
The joy of text – the fall and rise of interactive fiction - benbreen
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/22/interactive-fiction-awards-games
======
sp332
Andrew Plotkin has released a few IF games for iPhone
[http://zarfhome.com/](http://zarfhome.com/) He has a new one coming out soon,
_Hadean Lands_. [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zarf/hadean-lands-
inter...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zarf/hadean-lands-interactive-
fiction-for-the-iphone/posts) He wrote his own interface for playing IF games
on phones. It's called IosFismo and it's open-source, if you want to make your
own text-based game for iOS.
[https://github.com/erkyrath/iosfizmo/](https://github.com/erkyrath/iosfizmo/)

Edit: Some of those games are also playable online. The browser-based IF
interpreter is called Parchment, and it's open-source too.
[https://code.google.com/p/parchment/](https://code.google.com/p/parchment/)

~~~
logfromblammo
Back in 2000, I was working at a startup, and one of our rabbit trails was an
IF interpreter for z-machine games on mobile phones. At that time, you could
count on about 4 to 6 lines of text to be visible on a phone at any one time,
and text input was horrendously tedious. Our founder approached Andrew Plotkin
about licensing his games, and he was reportedly "kind of a dick" about it.
Considering the source, that might have been projection.

I shudder to think of what might have happened if that company actually turned
a profit from something, and this thing in particular.

~~~
zarfeblong
Hey. This is me. I hope I was not that much of a dick, but at that point I
wasn't interested in making money off old IF. I don't remember the specific
incident, though.

(I'm still not very interested in making money off _old_ IF, although I've
tried a bit of that. The Hadean Lands plan is to charge money for a _new_ game
which has never been released before.)

Other notes: we also have a Boston IF meetup group ([http://pr-
if.org/](http://pr-if.org/)).

The term "interactive fiction" dates from the early 80s, actually. Infocom
used it in their ads with the general theme of "We're more serious and
important than mere videogames." The term has been tussled back and forth over
the years; these days it's more of an umbrella term than a niche.

~~~
logfromblammo
I think you probably weren't a dick. You just said no to someone who was very
accustomed to getting what he wanted.

------
jmacdotorg
IFComp organizer here. Pleased to see some interest in IF and the competition
on HN!

I'll take this opportunity to say that the comp's judging period lasts through
November 15, and is open to the public; anyone who rates at least five games
via the website (at [http://ifcomp.org](http://ifcomp.org)) will have their
votes counted.

This is the IFComp's 20th year, and we have 42 new text games for you to play.
All of y'all are welcome to come join us!

~~~
akavel
...and most of the games in the competition are playable online in browser,
see:

[http://ifcomp.org/ballot#browse](http://ifcomp.org/ballot#browse)

------
akavel
By the way, it's highly noteworthy, for hackers/devs especially, that the
newest Inform programming language (Inform 7, a.k.a. Natural Inform), for
writing Interactive Fiction, is based on _natural language_ \-- i.e. "code
that reads like English." Thus, the mandatory Hello World looks like below
(copied from Wikipedia):

    
    
        "Hello World" by "I.F. Author"
    
        The world is a room.
    
        When play begins, say "Hello, world."
    

Really, I'm not joking! For more info, see:

[http://inform7.com/](http://inform7.com/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Example_game_2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Example_game_2)

What's even more surprising (at least to me), is that it actually seems to
work, and quite nice! And the feeling of writing in it is really awesome and
like nothing else. That said, it's not completely without quirks, obviously
(what hit me most, personally, were problems with backwards compatibility
between far away versions).

~~~
tjradcliffe
I've been playing around with this in recent months and while it does work,
it's a pretty deep language with lots of quirks (kind of like English,
actually...)

I recommend anyone who is interested in language design having a look at it,
as it is a unique and interesting variation on domain-specific languages that
sacrifices scalability and performance in favour of a certain kind of
accessibility and power.

I've been using Aaron Reed's "Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform7" as a
guide, which is as much about the nature of IF storytelling as the language
(which is well-documented in the standard IDE):
[http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Interactive-Fiction-
Inform-7/...](http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Interactive-Fiction-
Inform-7/dp/1435455061/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414055607&sr=8-1&keywords=aaron+reed+inform)

------
VonGuard
Anyone who is still interested in Interactive Fiction in the Bay Area, there
is a once-a-month meetup for enthusiasts: [http://www.meetup.com/sf-bay-area-
interactive-fiction/events...](http://www.meetup.com/sf-bay-area-interactive-
fiction/events/206248972/)

It's free, there's often pizza, and the group usually plays a few games
together on the projector, or hear artists discuss their work in-person. Come
down and play some games!

~~~
zem
ooh, playing games together on a projector is a lovely idea for a meetup! i
have fond memories of doing that in college, with friends crowded around a
monitor and playing through some of the ifcomp games. interactive fiction
lends itself nicely to that sort of group effort.

