
Every so often I stumble on some gaming niche that I never knew existed. Today I am thrilled to share my latest discovery, Robb Sherwin's upcoming text-based adventure game, Cryptozookeeper. I figured someone had to still be making these things, but I had no idea there was a thriving interactive fiction subculture out there.
The excellent interview at Renga in Blue covers quite a few bases, from the value and limitations of puzzles in interactive fiction, appropriate pricing models for indie games, the delicate dance of pop culture references within IF and avoiding cliches.
I also want to get away from something that David Welbourn said in the
Get Lamp interview. He said something to the effect of, “If you see a
bone in a text game, you know you’ll eventually have to give it to a
dog." I am trying to avoid that sort of thing.
The interview piqued my interest, so I searched on for similar games. Here's what I found down the rabbit hole:
- The annual Interactive Fiction Competition has been going on for fourteen years now. They deal with games that take less than two hours to complete.
- The Spring Thing competition allows contestants to submit works of any length.
- The Interactive Fiction Database is, unsurprisingly, a great place to find loads of free interactive fiction.
- MobyGames has an excellent overview of the evolution of the genre.
- For a detailed timeline of major IF milestones, check out Brass Lantern.
Holy crap, this is going to keep me busy for a long time. Check out Robb's
Cryptozookeeper as well as his previous games at
Jolt Country, his personal site.
(via GameSetWatch)
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