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  Visible Planetfall is up. https://eblong.com/infocom/visi/planetfall/ https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/10/visible-planetfall #InteractiveFiction #Infocom #Planetfall

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  Visible Suspended is now available. https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/08/visible-suspended Yes, I included the classic map (or a redraw of it). Yes, the little robot discs move around the map. You can even see each robot's current destination (grey marker) for better planning. #Infocom #InteractiveFiction

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  Mysterium report part 2: updates on the documentary and Myst Online fan work. https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/mysterium-2026-adjacent-news #Myst

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  Part 1 of this year's Mysterium report! Covering the news from Cyan. (Yes, you already saw the Anglerfish trailer. There was more info than that.) https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/mysterium-2026-news-from-cyan #Myst

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  Just dropped! Cyan’s pitch trailer for a Myst-universe game described as a "thriller”. This was a prototype from 2024-2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvNGt02yZNc This is *not* in current development; it did not get funded. But they'd love to get back to it someday.

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  Following up my question a few weeks ago about the matchbook from _The Witness_. https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/good-luck-everybody #Infocom #InteractiveFiction

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  Someone has (anonymously) reposted Cliff Johnson's _The Fool and his Money_ (2012) as a browser-playable game. https://www.the-fool-and-his-money.com My thoughts, going on a bit: https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/the-fool-and-his-money-returns

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  While digging through my old song lyrics file for pub-sing updates, I found this text, Gordon Bok's liner notes on “Bay of Fundy”:

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  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

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  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/

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  (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/VisibleZorke...

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  The current version of Firefox is 127.0.1. Brain gears are clashing *hard*.

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  Visible Zork 3 is now available! https://eblong.com/infocom/visi/zork3/ Status of the Visible Zorker project: This is fun! I want to keep going. More notes and previews of upcoming games: https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/05/visible-zork-3 ObNote: The Visible Zorker is a Patreon-supported project. I just released Starcross for Patreon supporters. #InteractiveFiction #Zork #Infocom

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  Status: Visible Zork 3 is now in progress. Patreon supporters will see it on March 1st. Unless you're in the "see it right away" tier, in which case you'll be getting a link shortly. I am now committing to finish Zork 3, Deadline, and Starcross by the end of May. Woot! https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/02/visible-zorker-status https://www.patreon.com/VisibleZorker #InteractiveFiction #Zork

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  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

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  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.

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  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

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  Every time I see the Artemis 2 Earth-Moon orbit graphic I hear the Outer Wilds “oh no” music in my head Sorry

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  The NarraScope talk schedule and speaker list is up now: https://narrascope.org/schedule/ #NarraScope

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  Also, we have keynote speakers… https://bsky.app/profile/narrascope.org/post/3mimfrh6s6n2t (hope that cross-previews properly)

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  This is well-organized evil. https://simonwillison.net/2026/Apr/3/supply-chain-social-engineering/ (Social engineering on an open-source maintainer for a popular package.) It seems likely that this was a well-funded state actor. But obviously now any idiot can spin up a convincing company web site and a chat room full of apparently human beings with their own web pages and so on.

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  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.)

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  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

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  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.

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  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

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  This will always be the best joke.

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  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.)

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  The Activision thing finally landed. Which means MS owns Infocom, via an impressive 40-year chain of buyouts, takeovers, and shakeups. Now I formally put forth the plea: Microsoft should put all of Infocom’s IP under a Creative Commons license. Or donate the rights to a nonprofit which can do the same. Let’s bring all these legally-shaky fan sites and collections into the light. https://blog.zarfhome.com/2023/10/microsoft-consumes-activision (Yes, I’m part of a nonprofit that could do that.)...

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  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.