Wow, this is all super helpful! I’m definitely interested in both how Inform can be used both via a text interface (I think this is very feasible, for examples of how this is done with Ink, check out this talk from Inkle Studios about the making of Heaven’s Vault) but also thru separating the world model as you mention @zarf.
I don’t have a great understanding of how Inform translates your Inform 7 source code into something the Glulx VM can run… I get the impression that it’s not possible to query the running VM for the “state” of in-game “items” / rules? At least not without an approach like @vaporware mentioned in Bill’s thread?