Interactive Fiction 1

Introduction
Interactive fiction is a genre that uses elements of a video game and text in order to create a story. The story is narrated by the reader through different textual responses and commands, which dictates the outcome of events. Time only passes when a command is entered, and in many cases you can use the commands ABOUT, INFO, or HELP to get more information about the specific game. Unlike other computer games, Magnus Olsson explains how interactive fiction uses text adventures which utilizes places, characters, events, emotions, and people in a way that brings meaning into this genre of literature. There are obstacles and puzzles throughout the text that are meant for the reader to overcome, which brings the story to life and creates a non-linear experience. (Aviry) The idea of interactive fiction first came about around 1975 when Will Crowther was working at a company called Bolt Beranek Newman (BBN) where he created a textual simulation of a cave he had been to and explored. This idea was then picked up by Don Woods at the Stanford University and expanded into what became a popular computer game called “Adventure” or “Colossal Cave”. Since the creation of Adventure, people have developed interactive fiction in different ways. For example, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, four students created the game called “Zork”, a technological advancement that brought in the first interesting character. Early players of interactive fictions would not use the more lavish video machines because they were difficult to find in the late 1970s. They would use Teletype or other print machines to experience interactive fiction as ink on paper. Infocom and many other companies in the late 1970s and 1980s produced interactive fiction as the dominant form of entertainment software for the computer. Since then, interactive fiction has developed more and more into what it is today. (Brian)



Interactive fiction has many different features distinguishing it. One of the major features of interactive fiction that sets it apart from other electronic media is its unique writing style or language. For any action to happen in the game there needs to be input provided by the player and this input is usually in the form of short sentences or phrases. For example in the early forms of interactive fiction, instead of typing “I want to open the mailbox and read the letter” the player would have to type “open mailbox”, then “take letter” and finally “read the letter". This new language focuses more on verbs and nouns more so than any other words in a syntax. Later forms allowed players to combine commands such as “Take the egg and go north”. Because the game responds to the players in full sentences, this unique language only applies to the commands that the players input. (Heather)

Another major feature of interactive fiction is the output from the text, which, unlike a normal story, changes based on the players input. In interactive fiction, the reader can lead the story to have a different outcome, or outcomes, every time they play. A good example of this is found in the game Zork when the the player comes up to a tree that has an egg in it, the player can either leave the egg alone, pick it up, or drop the egg. Each action will cause a diferent outcome for the game. Remembering the details of each outcome is essential because there may be subtle hints that can come in handy later and the reader may not be able to go back and read them. Authors typically create a destined path that is the more standard direction to play the game with subtle hints, however, there may be a lot more to uncover when the player explores outside of those parameters. (Eric)

Lastly, a subtle, but highly important feature of interactive fiction is its ability to make the "first person perspective" more believable. In non-interactive fiction first-person narratives, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground or Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the reader is only such, and as a result they are unable to 'believe' that he or she is the character about whom the tale is written. Instead, they are inclined to believe that they are sitting by the character, hearing them recount their tale or that they are reading the memoirs of the character. On the other hand, a first-person work of interactive fiction allows the reader this commodity, especially in modern works such as Skyrim or a tabletop RPG, where the reader/player not only experiences the world through the eyes of the character that they are playing, but also decides what actions the character will take. It is this level of control that allows the reader/player to believe for a short time, if he or she so decides, that they are the character. (Kyle)

Group Members
Jordan Hampton

Brian Yu

Heather Patterson

Aviry Reich

Eric Sasso

Kyle Baird

Anchorhead (Jordan Hampton)
Anchorhead is an interactive video game written by Michael S. Gentry in 1988. It is called a Lovecraftian horror because it is inspired by the works and writing styles of H.P. Lovecraft; the game even includes a few of his quotes. The game is placed in November 1997 in a town in New England called Anchorhead, referenced from Star Wars. The main character, the protagonist, is an unnamed female and is the person the player is controlling. There is also the character of Michael, her husband, who she has recently, only a couple hours, had moved to this new strange town to live in a mansion that Michael had inherited through his family. While continuing to play there is a feeling of horror as if something bad is going to happen. Subsequently, the plot then takes twists and turns that the player never expected and the protagonist ends up trying to uncover secrets of the town and save her husbands life.



