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What's New In IF? Issue 18 (2024)

By Erika, Marjorie, Axelle, and Noi

Now Available!

Itch.io. - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people sees it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

Another weekend, another zine!

Unfortunately, the end of summer is approaching. For many of us, it will mean a slow down in the time spent in the IF spaces, playing or creating.

But the IF machine never sleeps! No matter the time or season, there's still something happening!

Whether it is events or releases, we'll continue to do our best to report on it!

On to the zine!!

This week, we “sat down” with Drew Cook, author of the award-winning Repeat the Ending and retro-IF enthusiast at the head of the Gold Machine.

We had a lot of questions for Drew, and learned a lot about IF and meanings in the process!

So don't forget to check out our interview with Drew Cook on Small Talk…

We hope you enjoy this extra long issue!

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

~ BE PART OF THE ZINE ~

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? HAS EXPANDED!

Since the release of issue #14, we've enacted some changes with the zine. It is now expanded with interviews of creators from all around the IF world, as well as direct contributions from you, our readers!

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Excited as we are about next week's interview and have questions for our guest? Or want to see a certain author answer questions next? Message us!

SMALL TALK... IS WAITING!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : SuNoFes Jam ~

Have yourself a project during the summer…

Hosted every summer since 2015 on itch, the Summer Novel Festival is an unranked narrative game jam with a focus on visual novels and story-based games.

From July 1st to August 31st, participants are welcome to submit a single narrative entry. From a simple demo to completing previously unfinished project, the goal of SuNoFes is to create a game during the summer.

Hosted every summer since 2015 on itch, the Summer Novel Festival is an unranked narrative game jam with a focus on visual novels and story-based games.

As for restrictions, there aren't really any. You do not have to wait for the start of the jam to start working on something, and there aren't any restrictions or themes to abide to. Only depictions of sex and gore are prohibited.

With over two weeks left to go, there is still a bit of time left to whip up a short game and be part of the biggest SunNoFes cohort yet!

~ ENDED ~

Over 30 entries were submitted to the Single Choice Jam! If you are looking for a quick read or despair over (the lack of) choices, check them out!

About a dozen bitsy entries can be found at the last bitsy Jam #82. It's intentionally bad... or is it?

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

You can now check out the entries submitted to the IntroComp and vote for your favorite demo!

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

Just this weekend is left to submit for the Velox Fabula. If you are looking for a challenge, join this ranked VN jam, with a theme.

If you still want thrills but in a chiller way, the Tales to Thrill Jam also just started. Take your pick from the three themes and try your best at emulating the creepy campfire vibes!

For those who created an intent to participate at the IFComp, you have until the end of the month to submit a full game… or wait for next year! (Or you can look our for beta-openings, create an account to vote when the games are released, or offer prizes!) @ifcomp

For the francophones, the French IF community is organizing a summer-long camp to create parsers. Join the Confiture de Parser if you're interested!

Do you have WIPs on indefinite hiatus? Projects you've started forced to be set aside? Bring Out Your Ghost is a jam to show off your ghosts (and maybe even spruce them up and finish them)! @neointeractives

On the CoG Forum, Halloween is already there! Until Oct 31st, submit to the Halloween Jam - it has funky themes!

Looking for motivation to try your hands at Visual Novels? The Phantasia Jam just started, and will run until Halloween! Three months to create a fantasy VN, with the theme of “Hidden Magic”.

Do you understand or write Ukrainian? Until the end of the year, the Ukrainian IF Festival is happening on itch.io!

~ OTHER ~

Over on the IntFiction Forum, the Review-a-thon is continuing its initiative to get more reviews for games. Check out this post by Tabitha if you want to participate! It ends on the 30th. This is also a sponsored event, aiming to raise funds for one of the Forum members.

The Interactive Fiction Showcase is still running! If you have completed an IF piece this year, consider submitting it! It is happening only on itch!

~ SMALL TALK… ~

WITH DREW COOK (@golmac)

Joining us today is award-winning author, retro IF enthusiast: Drew Cook ~ Author of Repeat the Ending and creator of Gold Machine

This interview contains links that were not included due to the Tumblr links limits. Please download the itch.io version!

⟶ Hi Drew! Thank you for joining us this week!

Thanks for having me! I love the positive vibe of What’s New in IF and was glad to hear from you.

⟶ Please tell us a bit more about yourself and how you got into IF.

I first got into interactive fiction as an 80s kid, and my most treasured possession was a Commodore 64 microcomputer. The “C64” was one of the more popular and affordable home computers in America at the time. Text adventure games (today we say “parser”) were very popular. I was a nerdy, lonely child who spent a lot of time playing games like that. Adventure games were a huge part of my childhood and were a good way for me to get lost for a few hours. I was also into sci-fi, fantasy, and collecting tabletop RPG rulebooks.

