Yes, this is really a page about something that, for the most part, ceased to exist a decade ago. But, Interative Fiction is still great, despite this modern era of mouse twitching 3d accelerated programs.
For those of you who don't know, Interactive Fiction was a term used to describe an early form of what's now called an Adventure Game. One communicated with the program by typing command in plain english, and, as these were in the pre-graphics days, we're treated to a text response. The effect of this was like reading a novel, except it was interactive, the plot didn't advance unless you did something, and then only what you made your charicter do happened (none of this, click and watch a cutscene nonsense). The big boys of the fiield were Infocom, who made the name Zork synonamus with computer gaming for years, and to a certain extent, it still is.
Modern games like Myst just don't compare. I played Zork II again over the summer and it took me a month to beat, I killed of Myst in one weekend the first time. Activision, who bought Infocom after it collapsed inthe late '80s, has re-released all the old text games, and I strongly recomend them to anyone who likes to think a little while playing games on their PC. (They also keep releasing new Zork games, but I just don't know...)
Anyway, it turns out that, here on this bizzare internet, Interactive
Fiction ahs been enjoying a sort of renissance. I havn't done a lot of
digging yet, but the old Infocom code seems to have gone public domain,
so not only have a bunch of people been writing their own games, but you
can too! I certainly have been trying, and If I get anything good done
all post it here. But, for the time being, here's some links to get you
started.
INFOCOM
Maze of twisty Web
pages, all alike
WinFrotz
(A windows based program that lets you play these games)
Inform 6: A Compiler
for Interactive Fiction
(Stuff on the programming language itself)
This guy is living in the past, Myst rules! Back to the Index, please.