I missed this earlier, but:
- Make an “admirable” game in the system (not just a technology demo). Historically, the first “admirable” story for each now-successful IF platform was typically either written by the platform authors themselves, or directly funded by them. (Twine’s first admirable story by Anna Anthropy is the only exception I’m aware of.)
- Make it work on the web, and especially on mobile web. People keep sending around systems that only make games that work on desktop PCs; this is especially bad for IF systems developed in Python. (It’s even more rare to have a game development system that lets you develop on mobile.)
- Make a tool, not just a language. “You can implement your game in any text editor” is not as appealing to IF authors as some people seem to think it is.
Gruescript has checked all of those boxes.