My childhood was not great, and imagination was what sustained me. Adventure games helped to sustain me.

There was a whole, non-IF life after that. I went to college and got a grown-up job. Unfortunately, I had a very serious and escalatory diagnosis of Bipolar I with psychotic features. There were some other problems as well. That complex of issues changed the course of my life drastically. When it became clear that I couldn't continue working in my career, I tried to find something else to do. I earned an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree in creative writing. I enjoyed that work, but I could not complete further study because teaching was too difficult for me. I had hoped to find a new career after becoming disabled, but I hit a wall. I was devastated at the time.

My partner and I agreed that I had to find something challenging and fulfilling to do, and I tried a few things without any luck. Out of nowhere, I thought: “What if I wrote some literary-style criticism of those old 80s games?” That turned out to be the answer. I've been writing about games and making games ever since! I feel very lucky to have found my way into this scene. I have two blogs, a podcast, and three works in progress all churning, so I stay busy with IF content.

⟶ And this is how Gold Machine started, then? Could you tell us about this project?

I had the initial idea of writing literary criticism for games by a company called Infocom in 2020, but it wasn't fully baked. Initially, I started a forum thread where I planned to narrate a playthrough of the entire company's catalogue, but that didn't really take off. It was the wrong venue, and I didn't have my voice yet. I tried again with a blogging site, but I hated the way everything looked and engagement was very poor. Nobody was reading any of it!

This was all during COVID, late 2020 into mid 2021. Somewhere in there, my mother died, and my father was in another state, taking things very poorly. I was driving a lot, missing my own little family, and just trying to do whatever it is that good sons do. It's a recurring thing in my story: interaction fiction was a part of getting through that. I was playing old games in hotel rooms and making notes, and the time went by. Things settled down.

I thought: I should spend a little money on this, get the look I want. I took a few months to plan things out. I put myself in the frame: there are several posts about my childhood relationship with classic adventure games. While those pieces aren't confessional, I am honest about my memories of childhood. I've realized that I can't see those games outside of those memories. I can't transcend them or get beyond them. Anytime I look at something, I'm there. What would my experience of art be without me? I can't imagine it.

That was a new and growing focus for what became Gold Machine. I wanted to talk about these games as art, yes, but also as experiences that real people have. That I have. Perspective was the piece missing from earlier efforts, and I've put it this way in the past: authors have intent, while audiences find meaning. The blog is about me finding meaning in interactive fiction. The mix has been good; the blog has done pretty well for a niche subject like 1980s parser games.

My goal with Gold Machine is to write about every single Infocom game. My general approach is to make three posts: a critical introduction, a plot analysis, and a game-specific craft topic. Most games have more posts, though. I'm proud of the work there, and I especially enjoy bringing in philosophical concepts or talking about mental illness.

I'm halfway through the catalog, though writing games has been making a lot of demands for my time. Things were moving more quickly before I started learning Inform 7! I always have more than one Inform 7 thing going.

⟶ So you are halfway through that catalogue now. How does it feel being in the middle point of your journey?

It feels really good! I've gotten past halfway, now that I think of it. Trinity is 21 out of 36, I believe. I'm proud of the work. Several pieces that I've written have been mentioned at Critical Distance, and I've

always loved their weekly roundup posts. Very few essays about classic interactive fiction get mentioned in those spaces, so those acknowledgements made me feel like I'd really accomplished something as a critic. I wasn't sure, early on, if Gold Machine would find an audience, but it seems to have caught on with people. Every once in a while, I'll see somebody mention something I've written and it feels great. I never take that for granted.

I'm most proud of my series on A Mind Forever Voyaging. It is more special to me than it might be to other notable critics, so I wanted to lift it up and explore that: why was it so special? I took my time getting there, and I think it was worth it. I hope it was.

Other things along the way have been very satisfying to write about. To name a few examples: gender in The Witness, Mental Illness in Deadline, modular narrative design in parser IF generally, and the failed database system Cornerstone (“Adults Are Not to Be Trusted”). It's been a great ride!

I have to admit, though, that things have slowed down. Trinity, along with Spellbreaker, Plundered Hearts, and A Mind Forever Voyaging, is probably one of the biggest Infocom games in terms of critical reception. To many players, it is Infocom's best work, their peak. I'm midway through it right now, and I feel I need to be thorough and careful in a way that is unique when compared with Infocom's other games. Its author, Brian Moriarty, writes thoughtful and textured prose, so that deserves a more deliberate pace. Because of this, I've often found myself tempted by other activities with Top Expert and game development. I will finish, though. I've played all of the other games recently, so once I get through this slow patch I should be able to make progress.

By the time this is over, I may have written more about Infocom than anyone else. If not, I think I'll be a close second. I'd be proud of that, as I think those works deserve that kind of treatment.

