![ADVENT -- Crowther Woods](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/ADVENT_--_Crowther_Woods.png)
''
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
simulating environments in which players use text
commands to control
characters
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as
literary
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
narratives, either in the form of
interactive narrative
Interactive storytelling (also known as interactive drama) is a form of digital entertainment in which the storyline is not predetermined. The author creates the setting, characters, and situation which the narrative must address, but the user ( ...
s or
interactive narrations. These works can also be understood as a form of
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
, either in the form of an
adventure game or
role-playing game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of
adventure game where the entire interface can be "
text-only",
however, graphical text adventures still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is by typing text. Some users of the term distinguish between interactive fiction, known as "Puzzle-free", that focuses on narrative, and "text adventures" that focus on
puzzles.
Due to their text-only nature, they sidestepped the problem of writing for widely divergent graphics architectures. This feature meant that interactive fiction games were easily ported across all the popular platforms at the time, including
CP/M (not known for gaming or strong graphics capabilities). The number of interactive fiction works is increasing steadily as new ones are produced by an online community, using freely available development systems.
The term can also be used to refer to analogue versions of literary works that are not read in a linear fashion, known as
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 ...
s, where the reader is instead given choices at different points in the text; these decisions determine the flow and outcome of the story. The most famous example of this form of printed fiction is the ''
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 ...
'' book series, and the collaborative "" format has also been described as a form of interactive fiction. The term "interactive fiction" is sometimes used also to refer to
visual novel
A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...
s, a type of
interactive narrative
Interactive storytelling (also known as interactive drama) is a form of digital entertainment in which the storyline is not predetermined. The author creates the setting, characters, and situation which the narrative must address, but the user ( ...
software popular in Japan.
Medium
Text adventures are one of the oldest types of
computer games and form a subset of the
adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...
genre. The player uses text input to control the game, and the game state is relayed to the player via text output. Interactive fiction usually relies on
reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...
from a screen and on
typing
Typing is the process of writing or inputting text by pressing keys on a typewriter, computer keyboard, mobile phone or calculator. It can be distinguished from other means of text input, such as handwriting and speech recognition. Text can b ...
input, although text-to-speech synthesizers allow blind and visually impaired users to play interactive fiction titles as
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 there is audible and tactile feedback but not visual.
Audio games originally started out as 'blind accessible'-games an ...
s.
Input is usually provided by the player in the form of simple
sentences such as "get key" or "go east", which are interpreted by a
text parser
{{Refimprove, date=August 2007
In adventure games, a text parser takes typed input (a command) from the player and simplifies it to something the game can understand. Usually, words with the same meaning are turned into the same word (e.g. "take" ...
. 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 ZIL (
Zork Implementation Language
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 (called story files or Z-code ...
), could understand complete sentences.
[DeMaria, Rusel and Wilson, Johnny L. (2002) ''High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games'' McGraw-Hill/Osborne, Berkeley, Calif., p. 52, ] 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 designers, become immensely frustrating for players to navigate.
Interactive fiction shares much in common with
Multi-User Dungeons
A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...
('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 are not possible in a single player environment.
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 point of view
Point of view or Points of View may refer to:
Concept and technique
* Point of view (philosophy), an attitude how one sees or thinks of something
* Point of view (literature) or narrative mode, the perspective of the narrative voice; the prono ...
, in
present tense
The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...
. 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"
[ This is a reformatted version of a set of articles originally posted to Usenet:] 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 tea chest" at the start of ''
Curses
A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular ...
'':
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.[ Nelson, Graham '']Curses
A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular ...
'', 1993.
Many text adventures, particularly those designed for humour (such as ''
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded a ...
'', ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it ...
'', and ''
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
''Leather Goddesses of Phobos'' is an interactive fiction video game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986. It was released for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Apple II, Macintosh, Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Commodore 6 ...
''), 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.
History
1960s and 70s
Natural language processing
Though neither program was developed as a narrative work, the software programs
ELIZA
ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, ...
(1964–1966) and
SHRDLU
SHRDLU was an early natural-language understanding computer program, developed by Terry Winograd at MIT in 1968–1970. In the program, the user carries on a conversation with the computer, moving objects, naming collections and querying the ...
(1968–1970) can formally be considered early examples of interactive fiction, as both programs used
natural language processing to take input from their user and respond in a virtual and conversational manner. ELIZA simulated a psychotherapist that appeared to provide human-like responses to the user's input, while SHRDLU employed an artificial intelligence that could move virtual objects around an environment and respond to questions asked about the environment's shape. The development of effective natural language processing would become an essential part of interactive fiction development.
''Adventure''
Around 1975,
Will Crowther
William Crowther (born 1936) is an American computer programmer, caver, and rock climber. He is the co-creator of ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' from 1975 onward, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of video game design and ins ...