The game starts out giving you a general overview of where you are and what your story is and then spits you out on the steps of the realtors office whom you were supposed to meet but is, strangely, nowhere to be seen. From here, the player must know how to interact with an interactive fiction game or will get no where. One of the main features, as also mentioned in the introduction, is that the game uses the "natural-language text from the interactor and produces text in reply." What this means is that the player must type certain commands that contain mostly only verbs and nouns such as "knock on door" to produce a result. For me, this took a while to get used to because if the character is standing at a door and I type "knock" it should be common sense that I mean on the door. However, after a while I got the hang of it and found the experience that this media gave me very interesting.

Another feature of interactive fiction mentioned in the introduction that this game demonstrates is how depending on what the player puts in, the output from the game will be different. Such as, if I wrote, "walk south" I would get a different output than if I put, "walk north" because these two different commands would lead me to different places. The command "walk south" will almost always give me something different because depending where I am standing in the game south will always be somewhere different. However, some commands will always give me the same output such as "x file cabinets" which means I want the file cabinets described to me (for example: what they look like). The language that the game uses in the outputs is very distinctive. The words used are very sophisticated and have a specific tone that is both melancholy and spooky. This linguistic choice gives the reader an eerie feeling and makes them think as if they should constantly be looking over their shoulder.

The interactive video game of Anchorhead shows the potential of how great electronic literature can be because although it was written back in 1998 it gives the reader/player an incredible experience

that a great novel could. It takes you on a journey along with the character and the things you run into puts the thoughts in your head that the character would be thinking if this had been a book. Something that electronic literature does that "normal" literature does not do, however, is give the reader control. This is a great feature because while interactive fiction is normally geared towards a series of potential outcomes it still gives the reader a sense of power. The outcome that the player is trying to get towards in Anchorhead is to uncover the secret that the protagonist's husband's family is a demonic cult that runs this small town. Even more wild, an ancestor of Michael's is using sorcery to try to take over Michael's body in order to come back to life, which leads the player to try and save him. Anchorhead also engages the reader more because we have to put in the right commands to get to new places in the story or we'll just go in circles virtually. By putting the reader as the protagonist and having them be in charge of the action it changes the experience of reading by enhancing it.

Anchorhead is a fine example of electronic literature and as interactive fiction but drawing the line between if it is fiction versus if it is a game isn't necessary. It doesn't really matter which it is because trying to put Anchorhead into a category would be cutting the experience of the media short. Game elements are definitely included in Anchorhead such as the input/output, puzzles, and commands. However, fiction elements are also presents such as characters, plots, fantasy elements, and suspense. This same concept is applied to the question of whether you play interactive fiction or if you read it. In the case of Anchorhead you do both because you must play along with the story and put in commands but then you must read through the output to see what you can/should do next or the game won't understand your next input. My experience with this literature was both satisfying and frustrating. It was great to put a command in and see myself get somewhere and learn new things about my character. However, there was a lot of time spent with me walking around in circles not knowing where to go or what to do. It was also intriguing because I had never been able to interact with any type of literature before had I done this. I would definitely play around with Anchorhead more because, unfortunately, I didn't get to the end of the game which, based on the reviews, is a mind blowing and very satisfying one. It will take a lot more playing around with though and perhaps a few walk throughs because I still don't quite have the hand of it. Basically, interactive fiction is an awesome "genre" of electronic literature which I would recommend to others.

Suspended (Brian Yu)


Written by Michael Berlyn in 1983, Suspended is the sixth an interactive fiction video game published by Infocom. Similar to most Infocom interactive fiction video games, it was available on the more popular personal computers during that time, such as the Apple II, PC, Atari ST and Commodore 64. Suspended is created with a novel’s approach in the way it was made. The characters spend the entire time in a state of suspended animation rather than being free to move about and interact with the world inside the game directly. They can only interact by controlling the actions of a number of robot surrogates. The player's character has been surrounded within a facility that controls vital systems, like weather and transit controls, for an Earth-settled planet called Contra.