With that said, it is and has been a big project and a long road. I'd love to write about other games someday, as I have a lot of post-Infocom interests! I wonder what Gold Machine will do next? I haven't decided.

⟶ What has been your favorite game to play so far for Gold Machine?

My favorite game to play for GM was A Mind Forever Voyaging [review], and I hope I raised awareness about its important place in the history of narrative games. I got mentioned at Critical Distance for “The Year In Video Game Blogging” for this specific one, and I am very proud of it.

⟶ Out of the Infocom games left, which game are you most looking forward to?

As for what lies ahead, my answer is easy to come by: Amy Briggs's Plundered Hearts, which I feel was overlooked for many years. That tide has shifted, and it is listed on the most recent “Top 50 of All Time” list! It's an unusually narrative-focused Infocom game, and it feels ahead of its time for that reason. I'm very excited about it.

⟶ Next to Gold Machine, you also have the Gold Microphone podcast, which came back this year with Trinity. What was your goal with the podcast, running along your blog and also discussing the Infocom-era games?

People had been asking for more podcast episodes. By some measurements, the podcast was probably more successful than the blog. It had fallen off because a) my partner/collaborator Callie got busy with her doctoral dissertation and b) she started doing art for my game projects! We are still working together a lot, but we're doing something else now. Still, as I've said, I don't take it for granted when people talk about my work. It's very motivating, in fact. I wondered: how can I keep this going? If there was interest, I wanted to do it.

People like getting information in different ways, because we experience life differently. I just said this over at Top Expert, I think! Some listeners told me they enjoyed the less formal nature of the podcast. I like it too. I can unwind a bit and talk about Graham Nelson. Or I can say, “I want to think about challenges differently” and try to map that out. Gold Machine is a little too rigid for that kind of conversation. I like being able to loosen up a little, and some listeners seem to prefer me that way, too.

Thinking about Trinity specifically, the podcast is a way to bring in more outside content and zoom out the camera a bit. What about this or that kind of critical writing? What about modern adventure games? What do I consider “good” and “bad” types of friction? I like it because it enables different kinds of analysis and observation. I'm really looking forward to talking about VTM: Swansong. That's something Gold Machine can't do right now, but it's interesting, right? My basic idea is that some design challenges are constant: there are similar problems confronted by Trinity and VTM, two games released nearly forty years apart. I like being able to show that, despite changes in tech and presentation, those old games engage with fundamental elements of narrative game design.

⟶ If you could have any guest on Gold Microphone, who would you like to talk to for an episode?

Wow! That's very hard to answer. I want to pick someone actively making content right now. Possibly Brian Rushton (mathbrush)? Brian is the Spring Thing organizer, a successful author, knows a ton of IF history, and a prolific reviewer. I interviewed him once about a single game, but he has a lot more to say, I'm sure. My other answer might be Mike Russo because he knows a ton of not-IF stuff that informs his reviews, so they're very textually rich and insightful. Other thoughts: Manonamora, Kastel. There are so many smart people doing IF these days, so this is not an exhaustive list!

⟶ Moving on to Top Expert, your other side project focusing more on making IF rather than playing IF, started about 2 years after your first Gold Machine post. What prompted the creation of this website?

I've talked about the difficulties of being a beginner. We all come to IF with different skill sets and capabilities. I was not a programmer when I began Repeat the Ending. Sometimes, when asking for help, I felt a little... incapable. Like, there are beginners and then there are beginners. Sometimes I might have been a little embarrassed, as in “Why am I not getting this?” After I got a ‘Best in Show’ ribbon at Spring Thing, I wanted to tell people new to Inform 7 that you don't have to be a brilliant programmer to do well. Sort of, “If I can make stuff, you can too”.

My first step was making a new tag on Tumblr and just making posts with code tips and tutorials. People responded well to these, and I was glad! That's when I started using the status messages “let's make IF” and “IF is for everyone”. I really believe that; it isn't just marketing. I started Top Expert maybe five months later, as a place to move that forward. My intent was to write mostly about making IF. The initial goal was to live-blog making a game for Spring Thing, but life got in the way. I am hoping to get after that again, maybe after if/when I wrap up my IF Comp entry.

In the meantime, I've done a soft reboot there to get new readers up to speed with the basics. I've also written my first essay about the writing, less technical side of my process. People really seemed to enjoy that, so I plan to do more in the future.

“Top Expert” is meant to be ironic, which.. maybe I never explain? I don't see myself as an expert, and my whole message there is that you don't have to be an expert to be a part of this scene. It's for everyone.

⟶ Let's Make IF is your main series in the Top Expert blog. Before starting it, did you have a plan on what you would cover? Or you just shared what you thought was interesting?

The earliest plan was very general, but there was a specific goal and format: write a small game based on a story for young people about a boy and a cat having an adventure. I'd make posts as I made progress. I had some topics that I wanted to learn about, so I thought I'd write as I learned. I paused that effort because I had to pause work on the game.

