Interactive Fiction Communities (with Andrew Plotkin)

About this episode

The episode explores the history and communities of Interactive Fiction with guest Andrew Plotkin.

Warm weather is on the way and you need to stay hydrated. As a start, take a sip of water every time you hear the phrase "in the 90's." This week we're learning about Interactive Fiction - its history, communities, and transformations over the years - from living archive of the medium, Andrew Plotkin. As a bonus, Stephen discovers that he isn't the only one who is wrong about things! Credit for this episode's extra-thorough show notes goes to Andrew. Thanks, Andrew! Interactive Fiction Communities Events IRL Narrative Colossal Cave Adventure - William Crowther and Donald Woods , The Interactive Fiction Database The Visible Zorker: Zork 1 Interactive Fiction Competition (ongoing since 1995!) - Interactive Fiction Competition Inform IF language launched around 1993 (https://www.inform-fiction.org/). You can find the modern version at https://inform7.com/ This allowed people to create games for Infocom’s original Z-machine, which was invented as a proprietary system in 1979 but is now open-source. The modern version of the IF community's FTP site - Interactive Fiction Archive Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation Narrascope Conference Twine - Chris Klimas , Twinery Rise of the…

People in this episode

Hosts: Stephen, Lydia, Mark

Guest: Andrew Plotkin

Topics covered

• Interactive Fiction
• history
• communities
• transformation
• game development

Keywords

• Interactive Fiction
• game development
• 90's
• Narrascope
• Twine
• IFcomp
• Zork
• Colossal Cave Adventure

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Interactive Fiction Database, Interactive Fiction Competition, Inform IF, Interactive Fiction Archive, Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation

Books & works: Colossal Cave Adventure, Return of the Obra Dinn, Murder at the Birch Tree Theater, Type Help, Roottrees are dead

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