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I preferred the original placement and size of this image -- on my screen, the image is now right next to the TOC, and the effect is rather ugly. Why do you prefer it where it is now? — Adam Conover † 19:54, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Paul, are you aware that you are breaking Wikipedia policy by repeatedly linking to Westfront PC? See Wikipedia:Don't create articles about yourself. Self-promotion is not acceptable on Wikipedia. This also applies to HLA Adventure and Westfront PC, which are now listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Please stop spamming Wikipedia immediately. — Adam Conover † 02:33, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)
Dear Adam,
I was not aware of the self-promotion policy of Wikipedia. I apologize for posting Westfront PC links to the Interactive Fiction page. I do believe, however, that Westfront PC is noteable enough to be included on the list of "Noteable Works of Interactive Fiction". Therefore, my question is: is there a voting process for content on Wikipedia? If I truly believe something is worthy to be included (even if I wrote it), how do I vote for it to be included?
I didn't mean to cause any problems, I just wanted to suggest that I believe at least one of my games belongs on the list of "Noteable works of Interactive Fiction". I understand that Wikipedia is indepedent, so obviously if people vote and see that Westfront PC doesn't belong on such a list of Interactive Fiction, then obviously I must agree with them.
Sincerely,
Paul
Does anybody know how is called this kind of text based/if games?;
You are in the building.
1. goto west 2. take a key ...
Thanks! And btw sorry about my bad English...
To keep the "Notable works of interactive fiction" section from growing without end and ceasing to be useful, I've added brief notes about what makes each game notable. This should also make the section more useful by providing context. Noting games that are "firsts" with particular ideas, gameplay, or technical details is important.
That said, I'm considering removing some. I fail to see anything noteworthy about the " Gateway" games. " So Far" is famous, but I'm at a loss to note why it's noteworthy. Similarlly for " Varicella"; it's famous but doesn't appear to do anything specifically noteworthy. I'm planning on removing them soon. Before I charge ahead, I'd be interested in hearing opposing views; or just document in the article why the game is noteworthy.
-- Alan De Smet 01:28, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I believe Varicella is notable for its complex and detailed game world, and for requiring the player to restart and try again countless times to finish it.
-- Kwi | Talk 09:51, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
The current sample transcript is pretty lame, I think. It's hokey, and is more about Wikipedia than interactive fiction. I think the article would also benefit more from a transcript from an actual interactive fiction game. How does everyone feel about replacing it with a transcript of "Dungeon" (the public-domain version of Zork)? Adventure is another possibility, but Dungeon more accurately reflects the syntax used by modern IF. — Adam Conover † 19:03, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
Is (recently added) Bedlam really a notable work? I'm an IF fan, and I've never heard of it... I certainly wouldn't think it's more notable than others not mentioned, like Adventureland or Jigsaw. (Now, Slouching Towards Bedlam, on the other hand...) - GregoryWeir 8 July 2005 17:59 (UTC)
This was just added as a development system. It seems to be very new. Is anybody actually using this? ManoaChild 00:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Can we have more information on how to choose a game authoring tool that is right for you? It mentions for example Inform and TADS. Is one of those two easier to use or more effective? Or is one more popular or does one have a bigger or more active community of users?-- Sonjaaa 07:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Umm, that's completely wrong - both are actively developed and easy to use. I prefer Inform because it has excellent documentation and for some reason Inform games are more successful than TADS ones :) TADS 3 is said to be extremely powerful, but unfortunately it's not very well documented. Grue 07:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
As impressed as I was by Risorgimento Represso, I'm not sure it is notable enough to be on the very short list of notable games. Any opinions? - GregoryWeir 21:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I've removed QuantumLink Serial from the list of notable works on the grounds that it isn't IF at all. IF is (by the current definition), "...software containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters." Most notably, QLS wasn't software (it was written on the fly by Tracy Reed). Based on the description from QuantumLink Serial's page, it's more of a collaborative online fiction writing in which people beyond the author offered suggestions and guidance. Alan De Smet | Talk 20:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Façade (Interactive Story) - The curent definition of IF is "...software containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters." By and large that matches, but the only "control" you engage in using text commands is what dialogue your character will speak. Other actions (moving around the room, looking at things, hugging people) are all mouse controlled. While not strictly in the definition, I suspect most people would be surprised at IF that lacked text output. Facade lacks text output; all output is graphics and audio (primarily dialogue). Facade shared many goals with many works of IF, it's clearly trying to create a simulated environment. It's a fascinating experiment with ramifications for IF (and other types of gameplay). But I'm not sure it's IF. If Facade is IF, why isn't King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown and other early graphic adventure games that used text input? Alan De Smet | Talk 21:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