A challenge I haven't completely solved is that difficulty climbs as a project goes on. I want to manage that curve so that the blog remains approachable. For the foreseeable future, I want to combine writing and coding advice, which will slow things down and hopefully make the advice more practical. What do I do when I make a room, for instance, or write object descriptions? And so forth.

If/when I return to Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight (the live blog game), things will get more challenging, tech-wise. Still, the nice thing about that one is that I'm sharing new source code as I write it. People can read the code in progress. I'm not sure anyone has done that before? Perhaps not to that extent. I do want to complete that effort, since it could be a good reference for people.

My vague answer about planning is that I have things I want to accomplish, but there is never a step-by-step plan. I like finding my way. I like doing this, so my own fulfillment guides a lot of my decisions. I think: maybe if I'm having a good time, my readers will, too.

⟶ Which post for Top Expert did you particularly enjoy writing, and why? Was there a hurdle you wish you had known before starting with Inform?

The recent post about “Let's WRITE IF” was very well-received! Text hasn't been a huge focus for me,

but I think I should integrate more discussion of it. In terms of tech, I discovered a ton of cool stuff in the Marbles and D series. I made my first ‘relation’, which is a subject that feels intimidating to people. When you relate things in Inform 7, you are able to make custom sentences in your code. It's very powerful because it allows you to make really readable code.

For instance, in that project it's possible to write code like “the stage is visible from the audience” because of a relation. This was a huge ‘ah-ha’ moment for me!

I've enjoyed all of it, though. The more I write about Inform 7, the more I learn. I really see myself and readers learning together. “Let's Make IF” is more than a name. It's how I feel about the blog.

⟶ For our readers who don't know the project yet, can you tell us a bit more about Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight?

Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight is part of the RTEverse: a much more gentle and lighthearted corner of that universe. The main character is a young boy, D, on an adventure with his best friend, a cat named Marbles. They find out they are trapped in a mysterious theater and must discover the secrets of the space, hopefully escaping in time for lunch with the Guildmaster of the local Enchanter's guild and his pet lemur, Loretta (I'm serious!). From a tech point of view, it is a way for me to explore “scenes”, a powerful feature of Inform 7 that can be used to create a sense of dramatic movement.

I discussed my plan for the project with Brian Rushton, the organizer of Spring Thing. He agreed that I could enter the project as a Back Garden entry (i.e., not compete for Best in Show) while sharing source code, as long as I didn't distribute a compiled game. That's what I've done! There is no binary out there, but anyone can compile the source

themselves. There are fifteen posts so far. The latest version – from the last post in the series – compiles if you delete the last two lines about filename and date. Anybody can look at it right now! Here are all the posts with the ‘marbles and d’ tag.

It's an exciting game for me. Callie and I are big time into cats, so we've enjoyed talking about the story and characters. I'll continue to publish new source code when the project resumes.

⟶ Repeat the Ending is your actual debut in IF authorship, which was pretty successful, winning both the SpringThing and a bunch of Awards (which is pretty rare!). How did you (and Callie) get to work on it?

Things just kind of happen, sometimes. Gold Machine was linked on the IntFiction Forum, so I wandered over there and joined. People discuss Inform 7 over there a lot, and I would sometimes lurk. After a while, I realized: I could understand some of it! That's all thanks to Inform 7's unusual syntax, which just clicked in my brain somehow. I recall that Amanda Walker, who has made some good games, was very open about not being a super technical person, which I thought was very cool. Maybe I could try, too. Before long, I had downloaded the Inform 7 IDE and tinkered in secret.

What everybody knows as Repeat the Ending didn't exist yet. I had pictured a kind of light adventure with a depressive young man and a quippy demon. Pretty light fare. I built the magic system for that. A scene with the demon, the orange-eyed woman, followed. I discovered shortly thereafter that I couldn't write what I wanted, a kind of magic buddy movie. Emotionally, I just wasn't in the right place for that, and I needed to do something darker. It was a healthy dark, as I had been through a lot during COVID and was trying to make sense of it all. Perhaps I wanted to explain myself to myself, if that makes sense, or maybe I just wanted everything to mean something. I wasn't being a shrewd artist. Everything was intuitive.

Early testing was kind of rough. My code was messy. I guess a lot of it was messy. Eventually, things stabilized, and I found some solid, committed testers.

There was a long way to go. After those first tests, I think I had the opening scene with the orange-eyed woman and part of the trailer. That was a lot! I could really start thinking about things like narrative voice, tone, and all the writerly things that interest me. More important than that: a couple of people told me that they thought my project was worthwhile. They encouraged me. Without them, and I'm not exaggerating, I might not have continued. I wasn't sure at all about the project or my skill level.

I learned a lot while making RTE. Design, yes. Code, yes. I also came away from that experience wanting to be nicer to people about their work. I don't write negative reviews anymore. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking people who do, but it all hits differently for me now.

