Interactive fiction
Encyclopedia
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software
simulating environments in which players use text commands
to control characters
and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game
where the entire interface can be "text-only
". Graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics (still images, animations or video) still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is text. It can also be used to distinguish the more modern style of such works, focusing on narrative and not necessarily falling into the adventure game genre
at all, from the more traditional focus on puzzle
s. More expansive definitions of interactive fiction may refer to all adventure games, including wholly graphical adventures such as Myst
.
As a commercial product, interactive fiction reached its peak in popularity from 1979–1986, as a dominant software product marketed for home computer
s. Because their text-only nature sidestepped the problem of writing for the widely divergent graphics architectures of the day, interactive fiction games were easily ported across all the popular platforms, even those such as CP/M
not known for gaming or strong graphics capabilities. Today, a steady stream of new works is produced by an online interactive fiction community, using freely available development systems. Most of these games can be downloaded for free from the Interactive Fiction Archive.
The term "interactive fiction" is also occasionally used to refer to addventure
games, which are also called hypertext fiction
, collaborative fiction
, or even participatory novels, according to the New York Times. It is also used to refer to literary works that are not read in a linear fashion, but rather the reader is given choices at different points in the text; the reader's choice determines the flow and outcome of the story. The most famous example of this form of interactive fiction is the Choose Your Own Adventure
book series. For others, see gamebooks. Interactive fiction is sometimes used as a synonym for visual novel
, a popular style of PC game in Japan
.
Text adventures are one of the oldest types of computer games and form a subset of the adventure
genre. The player uses text input to control the game, and the game state is relayed to the player via text output.
Input is usually provided by the player in the form of simple sentence
s such as "get key" or "go east", which are interpreted by a text parser
. Parsers may vary in sophistication; the first text adventure parsers could only handle two-word sentences in the form of verb-noun pairs. Later parsers, such as those built on Infocom's ZIL (Zork Implementation Language), could understand complete sentences. Later parsers could handle increasing levels of complexity parsing sentences such as "open the red box with the green key then go north". This level of complexity is the standard for works of interactive fiction today.
Despite their lack of graphics, text adventures include a physical dimension where players move between rooms. Many text adventure games boasted their total number of rooms to indicate how much gameplay they offered. These games are unique in that they may create an illogical space, where going north from area A takes you to area B, but going south from area B did not take you back to area A. This can create mazes that do not behave as players expect, and thus players must maintain their own map. These illogical spaces are much more rare in today's era of 3D gaming, and the Interactive Fiction community in general decries the use of mazes entirely, claiming that mazes have become arbitrary 'puzzles for the sake of puzzles' and that they can, in the hands of inexperienced programmers, become immensely frustrating for players to navigate.
Interactive fiction shares much in common with Multi-User Dungeons
('MUDs'). MUDs, which became popular in the mid-1980s, rely on a textual exchange and accept similar commands from players as do works of IF; however, since interactive fiction is single player, and MUDs, by definition, have multiple players, they differ enormously in gameplay styles. MUDs often focus gameplay on activities that involve communities of players, simulated political systems, in-game trading, and other gameplay mechanics that aren't possible in a single player environment.
Interactive fiction usually relies on reading from a screen and on typing
input, although text-to-speech synthesizers allow blind and visually impaired users to play interactive fiction titles as audio game
s.
As described above, player input is expected to be in simple command form (imperative sentences). A typical command may be:
The responses from the game are usually written from a second-person
point of view
, in present tense
. This is because, unlike in most works of fiction, the main character is closely associated with the player, and the events are seen to be happening as the player plays. While older text adventures often identified the protagonist with the player directly, newer games tend to have specific, well-defined protagonists with separate identities from the player. The classic essay "Crimes Against Mimesis" discusses, among other IF issues, the nature of "You" in interactive fiction.
A typical response might look something like this, the response to "look in teachest" at the start of Curses
:
Many text adventures, particularly those designed for humour (such as Zork
, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos
), address the player with an informal tone, sometimes including sarcastic remarks (see the transcript from Curses
, above, for an example). The late Douglas Adams, in designing the IF version of his 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', created a unique solution to the final puzzle of the game: the game requires the one solitary item that the player didn't choose at the outset of play.
Some IF works dispense with second-person narrative entirely, opting for a first-person perspective ('I') or even placing the player in the position of an observer, rather than a direct participant. In some 'experimental' IF, the concept of self-identification is eliminated entirely, and the player instead takes the role of an inanimate object, a force of nature, or an abstract concept; experimental IF usually pushes the limits of the concept and challenges many assumptions about the medium.
(originally called ADVENT because a filename could only be six characters long in its operating system
, and later named Colossal Cave). Having just gone through a divorce, he was looking for a way to connect with his two young children. Over the course of a few weekends he slapped together a text based cave exploration game that featured a sort of guide/narrator who talked in full sentences and who understood simple two word commands that came close to natural English. Adventure was programmed in Fortran for the PDP-10
. Stanford University graduate student Don Woods discovered Adventure while working at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and in 1977 obtained and expanded Crowther's source code (with Crowther's permission). Crowther's original version was an accurate simulation
of the real Colossal Cave
, but also included fantasy elements (such as axe-wielding dwarves and a magic bridge); Woods's changes were reminiscent of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, and included a troll, elves, and a volcano some claim is based on Mount Doom
, but Woods says was not.
In early 1977, Adventure spread across ARPAnet
, and has survived on the Internet
to this day. The game has since been ported to many other operating system
s, and was included with the floppy-disk distribution of Microsoft's MS-DOS 5.0 OS. Adventure is a cornerstone of the online IF community; there currently exist dozens of different independently-programmed versions, with additional elements, such as new rooms or puzzles, and various scoring systems.
The popularity of Adventure led to the wide success of interactive fiction during the late 1970s and the 1980s, when home computers had little, if any, graphics capability. Many elements of the original game have survived into the present, such as the command 'xyzzy
', which is now included as an Easter Egg
in games such as Minesweeper.
Adventure was also directly responsible for the founding of Sierra Online (later Sierra Entertainment
); Ken and Roberta Williams played the game when it first appeared, and when unable to find any other games of similar quality, decided to design one of their own.
was founded by Scott Adams
(not to be confused with the creator of Dilbert
).
In 1978, Adams wrote Adventureland, which was loosely patterned after the original Advent. He took out a small ad in a computer magazine in order to promote and sell Adventureland, thus creating the first commercial adventure game. In 1979 he founded Adventure International, the first commercial publisher of interactive fiction. The company went bankrupt in 1985.
, which created the Zork
series and many other titles, among them Trinity
, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
and A Mind Forever Voyaging
.
In June 1977, Marc Blank
, Bruce K. Daniels, Tim Anderson
, and Dave Lebling
began writing the mainframe version of Zork
(also known as Dungeon), at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. The game was programmed in a computer language called MDL
, a variant of LISP
. In early 1979, the game was completed. Ten members of the MIT Dynamics Modelling Group went on to join Infocom when it was incorporated later that year.
In order to make its games as portable as possible, Infocom developed the Z-machine, a custom virtual machine
which could be implemented on a large number of platforms, and which took standardized "story files" as input.
The Infocom parser was widely regarded as the best of its era. It accepted complex, complete sentence commands like "put the blue book on the writing desk" at a time when most of its competitors parsers were restricted to simple two word verb-noun combinations such as "put book". The parser was actively upgraded with new features like undo and error correction, and later games would 'understand' multiple sentence input: 'pick up the gem and put it in my bag. take the newspaper clipping out of my bag then burn it with the book of matches'.
In a non-technical sense, Infocom was responsible for developing the interactive style that would be emulated by many later interpreters.
