A. DeNiro’s Doggerland belongs to the interactive poetry school of Twine: highly personal, only loosely narrative, making play with hover effects as well as links in order to evoke some connections that aren’t explicitly stated. It concerns, among other things: winter and isolation, global warming, childhood, problems with America’s health care safety net, parenthood, glaciation, … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2015: Doggerland (A. DeNiro)”
Ruiness is a Porpentine game, and as such is typically difficult to summarize. It takes place in an evocative post-apocalyptic wasteland in which people have roles like “scavenger” and “dustrunner”, as well as apparently belonging to different species and riding various creatures. Most of the gameplay is exploratory and concerns uncovering new places to go, … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2015: Ruiness (Porpentine); Missing Since ’77 (Andrew Watt)”
The premise of Toby’s Nose is that you are Toby, a dog belonging to Sherlock Holmes, and your task is to sniff out a murderer from a roomful of suspects. There are quite a few possible suspects to choose from, so while you could solve this by a process of elimination, it is more satisfying … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2015: Toby’s Nose (Chandler Groover)”
I didn’t run reviews during Spring Thing because of having my own Back Garden entry. I’ve also changed my review policy for comps: moving away from trying to be thorough (a goal at which I didn’t always succeed anyway), and focusing on covering games about which I have a fair amount to say and/or that … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2015: Mere Anarchy (Bruno Dias)”
Spring Thing is now open, with nine new games: six in the main category, three in the “Back Garden” area for games that aren’t in competition for prizes and have somewhat looser entry requirements. There’s a mix of systems, too — Twine, Undum, Seltani, Glulx and z-machine, and Ren’Py. My contribution is a Back Garden … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2015, and Aspel”
Spring Thing 2019 is now open. The second-biggest regular competition of the interactive fiction calendar, this year it has 20ish games including both choice-based and parser-based work, some experimental and some more classic in style. I haven’t had time to play nearly all of them, but here are a few I’ve had a chance to … Continue reading “Spring Thing 2019”
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 