Week 5: What is interactive fiction? (Sydney)

    Chapter 4- Interactive fiction

    According to Rettberg, "interactive fiction is directly derived from 'text adventure' games of the 1980s", and the genre encompasses some common elements. These common elements within the game genre include the use of a "text parser", or conversational interface, the creation of a simulated world, the incorporation of riddles or obstacles to eventually "win" or "solve" the game, and the incorporation of NPCs or other clues to help feed the user information. Twine, as an open-access platform, combined generic conventions of hypertext and interactive fiction to advance these genres in the 2000s-2010s. Much like hypertext, interactive fiction is a multi-modal and interactive approach to storytelling.

    "Good literature can come in digital forms-- just look to the world of video games" by James O'Sullivan (2019)

    I had never heard of the term "walking simulators" before this article, but I can 100% see the appeal of them for casual gamers. Sometimes playing video games with niche objectives, huge maps, and linear missions can be confusing-- after all, how can the user progress if they don't know which obstacles to overcome, how to do so? The article says that, in literary games, you get to reveal the story as you play it... but you don't really get to make many choices or interact with the world as you do so. Literary games provide a nice middle ground for players, as it is incredibly frustrating to get stuck on a level of a game that you like and not be able to move on. Since literary games are still a more voyeuristic, passive media, I think it would be cool to see how they progress. Maybe there is a way to tell a compelling story while still having the user make choices about their interaction in the world, rather than simply walking through it.

    Zork (1979)

    Playing Zork was frustrating in that it was difficult to traverse the world while using only commands that the chatbot recognized. Some really helpful tools that I found were typing "help", "look (at)", and "info" as requests for more information. The Elizabeth Woyke article revealed that "embedded within [Zork] are clues about how the user can interact with and affect the story" and about "how to respond to and use commands without being heavy-handed and repetitive," but I think it's still difficult to decode what obstacle needs to be solved to progress. Although I was sometimes clued into what the bot wanted me to do, I wasn't sure how to do it. For example, I could tell that I needed to explore the world to find missing pieces of the puzzle, but I couldn't really tell what objects were important and where I was supposed to go. I especially found the directional aspect of the game confusing, as it was hard to think about where I was going when I typed "northwest" vs. "northeast", for example. All in all, I don't see myself being able to progress from where I got stuck (included in the screenshot below), but I'm glad I got to experience playing this game.

    Nothing You Have Ever Done Deserves Such Praise by Jason Nelson (2013)

    One of the reasons that I decided to play this game was because the format reminded me of games that I used to play or watch people play as a kid, many of which were in Platform Game or Flash Game formats and were easily played within browser tabs. This game is like none that I've ever played because it is obviously an absurdist piece... it's like playing a parody of Platform Games. Ignoring the insanity of this game, the controls reminded me of many games I used to play, watch, or talk about with my friends, and I identified with Rettberg's view that "games become focal points of nostalgia" for generations. Much like Rettberg talks about in this chapter, computer games have affected the "cultural identity" of the world in which I grew up, and a bigger part of my childhood than I'd like to admit was spent playing browser games and sandbox games like Minecraft. I quite liked interacting with this text, but it left a weird taste in my mouth after. Computer games, and digital texts in our increasingly online world, both unite and fragment the world as we know it. This absurdist game obviously exaggerated the over-the-top elements of this type of game, where everything that appeared on the screen--from graphics, to coins, to sounds in the background-- was too much at all times. I found myself questioning how digital games being at the forefront of society might deteriorate our attention spans and positive reinforcement for virtual rewards, but this is always a double edged sword. For as much brain rotting as video games might encourage, the player is also encouraged to explore independently, bond over the game with friends, and make core memories with them like I did. At least for me, games in my childhood allowed me to have a subject in common with my peers-- or as Rettberg puts it--"many of us are more likely to have played the same computer games as our contemporaries than we are to have read the same novels." I think this game brings an interesting psychological dichotomy to the discourse surrounding gaming. A screenshot of the ending level is attached below, which is pretty much indicative of the overstimulating nature of the whole game.