, a programmer and an amateur caver, wrote the first text adventure game, ''
Adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...
'' (originally called ''ADVENT'' because a filename could only be six characters long in the
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
he was using, and later named ''Colossal Cave Adventure'').
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 wrote 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
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...
. Crowther's original version was an accurate
simulation
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the s ...
of part of the real
Colossal Cave, but also included fantasy elements (such as axe-wielding dwarves and a magic bridge).
Stanford University graduate student
Don Woods Donald Woods (1933–2001) was a South African journalist and activist.
Donald or Don Woods may also refer to:
* Donald Woods (actor) (1906–1998), Canadian-born American film and television actor
* Donald Devereux Woods (1912–1964), British m ...
discovered ''Adventure'' while working at the
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...
, and in 1977 obtained and expanded Crowther's source code (with Crowther's permission). Woods's changes were reminiscent of the writings of
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...
, and included a troll, elves, and a volcano some claim is based on
Mount Doom
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to ...
, but Woods says was not.
In early 1977, ''Adventure'' spread across
ARPAnet
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
, and has survived on the
Internet
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 '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
to this day. The game has since been ported to many other
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
s, and was included with the floppy-disk distribution of Microsoft's
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
1.0 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, 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
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...
in modern games, such as ''
Microsoft Minesweeper''.
''Adventure'' was also directly responsible for the founding of Sierra Online (later
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre ...
);
Ken
Ken or KEN may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Ken'' (album), a 2017 album by Canadian indie rock band Destroyer.
* ''Ken'' (film), 1964 Japanese film.
* ''Ken'' (magazine), a large-format political magazine.
* Ken Masters, a main character in ...
and
Roberta Williams played the game and decided to design one of their own,
but with graphics.
Commercial era
Adventure International
Adventure International was an American video game publishing company that existed from 1979 until 1986. It was started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a m ...
was founded by
Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is the creator of the syndicated '' Dilbert'' comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business. ''Dilbert'' gained natio ...
(not to be confused with
the creator of ''Dilbert''). In 1978, Adams wrote ''
Adventureland'', which was loosely patterned after (the original) ''Colossal Cave Adventure''. 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. That same year, ''
Dog Star Adventure'' was published in
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
form in ''
SoftSide'', spawning legions of similar games in
BASIC.
The largest company producing works of interactive fiction was
Infocom,
which created the ''
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded a ...
'' series and many other titles, among them ''
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...
'', ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it ...
'' and ''
A Mind Forever Voyaging''.
In June 1977,
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 commercially successful text adventure computer games, ''Zork''.
Career
Blank first encountered Don Woods and Will ...
, Bruce K. Daniels,
Tim Anderson, and
Dave Lebling
Peter David Lebling (born October 30, 1949) is an interactive fiction game designer ( implementor) and programmer who has worked at various companies, including Infocom and Avid.
Life and career
He was born in Washington, D.C., grew up in Mary ...
began writing the mainframe version of ''Zork'' (also known as ''Dungeon''), at the
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, directly inspired by ''Colossal Cave Adventure''. The game was programmed in a computer language called
MDL, a variant of
LISP. The term Implementer was the self-given name of the creators of the text adventure series Zork. It is for this reason that game designers and programmers can be referred to as an
implementer, often shortened to Imp, rather than a writer. 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
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 (called story files or Z-code ...
, a custom
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...
that could be implemented on a large number of platforms, and took standardized "story files" as input. In a non-technical sense, Infocom was responsible for developing the interactive style that would be emulated by many later interpreters. The Infocom
parser
Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lat ...
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'.
Infocom and other companies offered optional commercial
feelie
Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone''.
Infocom was founded on ...
s (physical props associated with a game). The tradition of 'feelies' (and the term itself) is believed to have originated with ''
Deadline
Deadline(s) or The Deadline(s) may refer to:
* Time limit, a narrow field of time by which an objective must be accomplished
Arts, entertainment, and media Comics
* Deadline (DC Comics), a fictional villain
* ''Deadline'' (magazine), a British ...
'' (1982), the third Infocom title after ''Zork I'' and ''II''. When writing this game, it was not possible to include all of the information in the limited (80KB) disk space, so Infocom created the first feelies for this game; extra items that gave more information than could be included within the digital game itself. These included police interviews, the coroner's findings, letters, crime scene evidence and photos of the murder scene.
These materials were very difficult for others to copy or otherwise reproduce, and many included information that was essential to completing the game. Seeing the potential benefits of both aiding game-play immersion and providing a measure of creative copy-protection, in addition to acting as a deterrent to software piracy, 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 be expanded 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.
