31: Interactive Fiction

The Short Game attempts to discuss an entire genre-defying medium of game design: text-based interactive fiction. That’s right, we’re talking about old-school text adventures, but also newer developments like Twine games and more interactive text driven games.

We discuss the history of interactive fiction, the interactive fiction scene today, and recommend a number of games that might be good for beginners or anyone interested in a good interactive read.

Please forgive our decrease in audio quality this week; we were traveling and recording under less-than-ideal conditions.

(Lots of) Links for this episode:

• Colossal Cave Adventure
• Zork
• Interview with the creators of Zork, in the form of a text adventure
• Infocom
• Feelies
• Planetfall Feelies
• Bureaucracy Feelies
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Infocom Adventure
• Twine – an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories
• Inform – a design system for creating parser IF
• IFComp – An annual celebration of new, text-driven digital games and stories from independent creators.
• Lost Treasures of Infocom for iOS
• IFDB – Interactive Fiction Database
• Emily Short on the IFDB
• Galatea by Emily Short
• Frotz for iOS – A great application for playing parser-based IF on iOS
• Child’s Play
• Savoir-Faire
• The Dreamhold – A free IF adventure designed for people who’ve never played IF before, by master IF designer Andrew Plotkin. Our highest recommendation for newcomers!
• Spider and Web
• Lost Pig
• Choice of the Dragon
• Counterfeit Monkey
• Creatures Such As We – IFComp winner, “A dating sim about how humanity connects through art, even out in the vastness of space.”
• King of Dragon Pass
• Fallen London aka Echo Bazaar
• Icebound
• Xyzzy Awards
• Spring Thing
• People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction – How to Play Card
• Brass Lantern – Beginners Page
• Inform (parser-based) Interactive Fiction Interpreters
• Hadean Lands by Andrew Plotkin
• 80 Days
• Blood & Laurels

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash