I was going to wait until the end of the month, but a lot of things happened.

To begin with, a couple of interactive fiction write-ups were published right at the end of August, both from The Rosebush, a relatively new publication:

• Gender and gameplay in Christminster (pretty much what it sounds like) and
• Guybrush’s Heirs, which traces limited-parser games right back to graphical adventures.

My beef with both is, after so many years game developers and critics alike remain afraid that audiences won't suspend disbelief or accept genre conventions. Today more than ever, in fact. Hence an obsession with mimesis, but also a fear of user interfaces.

At least that's more fun to think about that the latest drama, wherein yet another major game company decided to kill the golden goose and piss off the people who make their business work. PC Gamer explains Why every game developer is mad right now, and for a more personal account see Unity’s Trap.

Luckily it turns out you can go From Unity to Godot in a Weekend (pro tip: before you pull a stunt like this, make sure your captive audience really is). And there are many more alternatives to try out there. See:

• The Generous Space of Alternative Game Engines (A Curation)
• every game dev tool kassy can think of: a masterpost

and many others. Last but not least, Fiction-interactive.fr asks (in French): "Everything is political", even interactive fiction?. To which all I can answer is, name two memorable Infocom games. Trinity and A Mind Forever Voyaging, perhaps?

See you next time.

It hasn't been two weeks since the last post here, but it's been a long time since the last update, and it's a good idea to have one of those now and then.

To get the bad news out of the way: a few days ago, while I was trying to reblog something on Tumblr, the No Time To Play sideblog vanished before my eyes. Nothing of value was lost, except for memories, but it's still a shocking reminder of how corporations will fuck you over at the drop of a hat, without explanation. No, I didn't contact support. Doubt it will help. I can keep posting right here where things stay put because I pay for it out of pocket.

(Reminder to pretty please support No Time To Play if you're reading this.)

On the plus side, as announced in the site-wide newsfeed, I finally got around to making a page about the QBJS compiler, for once not a one-off review but an ongoing collection of notes and samples. Got more of them elsewhere, but this is made by a fellow creator from itch.io, and I have high hopes for its future.

Last but not least, I finally got around to making a home page for the text-based version of Glittering Light, that also hosts the native port I wrote about in 2020 then set aside. Another thing I want to change.

Meanwhile, you can still find me on Mastodon, where if something happens there will be advance warning and a chance to move.

This link roundup is both early and late. July was a busy month in the world of videogames, so by the start of August there were enough headlines. It just slipped my mind somehow. But it's all for the better, as you'll see at the end.

• To begin with: Enter the Matrix: exploring a unique tie-in game at 20; in their own words: "Twenty years ago, Enter the Matrix attempted to revolutionise the relationship between movies and their tie-in games. The developer’s only enemy was technology…" Fascinating story.
• Still in the way of game history, The Digital Antiquarian tells us about Going Rogue; the origins of the seminal genre. Worth reading even for people in the know.
• Also in the same department, we learn from Aaron A. Reed about The rise and fall of type-in text games, another old experiment that didn't pan out.

On a related note: New study reveals most classic video games are completely unavailable; "87% Missing" is a phrase that should worry everyone. But now let's turn back to the present:

• Moving on to game development — specifically network programming — we're asked, What is Rollback Netcode? (requires Javascript). Fascinating even if you don't do multiplayer, or fighting games.
• And when it comes to game journalism, automation isn't working out: the story of how Glorbo isn't Coming to WoW, but the Impact of AI is Already Here (requires Javascript).

You can't automate personal experience, and something like My Gamestory will always bring back my own happy memories. Until next time, try not to forget.

Even with six weeks passing between entries, it still feels like I don't have enough links for the journal, yet every time they turn out to be enough.

To begin with, back in May someone was telling us About the Time I wrote an Inform 7 Game. And still in the way of interactive fiction, NME informs us that Emily Short deserves her flowers. She certainly does! In their own words, "We pull focus on the ‘Fallen London’ narrative legend’s storied career and her new game ‘Mask Of The Rose’". And to go from interactive fiction to artificial intelligence, fittingly enough, Mike Cook warns that Automation Isn't Coming To Save Us (Time). To cap with something more positive, June ended for me with A Chronology of First CD-ROM Games. Good stuff!

This would make a pretty short update, but as promised, this time I have some highlights. For one thing, Fairy Tale, an idle game with a story as beautiful as it's simple. (Beware that it starts as you open the page, and there's no pause function.) The link is courtesy of Aywren, a fellow RPG and small web enthusiast. Last but not least, I'd like you to meet Renkon, a blogger and zinester from Japan with a knack for amplifying the voices of small creators.

That's it for today. Enjoy the summer, and see you!

Back again. Little of interest happened in April, but May picked up again, so it's time for another link roundup.

• For one thing: It took 13 years but Doom 2 RPG has finally come to PC, reports PC Gamer. Talk about coming full circle.
• Then, Polygon informs us that The future of tabletop role-play is hope. In their words, "Hopepunk can help us build a better world at the table". Amen to that.
  • On a related note, a fellow creator itch.io answers the question, What happens when a tiny indie RPG hits the front page of Polygon? The answer is good things, though not exactly miracles.

After this little warm-up, we have a couple of headlines occasioned by the release of a much-awaited game:

• A Link Between Genders: Trans Joy and the Legend of Zelda. As Gizmodo goes on to say, "Link’s Awakening takes a more literal meaning for many transgender people who love the main character of the Legend of Zelda franchise."
• On a related note, there's a look back to 5 design lessons learned from Breath of the Wild.

