Games or Literature (Kira Littlefield)

Games that are a work of electronic literature can include interactive fiction. In Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg he states, “As we’ll discuss in this chapter, at least one genre of electronic literature, interactive fiction (IF) is directly derived from some of the earliest games made for personal computers — the “text adventure” games of the 1980s” (Rettberg, 87). Therefore a game with these aspects would be considered a work of e-lit. Keep in mind that this genre of electronic literature “has not only refused to die, but also over time developed a much richer corpus and legitimacy as a literary art form” (Rettberg, 103). In Good Literature Can Come in Digital Forms — Just Look at the World of Video Games by James O’Sullivan he states, “But good stories are not defined by their capacity to be infinite, but the extent to which they make us feel something, whatever their aesthetic confines” (O’Sullivan, 2019). Personally, I truly love this quote, as he is right, good stories make us feel something, no matter what they look like. Zork by Tim Anderson was truly interesting, personally I got stuck right at the beginning and had to try a few different commands to move forward. Learning the word choice patterns was also difficult. I would be interested to explore more pieces similar to Zork.

Photopia by Adam Cadre is an interesting piece of electronic literature. I found it similar to Zork with you having to type in order to navigate the story. Scott Rettberg says, “Although the interactor must work out a few elementary puzzles in order to complete the game (mainly of the simple pick-something-up/put something down variety), it has an essentially linear structure and is relatively simple to navigate (Rettberg, 97). I found Photopia and Zork to be similar in the way of navigation. Personally, I feel both Zork and Photopia take some getting used to in order to navigate.