Interactive Fiction

 

The readings for this week helped me understand more about the different way to create fiction, like interactive fiction. The concept of interactive fiction being compared to computer games gave me more insight about the difference, even if they were invented from computer games as the beginning thought. For example, the adventure games had idea to include text to their games. You would type commands into the server and the compute would recognize, controlling the character to do that action or go down that track. This was the first introduction to interactive fiction. I feel like the community of IF is very unique and tries to find out the best way to create new programs that tells stories in different ways. The IF programs are always new and creative. Then I read James O'Sullivan's blog about good literature in digital form. I liked how he talked about walking simulators as literacy elements. And how that they remove the usual gameplay concepts, focusing more on the atmosphere and story. They are more interesting to non-gamers because it doesn't feel like it's like a game, which can be scary and too boring for those non-gamers. The reference I chose was Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin. This is a interactive game where you are a spy trying to collect more details about where they are, and why they are hearing voices. You play by typing in commands. It was kinda confusing at first. I didn't know what commands I was allowed to type and if they would work. I had met with some problems with the computer not knowing certain words, learning you have to be very specific. However, it is cool to try to find out more information.