Category Archives: Uncategorized

Cloud Gardens

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Cloud Gardens is a game by any definition. If you’re someone who thinks that “games” describes something that’s inherently and centrally about challenge, progression, and victory states – then we are never going to agree on this, first of all. … Continue reading →

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Feast Days of Tlön (alpha)

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

I’ve made another small storygame! It is not done and I need help to test it. Earlier this year I heard about Jenn Sandercock’s Edible Games Cookbook. “That’s a cool concept,” I thought to myself, clicked through, and then thought … Continue reading →

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IF Comp 2017: Swigian

Posted on October 5, 2017 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Swigian (Rainbus North) is a surreal, grim, mythic Inform piece about… well, you kind of have to figure out what it’s about as you go along. At its opening, you’re in a wood, by a lake; the narrator says I don’t … Continue reading →

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Human Intelligence

Posted on August 16, 2017 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

At this year’s Go Play I ran a couple of games on behalf of their designers. One was procedurally fiddly, thematically serious, and a beta that had never been run by anyone but its designer before. The other was light-hearted, … Continue reading →

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IF Comp 2016: 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds (Abigail Corfman, Twine) is choice-based but designed in a very parser / adventure-game style: it’s heavily concerned with the acquisition and usage of medium size dry goods, it’s set in a consistent map of a handful of rooms, … Continue reading →

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ANCIENT MYSTERIES OF IF COMP: Laid Off from the Synesthesia Factory

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

ANCIENT MYSTERIES OF IF COMP is my attempt, in the run-up to the 2016 IF Competition, to go back over Comp entries which I missed the first time around. Laid Off From The Synesthesia Factory, by Katherine Morayati, placed 30th … Continue reading →

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Introcomp ’16: Astronomical Territories, Narrows, Deviled Kegs

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Introcomp is a regular minicomp for the beginnings of interactive fiction games, now in its fifteenth year. (Disclaimer: I am married to the Introcomp organiser.) Like the Spring Thing, it has historically been a very variable bag. Sometimes it has … Continue reading →

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Bring Out Your Dead: The Shotgun Adagio

Posted on June 18, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

OK. The next Bring Out Your Dead game I am way more conflicted about: The Shotgun Adagio. It’s much more ancient than IFDB2, and I am in a much more conflicted state about whether to publish it, because it is such … Continue reading →

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Bring Out Your Dead: IFDB Spelunking 2

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

My first contribution to this bonfire is IFDB Spelunking 2. (itch.io, personal site.) So, bear with me. In 2012 I ran Cover Stories, a game jam where people supplied cover art, and then other people made games based off the cover art. One of … Continue reading →

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Bring Out Your Dead

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Over this Solstice week, Emily Short is running the Bring Out Your Dead event: Bring Out Your Dead is an event for sharing dead WIPs and experiments that you don’t expect to finish, but that you’d like to show to someone anyway. … Continue reading →

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