The End of the Erf (Erfworld comic shuts down)

[Jubal]

Recent sad news from the world of webcomic: Rob and Linda Balder's Erfworld, one of the big classics of the fantasy & gaming webcomic world, has shut up shop after many years because of unspecified personal problems for the authors. There had I think been family illness issues before this, but it sounds like something else grim has caused a very big shift in how they're approaching things - they've gone so far as to take the blog down entirely, they've asked Rich Burlew to remove his site's mirror copy of Erfworld Book One and shut down the GITP Forum thread on the subject, and generally it's all completely locked down except for the core Erfworld community.

Whatever's happened, it's a sad loss - Erfworld was a unique, quirky look at the rules of wargames and how worlds built around them could operate and be a basis for storytelling. The way that the tight-written game rules were interwoven with the story was definitely an influence on how I think about things like game design and appreciating the ways that mechanics can channel and create constraints that make for good stories.

The past archives are still available on Erfworld's website, as well as the rather minimal info about what's occurred. I've no idea what's happened, but I hope there's a light at the other end of the tunnel for all the people involved, somehow or other.

https://erfworld.com/