Anssi Räisänen finished 13th out of almost 40 entries in the annual IFCOMP. "Ted Paladin and the Case of the Abandoned House" was developed using Alan v3 and the extensive library provided by Anssi himself. The game introduces a novel dimension of discovery.

With the IF highlight of the year (IFCOMP voting period) coming up, Alan is keeping up and after a period of alpha testing, and is now released as the first public BETA version. (The first beta was never released to the public.)

Alan v3.0beta2 adds some functionality to the language, corrects a few bugs, and comes with a completely new standard library. But it also delivers drop-in interpreters for Gargoyle on the three major platforms, Windows, MacOSX and Linux. So now you can not only have a new version of the complete Alan system, directly from the developers, but also support for the latest Alan games in your favourite interpreter.

Read the new manual, have a look at the changes and go to download your selection of Alan software!

The standard library for the ALAN interactive fiction language has been renewed and updated recently.

In a short series of blog articles I aim to demonstrate how things have been changed and facilitated with the addition of the new library. This first blog post will give an overview of the new features.

WARNING: CONTAINS SLIGHT SPOILERS

“Have you ever wondered what Christmas would be like if it were run by your horrible cat, who also happened to be a timeless Lovecraftian horror? Find out in this bloody festive holiday treat!”

This is the blurb for Byron Alexander Campbell’s ALAN3 game which was published in 2009.  The tone of the game is light-hearted, especially compared to the author’s other game released at about the same time, “Room 206”. This time around, the task is to catch a fish for your pet cat which turns out to be the great Cthulhu itself (!). Despite the Lovecraftian connection, the game is humorous throughout, even if macabre elements abound.