The company was bought by Activision
in 1986 after the failure of Cornerstone
, Infocom's database software program, and stopped producing text adventures a few years later.
In 1991 and 1992, Activision released volumes one and two of The Lost Treasures of Infocom
, a collection containing most of Infocom's games, followed in 1996 by Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom
.
was founded by Bob Bates
and Mike Verdu in 1989. It started out from the ashes of Infocom.
The text adventures produced by Legend used (high-resolution) graphics as well as sound. Some of their titles include Eric the Unready
, the Spellcasting
series and Gateway
(based on Frederik Pohl
's novels).
The last text adventure created by Legend was Gateway II
, while the last game ever was Unreal 2 (the well-known first-person shooter
action game). Legend was acquired in 2004 by Atari
.
game of Acheton, produced in Cambridge, England, and first commercially released by Acornsoft
(later expanded and reissued by Topologika
). Other leading companies in the U.K.
were Magnetic Scrolls
and Level 9 Computing
. Also worthy of mention are Delta 4
, Melbourne House
, and the homebrew company Zenobi
.
In the early 1980s Edu-Ware
also produced interactive fiction for the Apple II
as designated by the "if" graphic that was displayed on startup. Their titles included the Prisoner and Empire series (Empire I: World Builders, Empire II: Interstellar Sharks, Empire III: Armageddon).
In Italy, interactive fiction games were mainly published and distributed through various magazines in included tapes. The largest number of games were published in the two magazines Viking and Explorer, with versions for the main 8-bit home computers (Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64
and MSX
). The software house producing those games was Brainstorm Enterprise, and the most prolific IF author was Bonaventura Di Bello
, who produced 70 games in the Italian language. The wave of interactive fiction in Italy lasted for a couple of years thanks to the various magazines promoting the genre, then faded and remains still today a topic of interest for a small group of fans and less known developers, celebrated on Web sites and in related newsgroups.
In Spain, interactive fiction was considered a minority genre, and was not very much successful. The first Spanish interactive fiction commercially released was Yenght in 1983, by Dinamic Software, for the ZX Spectrum
. Later on, it was in 1987, when the same company produced an interactive fiction about Don Quijote. After several other attempts, a company emerged from Dinamic, called Aventuras AD
which was the main interactive fiction publisher in Spain, including titles like a Spanish adaptation of Colossal Cave Adventure, an adaptation of the Spanish comic El Jabato, and mainly the Ci-U-Than trilogy, composed by La diosa de Cozumel (1990), Los templos sagrados (1991) and Chichen-Itzá (1992). During this period, the Club de Aventuras AD (CAAD)
, the main Spanish speaking community around interactive fiction in the world, was founded, and after the end of Aventuras AD in 1992, the CAAD continued on its own, first with their own magazine, and then with the advent of Internet, with the launch of an active internet community that still produces interactive non commercial fiction nowadays.
newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction was created, and was soon followed by rec.games.int-fiction. By custom, the topic of rec.arts.int-fiction is interactive fiction authorship and programming, while rec.games.int-fiction encompasses topics related to playing interactive fiction games, such as hint requests and game reviews.
One of the most important early developments was the reverse-engineering of Infocom's Z-Code format and Z-Machine
virtual machine
in 1987 by a group of enthusiasts called the InfoTaskForce
and the subsequent development of an interpreter
for Z-Code story files. As a result, it became possible to play Infocom's work on modern computers.
For years amateurs formed a small community producing interactive fiction works of relatively limited scope using the Adventure Game Toolkit
and similar tools. The breakthrough that allowed the interactive fiction community to truly prosper, however, was the creation and distribution of two sophisticated development systems. In 1987, Michael J. Roberts released TADS
, a programming language designed to produce works of interactive fiction. In 1993, Graham Nelson
released Inform
, a programming language
and set of libraries which compiled
to a Z-Code story file. Each of these systems allowed anyone with sufficient time and dedication to create a game, and caused a growth boom in the online interactive fiction community.
Despite the lack of commercial support, the availability of high quality tools allowed enthusiasts of the genre to develop new high quality games. Competitions such as the annual Interactive Fiction Competition
for short works, the newer Spring Thing
for longer works, and the XYZZY Awards, further helped to improve the quality and complexity of the games. Modern games go much further than the original "Adventure" style, improving upon Infocom games, which relied extensively on puzzle solving, and to a lesser extent on communication with non player characters, to include experimentation with writing and story-telling techniques.
While the majority of modern interactive fiction developed is distributed for free, there are some commercial endeavors, including Peter Nepstad's 1893: A World's Fair Mystery
, several games by Howard Sherman published as Malinche Entertainment
, The General Coffee Company's Future Boy!, and various titles by Textfyre. Emily Short
was commissioned to develop the game City of Secrets but the project fell through and she ended up releasing it herself.
Some authors offer optional commercial feelie
s (physical props associated with a game); the tradition of 'Feelies' (and the term itself) is believed to have originated with Deadline (1982), the third Infocom title after Zork I and II. Seeing the dual potential benefits of both aiding game-play immersion and providing a measure of creative copy-protection, Infocom and later other companies began creating feelies for numerous titles. In 1987, Infocom released a special version of the first three Zork titles together with plot-specific coins and other trinkets. This concept would see expansion as time went on, such that later game feelies would contain passwords, coded instructions, page numbers, or other information that would be required to successfully complete the game.
s, interactive novel
s, and interactive storytelling
.
-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant
stage plays. Visual novels are especially prevalent in Japan
, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released. They are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games are sometimes ported
to video game systems such as the PlayStation 2
. The market for visual novels outside of East Asia
, however, is limited.
Visual novels have been a staple of PC software sales in Japan
and other East Asia
n countries for over a decade, so much so that popular titles are open ported to consoles, and some even have famous manga
and anime
series based upon them; such titles include Kanon
(1999), Air (2000) and Clannad (2004) by Key
; Rumbling Hearts
(2001) by Age
; School Days
(2005) by 0verflow
; Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
(2002) by 07th Expansion
; and Fate/stay night
(2004) by Type-Moon
.
s have sometimes tried to give readers the random directionality offered by true hypertext
ing, this approach was not completely feasible until the development of HTML
. Paper novels (indeed, some digital novels) are linear, that is, read from page to page in a straight line. Interactive novels, however, offer readers a unique way to read fiction by choosing a page, a character, or a direction. By following hyperlinked phrases within the novel, readers can find new ways to understand characters. There is no wrong way to read a hypertext interactive novel. Links embedded within the pages are meant to be taken at a reader's discretion – to allow the reader a choice in the novel's world.
, a main proponent and developer. He defines interactive storytelling as, "a form of interactive entertainment in which the player plays the role of the protagonist in a dramatically rich environment."
Interactive storytelling and interactive fiction are distinct in that interactive storytelling focuses on drama and dynamic circumstances, where interactive fiction games, traditionally (but not necessarily) focus on puzzle-solving and navigating through pre-conceived circumstances. They are similar, however, in that well-written forms of both are nonlinear.
, Hugo
, Inform
, and TADS
. The majority of current IF development is implemented in Inform, TADS, or ADRIFT. In the 2006 IFComp, the majority of the games were written for Inform, with a strong minority of games for TADS and ADRIFT, followed by a smattering of games for other systems.
While familiarity with a programming language leads many new authors to attempt to produce their own complete IF application, most established IF authors recommend use of a specialised IF language, arguing that such systems allow authors to avoid the technicalities of producing a full featured parser, while allowing broad community support. The choice of authoring system usually depends on the author's desired balance of ease of use versus power, and the portability of the final product.
