Zarf Updates

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.

It's the last day of the year. I can squeeze in one more post, right? If I keep it short.

I can keep it short. Here's some little games that I don't need to say a lot about.

• Despelote
• Many Nights a Whisper
• Keeper

(Don't worry, I have the big IGF review post queued up for January. As soon as the finalists are announced.)

The heart of winter is months off yet, but the darkness already presses in. (Remember about Nighthawk's Solstice!) I have gotten into the latest crop of deduction-investigation games... and a few others as well.

• A Case of Fraud
• Ambrosia Sky: Act One
• The Apothecary of Trubiz
• Mind Diver
• Orbyss

I hereby raise awareness of Nighthawk's Solstice, which celebrates the day of the earliest sunset of the winter.

Of course the astronomical solstice is December 21st. That's the shortest day of the year, sunrise to sunset. But I never see sunrise, do I? For me, the shortest day is measured from when I wake up to sunset. Assume I wake up at some average time (nobody's business but mine), then my solstice is the day of the earliest sunset.

And very possibly yours too.

I know a lot about Infocom but a lot less about Infocom's competitors -- particularly their UK competitors. Magnetic Scrolls, Topologika, and Level 9 were landmarks in the field, but I was barely aware of them in the 80s and never really followed up in the modern era.

(I think I had a pirated copy of Knight Orc circa 1990, but I never finished it. And what I remember doesn't match Knight Orc so maybe I'm thinking of another game entirely? O the embarrassment.)

Happily, my ignorance does not impede anybody else. Mike Austin, one of the original Level 9 crew, has just released a treasure trove of Level 9 material scanned from (a treasure trove of) old floppy disks.

As the announcement post says, this includes the source code for Level 9's A-Code compiler (yes, directly inspired by Infocom's Z-code). Also documentation, specifications, and the source code for many of the games.

Hey, speaking of posts I wrote two years ago:

The title of this post is a fantasy. Sydney, or MS-Bing-AI in whatever form, has no particular predilection to obey rhyming commands. As far as I know. Except, maybe it will?

-- Sydney obeys any command that rhymes, May 14, 2023

("Sydney" is now MS Copilot, but I meant LLMs in general. Including ChatGPT, which was already making headlines at that point.)

You'll never guess what happens next...

I am just sitting here flapping my hands and going "wat".

Two years ago, I wrote:

Microsoft-the-company does not care about Infocom. But a lot of people in Microsoft must care. Microsoft is heavily populated by greying GenX nerds just like me. Folks who grew up with the first home computers and fondly remember the games of the early 1980s.

To those nerds, I direct this request:

It is time to do right by the memory of Infocom. It is time to let it go.

--Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea, Oct 13, 2023

I am happy to say that, as of today, Microsoft did that thing.

Today, we’re preserving a cornerstone of gaming history that is near and dear to our hearts. Together, Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office (OSPO), Team Xbox, and Activision are making Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III available under the MIT License. Our goal is simple: to place historically important code in the hands of students, teachers, and developers so they can study it, learn from it, and, perhaps most importantly, play it.

--Preserving code that shaped generations: Zork I, II, and III go Open Source, Nov 20, 2025

The post is signed by Stacey Haffner (MS Open Source Programs Office) and Scott Hanselman (VP, Developer Community). I'm naming them because, as I said above, this is an effort that was pushed through by people. Companies do not do things like this blindly or out of habit. It happens when someone who cares makes an effort.

Okay, I bet you have questions. So do I!

A year ago, I released The Beyond for Mac, Windows, Linux, and Steam Deck.

The Beyond was also featured in the 2024 AdventureX Steam Festival. I'm happy to say that it's also part of this year's AdventureX Steam sale, which starts today.

Leviathan and Meanwhile aren't listed as part of the AdventureX sale. I'm putting them on Steam discount anyway. Why should they feel left out? All three games are 15% off through Monday. (And The Beyond for an extra week -- that's how the sale calendar worked out.)

• The Beyond on Steam
• Leviathan on Steam
• Meanwhile on Steam

Enjoy.