The character was supposed to sleep in a cryogenic suspension for the next 500 years, 20 miles beneath the surface of the planet, while the great Filtering Computers maintained all surface control systems. However, as the game opens, the character is awakened by a series of error messages. The facility has suffered disastrous damage from an earthquake, which has made the Filtering Computers severely unstable. Since then, the weather has become dangerously out of control, the food production has suffered, and the transportation system is continuously malfunctioning. This is beginning to cause many unparalleled accidents and causalities. The player has six robots to use fix this catastrophe. They must operate the robots strategically to bring the Filtering Computers back to normal. Each robot has a different insight of the world and offers the player specific abilities. Iris is the only robot with visual sensors, which can provide descriptions of locations and objects. Whiz is the most technical robot, which is used mainly for accessing a central library computer for information. Waldo has the most physical capabilities, which allows him to grab and hold objects. Auda is armed with sensitive audio receptors, which can provide the sounds and vibrations. Poet is a diagnostic robot that can sense a flow of electricity. Lastly, Sensa has the ability to detect magnetic and photon emissions. The player's mission is to repair the damages from the earthquake and restore the control systems to normal conditions before a group of group of people arrives at the facility to "disconnect" his mind, ultimately to be replaced by a clone and the player’s death.

Like many of the other interactive fiction titles, Suspended is both a sense of “reading” and “playing”. This game incorporates fiction in works of video gaming by providing a story or adventure where the player must interact with the fiction to complete it to find out what happens. Suspended is one of the harder interactive fiction games to play, as you need to focus on each robot and their abilities. In addition, this is similar to a novel because a person would need to understand the characters of the book so that he or she will not get lost. There is only one way to complete the mission in Suspended, like there is only one way to finish a novel. In comparison to other interactive fiction games like Zork, Suspended is far more difficult because there are more specific tasks that each robot must complete in order to restore order in the world. In Zork, the player controls one person and guides him on a journey to find treasure in which he can get lost or defeated. However, in Suspended, the player must take control of 6 different robots where they each have a limited ability and can only complete a certain task because they can do anything else. In the end, playing this interactive video game was difficult at first. You really need to know each robot’s special ability. However, I would not have been able to continue playing without a walkthrough.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Heather Patterson)
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction video game that is based on the sci-fi comedy novels of the same name written by Douglas Adams. The game is full of inside jokes and references that are only obvious to someone who is familiar with the original material. The game uses a few of the plo t lines from the series, starting with the introduction of Arthur Dent's character and the destruction of Earth by aliens to make way for an intergalactic super highway.

What is notable about this video game is that the author of the series of novels was also involved in this remediation. The game was designed in 1984 by Steve Meretzky and released through the software company Infocom. Douglas developed the ideas and program, while Steve Meretzky did the coding. It was one of the company’s first games and sold 350,000 copies.

The game that I played was the BAFTA award winning The Hitchhikers Adventure Game the 20th Anniversary Edition on BBC’s website. The game it’s self takes up only a small portion of the page on the website. In the upper left-hand corner there is a key that states “you are here” and in the beginning of the game the player is currently on earth. Underneath the key there is a direction key that lets the character move north, south, east, west and everything in between. In the middle of the screen there is a window of sorts that shows the room that the character is in.The picture of the room is simply drawn with little detail and it is black and blue colored. To the right of the window there is a compass, a circle that tells you how many moves you have made and a circle that contains the score. To the right of this there is an area that shows what you have acquired so far in the game. In the middle and bottom portion of the game there is the guide, which is where you put your commands and underneath this is where the commands and instructions from the game shows up.



The writing style of this game follows the traditional writing style of interactive fiction. The player still has to input commands that are in short sentences such as “turn on the light”. Although the game that I am playing is fairly new I am still not allowed to combine two or more commands into one sentence. For example I wrote “stand up and take the robe” the response I received from the game is “You used the word "take" in a way that I don't understand”. The response from the game is always in full sentences and often humorous in nature.

The game also seems to follow the first person narrative feature of interactive fiction. The player assumes the roles of some of the main characters starting with Arthur Dent. It should be noted however that it may be confusing for the novice player to determine which character they are playing but the player can input “who am I?” and the game will inform the player. Some of the commands that the player inputs are shown on the screen such as in the beginning the screen is black and after the player inputs “turn on the lights” the room is illuminated. These graphics allow the player to visualize better what is happening and therefore they are more able to believe that they are the character.

From what I was able to get through it seems that there is an overall plot that the game follows in the beginning which is the player has to meet up with Ford Prefect, and leave earth before its destruction. It did not appear that there were any other pathways or story-lines in this game. A large portion of the game is spent reacting to certain stimuli such as the bulldozer threatening to tear down Arthur Dents house and Ford Prefect discussing that the earth will be destroyed in 12 minutes.

This game certainly seems to fall into the grey area between literature and a video game. The game requires knowledge and strategy which is something that would be required of any video game, but it also requires using your imagination and reading, which is also required of any kind of literature. You cannot just read the game nor play the game, it is a combination of both that makes interactive fiction such an unique facet of electronic literature.