Other development systems:
Older development Systems:
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
simulating environments in which players use text commands
Command (computing)
In computing, a command is a directive to a computer program acting as an interpreter of some kind, in order to perform a specific task. Most commonly a command is a directive to some kind of command line interface, such as a shell....
to control characters
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
where the entire interface can be "text-only
Text mode
Text mode is a kind of computer display mode in which the content of the screen is internally represented in terms of characters rather than individual pixels. Typically, the screen consists of a uniform rectangular grid of character cells, each of which contains one of the characters of a...
". Graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics (still images, animations or video) still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is text. It can also be used to distinguish the more modern style of such works, focusing on narrative and not necessarily falling into the adventure game genre
Computer and video game genres
Video game genres are used to categorize video games based on their gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges. They are classified independent of their setting or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction...
at all, from the more traditional focus on puzzle
Puzzle
A puzzle is a problem or enigma that tests the ingenuity of the solver. In a basic puzzle, one is intended to put together pieces in a logical way in order to come up with the desired solution...
s. More expansive definitions of interactive fiction may refer to all adventure games, including wholly graphical adventures such as Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
.
As a commercial product, interactive fiction reached its peak in popularity from 1979–1986, as a dominant software product marketed for home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s. Because their text-only nature sidestepped the problem of writing for the widely divergent graphics architectures of the day, interactive fiction games were easily ported across all the popular platforms, even those such as CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
not known for gaming or strong graphics capabilities. Today, a steady stream of new works is produced by an online interactive fiction community, using freely available development systems. Most of these games can be downloaded for free from the Interactive Fiction Archive.
The term "interactive fiction" is also occasionally used to refer to addventure
Addventure
An addventure, also known as a collaborative gamebook, is a type of online interactive fiction that combines aspects of round-robin stories and Choose Your Own Adventure-style tales. Like a round-robin story, an addventure is a form of collaborative fiction in which many authors contribute to a...
games, which are also called hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in "literature" and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a...
, collaborative fiction
Collaborative fiction
Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story.Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally - many collaboratively written works have been the subject of a large degree of academic research.-...
, or even participatory novels, according to the New York Times. It is also used to refer to literary works that are not read in a linear fashion, but rather the reader is given choices at different points in the text; the reader's choice determines the flow and outcome of the story. The most famous example of this form of interactive fiction is the Choose Your Own Adventure
Choose Your Own Adventure
Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome. The series was based on a...
book series. For others, see gamebooks. Interactive fiction is sometimes used as a synonym for visual novel
Visual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
, a popular style of PC game in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Medium
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
genre. The player uses text input to control the game, and the game state is relayed to the player via text output.
Input is usually provided by the player in the form of simple sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
s such as "get key" or "go east", which are interpreted by a text parser
Text parser
In an adventure game, a text parser takes typed input from the player and simplifies it to something the game can understand. Usually, words with the same meaning are turned into the same word and certain filler words are dropped .The parser makes it easier for the game's author to react on input...
. Parsers may vary in sophistication; the first text adventure parsers could only handle two-word sentences in the form of verb-noun pairs. Later parsers, such as those built on Infocom's ZIL (Zork Implementation Language), could understand complete sentences. Later parsers could handle increasing levels of complexity parsing sentences such as "open the red box with the green key then go north". This level of complexity is the standard for works of interactive fiction today.
Despite their lack of graphics, text adventures include a physical dimension where players move between rooms. Many text adventure games boasted their total number of rooms to indicate how much gameplay they offered. These games are unique in that they may create an illogical space, where going north from area A takes you to area B, but going south from area B did not take you back to area A. This can create mazes that do not behave as players expect, and thus players must maintain their own map. These illogical spaces are much more rare in today's era of 3D gaming, and the Interactive Fiction community in general decries the use of mazes entirely, claiming that mazes have become arbitrary 'puzzles for the sake of puzzles' and that they can, in the hands of inexperienced programmers, become immensely frustrating for players to navigate.
Interactive fiction shares much in common with Multi-User Dungeons
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
('MUDs'). MUDs, which became popular in the mid-1980s, rely on a textual exchange and accept similar commands from players as do works of IF; however, since interactive fiction is single player, and MUDs, by definition, have multiple players, they differ enormously in gameplay styles. MUDs often focus gameplay on activities that involve communities of players, simulated political systems, in-game trading, and other gameplay mechanics that aren't possible in a single player environment.
Interactive fiction usually relies on reading from a screen and on typing
Typing
Typing is the process of inputting text into a device, such as a typewriter, cell phone, computer, or a calculator, by pressing keys on a keyboard. It can be distinguished from other means of input, such as the use of pointing devices like the computer mouse, and text input via speech...
input, although text-to-speech synthesizers allow blind and visually impaired users to play interactive fiction titles as audio game
Audio game
An audio game is an electronic game played on a device such as a personal computer. It is similar to a video game save that the only feedback device is audible rather than visual....
s.
Writing style
Interactive fiction features two distinct modes of writing: the player input and the game output.As described above, player input is expected to be in simple command form (imperative sentences). A typical command may be:
pull lever
The responses from the game are usually written from a second-person
Second-person narrative
The second-person narrative is a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you"....
point of view
Point of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
, in present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
. This is because, unlike in most works of fiction, the main character is closely associated with the player, and the events are seen to be happening as the player plays. While older text adventures often identified the protagonist with the player directly, newer games tend to have specific, well-defined protagonists with separate identities from the player. The classic essay "Crimes Against Mimesis" discusses, among other IF issues, the nature of "You" in interactive fiction.
A typical response might look something like this, the response to "look in teachest" at the start of Curses
Curses (computer game)
Curses is an interactive fiction computer game created by Graham Nelson in 1993. It was originally developed on an Acorn Archimedes using Acorn C/C++, before Nelson moved to his Inform programming language, which was simultaneously released. It was the first non-test game developed in the language....
:
That was the first place you tried, hours and hours ago now, and there's nothing there but that boring old book. You pick it up anyway, bored as you are.
Many text adventures, particularly those designed for humour (such as Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction computer game based on the comedic science fiction series of the same name. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams and Infocom's Steve Meretzky, and was first released in 1984 for the Apple II, Macintosh, Commodore 64, DOS,...
, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
Leather Goddesses of Phobos is an interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986. Like many other Infocom titles, it was released for the IBM PC , Atari 8-bit, Amiga, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Atari ST and Commodore 64 computers...
), address the player with an informal tone, sometimes including sarcastic remarks (see the transcript from Curses
Curses (computer game)
Curses is an interactive fiction computer game created by Graham Nelson in 1993. It was originally developed on an Acorn Archimedes using Acorn C/C++, before Nelson moved to his Inform programming language, which was simultaneously released. It was the first non-test game developed in the language....
, above, for an example). The late Douglas Adams, in designing the IF version of his 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', created a unique solution to the final puzzle of the game: the game requires the one solitary item that the player didn't choose at the outset of play.
Some IF works dispense with second-person narrative entirely, opting for a first-person perspective ('I') or even placing the player in the position of an observer, rather than a direct participant. In some 'experimental' IF, the concept of self-identification is eliminated entirely, and the player instead takes the role of an inanimate object, a force of nature, or an abstract concept; experimental IF usually pushes the limits of the concept and challenges many assumptions about the medium.
Adventure
Around 1975, Will Crowther, a programmer and an amateur caver, wrote the first text adventure game, AdventureColossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...
(originally called ADVENT because a filename could only be six characters long in its operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, and later named Colossal Cave). Having just gone through a divorce, he was looking for a way to connect with his two young children. Over the course of a few weekends he slapped together a text based cave exploration game that featured a sort of guide/narrator who talked in full sentences and who understood simple two word commands that came close to natural English. Adventure was programmed in Fortran for the PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...