Last but not least, two chunks of videogame history:

• Christopher Strachey and the Dawn of Interactive Text, another entry in the 50 Years of Text Games series...
• ...and from the Digital Antiquarian, The Next Generation in Graphics, Part 3: Software Meets Hardware.

All in all that makes for quite a few of them. Until next time, enjoy!

Whew. Back. After skipping last month entirely, I thought this new journal ended for good. But stuff happens, and I'm still here. You're not rid of me yet.

To open with the oldest headlines:

• I've created a full game, solo, within one year! Here's some of my experiences. (A hobbyist developer's personal account.)
• Hogwarts Legacy faces renewed criticism for inclusion of antisemitic tropes (Only one episode of a big ugly story.)
• Hasbro Slapped By Bank Of America For ‘Destroying Customer Goodwill’ (The epilogue to the January scandal. There seems to be one every season.)

Then some things I did:

• Wrote a review of BBC Basic; ended up not using the language, but take a look anyway.
• Revived the original Tipsy Turtle, to the delight of a follower.

There was more, but instead let's move to March and some food for thought:

• Documenting what it’s like to be treated humanely by a journalist
• Indie Games and the promise of better spaces

The latter in particular talks about small, cozy virtual worlds like we've had since 1980, when they were text-based. When it can be about hanging out, having fun, and most of all being kind. So that strikes a chord. Cheers.

So, what is it with programmers relying on shared libraries for the longest time, despite notorious problems? Modern languages created this century all use static linking by default, and people love them for it, because software distribution is a (largely unsolved) problem.

Don't get me wrong, shared libraries have their place, for things like:

• plugins and foreign function interfaces;
• basic operating system services like user interfaces (think curses).

(By the way: a standard user interface package is the #1 requested feature in any programming language that doesn't have one. Developers, get a clue already.)

But otherwise? Fixing a bug in many apps at once doesn't happen. What happens instead is DLL hell. Memory savings? Arguably, though it doesn't seem to help in most operating systems, and then you have Electron-based apps. Reusing libraries? People almost always do that by linking against them, and for that you need the development version anyway.

Magical solutions make you lose sight of desired outcomes. Watch out.

Hey, everyone. It's a new year, and I'm back after all. Amazing what difference one friend can make. Not much more happened in late December, apart from a nice write-up about the (now completed) DOS Game Jam. Other links went directly to various parts of the main website, because reasons; I should get better at pointing them out, but it's kinda hard with a large set of static pages.

Then came January, when yet another corporation has been trying to kill its golden goose. Because why should we have nice things in late-stage capitalism?

You've guessed it, this is about the D&D licensing debacle. A story in links:

• Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition
• WotC: D&D Fanbase Not Sufficiently Alienated To Generate Profit
• D&D's Community Is Up in Arms Over a Controversial Change
• Beware the Gifts of Dragons: How D&D’s Open Gaming License May Have Become a Trap for Creators

Followed by two announcements in quick succession:

• Wizards of the Coast Cancels OGL Announcement After Online Ire
• Paizo Announces a New Gaming License Amid Dungeons & Dragons' OGL Controversy

At which point I grew tired and stopped tracking the headlines. Look: this has long ceased being about money. Corporations by now have more money than they'd ever know what to do with. This has been all about control for decades now.

Let's get that into our heads already, for our own sake and the world's.

Hey, folks. The year's last link roundup is late today, not that anyone is going to notice. It's also thin on the ground, so let me stuff it with a few extra links. For one thing, I have a fan! And a friend recommended a (new to me) tutorial for isometric tile art. In other news, we have:

• 50 Years of Fun With PONG;
• A Compleat [sic] History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame — esoteric to me, but fascinating;
• and it turns out that Roleplaying games were around hundreds of years before Dungeons & Dragons (in fact there's an entire site dedicated to that).

Last but not least, Nathalie Lawhead is busy again writing about The open-source no-code world of GDevelop. As she adds, "if you miss browser Flash games, this is keeping that dream alive!" I don't have the patience for these huge, complex tools with endless interactive tutorials anymore, but it's amazing that they exist. It's not easy, enabling everyone to make games.

That said: my last... many link roundups have gone completely unnoticed everywhere I posted about them, so there might not be another one come 2023. The site, of course, remain up and I'll keep thinking of ways to improve it. If anyone is out there at all, thanks for reading, and happy holidays, whatever you celebrate in December. Be well.

The weather just turned towards early winter, and news are still slow, but there's enough for a monthly link roundup. In mid-October, as the Wall Street Journal revealed, Company Documents Show Meta’s Flagship Metaverse Falling Short. Then there are two write-ups about freeing games from racism and colonialism:

• Meghna Jayanth is switching the narrative
• These Early 2000s Video Games Really Loved Orientalism. Have Games Improved Since?

Still on the subject of attitudes towards games, we get a plea to Stop Remaking Good Games And Start Remaking Games That Could Have Been Good. As the tagline says: "It doesn't make sense to remake games that are already classics when there are so many games with potential that deserve a second chance." And last but not least, Nathalie Lawhead takes advantage of the newest feature in itch.io to write about Video game blogging at the end of the world (and recommend some games while at it).

Which is good, but also all I have for November. See you towards Christmas.