Indoors

Two men sit in this room, spinning non-linear yarns about the creation of interactive fiction. One sits at a small table. Another stands by a shelf along the wall, which is filled with many grey, rectangular objects that you can't quite make out from here.

You can see a small door, a small table, a shelf, Dave and Steve here.
posted by Malor on Dec 22, 2012 - 15 comments

"The experiences of women may not be easy to portray in the aggressive world of videogames. If such a game is made - and I hope it is - it will be because its creators demanded to be heard. It will be created because women made it." (Source)

While the vast majority of video game titles are designed primarily by men, women have been a part of video game development since the earliest arcades. Here are some of their games: [more inside]
posted by subject_verb_remainder on Dec 1, 2012 - 40 comments

Whenever a new Bond film is released, the promotional push for it is huge. Sony, which is distributing the movie in many territories, has taken the bull by the horns with this one and commissioned a text adventure game loosely based on the character of James Bond.
posted by Egg Shen on Nov 7, 2012 - 46 comments

"You are a cat. You don’t know your name, or where you are, or how you got there. You are sitting on a pile of clothes that smell familiar, and the room around you is quiet and dark." So begins A Stray In The Woods, an online collaborate comic/illustrated interactive fiction about being an amnesic cat. Take control of the story by suggesting things for the cat to do. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk on Sep 24, 2012 - 32 comments

Taco Fiction is the winner of 2011's Interactive Fiction Competition (previously). According to Emily Short, "Taco Fiction has been the most purely enjoyable experience of the comp so far, full of entertaining twists and surprises, fair puzzles, and a forgiving design that lets you go back for objects left behind or tasks not completed." [more inside]
posted by mokin on Dec 4, 2011 - 8 comments

Welcome to the complete online Infocom adventures page
0/0

>LOOK
Here you can find and play online every known version of every Infocom adventure.

What next?
>▂
posted by not_on_display on Sep 9, 2009 - 100 comments

"GET LAMP is a documentary about Text Adventures (later Interactive Fiction), the storytellers who created them, and their unique place in the history of computer games." Although not completed yet (it will be soon, as filming was completed in October), this documentary will contain 76 interviews with people involved in the industry at the time, including Scott Adams (not the cartoonist), Marc Blanc and Tim Anderson (who both worked on Zork, one of the best known examples of the medium) . Here's a teaser trailer. And here are some fun representatives of the genre to play online.
posted by SpacemanStix on Jan 2, 2008 - 55 comments

To celebrate the results of this year's IF Comp, why not check out the entries on the new Interactive Fiction Database? [more inside]
posted by flatluigi on Nov 18, 2007 - 7 comments

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...
posted by grumblebee on Sep 18, 2002 - 18 comments

9:05 Remember back in the heyday of Infocom when you would routinely spend four or five days straight (subsisting on RC cola and beef jerky, only taking breaks to visit the john) trying to crack all the puzzles in Zork II or Suspended? Yeah, those were the days. Now, of course, you're a busy guy -- you can no longer devote entire weekends to the joys of text adventuring. That's why, today on your coffee break, you should play Adam Cadre's 9:05. Playing the entire game, from start to finish, should take you no longer than 10 minutes. But set aside a bit more time, because you'll probably want to play it again.
posted by Shadowkeeper on Apr 3, 2002 - 28 comments

Remember Zork, Planetfall, and the other creations of late game company Infocom? Well, "interactive fiction," as the format is called, is still alive and well. Every year the IF community -- which is known for releasing work of quality far surpassing even Infocom's masterpieces -- holds a competition for short works, and this year's contestants have been released! Read this post's comments for more info...
posted by tweebiscuit on Sep 30, 2001 - 13 comments