Oh cool, he finally finished it! Hadean Lands was kickstarted five years ago [1], receiving $31337. (Read that number carefully; this article rounds to $30k and completely misses the fun.) At the time, it was astonishing to many people that a piece of interactive fiction could pull in five figures of crowdfunding.
Andrew Plotkin has been releasing really excellent games for years; Spider and Web was my introduction to interactive fiction. (Talk about getting thrown in the deep end of the genre...)
Spider and Web is a work of genius. But I'll warn you: if you have any interest at all in playing it, stop reading about it. Go in knowing as little as possible, and just work your way through. You'll do fine.
Andrew Plotkin has been releasing really excellent games for years; Spider and Web was my introduction to interactive fiction. (Talk about getting thrown in the deep end of the genre...)
[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zarf/hadean-lands-inter...
EDIT: The game's author has, for some years, been posting Hadean Lands design and progress notes at the Gameshelf blog: http://gameshelf.jmac.org/author/author6b0d4/