It only now occurs to me that in _Artful Escape_, you could set your glam-rock stage name to “The Awful DYNNE”. I think. There’s a lot of adjective options — “Awful” is probably in there. If not, “Awesome” certainly is.
An interactive fiction guy. https://zarfhome.com, https://blog.zarfhome.com, https://eblong.com/zarf/home.html
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It only now occurs to me that in _Artful Escape_, you could set your glam-rock stage name to “The Awful DYNNE”. I think. There’s a lot of adjective options — “Awful” is probably in there. If not, “Awesome” certainly is.
On the “videogames where you rock out” front, replaying _The Artful Escape (of Francis Vendetti)_ right after finishing _Bloom and Rage_ is a really funny combination. Apparently B&D’s next game _Mixtape_ is exactly the cross product of those two? I guess I’m in.
I've been threatening to write this essay for five years! A treatment of VIctor Gijsbers's "The Game Formerly Known as Hidden Nazi Mode". Long form, crunchy. Perils of author explication, contaminated text, some digital humanites excavation. golmac.org/the-wolf-tha...
After an amazing 2025 conference and a well-deserved rest, the NarraScope volunteer team has reassembled and we’re looking for new volunteers! Join the team and help us make 2026 the best NarraScope yet: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Regex is always legit.
Remember, remember, the first of September The students, the trucks, and their stuff We must always remember the first of September And know when enough is enough. (Rabbit rabbit also.)
NarraScope 2025: Playlist of videos is up! An annual conference hyper-focused on the art, craft, and tech of creating narrative games, stories, experimental pieces, and a whole spectrum of works that bridge the gaps between the labels. #narrascope www.youtube.com/@IFTechFound... @narrascope.org
This is why I am here on this hill of "no Labyrinth sequel unless Jennifer Connolly is the Goblin Empress"
(It says “00:00:00:00:00” with pixelated fireworks and flames. Okay!) (The countdown on the site front page is correct, or at least doesn’t have the time zone error. Will check back at my midnight.)
Kinda curious what burningman.org/countdown/ will say in ten minutes. Spoiler: it’s wrong by three hours. Time zone error — I’m in Eastern. Time zones are hard but not *this* hard.
New (not new) slogan: If obeying the law would ruin your business, what you're running is called "a criminal enterprise".
There's a vaccine but the CDC refuses to approve it. (Sorry, America-specific joke, posting it anyway.)
After 22 years, Typepad is shutting down with one month's notice. Go back up your old blogs, old-school blogger friends. everything.typepad.com/blog/2025/08...
In case you missed the last sale, 1000xRESIST is 30% off on the US eShop and on Humble for Steam! Our sci-fi game has: 💠 matricide 💠 doomed yuri 💠 aliens 💠 a deadly pandemic 💠 so much generational trauma Hope you have a great and happy time playing our game! 🫡
Yow, best wishes with the vitals. You want those vitals in place.
Rather at random I rewatched a few episodes of The Librarians (2014), season 1. That was a good show. Fired on all cylinders. The Next Chapter sequel series (2025) is okay, but it’s just not quite there, script-wise.
Hi!
I don't know what the stats are for Breezewood but I just heard the rhythm of the grooved pavement as you approach the traffic lights from highway speed, and it's been 25 years since I did that in real life.
Taking a look at the voting stats for the Best Game Hugo award, which was just won by Caves of Qud. blog.zarfhome.com/2025/08/hugo... We got a nice visualization of how the instant-runoff system works.
Weird little games I've played recently, and one that is not so little. - Strange Jigsaws - Öoo - Sword of the Sea - Mini Mini Golf Golf - The Drifter blog.zarfhome.com/2025/08/weir...
Lance Micklus (of Dog Star Adventure, 1979, 1st parser game with source code in a magazine) also wrote Treasure Hunt, an amped-up version of Hunt the Wumpus. The exact layout had been under debate, but he just found the original and dropped it as a comment on my blog. bluerenga.blog/2015/04/07/t...
How was Worldcon? I had a good time. blog.zarfhome.com/2025/08/worl... See also Seattle tourist photo blog: eblong.com/zarf/thod/66...
Or TEXT!
Re last: I was at Worldcon but not at that business meeting. Passing the info along in case. (Also I've had no symptoms and a negative nose-test as of yesterday. Will check again tomorrow.)
Covid Concern Becomes Issue at In-Person WSFS MPC Meeting Held at Worldcon file770.com/covid-concer...
So I'm giving up on a bright-line know-for-sure test -- fine! We couldn't even say what a "mammal" is without decades of research and proposed redefinitions. Why should "sentient" be simpler? The fun question is now whether the iteration converges.
Seems to me that the actual answer is that the "real" Turing Test must be a iterative process, where you learn more about what you're looking for as examples come in. Not moving the goalposts, but refining where you think they are. That's what's real-life happened over the past five years.
(Okay, they should know a lot about the failure modes of human intelligence. But then you should reject failures on both sides, right? Anyhow this is where Yudkowsky et al *started* so I'm staying away.)
And it's not like the interrogator knows how *human* intelligence works, so asking that they be informed about AI internals is a bit much.
It's no fun letting someone be so skeptical that they just answer "no" to everything that doesn't bleed protoplasm. "Move the AI goalposts as computers do more" is an old joke but begs the question.
"Use a skeptical interrogator with moderate knowledge of AI's failure modes" isn't very satisfying. What's moderate? How skeptical? I'm trying to come up with something philosphically satisfying here!
I agree (and with @tshellstudio.bsky.social ). I'm letting the definition of "Turing Test" slip. (You can call either Turing's version or a notionally-updated-for-2025 version the "real" Turing Test, up to you.) Where does that leave me?
There's an interesting (not tweet-sized) discussion which starts with the above three points, but I have no problem defending my belief in all three at once.
I should add that, as a Hofstadter nerd, I believe that: - The Turing Test is not only a way to detect sentience, it's the only philosophically justifiable way to define sentience - ChatGPT is manifestly passing the Turing Test right now - ChatGPT is not sentient, ha ha, who are you trying to kid
It need not be said that Google/Facebook/OpenAI are not trying to do anything like that and only their marketing departments are trying to pretend they're succeeding.
My answer, as a long-standing Hofstadter/Dennett fanboy: "It's not, but computers turn out to be great at emulating chaotic physical systems (weather) to a degree of accuracy which is limited by data, not abstract computation models." So I expect that brains fall into the same category.
I saw this in New York. It was pretty cool. (Although no stilt walkers.) The exhibit has got a lot more colored LEDs than there were in 1987, to be sure. eblong.com/zarf/photo/p...
I am also not thrilled about the prospect of AI startup layoffs hitting the market which is already choked with layoffs from every non-AI tech company.
I feel like it's "safe", in that nobody has said "blockchain" since 2022. They even managed to post a "2025 product roadmap" without mentioning AI at all. I don't really have a sense of how people view them any more. Probably just as one of several crowdfunding platforms, competing on ease-of-use.
You're welcome! I think that post (March 2024) is the last news I've heard about Kickstarter. Hunting around, they changed more stuff in May and then fired most of their execs in June. (Everette Taylor is still CEO.) No obvious moves since then.
Yikes, good luck with the hardware.
Delighted and thrilled to be able to share with you that I'm a GoH at the forthcoming 2027 Montreal Worldcon, along with Yves Meynard and Chris Barkley! bid.montreal2027.ca/en-ca/
I am also using GDScript for my first large Godot project -- an editor plugin, not a game. It's okay so far. Low-friction is great for what is 90% UI code. (I hope they add structs at some point though.)
as much as I love 1000xResist, I’m really thrilled to see Caves of Qud recognized for writing in particular. it’s a fascinating, difficult, ambitious game and there’s nothing quite like it; and that is down to its ambition with its narrative. Both the games & SFF community recognized that this year.
