The innate nature of humanity is a topic that’s as old as thought. In Warring States China, for example, Mengzi held that human nature—while innately good—was corruptible by society, while Xunzi argued that society was the only thing which taught good behaviour in the first place. (Xunzi, ever the optimist, also thought that people had […]

One of the things we often hear submitters to sub-Q mention is how challenging it is to write a piece of interactive fiction that fits within our 5000-word limit. And that makes sense. With the possibility for word-bloat that IF’s branching narratives and variables introduce, telling a story in such a small space can be a challenge. […]

dcsross grew up on the west coast of Canada. His poetry has been published in Matrix Magazine and The Scarlet Leaf Review. He is 31 years old. Learn more at his website http://www.dcsross.com. His twitter and instagram are @dcsross. This interview was conducted via e-mail in July of 2018 by Stewart C Baker. sub-Q Magazine: […]

Our July game, the Hidden King by dcsross, presents us with a picture of madness, as the unnamed narrator struggles to navigate the shifting realities of a schizoaffective disorder. Also, there may be werewolves. Here’s our schedule for July: July 10th – Bruno Dias brings us part two of a primer in narrative design for writers.  […]

As an author and avid reader of prose fiction as well as the interactive kind, I often wonder what it is about the two media that makes them so engrossing. For me, at least, one of the key elements of interactive fiction is how it involves the reader in the tale it’s telling. The best […]

Katherine Morayati is an interactive fiction author whose works include “Take” and “Laid Off from the Synesthesia Factory,” which won XYZZY Awards for Best Writing in 2016 and 2015 respectively. Forthcoming projects include a choose-your-own-adventure piece for Choices of Games about opera sorcerers, and a collection of linked interactive short stories about former teen detectives. […]

Here at sub-Q, we’re no stranger to authors using technologies in novel ways. We’re also pretty good at trouble-shooting when things go wrong in a submission, or when one doesn’t play nice with a particular web browser. Still, with wearables, embedded RFIDs, and self-driving cars in the news these past few years, it’s sometimes hard for us […]

Perhaps it’s just my upbringing in England and current residence in Oregon, but I’ve always associated Spring with rain. Another thing that’s associated with Spring in some folklore traditions are certain types of fairy. In pre-Roman Spain, for instance, the Cantabrian people believed that on the night of the Spring Equinox, small female fairies called […]

Last month, sub-Q put out the call for a new editor. Now, we’re excited to announce that position has been filled by Natalia Theodoridou, a UK-based author whose work has appeared in our virtual pages not once, not twice, but three times. Natalia may be new to the position, but she’s certainly not new to […]

It’s starting to feel like spring here in the Pacific Northwest, but we still get cold weather overnight, and sometimes in the mornings the landscape seems to shimmer with a fine layer of frost that suggests an otherworldly influence. Which makes this the perfect month to release “Lost Ones” by Jac Colvin, a game with a […]

Gareth Damian Martin is the author of our February game, “Salt,” which will be published on February 20th. Gareth is a writer, game designer and artist. He is studying for a PhD in experimental literature and is currently developing a game about Xenobiology and alien oceans called In Other Waters. This interview was conducted over […]

Well, folks, here we are in February already. In January, we brought you “All Those Parties We Didn’t Cry At,” by Natalia Theodoridou. Haven’t played that yet? Go check it out! We’ll wait. Played it? We’d love to hear what you thought! In February, we’re picking up the pace a little as we move to bring […]

“All Those Parties We Didn’t Cry At” was originally published in Daily Science Fiction–minus the interactive bits, i.e. the passages that address the reader directly and ask them to perform certain actions. The story itself was a response to a Rumi quote: You left and I cried tears of blood. My sorrow grows. It’s not […]

It’s Tuesday again! Already. Somehow. And whatever that may mean for you, for us at sub-Q it means another week of updates to report on. Coming Next Week We’ve been busy working on our January story, Natalia Theodoridou‘s “All Those Parties We Never Cried At.” As always, Natalia brings a lot of oomph to her storytelling in […]