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https://www.filfre.net/2024/11/retro-no-more-interactive-fiction-of-the-early-comp-era/>
"In 2002, Paul O’Brian, a prolific author, reviewer, and commentator on the
contemporary interactive-fiction scene, attempted to compile a list of those
people who had done the most to help text adventures live on beyond the death
of Infocom. Among the names he listed were those of Mike Roberts and Graham
Nelson, the creators of TADS and Inform; Andrew Plotkin, who contributed
crucial technical innovations of his own and authored a number of perplexing,
intriguing games; and Adam Cadre, who wrote the single most-played text
adventure of the post-Infocom era. None of these names will come as a surprise
to anyone who has been even a casual tourist of the interactive-fiction scene
over the years. But another of them very well might: that of Gerry Kevin
“Whizzard” Wilson. And yet one can make an argument that his skill set was the
most unique and thus the most essential of them all.
It will presumably come as a shock to no one when I write that those folks who
were still happy to play games consisting of nothing but text in the era of
multimedia and 3D tended to be as quiet and bookish as the games themselves.
Such personality types are not overly known for their organizing or marketing
acumen. The burgeoning interactive-fiction community was thus incredibly lucky
to have Wilson, who was the exception to the rule of introversion. An Infocom
superfan who just couldn’t bear to see text adventures go gentle into that good
night, he became an activist and community organizer
par excellence."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
