There have been cool developments in the IF community in recent months; several online and offline interpreters have been resurrected and/or improved (with more improvements right around the corner in some cases) and I’m very happy with the state of IF languages these days. This all has prompted me to spend some time thinking about what else could benefit the IF community. Of course, accomplishing any of them are beyond my own means (and therefore wouldn’t expect anyone else to do them), but I figured I’d start a thread here where anybody can share things they’d really like to see.
The thing I think the internet could use most is an IFDB-esque site with an emphasis on shared uploaded graphics and other pretty content. Ideally, people would use this to upload maps and fan art for the games they love. I think we, as a community, have always been hesitant to do anything that might step on an author’s toes so it’d be practically necessary to create a site with a “fan fiction” type mindset to really help promote all of these wonderful games that have been made over the years. The hope is that such a site would result in crowdsourced “feelies” in a way, giving the casual IF browser that much more to go, “hmm, that game looks very interesting.”
Of course, such a project could easily fail since there’s no guarantee anyone would produce content for it (again, this is why this thread is called a “daydream”).
My second wish is definitely a personal preference as I know plenty of people prefer the more academic tome of SPAG, but I’ve always enjoyed the breezy tone of IF publications such as XYZZYnews. More recently, “IFography” tried to pick up the reins (https://ifography.wordpress.com/). I thought it started off with mixed success but quickly got better and was disappointed when they eventually decided to change to a blog format (and I believe development stopped shortly after). I don’t expect anyone to try to do this again anytime soon, but man, I really enjoy IF publications like that.
My final IF daydream would be a snazzy Windows IF frontend, sort of a ScummVM thing (with easier/quicker game addition) where you could set default interpreters for various game types but change the interpreter for individual games, with the program itself making use of blorb and online art and IFDB info. I know that fellow did that Grotesque frontend the other year, but I was never able to get the Windows version working. Also, I know much of the IF community’s attention has moved to browser interpreters (and they’re really looking really sharp), but for the most part, I’m an offline interpreter kind of guy.