. Stanford University graduate student Don Woods discovered Adventure while working at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and in 1977 obtained and expanded Crowther's source code (with Crowther's permission). Crowther's original version was an accurate simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
of the real Colossal Cave
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park is a U.S. National Park in central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system known in the world. The official name of the system is the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System for the ridge under which the cave has formed. The park was established...
, but also included fantasy elements (such as axe-wielding dwarves and a magic bridge); Woods's changes were reminiscent of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, and included a troll, elves, and a volcano some claim is based on Mount Doom
Mount Doom
Mount Doom is a volcano in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. It is located in the heart of the black land of Mordor and close to Barad-dûr, it is approximately high. Alternative names, in Tolkien's invented language of Sindarin, include Orodruin and Amon Amarth...
, but Woods says was not.
In early 1977, Adventure spread across ARPAnet
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, and has survived on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
to this day. The game has since been ported to many other operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s, and was included with the floppy-disk distribution of Microsoft's MS-DOS 5.0 OS. Adventure is a cornerstone of the online IF community; there currently exist dozens of different independently-programmed versions, with additional elements, such as new rooms or puzzles, and various scoring systems.
The popularity of Adventure led to the wide success of interactive fiction during the late 1970s and the 1980s, when home computers had little, if any, graphics capability. Many elements of the original game have survived into the present, such as the command 'xyzzy
Xyzzy
Xyzzy is a magic word from the Colossal Cave Adventure computer game.In computing, the word is sometimes used as a metasyntactic variable or as a video game cheat code, the canonical "magic word"...
', which is now included as an Easter Egg
Easter egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
in games such as Minesweeper.
Adventure was also directly responsible for the founding of Sierra Online (later Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
); Ken and Roberta Williams played the game when it first appeared, and when unable to find any other games of similar quality, decided to design one of their own.
Adventure International
Adventure InternationalAdventure International
Adventure International was a computer game publishing company that existed from 1978 until 1985, started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a microcomputer system...
was founded by Scott Adams
Scott Adams (game designer)
Scott Adams is the co-founder, with ex-wife Alexis, of Adventure International, an early publisher of games for home computers....
(not to be confused with the creator of Dilbert
Dilbert
Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. First published on April 16, 1989, Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character...
).
In 1978, Adams wrote Adventureland, which was loosely patterned after the original Advent. He took out a small ad in a computer magazine in order to promote and sell Adventureland, thus creating the first commercial adventure game. In 1979 he founded Adventure International, the first commercial publisher of interactive fiction. The company went bankrupt in 1985.
Infocom
The largest company producing works of interactive fiction was InfocomInfocom
Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
, which created the Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
series and many other titles, among them Trinity
Trinity (computer game)
Trinity is an interactive fiction computer game written by Brian Moriarty and published in 1986 by Infocom. It is widely regarded as one of the company's best works....
, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction computer game based on the comedic science fiction series of the same name. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams and Infocom's Steve Meretzky, and was first released in 1984 for the Apple II, Macintosh, Commodore 64, DOS,...
and A Mind Forever Voyaging
A Mind Forever Voyaging
A Mind Forever Voyaging is an interactive fiction game designed and implemented by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1985...
.
In June 1977, Marc Blank
Marc Blank
Marc Blank is an American game developer and software engineer. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first hit text adventure computer games, Zork....
, Bruce K. Daniels, Tim Anderson
Tim Anderson (Zork)
Tim Anderson is a computer programmer who helped create the adventure game Zork, one of the first works of interactive fiction and an early descendant of ADVENT . The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 in the MDL programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Anderson, Marc Blank,...
, and Dave Lebling
Dave Lebling
P. David Lebling is an interactive fiction game designer and programmer who has worked at various companies, including Infocom and Avid....
began writing the mainframe version of Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
(also known as Dungeon), at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. The game was programmed in a computer language called MDL
MDL programming language
MDL is a descendant of the Lisp Programming language. Its initial purpose was to provide high level language support for the Dynamic Modeling Group at MIT's Project MAC...
, a variant of LISP
Lisp programming language
Lisp is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized syntax. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is older...
. In early 1979, the game was completed. Ten members of the MIT Dynamics Modelling Group went on to join Infocom when it was incorporated later that year.
In order to make its games as portable as possible, Infocom developed the Z-machine, a custom virtual machine
Virtual machine
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
which could be implemented on a large number of platforms, and which took standardized "story files" as input.
The Infocom parser was widely regarded as the best of its era. It accepted complex, complete sentence commands like "put the blue book on the writing desk" at a time when most of its competitors parsers were restricted to simple two word verb-noun combinations such as "put book". The parser was actively upgraded with new features like undo and error correction, and later games would 'understand' multiple sentence input: 'pick up the gem and put it in my bag. take the newspaper clipping out of my bag then burn it with the book of matches'.
In a non-technical sense, Infocom was responsible for developing the interactive style that would be emulated by many later interpreters.
The company was bought by Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
in 1986 after the failure of Cornerstone
Cornerstone (software)
Cornerstone is a relational database for DOS by Infocom in 1985. It was widely hailed upon its release for its ease of use, but is generally considered one of the leading factors that led to the demise of the company.-History and development:...
, Infocom's database software program, and stopped producing text adventures a few years later.
In 1991 and 1992, Activision released volumes one and two of The Lost Treasures of Infocom
The Lost Treasures of Infocom
The Lost Treasures of Infocom is a collection of 20 computer games from interactive fiction pioneer Infocom, released in 1991. It was available in MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh, Amiga, and Apple IIGS versions, as well as a cross-platform CD-ROM version. Infocom was closed in 1989 by its then-parent...
, a collection containing most of Infocom's games, followed in 1996 by Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom
Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom
Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom is a collection of 33 computer games from interactive fiction pioneer Infocom, and the top 6 winners of the 1995 Interactive Fiction Competition, released in 1996...
.
Legend Entertainment
Legend EntertainmentLegend Entertainment
Legend Entertainment was an American developer of computer games, best known for their complex, distinctive adventure titles throughout the 1990s....
was founded by Bob Bates
Bob Bates
Robert Bates , better known as Bob Bates, is an American computer games designer. Starting as a designer in the 1980s for Infocom, he was later co-founder of Legend Entertainment, designing games such as Timequest and Eric the Unready...
and Mike Verdu in 1989. It started out from the ashes of Infocom.
The text adventures produced by Legend used (high-resolution) graphics as well as sound. Some of their titles include Eric the Unready
Eric the Unready
Eric the Unready is an adventure game from Legend Entertainment. Eric the Unready is a parody of the fantasy genre in general, though it parodies numerous other topics as well, ranging from Star Trek to Zork. The game engine uses an interactive fiction interface, although unlike most IF games, a...
, the Spellcasting
Spellcasting (series)
Spellcasting is a series of interactive fiction games designed by Steve Meretzky during his time with Legend Entertainment. All the games feature the character Ernie Eaglebeak, a student at the prestigious Sorcerer University.- Games :...
series and Gateway
Gateway (computer game)
Gateway and Gateway II , are interactive fiction games released by Legend Entertainment, and written by Glen Dahlgren and Mike Verdu. They are based on Frederik Pohl's Heechee universe....
(based on Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
's novels).
The last text adventure created by Legend was Gateway II
Gateway (computer game)
Gateway and Gateway II , are interactive fiction games released by Legend Entertainment, and written by Glen Dahlgren and Mike Verdu. They are based on Frederik Pohl's Heechee universe....
, while the last game ever was Unreal 2 (the well-known first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
action game). Legend was acquired in 2004 by Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
.
