Gamebookery

Lots of interesting discussion at the moment about the future of books, games, gamebooks and interactive text. Notably here and here (where there is also an awesome looking hybrid of the whole lot in gestation).

Inkle's new adaptation of the 'Sorcery!' books looks like it could really break up some new ground and has inspired me to take the sheets off my old gamebook project, 'The Tower of Clavius Boon' and consider putting it into either Twine or inklewriter. I've tested out the latter approach here.

In other gamebook news, there is a new post over at Turn to 400. This is like a little Christmas for me.

The King of the Wood

I'm proud to have a few bits of writing (look out for the books lying around) in 'The King of the Wood' by allen. I was already a big fan of his previous game 'Good Morning, Commander' so I was really excited when he asked me to contribute and found out we were very much on the same page.

You can play it for free in your browser from here:

Agda

I'm thrilled to my marrow to announce that a new story of mine, 'Agda', has just been published in New Dead Familes #7. The strength of the other writing in this issue is phenomenal (a personal fave is 'The Value of Sea Urchin Heart Ice Cream') and my humble thanks go to multi-talented curator Zack Wentz for including me.

Anyone who reads 'Agda' might like to know that it is in no way autobiographical - my wife is wonderful and thankfully not given to acts of extreme sexual violence - but it is, in its own quiet way, one of the most personal things I have written. Any comments on it will be deeply appreciated.

I've also started work on a small game designed to teach me the rudiments of coding and pixel art so that I can see things from others' points of view more easily when collaborating. Anyway, I'm really enjoying the experience and hopefully I'll have something playable at the end of it. Here are a few little animations from the work so far:

A G-man

 A go-go dancer

 A Martian

  A crime scene

 A femme fatale

The progress of the game can be followed here.

Future Voices

Inklewriter have just released their Future Voices app, containing the eleven winning entries to their recent competition. I feel honoured that my own story, 'Your First Giant', is among them. It was a heap of fun to write and for anyone interested in writing interactive fiction I can't recommend inklewriter highly enough. It's very slick and intuitive, simple enough for anyone to pick up but with enough depth to allow the crafting of some pretty complex mechanics if you wish.

The app can be downloaded for FREE here.

The shame...

Well, National Games Design Month has ended and I have comprehensively failed to meet my targets. A tickle of the mouse wheel will tell you that two posts ago I boldly declared my intention to make a game about highwaymen using Inform 7 and to post about it 'every few days'.  What was I thinking? This is the first post I've made about it and the purpose of this post is largely to apologise  for not having made any other posts. So I don't think even this post counts.

I did try, in a very generous sense of the word, to make the game but it just didn't happen. Turns out that using Inform 7 isn't like dictating your intentions to an obliging robot butler, as I'd naively thought it would be. It's a lot more complicated than that. Also, however, a lot more satisfying. I've been enjoying the experience and I will get round to finishing the game in good time, just not quite yet. In the meantime, here's my 'design document' for anyone so inclined to scoff or giggle at. Now I think of it, I guess you could actually 'play' this by moving a counter between the different locations, possibly while dressed as a highwayman and preferably while very drunk on malmsey. Even so, it might not be a whole lot of fun...

Additionally, I promised to link to a few game/story hybrids which had impressed me of late. Now that I can do:

Howling Dogs   This had me by the throat from start to finish. It's just really good writing and a beautiful use of the format.

Samsara   Elegantly written with an unusual setting and satisfying game mechanics.

6 Degrees of Sabotage and The Republia Times More on the game side side than the writing but I love everything on this site. The ideas are beautifully simple and very effective.

Recommendations for any similar sites/games will be gratefully pounced upon!