At that stage, Callie was my confidant, editor, advisor. I showed her everything. She doesn't want that kind of credit, but it's the truth. When she showed up with a drawing of the orange-eyed-woman just out of nowhere, I was floored. I never told her what to draw. All of the art is hers and hers alone. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

⟶ Can you tell us a bit more about the premise of the game?

The basic idea of Repeat the Ending is that a young man wrote a game for the 1996 IF Competition. It was very buggy and came in second to last. Years later, some new media types are looking for an IF game to revive as a “lost classic”, so they hunt down the author, “Drew Cook”, and ask him to work with them on a new “critical edition” of that game. He agrees.

The playable game is that critical edition. There is also a PDF “transcript” of the buggy 1990s version. In both versions, a mentally ill young man named “D” must travel to the hospital because his mother is dying. On the way, he uses magical powers to help people and a cat. This new “edition” contains footnotes, essays, archival reviews about the game.

It features a “story mode”, which allows people to experience the game even if they're not really into parser gameplay.

It took maybe 18 months, and I put out revisions for months after release. It's big for an Inform 7 game: 150k words of text and code, I think. I didn't target a specific competition for releasing it, so I had an “it's done when it's done” mindset. The story was written from the center out. That is, there were core concepts and themes: mental illness, entropy, grief. I had the characters of D and the Orange-Eyed-Woman. From there, writing happened along multiple arcs. There was the basic story, which came first, and the critical stuff, which followed behind. I wrote the story in episodes, perhaps like issues of a comic book. Each is self-contained, but builds on what came before. As I recently said over at Top Expert, I sincerely didn't know the ending before I got there. I wrote my way to it, if that makes sense.

A note about process: testers were always bouncing ideas off of me, and I really took their experiences to heart. I'm glad I was able to be open in that way, because the game is better because of it.

⟶ Mental illness and emotional distress is a pretty major aspect of the story in Repeat the Ending. Was it something you've drawn from your own experience? What inspired you to include this in the game?

It was never my original intent to include mental illness in Repeat the Ending, but mental illness had other ideas. People have told me specifically that the portrayal of mental illness holds a lot of meaning for them, so I want to just let them have that without saying too much as the author.

Taking RTE out of it: mental illness is a huge presence in my life. I spend a lot of time and money managing it. Energy. And that's just the logistical side of it. The symptoms, the feelings, that's more, that's on top of everything else. My diagnosis is never far from my mind.

⟶ Was there a particular scene of Repeat the Ending that you found challenging?

I think that there were some challenges for me, tech-wise, with getting D and Brad from the trailer park to the house on Lakeshore Drive. There were some narrative challenges, too. Brad went through a lot of versions. He was a victim of violence, but I didn't want that to be all that he was. I didn't want him to be just a sad moment in D's journey. So far as combining programming and writing challenges, I think it's Brad's scene. I'm happy with it, too! That's another one people have commented on, so it must have come across for them.

Emotionally, the scene in the drug store is rough for me. Which is good, I think.

⟶ What was your favorite moment of Repeat the Ending?

My favorite is either the ending or the beginning. I love the Orange-Eyed Woman as a character, and she turns up in both places! In terms of my own fulfillment, though, it has to be the ending. Even now, I have an emotional response to it. In terms of the art, I think Callie's portrayal of the scene outside the hospital might be my favorite, though it's hard to pick just one.

⟶ Let's focus on the “story mode”. What brought on this feature, and was it difficult to implement?

A general concept of built-in walkthrough for parser games was bubbling up in a few places last year, but I first encountered the idea in John Ziegler's How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title. He wanted to give his friends and family who weren't into parser games a way to experience the work. That was very relatable to me! I was impressed with the concept, but didn't have any time to think about it with Spring Thing coming up.

A couple of months later, during Disability Pride month, I was talking to author Wade Clarke about accessibility in IF. We were both interested in some research that the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation had done on accessibility, and we both explored ways to build walkthroughs into games. I think we finished around the same time. Wade wound up giving me some tips about saving game data, so my tool [Story Mode Extension for i7] is much better thanks to him. Writing it was challenging for me technically, so I'm proud of it.

It's my hope that people can use it for different things. An author could use it to make their parser game into a kinetic experience. It could be used as a training or tutorial tool. One thing that I hear again and again is that new players worry about messing things up or making the wrong decision, so it has a sandbox mode that lets people experiment without consequences. Ultimately, it's an accessibility tool that can make parser games more approachable. It's portable and can scale to accommodate very large games.

I'm not sure how widely used it is, because people who don't like parser games probably aren't expecting a feature like that! But I know some people who wouldn't have played RTE otherwise, so that alone makes it worthwhile for me.

⟶ Having created a whole system yourself, do you have any advice for someone looking to make their parser accessible to players?