Other companies
Probably the first commercial work of interactive fiction produced outside the U.S. was the dungeon crawlDungeon crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find...
game of Acheton, produced in Cambridge, England, and first commercially released by Acornsoft
Acornsoft
Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers Ltd, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, they also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and utility packages - these included ROM-based word...
(later expanded and reissued by Topologika
Topologika
Topologika Software Ltd is a still-independent British publisher of educational software. Based in Brighton, the company was founded in 1983.Many of its early products were interactive fiction adventure games taken on after Acornsoft was sold to Superior Software who only continued to release their...
). Other leading companies in the U.K.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
were Magnetic Scrolls
Magnetic Scrolls
Magnetic Scrolls was a British computer game developer during the mid 1980s and early 1990s. It was one of two largest interactive fiction game makers of the 1980s...
and Level 9 Computing
Level 9 Computing
Level 9 was a British computer text adventure game company which produced some of the most advanced games of the 1980s. Founded in 1981 by Mike Austin, Nicholas Austin and Pete Austin, the company produced about 20 games for BBC Micro, Nascom, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Oric, Atari, Lynx 48k, RML...
. Also worthy of mention are Delta 4
Delta 4
Delta 4 was a British software developer created by Fergus McNeill, writing and publishing interactive fiction.Delta 4 designed games between 1984 and 1987. Some were self-published, others were released by CRL Group, Piranha or Silversoft...
, Melbourne House
Melbourne House
Krome Studios Melbourne, originally Beam Software, was a video game development studio founded in 1980 and based in Melbourne, Australia. The studio operated independently from 1987 until 1999, when it was acquired by Infogrames, who changed the name to Melbourne House...
, and the homebrew company Zenobi
Zenobi
Zenobi is a computer game company that is known for its interactive fiction. The company was started by John Wilson in late 1982. Originally formed as a part-time operation it became full-time in early 1986. The company produced and published adventure-games for the ZXSpectrum range of home...
.
In the early 1980s Edu-Ware
Edu-Ware
Edu-Ware Services, Inc. was an educational and entertainment software publisher established in 1979 by Sherwin Steffin and Steven Pederson It was known for its adventure games, role-playing video games, and flight simulators for the Apple II family of computers.-History:Edu-Ware founders Sherwin...
also produced interactive fiction for the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
as designated by the "if" graphic that was displayed on startup. Their titles included the Prisoner and Empire series (Empire I: World Builders, Empire II: Interstellar Sharks, Empire III: Armageddon).
In Italy, interactive fiction games were mainly published and distributed through various magazines in included tapes. The largest number of games were published in the two magazines Viking and Explorer, with versions for the main 8-bit home computers (Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
and MSX
MSX
MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...
). The software house producing those games was Brainstorm Enterprise, and the most prolific IF author was Bonaventura Di Bello
Bonaventura Di Bello
Bonaventura Di Bello is the co-founder, with his wife Adelaide and his brother Massimiliano, of Brainstorm Enterprise, an early publisher of games for home computers....
, who produced 70 games in the Italian language. The wave of interactive fiction in Italy lasted for a couple of years thanks to the various magazines promoting the genre, then faded and remains still today a topic of interest for a small group of fans and less known developers, celebrated on Web sites and in related newsgroups.
In Spain, interactive fiction was considered a minority genre, and was not very much successful. The first Spanish interactive fiction commercially released was Yenght in 1983, by Dinamic Software, for the ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
. Later on, it was in 1987, when the same company produced an interactive fiction about Don Quijote. After several other attempts, a company emerged from Dinamic, called Aventuras AD
Aventuras AD
Aventuras AD was a videogame Spanish producer, one of the most popular in Spain during the Golden Era of Spanish Software in the eighties, specialized in text adventure games. It was created as a seal split from Dinamic Software in 1987...
which was the main interactive fiction publisher in Spain, including titles like a Spanish adaptation of Colossal Cave Adventure, an adaptation of the Spanish comic El Jabato, and mainly the Ci-U-Than trilogy, composed by La diosa de Cozumel (1990), Los templos sagrados (1991) and Chichen-Itzá (1992). During this period, the Club de Aventuras AD (CAAD)
Club de Aventuras AD
Club de Aventuras AD is the current main group of Spanish interactive fiction players and creators. CAAD's activities are mainly centered on its webpage, its forums, SPAC fanzine, #caad and the Spanish if wiki, WikiCAAD....
, the main Spanish speaking community around interactive fiction in the world, was founded, and after the end of Aventuras AD in 1992, the CAAD continued on its own, first with their own magazine, and then with the advent of Internet, with the launch of an active internet community that still produces interactive non commercial fiction nowadays.
Modern era
After the decline of the commercial interactive fiction market in the 1990s, an online community eventually formed around the medium. In 1987, the UsenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction was created, and was soon followed by rec.games.int-fiction. By custom, the topic of rec.arts.int-fiction is interactive fiction authorship and programming, while rec.games.int-fiction encompasses topics related to playing interactive fiction games, such as hint requests and game reviews.
One of the most important early developments was the reverse-engineering of Infocom's Z-Code format and Z-Machine
Z-machine
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions , and could therefore port all its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a...
virtual machine
Virtual machine
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
in 1987 by a group of enthusiasts called the InfoTaskForce
InfoTaskForce
The InfoTaskForce was a group of Infocom enthusiasts who first reverse engineered the Infocom Z-Machine and wrote a public domain version in C....
and the subsequent development of an interpreter
Interpreter (computing)
In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
for Z-Code story files. As a result, it became possible to play Infocom's work on modern computers.
For years amateurs formed a small community producing interactive fiction works of relatively limited scope using the Adventure Game Toolkit
Adventure Game Toolkit
The Adventure Game Toolkit is software that supports the development of adventure games. It was written in 1987 by David Malmberg. It was a revision on Mark J. Welch's GAGS , which was written in 1985. AGT was produced until 1992, after which time it was released as freeware...
and similar tools. The breakthrough that allowed the interactive fiction community to truly prosper, however, was the creation and distribution of two sophisticated development systems. In 1987, Michael J. Roberts released TADS
TADS
Text Adventure Development System is a prototype-based domain-specific programming language and set of standard libraries for creating interactive fiction games.-History:...
, a programming language designed to produce works of interactive fiction. In 1993, Graham Nelson
Graham Nelson
Graham A. Nelson is a British mathematician and poet and the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction games. He has also authored several IF games, including the acclaimed Curses and Jigsaw , using the experience of writing Curses in particular to expand the range of...
released Inform
Inform
Over the following decade, version 6 became reasonably stable and a popular language for writing interactive fiction. In 2006, Nelson released Inform 7 , a completely new language based on principles of natural language and a new set of tools based around a book-publishing metaphor.- Z-Machine and...
, a programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
and set of libraries which compiled
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
to a Z-Code story file. Each of these systems allowed anyone with sufficient time and dedication to create a game, and caused a growth boom in the online interactive fiction community.
Despite the lack of commercial support, the availability of high quality tools allowed enthusiasts of the genre to develop new high quality games. Competitions such as the annual Interactive Fiction Competition
Interactive Fiction Competition
The Interactive Fiction Competition is one of the best known of several annual competitions for works of interactive fiction. It has been held since 1995. It is intended for fairly short games, as judges are only allowed to spend two hours playing a game before deciding how many points to award it...
for short works, the newer Spring Thing
Spring Thing
Spring Thing is an annual competition to highlight works of Interactive Fiction .Adam Cadre, author of several works of Interactive Fiction, including Photopia and Varicella, announced the Spring Thing in 2001, both to promote works that would be longer than those entered into the Interactive...
for longer works, and the XYZZY Awards, further helped to improve the quality and complexity of the games. Modern games go much further than the original "Adventure" style, improving upon Infocom games, which relied extensively on puzzle solving, and to a lesser extent on communication with non player characters, to include experimentation with writing and story-telling techniques.
