Let’s Tell a Story Together

I’m a regular reader of Jimmy Maher’s blog The Digital Antiquarian which documents the history of the early days of home computing with a focus on gaming and interactive fiction. This ebook sticks to the interactive fiction side of things and gives a well-rounded overview of the major players from the days of Zork/Adventure all the way to Inform 7 and the modern IF hobbyists. I really like reading about interactive fiction much more than actually playing the games. I am terrible at text adventures. My attention span is just too small. However, I find the story behind the classics and the all the artsy theory stuff very interesting to read about. My only complaint: I could do without the use of the feminine “she” when generically referring to anyone playing one of these games. I get it, the English language is misogynistic, paternalistic and probably all racist too, but, seriously, how many adventure gamers were female back in the day? 5% or 6%? And that’s including Roberta Williams.