The #HugoAward for Best Game or Interactive Work goes to Caves of Qud.
Indeed!
Yyyyessss
If you are in-person there, you may see me. I will wearing the green hyperspace jacket (and black N95). I’ll be on a couple of IF/indie-games panels, and otherwise just wandering quietly around. You can say hi.
I am off to Worldcon in the morning! Online-ness will be reduced for the next week. I’ll still be in contact — just not sitting in front of a computer all day and all night.
Why do we need to talk about it? Let Apple talk about it if they want us to pay attention.
IntroComp games are up! I helped test one of the games in the competition this year. You should play them! introcomp.org
If the Blue Prince devs were aiming for that standard, I assert that they failed. That's not a complaint either!
(Not complaining — I just think it’s funny, community-evolution-wise.)
This looks nifty... ...And I see we've arrived at the point where a Steam page has to say "No collaborative effort is required - all puzzles and secrets are discoverable by playing the game solo".
I can get some kind of second-order resolution out of the existence of the fairy circle, with its "RIP Mad Jack", somehow holding that bad future safely out of the world. Holding it in the past? Yes, I'm now just making things up that aren't in the show.
I feel like it amounts to *something*. But of course this is purely a feeling, and then I felt that I needed to write a 3000-word post to justify my feelings!
Lucky enough to be one of the writers involved in bringing this wild stygian world to life! If you've ever wanted to barter with a dead swan god or infiltrate the fortress where souls go to be flensed, wishlist this game...
I got up to "Fighting the Ear of Knives": "The ear sprouts more knives and advances" and wishlisted it right there.
Notes from Mysterium 2025: blog.zarfhome.com/2025/08/myst...
Large... Limo... Model? Even if you're optimistic about autonomous cars, why would you think a text chatbot would be the right tool?
We've acquired the historic game magazine Computer Entertainer. As in, we got the rights. We own the magazine. And we're putting it into the Creative Commons for anyone to use for free. Learn more: gamehistory.org/computerente...
Remember my comment a couple of months ago about a particular metal-printing process just vanishing? Followup: the company that originated it, or rather the company that acquired that company, has now declared bankruptcy. blog.zarfhome.com/2025/08/age-...
Service has been restored to the intfiction.org forum following this week's Linode outage. Thank you to our tireless admins for getting everything repaired!
Heh, thanks!
Wrote up two Doctor Who episodes that I found particularly interesting: “73 Yards” and “The Story and the Engine”. blog.zarfhome.com/2025/07/73-s... (Spoilers, and anyhow the post won’t mean much to you if you haven’t watched both Ncuti Gatwa seasons.)
Very early Tom Lehrer memory: About ten years old, arguing with a friend about whether “Think of all the marvelous ways / they’re using plastics nowadays” refers to the sergeant’s *food* or his *prosthetic taste buds*.
I finished replaying _1000xResist_. I am once again astonished how much goes on in that game. Also, independently of that: how much you can do with stylized models and only the most sparingly deployed animation.
With the advent of the UK Online Safety Act, all games on the IF Archive are currently unavailable to users whose connections place them in the UK. This restriction is temporary as we review the IF Archive's holdings and flag works that are legally required to be restricted. Our apologies!
Isn't "ban pig" just "sow"?
A classic of English literature! Which I listened to at the same age as Tom Lehrer, as well as Flanders and Swann. All of a category in my head.
The only thing I need say of Tom Lehrer is that every time someone mentions a title (which of course they’ve been doing all day), I can sing the whole song.
Notes on some puzzle games: - Cipher Zero - Coupling - Monument Valley 3 blog.zarfhome.com/2025/07/summ...
The worst feeling when you name a pair of variables “drag_start_pos”, “drag_start_end” and then write three days’ worth of UI code before noticing that the second one should have been “drag_end_pos”
Good to know you can still put one over on the Man, eh?
oh no
✨ NEUROCRACY ✨ 🌐 Play a Wikipedia editor in the year 2049 🤝 Discuss how to document an assassination 👀 Your theories influence what happens... 🚨 EPISODE 2 OUT NOW 🚨 Check it out for free on omnipedia.app or buy the companion app for $12 if you want to make your own conspiracy board!