A well meaning robot-assisted edit trashed the formatting of the sample transcript. The transcript used "blank" lines that actually had a single space to keep the paragraphs of the transcript in a single block (which is correct). This isn't the first time that this has happened. Relatedly, relatively few IF players these days are looking at monospaced fonts on their screens. Most modern interpreters support the nicities of modern displays, with proportional fonts, anti-aliasing, and the like. Indeed, for many people IF looks a heck of a lot like a page of text, say, a web page. So I formatted the sample transcript as just nicely formatted text, not code. I think it looks more like what you average user sees, it's resistant to accidents like the above. Seems like a win all around. On the down side, the blockquotes I've used for indenting aren't quite accurate. The text is indented a fixed number of spaces. The blockquotes also add errant whitespace above and below. I can't figure out how to get what I want out of Wikipedia's syntax and would appreciate any one else who can fix it. Alan De Smet | Talk 04:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The description here says that "Photopia" was highly controversial, but the game's article does not descibe the controvery. Can someone add the nature of the controvery here and at the game's article? BarkingDoc 19:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
It looks like there is decent grounds to include the superlatives in the "Notable Works," and I agree that the games should have a description of why they are noteworthy, but it would be very helpful if those citations could be included in the article. Otherwise it looks like POV to the casual reader: the supporting link should appear direct after each statement. BarkingDoc 19:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
This article covers almost exactly the same territory as Adventure game. ---- Isaac R 05:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
-- Logomachist 07:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
The External Links could use some pruning. The non-English links leap out to me as being of questionable value. The current non-English sites listed don't appear to be generally important; they fill the same niche as English-language sites already linked. As this is the English-language part of Wikipedia, these seem to be of questionable value. They seem better fitting to the Spanish and French versions (as appropriate. I'm not against foreign language links, but they should provide value beyond "Just like the link above, but in Spanish." For reference, I'm currently referring to "* SPAC, a free online newsletter in Spanish." "* Club de Aventuras AD (CAAD), the portal of the Spanish interactive fiction community." and "* Sur Terre, interactive fiction in German and French." (I think the list needs even more pruning than this, but one step at a time.) Alan De Smet | Talk 04:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I redeleted the links to SPAC and CAAD for above reasons. I deleted the link to InformATE. Any reference to InformATE probably should go to the InformATE article, not an external web site. The InformATE article can link to the web site. InformATE is also awfully specialized; I'm not sure it should be mentioned here; it is better placed on the Inform page where it is already mentioned. Alan De Smet | Talk 22:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd like you to reconsider reinstating the spanisf IF sites links. It's true that this article is linked to its spanish wikipedia samesake, but the fact remains that this english article (unless I'm quite mistaken) is referenced by a more wide international comunity than the spanish one; hence the need for the spanish sites links. -- Sarmas 22:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. Following the logic that en.wikipedia.org is the most widely linked Wikipedia, we would need to include links in every major language, something that would cause the list to balloon out of control. Even limited to English language links the External Links section is a bit out of control. For those interested in Spanish language information, there is a Español link to Aventura conversacional directly to the left of the article (for people using the default theme). It's reasonable for someone looking for Spanish language resources to go to the Spanish language Wikipedia to find them. Alan De Smet | Talk 02:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I wanted to ask if Leather Goddesses of Phobos should be added to the list, and thought it might be a good idea to create, at the same time, a "general" section for such questions. Ever wonder 12:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Here's as good a place as any. :-) Anyway, ignoring that damn near everything Infocom published was noteworthy in some way, I don't think LGoP makes te cut. I'm pretty sure it's not the first racy IF. If you play the game, even in the "lewd" mode, at worst it's PG-13. The core game itself is Yet Another Scavenger Hunt (albet, that's part of the joke). It's not really discussed as an important point in the history of IF. In counterpoint, what do you think is noteworthy about LGoP that you think it might deserve listing? Indeed when we do add games, the initial "Why I think it's noteworthy" can provide the initial summary we need in that list. Alan De Smet | Talk 23:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Any anonymous user drive-by added a link to Malinche without explanation. (I hate that.) I added some context. On one hand it's arguably an advertising link. On the other hand, to my knowledge, Malinche is the only existing business doing for-profit IF development as an active business venture. There is some debate over the quality of Sherman's work, but I believe he's publically claimed the business is profitable. He's pretty minor league, but these days so is all of IF. So I propose instead of just deleting as advertising, we add a short section on the current state of commercial IF. There isn't much, but there is some (Malinche, obviously, as well as 1893, and Emily Short's contracted project). Alan De Smet | Talk 22:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Malinche is the only distributor of IF for iPods and Cell Phones, though one may wonder if their porting results in a true IF experience. azazoth | 20:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it probably should be mentioned, but in PC Gamer magazine one of his games was rated 19% out of 100% by a fan of IF. So all it would do is make IF look bad...—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.0.32.247 ( talk • contribs).