I think considering screen reader experience is important, and a little work can have a big payoff for players. For instance, there are two extensions for menus in Inform 7. I use Wade Clarke's because it supports screen readers. One thing I've realized while writing my current WIP is that my image descriptions in Repeat the Ending aren't good enough, so I need to go back. I'm still finding things to improve there!

Going back to IFTF's accessibility report, I think having a strategy for presenting and recalling in-game information can make a huge difference to players. What information does the player need to know to succeed? How easily can they get to it? What if they need to access it later? I probably went overboard in RTE, as there are many commands for reviewing footnotes, discovered sources, and even “deaths”, but I'm really convinced that information management can be an accessibility problem. Is the player performing multiple steps to see information they've already discovered? What for? And so on.

My best advice is to talk to the community! In my games, words that players can type verbatim as commands are bracketed with asterisks, as in *READ NOTE*. I do this because a screen reader user told me that it would help them. Almost everything I've done to make my work accessible has come from research and conversation. I'm not an expert, so I try to understand what people with experience are saying.

⟶ Another form of accessibility with parsers is the inclusion of Tutorials at the start of the game, which is also included in RTE through C.A. Smythe notes. To you, what should be the goal of a tutorial, and how do you achieve that?

Tutorials are really hard to write. I think at a basic level, the goal of the tutorial is to teach the player something, but there are the questions of “what?” and “how much?” Repeat the Ending isn't meant to be an introduction to parser games, so its tutorial started as a way to introduce unique commands for the magic system and various bits of paratext (guide, footnotes, etc). From a design point of view, my earliest priority was walking the player through completing the basic gameplay loop: find magic, get magic, use magic. If a work has a unique mechanic, players have to know about it.

People writing tutorials for players brand new to parser games have a much bigger challenge to take on: what does a person who has never played a parser game need to know? That's something that comes up in discussion a lot. I don't think there's a perfect answer yet, but it probably involves not just command entry but presentation and information management.

The other aspect of the tutorial is narrative voice. Who is giving these instructions? Does that work with or against the in-game narrator? My initial tutorial involved a generic, omniscient persona, but a tester suggested making it a distinct speaker instead. Things really took off from there! Smythe also teaches the player about the "meta" aspect of the game, since the player sees a lot of her comments early on.

In everything I'm working on now, having a solid answer for the question “who is explaining the game to the player” is a priority.

For a new player, I think I'd recommend Lonely Troll by Amanda Walker. That's got a lot of strong tutorial content.

⟶ With the heavy meta aspect of the game, we couldn't help but notice a link to your other project Gold Machine and how people find meaning in IF. Was this done on purpose, or were you simply influenced by your player-first-perspective on the medium?

I'm always careful about discussing my intent, since I don't want to influence the player's experience. However, I have discussed my writing process: I discovered Repeat the Ending while writing it, beginning with only a small idea. In that sense, I was its first player. I experienced its loops, saw its text as it went from head to screen. In other words: I had my own experience with it, too.

That experience involved finding meaning. It definitely led me to ask if players could have that same sense of discovering and interpreting. I also wondered: is this what people want out of IF? Out of my work? Ultimately, I had to put it in front of people and find out.

I'll be honest. I was completely unprepared for the reaction to RTE. I thought it would have fans, but it would ultimately wind up an obscure curiosity. I'm very grateful that people engaged with all of the text and discussed it. That meant a lot to me.

⟶ And a great reaction it got! You not only won Best in Show at the SpringThing, you also received a handful of IFDB Awards, and was ranked in the TOP 50 IF of All Time... all as your debut game. This is pretty unusual. How did it feel getting this reaction? And does it put any pressure on you, for any future project you are thinking of releasing?

It's strange, I entered Spring Thing feeling very competitive. I wanted to prove myself, and that was always on my mind. I felt vulnerable because I was putting myself out there with a game that felt personal, and I didn't want to fail. That was a lot of pressure that I was putting on myself. I think that I'll be able to go easier on myself next time I enter Spring Thing. I'll also do a Back Garden entry next time whether it's Marbles and D or something else.

That will remove concerns about winning altogether!

There's another kind of pressure, though, which is what you're asking about. People liked Repeat the Ending so much, and I really want to give them a good experience. I think that one way around or past the pressure is to do something completely different! My IF Comp game has nearly nothing to do with RTE, though I think my writing style might come across. It will hopefully be a good palate cleanser before the other RTEverse games hit next year.

⟶ After a large competition, we've seen some authors blow off steam by entering small game jams (especially more recently). Is that kind of event something you'd participate in the future as well?

I've always seen myself as a “big game” person, mainly because my writing style leads me down side roads and discursions. I like to tinker, and that takes time, code, and text. I'm not very efficient!

