The People's Republic of Interactive Fiction

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Oct08

September Meeting Post Mortem

by Angela Chang on October 8th, 2022 at 4:22 pm
Posted In: Meetings, Post Mortem
Sept. 2022 PR-IF Meeting Attendees

The People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction convened on Tuesday, Sept 27, 2022 over Zoom. Zarf,  NickM, Dana Freitas,  Josh Grams, Hugh,  Stephen Eric Jablonski (+ guest dog Teala), Chris Martens (+ guest cat Nimbus) from NEU, anjchang,  Kathryn,   Kirill Azernyi (from Haifa), and Mike Stage welcomed newcomer Rourke Bywater from NEU. Warning: What follows is probably not proper English, but just my log of notes from the meeting to jog people’s memories.

Recap since last meeting:

  • Narrascope happened. Josh and Kathryn spoke and the conference was awesome.
  • Some members have moved locations (or moved in) to places, or gotten jobs. We liked to hear of everyone safe and in good places (from Russia to Haifa or NC to Boston or Boston to SF or single to with significant other). Congratulations!
  • Hugh just got back from hearing Jon Ingold talk about narrative deduction mechanics at London Interactive Fiction Group. Jon also spoke at GDC recently.
  • Dana is learning Spanish, and we had a short discussion about IF in Spanish.

Upcoming dates of note:

  • The Saugus Halloween IF competition is upcoming Oct 21. This might be the last year unless new people volunteer to help judge.
  • Rourke mentions her work with Roguelike celebration in October 22-23. https://www.roguelike.club/
  • Zarf collecting donations for prizes for IF Comp tomorrow. We saw a sneak peak of the new IFcomp logo. It was very cool! Hugh is planning an upcoming IF comp entry! Go Hugh!

Discussion
We started talking about how hard it is to have new people create parser based games. How can we get students to write IF? How can platform designers “think of the students”– what considerations should there be about examples, syntax, and game creation.
Is there interest in new parser based IF engines?
Dialog is another parser based library, a Prolog-inspired IF language at https://linusakesson.net/dialog/ . Also see https://intfiction.org/c/authoring/dialog/60 on the forum.
You want something that is a little beyond just choices but not a complicated world model (compass, objects, room). Low step, high potential language would be great and is a hard problem.

Twine support innovation more easily than Inform?
Recommended reference for writing Inform–Aaron Reed’s book for a step by step learning process, but it’ a bit outdated.
It’s hard to learn examples from games would be cool to examine. e.g. fog going from room to room getting thicker. E.g. Ad Verbum. Contrast with p5.js, affordances of sharing and linking works.
Chris proposes I7.js?
Is the Z machine ecology necessary? That ecology is essential to creating IF.
You can build a homebrew (python) system of your own, but it isn’t compatible with other frameworks.
The remix-reuse template was used for infocom games.
Stephen suggests maybe a very simple programming language can be done.
Although TADs isn’t simple, it’s an alternative model.
Glulx, PunyInform stretching the interface.
Mike says the time expectations and experiences of playing IF has decreased. With Inform, one needs to invest in learning the platform. Writing for any IF platform is a long haul commitment.
Maybe ZZT-OOP https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ZZT-OOP language was created by Tim Sweeney or another Mud-like programming language.
Josh has been looking into visual model interface for parser interface. Zarf mentions Seitani scripting tool. His experiments with visual interfaces. It’s okay if the engine is not parser based, but then it’s something else. Chris Kline’s approach to Twine, throwing away the narrative model.
Emshort has a blog post about hybrid interfaces (e.g Brewster)
Chris interested in building a natural language interface to his language ceptre… https://github.com/chrisamaphone/interactive-lp Ceptre is very cool!
Dan Fabulich’s post on the subject and Grue script https://intfiction.org/t/announce-gruescript/52104/ Ren’Py is a success story for “use Python underneath a Domain-Specific Language”, though. So in some domains it’s possible…. Nick says his students have used it. It takes a lot of extra assets to make a visual novel but using the system is not tough for beginners.
People seemed positive about using a easy-to-learn parser interface if someone were to make one.
A Dating game with Chess Pieces was mentioned…but I’m not sure if this is the right link. LMK if you have an update or corrections!







└ Tags: meetings, post mortem
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Sep06

September meeting (online)

by zarf on September 6th, 2022 at 12:17 am
Posted In: Meetings

We took a month off for NarraScope, but we’re back! The Boston IF meetup for September will be Tuesday, September 27, 6:30 pm Eastern time.

We will post the Zoom link to the mailing list on the day of the meeting.

└ Tags: meetings
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Jun30

July meeting (online)

by zarf on June 30th, 2022 at 7:27 pm
Posted In: Meetings

The Boston IF meetup for July will be Thursday, July 7, 6:30 pm Eastern time.

We will post the Zoom link to the mailing list on the day of the meeting.

└ Tags: meetings
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Jun30

June Meeting Post-Mortem

by Angela Chang on June 30th, 2022 at 5:37 pm
Posted In: Meetings, Post Mortem
June PR-IF attendees

The People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction convened on Wednesday, June 16, 2022 over Zoom. Zarf, Hugh and anjchang, met up online. Warning: What follows is probably not proper English, but just my log of notes from the meeting to jog people’s memories:
Nick sent in an article about IF by someone who has been part of PR-IF and mentions several people in the Boston area: https://expmag.com/2022/06/these-video-games-are-based-on-nothing-but-words/
Hugh is working on a game about a tin mug and we talked about how people enjoyed making choices even if they didn’t further the narrative. Hugh’s story contained scenarios around what happens in a kitchen. It reminded Anj of Chi’s Sweet Home, a series of books from the point of view of a kitten. The narratives examine the everyday conflicts in mundane life. In Hugh’s game, a combination of anthropomorphism with the Slice of Life Genre provide interesting narrative explorations .
We talked about text scrolling problems in beta testing Hugh’s game. Sometimes, having an image within the text causes problems because the image loads after the text appears, causing the image to jump into focus after the text loads. This causes the user to have to scroll back to read the full text and access the choices.
Angela has rebooted her a copy of Sanitarium and is enjoying creepy scenarios with her kids. The game presents an alter reality that is nightmarish but intriguing to explore.

Perhaps there’s opportunity for more stories connecting with mythologies and folklore, such as Lochness, Bigfoot and Egyptian Mythology. Hugh mentioned that Egyptian hieroglyphics were mainly for simple ideas, such a sign posts and the laymen. Apparently, Egyptians had a cursive script (such as hieratic and demotic script) for writing more complex ideas and detailed legal documents.


We talked about the joy of lexical variations, and how nice it is to readers encounter new and unusal words. From a practical standpoint, it makes it easier to type alternatively spelled words than different adjectives with nouns repeatedly. For example, typing in tumbler vs. mug is preferable to “big cup” “little cup” “medium cup.”
We talked about how much hinting is useful for puzzles. Hugh mentioned giving successively more hints to help people solve a puzzle. Zarf says he usually doesn’t give out hints to his puzzles if people write him, because the answers can be found elsewhere. Also, having predictive hint suggestions while typing can spoil the exploration of the game. Angela is currently stuck during beta testing a puzzle, and the developer has given some hints, but it’s not enough to finish her testing. What to do?
We talked about IF copyright. Usually people use a code copyright license. If you want to be serious might use lawyers to draft a version of your code with a placeholder text.

Angela shared a link to plan for the next meeting in Early July. Please fill out by June 22, 2022 AoE. FYI, the next virtual meeting will be July 7, 2022 from 6:30pm-7:30pm. Hope to see you there!

└ Tags: post mortem
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May04

May meetup — hybrid!

by zarf on May 4th, 2022 at 9:22 pm
Posted In: Meetings

The Boston IF meetup for May will be Thursday, May 12, 6:30 pm Eastern time.

The Trope Tank is once again open and operating at MIT! Therefore, we are experimenting with a cautious hybrid meeting format. We will offer a Zoom call as usual on May 12. But if you are in the Boston area and you want to attend in person, you are welcome.

The new Trope Tank is in MIT building 14, east wing, room 14E-316. This is the same building as its old location, but one floor above.

Attendees must be fully vaccinated (including booster if eligible) and not feeling any COVID symptoms. Please see MIT’s visitor policy for more details.

If you plan to attend in person, please RSVP to Angela Chang at anjchang@gmail.com. Please arrive at the northeast door of building 14 (McDermott Court, by the black Calder sculpture) by 6:30 so that Angela can let you in. The building will otherwise be locked.

We hope to see you, either virtually or face-to-face.

└ Tags: meetings
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