Category Archives: Interactive Fiction

The Act in Interactive

Posted on November 20, 2022 by midiguru

Yesterday this year’s Interactive Fiction Competition (IFComp) drew to a close. Seventy games were entered. My entry (“The Only Possible Prom Dress”) finished at #8. Privately I had been betting on #10, so I have nothing to complain about. Anybody … Continue reading →

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You Have Been Eaten by a Grue

Posted on October 8, 2022 by midiguru

Having entered my new text adventure game (“The Only Possible Prom Dress”) in this year’s Interactive Fiction Competition (IFComp), I figured I really ought to check out some of the other 70 entries and rate them as a judge. Authors … Continue reading →

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Testing, 1, 2, 3…

Posted on July 17, 2022 by midiguru

This week I’ve had three intrepid beta-testers thrashing their way through my latest text adventure game, The Only Possible Prom Dress. The way this works is, I send them a version of the game and they start a playing session … Continue reading →

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Hidden Assumptions

Posted on July 4, 2022 by midiguru

Last month I decided it’s time to finish an interactive story (a text adventure game) that I started more than ten years ago. I’ve stopped working on it several times, the main reason being that it’s just too darn large. … Continue reading →

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From Inform 7 to TADS 3

Posted on June 16, 2022 by midiguru

From time to time, an author who has been writing interactive fiction in Inform 7 gets curious about how easy or difficult it would be to switch to TADS. Eric Eve (who has used both systems) wrote a good comparison … Continue reading →

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No, It’s Not Easy

Posted on June 10, 2022 by midiguru

Writing text adventure games is not easy. It’s a craft that combines conventional writing with both computer programming and game design. It’s kind of a niche art form, but people are still actively engaged in it. I’m one of them. … Continue reading →

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Any Port Is a Storm

Posted on June 2, 2022 by midiguru

The long-awaited open-source version of Inform 7 has now been released. (Yay, I guess.) For those who don’t know what this means, Inform is a specialized programming language designed for writing text adventure games, a medium that is often dignified … Continue reading →

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Informal

Posted on November 11, 2021 by midiguru

From time to time, moved by an impulse that’s nearly as obscure as dark matter, I find myself writing a text adventure game. Over the years I’ve written and released half a dozen of them, the first in 1999 and … Continue reading →

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Badly Informed

Posted on December 9, 2020 by midiguru

Rather to my surprise, I was awarded a bit of non-trivial prize money for placing well in this year’s IF Comp. This is the Interactive Fiction Competition; it’s for text-based games of one sort and another. There were a hundred … Continue reading →

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Desktop Publishing Does a Reboot

Posted on November 4, 2020 by midiguru

Long-time readers of this space (both of you) will be aware of my ongoing fascination with interactive fiction. This is partly because hobbyist-level computer programming is fun, partly because designing an interactive fictional world is fun, and partly because, back … Continue reading →

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