Python is (approximately) the most popular programming language in the world right now, and kids are first learning it at age 10 or so. So there will be that cohort whose frame of reference is not Infocom and Z-machine but the coding they did at school.
Others here are pointing to a lack of supporting frameworks and libraries for IF in Python.
First, let’s not forget Ren’py which is extremely well proven and popular.
Then there’s my own project, Balladeer which is new but already has several examples and a couple of demo games you can play and learn from. And there will be talented people who can go beyond what I’ve been able to manage so far.
With Python pretty much baked into every Linux distro (and even part of the Node.js toolchain) I think it will remain a significant language for a decade or two. Long enough for the library support to catch up.
Is that significant? Isn’t that only about 1.5% of the approximately half of computer usage that’s still happening on a desktop/laptop rather than a mobile device?
Personally, if I were playing a parser-based text adventure with multimedia interludes I don’t think I would be doing it on my phone. For parser-based IF, you’d want a decent keyboard, I should think.
I think it’s a pretence to imagine that phones and tablets are the same as laptops and TVs. Yes they are all computing devices, and superficially they all support web browsers but we all know that compatibility is in the gift of the manufacturer and some manufacturers are not sympathetic to a free and open web.
And they don’t all support text input the same way.
So I imagine that in the 20-year time frame people who want to play IF will gravitate somewhat to platforms which better support that experience.
@Sam_Ursu
There were a few puzzle books like that in the 80’s, the most notable being Masquerade. My family had Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse. I know of at least one computer game, Alkemstone, that tried to bring that experience to the Apple ][. I don’t think these would really be considered AR, but rather ARG-adjacent (as @HanonO pointed out).
I live in Tokyo and work for a Japanese tech startup. Can’t say I’m hearing much in my circles about NFT/crypto; or at least no more than I hear in my American friend circles. I’m not personally seeing the enthusiasm you noted, but that’s just my experience so far.
Didn’t Nickelodeon do kind some live-action puzzle-y style game shows?
IF over SMS reminded me that Zork was made playable via SMS at one time.
One thing about providing SMS or something similar is the financial/technical burden it places on the developer to provide a continually running server. Asking players to accept the compute burden isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and in fact may be the only reasonable solution for most small developers.
@tundish
A whole generation is being raised on Lua these days (Roblox and World of Warcraft as notable examples), I think more so than Python in the wild? I would imagine that IF systems could become language-independent, meaning some easily portable base code is brought into various languages, enabling IF (whatever that might mean) in systems from Unity and Unreal to bespoke Rust code. I recall hearing that Graham Nelson’s vision for Inform takes it closer along those lines.
However, that said, I do not think the keys to the future should rest solely in the hands/vision of a single developer. If a new set of libraries were developed for a specific language and that language became de facto standard for using those libraries because they’re just so darn good, that would be nifty.
I always play IF on the go meaning in my smartphone, ipad or tablet and I don’t use external keyboard. Predictive text is a feature I like so much when playing a game.
I also play graphic adventures with lot of interval videos and I like this.
Yes, my apologies. “Asia” is a rather broad brush, and I, too, have not heard much excitement about crypto/NFTs coming out of Japan either. Seems Japan is much more oriented towards the other G7 members’ attitude (and S. Korea’s) - that crypto/NFTs are a combination of pyramid scheme and destroyer of climates.
Primarily, the pro-crypto enthusiasm seems Chinese-driven in Asia, including communities in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia (which the gov’t just declared crypto to be haram for Muslims, so that’ll be interesting) as well as HK, etc beyond just mainland China. In addition, crypto and NFTs seem to be really big in Vietnam as well.
Other big crypto/NFT communities include Turkey, Brazil, India, and Pakistan, plus the African heavyweights of Nigeria and Kenya - and, of course, we cannot forget El Salvador where it’s friggin’ legal tender!
So it’s an interesting mixed bag of who’s gung-ho for crypto and who isn’t ( Cuban gov’t hates it, for instance).
