The 2008 Interactive Fiction Competition has begun. This is a competition held every year for the makers of text adventures–the kind of games Infocom published back in the 1980s. Interactive fiction games are still being written by hobbyists, and since the days of Zork the best of them have taken the genre into new and strange territory.

I reviewed most of the 2007 games on this blog, and I plan to do the same again this year. Last year’s introductory post explains why I find this stuff interesting, and makes an equally good introduction now. The first reviews will probably appear in a week or two.