See also my resources on interactive fiction (text adventure games), programming in Inform 7, making games in Scratch, and coding hypertext stories in Twine.
It’s great to see the more current interactive fiction works getting critical attention. The “text adventure” genre has come a long way from mazes and inventory puzzles; these works emphasize the literary effects that can only be generated by manipulating the player’s sense of agency. This study examines how themes, conventions and concepts in Gothic…
A pre-release critique of the tablet culture. Compared to other kinds of information that computers process today, text has an exceptionally small footprint. With the arrival of the tablet, we have crossed a critical threshold: Where text is concerned, we effectively have infinite computational resources, connectivity, and portability. For decades, futurists have dreamed of the…
Yes, it’s stunning to watch the spinning images in the table of elements ebook that comes with the iPad. But what does the brave new world of ebooks hold for educational and nonfiction authors? In order for electronic books to live up to their billing, we have to fix a system that is broken: getting permission…
The iPad is mentioned a couple times during this feature on how wonderful Seton Hill University is. Just kidding. Seton Hill is mentioned twice about a minute into the clip (after the advertisement).
Time.com
Doctorow is a do-it-yourself tech maven who hates the iPad, specifically because it makes it so easy to access online content on Apple’s terms. We don’t own the content we pay for on the iPad, and we aren’t trusted with owning the insides. The way you improve your iPad isn’t to figure out how it…
It’s a scary time. After all, people are learning to make their own iPhone apps to help their films stand out (something Who Shot Mamba by Brian Spaeth is actually doing really well.) Many filmmakers groan at the thought of learning such a complicated skill, or paying someone who has the skill a lot of…
At PAX we debuted the “How to Play Interactive Fiction” postcard. If somebody is sitting down in front of an IF game for the very first time, this card should give him or her an idea of what commands are likely to work — and what commands are *likely* to work. It’s not trying to…
I was told I needed “followers.” These were people who would sign on to receive my messages, or “tweets,” whatever those might turn out to be. I hummed a few bars from “Mockingbird Hill”–Tra-la-la, twittly-deedee–and sacrificed some of my hair at the crossroads, invoking Hermes the Communicator. He duly appeared in the form of media…
Here’s just a sampling… zecool À la Seton Hill University, chaque étudiant aura son iPad http://is.gd/b7hcR (via @willrich45) afujimura たまんないですね！ RT @Techmeme: And so it begins… Seton Hill University to give all students an iPad (@stevensande / TUAW) http://techme.me/=MFZ 24 minutes ago from EchofonIndritMaraku (Giusto per sottolineare quanto qui siamo indietro) Un iPad in regalo…
I can finally post about this. Seton Hill University will give a new Apple iPad to every full-time student in fall 2010. http://www.setonhill.edu/ipad/The word went out on the SHU campus about an important announcement. The room was packed. A familiar face appeared on stage. The wire-rimmed spectacles on the dancers were a nice touch, as…
Allagash At the #pax Get Lamp screening and panel. Don Woods! Steve Meretzky! Infocom forever! http://twitpic.com/1b5yo2 1 minute ago from Echofon Reply Retweet DenisMoskowitz GET LAMP was pretty fascinating. Now watching impessive IF panel. Meretzky is hilarious. 4 minutes ago from Twitterrific Reply Retweet Gingko1 RT @potteryfanatic: Grayshott Pottery Small Conical Lamp…
I’m not at PAX East tonight. (I wanted to be there. I really, really wanted to be there. By my wife said she needed me elsewhere. Enough said.) According to the chatter on Twitter and the blogosphere the interactive fiction panel was standing-room-only, and there’s already a line for seats in tonight’s Get Lamp premiere.
The Times of London will charge readers for Internet access starting in June, News Corporation announced on Friday, putting Rupert Murdoch at the forefront of a movement to erect toll gates on news sites.–NYTimes
What drives players to spend forty, eighty, or more hours with a computer RPG? If we look only at the quest journal, where the operations of quest flag logics are exposed to the player, the appearance is of a massive indulgence in the pleasures of the to-do list. And certainly there is some of that.…
There’s nothing really new in this story, but it’s still good to see my favorite game genre get some good press. Along with simulated space battles and table-tennis matches, interactive fiction (IF) is one of the oldest of computer-game forms. Though far gone from its commercial heyday in the graphics-impaired ’80s, when it was still…
For once we had the possibility of a global platform from which we had the power to make those in power listen to us. What we have ended up with is nothing more that a digital Madison Avenue and a whole lot of digital garbage that won’t shut up. I would like to hold out some…
One of the many interactive fiction events at this now-even-more-awesome event that I cannot attend. The current plan: the main GET LAMP episode at 9:30, followed by a panel on stage of people interviewed for the film, and then some showings of a few more features of the DVD, including the Infocom and Bedquilt episodes.…
The viral clip has been viewed almost 54 million times and gave rise to the catchphrase, “Is this real life?” It was the second most-watched video of 2009, according to YouTube, trailing only Susan Boyle‘s appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” It’s also been an unexpected bonanza for the boy’s Orlando, Florida-area family, who, despite some criticism that they exploited their…
This wordle was composed from word frequencies in definitions of “Digital Humanities,” submitted by participants in Day in the Life of the Digital Humanities 2010. About all we can conclude is that the participants know how to repeat the phrase “Digital Humanities” in their definitions.