We’ve got three big pieces of news about IFDB, the Interactive Fiction Database:

  • In 2021, the new “IFDB Committee” of IFTF will adopt IFDB from its founder, Michael J Roberts.
  • We’re planning to move IFDB from its home at ifdb.tads.org to ifdb.org. The new site isn’t ready yet. We’ll redirect old links to the new website when it becomes available.
  • The source code of IFDB is now available on Github; we’re open for pull requests!

We’re Adopting IFDB

Michael J Roberts founded IFDB in 2007, with the goal “to make IFDB a one-stop shopping site for IF.” Today, thanks to Michael’s heroic work over 14 years, IFDB is a thriving database of community-sourced metadata, bibliographic information, and reviews of interactive fiction. IFDB makes it easy for everyone to find, play, and review interactive fiction.

This week, IFTF has chartered a new IFDB committee. In 2021, this new committee will adopt IFDB, overseeing its operation, maintenance, and improvement.

IFDB Is Moving to ifdb.org

We’re planning to move IFDB from its home at ifdb.tads.org to ifdb.org.

The new site isn’t ready yet. We’ll redirect old links to the new site when ifdb.org becomes available, so you won’t have to update links from the old site to the new one.

Hack on IFDB’s Source Code with Us

For the first time, IFDB’s source code is now publicly available on Github.

You can download it and follow the instructions in our README to set up a local, private copy of IFDB from the comfort of your own laptop, and file pull requests to make enhancements to the code.

(Our setup guide will automatically download a copy of IFDB’s MySQL database from the IF Archive.)

We have a bunch of ideas for major improvements we could make to IFDB. We’re currently tracking those big ideas in a separate IFDB Suggestion Tracker.

We’re looking forward to your suggestions and your pull requests!

(This post originally appeared on the forum; discussion continues there.)


Newer post: A change in IFTF board membership

Older post: IFTF plans a new board and steering council