News in 2009

News items are archived here.

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January

• Jim Munroe started a world map in which every IF fan can add their name and where they live.
• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 1 (January 2009) in pdf and text formats.

February

• The Room as Metaphor in Interactive Fiction - article by Nathan Jerpe.
• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 2 (February 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• Interactive Fiction Writing Month is, according to its website, "a loosely-organized set of tasks assigned one per week for four weeks, from February 15 to March 15, 2009, hopefully coupled with a few informal live discussion sessions (location-dependent, of course). The goal is to get a group of participants familiar enough with the Inform language to produce some simple games, and to promote discourse on game design in general through the medium of IF." Links: website, forum, blog, RAIF threads: 1 and 2.

March

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 3 (March 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• The sixth PDF issue of SPAC 2.0, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• Issue #54 of SPAG (March 31, 2009) - Includes an article and reviews about Blue Lacuna, an article by Nate B. Dovel, interviews with Jim Munroe, Eric Eve, Jeremy Freese, and Stephen Granade, and reviews of A Bear's Night Out, Phantom of the Arcade, Ungodly Earth: The Desert of Dreams, Waiting for the Process (Horse Needed!), and all the games in English from One Room Game Competition 2008.

April

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 4 (April 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• Inform 7 now has a new website with a new section of resources for education users, a news blog, a screencast for new users, and many other new features. A new Inform 7 build (5Z71), with many changes, and a new design document were released. Also: the Inform 6 compiler is now under an open-source license. (See this RAIF thread for more details.)

May

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 5 (May 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• Rule-Based Programming in Interactive Fiction - article by Andrew Plotkin. (See also: RAIF thread.)
• if.game-testing.org is a new IF betatesting site (which includes an RSS feed) created by Juhana Leinonen.
• RuleFive '09 forum is a forum for people who intend to enter the IF Comp 2009. See RAIF thread.

June

• The seventh PDF issue of SPAC 2.0, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 6 (June 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• There was an editorial about interactive fiction in the newspaper The Guardian (4 June 2009).
• Textfyre is launching its first game, Jack Toresal and The Secret Letter by Michael Gentry and David A. Cornelson, on June 26th.
• A TADS 3 study group was created by Conrad. See RAIF thread.

July

• ZAPF, a Z-machine assembler, by Jesse McGrew was released.
• Twine is a new wiki-based CYOA authoring system developed by Chris Klimas. See Twine.
• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 7 (July 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• Issue #55 of SPAG (July 15, 2009) - Articles by Chuck Schlaedlingsbekämpfungsmittel and Harry Kaplan; reviews of all the Spring Thing 2009 and EnvComp games; reviews for Game Developers Conference 2009, Inside Woman, Lydia's Heart, and Make It Good; and SPAG Specifics for Alabaster.
• ZILF, a ZIL compiler by Jesse McGrew was released.

September

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 8 (September 2009) in pdf and text formats. (Note: there was no August issue.)
• IFDB upgrade! Users can now add competition pages, award pages, club pages, and news items! There's also more places to add comments, see who's playing what (subject to privacy settings), RSS feeds galore, tag counts, and a new option to mark games you're not interested in. Drink deep from the data stream!
• "Walkthrough" - Listen to the walkthrough to Zork I sung by Errol, instrumentals by pifie, available as a downloadable .mp3. Caution: The lyrics are listed as well, which is a spoiler for the game if somehow you haven't played it yet.

October

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 9 (October 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• CASA, the Classic Adventures Solution Archive, will soon be replaced by a new website about 8-bit text adventures, with not only solutions and maps but also more information about the games, ratings, reviews, etc. Suggestions about this future website are welcome at this forum thread (dead link 🔍).
• The eighth PDF issue of SPAC 2.0, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• The InsideADRIFT newsletter, now edited by Duncan Bowsman, is back! Download the new issue #39. Talk about it on the ADRIFT forum.

November

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 10 (November 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• Klockwerk: The Shadow in the Cathedral (Ian Finley and Jon Ingold), the second game by Textfyre, is now available! More information at textfyre.com.
• (NOTE: this survey is now closed.) The players of IF Comp 2009 games were invited to take this survey by Conrad about what they liked and didn't like about the games. (See also this RAIF thread and this blog post.)
• Issue #56 of SPAG (November 16, 2009) - Articles by Dorte Lassen and Duncan Bowsman; reviews of Acheton, The Bryant Collection, Cacophony, Finding the Mouse, The Nemean Lion, Sam Fortune - Private Investigator, Shelter from the Storm, Spaceship!, Unscientific Fiction, and all the IF Comp 2009 and IntroComp 2009 games; and SPAG Specifics for The King of Shreds and Patches.

December

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 5 Number 11 (December 2009) in pdf and text formats.
• Issue #40 of the InsideADRIFT newsletter. Download (zip file with .doc, .taf, and .pdf formats). Talk about it on the ADRIFT forum.
• BBC News - AI aims to solve in-game chatter. Brief article on how games are making progress with conversing with NPCs and emergent behavior. 26 December 2009.