1980s
![Mystery House - Apple II render emulation - 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Mystery_House_-_Apple_II_render_emulation_-_2.png)
United States
Interactive fiction became a standard product for many software companies. By 1982 ''
Softline'' wrote that "the demands of the market are weighted heavily toward hi-res graphics" in games like Sierra's ''
The Wizard and the Princess
''Wizard and the Princess'' (also ''The Wizard and the Princess'', with a leading article) is a graphic adventure game written for the Apple II and published in 1980 by On-Line Systems. It was the second title released in the '' Hi-Res Adventur ...
'' and its imitators. Such
graphic adventure
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...
s became the dominant form of the genre on computers with graphics, like the Apple II.
By 1982
Adventure International
Adventure International was an American video game publishing company that existed from 1979 until 1986. It was started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a m ...
began releasing versions of its games with graphics.
The company went bankrupt in 1985.
Synapse Software
Synapse Software Corporation (marketed as SynSoft in the UK) was an American video game development and publishing company founded in 1981 by Ihor Wolosenko and Ken Grant. It initially focused on the Atari 8-bit family, then later developed for th ...
and
Acornsoft were also closed in 1985. Leaving Infocom as the leading company producing text-only adventure games on the Apple II with sophisticated parsers and writing, and still advertising its lack of graphics as a virtue.
The company was bought by
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...
in 1986 after the failure of ''
Cornerstone
The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.
Over tim ...
'', Infocom's database software program, and stopped producing text adventures a few years later. Soon after Telaium/Trillium also closed.
Outside the United States
Probably the first commercial work of interactive fiction produced outside the U.S. was the
dungeon crawl game of ''
Acheton'', produced in Cambridge, England, and first commercially released by
Acornsoft (later expanded and reissued by
Topologika). Other leading companies in the
UK were
Magnetic Scrolls
Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game developer active between 1984 and 1990. A pioneer of audiovisually elaborate text adventure games, it was one of the two largest and most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s.
''Magnet ...
and
Level 9 Computing
Level 9 was a British developer of computer software, active between 1981 and 1991. Founded by Mike, Nicholas and Pete Austin, the company produced software for the BBC Micro, Nascom, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Oric, Atari, Lynx 48k, RML 380Z, ...
. Also worthy of mention are
Delta 4,
Melbourne House, and the homebrew company
Zenobi.
In the early 1980s
Edu-Ware
Edu-Ware Services, Inc. was an educational and entertainment software publisher established in 1979 bSherwin Steffinand Steven Pederson. It was known for its adventure games, role-playing video games, and flight simulators for the Apple II famil ...
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 1981, CE Software published ''
SwordThrust'' as a commercial successor to the
''Eamon'' gaming system for the Apple II. SwordThrust and Eamon were simple two-word parser games with many
role-playing
Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing a ...
elements not available in other interactive fiction.
While SwordThrust published seven different titles, it was vastly overshadowed by the non-commercial Eamon system which allowed private authors to publish their own titles in the series. By March 1984, there were 48 titles published for the Eamon system (and over
270 titles in total as of March 2013).
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
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colour ...
,
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 successful. The first Spanish interactive fiction commercially released was ''Yenght'' in 1983, by
Dinamic Software
Dinamic Software was a Spanish video game producer and publishing company. It was founded in 1983, and its activity ceased in 1992, comprising the Golden Era of Spanish Software. One year later, a part of its owners founded an independent compan ...
, for the ZX Spectrum. Later on, in 1987, the same company produced an interactive fiction about ''Don Quijote''. After several other attempts, the company
Aventuras AD
Aventuras AD was a Spanish video game developer, one of the most popular in Spain during the Golden Era of Spanish Software in the 1980s, specialized in text adventure games. It was created as a seal split from Dinamic Software in 1987 (''AD'' com ...
, emerged from Dinamic, became 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.
During the 1990s
Legend Entertainment
Legend Entertainment Company was an American developer and publisher of computer games, best known for creating adventure titles throughout the 1990s. The company was founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu, both veterans of the interactive ficti ...
was founded by
Bob Bates and Mike Verdu in 1989. It started out from the ashes of Infocom. The text adventures produced by Legend Entertainment used (high-resolution) graphics as well as sound. Some of their titles include ''
Eric the Unready'', the ''
Spellcasting
An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremo ...
'' series and ''
Gateway'' (based on
Frederik Pohl's novels).
The last text adventure created by Legend Entertainment was ''
Gateway II'' (1992), while the last game ever created by Legend was ''
Unreal II: The Awakening'' (2003) – a well-known
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
action game using the
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of g ...
for both impressive graphics and realistic physics. In 2004, Legend Entertainment was acquired by
Atari, who published ''Unreal II'' and released for both Microsoft Windows and Microsoft's Xbox.
Many other companies such as Level 9 Computing, Magnetic Scrolls and Delta 4 had closed by 1992.
