Zarf Updates

Three weeks ago I announced the Visible Zorker Patreon. At that time I said:

If we reach the $500/month goal by Feb 14th, I will start cranking on Zork 3. The aim will be to have a playable version ready for Patreon supporters on March 1st.

As you can see, we have not reached $500/month. The Patreon saw an initial wave of interest, but it leveled off after a few days at about $200.

But, you know what, I chose this project because it was fun! I want it to work. So we are officially in go-mode. Zork 3 is now in progress. I have a working build right now. Bare-bones, minimal, but working.

Contributor-level donors will get access to the Zork 3 page later tonight. Participant-level donors will get access on March 1st, by which time it will be feature-complete.

(Well, probably mostly complete. The map always takes longest.)

I'll be touting the project at GDC in March. I imagine that will bring in some more supporters. How many? No clue.

Regardless, I am now committing to finish Zork 3, Deadline, and Starcross by the end of May. June is NarraScope month, so I'll take a break to concentrate on the event. After that we'll take stock and see what the prospects are.

Sound good? Great.

See you around the Discord.

Once again I will show my face in San Francisco for GDC. (My masked face, if you see me inside the convention center. That's how I roll now.) I'll be wearing the Green Hyperspace Jacket as usual.

I've attended GDC on and off since 2012. This year is a first, though: I'll be helping represent IFTF! We'll have a table in the new "GDC Commons" space, promoting the tools and art of interactive fiction. Come visit us during show-floor hours: 10-6 Wednesday, 10-6 Thursday, 10-3 Friday.

The Common will also host a bunch of other regional and interest-based game-dev nonprofits. Including the Global Game Jam, Black in Gaming, Latinx in Gaming, and groups from SF, Seattle, and my own homies from Boston Game Dev. Who I would totally be helping out if I weren't booked with the IFTF crew. And others.

I won't spoil our booth surprises... well, maybe a little. My Visible Zorker project is a great example of an open-source resource for game history education, so it'll be up and running somewhere. Assuming we get all the laptops set up the way we want.

No, I am not hijacking an IFTF event to promote my own Patreon. That would be tacky. But I should have Visible Zork 3 up and running as a special GDC sneak peek...

I won't be in the IFTF space every minute, but I'm signed up for a bunch of table hours on Wed/Thu/Fri. The rest of the week -- you know, the usual GDC cycle. Go to a talk, decide that talks are silly, hang out in Yerba Buena Park with all the other game-dev nerds. (Spoiler: the park doesn't require a conference badge. Drop by whether you're registered or not! It's always a crowd, unless it's raining, and even then.)

Oh, and I'll also be at the IFTF table at the Opening Night Event down at Oracle Park. Monday night, 6:30 until... actually I don't know how late it runs. We will find out!

In my last post, I asserted that it was not a bug that the cyclops did not fight. (Not according to the combat rules that govern the troll and the thief, anyway.) There was some Patreon and Discord discussion about that; I'm pulling it out into a new post.

(Is my blog going to just be a stream of Infocom trivia for the next two years? Maybe! I'm winging it here.)

Why doesn't the cyclops fight? Well, it's these lines of code:

Everybody knows that you KILL TROLL WITH SWORD until he vanishes in a greasy black fog. If he kills you first, big deal; RESTORE and try again. It's too random to be a real obstacle. But do you know the math behind the randomness?

I didn't! But some folks got to talking about it on the Discord, and I realized there was room to add some visualization. So Visible Zork 1 now has a "Combat" tab. You can try it now, or just read it right here.

Here's the back wall of my home office -- a.k.a. my videochat background. It used to be boring. Now it's colorful!

That's a programmable LED strip running a pattern that I designed. In a pattern language that I came up with. The source code for that pattern is here: slowflies.pbb.

As you can see, it's a declarative syntax which describes waves. Roughly, this code says "Generate some sine-wave pulses that move slowly back and forth; add them; draw them in green ($0F0) with a blue ($02C) fade-down."

