Resources for Teaching Literature with Interactive Fiction

Resources for using interactive fiction, and in particular parser-based IF, in the literature classroom. Please contribute your own resources by creating issues or pull requests.

Orienting Students to Parser-Based IF

• Emily Short, "Welcome to Interactive Fiction" (http://inform7.com/learn/eg/dm/IntroductionToIF.pdf)
• Fredrik Ramsberg, "A Beginner's Guide to Playing Interactive Fiction (http://www.microheaven.com/IFGuide/)
• Original manuals for Infocom games (Infocom Documentation Project) (http://infodoc.plover.net/)

Useful Scholarly and Critical Readings

These works are useful in offering critical and theoretical perspectives on parser-based IF; they may be used in the classroom, in whole or in excerpts, to frame discussion of the form. They will also be valuable to instructors preparing to teach with IF for the first time.

• Espen J. Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). On parser-based IF, see especially ch. 5.

• Mary Ann Buckles, "Interactive Fiction as Literature," Byte 12.5 (May, 1987), 135-142. Available at Archive.org.

• Robert T. Kelley, "A Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike: Aesthetics and Teleology in Interactive Computer Fictional Environments," Science-Fiction Studies 20.1 (March, 1993), 52-68.

• Nick Montfort, Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003).

The list above is brief and selective. For an extensive, though dated, bibliography, see:

• Dennis G. Jerz, "An Annotated Bibliography of Interactive Fiction Scholarship" (http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/bibliography/index.html)

Another useful resource is a collaborative reader containing writing by students and practitioners of IF on both theory and craft:

• Kevin Jackson-Mead and J. Robinson Wheeler, eds., The IF Theory Reader, version 2 (Boston: > Transcript on Press, 2011). Available online at http://inform-fiction.org/manual/download_if_theory.html.

Finding, Acquiring, and Playing Interactive Fiction Games

• Interactive Fiction Database (http://ifdb.tads.org). A fairly comprehensive searchable database of interactive fiction in many forms. Non-commercial titles are often available for download directly from the site. (Some of these games may require the use of an interpreter; see the Interpreters page at IFWiki for details.)

• Archive.org – Software Library: MS-DOS Games (https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games). A selection of out-of-print games from the DOS era, playable in-browser. Note that students will not be able to save their games and return later if playing in this fashion.

Games of Potential Interest for Medieval/Arthurian Literature

Note that commercial games of the text adventure era often included some form of copy protection; it will often be necessary to consult the game's original manual for information. Fortunately, scans of these manuals are frequently available online, for instance at the Infocom Documentation Project.

• Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur (Infocom, 1989). At Archive.org. Play as the young Arthur seeking to recover Excalibur and displace the usurper Lot with Merlin's aid. Setting attempts to evoke post-Roman Britain; in-game bibliography cites historical influences.

• Lancelot (Level 9, 1988). At Archive.org. An ambitious attempt at adapting Le Morte Darthur, albeit one that is frequently challenging to play.

• Once and Future (Cascade Mountain, 1998). Download at IFDB. A late, ambitious game in which a Vietnam soldier travels to a post-Arthurian Avalon. Parts are thoughtful and intriguing, though many puzzles are arbitrary and difficult.

• Brimstone (Brøderbund, 1985). Download at IFDB. Inspired by medieval dream-visions and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Gawain must escape a visionary underworld. Part of a series of "electronic novels" that have literary aspirations; an accompanying book imagines the game itself as an ancient manuscript. Also notable among IF works for being written in the third person, and for having time pass independent of player action.

Resources on Creating Interactive Fiction

For having students create parser-based IF, I recommend Inform 7 (http://inform7.com), a full-fledged programming language that is written in a non-intimidating, natural language-style syntax that should appear accessible to students without any programming experience. Many of the resources below concern Inform 7. Before asking your students to create a game, I strongly recommend creating your own game to gain familiarity with how the system works, and sharing it with your students.

• Stephen Granade, "Write a Text Adventure with Inform 7," Brass Lantern (http://www.brasslantern.org/writers/howto/i7tutorial.html). Presents several basic elements of adventures in Inform 7, enough to create a simple game.

• Graham Nelson, Writing with Inform and The Inform Recipe Book, Inform (http://inform7.com/learn/manuals/). These are the two official manuals for Inform 7; you probably won’t refer to them online, as they are available through the Documentation tab in the Inform app. These books together compile all the information you need to create works of any complexity in Inform. Writing with Inform outlines the language and its components and capabilities, and is organized around the formal and technical components that make up the language; it explains the commands to make particular things happen, together with examples of the Inform source code that would create them. As Nelson says, it’s designed to be read from start to finish, although you may be able to dip in and out of it to answer specific questions as you get comfortable with the language. The Recipe Book, by contrast, is organized around things you’d want in your game: things, places, props, commands. It’s designed to show you how to solve specific problems, complete with code examples. It’s a valuable resource when you know exactly what you want to do but need examples of how to make it happen. The same examples are included in both books, but they are organized differently.

• Ron Newcomb, "Inform 7 for Programmers," The Interactive Fiction Wiki, originally published 6 Jan. 2009 (http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Inform_7_for_Programmers). As the name suggests, this guide is technically oriented and designed to appeal to those with previous programming experience. Whether or not you are comfortable with programming, if you can get past the terminology, it offers really useful guidance on some of Inform 7’s tools.

• Aaron A. Reed, Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7 (Boston: Course Technology, 2011). This book walks you through the creation of a full game in Inform 7. Though it’s designed to be read from beginning to end, it’s also a very useful reference; search or consult the index as you run up against specific problems.

