Eve's Week 5

I enjoyed reading about interactive fiction and game forms of electronic literature. I liked the use of the word “interactor” because as Rettberg explains, the role of the player/reader is very different in this genre than in other genres. One aspect that sets interactive fiction apart from other genres is that most of these works can be “won” or “solved”. I found this to be similar to hypertext in the sense that there are multiple options to choose from, but hypertext doesn’t always have a solid conclusion. I think that the finality of interactive fiction is very satisfying. It is a little bit hard to distinguish hypertext from a game, because many of these works have similar elements, but I think that games generally feel more written for the reader, while hypertext is more focused on telling a story.  

Rettberg writes that, “Finding the balance between the ludic pleasures of solving well-made puzzles and the pleasure of the text associated with reading a very good story is a real challenge for developers/writers of interactive fiction" (99). It seems that this form of electronic literature may take more skill than others because the writer has to create the game and write the story. If there is not enough effort put into writing the text, in may not count as interactive fiction.

When I played Zork, I had difficulty moving around and getting anything done. I found myself getting lost in a forest and every time I thought I got somewhere, it would tell me the item I found was locked or that I couldn’t continue forward, making me go back into the forest. If I were to play again I would probably look up some more information about how to play the game so that I could actually make some progress. 

I decided to take a closer look at Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin. I found this game to be very similar to Zork. It uses text commands to walk the player through the story, which follows a tourist (the character you control) through an interrogation. As the game progresses you learn more about the story and why your character is being interrogated. I did not get through the entire game, but I did make some progress. In Electronic Literature, Rettberg says that this game is difficult to play because it requires the use of very specific text commands, so I looked up instructions/hints to help me move along. The story was very interesting, but I wish it was easier to play. This game would be more fun and less frustrating if the text commands didn’t have to be so specific. I think that interactive fiction is more entertaining when the interactor has more options for what they can do.