Jake Wildstrom did a good edit, removing some sketchy stuff and adding the useful information on Future Boy to the "modern" section. In the process he deleted the bit about Emily Short's "City of Secrets". I've readded it. I believe it to be relevant: it's the only modern documented case I'm found of a company (a band in this case) trying to invest in IF (for promotional reasons in this case). That it fell through is also interesting and may reinforce how difficult it is to mark real money on it. Maybe it's not useful enough, but I think it deserves a second chance and perhaps some discussion before getting deleted. Alan De Smet | Talk 21:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I hope it isn't terribly wrong of me to just mention Wikipedia:Sandbox/Storytelling#Text adventure game - At War with a Crossword Puzzle which I recently started. Might be fun! Ever wonder 12:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Any room for mentioning this interesting but bizare work by Victor Thorn called Return to Eternity, it sounds interesting. Here is the Amazon article.
For anyone who's interested, I created an Infocom userbox. It looks like this:
>get all | This user sorely misses Infocom and its works of interactive fiction. |
The code to include it on a userpage is: {{User:DynSkeet/Userbox/Infocom}}
Feel free to use it if it strikes your fancy. -
DynSkeet (
Talk)
20:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
While I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (computer game) is a great game, and it's an adventure game, it's not interactive fiction. I may be misremembering, but I believe the game relies heavily on graphics and (from memory) audio. Most of the interaction with the game is with the mouse, not text. If I've made the wrong call, please add it back and explain my mistake here. Alan De Smet | Talk 22:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
--- There should be the interpreter GARGOYLES mentionned! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.235.215.122 ( talk • contribs) 08:45, October 22, 2006 (UTC)
I assume you mean the Gargoyle interpreter? It's a fine interpreter and the one I use, but it's not really relevant. No other interpreters are listed on this page. Oh, and a suggestion: you can use ~~~~ to sign your posts. Alan De Smet | Talk 02:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
After looking at the article carefully, it occurred to me that (even though I am an IF fan myself) it fails to cite sources at some places and uses weasel words instead.
A fine example is the phrase "today, the games created by enthusiasts of the genre regularly surpass the quality of the original Infocom games".
Another example: "Infocom's games are now considered the classics of the genre, and the period in which it was active is thought of as the first golden age of interactive fiction."
Also, the "notable works" section is also affected. A "citation needed" is not enough to cover for phrases like "the game has earned notable praise for the vivid depiction ..."
As an IF fan, I know the above is very well true. But that does not mean that the article is immune to standard Wikipedia guidelines.
Therefore, I felt that marking the sections in questions with the weasel-tag is necessary. — Nikos 09:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
As regards this:
Secondary Definition Sometimes Interactive Fiction is used to describe a method of writing whereby multiple authors contibute sections of varying sizes to a story begun by a single author, often times in an Internet forum or by submission forms on a website.
I've never heard of this definition before. Can anyone back it up, or provide a few sources? How widespread is this use of the term? Adam Conover 02:01, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
I haven't heard that definition used widely, but there is a LiveJournal community that seems to use the term in that way [5].
However, in literary academia, "Interactive Fiction" is commonly used to refer to hypertext fiction and sometimes Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Less commonly, it is used to refer to collaborative writing exercises in which the line between writers and readers is unclear.
Oddly, Interactive Fiction in the sense addressed in this wikipedia entry is largely unknown or dismissed in literary academia. Montfort's book Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction [6] is a at least partially an attempt to introduce the academic community to IF in the sense of "text adventures" and set up a framework for discussing it in terms of literary analysis. It's also a very decent history of the craft.
For the hypertext fiction-centric meaning of the term, Montfort lists the following references (among many others):
Bolter, Jay (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and The Remediation of Print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
Howell, Gordon & Douglas, Jane Yellowlees (1990). The Evolution of Interactive Fiction. Computer Assisted Language Learning, pp. 93–109.
Moulthrop, Stuart & Kaplan, Nancy (1991). Something to Imagine: Literature, Composition, and Interactive Fiction. Computers and Composition 9(1), pp. 7–23. [7]
Naltrexone 08:22, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hmm. Perhaps we should change the "alternate definition" to something along the lines of "Interactive fiction is also occasionally used to refer to hypertext fiction"?
And yes, it is odd that interactive fiction is relatively unknown in literary academia, but I think you'd agree that this medium is still the one primarily associated with the term.
Adam Conover 17:19, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)
On the net, without doubt, yes. But, yes, it's probably worth updating the "alternative definition" link. Would you like to or should I? Naltrexone 20:11, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I got it. Thanks for your help -- hope you stick around! A few of us are trying to build up the IF resources on the Wikipedia... check out User talk:Marnanel for our discussion. Adam Conover 01:26, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
Putting "alternate definitions" at the bottom of the article is bad practice, by the way (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Bottom links). I've moved it to the opening. – Unint 22:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
This article is all wrong: interactive fiction should not be limited to textbased formats but cover all media formats. Most importantly it is not a single tool nor linking method. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Leisku ( talk • contribs) 02:56, December 20, 2006 (UTC)
This article falsely limits interactive fiction only to text based fiction which is not right at all. Interactive fiction can happen in audiovisual media too using video, audio, images etc. it can be produced on various platforms: eg in radio, television, on the internet etc. Hence, this article is in dire need of rewriting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leisku ( talk • contribs) 14:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Recent "fact" notation
Someone added a "fact" notation regarding alternate uses of the term "interactive fiction." A 2004 article in The New York Times began, "In 2001, an Internet game designed to publicize the movie A.I. inspired a new genre called Alternate Reality Gaming, or ARG, puzzle-centric interactive fiction that blurs the line between fantasy and reality." Charles Herold, "NEWS WATCH: GAMES; Blur Fantasy With Reality, And Wrap It in a Puzzle." 05 Aug 2004. A footnote in my DHQ article, "Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave" reads
The term interactive fiction has also been applied to hypertext literature (Howell and Douglas 1990), AI-based character simulations (Anderson and Holmqvist 1990), and, sporadically, as a synonym for “alternate reality” or “viral marketing” games (McGonigal 2007, 6 and http://www.immersivegaming.com)...
So that phrasing does need a bit of work. Dennis G. Jerz ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
What about adventure games with text parsers? Do those count as interactive fiction? Anything from Eric the Unready the King's Quest... Esn 22:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
To me, anything with a story where the user interacts with the game is interactive fiction. Text-based interactive fiction should have its own article- they're text adventures. Text adventures is a subcategory of interactive fiction. This article seems to assume that interactive fiction = text adventures. While that is a common use of interactive fiction (well, among the people who still use the phrase!), that's not really what it means. Alinnisawest ( talk) 22:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I can easily imagine future problems involving games like Myst that are very divorced from text yet retain all other aspects of the text adventure genre. Ultimately I fear that an article on the topic of text-based games will become diluted by non-text games simply as a result of its imprecise name. I think this doubly likely if we add a subsection on the history of the term "interactive fiction" to the article as you suggest below. I actually rather like your idea and would be very interested to know the history of the term, but it will inevitably broaden the scope of the article to include all of the genres I had discussed earlier as well as non-text ARGs (see above). Perhaps a workable solution is not to make "interactive fiction" a disambiguation page but rather to use it more as a summary page (like this example) containing all of the genres I have discussed (possibly even briefly including first person shooters, &c.). Thoughts?"What both usages have in common, however, is that they emphasize the narrative aspects of the interactive story. This emphasis I think will become the distinguishing feature of interactive fiction (if it isn't already), and will include any pre-written verbal narrative presented electronicly [sic] that shifts form according to the choices of the reader."
