Writing a really general parser is a major but different undertaking, by far the hardest points being sensitivity to context and resolution of ambiguity.

For a fortnight nobody at all emailed me, or posted a follow-up. Doesn't anyone care, I thought? It turned out my newsreader was broken, and hadn't posted at all.

The most frequent complaint is that it's hard. True. it's a hard game to win Also, many people ask me how to use the secret debugging commands, apparently under the impression that I'll tell them.

I don't really believe in 'directions' in art; the rope twists as you follow it, that's all.

Then in my early teens, when the home computer bubble was blowing, I had one of the first, an Acorn Atom, and used to write primitive adventures on that.

Players very widely disagree with me about what's hard and what's easy. and in a way, 'I won, but it was a fight' is the best compliment a game can receive.

I like to employ a form of repetition, in which the same elements recur but in different and unexpected ways. rather than being discarded as soon as they are understood or passed over.

At the end of April I archived 'Curses' and Inform, and announced them on the newsgroups.

The 'interactive fiction' format hasn't changed in any fundamental way since the early 1970s, in the same way that the format of the novel hasn't since 1700.

I'm rather pleased with the new manuals. I see Inform now as a gauche young adult, having got past the stage of growing out of his shoes every few months.

This means keeping many trails open at once, inevitably requiring a fairly 'parallel' plot. This plot should be discovered rather than announced, so show, don't tell.

That which is cool is driven by the soul.

The heart, once broken, stayed broken.

Then if children make so much trouble, why do people have 'em?

For his own unfathomable reasons, God chooses to disguise himself when he comes to this planet, and there have been few disguises better than the church.

I have been blessed with a good, fun, and wonderful life, but I've also seen a whole lot of pain.

Since I was young, the artistic expression that fashion embodies has inspired me. It's a way to communicate oneself.

Demons don't move because we complain. They move because we speak the name of Jesus.

We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house.

the anchor man thrown overboard has simply rooted us in history's repeating cycle

The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief.