Introducing Ourselves

Thank you! I’ll make sure to check it out!

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Thank you! I’ll definitely check it out ^^

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Hello! I suppose I should finally do this…

I’m Autumn (she/her), and I’m a millennial I guess. I started getting into IF some years ago, mostly via visual novels, especially Hanako Games and Christine Love’s stuff, as well as Choice of Games. I got into Twine right as the “early 2010s queer twine scene” was starting to fracture; some of its products were really meaningful for me personally. I haven’t participated in any communities around IF until recently because of anxiety or something like that, but I’m trying to put myself more out there.

In terms of writing, I’m really interested in storylet-based systems (largely thanks to Bee and Emily Short’s blog), and how we can use interaction mechanics to improve storytelling. I’ve been working with the dendry platform by fixing bugs and adding features (and I’ve made what is probably the only game specifically for that platform). But so far most of my stuff have been slice-of-life/personal stories without much in terms of new mechanics (I’m trying to branch out… eventually).

I’ve been writing a bunch of reviews on ifdb lately (I’m autumnc), mostly to procrastinate from doing actual work. As well as adding a bunch of games to ifdb (I’m not sure if some games entirely fit as IF though?). I’m interested in trying to preserve twine works from the aforementioned early 2010s scene; even though it wasn’t long ago, there are so many works that seem to have just disappeared from the web (RIP dropbox and google drive hosting).

Thanks everyone!

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Welcome!

I’ve read some of your reviews. I find them really thoughtful and sincere. It shows that some games have a deeper meaning to you. Good work.

I might even take a step out of parserworld to play/read some of the games you recommend. (Creatures Such As We sounds interesting.)

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Hi, I’m Katie, I’m 20 and I got interested in IF playing point-and-click games, and Zork, with my dad. I liked it so much that I failed to write my own game a couple of times. Then last year I discovered the Interactive Fiction Database, and got excited about all the games. Now I’m messing around with writing a game again. We’ll see how that goes.

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Welcome! This is a good time to hop on, there are a lot of cool competitions with games coming out soon.

Spring Thing is starting up April 2nd, and it’s the 2nd-biggest competition of the year, should have some great games if it’s anything like other years.

Around the same time is the Text Adventure Literacy Jam, an itch jam focused on kid-friendly, 2-word, retro parser games. So far it looks like 47 people have signed up!

Later in the summer is Parsercomp, showcasing parser games, and Introcomp, which only accepts incomplete games and encourages people to finish them by giving cash prizes.

Finally, in the fall, there’s IFComp, the biggest competition of the year, and Ectocomp, which is for horror/spooky games and has a division for games made in 4 hours or less.

Besides playing, these could be fun to enter, too. If you’re trying to get a game finished, Introcomp and Ectocomp are great ways to get feedback on unfinished or small games. Or if you make something great and want to share it, you could put it in one of the later competitions.

Anyway, welcome again!

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Hi Katie.

Nevermind mathbrush, he’s just eager to see as many games as possible in the competitions to satiate his never-ending review-hunger. :slightly_smiling_face:
(Check out his list of reviews on IFDB. Great for some guidance on what games to play, whatever your preferred style of IF)
IFDB is an immense sea of text-games. Dive in, enjoy, get to know IF from every angle.
And if you want help with creating your game or would like some recommendations for great games, there’s lots and lots of helpful people here.

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Hi Katie,

Welcome to Interactive Fiction. This is a great forum to discuss your ideas and get help if you ever need it. The gurus here are always willing to pitch in if you have any stumbling blocks.

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Thank you so much guys.

@mathbrush - I don’t think I’ll get anything done by April but I love Halloween, so I’ll totally try to do something for Ectocomp. And Introcomp sounds like a really neat idea.

@rovarsson - I will definitely look that up. I looked over the Crime and Heist games briefly, and I wish I had time to play all of them.

And I will definitely use this forum to get help on making games, because I’m still figuring out how Inform works, so I’m sure to run into trouble.

