MetaFilter posts tagged with interactivefiction and games

A New Balance of Power

Iridic — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:56:58 -0800

Chris Crawford (previously) has released the beta version of his Storytron engine. The first demo? Balance of Power: 21st Century. If the new BoP leaves you pining for the original, check out Crawford's old games on the rejuvenated Home of the Underdogs.

Every scene must turn...

Pastabagel — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:46:05 -0800

The Wager: "I'll bet you that video games will never become a significant form of cultural discourse the way that novels and film have. I'll bet you that fifty years from now they'll be just as mature and well-respected as comic books are today," posits game designer Steve Gaynor. Responses and rebuttals. Aristotle wrote, "most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse." Literature and cinema have attempted to follow these ancient rules of story since their inception, and in the industry's infancy, some games embraced a form of second person narrative in which the player was acknowledged as the central character. But as the industry has matured, the focus has shifted to storyless worlds or tournament games whose open-endedness was precisely their selling point. (However, see also Portal (spoiler!)and System Shock 2) Does the interactive medium of video games inhibit the "structuring of incidents" requisite to form a cohesive narrative? Is the open-endedness in games precisely that which prevents their evolution into a culturally relevant artform? Or is the art-form "too new", the application of those time-honored rules to video games still being worked out?

It's that time again

Iridic — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 08:51:30 -0800

The Twelfth Annual Interactive Fiction Competition begins today. Non-contestants can take part in the proceedings by grabbing a torrent of the competing games and judging them over the next six weeks. If you're new to interactive fiction, Emily Short's "How to Play" will acquaint you with its conventions. And if you're enough of an I.F. expert that even a full slate of Comp games won't satisfy you, you can find every competition entry since 1995 archived at Baf's Guide.

Shadowkeeper — Wed, 03 Apr 2002 07:50:51 -0800

9:05 Remember back in the heyday of Infocom when you would routinely spend four or five days straight (subsisting on RC cola and beef jerky, only taking breaks to visit the john) trying to crack all the puzzles in Zork II or Suspended? Yeah, those were the days. Now, of course, you're a busy guy -- you can no longer devote entire weekends to the joys of text adventuring. That's why, today on your coffee break, you should play Adam Cadre's 9:05. Playing the entire game, from start to finish, should take you no longer than 10 minutes. But set aside a bit more time, because you'll probably want to play it again.