In 1991 and 1992,
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...
released ''
The Lost Treasures of Infocom
''The Lost Treasures of Infocom'' is a 1991 compilation of 20 previously-released interactive fiction games developed by Infocom. It was published by Activision for MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, and Apple IIGS versions. It was later re-released on ...
'' in two volumes, a collection containing most of Infocom's games, followed in 1996 by ''
Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom''.
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
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 wa ...
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. As of late 2011, discussions between writers have mostly moved from
rec.arts.int-fiction
to the Interactive Fiction Community Forum.
One of the most important early developments was the reverse-engineering of Infocom's
Z-Code format and
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 (called story files or Z-code ...
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...
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 with the IF community produced 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
Text Adventure Development System (TADS) is a prototype-based domain-specific programming language and set of standard libraries for creating interactive fiction (IF) games.
History
The original TADS 1 was released by High Energy Software as ...
, a programming language designed to produce works of interactive fiction. In 1993,
Graham Nelson
Graham A. Nelson (born 1968) is a British mathematician, poet, and the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction (IF) games. He has authored several IF games, including ''Curses'' (1993) and '' Jigsaw'' (1995).
Educat ...
released
Inform
Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines. Versions 1 through 5 were released betw ...
, a
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
and set of libraries which
compiled
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...
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
The Interactive Fiction Competition (also known as IFComp) is one 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 pla ...
for short works, the
Spring Thing for longer works, and the
XYZZY Awards The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
, 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 that is developed is distributed for free, there are some commercial endeavors. In 1998,
Michael Berlyn
Michael Berlyn (born 1949) is an American video game designer and writer. He is best known as an implementer at Infocom, part of the text adventure game design team.
Brainwave Creations was a small game programming company started by Michael Ber ...
, a former Implementor at Infocom, started a new game company, Cascade Mountain Publishing, whose goals were to publish interactive fiction. Despite the Interactive Fiction community providing social and financial backing Cascade Mountain Publishing went out of business in 2000.
Other commercial endeavours include 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!,'' ''
Cypher'', a graphically enhanced cyberpunk game and various titles by ''Textfyre''.
Emily Short
Emily Short is an interactive fiction (IF) writer.
She is perhaps best known for her debut game ''Galatea'' and her use of psychologically complex non-player characters (NPCs).
Short has been called "a visionary in the world of text-based ga ...
was commissioned to develop the game ''City of Secrets'' but the project fell through and she ended up releasing it herself.
Artificial Intelligence
The increased effectiveness of
natural-language-generation in
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
(AI) has led to instances of interactive fiction which use AI to dynamically generate new, open-ended content, instead of being constrained to pre-written material. The most notable example of this is ''
AI Dungeon'', released in 2019, which generates content using the
GPT-3
Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. Given an initial text as prompt, it will produce text that continues the prompt.
The architecture is a standa ...
(previously GPT-2) natural-language-generating
neural network, created by
OpenAI
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. The company conducts research in the field of AI with the stated goal of promo ...
.
Notable works
1970s
* ''
Colossal Cave Adventure
''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the ...
'', by
Will Crowther
William Crowther (born 1936) is an American computer programmer, caver, and rock climber. He is the co-creator of ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' from 1975 onward, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of video game design and ins ...
and
Don Woods Donald Woods (1933–2001) was a South African journalist and activist.
Donald or Don Woods may also refer to:
* Donald Woods (actor) (1906–1998), Canadian-born American film and television actor
* Donald Devereux Woods (1912–1964), British m ...
, was the first text adventure ever made.
* ''
Adventureland'', by
Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is the creator of the syndicated '' Dilbert'' comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business. ''Dilbert'' gained natio ...
, is considered one of the defining works of interactive fiction.
* The ''
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded a ...
'' series by
Infocom (1979 onwards) was the first text adventure to see widespread commercial release.
1980s
* ''
Softporn Adventure'', by Chuck Benton, a popular adult game that inspired the ''
Leisure Suit Larry
''Leisure Suit Larry'' is an adult-themed sexual video game series created by Al Lowe. It was published by Sierra from 1987 to 2009, then by Codemasters starting in 2009. The first six ''Leisure Suit Larry'' titles, along with ''Magna Cum La ...
'' video game series.
* ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ''N ...
'', by Philip Mitchell and
Veronika Megler of
Beam Software
Krome Studios Melbourne, originally Melbourne House, was an Australian video game development studio founded in 1980 by Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen and based in Melbourne, Australia. Initially formed to produce books and software to be pub ...
(1982) was an early reinterpretation of an
existing novel into interactive fiction, with several independent non-player characters.
* ''
Planetfall
''Planetfall'' is a science fiction themed interactive fiction video game written by Steve Meretzky, and the eighth title published by Infocom in 1983. The original release included versions for Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, TRS-80, and IBM PC ...
