An Infocom-style text adventure I wrote in 2012-2013 using Inform, Jar is the first part of a three part adventure that I will one day complete if enough people beg/pay me to.  For now it was enough to finally scratch the Z-Text itch.  I set some interesting challenges for myself here, involving some pretty non-standard uses of the interpreter.  To say any more would spoil the experience...

If you have a z-text interpreter like Spatterlight, you can download the game file here. (To open Spatterlight for the first time on a Mac, right-click and select “Open” from the contextual menu--this will get you past Apple’s security feature.)

Written in 2013, Cold Pizza started out as a stream of consciousness exploration of the stupidly powerful and easy-to-use, web-based InkleWriter, which handles branching paths and illustrations, and also tracks variables.  I’ve never done anything quite like this before, but I think this format is really appealing to the reader, and I had a blast using InkleWriter. There could be a market for stuff like this, and I see myself revisiting InkleWriter... soon.

I love interactive fiction!

I was raised at the dawn of the personal computer era, and greedily devoured many Infocom adventures on their initial release. 20 years ago the tools for making interactive fiction were for hardcore programmers. Now, suddenly, there are lots of options for hobbyists, from Inform to InkleWriter to Quest and I find I’m suddenly able to get in on the action.  Take a look at these.  Your comments are welcome!