I hear quite a lot about NFT and crypto in my social circles (I work in tech). Crypto has several potentially positive applications, although what these are vary among them. One person in my social circle has suggested that gaming (including IF) may see benefits from crypto that could directly affect gameplay*, though I don’t think I understand fully what those are.
As distinct from indirect benefits from things like improving cybersecurity or offering cybercurrencies.
NFTs, on the other hand, get more criticism from my African social circle members than anyone else I know (the biggest issues being intellectual property theft - especially of art, which is impacting visual novel production - resource usage and inherent technology deficiences in the system) - with the proviso that none of them are from countries Sam Ursu cites. The proponents of NFTs that I know of are from the USA. I suspect, however, that any sufficiently large area will have people both for and against NFTs.
Python isn’t baked into mobile but it’s a popular choice for creating non-game mobile apps that aren’t expected to scale a lot. However, I think the medium-term future is that there will be more programming languages out there that are suitable for IF, not fewer, and I’m not sure there’ll ever be a single “winner” technology - just ones that are better or worse suited for a given idea and a given creator.
There are literally millions (currently 40 million) of Raspberry Pis throughout the world all running a version of linux and they all include Python as the primary programming language.
If they are figured into the linux penetration it would be much more than 1.5%.
These stats have to be balanced against the fact that, in modern Python use, you generally install a specific version using a package manager or virtualenv. Relying on the baked-in OS version is considered an old bad habit, I believe.
The RPi Foundation just released the 64 bit version of RaspiOS which is based upon Debian. The current version of Python included is 3.9.22. Just about any Python package management system is easily installed.
The RPi is targeted at education. All of the books and magazines published by the foundation are freely available.
I am not a fan of Python but just about any development language can be easily installed on RPis both legacy and modern.
I was merely pointing out that the penetration of linux adoption is probably undercounted.
Hope you’ll find this helpful. I created a topic to imagine who the future consumers of Interactive Fiction might be. Assuming they are not simply other authors of IF
Python is great because of its “batteries included” large standard library. But if you want to use anything outside of the standard library it’s a nightmare. Python will need to sort out its packaging ecosystem if it’s ever going to become supreme. For all that people hate JS and npm, it’s one system that almost always just works. A large node_modules folder is a worthwhile tradeoff IMO. Cargo for Rust is great too. I haven’t used it, but I heard C#'s packaging system works well too.
@fos1 Are you saying those 40 million Raspberry PIs are all currently hooked up, being used by someone on a daily basis, and are available as part of a market for IF distribution and consumption? I imagine many are embedded in some other hardware, or even sitting around collecting dust. For example, I certainly had high hopes for my PocketCHIP (not a RPI, but still) and…well… it was a fun couple of weeks playing with it, for sure. It sits in its box now; I’m not firing it up to play Lost Pig. I think a distinction needs to be drawn between “installed base” and “consumer base.”
@Alianora_La_Canta
To your point: the two biggest proponents of NFTs at the Japanese company I work for are Americans.
RPis are an on ramp to computing. The RPi 4 is quite viable as a desktop with an entry price of less than $50. As I mentioned before, just about every viable programming language is a simple installation.
You can easily develop text IF using Inform6 with the standard library or Punyinform. Dialog also works well. All compile in a second or so. Frotz and Gargoyle are available to play IF games. Many students are learning programming within the Linux system due to the RPi. These students are an excellent target audience for the future of IF in whatever form it takes into the future. While the operational base certainly isn’t 40 million, it is a good percentage of that. There are very active teaching and learning systems in place.
If you have yet to experience an RPi, it would be a good investment. There are very few things that I have to use a Windows or Mac computer for. In fact, the 64 bit quad core Arm processor in current RPis is a good approximation of a Mac. The underlying OS is quite the same, a POSIX compatible Unix work alike. Again, they are fast and well capable as a desktop computer.
Just to be clear here, your point isn’t necessarily about RPis, but is more about making sure IF tools are available for Linux, as that is a system many new developers will have early exposure to?
there is a game called Penrose, and I love the way it connects time, space, and characters. Often, you’ll have to switch characters and see the same snippet of story from their point of view in order to make a choice that will move you forward. Some of those choices seem inconsequential until you read on. It’s really innovative: https://penrose.doublespeakgames.com/
They also have a few more games that are interesting in the IF/ IF Adjacent space. One is A Dark Room, which you’ve probably heard of, but they also have an interactive Google Assistant game on their site. Not IF, but if you want to have a completely addictive game experience, there’s Gridland. In all, they’re pretty experimental.