'', by
Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1983), featured Floyd the robot, which
Allen Varney
Allen Varney (born 1958) is an American writer and game designer. Varney has produced numerous books, role-playing game supplements, technical manuals, articles, reviews, columns, and stories, as well as the fantasy novel ''Cast of Fate'' ( TSR, ...
claimed to be the first game character who evoked a strong emotional commitment from players.
* ''
Suspended'' by
Michael Berlyn
Michael Berlyn (born 1949) is an American video game designer and writer. He is best known as an implementer at Infocom, part of the text adventure game design team.
Brainwave Creations was a small game programming company started by Michael Ber ...
was an
Infocom game with a large vocabulary and unique character personalities.
* ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it ...
'', by
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), BBC radio comedy, ''The H ...
and Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1984), involved the author of the original work in the reinterpretation.
* ''
A Mind Forever Voyaging'', by Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1985), a story-heavy, puzzle-light game often touted as Infocom's first serious work of science fiction.
* ''
The Pawn
''The Pawn'' is an interactive fiction game for the Sinclair QL written by Rob Steggles of Magnetic Scrolls and published by Sinclair Research in 1985. In 1986, graphics were added and the game was released for additional home computers by Rai ...
'', by
Magnetic Scrolls
Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game developer active between 1984 and 1990. A pioneer of audiovisually elaborate text adventure games, it was one of the two largest and most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s.
''Magnet ...
was known for understanding complex instructions like 'PLANT THE POT PLANT IN THE PLANT POT WITH THE TROWEL'.
* ''
Silicon Dreams
''Silicon Dreams'' is a trilogy of interactive fiction games developed by Level 9 Computing during the 1980s. The first game was ''Snowball'', released during 1983, followed a year later by ''Return to Eden'', and then by ''The Worm in Paradise'' ...
'', by
Level 9 Computing
Level 9 was a British developer of computer software, active between 1981 and 1991. Founded by Mike, Nicholas and Pete Austin, the company produced software for the BBC Micro, Nascom, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Oric, Atari, Lynx 48k, RML 380Z, ...
(1986), a trilogy of interactive science fiction games.
* ''
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
''Leather Goddesses of Phobos'' is an interactive fiction video game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986. It was released for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Apple II, Macintosh, Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Commodore 6 ...
'' by
Steve Meretzky, a risqué sci-fi parody from
Infocom.
* ''
Amnesia'' (1987), by
Hugo Award and
Nebula Award winning science fiction and
fantasy author
This is a list of fantasy authors, authors known for writing works of fantasy, fantasy literature, or related genres of magic realism, horror fiction, science fantasy. Many of the authors are known for work outside the fantasy genres.
A
...
Thomas M. Disch
Thomas Michael Disch (February 2, 1940 – July 4, 2008) 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 nomination ...
, a text-only adventure published by
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
.
1990s
* ''
Curses
A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular ...
'', by
Graham Nelson
Graham A. Nelson (born 1968) is a British mathematician, poet, and the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction (IF) games. He has authored several IF games, including ''Curses'' (1993) and '' Jigsaw'' (1995).
Educat ...
(1993), the first game written in the
Inform
Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines. Versions 1 through 5 were released betw ...
programming language. Considered one of the first "modern" games to meet the high standards set by Infocom's best titles.
* ''
DUNNET'', by
Ron Schnell
Ronald Steven Schnell (born November 10, 1966) is an American computer programmer in Weston, Florida. He was co-founder of Mail Call in 1997 and the chief technology officer of Rand Paul's 2016 presidential campaign.
Life and work
Schnell ...
(1992
eLisp
Emacs Lisp is a Dialect (computing), dialect of the Lisp programming language used as a scripting language by Emacs (a text editor family most commonly associated with GNU Emacs and XEmacs). It is used for implementing most of the editing functio ...
port from the 1983
MacLisp original), surreal text adventure that has shipped with
GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a free software text editor. It was created by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project and a flagship project of ...
since 1994, and thus comes with
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
and most
Linux distributions
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
; often mistaken for an
easter egg
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...
.
* ''
Anchorhead'', by Michael S. Gentry (1998) is a highly rated horror story inspired by
H. P. Lovecraft's
Cthulhu Mythos.
* ''
Photopia
''Photopia'' is a piece of literature by Adam Cadre rendered in the form of interactive fiction, and written in Inform. It has received both praise and criticism for its heavy focus on fiction rather than on interactivity. It won first place in ...
'', by
Adam Cadre
Adam Cadre (born February 5, 1974, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction.
Biography
Cadre's 1998 piece ''Photo ...
(1998), one of the first almost entirely puzzle-free games. It won the annual
Interactive Fiction Competition
The Interactive Fiction Competition (also known as IFComp) is one 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 pla ...
in 1998.
* ''
Spider and Web
''Spider 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, ...
