Bean plating brass lanterns

March 7, 2011 11:46 AM

The IF Theory Reader is finally out...a collection of some intriguing thought about the theory, craft, and history of interactive fiction (free PDF or buyable paperback). A must-read for both Ludologists and Narratologists.
posted by Sparx (12 comments total)

Oh gosh. This looks great.
posted by cortex at 12:17 PM on March 7, 2011

My last episodes of IF were zork, Hitchhikers, Leather Goddeses and Eamon. I knew there were a lot of zcode writers still out there too, but this is interesting, if not a whole heck of a lot to chew..

In some ways, a lot of the early Lucasfilm games (the scumm based ones) were GUI IF, if that isn't a contradiction, and were equally rewarding and frustrating..
posted by k5.user at 12:37 PM on March 7, 2011

I just heard about Thomas M. Disch's Amnesia which sounds pretty incredible. It is here.

The Interactive Fiction Competition is a great source of modern IF. You can play last year's entrants in a browser. For other games, here are two good Interactive Fiction clients, and contest-winning games can be found here.

Also lost pig
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:46 PM on March 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh, right, I forgot about this. I was about to start my belated new year's resolution to play every game on this illuminated list of recommended IF, but I've been waiting for the theory reader for so long that I kind of glossed over the announcement that it was available. It's good to finally get my hands on it.
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 1:19 PM on March 7, 2011 [5 favorites]

For the IF-curious, I made a comment here of resources for beginners, including links to lists of games recommended for beginners.

I saw this post immediately after making my first-ever purchase from Lulu, so I was already logged in to download it. Thanks, Sparx.
posted by Zed at 1:36 PM on March 7, 2011

Finally, here you are. At the delcot of tondam, where doshes deave. But the doshery lutt is crenned with glauds.

Glauds! How rorm it would be to pell back to the bewl and distunk them, distunk the whole delcot, let the drokes uncren them.

But you are the gostak. The gostak distims the doshes. And no glaud will vorl them from you.
posted by JHarris at 5:11 PM on March 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

FFS CAN'T YOU SEE I'M TRYING TO WORK HERE
posted by obiwanwasabi at 6:09 PM on March 7, 2011

Gee, is there an iPhone app that would let me play some of these? Sincerely.
posted by newdaddy at 7:46 PM on March 7, 2011

iPhone app. Any time there's a new platform, someone ports or writes a zcode interpreter -- it's got to be one of the most ported applications there is.
posted by Zed at 8:37 PM on March 7, 2011

iPhone app. Any time there's a new platform, someone ports or writes a zcode interpreter -- it's got to be one of the most ported applications there is.

I was going to suggest Nethack as a competitor, but dammit if zcode interpreters weren't written for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and sundry other platforms, many forgotten.
posted by JHarris at 9:38 PM on March 7, 2011

It's great to see this.
If you're into IF, check out Nick Montfort's blog and book.
posted by doctornemo at 7:33 AM on March 8, 2011

I was going to suggest Nethack as a competitor

A Z-code interpreter has the advantages of being relatively small and simple, and has an excellent formal spec. Writing one from scratch is a perfectly reasonable hobby project. Nethack in all its glory -- not so small or simple or easy to write from scratch.
posted by Zed at 10:46 AM on March 8, 2011