MetaFilter posts tagged with interactivefiction

Interactive Fiction Competition 2009

empath — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:53:36 -0800

The Interactive Fiction Competition 2009 is underway. - Emily Short has been compiling reviews. Previous Winners. (previously).

Every Known Version of Every Infocom Adventure

not_on_display — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:32:00 -0800

Welcome to the complete online Infocom adventures page 0/0 >LOOK Here you can find and play online every known version of every Infocom adventure. What next? >▂

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.

Blueful

juv3nal — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:06:56 -0800

Blueful. Web-dispersed storytelling reminiscent of the some of the stuff in We Tell Stories to promote the free interactive fiction game Blue Lacuna from Aaron A. Reed, the creator of the excellent interactive fiction title Whom the Telling Changed. Caveat: the ending is only available (afaik) on a (free) postcard so if you don't feel comfortable giving up a mailing address, you won't see the ending.

IfComp 2008

These Premises Are Alarmed — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:44:50 -0800

The 14th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition has been released. History of the competition. Previously on Mefi. Emily Short reviews this year's entrants. Personal favorites from previous years: Lost Pig and Slouching Towards Bedlam

The Muse in the Machine

juv3nal — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:25:14 -0800

Robert Pinsky writing about Zork. Yes, I know its super old.

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?

Get Lamp

SpacemanStix — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:42:27 -0800

"GET LAMP is a documentary about Text Adventures (later Interactive Fiction), the storytellers who created them, and their unique place in the history of computer games." Although not completed yet (it will be soon, as filming was completed in October), this documentary will contain 76 interviews with people involved in the industry at the time, including Scott Adams (not the cartoonist), Marc Blanc and Tim Anderson (who both worked on Zork, one of the best known examples of the medium) . Here's a teaser trailer. And here are some fun representatives of the genre to play online.

I was cheering for Lost Pig, too.

flatluigi — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:46:30 -0800

To celebrate the results of this year's IF Comp, why not check out the entries on the new Interactive Fiction Database? Previously. Other IF Comps.

You haven't been eaten, until you've been eaten by a grue

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 01:02:20 -0800

Let's Tell a Story Together (A History of Interactive Fiction)

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.

Metafilter is a website. A website can be boring or interesting.

zabuni — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:08:36 -0800

Inform 7 Released. Inform is a language used for creating interactive fiction, and is one of the most widely used languages for this task. After several years of effort, Graham Nelson has released a new version of Inform, and is seeking to create a new way of creating IF, with natural language instead of traditional programming code. [more inside]

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Malor — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:07:41 -0800

You see a large shipping crate. It has been wrapped in chains and secured with a stout padlock. Curiously, each link is engraved with the letters "BSA." (more inside)

Artificial Intelligence

plep — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 09:44:58 -0800

Pygmalion stories in literature and art. The myth of the scuptor who fell in love with a statue and prayed for it to be brought to life.
Related :- Galatea, a piece of interactive fiction which allows you to interact with a interpretation of the living statue (by Emily Short); Wikipedia entry on the myth.

Save your healing potions

inksyndicate — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:53:26 -0800

Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks tried to do Choose Your Own Adventure books one better with D&D-style rules. These massively single-player games, released in Britain, absorbed '80s nerds into the kind of murky, dead-serious fantasy recently parodied by Trogdor, in a decade when interactive fiction was on the rise. A bunch of the Gamebooks are now available to play online. Hang on to those healing potions.

grumblebee — Wed, 18 Sep 2002 19:17:30 -0800

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...

SpaceBass — Sun, 19 May 2002 12:46:42 -0800

"Massively Multiplayer Online Entertainment." Our own AdrianHon has posted an interesting article to his weblog, dealing with this budding genre. Last year's AI movie web game tie-in was the first of a new breed of online interactive fiction, attracting thousands of players world-wide. Mr. Hon takes a look at the genre and puts forth some interesting ideas about where it could go. (more inside)

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.

tweebiscuit — Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:56:58 -0800

Remember Zork, Planetfall, and the other creations of late game company Infocom? Well, "interactive fiction," as the format is called, is still alive and well. Every year the IF community -- which is known for releasing work of quality far surpassing even Infocom's masterpieces -- holds a competition for short works, and this year's contestants have been released! Read this post's comments for more info...

grumblebee — Sun, 11 Jun 2000 21:36:11 -0800

If you are interested in interactive fiction, this is a MUST READ. By "interested" I don't mean you want to know about the latest cool games--I mean interested in IF as an artform, its possibilities, its future. NOTE: to understand this exchange, you only need to know that one of the authors is the developer of an interactive storytelling program called "erasmatron."