The People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction convened on Tuesday, April 19, a nice respite from filing taxes the night before (nobody needed a respite from the marathon since none of us ran it). We had enough people to fill Nick’s office, including two new enthusiasts who felt brave enough to attend our forum after having survived our activities at PAX East. To our new friends: Welcome aboard. We hope to see you again.

Our agenda first focused on an informal discussion about the numerious competitions going on in the IF community, including Spring Thing (the entries are in; vote by May 15), the SpeedIF Jacket (it’s all finished; so speedy!), and the Indigo New Language Speed IF (learn a new language; entries due on April 30).  And don’t forget that intents to enter IntroComp are due May 31.

We also discussed a few upcoming events:

• Cambridge Science Festival:On Saturday, May 7, from 2:30pm-4pm, Brendan Desilets will be hosting Story and Play: Interactive Fiction for Children as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. We will be playing Mrs. Pepper’s Nasty Secret, a romp for children of all ages.
• Purble Blurb: As if one event on Saturday, May 7, wasn’t enough, Nick Monfort will be overseeing “Adventuresome Creations: Interactive Fiction Graphical Adventures & Electronic Literature”, part of his Purple Blurb series. Presenters include our own Clara Fernández-Vara and none other than Brian Moriarty, author of the Infocom classic Trinity.
• Grue Street: Well, we would love to have another of these. Any volunteers?

We also explored Undum, the hypertext IF engine designed for HTML5 and CSS3. A tutorial game is available, as well as Flaws, a tale told by IF author Jon Ingold.

Finally, we had a brief post mortem on our mini-convention at PAX East 2011, and initiated conversations about the gathering’s future. Zarf has eloquently summarized our thoughts in a post on our Google Forum. The upshot: It’s going to happen, but the what and how is to be announced. Heck, we’ve got a year. How long can putting something together like this take?  (Cue ominous music)