Screenshots is a regular feature by Simon Groth, highlighting a project, app, or other resource of interest.

The Library of Last Resort
by Matt Finch

The Library of Last Resort is a ruse.

You’d be forgiven at first for thinking this is a standard text-based branching-narrative game, a multiple-choice point-and-click that harks back to thousands of works across the web and earlier to those ubiquitous children’s books from the 70s and 80s.

(Not sure what books I mean? Turn to page 32).

Gameplay and strategic navigation are not my forte, but despite getting lost on more than one occasion, I was able to delve deeper into the story, exploring its setting and absorbing the philosophies that inform its design. The Library of Last Resort charms and intrigues in equal measures, unfolding in an organic and almost accidental way: whims lead to questions that coalesce into mysteries that draw you further in.

But story and simple interactivity proves merely an entrée into something far more profound when The Library of Last Resort essentially rejects its own premise, breaks out from the screen, and demands you interact with the real world. Getting to the end of this game means visiting some unexpected places while contemplating the nature of play, narrative, and reality itself. That it manages to do this while never losing its sense of escapism and fun makes it all the more remarkable.

https://mattfinch.neocities.org/Roadhouse%20Garden.html

Screenshots is a regular feature by Simon Groth, highlighting a project, app, or other resource of interest.

Writing with Machine Learning
By Robin Sloan

Robin Sloan, author of the novels Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough, has recently turned his attention to using artificial intelligence and machine learning as a creative tool. In discussion with Ars Technica, he elaborates on the experience of building and writing with a bot, powered by machine learning. In particular, Sloan sets his project apart from other bots that are fed texts and set to automatically generate bizarre texts as humorous social media fodder.

Using as source material thousands of issues of sci fi magazines from the 50s and 60s, Sloan’s bot acts as a kind of creative autocomplete with a sci-fi bent, a genuine tool for building literary images. Sloan himself offers an interesting analogy:

it’s like writing with a deranged but very well-read parrot on your shoulder. Anytime you feel brave enough to ask for a suggestion, you press tab, and…

The bot is open source and available to download and play with in any way you see fit. Sloan’s discussion is also available via the Ars Technica web site and well worth your time.

https://video.arstechnica.com/watch/ars-live-25-how-to-write-a-novel-with-machine-learning

https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/writing-with-the-machine