Here's another one, in pinks and oranges:

Of course the first thing that happens is someone corrects my chronology. (Thanks dukdukgoos!)

In my original post, I wrote "March: Zork 3; April: Starcross; May: Deadline." In fact Deadline was released before the other two.

Back when I put together my Infocom catalog index page, I copied off Paul David Doherty's venerable Infocom Fact Sheet. Except I think I copied the wrong section. Or something. Anyhow, I got them out of order -- and then failed to recheck my own list when I planned the Patreon.

I posted Visible Zork 2 a few ago. What about Zork 3, you might ask? My post ended with a cryptic note: "...Let's say the chances are high. But I'll save that announcement for a bit."

(How do you keep a Wumpus in suspense?)

Here we go. Announcing! And inviting you to support!

The Visible Zorker Project (and Patreon)

I intend to do all 31 of Infocom's text-mode adventures in Visible style. I intend to do one per month in chronological order. And I would like you to be part of this historic project. Yes -- you, in back, with the skirt and funny helmet.

And all the rest of you as well.

Visit the Patreon page to sign on.

Oh gosh! The IGF finalists are up.

I played a bunch in the first judging round. Many of these are already in my review list, including The Drifter, Öoo, Strange Jigsaws, Type Help, The Roottrees Are Dead, and Mini Mini Golf Golf.

I am amused that four games in that IGF post wound up in my review post titled "Weird little games, summer edition". I didn't know they were IGF entries when I wrote that; I just knew they were little and weird. It's great to see the appreciation of weird little games is shared among the discerning game-playing community.

Of course I am happy to see that Roottrees and Type Help continue to get recognition. I can't wait for Incident at Galley House, the Type Help remake.

Games which I have not yet played but I clearly need to: Perfect Tides: Station to Station, Blippo+, Angelina Era, and all the other titles that I haven't mentioned but in no way mean to slight.

Extra shoutout to Titanium Court. I have not played this and I do not know a damn thing about it, but as soon as the IGF post dropped, my social circles were flooded by awesome game-design folks saying "Titanium Court! I can talk about it now! Titanium Court! You gotta play it!" (As soon as it's out -- no release date yet.) So, I guess I gotta play it.

Anyway, here's what you want: games that I have played but not yet discussed. This includes both IGF finalists and entries that didn't get an official mention but they're worth a word anyhow.

• Arctic Awakening
• Promise Mascot Agency
• The Haunting of Joni Evers
• Carceri
• Prší
• Kid Cosmo
• and Roger
• Jane

Hey, remember the Visible Zorker last year? Meet the Visible Zorker 2: The Visible Wizard of Frobozz!

If you don't remember last year (Zog knows I have trouble too), here's the idea: You play Zork 2 in the left pane. The right pane shows everything that happens under the hood as you play. The functions that were executed to carry out your command, the object tree, the variables, the timers... everything. Click on anything to highlight its source code.

Happy New Year! NarraScope is once again calling for talks, games, and -- new this year -- experiences.

NarraScope will be in Albany, NY this year (June 12-14), thanks to support from the University at Albany.

As always, we will have a full weekend of talks and presentations. Last year in Philadelphia, we added the NarraScope Showcase, where people could demo games in a dedicated room and time slot. We'll be doing that again in 2026. And now also adding:

"The Experience": Bridging the Physical and Digital Worlds through Narrative

For Narrascope 2026, we are thrilled to announce a new track dedicated to narratives with the intention to blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds.

We invite you to help us explore and celebrate the future of embodied narrative. If your work tells a story by transformation between physical and digital spaces, we want to hear from you.

We are seeking projects that tell a story through a participatory experience, and are looking for creators who use technology as a way to weave narratives into the fabric of our surroundings.

What does that mean? Check out the web site. Could be AR, mixed-reality, projection mapping, interactive installations... we don't know what else. We shall find out!

Submissions for all of the above are now open. Deadline for proposals is January 31st. Go wild.