Interactive Fiction

  

     This past week, I've enjoyed experiencing with different pieces of interactive fiction, becoming both the reader and the player as I (unsuccessfully) explored Zork, The Bafflement Fires, and Howling Dogs by Porpentine Charity Heartscape. In Howling Dogs, I liked experiencing more with Twine, which feels infamous in this class, and thus I enjoyed exploring it further. Though I primarily enjoyed how Howling Dogs had elements of hypertext set in a broader, game-like environment (the player/reader's goal is to escape the "prison-like" black screen) I was initially drawn to Porpentine because Rettberg, in Electronic Literature, said that "Hypertext and interactive fiction had a baby and she named herself Porpentine Charity Heartscape." Very cheeky, Scott. 

      However, learning more about interactive fiction and the influence game-like programming has on electronic literature has made me question where the line is drawn: what is considered game, and what is considered literature? 

      A few years ago, I read Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow; to break it down simply, it is a novel about friends who create video games, but the games and worlds they create are rooted in storytelling. This was my first introduction to the nuance and complexity of video games - which seems arbitrary to have read in a book, but alas, I am an English major - and I feel this idea of  meshing storytelling and game pairs nicely with James O'Sullivan's article "Good literature can come in digital forms - just look to the world of video games." Sullivan enforces the idea that good video games can have elements of storytelling - just like good pieces of electronic literature can have elements of game - which leads me to think that being specific about what is game and what is literature takes away from the conversation about the actual piece itself. There is nuance, and overlap, and I think being concrete about what is literature ultimately limits creativity when it comes to storytelling. 

      Besides, even Rettberg understands the complexity of interactive fiction: "IF can however sometimes seem more like conversing via telegraph with a precocious chimpanzee who has worked out a compass and the possession of objects than conversing with an adult human."