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Interactive Fiction - IF

Interactive Fiction - IF

I just finished watching the documentary called, "Get Lamp" which covers how IF games started and died in the late eighties. Strangely enough we still do it here in a different way - play by post or text RPGs. Such early interactive fiction games were:

* Colossal Cave Adventure
* Zork I: The Great Underground Empire
* Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz
* Zork III: The Dungeon Master
* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

What are your thoughts about Interactive Fiction games, will there ever be a big market for them again or has rising generations fallen for visual games to the point that reading and imagining has no place in their schedule?

IF Fiction Interactive

I've been thinking about this lately, as a friend of mine that goes to "K-Fest", Kansas Fest, an annual retro Apple computer convention, gave out copies of Get Lamp, which I'd been aware was being made, years back, and had been looking forward to, but I haven not yet seen the documentary, but am looking forward to it.

I started my computer "life" on my Commodore 128 with Zork I, taking leaflets and elvish swords of great antiquity, opening trapdoors, killing trolls and dousing brass lanterns.

I loved it and Infocom, the biggest name at the time in IF, and made my own similar style games using my own parser interface written from scratch in Qbasic, and later learned of IF authoring languages using GUI interfaces like ADRIFT, but it was too much of a disconnect, using a GUI to design programs that require the user to type text and get text responses, it was a combination of depressing and frustrating, and I gave up and went on to other things.

I think and wish there was some way to get IF to make a comeback, and with these NOOKS and KINDLES I'm really surprised IF isn't taking off with breakout IF authors and multi-threaded top quality writing and multiple ending type novels, but maybe it is still to "gamey" to be taken seriously, which is too bad. I do remember that was the hope, so long ago, that exactly this time in our lives would arrive, essentially we would have electronic books like we do now, and you would be able to interact with interfaces like the ones we have, and if the book was written in the correct way, you could choose different paths for different endings. I think authors, and readers, are missing out.

As high-end as graphics get, they will never trump the mind for pure processing and resolution, and no matter how good the special effects of a movie, they will never meet the creativity and richness of imagination.

Interactive Fiction - IF Reviews RPG & Card Board

What of the 'problems' brought up by professors in Get Lamp is that the modern generation has a problem with reading, they just do not like to read and want everything visual hence the death of IF. Even with Play By Post games, some people struggle with reading, you can see that by the choices they make or their level of participation. Someone will write out something very descriptive about their character's actions and feelings while someone else will just turn up with a few lines like I kill the goblin and take the gold with nothing else to offer.

Rather off topic, but...
I actually have a script online to make this happen, but never got the time. It allows a group effort to work on a story, actions and so forth similar to share book but with more possibilities.

IF Fiction Interactive

While I agree there is a certain level of deficit in reading comprehension and willingness, water generally finds its own level, and people that read books and novels, as well as people that write, are the demographic for IF, and so the almost-exclusively-visual aspect people simply aren't going to go for much reading anyway, as you've noted with the play-by-posters, for example, here. The people that miss so many things and ignore and skim over the play by posts and get frustrated with them because they're slow or what-have-you, generally don't stick with it - they try them out to see what they are and decide they don't like them, which is good for everybody, really, or on occasion, you get some converts, also good.


Reading is never going to "go out of style", as it is a fundamental ability and necessity, and as such, a large or vital enough field that I think IF could still develop, even though overall it is comparably primitive to the special effects and polygons available even in cheap games now. I'm not saying IF could have ever, and especially now, ever near the overall popularity of TV or movies or video games, anymore than novels do, but they do still have bestsellers and such, and I think IF could have its own similar niche. I suppose there could even be audio-book versions of IF with our digital media being so accessible though I know even less about it.

Similarly, real-time chat rpgs are another aspect of this, as I've seen some people that play rpgs online that say they can't even stand the time it takes to use a chatroom or virtual tabletop to play an online tabletop rpg because it's "too slow", so they require voice-chat like over a messenger program, for instant feedback, so they don't have to type out and read what other people are saying and doing, but it's more like being at the table. For some people it is because of lack of English ability, some it is typing problems, possibly even physical disabilities, for others it is simply impatience, and others it is a strange need to recreate the "at the table" feel of everybody being there and pure spontaneous reaction and interaction, rather than having time to come up with smoother responses, and reading longer chunks of text.

Rather off topic, but...

I also had a program I started long ago, I wrote for the web, that another guy took over for me and redid a bit, designed to allow people to create their own collaborative story, open-ended. It is called DTAG (Decision Tree Adventure Generator) and his reincarnation of it looks quite a bit better than the rudimentary script I created, but I am still credited at the bottom. You might check it out, I'm pretty sure you can find it with the above keywords, maybe my name also, see if it's similar to yours.

IF Fiction Interactive

I remember playing some IF games on a TRS80 a long time ago. We were visiting a guy who had one in his basement. I had to hang while my parents met so he invited me to use it in the mean time. At first I thought it was kind of lame but I had nothing better to do so I tried to get into it. At first the commands were a bit hard to get because most of what I said to do wasn't understood. After awhile I started to get into it and started to be more interested in how far I could get. I didn't get too far because we had to leave but it was fun. I can understand how these game types didn't last long but I agree that Play By Post is a good replacement if not better replacement for them.

Interactive Fiction - IF

This is like probably way before my time what exactly are IF games is it like RPs but with old computers or something?

Interactive Fiction IF

IF is interactive fiction. Back when graphics weren't available on computers people played text games much like how we do play by post text games now except it was you against the computer or the storyline rather than another person.

Interactive Fiction IF Board Card & RPG Reviews

Cool I get it but I'm like seeing a big problem with that kind of game. If you're playing text only then the computer has got to give your actions some credit. If its just like up-down, kill-stop or something like that then it would be boring as heck.