WRT: Writer Response Theory

P.J. Hruschak’s Timeline of notable video game villians (2006-01-18) has a whimsical “evolutionary highlight of evil” angle. The first three entries are

1958-76 The Dot (Pong)
1977 The Word ‘GRUE’ (Zork)
1978 2D Monochromatic Aliens (Space Invaders)

Hruschak uses a 1977 development date for Zork (rather than the mass commercial release, 1980) in order to get a nice evolutionary […]

Following up on the recent discussion of IF news, here is a grab-bag of digital text art news items. Our general practice at WRT is to add interesting articles to our bookmark feed as we find them (del.icio.us/wrt), but only blog on when we have substantial commentary. We may experiment with writing a monthly […]

Last November, Vauhini Vara’s Wall Street Journal article on contemporary interactive fiction, “Keeping a Genre Alive” (2005-11-15), inspired general comment in fan circles that IF had made the big pages. The article’s angle was that the IF community is a “back to basics” cult, and the piece inspired some shorter nostalgia-oriented spots such as Michael […]

For anyone attempting to follow news on interactive fiction, a few general tips:
For general announcements, Brass Lantern posts regular news items and features on adventures games, more than half of which are IF-specific. Xyzzy News is also a traditional (but seldom-updated) news source.
For reviews and interviews, SPAG (Society for Promotion of Adventure Games) publishes […]

As most of you will be aware, the Electronic Literature Collection — Call for Works has gone out. To qualify, the work needs to be:
Literary quality will be the chief criterion for selection of works. Other aspects considered will include innovative use of electronic techniques, quality and navigability of interface, and adequate representation of the […]