Write IF reviews, Attract IF players


18 Dec 1995 12:39:22 -0800

Jacob Cusack, who edits The Shareware Review, has asked me if I could
help him find a writer of a monthly IF review column for his zine. (I
begged off doing it myself, since it usually takes me much more than a
month to work through an IF game.) I'm posting to rec.arts.int-fiction,
and not rec.games.int-fiction, since I think that somebody who's given
serious thought to the art of creating IF would make a good reviewer.

The Shareware Review is a monthly electronic magazine dedicated to
Macintosh shareware. A conservative estimation of its circulation is
1000-2000, and it can be a lot more if a shareware CD-ROM publisher puts
a particular issue on a CD-ROM.

At the moment, it doesn't usually have reviews of IF games. That means
that, by signing on as a reviewer, you could introduce thousands of
people to the fact that IF games are still being created and played.

To review games, Jacob is looking for somebody " who's played lots of
Infocom, and lots of shareware programs." Knowledge of TADS or Inform is a
plus.

He's also looking for somebody to write a column on writing IF games. For
that, he'd like somebody who has a lot of experience in designing and
programming IF, and, if possible, has at least one game already out on the
market.

By the way--although he's looking for somebody to do a regular column, my
guess would be that he'd be interested in one-time reviews, too.

Writers for the Shareware Review don't get paid, unfortunately, but they
do get a free subscription to the mag. As I mentioned, it's also an
opportunity to help introduce IF to a wider audience.

You can reach the Shareware Review at TheShareRv@aol.com. A sample issue
of the Shareware review can be found at your neighborhood Info-Mac
mirror, as /info-mac/per/shareware-review-95-10.hqx.

-Jacob Weinstein