Z-Machine Matter

Aaron Reed, who has been in the Interactive Fiction (IF) community for many years, created an awesome substack called 50 Years of Text Games. It's a history of the medium calling out some of the most influential games including Adventure, Zork, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Curses, Photopia and a recent favorite, Universal Paperclips.

Now he's turned that substack into an even more compelling book. It's available now on Kickstarter. You can get the electronic version, softcover or deluxe hardcover version. I'm looking forward to this. It really looks fabulous. There's also a bonus 60 page addendum that covers additional games not in the original substack. 

Aaron is also the author of several excellent books and IF games including Blue Lacuna, one of the largest games ever, and Creating Interactive Fiction in Inform7.

• 50 Years of Text Games: Substack, Kickstarter
• IFDB: Aaron Reed, Blue Lacuna

If you have any interest in the classic Infocom Interactive Fiction games of the 80s, you should check out the wonderful podcast "Eaten by a Grue" where computer historians Kay Savetz and Carrington Vanston make their way through every Infocom game ever made. It's a fun show, with plenty of insightful analysis, witty banter and hints well covered by spoiler fences.  There's also a great interview with master game designer Steve Meretzky and also reviews of post-Infocom games that came out of the IF community. 

I hope they'll give Chris Huang's An Act of Murder a try! 

I'm almost tempted to fire up Inform7 and get back to work on my long-stalled game The Z-Machine Matter. Or maybe I should get back to work on the sequel to my novel "The Man from Mittelwerk." 

• Eaten by A Grue: Website, Podcast
• Z-Machine Matter: Game Status