You are Standing in an Article about Interactive Fiction

By Kevin Valliere (he/him)

“It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.”

- Zork (1977)

You could be forgiven if the thought of text adventures and interactive fiction (IF) conjures familiar tropes from a bygone era: massive teletype computers in smoke-filled rooms, bespectacled nerds huddled around a single terminal, and so on. But while it is true that the first of what we would now classify as “interactive fiction” were released in the late ‘70s (Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork, notably), the reality is that the same medium has not just evolved, but still thrives.

This year marks the 30th Interactive Fiction Competition (IFComp for short), begun in 1995 by Graham Nelson (IFComp - History, 2024). It originated on the proto-web - Usenet forums that were key to a great number of niche communities during the early years of the Internet - but has since evolved and spread to cover major forums, social media sites like Tumblr, and of course the game-hosting website Itch.io.

And all this time later, that ancient relic’s most recent iteration saw nearly 70 entries ranging from short, comedic games to hours-long parser epics, each of which is judged by dozens and played by further hundreds. It has very much moved past its early roots, and has become a potentially powerful tool for education and creativity in the process.

But I have a clear  bias: I both play and write interactive fiction in my spare time. So why might this all matter to an ECT student?

Let’s start by defining IF. Like many good artistic things, “interactive fiction” is tricky to nail down precisely.

According to the IFComp leaders, IF is, at its core, made up of “videogames [sic] whose player interactions center on the text” - the game displays the world via text, and the player responds by sending text back to it (IFComp - About IF, 2024). They further break IF down into a few categories:

• Parser IF: the most classic form, in which a command line is presented to the player and they are asked to input a statement like “go north” or “take candle.” Popular platforms: Adventuron, Inform 7.

• Choice-based IF: a sort of interactive story which generally uses multiple choice prompts to progress the story forward. Popular platforms: Choicescript.

• Hypertext IF: in which HTML and CSS are utilized to present a uniquely web-based interactive experience. Popular platforms: Twine, Ink.

Many modern hit video games like Citizen Sleeper, Disco Elysium, and Kentucky Route Zero are — or draw heavily from — IF. Visual novels, too, part of a massive genre in their own right, owe their framework to IF’s bones.

While IF has declined in popularity since its ‘80s heyday, its potential applications for ECT students most certainly hasn’t.

As a medium seen by many to be a relic, full-fledged studies of interactive fiction are scarce. However, there are nuggets of positivity to be found without much of a search.

To wit: a study about teaching digital fiction found that digital media and “Playable Fiction” can create more individualistic learning opportunities, as well as “naturally iterative and reflective” practices(Skains, 2019). Another researcher theorized that interactive fiction “could help [literature] teachers facilitate dialogic exchanges” and “collaboratively interrogate” a text’s meanings (Holdstock, 2021). You can even find it in readings for some of ECT’s core classes: one article from the Constructionist readings in  Foundations of Learning Sciences discusses how “social virtual environments like… MUDS” (which are essentially multiplayer parser games) offer “rich ground” to see how learners “project themselves into fantasy worlds…and work through ‘real’ issues” (Ackerman, 2004).

It takes little extrapolation to also see the potential for interactive fiction in fields like social studies and computer sciences. Imagine a literature project in which players not only read Shakespeare’s great lines, but are asked to type out in-character reactions demonstrating their understanding of the scene’s context. Or imagine something even bigger: a multi-departmental capstone project in which students first learn to code a text-based game, then design a game where they can relive major historical events, and perhaps alter their outcomes in real time. 

So what is an ECT student - especially, one who has never dipped their toe into IF - to do? 

Perhaps the best first step would be to acquaint oneself with what the modern IF scene currently looks like. To help you do so, I’ve compiled a few potentially helpful links and resources.

Interactive Fiction Competition 2024 Results. Here you can see the rankings of the 67 games which were entered into the 2024 IFComp. Each game’s description also comes with a helpful set of tags, like “Less than 15 minutes” or “Over two hours” or “Choice-based” to help you decide where to begin. This is a wonderful overview of the diversity of IF games being produced by amateurs. https://ifcomp.org/comp/2024 

• The Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB). Looking for more games? The IFDB is a repository of decades’ worth of IF games from thousands of creators. (Consider checking out prolific reviewer MathBrush’s profile for a more critical lens on current games.) https://ifdb.org/ 

• The Interactive Fiction Community Forums. In a nod to more classic online communities, the IntFic forums are still going quite strong. There are dozens of subheadings under which to discuss game reviews, development, and off-topic queries. https://intfiction.org/ 

• Adventuron (Text Adventure Engine). Think you’re ready to try making a game for yourself? Check out the education-focused parser engine Adventuron, which has a whole host of tutorials and documentation materials for you to peruse, plus an active Discord community for assistance. https://adventuron.io/ 

• Play Social Democracy by Autumn Chen. Looking for a challenge, or want to see serious IF at its peak? Check out this recent, award-winning game by author Autumn Chen in which you try and guide the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1928. An astounding blend of historical fiction and choice-based mechanics leads to a product that could easily be transferred to an educational setting. https://red-autumn.itch.io/social-democracy 

References

Ackermann (2004). Constructing knowledge and transforming the world. In Learning zone of one’s own: Sharing representations and flow in collaborative learning environments. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Holdstock, S. (2021). The Dialogic Possibilities for Interactive Fiction in the Secondary Academy English Classroom. Changing English, 28(4), 395–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684X.2021.1915747

IFComp - About IF. (2024). IFComp. https://ifcomp.org/about/if  

IFComp - History. (2024). IFComp. https://ifcomp.org/history/. 

Skains, R. L. (2019). Teaching digital fiction: Integrating experimental writing and current technologies. Palgrave Communications, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0223-z

Now that you've read this article, want to try reading the IF version here?