• Dan Shiovitz, "How to Write a Great Game," IF Stuff (http://inky.org/if/great-games.html). An experienced IF author and developer’s reflections on what makes a work of interactive fiction successful, from plot design to characters to what commands to make available to the player. Includes a number of links to successful examples and to further reading.

• Emily Short, "Writing in Collaboration with the System," Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling, Oct. 29, 2014 (https://emshort.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/writing-in-collaboration-with-the-system/). See especially the section on "Parser IF." Reflects on how the tools you are using might influence writing; in the brief discussion of Parser IF, focuses especially on description and narrative voice.

• Carolyn Vaneseltine, "20 Recommended Interactive Fiction Games," Sibyl Moon Games, 5 Feb. 2015 (http://www.sibylmoon.com/20-recommended-interactive-fiction-games/). If you want to explore what modern interactive fiction has to offer, Vaneseltine’s list offers a great cross-section of games for different devices and in different formats.

• ---. "Welcome to Adventure: A Quick-Start Guide to Inform 7," Sibyl Moon Games, 3 Nov. 2015 (http://www.sibylmoon.com/welcome-to-adventure/). Yet another guide presenting the basics of Inform 7, this time by partially recreating one of the classic works of interactive fiction, Adventure (or Colossal Cave, or Colossal Cave Adventure as Vaneseltine has it).

Helpful Sites on Creating IF

• David Fisher, Interactive Fiction Possibilities (blog), (http://intficpossibilities.blogspot.com). Explores sophisticated possibilities for what the future of interactive fiction might hold, using today’s tools. Want to read about theoretical backgrounds that might lead to an ideally of tracking NPC emotions? This is the place to go. The ideas presented here tend to be quite ambitious, and implementing them would present real challenges, likely beyond what’s practical for the current project. But it’s very useful reading for thinking about how digital systems relate to the real world and what kind of things interactive fiction might be able to simulate.

• The Interactive Fiction Community Forum. intfiction.org (http://www.intfiction.org/forum/). One of the main online sources for discussing interactive fiction, especially its development. Includes a forum on Inform 6 and 7 development—today, mostly I7—where people can seek technical help on difficult programming questions, in addition to more general discussion of both authoring and playing IF.

• Emily Short, Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling (blog), (https://emshort.wordpress.com). Short is one of the most important voices in contemporary interactive fiction, having written several important games; she was also an important contributor to the development and documentation of Inform 7. Short has been especially influential on the way that IF authors think about dialogue, and some of her games are based largely or completely on conversation. Her blog is a great source for discussions of various aspects of interactive fiction; whatever the topic, odds are she’s said something smart about it. Recently, Short has been more interested in forms of fiction that aren’t based on the parser, but her discussions of narrative and computer systems remain extraordinarily valuable, and her older posts do have a lot to say about the kind of fiction I’m asking you to produce.

Some Especially Useful Inform 7 Extensions

Inform 7 has a library of extensions available that make it easier to add certain features to a game; they are available within the Inform 7 software or on the Extensions page. I suggested these extensions as particularly relevant to my students (and have included some of my annotations):

• Chris Conley, "Conversation Builder," v2. For use with Threaded Conversation. Allows you to interactively create dialogues for use with the Threaded Conversations extension. [Note that this may not run properly using the Go! button in Inform; you may have to release it and run it in a separate program in order to interact with it.]

• —-, "Threaded Conversation," v5. A robust system of conversation that can keep track of what various characters have said or known, as well as allowing conversational topics to flow from each other. Coding conversations for Threaded Conversations is complicated compared to simpler INSTEAD-based approaches, but can result in much richer dialogues, including the possibility of prompting the player concerning what subjects may be discussed. The easiest way to construct dialogue for use with this system is through Conley’s Conversation Builder extension.

• Nate Cull, "Planner," v2. Designed to help NPCs act independently by giving them goals coupled with a sequence of tasks to help them achieve those goals. If you want NPC characters that don’t just stand around waiting for the player character but do things on their own, this is a potentially interesting, useful extension.

• Eric Eve, "Conversation Framework," v12. Allows more robust conversations by allowing players to ask about objects and by introducing a new king called subjects. Uses Eve’s Epistemology extension to keep track of what the player does and does not know. I’ve found Conversation Framework’s usefulness limited and see more potential in Conley’s Threaded Conversation when dialogue will be a priority. Nevertheless, Conversation Framework might be well-suited to a story that takes the form of a quest, and it’s worth a look if you need more sophisticated conversation than INSTEAD rules will allow but don’t want something as complex as Threaded Conversation. Note that Eve has produced a series of additional conversation extensions that allow increasingly complex forms of conversation; realize, too, that the more complicated the system, them more time it will take to write and test.

• Eric Eve, "Epistemology," v8. Keeps track of objects that the character has seen or otherwise acquired knowledge of. Obligatory for use with Eve’s Conversation Framework, but could prove useful otherwise in a game where what the player knows will play an important role.

• AW Freyr, "Hybrid Choices," v1. Allows an interface inspired by Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books in which players select from a set menu of options. I haven’t used this extension; it looks difficult and clunky to me. But it allows a form of interaction in which the user selects from a preset list of options. You do have the option to present dialogue in this way; instead of using standard ASK or TELL commands, you could have the user talk to characters by selecting options from a menu.

• Graham Nelson, "Rideable Vehicles," v3. Creates a new kind of vehicle that can be ridden on instead of in—horses, for instance. Note that this extension provides two new kinds: rideable vehicles and rideable animals.

• Emily Short, "Mood Variations," v3. Makes it relatively easy to track character moods, in part by defining a new MOOD kind. Designed to use in conjunction with a conversation system to alter dialogue depending on mood. Can respond to the moods both of the player character and of NPCs. It’s very possible to do simple mood-tracking on your own. But if you’re looking at something complicated, Short’s extension might help simplify things for you.