Interactive Writing and Education

Recording

Texture is an interactive fiction creation tool created by Jim Munroe and Juhana Leinonen to explore the possibility space between Inform and Twine. Recently added features like google auth and private libraries facilitate use in the elementary and highschool classrooms. A professional narrative designer, Jim Munroe has done a dozen Texture workshops in three countries as a way to teach adults how to write for interactive. The Texture team is interested in hearing about the opportunities that open sourcing the project may present.

Speakers

Jim Munroe

Jim Munroe is a “pop culture provocateur” according to the Austin Chronicle. His graphic novels and prose novels have been praised by Pulitzer-winner Junot Diaz and comics legend Neil Gaiman, and his lo-fi sci-fi feature films by Wired and the Guardian. His political videogames have appeared at Sundance and Cannes, and he co-founded the world’s first videogame arts organization. He was an Art Gallery of Ontario Artist-in-Residence in 2014 and he lives in the Junction neighbourhood in Toronto.

Juhanna Leinonen

Juhana Leinonen is a freelance software developer living and working in southern Finland. He has been involved in the Interactive Fiction community since 2007, making games, tools and authoring systems. His work has won the Xyzzy Award for Best Technological Development twice.

More about Texture: Easy to play: The word-on-word interaction mechanic is suitable for touchscreen phones and tablets, as well as web browsers. Easy to create: Our WYSIWYG editor makes composition and design a right-brained, no code affair — right in the browser. Easy to share: Click a button to publish and publicly share your work on social media. Or download an .html file to host it yourself or share via email. When the beta came out in 2014 it was a finalist for Best Technological Development at the XYZZY Awards. Since its release in 2016 hundreds of people have made games with it.