Andrew Plotkin on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Andrew Plotkin (born May 15, 1970), also known as Zarf, is a central figure in the modern
interactive fiction
''
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...
(IF) community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other utilities for the design, production, and running of IF games, Plotkin is widely recognised for both his creative and his technical contributions to the
homebrew IF scene.
Interactive fiction
Plotkin was one of the earliest writers to use
Graham Nelson's
Inform
Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines. Versions 1 through 5 were released betwe ...
development system, and one of the first since
Infocom
Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called '' Cornerstone''.
Infocom was founded o ...
's heyday to explore the boundaries of interactive fiction as an artistic medium. Many later authors cite him as a primary influence. He has won many awards within the community, and is frequently interviewed for magazine articles about interactive fiction.
Plotkin has also made major technical contributions to the interactive fiction medium, designing the
Blorb
Blorb is a package format for interactive fiction games. Many such games incorporate resources such as sound effects, music, or pictures. Blorb's purpose is to bind these together into one file. The format was devised by Andrew Plotkin and is use ...
archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual ...
format, the
Glk I/O platform, and the
Glulx
Glulx is a 32-bit portable virtual machine intended for writing and playing interactive fiction. It was designed by Andrew Plotkin to relieve some of the restrictions in the venerable Z-machine format. For example, the Z-machine provides native ...
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...
, and implementing
Glulx Inform and several interactive fiction
interpreters for the
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
and
X. The Glk API has made possible the creation of "universal translator" interpreters such as Gargoyle, a single program capable of running all interactive fiction formats.
, Plotkin holds two
XYZZY Award The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
-related records: for most XYZZYs won in one year (5, with ''
Spider and Web
''Spider and Web'' is a piece of interactive fiction written by Andrew Plotkin.
''Spider and Web'' begins innocuously enough: the player's character, an apparent tourist, has wandered into a blind alley. Upon trying to leave the alley, however, ...
'') and for most XYZZYs won in total: 18.
[Z-machine
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions (called story files or Z-code ...]
abuse)
* ''
A Change in the Weather'' (1995; winner of the 1995
IF Comp's Inform division)
* ''So Far'' (1996; winner of many
XYZZY Award The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
s that year, including for
Best Game)
* ''
The Space Under the Window ''The Space Under the Window'' is a 1997 interactive fiction game by Andrew Plotkin. The game is part of a collaborative art piece, also entitledThe Space Under the Window, by Kristin Looney (of Looney Labs) – each piece had to have this title, ...
'' (1997)
* ''
Spider and Web
''Spider and Web'' is a piece of interactive fiction written by Andrew Plotkin.
''Spider and Web'' begins innocuously enough: the player's character, an apparent tourist, has wandered into a blind alley. Upon trying to leave the alley, however, ...
'' (1998; winner of many
XYZZY Award The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
s that year, including for
Best Game)
* ''
Hunter, in Darkness ''Hunter, in Darkness'' is a 1999 interactive fiction game by Andrew Plotkin, written in Inform. It won the " Best Individual Puzzle" and " Best Setting" categories in the 1999 XYZZY Awards, and came in eighth overall in the 1999 Interactive Fictio ...
'' (1999; winner of the
XYZZY Award The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
s for
Best Individual Puzzle and
Best Setting)
* ''
Shade'' (2000; winner of the
XYZZY Award for Best Setting The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
)
Other Andrew Plotkin games include:
*''Lists and Lists'' (1996), an introductory course in the
Scheme A scheme is a systematic plan for the implementation of a certain idea.
Scheme or schemer may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''The Scheme'' (TV series), a BBC Scotland documentary series
* The Scheme (band), an English pop band
* ''The Schem ...
programming language
*''
The Dreamhold
''The Dreamhold'' is an interactive fiction game by Andrew Plotkin released in 2004. Its primary purpose is to be a tutorial to interactive fiction, and because of that the "core" of the game is relatively easy to finish.
As an attempt to make it ...
'' (2004), a general IF tutorial game
*''Delightful Wallpaper'' (2006; sixth place in
IF Comp and winner of Miss Congeniality)
*''Dual Transform'' (2010)
*''Hoist Sail for the Heliopause and Home'' (2010)
More recently, he was featured on
CNN Money
CNN Business (formerly CNN Money) is a financial news and information website, operated by CNN. The website was originally formed as a joint venture between CNN.com and Time Warner's ''Fortune'' and ''Money'' magazines. Since the spin-off of Tim ...
for successfully raising over $31,000 using
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
for development of a new interactive fiction piece called ''Hadean Lands'' for the
iPhone and release of the resulting iPhone game framework as
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...
.
Plotkin was also featured prominently in the 2010 interactive fiction documentary,
GET LAMP.
On June 24, 2014, Plotkin released the
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...
for several of his games for educational purposes.
Other work
He wrote the former
shareware
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...
puzzle game ''
System's Twilight''. Plotkin appears as a character in ''Being Andrew Plotkin'', an interactive fiction game by J. Robinson Wheeler based in part on the film ''
Being John Malkovich
''Being John Malkovich'' is a 1999 American fantasy comedy film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, both making their feature film debut. The film stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener, with John Malkovich ...
''.
While a student at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
, Plotkin was one of the early members of the Carnegie Mellon KGB. He created the organization's signature "Capture the Flag with Stuff" game, which is now played by several hundred students every semester.
In 1997, Plotkin developed a rethemed version of Dmitry Davidoff's social game
Mafia
"Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...
, replacing the "mafia" characters with werewolves. Plotkin's version of the game subsequently became popular at universities and conferences in the United States, with a set of cards being produced by
Looney Labs
Looney Labs, Inc. is a small game company based in College Park, Maryland, United States. It is named after its founders, Andrew Looney and Kristin Looney, and is best known for creating the Fluxx line of card games. The company has three U.S. pat ...
.
He has also made contributions to the
Icehouse
Icehouse or ice house may refer to:
* Ice house (building), a building where ice is stored
* Ice shanty, a shelter for ice fishing also known as an ''Icehouse''
* Ice skating rink, a facility for ice skating.
* Ice hockey arena, an area where i ...
community, both in designing the game ''Branches & Twigs & Thorns'',
and the creation of several custom sets of pieces. During 2006 he was involved in the
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...
on-line game platform Volity and has created, or assisted in the creation of, on-line versions of the pyramid game Treehouse and other Looney Labs titles to showcase the platform.
In 2019 he created and co-chaired with Adri Mills NarraScope, a games conference focusing on interactive narrative, adventure games, and interactive fiction.
References
External links
Andrew Plotkin's homepageAndrew Plotkin on the IFWikiAndrew Plotkin on the IcehouseGames.org wikiNarraScope
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plotkin, Andrew
Carnegie Mellon University alumni
American video game programmers
Interactive fiction writers
Usenet people
1970 births
Living people
People from Rockville, Maryland
Writers from Syracuse, New York