We’ve been quiet, but that’s because we’ve been busy pulling together the finishing touches to our lovely second volume!Mark your calendars, put sticky notes on your sundials, and prepare yourselves for the May 31 release of Vol. 1.2.
Looking to read some interesting new IF? Hoping to pull together a cover for a publication? The marvelous Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual has got you covered. I mean, who wouldn’t want to read The Toaster With Two Brains? That’s what I thought. The astounding Pulp Magazine Cover Generator also lets you customize your own lovely-looking poster like the one on your left, there, and you can even have your custom image printed on various household items!
If one IF piece isn’t enough, Gamebook Adventures has many more pieces to choose from of many sizes and flavors. Check them out!
Storium is also looking to tell stories, though in strange, new ways. This article calls Storium a “web based card game inspired by ideas from pen and paper RPGs” where players collaborate online to tell stories. It is currently being crowdfunded, with $10 minimum granting access to the game’s beta.
Changes are also abound in the IF world. Inform has recently released a new version that cleans up some of the syntax and allows for even more flexibility when writing stories in various tenses and points of view. Although it may not be fully compatible with works previously made in Inform, it does show a lot of potential for experimental IF in the future.
In other news, Quest and textadventures.co.uk developer wrote up an annual review of his work, stating his work was “good, but not good enough.” He has now moved to working only part-time on these IF projects, stating that “I’m just not seeing the acceleration of change that I was expecting. I used to be convinced that interactive fiction could grow to become much more mainstream than it currently is, but now I’m not so sure at all.”
Looking to work for a lit mag? The lovely folks at Transcendence are hoping to get some more prose readers for the new season. Email transcendencemag@gmail.com if you are interested.
Inky Path 