While the majority of modern interactive fiction developed is distributed for free, there are some commercial endeavors, including Peter Nepstad's 1893: A World's Fair Mystery
1893: A World's Fair Mystery
1893 is a commercial mystery and educational interactive fiction by Peter Nepstad written in the TADS programming language. It takes place during the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The exposition is recreated in detail, with archival photographs from the fair and in-depth...
, several games by Howard Sherman published as Malinche Entertainment
Malinche Entertainment
Malinche Entertainment is an interactive fiction development and publishing business founded by Howard Sherman. The company was founded in 2002. Malinche Entertainment claims to be working in the tradition of early interactive fiction developer Infocom. Sherman claims to have sold 150,000 copies...
, The General Coffee Company's Future Boy!, and various titles by Textfyre. Emily Short
Emily Short
Emily Short is the pseudonym of an interactive fiction writer, perhaps best known for her debut game Galatea and her use of psychologically complex NPCs, or non-player game characters...
was commissioned to develop the game City of Secrets but the project fell through and she ended up releasing it herself.
Some authors offer optional commercial feelie
Feelie
Infocom used the term feelie to refer to the extra content included with the boxed versions of their interactive fiction computer games. Feelies differed from game to game and were of the same theme as the game they came packaged with...
s (physical props associated with a game); the tradition of 'Feelies' (and the term itself) is believed to have originated with Deadline (1982), the third Infocom title after Zork I and II. Seeing the dual potential benefits of both aiding game-play immersion and providing a measure of creative copy-protection, Infocom and later other companies began creating feelies for numerous titles. In 1987, Infocom released a special version of the first three Zork titles together with plot-specific coins and other trinkets. This concept would see expansion as time went on, such that later game feelies would contain passwords, coded instructions, page numbers, or other information that would be required to successfully complete the game.
Other uses
The term "interactive fiction" is sometimes used to describe other forms of storytelling and games, including visual novelVisual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
s, interactive novel
Interactive novel
The interactive novel is a form of web fiction and interactive fiction. While authors of traditional paper-and-ink novels have sometimes tried to give readers the random directionality offered by true hypertexting, this approach was not completely feasible until the development of HTML...
s, and interactive storytelling
Interactive storytelling
Interactive Storytelling [IS] is a form of digital entertainment in which users create or influence a dramatic storyline through actions, either by issuing commands to the story's protagonist, or acting as a general director of events in the narrative...
.
Visual novel
Visual novels are interactive fiction featuring mostly static graphics, usually with animeAnime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant
Tableau vivant
Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...
stage plays. Visual novels are especially prevalent in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released. They are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games are sometimes ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
to video game systems such as the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
. The market for visual novels outside of East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
, however, is limited.
Visual novels have been a staple of PC software sales in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and other East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n countries for over a decade, so much so that popular titles are open ported to consoles, and some even have famous manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
and anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series based upon them; such titles include Kanon
Kanon
is a Japanese visual novel developed by Key and originally released as an adult game on June 4, 1999, playable on a Microsoft Windows PC. An all ages version for the PC was released in January 2000, and was later ported to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable...
(1999), Air (2000) and Clannad (2004) by Key
Key (company)
Key is a Japanese visual novel studio which formed on July 21, 1998 as a brand under the publisher Visual Art's and is located in Kita, Osaka, Japan. Key released their debut visual novel Kanon in June 1999, which combined an elaborate storyline, an up-to-date anime-style drawing style, and a...
; Rumbling Hearts
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
, abbreviated as Kimibou or Kiminozo, is a Japanese visual novel adventure game created by âge. It was first released in 2001 for the PC and was later ported to the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 under the title Rumbling Hearts as all-age versions...
(2001) by Age
Âge
Âge is a division of Acid Co., Ltd., a Japanese publisher of adult video games and visual novels. Âge was formerly known as Relic and developed video games for consoles. It gained fame following the release of its 2001 adult visual novel Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. It was founded by Hirohiko Yoshida,...
; School Days
School Days (visual novel)
is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by 0verflow and published by Stack, and was originally released for the PC on April 28, 2005. It was subsequently released as a DVD TV game by Stack, followed by an all-ages port titled School Days L×H published by Interchannel for the PlayStation 2, in...
(2005) by 0verflow
0verflow
, erroneously Overflow, is a Japanese video game division of Stack Ltd. specializing in the production of mature interactive fiction. The company is best known for its popular game franchise School Days, which has spawned numerous multimedia adaptions and two sequels...
; Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
, known simply as When They Cry for the North American release of the anime adaptation, is a Japanese murder mystery dōjin soft sound novel series produced by 07th Expansion. The games are built on the NScripter game engine and are playable on Microsoft Windows PCs...
(2002) by 07th Expansion
07th Expansion
07th Expansion is a Japanese dōjin group that specializes in the creation of visual novels known as sound novels. They started out drawing for the trading card game Leaf Fight, but they are most famous for creating the dōjin game series Higurashi no Naku Koro ni...
; and Fate/stay night
Fate/stay night
is a Japanese visual novel developed by Type-Moon, which was originally released as an adult game for the PC. An all-ages version of Fate/stay night, titled Fate/stay night Réalta Nua, was released for the PlayStation 2 on April 19, 2007, and features the Japanese voice actors from the anime series...
(2004) by Type-Moon
TYPE-MOON
is a Japanese game company, best known for their visual novels, co-founded by author Kinoko Nasu and illustrator Takashi Takeuchi. It is also known under the name for its publishing and corporate operations...
.
Interactive novel
The interactive novel is a form of web fiction and interactive fiction. While authors of traditional paper-and-ink novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s have sometimes tried to give readers the random directionality offered by true hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
ing, this approach was not completely feasible until the development of HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
. Paper novels (indeed, some digital novels) are linear, that is, read from page to page in a straight line. Interactive novels, however, offer readers a unique way to read fiction by choosing a page, a character, or a direction. By following hyperlinked phrases within the novel, readers can find new ways to understand characters. There is no wrong way to read a hypertext interactive novel. Links embedded within the pages are meant to be taken at a reader's discretion – to allow the reader a choice in the novel's world.
Interactive storytelling
Interactive storytelling is a developing kind of computer entertainment. The term was coined by Chris CrawfordChris Crawford (game designer)
Christopher Crawford is a computer game designer and writer noted for creating a number of important games in the 1980s, founding The Journal of Computer Game Design, and organizing the Computer Game Developers' Conference.- Biography :...
, a main proponent and developer. He defines interactive storytelling as, "a form of interactive entertainment in which the player plays the role of the protagonist in a dramatically rich environment."
Interactive storytelling and interactive fiction are distinct in that interactive storytelling focuses on drama and dynamic circumstances, where interactive fiction games, traditionally (but not necessarily) focus on puzzle-solving and navigating through pre-conceived circumstances. They are similar, however, in that well-written forms of both are nonlinear.
Notable works
- Colossal Cave AdventureColossal Cave AdventureColossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...
, by Will Crowther and Don Woods, was the first text adventure ever made. - Adventureland, by Scott AdamsScott Adams (game designer)Scott Adams is the co-founder, with ex-wife Alexis, of Adventure International, an early publisher of games for home computers....
