
Heirs of Infocom: Where interactive fiction authors and games stand today - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/heirs-of-infocom-where-interactive-fiction-authors-and-games-stand-today/
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pronoiac
I expected to see more about Twine.[1] It's _really_ simple, but it lets you
build a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story easily. People who haven't
programmed before have picked it up and done interesting things with it. I
like the HyperCard analogy.[2]

[1] [http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/](http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/)

[2] [http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/twine-and-the-art-of-
person...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/twine-and-the-art-of-personal-
games)

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Avshalom
So if you're interested I recommend Emily Short:
[https://emshort.wordpress.com/](https://emshort.wordpress.com/) as a general
guide/jumping off point to the modern scene

~~~
dsr_
And anything that Zarf writes or recommends.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Plotkin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Plotkin)
[http://www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html](http://www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html)

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m0nastic
I have a soft spot for interactive fiction. The only game I ever finished
writing was an IF game that took place on my college campus (I created it
using AGT[1], and was impressed that I could keep track of time to have
locations behave differently when visited.)

I was super proud of myself for about a half a day before my roommate showed
me that he had created our dorm as a level in Duke Nukem 3D, which proceeded
to occupy all of us over a local IPX network for weeks.

It seems like smartphones and tablets definitely represent an opportunity for
a resurgence, You could even utilize the platforms built-in text-to-speech and
whatnot.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Toolkit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Toolkit)

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jmspring
Big fan of Frotz on iOS. I've played a few z-machine games over the last
couple of years.

Funny thing is, my primary "in bed" reading device is also my iphone -- light,
good screen, and easy to shut down when I am done.

~~~
limmeau
How does Frotz deal with the "no interpreters" rule in App Store?

~~~
fpgeek
Technically, the rule is "no interpreters that download code". To get around
it, it bundles a decent chunk of the if-archive in the app and then registers
as something that can open z-machine game files (so you can use Frotz to open
a game from Dropbox, after downloading in Mobile Safari, etc.).

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curiousdannii
If you haven't played Spider and Web, you need to! One of the undisputed
classics:
[http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=2xyccw3pe0uovfad](http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=2xyccw3pe0uovfad)

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nvmc
I thought all the AAA publishers switched to interactive films after they gave
up on making video games.

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b0rsuk
I recommend Anchorhead (1998). Inspired by Lovecraft, very well written.
Puzzles are either simple or very logical, the biggest danger is that you miss
an item or don't map properly. Atmosphere is at least as good as in Lovecraft
books. And it's free.

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hga
YES! It never occurred to me, but the limited interfaces of smartphones are a
perfect arena for interactive fiction without the grossly expensive visual
collateral of so many modern PC and game station games.

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fpgeek
For the most part, with the exception of keyboards. Without a physical
keyboard, you're either giving up screen real estate (i.e. text you can read)
or the keyboard is appearing and disappearing (which I find breaks my
immersion in the game). Games are still playable, but there are also interface
annoyances, sadly.

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Yuioup
I was curious to see if I could get my hands on the documentary but the order
page says "US Only". Is there a way for us Europeans to get a hold of a copy?

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ferdo
I'm not ashamed to say that I still play Hamurabi/Sumer after all these
years...

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hobb0001
Heh. Reminds me of the days when I used to run a Z-code interpreter on my Palm
V.

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tunesmith
FYI, Reconstructing Remy does appear to be available for iOS now.

