I just discovered a couple of freeware systems for designing and developing interactive graphics programs – Alice (scratch.mit.edu/). I haven’t downloaded or tried either of them yet. They look easy to use (both seem to be designed for kids), yet both come from universities and seem at first glance to be rather sophisticated.
I don’t know what kind of output files either of them creates, and of course that’s THE crucial question, but the idea of embedding elements of this type within a text game is fairly intriguing. I’m wondering if anybody in the IF world has tried this.