I’m happy that ScottKit is available for RPi, even if I have to do a full install of ruby. Speaking of IF Tool availability for linux, does any one know of one using bash? That’d be extremely universal, for sure.
C has the most penetration. After all, C and Linux are integrated together. You have Linux, you have C. Only micro Linux or the likes don’t have it.
That being said, there is a difference between installed and used. I may have all kinds of languages installed, but I only use C and Processing regularly. The rest may as well be invisible to me.
Retro PC experiences - I noted during IF comp this year that games that imitate old computer systems seem to be trendy. Two games outside the IF scene—Hypnospace Outlaw and Stories Untold—were both well received this year with releases on most major game stores; they have excellent presentation as well.
Bitsy - I just started a thread on this. Bitsy is rapidly approaching Twine’s level of popularity among developers and it is gaining quite a bit of press coverage too.
Playstation-esque games - The Playstation-style low-poly aesthetic is in vogue. Right now it is mainly being used for horror games, but the trend could also mean more separate narrative/gameplay experiences in the style of Metal Gear Solid and Parasite Eve once again. (As I understand it, Bioshock popularized during-gameplay audio logs and that style is still very popular today).
Cinema-style games - Not cinematic platformers or FMV games, but games that draw heavily from film and star notable actors. Twelve Minutes, an interactive thriller featuring the voices of James McAvoy and Daisy Ridley that was showcased at the Tribeca Games Festival, is one recent example of this.
Audio games - The Vale: Shadow of the Crown this year was released as a game for the blind. It’s not the only game to do that (one of the first was Kenji Eno’s Real Sound: Kaze no Regret in 1997). This is pretty niche but I thought I would mention it.
Crypto funding - Though some people in this thread have mentioned NFTs, I think it’s more likely that more games will be funded through crypto. Twitter has integrated Bitcoin tips; I think it’s only a matter of time before Itch.io and other platforms do the same. This is not specific to interactive fiction, of course.
Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3: The Trial - Somehow this unlicensed for-charity visual novel based on the Sonic franchise managed to get two official actors (Mike Pollock as Eggman and Roger Craig Smith as Sonic) to voice their characters. Not advisable, but impressive.
Totally agree. I have so many one-off installations for “I just want to check it out” languages. (Didn’t know about ScottKit, thanks)
@pbparjeter I think that’s a good point about the audio games. Or, more specifically, inclusivity must surely increase over time in all genres, including IF.
You note 3 retro-style trends. I wonder if the popularity of these is more a matter of keeping the scope of projects in check. Consider Bitsy games, there’s really only so much time one can spend on the graphics when they’re 1-bit; it is almost scoped by definition along certain axes.
Audio logs pre-date Bioshock by some time, I think. My earliest memory of them is System Shock CD-ROM version. Stories Untold had one level that presented a kind of “you’re sitting at a retro computer playing a text adventure” but the rest wasn’t really like that. I think Event[0] takes that premise much further, but I base that on very little hands-on experience.
You note 3 retro-style trends. I wonder if the popularity of these is more a matter of keeping the scope of projects in check. Consider Bitsy games, there’s really only so much time one can spend on the graphics when they’re 1-bit; it is almost scoped by definition along certain axes.
Good point about scope.
There are higher-resolution/hi-color forks of Bitsy but I would like to see a version that actually takes extensions to their full potential.
There are (apparently) functional extensions floating around in the community, and I expect there would be a lot more if adding those extensions was as simple as ticking a check box.
communities in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia (which the gov’t just declared crypto to be haram for Muslims, so that’ll be interesting) as well as HK, etc beyond just mainland China. In addition, crypto and NFTs seem to be really big in Vietnam 
as well.
where it’s friggin’ legal tender!
Cuban gov’t hates it, for instance).