Chris Crawford's epic project to create a new type of computer entertainment which would be to games as food is to candy (to paraphrase him) is one step closer to fruition:
Storytron has gone beta. Even if it's still a bit buggy...
For those not familiar with
Chris Crawford, he founded the GDC, wrote the first book on game design, and created successful games for early personal computers, the Atari 2600, and the Mac, only to eventually leave game development for the more experimental enterprise of interactive storytelling.
Storytron may be difficult to understand. And, lacking a significantly sized demo storyworld it's hard for the casual observer to see what makes this engine any different from real-time multiple choice games like
Masq, but I think it's something to keep an eye on or even play around with.