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Hello, I’m Dyskos. I’m 25 years old, living in Austin, Texas.

While many people might reminisce about the days of booting Zork I on their parent’s old C64 at 4 years old, I became interested in retro-gaming after realizing my laptop for college wasn’t powerful enough to play League of Legends. Probably just as well, because I hate the game anyway. :joy:

My journey started with games like Doom and Quake, with Blood, Daggerfall, and Morrowind being my favorite games. Eventually, I looked into the earliest computer games created and came across the rich history of Interactive Fiction such as Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork. Ever since then, I’ve had a great fascination with IF – parser games in particular and the kind of freedom one has with systems like that.

I’m currently learning Alan 3 and hope to write something of my own in the future. I’m glad to be a part of this community!

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Yours is a cool origins-story. Just add a sudden power jolt while playing Zork and BOOM, there’s “Dyskos, the real life Parser”-superhero.

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Hi, I’m Rachel (@Nycteris on Twitter). The first games I ever played were text games on the Commodore Vic 20. In college I wasted SO MUCH time on MU* - and tried coding some, but didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve been meaning to get into writing a game for decades. A few years ago I went to code bootcamp and switched careers, and then realized that I think I actually know how to program now (?). I checked out Twine, then realized I just don’t see any games “of the style I enjoy” in Twine and came back to Inform to try again.

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Welcome, Rachel! I’m right with you on wasting so much time in college on MU*! Plus, I’m getting into Inform 7 myself. Been going through Jim Aikin’s Inform 7 Handbook, which is a joy. I’d recommend it if you haven’t heard of it.

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Welcome to both of you!

Jim Aikin’s Text is a very good reference.

There is a hard copy available at this link if you are interested.

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Hello, I’m Jason, owner of fightingfantasy.net previously fightingfantasy.org (long story, hospitalization, domain name lapsed, painful memories etc.) since 1999. Home of my homebrew languages ABML and SEL. Can’t believe I’ve only just learned of your forum. Got a FB group?

Oh I made a meme btw, hope it doesn’t get me banned as soon as I begin…

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Awesome meme. Now I actually want to hear that band strike up and Ewan McGregor do the VO.

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I’m Harry. AKA Ramstrong. I left IF a long time ago due to destructive Usenet community. But someone referred me to this group. I have been lurking for some time and I like what I see. So, I’m thinking of returning to IF, especially since the format has tremendous potential for growth.

I use Raspberry Pi exclusively, those activities that I cannot do with a smartphone. I see that many systems have sprung up and went. I’ve been lurking down by Emily Short’s Narrative IF, as well. It looks interesting, although I’m not sure that’s for me.

Does anyone here use Mike Taylor’s ScottKit? I think that looks convenient to use as Introduction to IF Tutorial (as a writer).

Here’s hoping this community will grow even better.

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Hi Ramstrong,

Welcome.

I use an RPi 4 as my primary computer. It is ideal for Inform 6 and Dialog development. I am currently working on an entry for the Punyinform Jam1.

Inform 6 and TADS are my preferred development languages. Both have a wealth of tutorial documentation. Dialog does as well. Inform 6 well maintained and Dialog is still technically in beta but very functional.

Adventuron also has a very good introductory learning website.

Lots of opportunities and good support here on Intfiction.

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Hi fos1,

I like Inform6. I downloaded it and will try to get something done this weekend. Thanks for the pointers for other devkits, too.

I tried to install scottkit, but unsuccessful. I suspect some kind of missing library for Ruby. Unfortunately, I don’t know Ruby. Not sure which forum I should take this to.

Thanks again for the welcome.

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Hello, my name is Kory. I used Inform 7 for a gaming event. The theme for the event was to make a game under 1.44 MB in 2 weeks. Thanks to some of the help I go on this forum, I was able to complete my game and enter into the contest.

I have previous game development experience with some other engines too.
RPG Maker VX Ace
RPG Maker MV
Visual Novel Maker
Pixel Game Maker MV
Solarus
Ren’Py

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