Interactive Fiction: Reviving an Art Form

In 1985 the first computer game I owned was called "Zork III". It was developed by a company called Infocom, who was the most successful producer of commercial text adventures ever. In the 1980s, personal computers didn't have great graphics, and disk space was at a premium since no one had hard disks or cd-roms. So while programmers could throw together arcade games like "Frogger" that were small, if you wanted anything with a complex plotline you would need to leave graphics out.

Text adventures are plot-based games that for the most part lack graphics or sound. The areas of the game are described, much like a book, scene by scene. Consequently the authors of these games must be part programmer, part writer, to create a well-rounded game.

Possibly due to the lack of graphics, Infocom started to include special items in their packaging that came to be known as "feelies". These are real-world versions of things you might find in-game.

When you opened your Zork III game package, the game box was specially designed to stand upright so the big stone lettering "ZORK III" looked more impressive. Inside you would find an annual report from the Frobozz Co., an official-looking stock certificate, and a letter from the Chairman of the Board.

The commemorative Zork Trilogy package included a Zorkmid coin, featuring the likeness of Belwit the Flat. In the 1980s these cost Infocom about $.50 each. Due to their high cost, they were never reprinted for future versions. In 2001 a proposal to mint more Zorkmids was floated around, but due to the high cost of minting them and Activision's insistence they be sold at cost, the project was shelved before it came to fruition.

One of their best packaging efforts was the game "Suspect" that included a receipt for your costume (in the game you had been invited to a costume party), a business card with writing on the back, an invitation with a handwritten note inside and a letter from your editor.

The famous "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" game was written by prolific author Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide series, Doctor Who). It came with a button that said "Don't Panic", an order for the destruction of the Earth (written in Vogon), an order for the destruction of your house, a plastic bag containing pocket fluff, a plastic bag labeled "Microscopic Space Fleet" and a pair of protective sunglasses. Hitchhikers Guide was the funniest game Infocom ever released, and has the significance of the cooperation of an established author.

Those original Infocom games were written in something the programmers called z-code. In 1987 a group of programmers reverse-engineered z-code to create programs that would run those original game files on modern computers. A side effect of this was it became possible to create a programming language, called Inform, that would compile to new z-code story files. Thus was born the interactive fiction author hobbyist.

Over time, a variety of programmers have released different programming environments for writing adventure games. Some are very much like programming, but a few are point-and-click systems such as ADRIFT and Quest.

Some developers have extended what is possible in programming by developing what is called "natural language programming". This lets the programmer write what seems to be regular sentences, as opposed to obscure code. For example, in the natural language environment Inform 7, the following is valid code: "The oaken desk is fixed in place. The cargo trunk is an openable container."

For a while, it was important to write game interpreters for different computer systems, so you could play a game on your PC, Mac, or Linux machines. Recently though, there has been a movement to develop internet-based interpreters, which allows you to play these games on any computer that will run a modern web browser. This allows an author to develop a game that will run with a lot less effort by a potential user. All you need to distribute your game is give out a web location, as opposed to complex instructions for downloading an interpreter or installer.

As the Interactive Fiction community evolved, periodically the participants would suggest a competition. Sometimes these would have restrictions, such as within a certain environment like Quest-only or ADRIFT-only. Or they might be time limited, such as written in a certain time frame or played in a single room.

The most famous of these is the annual Interactive Fiction Competition (or IFComp for short). As of this writing, the 16th annual IFComp just wrapped up. This one is so prestigious within the group that they manage to raise prizes for the entrants. This year, the first place author won $500. Other prizes this year included choice of one product from the Adobe Creative Suite, a number of individual prizes with $100 in value, a book about IF design, and an offer to translate your game into German.

I personally have written several games, mostly using ADRIFT, the Adventure Runner Interactive Fiction Toolkit. One of these, "Menagerie!", won first place in an ADRIFT-only competition. Another, "A Party to Murder" was entered in the annual IFComp a few years back, but did not do all that well.

With CD-ROM distribution and the invention of the internet came the end of the text adventure as a financially viable product. Computer graphics improved to the point that realistic worlds could be created and simulated, giving birth to games in a new genre called "Massively Multiplayer Online". Some examples include Neverwinter Nights, Everquest, World of Warcraft.

Single-player text games merged with the technology introduced in chat rooms, allowing multiplayer text adventures called MUDs or MOOs. MUDs have enjoyed their own community and a degree of success, but have largely been taken over by the prevalence of graphical MMOs.

Console manufacturers, ever struggling to keep up with the growing market, have introduced multi-player functionality in their own games. Games can have multiple players against each other or cooperating. You can even chat via a headset to your buddies while playing single-player games.

All of these advances have led to the decline of the text adventure as a viable product. Recently there was a glimmer of hope when it was discovered you could run text adventures on smart phones. However, smart phones have advanced so quickly that technology has quickly surpassed developers ability to turn out reasonable text adventures to take advantage of this niche.

Will interactive fiction ever be accepted as a viable genre of literature? Who knows. It's hard to attract enough eyeballs to a game in order to make it worthwhile. The future of the genre is currently in the hands of hobbyists, the Sheldon Coopers of the world.