, is considered one of the defining works of interactive fiction. - The ZorkZorkZork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
series by InfocomInfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
(1979 onwards) was the first text adventure to see widespread commercial release. - Softporn AdventureSoftporn AdventureSoftporn Adventure was a comedic, adult-oriented text adventure game produced for the Apple II in 1981. The game was created by Charles Benton and released by On-Line Systems....
, by Chuck Benton, a popular adult game that inspired the Leisure Suit LarryLeisure Suit Larry (series)Leisure Suit Larry is a series of adventure games written by Al Lowe and published by Sierra from 1987 to 2009. The main character, whose full name is Larry Laffer, is a balding, dorky, double entendre-speaking, leisure suit-wearing "loser" in his 40s...
series. - The HobbitThe Hobbit (video game)The Hobbit is a computer game released in 1982 and based on the book The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was developed at Beam Software by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler and published by Melbourne House for most home computers available at the time, from more popular models such as the ZX...
, by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler of Beam Software (1982) was an early reinterpretation of an existing novel into interactive fiction, with several independent non-player characters. - PlanetfallPlanetfallPlanetfall is a science fiction interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky, and the eighth title published by Infocom in 1983. Like most Infocom games, thanks to the portable Z-machine, it was released for several platforms simultaneously. The original release included versions...
, by Steve MeretzkySteve MeretzkySteven Eric Meretzky is an American computer game developer, with dozens of titles to his credit. He has been involved in almost every aspect of game development, from design to production to quality assurance and box design...
of Infocom (1983), featured Floyd the robot, which Allen VarneyAllen VarneyAllen Varney is an American writer and game designer born in St. Louis, Missouri. He has a dual B.A. in English and History from the University of Nevada, Reno....
claimed to be the first game character who evoked a strong emotional commitment from players. - SuspendedSuspendedSuspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare is an interactive fiction computer game written by Michael Berlyn and published by Infocom in 1983. Like most Infocom titles, it was available on most popular personal computers of the day, such as the Apple II, PC, Atari ST and Commodore 64...
by Michael BerlynMichael BerlynMichael Berlyn is an American computer game designer and writer. He is best known as an Implementor at Infocom, part of the text adventure game design team....
was an InfocomInfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
game notable for a large vocabulary and unique character personalities. - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction computer game based on the comedic science fiction series of the same name. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams and Infocom's Steve Meretzky, and was first released in 1984 for the Apple II, Macintosh, Commodore 64, DOS,...
, by Douglas AdamsDouglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
and Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1984), was notable in that the author of the original work was involved in the reinterpretation. - A Mind Forever VoyagingA Mind Forever VoyagingA Mind Forever Voyaging is an interactive fiction game designed and implemented by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1985...
, by Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1985), a story-heavy, puzzle-light game often touted as Infocom's first serious work of science fiction. - Leather Goddesses of PhobosLeather Goddesses of PhobosLeather Goddesses of Phobos is an interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986. Like many other Infocom titles, it was released for the IBM PC , Atari 8-bit, Amiga, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Atari ST and Commodore 64 computers...
by Steve MeretzkySteve MeretzkySteven Eric Meretzky is an American computer game developer, with dozens of titles to his credit. He has been involved in almost every aspect of game development, from design to production to quality assurance and box design...
, a risqué sci-fi parody from InfocomInfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
. - AmnesiaAmnesia (computer game)Thomas M. Disch's Amnesia is a text adventure computer game created by Charles Kreitzberg's Cognetics Corporation, written by award-winning science fiction author Thomas M. Disch, and programmed by Kevin Bentley using the King Edward Adventure game authoring system developed by James Terry...
(1987), by Hugo AwardHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Nebula AwardNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
winning science fiction and fantasy author Thomas M. DischThomas M. DischThomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
, a purely text-only adventure published by Electronic ArtsElectronic ArtsElectronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
. - CursesCurses (computer game)Curses is an interactive fiction computer game created by Graham Nelson in 1993. It was originally developed on an Acorn Archimedes using Acorn C/C++, before Nelson moved to his Inform programming language, which was simultaneously released. It was the first non-test game developed in the language....
, by Graham NelsonGraham NelsonGraham A. Nelson is a British mathematician and poet and the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction games. He has also authored several IF games, including the acclaimed Curses and Jigsaw , using the experience of writing Curses in particular to expand the range of...
(1993), the first game ever written in the InformInformOver the following decade, version 6 became reasonably stable and a popular language for writing interactive fiction. In 2006, Nelson released Inform 7 , a completely new language based on principles of natural language and a new set of tools based around a book-publishing metaphor.- Z-Machine and...
programming language. Considered one of the first "modern" games to meet the high standards set by Infocom's best titles. - So FarSo Far (interactive fiction)So Far is an interactive fiction game written in 1996 by Andrew Plotkin. It's known for its challenging puzzles and surreal imagery. So Far won the 1996 XYZZY Awards for Best IF Game, Best Writing, Best Puzzles, and Best Individual Puzzle....
, by Andrew PlotkinAndrew PlotkinAndrew Plotkin , also known as Zarf, is a central figure in the modern interactive fiction community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other utilities for the design, production, and running of IF games, Plotkin is...
(1996), the first XYZZY Award for Best GameXYZZY Award for Best GameThis is a list of XYZZY Awards results, grouped by award rather than year. The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given by the publication "XYZZYnews" to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film...
winner in 1996. - AnchorheadAnchorhead (game)Anchorhead is a Lovecraftian horror interactive fiction game, originally written and published by Michael S. Gentry in 1998. The game is heavily inspired by the works and writing style of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly the Cthulhu mythos...
, by Michael S. Gentry (1998) is a highly rated horror story inspired by H. P. LovecraftH. P. LovecraftHoward Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
's Cthulhu MythosCthulhu MythosThe Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
. - PhotopiaPhotopiaPhotopia is a piece of literature by Adam Cadre rendered in the form of interactive fiction, and written in Inform. It is regarded as a pioneer in narrative-driven, rather than puzzle- or challenge-driven, interactive fiction...
, by Adam CadreAdam CadreAdam Cadre is a U.S. writer. He gained prominence in the world of interactive fiction with works like I-0 , Photopia and Varicella , for which he has won several XYZZY Awards and been the subject of academic study . Photopia additionally won the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition...
(1998), one of the first almost entirely puzzle-free games. It won the annual Interactive Fiction CompetitionInteractive Fiction CompetitionThe Interactive Fiction Competition is one of the best known of several annual competitions for works of interactive fiction. It has been held since 1995. It is intended for fairly short games, as judges are only allowed to spend two hours playing a game before deciding how many points to award it...
in 1998. - Spider and WebSpider and WebSpider and Web is a piece of interactive fiction written by Andrew Plotkin.Spider and Web begins innocuously enough: the player's character, an apparent tourist, has wandered into a blind alley. Upon trying to leave the alley, however, the character is confronted by a voice sneering that this is a...
, by Andrew PlotkinAndrew PlotkinAndrew Plotkin , also known as Zarf, is a central figure in the modern interactive fiction community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other utilities for the design, production, and running of IF games, Plotkin is...
(1998), an award-winning espionage story with many twists and turns. - VaricellaVaricella (computer game)Varicella is a 1999 work of interactive fiction by Adam Cadre, distributed in z-code format as freeware. It is set in an alternate history which features roughly modern technology mixed with Renaissance-style principalities and court politics...
by Adam Cadre (1999). It won four XYZZY Awards in 1999 including the XYZZY Award for Best Game, and had a scholarly essay written about it. - GalateaGalatea (computer game)Galatea is a work of interactive fiction by Emily Short featuring a modern rendition of the Greek myth of Galatea, the sculpture of a woman which gained life. It took "Best of Show" in the 2000 IF Art Show and won a XYZZY Award for Best Non-Player Character...
