In the same way a piece of technology named computer changed the ways of music
production and listening habits it also brought something completely new to the
important field of storytelling: Adventure Games or - more fitting - INTERACTIVE
FICTION. Along with the three other forms of narration, Books, Movies and,
somewhere inbetween, Comics, Interactive Fiction is in my view one of the biggest
achievements brought by the evolution of computers ever - and one of the most
underrated ones.

Possibilities unimagined opened up in the early 80ies and were exploited greatly
during the Golden Era of adventure games, but when the demand for fancy 3D-
graphics grew immanent in the mid-90ies the genre as a whole went down quite fast
and is almost forgotten now. So to bring back something to the common
consciousness that changed our ways of perceiving stories in such a profound way,
a few lines on INTERACTIVE FICTION theory here now. And of course some background
(and many downloads!) on all the classics of classics! Try some of these old
games, it'll be like reading a great book - but in a completely different way.
Incredible experience, well worth your time!

THE NEW PERSPECTIVE OF NARRATION

To those of you who never played/'read' Interactive Fiction: the whole thing is
nothing else but a normal book, with one (or sometimes several) protagonists,
characters, a story-yarn, surprising turns, etc., in electronic form. But - and
that's the real revolution! - the situation of storytelling changed completely.

For ages now you always had a narrator and a recipient, that's the classic
situation. But the Adventure Game - as first media ever - tore this fixed
seperation down and established someting new: narrator and recipient became one
and the same! You don't read about a hero, you ARE the hero, you make his/her
decisions and in this way write the narrative on by yourself, with your input
only. Thus the fiction becomes interactive.

CHAPTERS RE-ORDERED

So you just don't read the 'book' from beginning to end as usual, you read the
book in a stop-and-go process: only a certain input will reveal the next chapter
(like 'Open door with key' - A stair is leading down into a dark cellar, etc.).
Thus the chronology of the chapters you will read depends on the chronolgy of your
inputs. Everytime you re-play the game (or 're-read' the story) it will be a
little bit different, up to several alternative endings to the yarn! No book
whatsoever can produce that effect (with maybe one exception: the lexicon-novel)!

ROLLER COASTER vs. PLAYGROUND

There are commonly two big divisions for games: hardrail and softrail games.
Hardrail games have a clearly defined and visible storyline along which the
recipient is led, like the whole Jump'n'Run genre. It's like sitting in a roller
coaster, enjoying the ride, but following a given rail with no possibility of
going left or right. On the other hand softrail games let the player walk around
in a world with (more or less) no visible borders. Like on a playground you can
choose which single aspect of the story you turn to, looking for so-called
'subquests' within a broader frame. This applies to most Role Playing Games.

Interactive Fiction is then a best of both extremes, each single game going more
in one of those directions. The challenge for a good Adventure Game programmer is
to tell an interesting and gripping story while at the same time giving maximum
freedom of movement and decision to the recipient who still follows this given
story. To create the illusion of freedom within a set frame.

TEXT vs. PICTUTRES: INTERFACES OF NARRATION

Many die-hard-IF-fans complained about the loss of depth in the games when
computers were capable enough to relate the story with pictures and animations,
which in many cases (e.g. in the SIERRA games) was true. The prose in text-only IF
doesn't need any fancy graphics, it evokes a quality of pictures in your head
while simply reading the text that no graphics can ever match (try one of the
INFOCOM games - absolutely amazing!). On the other hand, with the point&click-
approach (instead of typing you build sentences by clicking on commandos and
objects in the picture) the games became much more accessible and the gameplay
more fun than hard keyboard work. Also - a point often forgotten - there's still
lots of prose contained in those next generation games: in the dialogues. While
text-IF contained almost no dialogues, character interaction became much more
important later on. Especially Lucasfilm developed this to absolute perfection
with their unmatched dialogue system, along with revolutionary gameplay. More
theory on the many novelties they brought here.

deep prose from TRINITY (Infocom, 1986)
click to read example!

THE UNDERRATED GENRE

The reason for the constant underrating of the genre ('It's just one of those
silly computer games...') is obvious: to really judge the quality of an IF-piece
you have to finish it - which can take 100 hours longer. So critics usually
perceive one small part of the story and conclude from that glimpse to the whole
thing. But nobody would write a book or film review after having read only the
first chapter or seen the first sequence. So the actual quality of IF and it's
endless possibilities are seldom grasped in full.

It's highly recommeded you click on to the next sections to read, play and
listen to all the classics! And don't worry, with the included walkthroughs you
won't take that long! ENJOY!

For further reading:

• Interactive Fiction: great essay by Nick Montfort from the University of
  Pennsylvania
• the IF-archive: loads of related material as well as ALL the games
• Neal Stephenson 'THE DIAMOND AGE': The young lady's illustrated prymer.
  Amazing ideas on eduacation with interactive fiction , all wrapped up in a
  fast paced SciFi-thriller by the man who brought you SNOW CRASH. A must!

Sources:

'GAMES ODYSSEY', a great German 4-part-documentary that was running on 3SAT here
in German Television some years back. Deep insights by: Tobias O. Meissner,