Andrew Plotkin

Visible Zorker update: Starcross is now available.

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/visible-starcross

Thanks to all my Patreon supporters! (Who just got access to The Witness…)

#Infocom #InteractiveFiction

(From last night:)

The Visible Zorker project has just posted Starcross!

https://eblong.com/infocom/visi/starcross/

I am working through every Infocom text game, one per month, and creating an annotated playable version with source code and live tracing of all game activity. See how Infocom did it!

The Visible Zorker is a Patreon-supported project. Do you want to support this kind of game-historical research? You can! We have a Discord and everything.

https://www.patreon.com/cw/VisibleZorker

#InteractiveFiction #GameHistory

Looked at today's chatter and tried to figure out when I last bought a videogame on physical media. I think probably 2013.

Justin immediately responded, “you're not building a library for student use I presume!”

To wit: https://jabortnick.com/2026/07/01/the-end-of-physical-video-games-threatens-games-education/

I grabbed a Blue Prince Basement Key from the iam8bit table at GDC. (I suspect they sold out of those fast.)

Now it's hanging in my hallway and I am genuinely happy to see it every day, you know? Not often that a game object hits exactly that sweet spot of *thing*-ness.

(Most memorable game items are large, so if you get one you're playing with a scale model. But this is exactly as it was in my hand in the mansion.)

This will always be the best joke.

GDC recap part two: the gloomy future.

Really, what I'm doing is lining up as complete a picture as I can of GDC's overall trajectory. I’m not just here to say "It's doomed." I suspect it's doomed but the details are interesting regardless.

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/03/gdc-gloom

#GDC

Remember I was talking about the 1989 context of Infocom documentation?

The Video Game History Foundation has just posted some audio recordings from that GDC! Or “CGDC 1989", as it was called then.

https://archive.gamehistory.org/folder/ccdbd662-971d-4296-87a8-7a7e6473b41b

Features the voices of Dani Bunten, Noah Falstein, Doug Sharp, Richard Garriott, Chris Crawford, Cliff Johnson, and others.

A brief excursion on adverbs in IF and why we don't use them, except that Deadline *does* use them.

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/04/curse-of-the-forgotten-adverbs

#InteractiveFiction

This week, Tara McGrew released an open-source interpreter for Infocom's Cornerstone VM.

(Yes, on April Fool's Day, but the interpreter *works*. Correct joke management.)

I have therefore gone looking for Cornerstone “game files" and added them to my Infocom Catalog page. You can run Cornerstone 5.1 or 5.20 now. To some extent. (Bugs remain.)

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/04/cornerstone-and-the-mu-machine

https://github.com/taradinoc/linchpin

Every time I see the Artemis 2 Earth-Moon orbit graphic

I hear the Outer Wilds “oh no” music in my head

Sorry

Random image from GDC week:

"The Point Is", a lecture by Brian Moriarty, given at CGDC 1996. The Proceedings had a typographical version which went on for several pages in this Discordian/Brunner-esque style.

(From the MADE game history collection.)

IFTF is set up at GDC in the Commons area. Next to a sign that confusingly says “Indie Arcade”, but it’s actually the space for nonprofits and indie dev community groups.

There’s our machines demoing Twine!

The NarraScope talk schedule and speaker list is up now:

https://narrascope.org/schedule/

#NarraScope

Visible Zorker status: Deadline is in progress, though only barely. I've run into a couple of problems -- notably the source code is missing a file!

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/03/visible-zorker-march

#InteractiveFiction

GDC day 2. Perhaps today I will eat a vegetable!

Okay, Saturday I had dan dan noodle which had some bok choy. And tonight I’m meeting people at Fang which has excellent vegetarian options. But I should really look for a salad for lunch too. Too many bad fries yesterday.

Survived day one (evening one) of GDC tabling. (This was at the Oracle Park event.)

Loud movie was loud. Sex Bob-Omb was not the ideal backdrop to explaining IF to people. But, that’s conferences.

The text/plain segment of GDC's feedback reminder email has been wrong for at least a decade. (Yes, way longer than since 2024.)

Also, we have keynote speakers…

https://bsky.app/profile/narrascope.org/post/3mimfrh6s6n2t

(hope that cross-previews properly)

I'm in another game-studies collection:

Ludic Narrans, Stories of/by/for the Field of Play:
Drew Davidson, Emily Matheny, et al.

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/03/ludic-narrans
https://playstorypress.org/ludic-narrans/

This is a collection of interviews with lots of people on the broad topic of *play*. Two versions: order and chaos! Available as a free download or you can buy it off Lulu.

Gonna catch a couple more GDC talks and then return to the IFTF booth from noon-3pm.

Btw, the show floor is shockingly thin. Areas like IGF and alt.ctrl.gdc that used to be laid out with narrow aisles now have huge, generous space allocations.

It’s nice for us but wow.

There’s an odd GDC vibe where they got rid of the Mon/Tues indie pass and said everything is all week now. But they didn’t solidly communicate that the show floor is still Weds-Fri. I’ve seen people walking around asking “where are the booths?”

Also I’m sure this is why talks are packed. More people showed up Monday, less to do.