The past, present, and future of Interactive fiction

I teach Creative Writing for New Media and found this roundup of games and tools really useful.

One thing I would like to see from these tools is the ability to make UI elements, it would be nice to have a character sheet that is easy to access and modify

The paper format actually originated with the Tunnels & Trolls solos, starting with Buffalo Castle in 1976. The limitations of that medium relative to digital programs were less significant when personal computers were more expensive, less powerful and less portable. “Not strictly interactive fiction but kind of” seems a bizarre way to speak of the medium to which the IF term was first applied, and in reference to which it finds most common usage. Colossal Cave Adventure debuted on minicomputer systems, and (broken up into three parts) as Zork for micros was the foundation for Infocom’s IF enterprise. The abbreviated title Adventure (used for the Scott Adams products with a less sophisticated parser) gave rise to the basically synonymous genre name for computer IF — “adventure games” — which outlived the commercial viability of the text-oriented form. That form is the focus of the annual Interactive Fiction Competition, which has featured among other significant works some to which peculiarities of the medium itself (and sometimes subverting conventions) are important artistic elements.

Awesome introduction to IF, subscribed!

Great overview. Very enjoyable.

Awesome video! I'm working on a narrative VR game and researching IF because I'm not sure what approach to take. This overview was great and brought back a lot of memories too.

Very interesting information! Thanks for introducing those tools.

Thank you very much, this tour was highly informative ❤

Brilliant overview and video Chris. I'll be in touch!

Love the video! Been researching this because I’ve been working on a fully analogue interactive fiction RPG and hadn’t found any until now. Pretty much everything modern seems to be digital to some extent. I’ll have to check out the Lone Wolf series because it looks a lot like what I’ve been making!

i was in 7th grade when i played Zork the first time back in '82. It might seem frustrating no to play now, but we were all enthralled at what seemed like a game where you could do anything you wanted

Fantastic video!

ChatGPT 4o (and possibly earlier ones) can actually create copy-pasteable Inform 7 code from just a description. I asked it to make a text adventure version of Myst, and it was able to give me a sample game that had the same concept (right from the dock with the misty sea and the boat)... It wasn't complete by any means but it was there. And it can debug its own code if you paste in the Inform compiler errors.

Very well made, valuably educational video

Nice. Very nice. Thank you.

thank you from Brasil

Neat video - Where is the Future part 17:18 start with publish 18:20 is why. If you can give me a time stamp please. I did like the idea of making a talking Interactive fiction - that does sound very cool. thx

CYPHER: Cyberpunk Text Adventure Game needs some love here.

Hi! you quickly mentionned interactive audio fictions and I would love to learn som emore, I have been searching but I can't find any, do you have other places/titles to look for? Otherwise thank you very much for the video, it's so good and well made!!

But of course, the Narcoman Pavlik bests them all, though I don't think it's still on yt