He’d call me, we’d discuss it, and eventually he’d say something like, “Where did you terminate the loop beginning at line 563?” There would be a long silence, followed by the tiniest “Oh” from me. I’d thank him for his help and hang up. A week later, I’d be fuming again about another fundamental flaw in Javascript.

Late in 2024 I happened upon a mention of Narrascope, an annual conference for interactive fiction held once every June. I knew of the conference from previous references, and it occurred to me that I had one last shot at making interactive storytelling technology available to the world. The attendees of Narrascope were not the techie types I had previously dealt with. These were mostly storytellers, weaker on the technology but stronger on the storytelling side. I decided to make my technology available to them, but to do so I would have to strip away all the technical complexity. I

On the big day I arrived at the airport at 5:00 AM to catch the early flight. We sat on the tarmac for an hour because of a mechanical problem, at which point I realized that I could not possibly make a crucial connection. I had to abort the trip to Narrascope and deliver the lectures via video, which turned out to be disastrous.