So Far (Aviry Reich)
So Far is an interactive fiction game that was written by Andrew Plotkin in 1996.During the same year this game was published it won Xyzzy Awards for Best Writing and Best Puzzles. There are two types of interactive fiction: graphic and text. Text adventures came first and this game is an earlier form that allows the reader the ability to tell the protagonist what to do, and the computer generates a response, which creates the story. Graphic adventures are told through pictures rather than text, which would be considered the more advanced way to interact with the game. While it was hard to specifically identify a plot there seemed to be a recurring theme for each location I came across to contain specific moods that extract a certain feel that was consistent with the characters around them and the protagonist (dark, sad, cold, warm).



The game starts by explaining the character is in a dark and hot theater in the midst of summer, and although he is there to watch Rito and Imita who are the main characters in the play he is more concerned about finding Aessa who was suppose to meet him there. In the beginning of the game there is consistent dialogue that revolves around the actual play taking place but also having directions given that help guide you through navigating the theater and other worlds that were discovered. I spent the majority of my experience being lost in the theater trying to figure out what the next step would be to enter into the locked doors in order to reach the people muffling and screaming. Like I mentioned earlier with the settings and moods accompanying one another, there seemed to be a positive correlation between what was going on in the play and how the character was feeling emotionally and physically. The usage of temperature surrounding the environments appeared to be key element as well. I began to notice that what appeared to seem like meaningless descriptions and explanations turned out to include hints and information that was extremely pertinent in the game. The line “a cool touch of air stirs past you” was consistently being presented early on in the game which seemed to have no meaning at all, but you learned it encompassed an event or person that was in trouble or obstacles coming ahead. While I was not able to complete the game, the intensity and realness of the game that was defined by its imagery and emotional ties created a sense of mystery and confusio that I have never experienced with literature before.

Electronic literature can be heavily criticized, yet experiencing this piece opened my eyes to the ability interactive fiction has to instill creativity and focus on the text that brings a whole new component to the readers experience. The involvement you play as a reader through solving puzzles and directing the story opens so many doors for how someone can experience literature even though it might seem to be a little unorthodox from a traditional standpoint. In a similar vein while to some So Far might appear to be a frustrating game, the mental capacity, creativity, and imagination the author has to have in order to properly execute this text can undoubtedly be considered a work of art. Just like a work of art, in the creation of a piece of interactive fiction the author has to be mindful of space, font, color, and images/graphics in order to generate a product that is admired and appreciated. Another part of interactive fiction to recognize is the game like features that are immersed within the literature experience. Firstly we can see in interactive fiction there are people who “win” and finish, and there are others that do not succeed to complete the whole story, which is obviously a main element of a game having winners and losers. Another element we find are the many obstacles and puzzles that are built in the text that requires the readers to complete in order to continue with the story. Just like in games there is always some type of obstacle that stands in the way of winning or ending a game. As a participant in a game or reading interactive fiction the person has some amount of control over certain aspects of the activity, and it might be more or less control depending on the game or literature. Having these game elements as a part of reading makes the experience more challenging and requires a lot more intellectual awareness and acuity. I think it also helps the reader become more involved and perceptive to the content of what is being read, because in order to solve things it demands an attentive read on everything even including the small details.



Overall, my experience with interactive fiction was an interesting experience that required a lot of patience and led to a significant amount frustration for not being able to complete the game. However, I was very intrigued by the amount of mystery and challenges I came up against, and it was an interaction with literature that was unique and something I would recommend for everyone to encounter at some point in their life. It gives you an appreciation for all sorts of literature and the ability to have a control that is not present in most texts.

Spider and Web (Eric Sasso)
Spider and Web is an electronic work of interactive literature written by Andrew Plotkin. When I begin the story, the character I am controlling is in an alley with no other explanations of how he got there. When I tried leaving the alley, there was a glaring light and the character is then in an interrogation chamber imprisoned to a chair. I soon learned that there were two stories occurring simultaneously; the present where the character was being questioned, and the past, which is what he was being questioned about. When I first started playing, the character has no items on hand, however, after a flash to the present, the interrogator shows you a metal rod that was on him when he got captured. When I continue telling my story, I figure out that I used this metal rod to get into the metal security door. One of the biggest challenges is distinguishing between fiction and truth and trying to figure out what the interrogators already know versus what they are trying to figure out. If they believe you are trying to confuse them or tweak the real story, they will kill you and you will not get through the entire story and never find out how you ended up where you are now.

