Category: Reviews

I wanted to talk a bit about a singular and peculiar pre-Twine, choice-based game that came out in 2006 called Age of Fable. Even now there’s not anything (that I’ve found!) particularly like it.   The FAQ for the game also points to this indeterminate, fluid history. The text describes the game as an “RPG” but […]

Released in 1997, Andrew Plotkin’s “The Space Under the Window” (“Space”) was a groundbreaking, unclassifiable work of interactive fiction, the impact of which is still felt today. Many consider it a work of “poetic” IF, or poetry outright, but what does that mean? Is poetry a quality of language, interaction, or both? The work itself […]

Interactive fiction’s history both intersects and acts as an alternative space to modern game development—even indie, narrative-based development—with its own unique traditions and community standards. One of the most prominent is “comp,” which could also be a “mini-comp” or a “speed comp.” Most were small, one-shot affairs with perhaps a few games entered, while others […]

“I think that one day Rybread is going to successfully get what’s churning around in his mind written & compiled and present us with an absolutely stellar adventure game. And after giving us three weeks to play it, I predict he’ll then blow up the earth.” –Robb Sherwin on L.U.D.I.T.E.   When I first became […]

Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. In 1993, the golden age of commercial interactive fiction was mostly over, although a few notable games—such as Eric the Unready—were still being published. TADS (Text Adventure Development System) was […]