After some time in the wilderness, Varytale has just strolled quietly into a very attractive public beta. Ian asked us not to mention it until today, but here it is:

...go and have a play. This is a public readers' beta - Ian will be making the writers' tools more available anon. The usual clarification: we've been involved with Varytale, but it's not a Failbetter platform (and it's entirely distinct from the StoryNexus project ). But the technology is great - it's easily the most flexible and powerful tool of its kind, and it'll be fascinating to see what people can do with it once the writers' programme opens up.

And as it happens, Jon Ingold / Joseph Humfrey's very elegant inklewriter has also just gone live -

http://writer.inklestudios.com/

...it covers some of the same territory as Varytale, but it's (by design) simpler in concept and execution. You may know inkle from the gorgeous Frankenstein they built with Dave Morris, a real Old God of interactive fiction from the gamebook days.

I don't think it's a coincidence that so many interactive narrative platforms are springing up at the same time (see also Playfic , and the more venerable but recently revamped Choice of Games ). I think it's something in the air; and I think the diversity of approaches is going to provide a wonderful variety of work.