The People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction convened on Monday, July 29, 2024 over Zoom. Zarf, anjchang, Doug, Stephen (with special guest: Andre the dog!), Matt, Kathryn, Andrew, Keltana, Josh, Hugh, Hilborn, Cidney and Dana. Warning: What follows is probably not proper English, but just my log of notes from the meeting to jog people’s memories.
IFComp season this year is month early. Heads up that the deadline to enter your intention is the beginning of August.
Inform documentation cleanup and update by Zarf. Threaded conversation style features, check them out!
How would you know which sources are available on IFDB? Josh helpfully shares that you can do a search for games with source. Love for Cragne Manor, Alabaster, Counterfeit Monkey, & Emily Short’s writings. Zarf pointed out there are some I6 and I7 sources in the ifarchive.
If there was an international Interactive Fiction day, what day would it be?
Angela’s has two digital poetry submissions in the ELO (Un)linked Exhibition. BreadBytes and Dim Sum Also note that Nick Montfort also has a work, Web Strands, there as well.
Cidney did a short twine Game recently, and is currently working on an Inform game– stay tuned!
Zarf says there’s a Jason Shiga Book “Samurai vs Ninja” coming out! Everyone was very excited about the new book!
Josh playing some IF games. Wrote a summary of Stacey Mason’s PhD Thesis “Responsive Narrative Systems.” player agency and game responsiveness.
Stephen played a one puzzle game called A aaaaa aaaaaaaaa not to be confused with AaAaAA which also uses the same letters. Love for letters and this xkcd crossword (Thanks Josh!)
Kathryn finished Pentiment, great for book and IF lovers. Also shout outs to Cosmic Wheel of Sisterhood — which reminds us of Signs of a Sojourner.
Matt shared a book called Nightmare fuel, discussion about avoiding seeing horror, but it’s okay to read horror. Studies about reactions to horror. Is there a difference between how people respond to things they know are realistic horror vs horror they know is fiction?
Discussion led to Dr. Who, where there are two different monsters that can only get you if you close your eyes — the statue and Weeping Angels. For kids (and adults) who watch from behind the couch (or shield hands)….Angela’s been watching the Expanse— no time to hide behind the couch!
IFTF donations — help fund the IFDB and Narrascope. Things have been going well and now there are links so people can contribute to continue Narrascope conferences, keep servers running, and keep playing free games. Thanks to the generous donors who helped support us and saved the conference this year!
Matt is looking to make a submission for IFComp, a haunted house adventure! Exciting to hear that it will be backed by research on horror and about why some people enjoy scary stories. The experience of going to the haunted house will be responsive to your choices– so choose and choose wisely.
Hugh is also making a Dr. Who game. (But what about that branding, maybe it’ll be Dr. Whom or The Dr.?) We got into talking about Dr. Who retro aesthetics and the music. The picture for this month is influenced by steampunk and 70s gradients. We were all excited to hear about these upcoming works. Stay tuned!
Choicescript options for relationships, to control what you see about different relationships. For those of us who don’t want to see the “nitty gritty” of people’s private moments… or some that do…
Did the King of Jordan have a cameo in Star Trek? Yes. But it was a nonspeaking role due to SAG. What’s a king to a union?
See you next month!