, by Emily ShortEmily ShortEmily Short is the pseudonym of an interactive fiction writer, perhaps best known for her debut game Galatea and her use of psychologically complex NPCs, or non-player game characters...
(2000). Galatea is focused entirely on interaction with the animated statue of the same name. Galatea has one of the most complex interaction systems for a non-player characterNon-player characterA non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
in an interactive fiction game. Adam CadreAdam CadreAdam Cadre is a U.S. writer. He gained prominence in the world of interactive fiction with works like I-0 , Photopia and Varicella , for which he has won several XYZZY Awards and been the subject of academic study . Photopia additionally won the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition...
called Galatea "the best NPC ever". - Slouching Towards BedlamSlouching Towards BedlamSlouching Towards Bedlam is an interactive fiction game that won the first place in the 2003 Interactive Fiction Competition. It is a collaboration between Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster. Slouching Towards Bedlam was finalist for eight 2003 XYZZY Awards, winning four: Best Game, Setting, Story,...
, by Star C. Foster and Daniel Ravipinto (2003). Set in a steampunkSteampunkSteampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
setting, the game integrates meta-game functionality (saving, restoring, restarting) into the game world itself. The game won four XYZZY Awards.
Development systems
A number of systems are available today to write interactive fiction. Among them are ADRIFTADRIFT
ADRIFT is a graphical user interface used to create and play text adventures. The name is an acronym for "Adventure Development & Runner - Interactive Fiction Toolkit". The project is solely developed by Campbell Wild....
, Hugo
Hugo programming language
Hugo is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction created by Kent Tessman. While not as popular as Inform or TADS, it is still used, particularly for multimedia interactive fiction ....
, Inform
Inform
Over the following decade, version 6 became reasonably stable and a popular language for writing interactive fiction. In 2006, Nelson released Inform 7 , a completely new language based on principles of natural language and a new set of tools based around a book-publishing metaphor.- Z-Machine and...
, and TADS
TADS
Text Adventure Development System is a prototype-based domain-specific programming language and set of standard libraries for creating interactive fiction games.-History:...
. The majority of current IF development is implemented in Inform, TADS, or ADRIFT. In the 2006 IFComp, the majority of the games were written for Inform, with a strong minority of games for TADS and ADRIFT, followed by a smattering of games for other systems.
While familiarity with a programming language leads many new authors to attempt to produce their own complete IF application, most established IF authors recommend use of a specialised IF language, arguing that such systems allow authors to avoid the technicalities of producing a full featured parser, while allowing broad community support. The choice of authoring system usually depends on the author's desired balance of ease of use versus power, and the portability of the final product.
Other development systems:
Older development Systems:
- GilsoftGilsoftGilsoft was a British producer and publisher of video games and related utilities. They are perhaps most known for The Quill and the later Professional Adventure Writer....
's The QuillThe QuillThe Quill is a program to write home computer adventure games. Written by Graeme Yeandle, it was published on the ZX Spectrum by Gilsoft in December 1983...
and the Professional Adventure WriterProfessional Adventure WriterProfessional Adventure Writer or PAW is a program that allows the user to write textual adventure games with graphic illustrations. It was written by Tim Gilberts, Graeme Yeandle and Phil Wade, based on Yeandle's earlier system called The Quill... - Incentive SoftwareIncentive SoftwareIncentive Software Ltd. was a British video game developer and publisher founded by Ian Andrew in 1983. Programmers included Sean Ellis, Stephen Northcott and Ian's brother Chris Andrew. Later games were based around the company's Freescape rendering engine...
's Graphic Adventure CreatorGraphic Adventure CreatorGraphic Adventure Creator is a game creation system/programming language for adventure games published by Incentive Software, originally written on the Amstrad CPC by Sean Ellis, and then ported to other platforms by, amongst others, Brendan Kelly , Dave Kirby and "The Kid"...
(GAC) - David Malmberg's Adventure Game ToolkitAdventure Game ToolkitThe Adventure Game Toolkit is software that supports the development of adventure games. It was written in 1987 by David Malmberg. It was a revision on Mark J. Welch's GAGS , which was written in 1985. AGT was produced until 1992, after which time it was released as freeware...
(AGT)
Related concepts
- Hypertext fictionHypertext fictionHypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in "literature" and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a...
- Roleplaying Games, which are occasionally described as another form of interactive fiction.
- Visual novelVisual novelA is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
, interactive fiction with graphics. - Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), which may be considered as a kind of multiplayer or collaborative interactive fiction
- AddventureAddventureAn addventure, also known as a collaborative gamebook, is a type of online interactive fiction that combines aspects of round-robin stories and Choose Your Own Adventure-style tales. Like a round-robin story, an addventure is a form of collaborative fiction in which many authors contribute to a...
- GamebookGamebookA gamebook is a work of fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making effective choices. The narrative branches along various paths through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages...
- Graphic adventures, adventure games with roots in interactive fiction.
- Amateur adventure gameAmateur adventure gameAn amateur adventure game is a computer game belonging to the adventure genre that has no commercial or similar official backing. The amateur adventure game scene emerged in the mid to late 1990s, when releases of new commercial adventure games became more rare and easy distribution of games and...
- Interactive storytellingInteractive storytellingInteractive Storytelling [IS] is a form of digital entertainment in which users create or influence a dramatic storyline through actions, either by issuing commands to the story's protagonist, or acting as a general director of events in the narrative...
Specific related fiction
- Choose Your Own AdventureChoose Your Own AdventureChoose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome. The series was based on a...
- Date with Destiny AdventureDate with Destiny AdventureThe Date with Destiny Adventure series comprises two short novels of interactive fiction published by Quirk Books in 2003 that parodied the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Both books featured covers and interior designs similar to those of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, but they are...
- Fighting FantasyFighting FantasyFighting Fantasy is a series of single-player fantasy roleplay gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volumes in the series were published by Puffin in 1982, with the rights to the franchise eventually being purchased by Wizard Books in 2002...
- Lone Wolf (gamebooks)Lone Wolf (gamebooks)Lone Wolf is a series of 28 gamebooks, created by Joe Dever and initially illustrated by Gary Chalk. The series began publishing in July 1984 and sold more than 10.2 million copies worldwide....
Further reading
- Keller, Daniel. "Reading and playing: what makes interactive fiction unique" p. 276-298. in Williams, J. P., & Smith, J. H. (2007). The players' realm: studies on the culture of video games and gaming. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 9780786428328
- Seegert, Alf. (2009), "'Doing there' vs. 'being there': performing presence in interactive fiction", Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds 1: 1, pp. 23–37, doi: 10.1386/jgvw.1.1.23/1
External links
- Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive, a more user-friendly interface for the IF archive.
- A Brief History of Interactive Fiction, a timeline of events in interactive fiction history at the Brass Lantern website.
- IFReviews Organization, huge repository for text adventure game reviews written and rated by Interactive Fiction community players and members.
- The Interactive Fiction Archive, a large archive of free-to-download and play interactive fiction (random mirror).
- Interactive Fiction Database, a community site where you can find personalized recommendations for IF games to play.
- Interactive Fiction: More Than Retro Fun, a beginners introduction and setup guide to Interactive Fiction games and interpreters
- The Interactive Fiction Wiki, a MediaWiki wiki specific to Interactive Fiction.
- Parchment, a z-machine interpreter written in javascript and playable in any browser. Links to many playable games.
- Something about Interactive Fiction - MobyGames examines the history (and future) of this gaming genre.
- SPAG, a quarterly e-zine discussing all things IF
- Web-adventures, an online z-machine interpreter