The way in which Spider and Web is told could only work in this format of literature. Unlike classic novels which only have one outcome, interaction fiction stories typically have a number of different outcomes. Spider and Web, however, is limited to two different outcomes, either death or uncovering how you got into the interrogation room. While playing, I mocked the interrogator one too many times; and veered off track from the story and therefore was killed. A classically formatted book would not be able to update the story and switch between present and past based on what you were already interrogated about. This switch between past and present changes my entire experience of the reading. Periodically while I am in the past retracing my actions, there is a flash and I am back in the room. While in the interrogation room I get a lot of information about my past and the order in which I made my moves. Sometimes they even give me items I was carrying like the silver rod. Although this makes the game very linear, it still keeps my interest and keeps me wondering what is going to be through the next door or around the next corner.



Interactive is often confused for a game, however, it is actually a story. What distinguishes it from a game is the predetermined nature that the author wrote for. For the “player” it is all about input and output, while processing and remembering the story so you can advance. The main premise or feature of interactive fiction is also one of the largest challenges faced by the author. Although the author needs to have the reader get through the story and understand it, the he or she cannot

make it too linear or it will not be intriguing. At the same time, the author needs to give enough hints so the reader can get through the story. The author is in constant battle with the amount of information he or she should give out. In a game the creators want to give you as much information as possible so the player knows the next place too look, or where to go for their next mission. Overall, interactive fiction seems more difficult for the reader and writer of a classic novel; however, I do believe it is more cultivating for the reader because they get to help determine the characters outcome.

Lost Pig (Kyle Baird)
Lost Pigis a 2007 comedy text-based interactive fiction game, taking the form of Grunk's autobiography, and is played in the present tense from the point of view of Grunk who speaks in the third person and is controlled by the player/reader. Grunk describes himself as "Grunk orc. Big and green and wearing pants." Grunk works on a pig farm, and as the title suggests a pig is lost—Grunk's boss blames him for the mishap, and tells Grunk to not return without a pig. The player/reader controls Grunk through various simple sentences, similar to Zork, and many of these are included entirely for their comedic results. For example, one can type, "Eat Torch" to which Grunk replies, "Ow! That burn Grunk tounge." The player quickly realizes, based on his less than stellar vocabulary and his willingness to try bizarre things, that Grunk is not the most intelligent. Unlike other interactive fiction games that I have played, the player can not always do what he or she desires when playing Lost Pig. For example, if one tells Grunk to return to the farm without the pig, he refuses (at least I haven't been able to get him to do it). Experiencing an adventure from the perspective of an orc of meager intelligence is an unique experience that draws on the feature of interactive fiction of believably getting inside of the character's mind. In playing this game, one is able to see how Grunk interprets the world, and experiences the frustration that can come with limited intelligence. I experienced this frustration enormously, and in fact, due to the face that Grunk does not always present all available options to me, I had significant difficulty in progressing through the game without the assistance of a walkthough—something that I typically aim to avoid. I think this shows an important truth that those of us fortunate enough to pursue further education must realize—processing our world as thoroughly and as objectively as we commonly do is truly a blessing, and we must not squander it.

Lost Pig functions as a work of art and electronic literature in the fact that it provides the reader/player with an experience, and a story (albeit a simple one). According to the Collins Dictonary, Art can be defined as, "imaginative skill as applied to representations of the natural <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">world <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">or <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">figments of the <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">imagination," and Literature can be defined as, " <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">written <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">material <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">such as <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">poetry, novels, essays, etc, esp works <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">of <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">imagination <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">characterized <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">by <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">excellence of style and <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">expression and <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">by <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">themes of <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">general <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">or <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">enduring <span id="hotword" name="hotword" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: default;">interest." Both of these definitions are certainly met by Lost Pig—after all, the imaginary scenario is represented through text in a manner that is vastly different from, and arguably imaginatively, other interactive fiction games due to its comedic nature and unintelligent character. The game also satisfies the requirement of literature to be "characterized by excellence of style" not due to flowing sentences or impressive diction, but by the distinct lack of such in a consistent and believable manner. In this way, Lost Pig, while seemly a simple game using simple words and broken grammar, is a work of art and literature, and, if looked as closely, teaches lessons about being thankful for knowledge.