New IF Blog

I started a creative writing/story idea blog at ifstory.wordpress.com. The purpose is to share story ideas that I may or may not implement. Copyright is assumed, but if someone wants to use an idea, they’re welcome to it. The stories will likely be wire frameworks and couldn’t be copyrighted anyway. I’m also inviting people to contribute, so if you have a wordpress account and want to join the blog, let me know.

One more day…

Everything is coming together…check out the new cover!

J.J. Abrams and Interactive Fiction

J.J. Abrams, the guy behind Cloverfield, Armageddon, Alias, Lost, and now Fringe recently mentioned in an MTV interview that he wanted to do a “text adventure” like Zork.

I’m working with my attorney, who has an LA connection, to get a pitch in front of him as soon as possible.

Stay tuned.

New Copy Editor

We’re getting to that point where packaging and marketing tasks require an actual live person. So in about the fastest hiring time ever, Textfyre is happy to welcome J. Robinson Wheeler or “Rob” as our Copy Editor and Writer.

Welcome aboard Rob!

The Future of Reading

I stole that title form a NY Times Article on using video games to teach reading to school-aged children. Of course the title of that article is right out of the marketing playbook we plan to use when we sell our games to school systems and parents. It’s great to see that we’re not the only ones that see the value in providing children with technological solutions to educational themes.

In other news, we have hired Paul Belanger as our formal financial advisor. We see him as a sort of “CFO” in waiting. Paul will be squaring up the books, providing financial advice and forecasting and budgetary reports, and helping us move from start-up to funded company. Welcome aboard Paul!

The UI design is progressing, the UI development has taken some sharp leaps ahead, and Secret Letter is being heavily play-tested. Progress is being made on all fronts.

I just picked up an iPhone the other day as my T-Mobile Wing’s touch screen sort of flaked out on me. I love the iPhone although I wish its development platform were open to things like Mono or .NET. Objective C isn’t exactly the simplest platform in the world and it’s always been my contention that simplicity is what wins platform mindshare. But the iPhone is great and I’m looking forward to designing the UI for our games on the platform.

We’re still making slow progress towards our launch goals. Everyone works full-time and only spends a few hours per week on Textfyre business so until we get funded and can hire people full-time, it’s going to remain a very slow process. On the bright side, that deliberate slowness is helpful in that we have been able to make adjustments without any major chaos.

Stay tuned…