I've wanted to challenge that, though. Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight began as an ECTOCOMP game. First as La Petite Mort, and later, when things got out of hand, Le Grand Guignol. I still couldn't keep it under control, so it became the Let's Make IF idea. That's what it will stay, sharing code and tutorials will be its final form.

⟶ With the IFComp upon us, can you give us some details about your entry?

It is another answer to your jam question. I hang out on the Neo Interactives (@neointeractives) discord and I'm always curious about their events. Single Choice Jam in particular sounds like an interesting challenge from a narrative POV, and I've wanted to write something single choice for a while. But! My attempt for this year's jam turned out to have more choices, so I'm hurrying to finish it up in time for IF Comp. Callie is making art, too. I don't want to spoil any surprises. It describes itself as a “fun fortune telling game with a gimmick”! The title, emoticons included, is “Portrait With Wolf ^_^”

So, single choice-inspired, fortune telling. It's very choice friendly, for people who prefer that to parser gameplay. I hope your readers will try it out!

⟶ So you have Top Expert, Gold Machine and Gold Microphone, and working on your own lengthy parser projects, how do you manage balancing all that?

Honestly, I don't balance it very well. These are all things I got into out of love, so they are each pulling at me all of the time. Right now, hitting the IF Comp deadline is the priority, so everything has to get out of the way for that. I have this feeling that Top Expert should update weekly. Honestly, Gold Machine and the podcast have much bigger audiences, but if somebody can use my stuff to meet a jam or comp deadline, I want it to be there.

I don't know if that ever happens, but I'm listening to that impulse for now.

I need to get serious about Gold Machine once the game is done, though. I've let Trinity go on too long and it's starting to feel weird.

However, I've learned to be nice to myself about this stuff. I lost three months to depression earlier in the year. I just couldn't make anything for three months. That's why I didn't hit the Spring Thing deadline for the Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight project. It's possible to get stuck there, thinking “I can't believe all that work is down the drain”. I wanted to write those posts, and be part of that event. People were following along and taking part. It's disappointing, but I can't beat myself up whenever that happens.

My core philosophy is that I want to do what I love when I can. Some good things have come out of that!

⟶ You've reviewed quite a few games since you joined the IF scene. Do you have any recommendations for our readers?

I have reviewed a lot of games, though there are a ton more that I hope to talk about someday. A lot of my favorites are outliers, usually because I'm attracted to certain themes or mechanics.

Thinking of parser games: my favorite Andrew Plotkin game is Shade, and I've never seen anyone say that before. My favorite Amanda Walker game is The Spectators. I love Brian Rushton's The Impossible Stairs! Something by Chandler Groover: Eat Me, probably. I think A Mind Forever Voyaging is Infocom's best game, though my sentimental favorites are Enchanter and Zork III. Gestures Toward Divinity by Charm Cochran. One more: Sting by Mike Russo.

I seem to be drawn to choice-based works these days, mostly because choice games are often better at driving their narratives forward. I enjoy that sort of storytelling momentum and also want to learn from it as a writer. I don't think many would agree, but my favorite Emily Short game is Bee, and it's not very close! I love Brendan Patrick Hennessy's stuff (@brendanpatrickhennessy). Spy Intrigue by Furkle. Computerfriend by Kit Riemer (@adz). My opinion on this varies, but, for today's interview, my favorite Autumn Chen game is A Paradox Between Worlds [Drew interviewed Autumn]. Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road by Kyle Marquis is my favorite Choice of Games title.

There's so much great IF out there. I could probably spend days making a comprehensive list of favorites!

⟶ What is on the horizon for Drew Cook, and where can we follow it all?

Currently, I have three Inform 7 works in progress. The IF Comp game is going to some testers this week. I'd love to get Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight in next year's Spring Thing! As I've mentioned, I'd like to make some headway with Trinity. I've wanted to write an essay about Victor Gijsbers's The Game Formerly Known as Hidden N*zi Mode for quite a while. We'll see! I always have a bunch of stuff bouncing around in my head.

I always announce new content on mastodon and tumblr (@golmac). It's ok to contact me at either of those places. I'm always happy to hear from nice people!

Less formally, I follow Neo Interactives (@neointeractives). They have cool jams and a nice discord. That's a good place to just run into me. You can check out their tumblr for more info.

I'm very open to questions about Inform 7 or anything else. Don't be afraid to get in touch!

WARMEST THANKS TO DREW COOK FOR BEING SO CANDID WITH US ABOUT HIS INTERACTIVE FICTION PROJECTS!

~ NEW RELEASE ~

~ We didn't find new complete releases outside of events ~

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

To Taste Sweet Silver (Twine) is a dark gaslamp fantasy, where survival is not really your end goal. @sweetsilver-if

The Sun Coven (CScript) is a fantasy project where you play a fleeing witch trying to survive and maybe rebuild the old coven. @the-sunhold-coven

Knight of Greenhaven (CScript) is a high-fantasy project, where you play a newly-made knight looking to compete in a royal tourney.

