The People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction met on Thursday, June 23, 2026 over Zoom. Attending: Zarf, Doug Orleans, Andrew Stephens, Michael Stage, Hugh, Carl Muckenhoupt, Vince Kotchian, Josh Grams, Allyson, Cidney Hamilton, Matthew Griffin, and anjchang. It was a lively reunion, with several folks returning from Narrascope and plenty of cross‑talk about talks, tools, mysteries, and parser theory. Warning: What follows is probably not proper English, but just a log of notes from the meeting to jog people’s memories.

PR-IF Representation at Narrascope

• Many had returned from Narrascope (Carl, Cidney, Zarf, Allyson). Carl shared thoughts on the Narrascope escape‑room experience, along with his long‑running review archive, The Stack: https://wurb.com/stack/
• Michael Stage’s Narrative Nonfictions: Using IF tools to reach students, workers, consumers and voters”
• Mentioned was Don’t Escape: 4 Days to Survive: https://www.gog.com/en/game/dont_escape_4_days_to_survive
• Josh highlighted recent uploads to the IFTF YouTube channel, especially the Analog Roleplaying keynote by Sharang Biswas.
• Allyson’s “That’s plainly inedible”: Crafting Custom Errors and Refusals for More Flavourful Parser-Based Narratives.

Narrascope Highlights

Many attendees had just returned from Narrascope (or had attended remotely), so the conversation was full of fresh impressions:

• The Narrascope YouTube playlist was shared: https://www.youtube.com/@IFTechFoundation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK58-DMuOdc&list=PLbTgViUvfchfMf1RnZnLs1Yiv6WJcps1-
• Carl and Allyson pointed out Joshua Mandel’s talk on designing adventure games
• Cidney also attended and shared impressions of the role‑play MUSH talk. Josh noted how interesting it was to hear from someone deeply rooted in MUSH culture.
• The author of Butterfly Soup launched a new Kickstarter, The Crane Rider’s Tale: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/psychickiss/the-crane-riders-tale
• Andrew has been following the Game Narrative Kaleidoscope project: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope/ It encourages you to click around and explore, and there’s even a podcast at the bottom — featuring Zarf.
• The Kickstarter for The Crane Rider’s Tale (by the Butterfly Soup author) was shared: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/psychickiss/the-crane-riders-tale
• Andrew highlighted Game Narrative Kaleidoscope: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope/ And noted that Zarf appears in the podcast linked at the bottom.
• Zarf mentioned he has a podcast recording coming up. Doug pointed out he recently heard Zarf on The Retro Adventurers podcast: https://retroadventurers.podbean.com/e/41/ Forum thread: https://intfiction.org/t/the-retro-adventurers-podcast/68047
• Hugh shared a Humble Bundle link for Inkle’s complete library: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/complete-inkle-library

Mystery Design, Deduction Games & Player Agency

A major portion of the meeting turned into a deep dive on mystery design, branching, and player agency. We discussed how players interpret clues.

Topics included:

• Variations on “who is the murderer”: the culprit could be the player, a friend, or a shifting suspect list.
• Andrew shared A Death in Hyperspace: https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=e4cdkwedm311iyun
• Josh contrasted Brindlewood Bay’s “dramatic wrap‑up” style with more puzzle‑driven mysteries. Michael asked for the Brindlewood Bay talk link; Josh clarified it was part of Sharang’s keynote, Speculation by Design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD_60CeJbgM
• Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective came up as an example of a game where the mystery reshapes itself around who you suspect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes:Consulting_Detective(gamebook)
• Discussion of whether there are adduction games vs. deduction games — leading to a mention of Zendo, a game built around discovering hidden rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zendo_(game)
• Zendo was mentioned as an example of rule‑discovery gameplay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zendo_(game)
• Josh shared a link about freeing yourself from the “tyranny of meaningful choices”: https://azhdarchid.com/you-must-free-yourself-from-the-tyranny-of-meaningful-choices/
• Matt reflected on Hadean Lands as the science‑game experience he’d always wanted.
• Andrew noted that parser IF makes narrator‑player dynamics especially visible because the parser speaks directly to the player.

Nicholas O’Brien’s talk sparked conversation about the point of interactivity — how much agency matters if it doesn’t alter the story, and how players stitch together meaning from small variations.

This led to a broader discussion of branching, agency, and narrative theory:

• Carl noted that branching is often just a slight variation on linearity anyway, citing Minecraft as an example of a game with many approaches but no traditional branch points.
• The group discussed how players stitch together meaning, even when choices don’t alter game state.
• Allyson mentioned Sarah Willson’s Closure, where the narrator is your best friend texting instructions to you.
• Iron Chif Episode 2 (ZIL) got a shoutout.
• Carl shared an IFDB poll and mentioned Ryan Veeder’s Orient Express project: https://ifdb.org/poll?id=o5jhbd6i9tw8jt

This led to a discussion of how much players understand the impact of their choices, and a “cranky post” someone shared about choices that don’t change game state but do change the stage of the player’s experience.

Finally, Gram Nelson’s classic triangle of identities came up — the relationship between player, protagonist, player‑character, and narrator — and how IF authors handle the shifting boundaries between them.

Other References,Tools, Articles & Parser Experiments

A few additional links and mentions rounded out the meeting:

• Josh shared a rosebush article on parser poetics in Portrait with Wolf: https://the-rosebush.com/2026/06/parser-poetics-in-portrait-with-wolf/
• The group celebrated ongoing experimentation with narrators in IF — from parser‑as‑narrator to friend‑as‑narrator to hybrid forms.
• ClubFloyd reminder: Sundays on ifMUD https://allthingsjacq.com/interactive_fiction.html#clubfloyd Instructions: https://www.ifwiki.org/ClubFloyd

Closing Notes

This month’s meeting was a whirlwind of Narrascope impressions, mystery‑game theory, branching‑narrative philosophy, and community updates. The mix of talks, tools, and design debates made for a rich conversation.

Travel logistics came up — several folks are considering Boston or NYC meetups later in the year.