An ''addventure'', also known as a collaborative gamebook, is a type of online

interactive fiction '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is 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, either in the ...

that combines aspects of round-robin stories and

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 actio ...

-style tales. Like a round-robin story, an addventure is a form of

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 ...

in which many authors contribute to a story, each writing discrete segments. However, like a

gamebook A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...

, the resulting narrative is non-linear, allowing authors to branch out in different directions after each segment of the story. The result is a continually growing work of

hypertext fiction Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text t ...

History

The emergence of computer networks and electronic communication made the writing of collaborative fiction faster and more convenient than previous forms of correspondence. Round-robin stories were being written on

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...

s, mailing lists and

USENET Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

news groups, and many variations of the format were tried. One early form of branching story that emerged, where participants of such a round-robin group would start telling side-stories in parallel with the main story as it was still being created, led to very confusing and hard-to-follow stories if multiple branches were concurrently being extended on the same board or mailing list. Soon systems emerged in which such branches were formalized and easily separated from the main story. The

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsAllen "Prisoner" Firstenberg when he created an add-on story for the Nyack High School BBS in 1987–88 and called it "Add-venture". In 1994 the story was transplanted to the World Wide Web in HTML format, where it garnered some attention—and soon many imitators. The magazines ''

Internet World The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

'' and ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'' both wrote about Firstenberg's addventure. Firstenberg's addventure site is still accessible as of 2016, but all three stories that he ran have been closed for new additions since 1999. Since then, a number of other addventures have been launched on the Web, some using Firstenberg's software and others using their own code. At least two of these stories have been running continuously for over twenty years: *The BE Addventure This began on June 20, 1998. As of 3 June, 2019 300,549 episodes had been written. The addventure's subject matter is pornographic. *Extend-A-Story: The Never Ending Quest This began on February 9, 1999. As of 3 June, 2019 33,167 episodes had been written."Extend-A-Story : The Never Ending Quest"
/ref> This game starts as a sword and sorcery epic but often transforms into other genres. The uses of hypertext fiction whose content is goal-driven include exploration of the concepts of

alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...

, so-called

Many-Worlds interpretation The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum me ...

and the older idea of the

mosaic novel A mosaic novel is a novel in which individual chapters or short stories share a common setting or set of characters with the aim of telling a linear story from beginning to end, with the individual chapters, however, refracting a plurality of viewp ...

Structure

Addventures, by their nature of discrete segments of writing connected to each other by paths, generally follow a conceptual

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

structure. Each individual written section is a

node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics *Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines, ...

, usually with one parent node and zero or more child nodes. Extending the addventure with new writing then becomes a task of choosing the node that one wants and adding a new child to it, with the new material comprising the content of the child. An addventure generally begins with a single room or chapter (the root node of the tree), and is extended by writers from that point. The contents of nodes of the addventure are typically stored in a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

, and each new node is assigned a unique identification number. In addition to identifying the node and serving as a primary key field for searching and indexing, the number is used to specify URLs that lead directly to that node and manipulate the tree, usually to allow a node to be moved from one parent to another or to give it new children. The stories produced on an addventure are usually meandering, of uneven quality, and—more often than not—forever unfinished. For many users, it is the ''process'', and not the end result, that creates their enjoyment of this format. For them, the interaction and collaboration are the point of an addventure, not merely the means by which it is produced. Sometimes as with any fiction, whether collaborative or not, it is the boundaries and restrictions that produce moments of real greatness. The ability to add only a small piece of a narrative rather than a whole conventional 'chapter' or even page of text allows those who are not as gifted at writing to still participate. This is psychologically extremely rewarding for people of all walks of life and explains the continuing and in fact growing niche popularity of the addventure genre. Some threads have attained an almost novel-like length and complexity, particularly in Never Ending Quest. Apart from the obvious variations of story genre, addventures can vary in their access restrictions for writers and in the restrictions they place on branching. Some addventures leave the continuation of a finished segment completely open, allowing any number of continuations in any direction imaginable, while others allow the author of the segment to influence the continuation by explicitly listing a set of possible directions.

References

{{reflist

External links

ChooseYourStory
An interactive fiction site with a library of text adventure games and a helpful writing community.
Infinite Story
An interactive fiction site with an extensive library of text adventure games and a large writing community.
Dentrit
An interactive fiction site with a yet small writing community. Collaborative fiction * Interactive fiction Literary genres

History

Structure

See also

References

External links