Re. Floatpoint v2

Since several people have contacted me about this in the last couple of days (it seems to happen in waves): no, a new build of Floatpoint is not imminent. I realize it is annoying that the current build has a few bugs, one of them unsightly, and I agree it’s not entirely recommendable to new players in the current state. But I am, at this point, disinclined to release a build that only fixes those problems, because feedback indicates that what the game really needs is a rewrite: for best effect, it needs to be a four- to six-hour piece, featuring much more conversation with significant characters, more internal structure, better exploration of the back-story and justification of the central problem, and so on.

I am working towards this, in various ways, but it is not likely to be done in the near future; and (perhaps obviously) Inform 7 support also consumes a fair amount of my available time.

Anyway, I apologize to those who are vexed by this, but that is the state of affairs.

Bang! Howdy

Bang! Howdy is a western-themed game from Three Rings, the same people who came up with Puzzle Pirates.

In which I talk about ElectroCity more

A while back I wrote some initial thoughts on ElectroCity. Then I played some more. Then I wrote up a review for PlayThisThing.

A way to blow a lot of Sunday morning

Uploading cover art to IFDB.

This is unhealthily entertaining.

IFDB meets Zoom: or, More Concentrated Awesome

The recently-launched IFDB has a browser-plug-in mechanism to enable Windows users a one-step “play now” button to download an interpreter and start playing many of the games on the IF archive.

That doesn’t mean that Mac users are out of luck, though. Andrew Hunter announced today a new version of the multi-format interpreter Zoom. With Zoom, you can

• Use the “Find more” button to go browse IFDB. If you already have selected a game file in your Zoom window, it will look up the same game at IFDB, allowing you to read reviews and find walkthroughs, or use IFDB’s recommendation features to locate other games similar to the one you’ve been playing.
• Download and start new games with a single click.
• Automatically search for new interpreter plug-ins for Zoom, increasing its compatibility with minimal user upkeep. This new version adds SCARE to the Zoom interpreter set, so that Zoom is now able to play z-code, Glulx, TADS 2 and 3, Hugo, and Adrift games.

Lots of fun and very elegant.

Some comments on The Baron

…are up at PlayThisThing. Because of the issues I wanted to discuss, it’s mildly spoilery about things that don’t become evident immediately on the first playthrough. Consider yourself duly warned.

IFDB Launch

A cool new thing! Mike Roberts has announced the launch of IFDB, a database of IF games. It pulls together reviews from a variety of sources and allows users to add their own new reviews and recommendation lists, a la Amazon. You can also use IFDB to track games that you’ve already played; view the game’s metadata, if any (such as cover art and the teaser provided by the author); and download files.

There is ongoing work on features to automatically install and launch new games, too, removing that tedious “find the correct interpreter, then install it, then use it” process that novices to the genre tend to find unappealing.

Edge article online

Kieron Gillen has posted a somewhat revised version of his article for Edge magazine about text in gaming. It includes some material from interviews with me and with Adam Cadre, as well as some discussion of mainstream text-heavy games like Planescape: Torment.

“Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!”

JayIsGames recently noted (alongside the existence of IFComp) that the Independent Games Festival entries had been listed. When I went to have a quick look at the entrant list, I noticed a new entry by Mousechief Games, whose “interactive fiction” The Witch’s Yarn I reviewed a while back for IF Review. (The scare quotes are there because, while Mousechief calls the game interactive fiction, it isn’t IF in the sense that this site usually uses — there’s no text parser.)

I thought Witch’s Yarn wasn’t especially challenging as a game and was disappointed in some aspects of it, but I did like the attractive, cartoonish graphics, the jazzy score, and the idea of its story-centric casual game style; so I was pretty curious to see what they’d done with their latest, “Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!”. It does not look as though there’s a full version of the game available for sale, but there are demos for both Windows and Mac.

IF Competition Discussion: General Observations & Favorites

I’m done playing the games I’m going to play this year (skipping the Windows-only games, Jealousy Duel X which apparently runs on the Macintosh only under Classic, and the Quest game, which Spatterlight refused to cope with), and have submitted my votes.

A list of favorites and thoughts on the competition as a whole follow the cut. There are no specific spoilers for specific games, but people preferring to remain free of influence may want to skip reading until they’re also done playing.