
A History of Interactive Fiction (2006) - Tomte
http://maher.filfre.net/if-book/
======
pmoriarty
There's an interactive fiction meetup in the SF bay area.[1] And for online
meetings there's IfMud.[2]

[1] - [https://www.meetup.com/sf-bay-area-interactive-
fiction/](https://www.meetup.com/sf-bay-area-interactive-fiction/)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IfMUD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IfMUD)

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jph
You may enjoy the Interactive Fiction Archive -- including thousands of text
adventures, tools, articles, essays, hints, jokes, and more.

[http://www.ifarchive.org/](http://www.ifarchive.org/)

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prefect42
I had played various Infocom games as a kid, simply amazing. Then recently
"discovered" that there is this exciting corner of the Multiverse know as
Interactive Fiction, which has been flourishing quite well for a long time.
Just finished "Beautiful Dreamer" by Woodson, enjoyed that very much.

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mgkimsal
Related: there's a few versions of "get lamp" documentary online
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhbcDzbGSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhbcDzbGSU))
or you can get the movie directly from getlamp.com.

These histories (the maher link above, the getlamp doc, etc) bring back a lot
of great memories.

EDIT: the youtube link above looks like it's actually the getlamp movie being
shown at a google event, with an audience (audience sounds in there now and
then).

~~~
throwaway7645
A really good documentary. Infocom's game division sounds like it was a
magical place to work. The Google before Google.

~~~
ghaff
There are two "official" versions of the documentary. One is a general
documentary on interactive text adventures and then there's one that's cut to
be more specifically about Infocom. (The latter was particularly interesting
to me because I knew a lot of the people involved then and now and actually
did some game testing at one point.)

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mgkimsal
Would love to read some of your testing experiences re: infocom. Have you
posted on this before?

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ghaff
Not a lot to relate. I wasn't an official tester. I just knew a number of the
guys--including one of their main designers--from undergrad. So he would
sometimes send me a pre-release disk and I'd make notes about things I found
confusing or where I got stuck. (And would call him for hints now and then.)

I think I was officially credited as a beta tester for Legend later on but
that was just the same sort of thing.

~~~
mgkimsal
Ahh... sounds cool to have been part of it, even in a small way (early copies
and all that)!

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throwaway7645
IF is amazing...particularly the works of Emily Short. Some great story
telling.

~~~
mjn
Speaking of Emily Short, she compiled a more recent overview/bibliography of
IF history that I found useful: [https://emshort.blog/2016/04/02/brief-
bibliography-about-if-...](https://emshort.blog/2016/04/02/brief-bibliography-
about-if-history/)

~~~
pmoriarty
Emily Short gave a really interesting talk about collaborative, storytelling
games.[1] Anyone interested in gaming who isn't aware of these kinds of games
should really check it out.

She also recently gave a talk on IF's past, present, and future.[2]

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefWN5qEY3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefWN5qEY3A)

[2] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx5ZLGBZAWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx5ZLGBZAWs)

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839083
Not quite IF, but reading Ulysses and retracing the protagonist's steps around
Dublin is surprisingly common. Interactive but deterministic...

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lacampbell
I remember really enjoying "Photopia", but that was more novel than game. It
actually had a big affect on me much like a good book does.

I'm absolutely terrible at real, game-like IF with puzzles etc. Not sure what
mindset you need to solve them.

~~~
throwaway7645
You might like Blue Lacuna.

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gipp
I had a big IF phase back in high school. I still don't think anything has
topped _Curses_ for me. There's still tons of good content coming out of that
community but they seem to have shifted away from the puzzle-heavy paradigm,
which I find a little disappointing. I still enjoy the Photopia-type games,
but big sprawling puzzlers like _Curses_ or _The Muldoon Legacy_ are tops for
me.

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MrEricSir
As much as I loved text adventures back in the day, I've found the real-life
version of interactive fiction -- "immersive" fiction -- more intoxicating and
memorable. I still think about "The Jejune Institute" in San Francisco
frequently, and that ended years ago.

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112233
i really wish i had a reason to spend some time programming in inform7. That
language is so much like nothing else out there, too bad there seems to be no
uses of it outside of IF, yet. Just imagine:

    
    
      A ping is a kind of icmp packet.

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kleiba
Some years ago I spent a good amount of hours playing "A Mind Forever
Voyaging" with Dave Brubeck's "Jazz Impressions of New York" running on
infinite repeat in the background.

Highly recommended combination.

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palad1n
I was into this about the time that was written. I successfully ported a
random haiku generator from JavaScript to Inform 6.

