Snyder
- The Chinese Room, by Harry Giles and Joey Jones (pending revisions)
- Coke Is It!, by various
- The Cove, by Kathleen Fischer
- Cryptozookeeper, by Robb Sherwin
- Dangerous Curves, by Irene Callaci
- A Day for Soft Food, by Tod Levi
- Degeneracy, by Leonard Richardson
- Desert Heat, by Papillon
- Distress, by Mike Snyder
- The Djinni Chronicles, by J. D. Berry
- The Edifice, by Lucian Smith
- Enlightenment, by Taro Ogawa
- An Escape To Remember, by IF Whispers
- Fate, by Victor Gijsbers
- A Fine Day for Reaping, by James Webb
- Fine Tuned, by Dennis Jerz
- Firebird, by Bonnie Montgomery
- For a Change, by Dan Schmidt
- Gardening for Beginners, by Juhana Leinonen
- Gourmet, by Aaron Reed
- The Gostak, by Carl Muckenhoupt
- Help! My Vacuum Cleaner is Broken!, by Admiral Jota
- In the End 2, by Adam Thornton
- Katana, by Matt Rohde
- King of Shreds and Patches, by Jimmy Maher
- The Land of the Cyclops, by Francesco Cordella and Simone Di Conza
- LASH, by Paul O’Brian
- Learning to Cross, by Mark J. Musante
- Legerdemain, by Nathan Jerpe
- Letters from Home, by Roger Firth
- Losing Your Grip, by Stephen Granade
- Lost Pig, by Admiral Jota
- Luminous Horizon, by Paul O’Brian
- Lunatix — The Insanity Circle, by Mike Snyder
- Lydia’s Heart, by Jim Aikin
- Masquerade, by Kathleen Fischer
- Moon-Shaped, by Jason Ermer
- Mother Loose, by Irene Callaci
- My Name is Jack Mills, by Juhana Leinonen
- Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina, by Jim Aikin
- Nothing But Mazes, by Greg Boettcher
- Pass the Banana, by Admiral Jota
- Persistence of Memory, by Jason Dyer
- Photograph, by Steve Evans
- Revenger, by Robb Sherwin
- Rameses, by Stephen Bond
- Ribbons, by J. D. Berry
- Scavenger, by Quintin Stone
- A Simple Theft, by Mark Musante
- Snowblind Aces, by C. E. J. Pacian
- Square Circle, by Eric Eve
- Tales of the Traveling Swordsman, by Mike Snyder
- The Tarot Reading, by Michael Penman
- To Hell in a Hamper, by J. J. Guest
- Trading Punches, by Mike Snyder
- Treasures of a Slaver’s Kingdom, by S. John Ross
- Undertow, by Stephen Granade
- Voices, by Aris Katsaris
- Waystation, by Stephen Granade
- The Weapon, by Sean Barrett
- Wearing the Claw, by Paul O’Brian
- Whom the Telling Changed, by Aaron Reed
- Worlds Apart, by Suzanne Britton
Cover art submitted and declined; submitted and unanswered; or supplanted by other art:
- Aisle, by Sam Barlow
- Anchorhead, by Michael Gentry
- Chicken and Egg, by Adam Thornton
- Choose Your Own Romance, by David Dyte
- Christminster, by Gareth Rees
- The Corn Identity, by IF Whispers
- Deadline Enchanter, by Alan DeNiro
- Delusions, by C. E. Forman
- A Dino’s Night Out, by Aris Katsaris
- Downtown Tokyo, Present Day, by John Kean
- Elizabeth Hawke’s Forever Always, by Iain Merrick
- Goldilocks is a FOX!, by J.J. Guest
- Guess the Verb!, by Leonard Richardson
- House of Dream of Moon, by IF Whispers
- Janitor, by Peter Seebach and Kevin Lynn
- Lost New York, by Neil deMause (would prefer no future cover art be created)
- The One That Got Away, by Leon Lin
- Rematch, by Andrew Pontious
- Shade, by Andrew Plotkin
- She’s Got a Thing for a Spring, by Brent VanFossen
- Sins Against Mimesis, by Adam Thornton
- Sting of the Wasp, by Jason Devlin
- Theatre, by Brendon Wyber
Cover art submitted:
- A Change in the Weather, by Andrew Plotkin
- Delightful Wallpaper, by Andrew Plotkin
- Hunter, in Darkness, by Andrew Plotkin
- Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin
Cover art in progress:
Cover art requested:
Cover art “opted out”:
- Building, by Poster
Some comments on The Baron
…are up at PlayThisThing. Because of the issues I wanted to discuss, it’s mildly spoilery about things that don’t become evident immediately on the first playthrough. Consider yourself duly warned.
Inform 7 for the Fiction Author
Jeff Nyman recently raised the idea of having a guide to Inform 7 specifically written for an experienced fiction author without background in IF, and I posted a brainstormed outline for such a project. The formatting was pretty ugly on Usenet, though, and I had a few ideas for revisions, so here is another, longer and better-laid-out version of the same thing, with more links to relevant games and articles.
This still isn’t nearly into the shape I would use if I were actually going to write this book — and I don’t have time to do any such thing right now anyway; I have a bunch of things to do for Inform 7, feelies.org, and the long-neglected theory book before I could take up a project of this magnitude. (And I’d like to have a little time to work on a WIP of my own — IF support work has pretty much wiped out my time for that kind of thing lately.) But possibly people will find the brainstorming interesting, even if it isn’t worked up into a complete document.
On Stephen Bond on Player Freedom
Stephen Bond recently (very recently, I think) posted an essay on player freedom, essentially arguing that IF shouldn’t be about offering the player moral choice, and that not forcing the player to make a specific choice is a kind of artistic abdication, giving up the opportunity (or the responsibility) to Say Something.
Now I’m about to disagree with him, at some length.
