Gold Machine: How it Started
This isn’t a secret: I’m a disabled person. I don’t work. I had to abandon my English PhD coursework because of my disability.
This being so, I could crank out an essay a day, and, in the early days (Zork trilogy and so forth), I did. I knew that I couldn’t maintain that pace indefinitely. More important, I knew that few people would want to read so much Infocom stuff day to day, fans or otherwise.
From early on, my goal was to author enough content that someone could experience “the joy of discovery.” I may be overselling myself with that wording, but I wanted readers to have the feeling that I have when I discover a new page, blog, twitter account–a new source of content–that I can go through, read all of the old content, and get caught up. The excitement of finding another writer’s material for the first time.
I wanted there to be enough posts for a reader to be able to have a bit of a binge, if they wanted.
Gold Machine: How It’s Going
I think it’s now a good time to slow down. Give people a chance to catch up. I tried writing about a new game every other week, but I don’t think that’s long enough. Starting next week, I’ll release one essay every Monday morning (CST). For most games, that will mean spending three weeks on one title.
Gold Machine: How should It Be Going?
As I’ve said before, I believe Gold Machine is a new approach to “reading” Infocom’s texts. Even if one dislikes it: it is new. Readers have disagreed with me–that’s fine. To me, lively discourse, different interpretations and perspectives–good art invites such things. Games aren’t “art” because we say they are. They’re art because we treat them like art.
I write what I write because I think… hm, well, I write the discourse that I want to read.
Get in Touch!
Since Gold Machine is a new approach to experiencing the Infocom canon, there aren’t many models for me to imitate. I really do want to hear what you think about posts here (new or old), so that I can recalibrate and improve as needed. We can either agree or disagree; both can be productive.
Whether you’re a new or regular reader, I encourage you to touch base every once in a while. You have several options:
- Comment on a post. The field is conveniently located at the end of the article!
- Website contact form. It’s at the bottom of every page.
- @ me (GolmacB) on twitter.
- I’m not very active on Facebook, but I do post updates on my page whenever I publish new content.
- Email me: That’s right, I’ll just paste my address here in front of god and everybody: golmac@golmac.org.
- EDIT: There’s also a thread about this page at the Interactive Fiction Community Forum. That’s another good way to get in touch.