I expected to see more about Twine.[1] It's really simple, but it lets you build a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story easily. People who haven't programmed before have picked it up and done interesting things with it. I like the HyperCard analogy.[2]
I have a soft spot for interactive fiction. The only game I ever finished writing was an IF game that took place on my college campus (I created it using AGT[1], and was impressed that I could keep track of time to have locations behave differently when visited.)
I was super proud of myself for about a half a day before my roommate showed me that he had created our dorm as a level in Duke Nukem 3D, which proceeded to occupy all of us over a local IPX network for weeks.
It seems like smartphones and tablets definitely represent an opportunity for a resurgence, You could even utilize the platforms built-in text-to-speech and whatnot.
Technically, the rule is "no interpreters that download code". To get around it, it bundles a decent chunk of the if-archive in the app and then registers as something that can open z-machine game files (so you can use Frotz to open a game from Dropbox, after downloading in Mobile Safari, etc.).
I recommend Anchorhead (1998). Inspired by Lovecraft, very well written. Puzzles are either simple or very logical, the biggest danger is that you miss an item or don't map properly. Atmosphere is at least as good as in Lovecraft books. And it's free.
YES! It never occurred to me, but the limited interfaces of smartphones are a perfect arena for interactive fiction without the grossly expensive visual collateral of so many modern PC and game station games.
For the most part, with the exception of keyboards. Without a physical keyboard, you're either giving up screen real estate (i.e. text you can read) or the keyboard is appearing and disappearing (which I find breaks my immersion in the game). Games are still playable, but there are also interface annoyances, sadly.
I was curious to see if I could get my hands on the documentary but the order page says "US Only". Is there a way for us Europeans to get a hold of a copy?
[1] http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/
[2] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/twine-and-the-art-of-person...