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
I preferred the original placement and size of this image -- on my screen, the image is now right next to the TOC, and the effect is rather ugly. Why do you prefer it where it is now? — Adam Conover † 19:54, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Paul, are you aware that you are breaking Wikipedia policy by repeatedly linking to Westfront PC? See Wikipedia:Don't create articles about yourself. Self-promotion is not acceptable on Wikipedia. This also applies to HLA Adventure and Westfront PC, which are now listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Please stop spamming Wikipedia immediately. — Adam Conover † 02:33, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)
Dear Adam,
I was not aware of the self-promotion policy of Wikipedia. I apologize for posting Westfront PC links to the Interactive Fiction page. I do believe, however, that Westfront PC is noteable enough to be included on the list of "Noteable Works of Interactive Fiction". Therefore, my question is: is there a voting process for content on Wikipedia? If I truly believe something is worthy to be included (even if I wrote it), how do I vote for it to be included?
I didn't mean to cause any problems, I just wanted to suggest that I believe at least one of my games belongs on the list of "Noteable works of Interactive Fiction". I understand that Wikipedia is indepedent, so obviously if people vote and see that Westfront PC doesn't belong on such a list of Interactive Fiction, then obviously I must agree with them.
Sincerely,
Paul
Does anybody know how is called this kind of text based/if games?;
You are in the building.
1. goto west 2. take a key ...
Thanks! And btw sorry about my bad English...
To keep the "Notable works of interactive fiction" section from growing without end and ceasing to be useful, I've added brief notes about what makes each game notable. This should also make the section more useful by providing context. Noting games that are "firsts" with particular ideas, gameplay, or technical details is important.
That said, I'm considering removing some. I fail to see anything noteworthy about the " Gateway" games. " So Far" is famous, but I'm at a loss to note why it's noteworthy. Similarlly for " Varicella"; it's famous but doesn't appear to do anything specifically noteworthy. I'm planning on removing them soon. Before I charge ahead, I'd be interested in hearing opposing views; or just document in the article why the game is noteworthy.
-- Alan De Smet 01:28, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I believe Varicella is notable for its complex and detailed game world, and for requiring the player to restart and try again countless times to finish it.
-- Kwi | Talk 09:51, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
The current sample transcript is pretty lame, I think. It's hokey, and is more about Wikipedia than interactive fiction. I think the article would also benefit more from a transcript from an actual interactive fiction game. How does everyone feel about replacing it with a transcript of "Dungeon" (the public-domain version of Zork)? Adventure is another possibility, but Dungeon more accurately reflects the syntax used by modern IF. — Adam Conover † 19:03, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
Is (recently added) Bedlam really a notable work? I'm an IF fan, and I've never heard of it... I certainly wouldn't think it's more notable than others not mentioned, like Adventureland or Jigsaw. (Now, Slouching Towards Bedlam, on the other hand...) - GregoryWeir 8 July 2005 17:59 (UTC)
This was just added as a development system. It seems to be very new. Is anybody actually using this? ManoaChild 00:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Can we have more information on how to choose a game authoring tool that is right for you? It mentions for example Inform and TADS. Is one of those two easier to use or more effective? Or is one more popular or does one have a bigger or more active community of users?-- Sonjaaa 07:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Umm, that's completely wrong - both are actively developed and easy to use. I prefer Inform because it has excellent documentation and for some reason Inform games are more successful than TADS ones :) TADS 3 is said to be extremely powerful, but unfortunately it's not very well documented. Grue 07:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
As impressed as I was by Risorgimento Represso, I'm not sure it is notable enough to be on the very short list of notable games. Any opinions? - GregoryWeir 21:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I've removed QuantumLink Serial from the list of notable works on the grounds that it isn't IF at all. IF is (by the current definition), "...software containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters." Most notably, QLS wasn't software (it was written on the fly by Tracy Reed). Based on the description from QuantumLink Serial's page, it's more of a collaborative online fiction writing in which people beyond the author offered suggestions and guidance. Alan De Smet | Talk 20:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Façade (Interactive Story) - The curent definition of IF is "...software containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters." By and large that matches, but the only "control" you engage in using text commands is what dialogue your character will speak. Other actions (moving around the room, looking at things, hugging people) are all mouse controlled. While not strictly in the definition, I suspect most people would be surprised at IF that lacked text output. Facade lacks text output; all output is graphics and audio (primarily dialogue). Facade shared many goals with many works of IF, it's clearly trying to create a simulated environment. It's a fascinating experiment with ramifications for IF (and other types of gameplay). But I'm not sure it's IF. If Facade is IF, why isn't King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown and other early graphic adventure games that used text input? Alan De Smet | Talk 21:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
A well meaning robot-assisted edit trashed the formatting of the sample transcript. The transcript used "blank" lines that actually had a single space to keep the paragraphs of the transcript in a single block (which is correct). This isn't the first time that this has happened. Relatedly, relatively few IF players these days are looking at monospaced fonts on their screens. Most modern interpreters support the nicities of modern displays, with proportional fonts, anti-aliasing, and the like. Indeed, for many people IF looks a heck of a lot like a page of text, say, a web page. So I formatted the sample transcript as just nicely formatted text, not code. I think it looks more like what you average user sees, it's resistant to accidents like the above. Seems like a win all around. On the down side, the blockquotes I've used for indenting aren't quite accurate. The text is indented a fixed number of spaces. The blockquotes also add errant whitespace above and below. I can't figure out how to get what I want out of Wikipedia's syntax and would appreciate any one else who can fix it. Alan De Smet | Talk 04:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The description here says that "Photopia" was highly controversial, but the game's article does not descibe the controvery. Can someone add the nature of the controvery here and at the game's article? BarkingDoc 19:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
It looks like there is decent grounds to include the superlatives in the "Notable Works," and I agree that the games should have a description of why they are noteworthy, but it would be very helpful if those citations could be included in the article. Otherwise it looks like POV to the casual reader: the supporting link should appear direct after each statement. BarkingDoc 19:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
This article covers almost exactly the same territory as Adventure game. ---- Isaac R 05:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
-- Logomachist 07:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
The External Links could use some pruning. The non-English links leap out to me as being of questionable value. The current non-English sites listed don't appear to be generally important; they fill the same niche as English-language sites already linked. As this is the English-language part of Wikipedia, these seem to be of questionable value. They seem better fitting to the Spanish and French versions (as appropriate. I'm not against foreign language links, but they should provide value beyond "Just like the link above, but in Spanish." For reference, I'm currently referring to "* SPAC, a free online newsletter in Spanish." "* Club de Aventuras AD (CAAD), the portal of the Spanish interactive fiction community." and "* Sur Terre, interactive fiction in German and French." (I think the list needs even more pruning than this, but one step at a time.) Alan De Smet | Talk 04:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I redeleted the links to SPAC and CAAD for above reasons. I deleted the link to InformATE. Any reference to InformATE probably should go to the InformATE article, not an external web site. The InformATE article can link to the web site. InformATE is also awfully specialized; I'm not sure it should be mentioned here; it is better placed on the Inform page where it is already mentioned. Alan De Smet | Talk 22:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd like you to reconsider reinstating the spanisf IF sites links. It's true that this article is linked to its spanish wikipedia samesake, but the fact remains that this english article (unless I'm quite mistaken) is referenced by a more wide international comunity than the spanish one; hence the need for the spanish sites links. -- Sarmas 22:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. Following the logic that en.wikipedia.org is the most widely linked Wikipedia, we would need to include links in every major language, something that would cause the list to balloon out of control. Even limited to English language links the External Links section is a bit out of control. For those interested in Spanish language information, there is a Español link to Aventura conversacional directly to the left of the article (for people using the default theme). It's reasonable for someone looking for Spanish language resources to go to the Spanish language Wikipedia to find them. Alan De Smet | Talk 02:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I wanted to ask if Leather Goddesses of Phobos should be added to the list, and thought it might be a good idea to create, at the same time, a "general" section for such questions. Ever wonder 12:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Here's as good a place as any. :-) Anyway, ignoring that damn near everything Infocom published was noteworthy in some way, I don't think LGoP makes te cut. I'm pretty sure it's not the first racy IF. If you play the game, even in the "lewd" mode, at worst it's PG-13. The core game itself is Yet Another Scavenger Hunt (albet, that's part of the joke). It's not really discussed as an important point in the history of IF. In counterpoint, what do you think is noteworthy about LGoP that you think it might deserve listing? Indeed when we do add games, the initial "Why I think it's noteworthy" can provide the initial summary we need in that list. Alan De Smet | Talk 23:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Any anonymous user drive-by added a link to Malinche without explanation. (I hate that.) I added some context. On one hand it's arguably an advertising link. On the other hand, to my knowledge, Malinche is the only existing business doing for-profit IF development as an active business venture. There is some debate over the quality of Sherman's work, but I believe he's publically claimed the business is profitable. He's pretty minor league, but these days so is all of IF. So I propose instead of just deleting as advertising, we add a short section on the current state of commercial IF. There isn't much, but there is some (Malinche, obviously, as well as 1893, and Emily Short's contracted project). Alan De Smet | Talk 22:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Malinche is the only distributor of IF for iPods and Cell Phones, though one may wonder if their porting results in a true IF experience. azazoth | 20:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it probably should be mentioned, but in PC Gamer magazine one of his games was rated 19% out of 100% by a fan of IF. So all it would do is make IF look bad...—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.0.32.247 ( talk • contribs).
Jake Wildstrom did a good edit, removing some sketchy stuff and adding the useful information on Future Boy to the "modern" section. In the process he deleted the bit about Emily Short's "City of Secrets". I've readded it. I believe it to be relevant: it's the only modern documented case I'm found of a company (a band in this case) trying to invest in IF (for promotional reasons in this case). That it fell through is also interesting and may reinforce how difficult it is to mark real money on it. Maybe it's not useful enough, but I think it deserves a second chance and perhaps some discussion before getting deleted. Alan De Smet | Talk 21:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I hope it isn't terribly wrong of me to just mention Wikipedia:Sandbox/Storytelling#Text adventure game - At War with a Crossword Puzzle which I recently started. Might be fun! Ever wonder 12:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Any room for mentioning this interesting but bizare work by Victor Thorn called Return to Eternity, it sounds interesting. Here is the Amazon article.
For anyone who's interested, I created an Infocom userbox. It looks like this:
>get all | This user sorely misses Infocom and its works of interactive fiction. |
The code to include it on a userpage is: {{User:DynSkeet/Userbox/Infocom}}
Feel free to use it if it strikes your fancy. -
DynSkeet (
Talk)
20:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
While I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (computer game) is a great game, and it's an adventure game, it's not interactive fiction. I may be misremembering, but I believe the game relies heavily on graphics and (from memory) audio. Most of the interaction with the game is with the mouse, not text. If I've made the wrong call, please add it back and explain my mistake here. Alan De Smet | Talk 22:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
--- There should be the interpreter GARGOYLES mentionned! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.235.215.122 ( talk • contribs) 08:45, October 22, 2006 (UTC)
I assume you mean the Gargoyle interpreter? It's a fine interpreter and the one I use, but it's not really relevant. No other interpreters are listed on this page. Oh, and a suggestion: you can use ~~~~ to sign your posts. Alan De Smet | Talk 02:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
After looking at the article carefully, it occurred to me that (even though I am an IF fan myself) it fails to cite sources at some places and uses weasel words instead.
A fine example is the phrase "today, the games created by enthusiasts of the genre regularly surpass the quality of the original Infocom games".
Another example: "Infocom's games are now considered the classics of the genre, and the period in which it was active is thought of as the first golden age of interactive fiction."
Also, the "notable works" section is also affected. A "citation needed" is not enough to cover for phrases like "the game has earned notable praise for the vivid depiction ..."
As an IF fan, I know the above is very well true. But that does not mean that the article is immune to standard Wikipedia guidelines.
Therefore, I felt that marking the sections in questions with the weasel-tag is necessary. — Nikos 09:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
As regards this:
Secondary Definition Sometimes Interactive Fiction is used to describe a method of writing whereby multiple authors contibute sections of varying sizes to a story begun by a single author, often times in an Internet forum or by submission forms on a website.
I've never heard of this definition before. Can anyone back it up, or provide a few sources? How widespread is this use of the term? Adam Conover 02:01, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
I haven't heard that definition used widely, but there is a LiveJournal community that seems to use the term in that way [5].
However, in literary academia, "Interactive Fiction" is commonly used to refer to hypertext fiction and sometimes Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Less commonly, it is used to refer to collaborative writing exercises in which the line between writers and readers is unclear.
Oddly, Interactive Fiction in the sense addressed in this wikipedia entry is largely unknown or dismissed in literary academia. Montfort's book Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction [6] is a at least partially an attempt to introduce the academic community to IF in the sense of "text adventures" and set up a framework for discussing it in terms of literary analysis. It's also a very decent history of the craft.
For the hypertext fiction-centric meaning of the term, Montfort lists the following references (among many others):
Bolter, Jay (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and The Remediation of Print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
Howell, Gordon & Douglas, Jane Yellowlees (1990). The Evolution of Interactive Fiction. Computer Assisted Language Learning, pp. 93–109.
Moulthrop, Stuart & Kaplan, Nancy (1991). Something to Imagine: Literature, Composition, and Interactive Fiction. Computers and Composition 9(1), pp. 7–23. [7]
Naltrexone 08:22, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hmm. Perhaps we should change the "alternate definition" to something along the lines of "Interactive fiction is also occasionally used to refer to hypertext fiction"?
And yes, it is odd that interactive fiction is relatively unknown in literary academia, but I think you'd agree that this medium is still the one primarily associated with the term.
Adam Conover 17:19, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)
On the net, without doubt, yes. But, yes, it's probably worth updating the "alternative definition" link. Would you like to or should I? Naltrexone 20:11, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I got it. Thanks for your help -- hope you stick around! A few of us are trying to build up the IF resources on the Wikipedia... check out User talk:Marnanel for our discussion. Adam Conover 01:26, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
Putting "alternate definitions" at the bottom of the article is bad practice, by the way (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Bottom links). I've moved it to the opening. – Unint 22:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
This article is all wrong: interactive fiction should not be limited to textbased formats but cover all media formats. Most importantly it is not a single tool nor linking method. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Leisku ( talk • contribs) 02:56, December 20, 2006 (UTC)
This article falsely limits interactive fiction only to text based fiction which is not right at all. Interactive fiction can happen in audiovisual media too using video, audio, images etc. it can be produced on various platforms: eg in radio, television, on the internet etc. Hence, this article is in dire need of rewriting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leisku ( talk • contribs) 14:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Recent "fact" notation
Someone added a "fact" notation regarding alternate uses of the term "interactive fiction." A 2004 article in The New York Times began, "In 2001, an Internet game designed to publicize the movie A.I. inspired a new genre called Alternate Reality Gaming, or ARG, puzzle-centric interactive fiction that blurs the line between fantasy and reality." Charles Herold, "NEWS WATCH: GAMES; Blur Fantasy With Reality, And Wrap It in a Puzzle." 05 Aug 2004. A footnote in my DHQ article, "Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave" reads
The term interactive fiction has also been applied to hypertext literature (Howell and Douglas 1990), AI-based character simulations (Anderson and Holmqvist 1990), and, sporadically, as a synonym for “alternate reality” or “viral marketing” games (McGonigal 2007, 6 and http://www.immersivegaming.com)...
So that phrasing does need a bit of work. Dennis G. Jerz ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
What about adventure games with text parsers? Do those count as interactive fiction? Anything from Eric the Unready the King's Quest... Esn 22:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
To me, anything with a story where the user interacts with the game is interactive fiction. Text-based interactive fiction should have its own article- they're text adventures. Text adventures is a subcategory of interactive fiction. This article seems to assume that interactive fiction = text adventures. While that is a common use of interactive fiction (well, among the people who still use the phrase!), that's not really what it means. Alinnisawest ( talk) 22:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I can easily imagine future problems involving games like Myst that are very divorced from text yet retain all other aspects of the text adventure genre. Ultimately I fear that an article on the topic of text-based games will become diluted by non-text games simply as a result of its imprecise name. I think this doubly likely if we add a subsection on the history of the term "interactive fiction" to the article as you suggest below. I actually rather like your idea and would be very interested to know the history of the term, but it will inevitably broaden the scope of the article to include all of the genres I had discussed earlier as well as non-text ARGs (see above). Perhaps a workable solution is not to make "interactive fiction" a disambiguation page but rather to use it more as a summary page (like this example) containing all of the genres I have discussed (possibly even briefly including first person shooters, &c.). Thoughts?"What both usages have in common, however, is that they emphasize the narrative aspects of the interactive story. This emphasis I think will become the distinguishing feature of interactive fiction (if it isn't already), and will include any pre-written verbal narrative presented electronicly [sic] that shifts form according to the choices of the reader."