'', by
Andrew Plotkin
Andrew Plotkin (born May 15, 1970), also known as Zarf, is a central figure in the modern interactive fiction (IF) community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other u ...
(1998), an award-winning espionage story with many twists and turns.
* ''
Varicella'' by Adam Cadre (1999). It won four
XYZZY Awards The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
in 1999 including the XYZZY Award for Best Game, and had a scholarly essay written about it.
2000s
* ''
Galatea
Galatea is an ancient Greek name meaning "she who is milk-white".
Galatea, Galathea or Gallathea may refer to:
In mythology
* Galatea (Greek myth), three different mythological figures
In the arts
* ''Aci, Galatea e Polifemo'', cantata by H ...
'', by
Emily Short
Emily Short is an interactive fiction (IF) writer.
She is perhaps best known for her debut game ''Galatea'' and her use of psychologically complex non-player characters (NPCs).
Short has been called "a visionary in the world of text-based ga ...
(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 character in an interactive fiction game.
Adam Cadre
Adam Cadre (born February 5, 1974, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction.
Biography
Cadre's 1998 piece ''Photo ...
called Galatea "the best NPC ever".
* ''
9:05'' by
Adam Cadre
Adam Cadre (born February 5, 1974, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction.
Biography
Cadre's 1998 piece ''Photo ...
. It is commonly seen as an easy gateway for people to get involved with interactive fiction.
* ''
Slouching Towards Bedlam
''Slouching Towards Bedlam'' is an interactive fiction game that won the first place in the 2003 Interactive Fiction Competition. It is a collaboration between American authors Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster. ''Slouching Towards Bedlam'' was fin ...
'', by Star C. Foster and Daniel Ravipinto (2003). Set in a
steampunk setting, the game integrates meta-game functionality (saving, restoring, restarting) into the game world itself. The game won four
XYZZY Awards The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
.
* ''
The Dreamhold
''The Dreamhold'' is an interactive fiction game by Andrew Plotkin released in 2004. Its primary purpose is to be a tutorial to interactive fiction, and because of that the "core" of the game is relatively easy to finish.
As an attempt to make i ...
'', by Andrew Plotkin (2004). Designed as a tutorial game for those new to IF, it provides an extensive help section.
* ''
Façade
A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'.
In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...
'' by Michael Mateas, Andrew Stern and John Grieve (2005). An interactive drama using
natural language processing.
* ''
Fallen London'', also known as ''
Echo Bazaar
''Fallen London'', originally ''Echo Bazaar'', is a browser-based interactive narrative game developed by Failbetter Games and set in "Fallen London", an alternative Victorian London with gothic overtones. The franchise subsequently expanded t ...
'', an open-world work of interactive fiction, by
Failbetter Games
Failbetter Games is a British video game developer and interactive fiction studio based in London.
History
Founded in 2009 by Alexis Kennedy and Paul Arendt, Failbetter is chiefly known for its '' Fallen London'' Victorian Gothic franchise ...
* ''
Lost Pig
''Lost Pig'' is a comedic work of interactive fiction about an orc retrieving an escaped pig. It was created by Admiral Jota and released as freeware.
It took first place in the 2007 Interactive Fiction Competition with an average score of 8.2 ...
'' by Admiral Jota (2007). A comedic interactive fiction about an orc finding a pig that escaped from his farm. It won best game, best writing, best individual non-player character, and best individual player character in the 2007
XYZZY Awards The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of ''XYZZYnews''. Any game released during the year ...
.
2010s
* ''
Howling Dogs
''Howling Dogs'' is a Twine game and piece of interactive fiction created by Porpentine in 2012. The game is text-based and includes occasional abstract pixel art. In 2017, the game was included in the Whitney Biennial.
Gameplay
''Howling Dogs' ...
'' by
Porpentine (2012), hypertext fiction that explores escapism. It is considered one of the most prominent Twine games and was in the 2017
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
.
* ''
A Dark Room
''A Dark Room'' is an open-source text-based role-playing game. It was originally published for web browsers by Canadian indie studio Doublespeak Games on June 10, 2013. Later that year, it was released in the App Store for iOS devices. In 2014 ...
'' by Michael Townsend (2013), text-based mystery story and
idle game
Incremental games, also known as clicker games, clicking games (on PCs) or tap games (in mobile games), are video games whose gameplay consists of the player performing simple actions such as clicking on the screen repeatedly. This "grinding" ear ...
. The story is only told through environmental cues, rather than dialogue or exposition.
* ''
80 Days'' by
inkle (2014). An interactive adventure based on the novel by
Jules Verne, it was nominated by
''TIME'' as their Game of the Year for 2014.
*''
Depression Quest'' by
Zoë Quinn
Zoë Tiberius Quinn (born 1987) is an American video game developer, programmer, and writer. Quinn developed the interactive fiction game '' Depression Quest'', which was released in 2013. In 2014, a defamatory blog post by their ex-boyfrien ...
