News in 2007

News items are archived here.

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January

• Best of Interactive Art or Fiction Results. Jay Is Games picked the works of Andrew Plotkin (Zarf) as best in this category for the year 2006, although Zarf placed last in the popular vote.
• Trotting Krips Review of Narcolepsy (Adam Cadre; 2003; Glulx). (You remember Trotting Krips, right?)
• Playing Fair with the Player ia a new article by Jim Aikin.
• SPAC 48 - The latest issue of SPAC, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• SPAG #47 issued on January 16.
• Inform 7: Possible future developments, large raif post by Emily Short and Graham Nelson.
• Aunts and Butlers reviewed/promoted at Jay Is Games. See also Aunts and Butlers.
• InsideADRIFT Issue 33 (View PDF), (taf Version) is published.

February

• Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media is a new book about all sorts of games (including IF, RPGs, board games, and more). Edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. See Second Person at The MIT Press.
• AdventureCon 2007 is a new convention for adventure fans, to be held sometime this summer at the Mirage in Las Vegas. Check the AdventureCon page for upcoming details. Managed by Malinche Entertainment.
• gamer.co.il magazine interviews Andrew Plotkin. Translated into Hebrew, February 2007. (Yes, it's in Hebrew. Really. No, we don't know what it says.)

March

• AIF Newletter for March 2007 contains interviews with Michael J. Roberts (creator the TADS authoring system), and Knight Errant, a new AIF community member. Also announcing the 2007 AIF Mini-comp and the R.A.G.S. authoring system.
• IF Ratings is moving to a new site, in case people have wondered what's up with the 404 errors. We don't have a new URL, and the new site unfortunately isn't quite working yet. Chrysoula is aware of the problem and is working on it.
• thinBASIC Adventure Builder is a new adventure creator project for Windows 98/2000/ME/XP/Vista currently at Alpha stage. Download a demo of the TAB Player and some games and demos. (1.8mb zip)
• bas2inf is a utility that converts BASIC source code into Inform 6 source code. It was written in Ruby by Johan Berntsson and tested with the Sunburst Contamination game. Download bas2inf.zip.
• SPAC 49 - The latest issue of SPAC, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• IF Ratings is back online as of March 21st. Same urls as before; new server.
• A Spoonful of Scotch - Emily Short reviews A Sugared Pill (Colin Borland; 2005; TADS 2) for IF-Review.

April

• InsideADRIFT Issue 34 (View PDF), (taf Version) is published.
• AIF Newsletter April 2007 contains an interview with David Welbourn, and reviews of Crossworlds Part 4 - Scream For Me, Ring of Power, and Serving Your Country.
• Douglas Adams: The First and Last Tapes by Ian Shircore, presents a previously unreleased interview from 1979.
• Inside Interactive Fiction: An Interview with Emily Short - April 10, 2007.
• AdventureCon 2007 is still running, but it changes its dates to September and moves from Las Vegas to Atlantic City. No, really. Catch up on the AdventureCon FAQ page which includes the helpful frequently asked question "First the dates changed from July to August then the prices went from $299 to $239 to $69 and now the whole $&#! event is changing. Any more drastic changes on the horizon?" AdventureCon is managed by Malinche Entertainment.
• Review by Emily Short of the AIF game Ron Weasley and the Quest for Hermione (captainc22; 2006; ADRIFT 3.9) for Trotting Krips.

May

• SPAG #48 - The latest issue of SPAG contains interviews with several members of the Russian IF community; reviews of The Ebb and Flow of the Tide, The Elysium Enigma, and The Traveling Swordsman; and a SPAG Specifics analysis of The Elysium Enigma.
• Zork Returns! Thanks to Open Source Asterisk PBX (internetnews.com article. Article reprinted at earthweb.com) - Asterisk developer Simon Ditner creates Zoip, a system that lets one play Zork on one's phone.
• AdventureCon 2007 has (apparently) been cancelled. But don't despair: planning for AdventureCon 2008 is underway. If you'd like to join the mailing list, visit the AdventureCon page. Also, there's gonna be a "Kicking Zork Party" this summer (details to be announced). AdventureCon is managed by Malinche Entertainment.
• SPAC #50 - The latest issue of SPAC, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• Part 1 of 1 - Geoff Gander reviews Deephome: A Telleen Adventure (Joshua Wise; 1999; Z-code) for IF-Review.
• Zork Turns 30 - Malinche Entertainment celebrates 30 years of Zork.
• InsideADRIFT Issue 35 (View PDF), (taf Version) is published.
• Electronic Literature Collection Volume One was reviewed by CIAC's Electronic Magazine (see also CIAC's original French review) and by der Standard (in German).
• Textual Pleasure: Parsing the Annual IF Competition by Lara Crigger for The Escapist.

