June 15, 2004
IF That Doesn’t Go with Your Couch
The 2004 IF Art Show is now online, with several works, including pieces by Jacqueline A. Lott, Dave J. Malaguti, and Yoon Ha Lee. Marnie Parker’s IF Art Shows (this is the sixth) use something of a visual art or gallery metaphor, but they don’t feature visual art – at least not prominently. The usual text-based format for interactive fiction is the norm, with pieces that are less extensive and riddle-like than usual. As with the IF Competition, a contest, rather than a magazine issue or the like, is used as an organizing theme.
I haven’t gotten to do anything but fire up this year’s entries, as yet – and I should probably be proud of that rather than ashamed, given how much work I’ve been putting off – but there is likely some worthwhile IF in there. If you’d like a personal recommendation that runs on the Web, my favorite IF Art Show entry from years past is Emily Short’s Galatea. Emily was one the judges of the show this year; the judges’ reviews will be online with the “exhibits” sometime soon.