------
aidenn0
FYI the "Uncle Who Works For Nintendo" game that made the front page on HN
last week was created with Twine.

~~~
j_s
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8471580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8471580)

------
fsiefken
Around 2009 somebody came up with the idea of marrying Inform7 games with
multiplayer, he called it Guncho. I am not entirely sure how this differs from
regular MUD playing but I can imagine it's very nice if you want to explore
the same atmospheric 'realm' together. A realm that's easily build with the
excellent Inform7 natural language tools and world simulation. The only
obstacle is finding players to play the game. The platform is C# and open
source, I like the idea so much I'm installing it now on my own machine.
[https://www.guncho.com/](https://www.guncho.com/)

------
nugget
I played a text-based MUD called Federation II for about a year before I moved
over to a more popular title named Gemstone III, which was a sort of text-
based precursor to World of Warcraft, where you could run around and kill rats
and cast spells and such. I was obsessed with GS3 for a few years until my
early teens. It was no less addictive than Warcraft later became (at massive
scale), and back in the days when AOL was $3 per hour for dial-up, this was
not an inexpensive activity. Fortunately my parents wanted to support my
interests and for several years I received "AOL coupons" for all the usual
holidays, my birthday, and chores around the house. I'm glad they found a way
to make it work, because those experiences are what inspired me to learn how
to code - I wanted to make a virtual world just like the ones I fell in love
with playing. Most people I've talked to who never played them definitely
underestimate how immerse a text environment can be.

Here's a video that shows the medium for those are who may not have seen it
before:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJrC1xD4DM8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJrC1xD4DM8)

~~~
vertex-four
I'll note that Gemstone IV (same game world, same general idea) still exists,
and is one of only a handful of subscription MUDs that still exists. An
account is $15 a month.

~~~
dvanduzer
And Federation still exists, with the universe rebooted a third time:
[http://ibgames.net](http://ibgames.net)

Gemstone : World of Warcraft :: Federation : Eve Online

Their attempt to make the planet authoring tools more accessible by adding a
GUI wasn't the best idea, though.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
For those without an interactive fiction client you can read attack of the
yetti robot zombies[1] via http. This text stuff is really versatile; no
wonder it rose again.

[1]
[http://www.allthingsjacq.com/intfic_clubfloyd_20080703.html](http://www.allthingsjacq.com/intfic_clubfloyd_20080703.html)

~~~
akavel
For most of the games entering the competition, it's actually very easy to
play them online (without any need for a special client), see:

[http://ifcomp.org/ballot#browse](http://ifcomp.org/ballot#browse)

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Thank you, I'm going to apply at
[http://www.alethicorp.com/](http://www.alethicorp.com/)

------
sehugg
You might also take a look at inkle's 80 Days
([http://www.inklestudios.com/80days/](http://www.inklestudios.com/80days/))
to see how I.F. has evolved on mobile devices. Warning: There are a few
illustrations, but not too many.

------
ansible
It seems a lot of the IF games are based around old engines, or at least old
engine concepts. Don't get me wrong, I loved the old games back in the day,
the sense of exploring a large and unknown world was awesome.

I wonder what would be possible these days with a cutting-edge natural
language processing, and a game engine designed to run dozens of bots. Each
bot would have its own attitude, goals, behaviors, quirks, etc.

Aside from the occasional IF game, the height of NPC interaction these days
seems to be just picking a sentence off of a menu. Maybe you can blame the
rise of the consoles for that, but even so I think we could do better.

~~~
dvanduzer
Arguably, IF has _always_ been on the cutting edge of natural language
processing. I'd encourage you to take a look at what's possible with
inform7.com.

And as far as NPCs, versu.com is pushing the edge of AI for stories (sadly not
available for widespread use, though).

------
_pmf_
It's really a shame for mobile gaming that this does push hard in this
direction. [0] is one of the few developers who make great interactive fiction
for Android (and maybe iOS). Their "Sourcery" and "Sourcery 2" games are
really really nice (although terribly short).

What I'm missing is also a "Professor Layton"-like game.

[0] [http://www.inklestudios.com/blog/](http://www.inklestudios.com/blog/)

~~~
jmacdotorg
The "Puzzle Agent" games by Telltale Games are serviceable Layton-alikes, and
available on various PC and mobile platforms.

------
nsxwolf
Text adventures were magical to me in the early 80s when I started playing
them. My child mind had no idea how a computer program could do what it was
doing. I was talking to a machine, and it was talking back to me and taking me
on an adventure.

Then graphics came along and made them pretty much obsolete.

Then they got renamed to "Interactive Fiction", and, frankly, became a really
weird niche.

------
didsomeonesay
Has anyone tried to marry IF with voice recognition (+synthesis or recorded
content)?

I imagine it could be a wonderful experience, sitting with a headset, eyes
closed, and exploring this kind of world. Not unlike "pen&paper" role playing
games - even if you have to restrict your speaking to a limited vocabulary.

Does it exist? Any experiences?

~~~
csixty4
I tried it with Frotz when Apple added speech recognition to iOS. It was
really fun.

------
RevRal
I just want to take a moment to re-affirm that A Mind Forever Voyaging is a
great piece of Sci-Fi.

~~~
isxek
It is, and the fact that it's told in a medium like interactive fiction adds
much to its greatness.

------
cjlm
Reminds me of the new John Darnielle book [0]. Definitely makes me want to try
out some IF.

[0]
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374292086?pc_redir=1413707125](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374292086?pc_redir=1413707125)

------
mavhc
I wrote my first IF this year using
[http://textadventures.co.uk/](http://textadventures.co.uk/) although after a
while I had to download the desktop client to make things work.

------
ctrijueque
Lately, I'm using TextFiction[0] to play Zork on Android. It's a nice app.

[0][http://www.onyxbits.de/textfiction](http://www.onyxbits.de/textfiction)

------
GarvielLoken
Fallout series?