Weeping Gods (CScript) is a historical fantasy set in Ancient Egypt, where you goal is to recover powerful artifacts, or risk death. @jcollinswrites

Freak: Falling Awake (CScript) is a reimagining of the Freak story, following your journey as a nigh indestructible superhuman.

At the mercy of hatred (CScript) is a superhero story, where you play a vigilante seeking revenge. @darkrose-thewriter

Heart of the Mountain (CScript) is a fantasy romance project, set 5 years after Heart of Battle, with a completely new cast.

Orphic Love (CScript) is romance fantasy project inspired by Greek Mythology, where you play as the goddess of nightmares.

~ GAMES UPDATES ~

The Wayhaven Chronicles (CScript) released the second chapter of Book 4 to the public. @seraphinitegames

Incubus (Twine) released its fourth chapter. @sonnet009games

The Bastard of Camelot (Twine) added Chapter 5 to the demo. @llamagirl28

Link Rot (Custom) released a new transmission. @qrowscant

The Lonely Shore (CScript) updated the demo with Chapter 2. @thelonelyshore-if

The In-Between (CScript) added Chapters 7 and 8 to the Patreon demo. @dalekowrites

Zombie Exodus: Stronghold (CScript)'s demo updated with Chapter 4.

Peninsula Campaign (CScript)'s demo is now available to the public.

Dawn of Heroes (CScript) added Chapter 26, its final chapter, to the demo.

A Shriek of Ash and Fire (CScript) updated both the Patreon and public demo with extra content. @krogpile

Before the Incident (CScript) added Chapters 3 and 4 to the demo. @remnant-verse-if

The Bar on the Abyss (CScript) updated the demo with a lot of extra content and improvements. @thebarontheabyss

The Ballad of Devil's Creek (Twine) complete its move from Harlowe to SugarCube. @devilscreekballad

The One Chosen (CScript) updated the public beta with Chapter 31. @parrotwatcher

~ OTHER ~

After a few quiet months, The Rosebush returned with a new essay, “Game Design Lessons Learned Trying to Write a Cento” by Hugo Labrande. @the-rosebush-mag

The new issue of the Amare Fortnightly Bulletin just released! Check out issue 22. @amaregames

Communistsister released a new fork of her engine Videotome, for lightweight stat raising datingsims called VIDEOTOME HEARTBREAK. @communistsister

Honor Bound (CScript) is officially in its Beta Testing Period, and is looking for official testers. @hpowellsmith

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Shepherds of Haven by Lena Nguyen @shepherds-of-haven (CScript - dashingdon)

“An absolute masterpiece, one of the best IFs out there. The world building is so detailed, interesting, the writing style is gorgeous and lush, and the characters are honestly TO DIE FOR. Impeccable found family who have their own personalities and lives and who feel like real people!! Insane branching and freedom of choice!!”

//submitted by anonymous//

Pokemon by Anna Anthropy (Bitsy - itch.io)

“Just play it.”

(ok sorry, here's the real rec:)

Cowgirl Boots by fellerooni (Bitsy - itch.io)

“The coziest and cutest lesbian western piece I've ever played. It's only good vibes all the way down. Cried like 500 times.”

//submitted by hehehehe//

Sobre lo inevitable by paravaariar (Custom - itch.io - IFDB)

A symbolic and surreal escape adventure inside a sandcastle, where one wrong move sends you back to the start (but your progress doesn't completely reset). It is beautfifully retro, and charmingly atmospheric.

While the puzzles are not too complex, one or two does need a bit of remembering info.

Also available in French.

//recommended by Axelle [Team]//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserve some highlighting?

A old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Dang! yall are doing amazing interviews here! I don't know who asks the questions there, but they are really so good and bring such interesting answers from the interviewees! Barbara's interview was fantastic!!! - catsobabel

I don't want to be a huge bummer but I learned that the author of Magium passed away. His game was what got me into IF... this week really sucked... - a sad reader

i'm giving my shoutout to @nothingherebutthefog this week, because i know she's been having some hard time lately. so i hope this will cheer her up a bit! you got this Anna!!!! - anonymous

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this issue, we would like to thank:

a sad reader, catsobabel, hehehehe, and so many helpful anonymous users!

For sending news, interview questions, helpful tips, cool links, filled form, written Sheet line, even emails... all these help us so much to make this Zine possible!

And as always, huge thanks to all you readers to liked, shared, and commented on last week's issue! What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us! Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We also hope you join us again next week, for we have a very special guest on the zine:

Creator of the beloved Stay?, independent author, and podcaster, fanfic writer (@dirgewithoutmusic @ink-splotch) We're talking to E. Jade Lomax next week!

Want to know more about her work? How she found IF? Or learn more about her non-dev projects? Send us all your burning questions!

And see you again next week!

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 18

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