June

• Adventurer's Consumer Guide's Guide - Emily Short reviews Adventurer's Consumer Guide (Øyvind Thorsby; 2007; Glulx) for IF-Review.
• Programs on vinyl records? - Some games for the Sinclair Spectrum were recorded on vinyl, which players were expected to rerecord on audio tape that they could then insert into the computer's tape drive. Download or play these games online, including two text adventures: The Thompson Twins Adventure and Aural Quest.
• The History of Zork - article about Zork for Gamasutra by Matt Barton, June 2007.
  • See also: History of Zork Now Available on Gamasutra: Read Full Interviews Here! - Interviews with Dave Lebling, Marc Blank, Steve Meretzky, Howard Sherman, David Cornelson, and Nick Montfort. Interviewed by Matt Barton, June 2007.

July

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 3 Number 7 in php and text formats - Includes entries in the first Beat the Staff cutscene competition, and reviews of Big Day Out, Unexpected Proposal, Virgin, and Big Stuff.
• Breaking Boundaries in Gaming Demographics - Peter Nepstad starts to analyze buyer stats for 1893: A World's Fair Mystery.
• SPAC #51 - The latest issue of SPAC, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• soc.review.kook-u - Geoff Gander reviews Kook U (Anonymous; 1997; Z-code) for IF-Review.

August

• New article about Adventure: Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original “Adventure” in Code and in Kentucky - by Dennis G. Jerz, published in Digital Humanities Quarterly Volume 1 Number 2 (Summer 2007). Will Crowther's original FORTRAN source code was also released. (See also this R*IF thread.)
• It Is Pitch Dark is a music video featuring a text adventure song by Frontalot. It will be included on the Get Lamp DVD set in due time.
• It's a Fair Cop - Emily Short reviews Little Falls (Mondi Confinanti; 2005, 2007; Glulx; Italian, English) for IF-Review.
• IF Games from The Commonplace Book Project reviewed by Emily for Jay is Games. See also HP Lovecraft: The Commonplace Book Project 2007.
• SPAG #49 - Includes a History of Interactive Fiction in Spain; interviews with Sarganar, Incanus, Grendel Khan, JSJ, Lenko, Akbarr, Jarel, and Kent Tessman; and reviews of Amnesia, La Cara Oculta de la Luna, Fate, Final Selection, Getfeldt's Treasure, Goteras, It's Easter, Peeps!, Suprematism, When in Rome 1: Accounting for Taste, and When in Rome 2: Far from Home; plus a SPAG Specifics article about Floatpoint.
• Posta Aventura (English Version) - The 'never-enough-feared' Urbatain monk has begun to write the ultimate guide for you, English reader, the most amazing index-book for adventuring into the latest Spanish adventures.

September

• ClubFloyd, a group for playing games cooperatively on ifMud, played its first game, Nevermore, on Sunday, September 2nd. It's hoped that this will become a weekly event.
• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 3 Number 9 in pdf and text formats.
• InsideADRIFT Issue 36 is published.
• "Have Steam Will Travel". Greg Boettcher reviews Moments Out of Time (L. Ross Raszewski; 2001; Z-code) for IF-Review.
• “Eaten By A Grue” music video, & my ramblings about computer gaming’s wealthy wasteland - blog posting by Bradley W. Schenck.
• The Summer 2007 issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly features two articles about IF: All Hope Abandon: Biblical Text and Interactive Fiction (by Eric Eve) and the finalized version of Dennis G. Jerz's Colossal Cave article.
• Press Start - Radio for Gamers: Talk Segment: Interactive Fiction. A radio station at Grinnell College in Iowa did a piece on IF for all the cornfields listening at 9 am, Saturday, September 22nd. Here's a copy of the transcript. Thanks, Dybael!

October

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 3 Number 10 in pdf and text formats.
• IFDB, the Interactive Fiction Database, is a new web site, created by Mike Roberts, for person-to-person recommendations about IF games. IFDB users can edit the database of games, create Recommended Lists, associate "tags" (keywords) with the games, add reviews and ratings, etc. There's also a tool called the Download Adviser, which makes it easier to download and install games. See the R*IF thread.

November

• SPAC #52 - The latest issue of SPAC, the Spanish IF newsletter, has been published.
• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 3 Number 11 in pdf and text formats.
• Command Lines - Aesthetics and Technique in Interactive Fiction and New Media (doctoral dissertation by Jeremy Douglass).
• SPAG #50 - Includes an article about the H.P. Lovecraft Commonplace Book Project; interviews with David Cornelson and Michael Gentry; and reviews of Edificio 25, Floatpoint, Ghost of the Fireflies, Lord Bellwater's Secret, and Regreso al Eden.

December

• Inside Erin: The AIF Newsletter Volume 3 Number 12 in pdf and text formats.
• SPAC 2.0 goes online, stitching from quarterly statuc webzine to dynamic webzine.