(2014). Text-based game in which players take the place of a character who is clinically depressed. The release of the game is considered to be the catalyst of the
Gamergate controversy
Gamergate or GamerGate (GG) was a loosely organized online misogyny, misogynistic online harassment campaign and a right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture. It was conducted using the hashtag "# ...
.
*''
AI Dungeon'' by Nick Walton (2019). It is notable for using artificial intelligence to dynamically generate an essentially unlimited amount of content.
Software
Development systems
The original interactive fiction ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' was programmed in
Fortran, originally developed by
IBM. ''Adventure''s parsers could only handle two-word sentences in the form of verb-noun pairs.
Infocom's games of 1979–88, such as ''
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded a ...
'', were written using a
LISP-like programming language called ZIL (Zork Implementation Language or Zork Interactive Language, it was referred to as both) that compiled into a
byte code
Bytecode (also called portable code or p-code) is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecodes are compact numeric codes, constants, and references (norma ...
able to run on a standardized
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...
called the
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 (called story files or Z-code ...
. As the games were text based and used variants of the same Z-machine interpreter, the interpreter only had to be ported to a
computer once, rather than once each game. Each game file included a sophisticated
parser
Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lat ...
which allowed the user to type complex instructions to the game. Unlike earlier works of interactive fiction which only understood commands of the form 'verb noun', Infocom's parser could understand a wider variety of sentences. For instance one might type "open the large door, then go west", or "go to the hall". With the Z-machine, Infocom was able to release most of their games for most popular
home computers of the time simultaneously, including
Apple II,
Atari 8-bit family,
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC, IBM Personal Computer XT, XT, and IBM Personal Computer/AT, AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such ...
s,
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...
/
PCW (one disc worked on both machines),
Commodore 64,
Commodore Plus/4
The Commodore Plus/4 is a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM resident office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, database, and graphing); it was billed as "the produ ...
,
Commodore 128,
Kaypro
Kaypro Corporation was an American home and personal computer manufacturer based out of San Diego in the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems (NLS) to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a ...
CP/M,
TI-99/4A
The TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A are home computers released by Texas Instruments in 1979 and 1981, respectively. Based on the Texas Instruments TMS9900 microprocessor originally used in minicomputers, the TI-99/4 was the first 16-bit home computer. ...
,
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
,
Atari ST, the
Amiga and the Radio Shack
TRS-80
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...
. Infocom was also known for shipping creative props, or "
feelies
Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone''.
Infocom was founded on ...
" (and even "smellies"), with its games.
During the 1990s Interactive fiction was mainly written with C-like languages, such as
TADS
Text Adventure Development System (TADS) is a prototype-based domain-specific programming language and set of standard libraries for creating interactive fiction (IF) games.
History
The original TADS 1 was released by High Energy Software as ...
2 and
Inform
Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines. Versions 1 through 5 were released betw ...
6. A number of systems for writing interactive fiction now exist. The most popular remain
Inform
Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines. Versions 1 through 5 were released betw ...
,
TADS
Text Adventure Development System (TADS) is a prototype-based domain-specific programming language and set of standard libraries for creating interactive fiction (IF) games.
History
The original TADS 1 was released by High Energy Software as ...
, or
ADRIFT, but they diverged in their approach to IF-writing during the 2000s, giving today's IF writers an objective choice. By 2006
IFComp
The Interactive Fiction Competition (also known as IFComp) is one 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 pla ...
, most games were written for Inform, with a strong minority of games for TADS and ADRIFT, followed by a small number 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
An authoring system is a program that has pre-programmed elements for the development of interactive multimedia software titles. Authoring systems can be defined as software that allows its user to create multimedia applications for manipulating m ...
usually depends on the author's desired balance of ease of use versus power, and the portability of the final product.
Other development systems include:
* David Malmberg's
Adventure Game Toolkit (AGT)
*
Incentive Software
Incentive 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 on the company's Freescape rende ...
's
Graphic Adventure Creator (GAC)
*
Inkle's
inklewriter
*
Professional Adventure Writer
Professional Adventure Writer or PAW (sometimes called PAWS for Professional Adventure Writing System) is a program that allows the user to write textual adventure games with graphic illustrations. It was written by Tim Gilberts, Graeme Yeandle a ...
*
Gilsoft Gilsoft was a British developer of video games and related utilities. The company was best known for developing the text adventure authoring tool '' The Quill'' and its successor, '' Professional Adventure Writer''.
History
Gilsoft was set up by ...
's
The Quill
*
Twine
Twine is a strong thread, light string or cord composed of two or more thinner strands twisted, and then twisted together ( plied). The strands are plied in the opposite direction to that of their twist, which adds torsional strength to the co ...
Interpreters and virtual machines
Interpreters
Interpreting is a translational activity in which one produces a first and final target-language output on the basis of a one-time exposure to an expression in a source language.
The most common two modes of interpreting are simultaneous interp ...
are the software used to play the works of interactive fiction created with a development system. Since they need to interact with the player, the "story files" created by development systems are programs in their own right. Rather than running directly on any one computer, they are programs run by Interpreters, or virtual machines, which are designed specially for IF. They may be part of the development system, or can be compiled together with the work of fiction as a standalone
executable file
In computing, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instructions", as opposed to a data fil ...
.
The Z-machine was designed by the founders of
Infocom, in 1979. They were influenced by the then-new idea of a virtual Pascal computer, but replaced P with Z for Zork, the celebrated adventure game of 1977–79. The Z-machine evolved during the 1980s but over 30 years later, it remains in use essentially unchanged. Glulx was designed by Andrew Plotkin in the late 1990s as a new-generation IF virtual machine. It overcomes the technical constraint on the Z-machine by being a 32-bit rather than 16-bit processor.
Frotz is a modern Z-machine interpreter originally written in
C (programming language) by Stefan Jokisch in 1995 for
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
. Over time it was ported to other platforms, such as Unix, RISC OS, Mac OS and most recently iOS. Modern Glulx interpreters are based on "Glulxe", by Andrew Plotkin, and "Git", by Iain Merrick. Other interpreters include Zoom for Mac OS X, or for Unix or Linux, maintained by Andrew Hunter, and Spatterlight for Mac OS X, maintained by Tor Andersson.
Distribution
In addition to commercial distribution venues and individual websites, many works of free interactive fiction are distributed through community websites. These include the Interactive Fiction Database (IFDb), The Interactive Fiction Reviews Organization (IFRO), a game catalog and recommendation engine, and the Interactive Fiction Archive.
Works may be distributed for playing with in a separate interpreter. In which case they are often made available in the
Blorb
Blorb is a package format for interactive fiction games. Many such games incorporate resources such as sound effects, music, or pictures. Blorb's purpose is to bind these together into one file. The format was devised by Andrew Plotkin and is use ...
package format
A package format is a type of archive containing computer programs and additional metadata needed by package managers. While the archive file format itself may be unchanged, package formats bear additional metadata, such as a manifest file or cert ...
that many interpreters support. A filename ending .zblorb is a story file intended for a Z-machine in a Blorb wrapper, while a filename ending .gblorb is a story file intended for a Glulx in a Blorb wrapper. It is not common but IF files are sometimes also seen without a Blorb wrapping, though this usually means cover art, help files, and so forth are missing, like a book with the covers torn off. Z-machine story files usually have names ending .z5 or .z8, the number being a version number, and Glulx story files usually end .ulx.
Alternatively, works may be distributed for playing in a
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
. For example, the 'Parchment' project is for web browser-based IF Interpreter, for both Z-machine and Glulx files.
Some software such as
Twine
Twine is a strong thread, light string or cord composed of two or more thinner strands twisted, and then twisted together ( plied). The strands are plied in the opposite direction to that of their twist, which adds torsional strength to the co ...
publishes directly to
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
, the standard language used to create
web pages, reducing the requirement for an Interpreter or virtual machine.
See also
* ''
Get Lamp'', a documentary about interactive fiction
*
Graphic adventures, adventure games with roots in interactive fiction.
*
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 ...
*
Interactive storytelling
Interactive storytelling (also known as interactive drama) is a form of digital entertainment in which the storyline is not predetermined. The author creates the setting, characters, and situation which the narrative must address, but the user ( ...
Notes
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.
*
* Seegert, Alf. (2009), "'Doing there' vs. 'being there': performing presence in interactive fiction",
Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds' 1: 1, pp. 23–37,
* Robinson Wheeler, J, & Kevin, Jackson-Mead (2014), "IF Theory Reader", JRW Digital Media.
External links
Interactive Fiction Database(IFDB), a community site where one can find personalized recommendations for IF games to play.
intfiction.org a forum dedicated to discussing IF
The Interactive Fiction Archive a large archive of free-to-download and play interactive fiction.
Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive a more user-friendly interface for the IF archive.
a timeline of events in interactive fiction history at the Brass Lantern website.
The Interactive Fiction Reviews Organization(IFRO), huge repository for text adventure game reviews written and rated by Interactive Fiction community players and members since 2004.
a beginner's introduction and setup guide to Interactive Fiction games and interpreters
The Interactive Fiction Wiki a MediaWiki wiki specific to Interactive Fiction.
Something about Interactive Fiction– MobyGames examines the history (and future) of this gaming genre.
*
{{Video game genre
Collaborative writing
Role-playing game terminology