Graham Nelson

Notable games: Curses!, Jigsaw, The Meteor (shortened title)

Aliases: Angela M. Horns

Website: Graham does not have a personal website, but the home page for his Inform language can be found here.

Biography: Even if he wasn't an exceptional game author, Nelson would be a notable name simply for the fact that he has contributed the single most important element to modern-day interactive fiction: the Inform programming language, which instantly became the language of choice for nearly every notable IF author. Inform uses simple and intuitive syntax, a style similar to C and C++ so experienced programmers can transfer easily, and compiles to Z-code (the Infocom format).

Nelson's games are no slouch, though; the classic Curses, which Nelson wrote the Inform language for, is a brilliant showcase of the language's abilities. The Meteor, The Stone, and a Long Glass of Sherbet (submitted under the name of Angela M. Horns so as to avoid unfair bias) garnered Nelson a 1st-place finish in the 1996 IF Competition.

I attempted to reach Nelson, and was sadly unable to. Without his creation we may never have seen such brilliant games as Photopia and Anchorhead. The community is forever in his debt, and I hope that he will resurface and contact me someday; I would love to pick his brain.