That one.
2 Likes
He definitely wanted to aim a swirly at us! 
I’m not sure I get what y’all are getting at in that interview.
Kay: How aware are you of the the current crop of people making interactive fiction, either in ZIL or Inform or Twine? Do you follow the current —
Steve: No, unfortunately not. I barely have enough time to kind of follow all the games that are in the genres I’m working on today, and so, much as I would sort of love to spend more time following the the IF market today, I really don’t have the time to.
Kay: I’ve heard maybe you were thinking about making another game. Is that pure conjecture?
Steve: I mean, I would love to. There’s obviously very little money in it these days, so, perhaps, in my retirement years.
5 Likes
@dfabulich
I just felt Meretzky looked fed up with it all. Since no one else mentioned it, and in fact everyone raved about it, I didn’t mention it. But much later @jcompton said that was how he saw it too (more so in fact).
“Niche community superstar” is exactly what I am. :)
5 Likes
I would back a kickstarter for an Infocom-imp-written game but I would be even more eager to do so if there were feelies included somehow. Not sure how, just saying Infocom was famous for it. Like how Hadean Lands had a cool poster map. It would just be a nice touch.
5 Likes
Feelies are obviously perfect stretch goals in a Kickstarter campaign!
2 Likes
I voted “no”, but that’s not because I somehow hate the old Infocom guys and would never back anything they did. It’s just that their name on a project would not make me significantly more likely to back it. (Unlike, say, the name of an Emily Short, a Chandler Groover, an Aaron Reed, a porpentine.) I just haven’t played that much Infocom.
3 Likes
I actually think the modern superstar writers write very quality work. The Infocom work was necessarily limited by the resources available.
I do particularly like Thaumistry.
2 Likes
Quick Mini Poll… Did you buy Thaumistry?
- YES
- NO
0 voters
My take on the original implementors is that the loss of Infocom was just extremely heartbreaking for them, especially Meretzky.
It’s like if your spouse suddenly goes missing without packing a bag, and stays missing for a year. For all you know, they’re gonna knock on your front door tomorrow. But, realistically, they’re probably gone forever. One of the ways people deal with that grief and uncertainty is to will themselves into an “irrational” sense of certainty, to say “I’m 100% certain that they’re dead, and they’re never coming back.” Of course, you don’t really know that they’re dead. But sometimes, you have convince yourself of irrational certainty to plow through the grief process.
Even in 1989, in principle, the implementors could have tried to gather funding from investors to start a new game studio and start cranking out new text adventures. The obstacles to starting a computer game studio in 1989 were quite high (you had to get your game sold in boxes on shelves) but it wasn’t impossible, just really, really unlikely. To move on from that, you have to convince yourself that building an IF company is/was impossible.
Thus, what you see in the interview is not Steve being bored or “fed up” with interactive fiction. (Wouldn’t it be weird of him to agree to sit for the interview if he didn’t even care about the subject?) What you’re seeing is a guy who doesn’t dare to open his heart to this medium again. He can’t allow himself to think about writing a game, which he would surely do if he played a few modern IF games, (“hmm… how would I have done this differently?”) because he has to believe that writing another game is impossible in order to manage his grief.
(Skimming over that interview again, I was struck by just how often Steve would say “no” in that interview. Good interviews, like good improv, is “yes, and” or at least “no, but.” Steve was frequently just saying “no.” “No,” I don’t play modern IF. “No,” I’m not working on a modern game. “No,” I don’t have any big message to send to today’s players. “No.”)
As we’ve noted, Kickstarter results seem to indicate that you can only make about $35K-ish for a full-scale text adventure from a well-known IF author. Should someone run a $35K Kickstarter to fund a parser IF game? Sure, if they want to, and if $35K (minus fees) is enough for them to write, test, and publish the game. But that argument applies to Infocom imps as much as you or I or anybody else.
So the whole question of this thread seems totally beside the point to me, because the original implementor team will probably be among the last to wade into those waters. To get them back to the table today, you’d have to say, “I have the money right here in cash. I’m paying you $X to work on this game for six months and make it shine. Are you in?” It’s the difference between, “let’s grab a flashlight and go looking for your long lost spouse” and “your spouse is at the front door now.”
A poll where a dozen people say “yes, I’d buy your game” won’t cut it, not by a long shot.
8 Likes
I love Infocom games, but I definitely don’t think they’re the best available. They had at most 10-11 years of experience writing IF games and are out of practice, while we’ve got people now with 25 years or more of experience writing.
You could make an argument that ‘they wrote games that I like better’, but I definitely think that’s a market issue more than anything else. The newer games are shorter and more directed because the target audience likes that. Given the inclination, I’m sure that current authors could write these long-form games.
If you told me that I could either give $100,000 to Steve Meretzky or Lebling for a year to work on a game full-time, or give the same money and time to Plotkin or Short or CEJ Pacian, I’d go for one of the more experienced people. And that actually (essentially) happened; I liked Bob Bates’ Thaumistry, but I loved Plotkin’s Hadean Lands.
5 Likes
It’s just a poll 
Put it down to curiosity of the interest level should it ever happen.
That aside, that’s a really well written and interesting observation and analysis. Makes sense and explains a lot. Thanks. 
3 Likes
It’s over double now isn’t it! Crazy (but brilliant!)
I think your description here would describe a lot of people to be fair. Thanks.
2 Likes
(Disclaimer: I was impressionable young boy in the 1980s with a sense of humor largely influenced by the works of S. E. Meretzky)
To which I answer: I once referred to this interview as “serving the terms of his parole” because that’s the median vibe I picked up.
Maybe? I don’t know the guy at all, but he was certainly plenty prolific in adjacent work for the next several years.
The observation Adam and I are alluding to is that I went into watching that session with no particular expectations one way or another but was immediately struck by what seemed to be a vibe of “I might give one of these nerds a swirly before this thing is over.”
Then Savetz read out Adam’s question about using ZIL and I was struck by a shift in demeanor from “I might swirly one of these nerds” to “I am definitely gonna swirly all of these nerds.”
2 Likes
Out of the gate, I’d buy it if the subject matter interested me. The author’s name is something to get my attention. I’d recognise most of the Infocom authors’ names, but I can’t instantly tell you which games they wrote, with certain exceptions.
-Wade
4 Likes
I’m with Brian and Wade: it would pique my interest, but not guarantee a purchase. I’d want to know more about the piece in question before spending money.
Zork IV? Quite possibly, if it were handled right. (I know, there were more sequels, but they don’t really count in the same way. I’d play a direct sequel to Zork III that continued that instead of doing miscellaneous spin-off stuff. In the same way, I’m still hoping someone finally puts out a sequel to the original The Matrix.) Quadralogy? Almost certainly. Cornerstone: the Game? Probably not.
4 Likes
Haha - I actually think that would work! Surely a black comedy, right? 
2 Likes
Just a quick pre-way-past-should-be-asleep-but-checking-intfiction post to say…
Thanks everyone for as always coming in with really well thought out points. I’d posted this out of curiosity for the most part, but great to read the various rationale.
Adam
3 Likes
I’ll show my ignorance here…So what’s an “IMP”? Is it an IMPoster, IMProver, IMPlementor or IMP???
2 Likes