Interactive Fiction

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Also known as text adventure games, interactive fiction (IF) has had a bit of a revival since its orginal era in the 1970s and 80s.

I can see a huge amount of potential in these kinds of games. I am probably more interested in the writing and theory side than in actually playing them. In a blog called Interactive Fiction Possibilities I explore future directions for IF.

Here is some research from when I was originally learning about interactive fiction:

• IF Gems, a collection of insightful quotes from the annual competition reviews.
• Past RAIF topics, a categorised list of threads in the old rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup.

In 2007 I wrote Suveh Nux for the One Room Game Competition, which received an award for best puzzles.

I also entered three games in a competition that year for extremely small text-based games, including a real time racing game and a logic puzzle.

Links related to interactive fiction:

• An Introduction to IF, especially useful for first time players.
• The Interactive Fiction Database which contains a lot of free games.
• The Interactive Fiction Forum, a great place to ask questions about games and game writing.
• The IF Wiki, a resource on all aspects of IF.
• Planet IF, an aggregate of various blogs related to interactive fiction.
• Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling, a blog full of useful and interesting articles about IF.

If you are interested in making a game of your own, there are many free IF creation tools, such as Inform 7, TADS 3 and Twine (for hypertext games).

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