Avry Week 4 - Interactive Fiction

Interactive Fiction (IF) and computer games became some of the first independent E-lit on personal computers in the 80s. Presently, computer games are an extremely large focus in the entertainment industry. IF is derived from some of the earliest games also known as "text adventure." The Zork series became one of the first to become famous in American homes. Rettberg compares the communities of other genres of E lit with IF. The IF community is developed largely independently of academic environments and formally organized groups such as the E lit Org. or the E-Poetry festivals. IF played a crucial role in expanding literature beyond just traditional texts by merging gaming and narrative in different ways. 
Most IF works are games in the sense that the interactor/player works toward a definable outcome - meaning the majority of the works can be won or solved. I chose to look at Counterfeit Monkey by Emily Short. Emily is one of the more prolific authors of IF. Counterfeit Monkey was published in 2012, as her other popular games were earlier in the 2000s. From what I explored, this IF is very confusing to me! It gives you very detailed directions, and you are sort of piecing together memories (it reminds me of Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse). The description of the "story" is not at all what I thought it was. Here it is, 

"Anglophone Atlantis has been an independent nation since an April day in 1822, when a well-aimed shot from their depluralizing cannon reduced the British colonizing fleet to one ship.

Since then, Atlantis has been the world's greatest center for linguistic manipulation, designing letter inserters, word synthesizers, the diminutive affixer, and a host of other tools for converting one thing to another. Inventors worldwide pay heavily for that technology, which is where a smuggler and industrial espionage agent such as yourself can really clean up.

Unfortunately, the Bureau of Orthography has taken a serious interest in your activities lately. Your face has been recorded and your cover is blown.

Your remaining assets: about eight more hours of a national holiday that's spreading the police thin; the most inconvenient damn disguise you've ever worn in your life; and one full-alphabet letter remover.

Good luck getting off the island."