Repeating a comment from Mastodon: Unfortunately, the market can remain irrational longer than Ed Zitron can remain salient.
(This on the news that @writnelson.bsky.social is going to be the lead voice in a new Hellraiser game. Wow!)
I spent some of this weekend alternating between _El Paso Elsewhere_ and (replaying) _1000xResist_. Both games carried by the intersection of voice acting and WTF, but in completely opposite directions. But you’re going to be dashed on pointy rocks either way.
My Worldcon schedule: blog.zarfhome.com/2025/07/my-w... I’m on three panels: “The Indie Video Game Scene”, “Best Game or Interactive Work Hugo Potentials”, “IF: Video Game Storytellers”. With some names you may recognize.
It's always New York. Before 2012 it was allowed to be DC, but since the first Avengers movie New York is mandatory. (The Tron trailer is devoid of landmarks, which makes me think that they plan to be indeterminate about what city it is. I could be wrong.)
SANCUARY MOON FANVID BY MURDERBOT archiveofourown.org/works/67656831
oh god, it's not a SM fanvid, it's a *NavBot 337* fanvid oh god, my performance reliability
I've seen New York blown up enough times. It's not fun any more.
…Mostly. It looks like they’ll have about ten minutes inside the computer and (this is the really annoying part) that’s enough to get me to see it.
The premise of the new Tron movie is “what if we didn’t go into the computer this time,” which reads about on the level of “what if we did an Aquaman movie but we’re not going underwater this time.”
"fan - tas - tic - four"
(* The SFWA palanquin is not carried by living people, but by the chained shades of those who have expired while attending the Worldcon Business Meeting. I believe there’s a subcommittee looking into whether this is ethical.)
Man, I’m going to be summoning the SFWA palanquin to float me down the conference center halls just because I can. I know y’all are blase about it, but I’ve never had the chance.
I just realized that I will be attending my first Worldcon as a SFWA member. I even have the membership card. (Well, as an image on my phone.)
WeTransfer just changed their TOS giving themselves permission to train AI on any content you transfer and produce derivative works based on content you transfer that they are allowed to monetize and you are not allowed payment for. Stop using WeTransfer.
After five years of flipping past it in my library, I'm suddenly hooked on Jesse Venbrux's Seven Scrolls again. venbrux.itch.io/seven-scrolls (Mobile version seems to have been dropped from the stores, sadly.)
My kitchen sink runs hot water at exactly the right temperature to do it *without* any risk of burns. You run your elbow under the hot stream for three ouches and it's done. Would be awkward for bug-bites on the leg, but I always wear long pants, lucky me.
Enjoy! And thanks for supporting Boston local game developers.
Not on Steam? I've set up a one-week sale on Itch as well. (Just HL, no bundle.) zarf.itch.io/hadean-lands
Hadean Lands is now part of the Boston-Based Indies bundle on Steam! store.steampowered.com/bundle/56056... Five titles, 15% off: - Hadean Lands (me!) - Monster Loves You Too! (Dejobaan) - MewnBase (Cairn4) - Million Monster Militia (Space Capsule) - Loki's Revenge (OWL)
They have! And this reminds me that, no matter what weird shit Apple does at the UI level, there’s a horde of engineers down there making sure the tools and the APIs and the shell stuff keep on working. Thank you.
The tense moment every year where I find out if my command-line build tools have correctly located the Apple dev signing certs that live in the Xcode ecosystem.
Thoughts on _Occlude_, a small narrative inductive puzzler disguised as solitaire. blog.zarfhome.com/2025/07/occl...
The Gay Deceiver, but it's not exactly *popular* fiction. More like "why do you bother remembering that one" fiction. (Heinlein.)