Interactive Fiction Bestiary

(Language Warning: I’m not using the word “Bestiary” correctly, but this is a post about the best interactive fiction. The best interactive fiction, right? Come at me, bro.) 

If you are interested in dynamic and engaging stories, then you should be paying attention to Interactive Fiction. If you are paying attention to Interactive Fiction, then you should be following the Interactive Fiction Community Forum.

Over on the forum, Victor Gijsbers has asked for a list of the best Interactive Fiction games. I've shared my list over there, but I'm also putting it here for people who don't know about either the forum or this specific discussion.

• Trinity, by Brian Moriarty, has the #1 spot on my list. The Lost Treasures of Infocom games were a big part of the computer games I played in high school, but I'm naming Trinity as first among them. 

For the rest of my list, here are the parser games listed in alphabetical order:

• Baker of Shireton, by Hanon Ondricek, is both straightforward and absurd. What if a single-player text adventure tried to simulate an MMORPG? It’s much more entertaining than the .hack Playstation games.  
• Child's Play, by Stephen Granade, is all about emotional manipulation and cunning schemes. Because sometimes, justice demands it.  
• Curse of the Garden Isle, by Ryan Veeder, is a peaceful, low-stakes exploration game. Well, the stakes are low for you, but not so much for the island’s former visitors. 
• Diddlebucker!, by J. Michael, is a solid mashup of 80’s scavenger-hunt movies and Infocom text adventure classics. It’s very well done.  
• Future Threads, by Xavid, is not quite about time travel, but it is about predicting the future. It includes an in-game map and direct feedback about how your actions will influence the game’s outcome.  
• Holy Robot Empire, by Caleb Wilson, needs no explanation. It took me a bit to figure out that I was still supposed to be a human character, but I was determined to find the Robopope and then kiss its papal ring.  
• Hunger Daemon, by Sean M. Shore, is a Lovecraft tribute with multiple endings. More importantly, it’s a self-aware Lovecraft tribute, which saves it from overwrought, needlessly elaborate prose that can infest other iterations.  
• Kerkerkruip, by Victor Gijsbers, has the best combat system I have ever seen in a parser game. The setting manages to be familiar without existing as a stereotyped cliché.  
• Oppositely Opal, Buster Hudson, is a game about spellcraft. And about friendship. And about making your rivals pay.   
• Origin of Madame Time, by Brian Rushton, builds a detailed world full of super-heroes and super-villains. It’s fun, the puzzles are fair, and it gives you a choice of taking the easy way out or becoming a true hero.  

Here are the Twine games in alphabetical order:

• Animalia, by Ian Michael Waddell, leans hard into combinatorial explosion and ends up better for it.
• Beware the Faerie Food You Eat, by Astrid Dalmady, nails the atmosphere of a trip to the faerie realm.
• Cannery Vale, by Hanon Ondricek, is a game of stories within stories.
• and Seedship, John Ayliff is a game where you find a new home for the human race. Good luck! 

All these games are listed in the Interactive Fiction Database, which is another useful resource for finding dynamic and engaging stories.

Is There Ever One Future?

Twitter thought that it was very important for me to see this:

What was the most interesting thing you saw SuperBowl weeekend? Mine was a glimpse at the future and it game from a video game.

Get ready for the Oasis.#Fortnite #Oasis #Future
- https://t.co/Wcagb3yTRD

— Keith Akre (@KeithAkre) February 14, 2019

So I read it. And I agree with this bit:

What made the virtual concert on Saturday afternoon so fascinating for me, was that this was the first time I really understood what some other commentators have already been saying. Fortnite is not just a game that kids play – it’s a place they go to hang out.

This article from Quartz compares the game to a skate park. Kids get home from school, log-on and hang out with their friends in a virtual world. The actual game aspect serves as the backdrop.

What I don't agree with is how the post goes on to make hyperbolic assertions that everyone will live in, and enjoy, this future. It's predicting a technological singularity for video games, snaring everyone in the same, homogeneous MMORPG. It's an investor's idea of what the future holds for gaming.

On the other hand, there's Jesse Schell, who has developed video games, written books about them, and teaches classes about new technology. He takes a more pluralistic view:

People always talk about platforms, platforms, platforms, but really it's about, "Where do you play?"

There's a reason we don't play MMOs in the living room. For like the entire history of MMOs, we've had one or two go to the living room, and they've all died. And they've all done really well at the PC desk.

So what I always say is, "houses have multiple venues." One of them is the hearth. And that's the living room. The family gathers together, and it's a group thing. And then you have the workbench. That's where usually the PC lives. It's a place you go privately, you do hard work, it's very lean-forward. Usually the PC's there.

That's from a Gamasutra interview with Schell where he discusses current applications for virtual reality. His book, The Art of Game Design, discusses these venues in greater detail, but the idea is that people have different reasons for engaging in play, and so they end up playing games in different places.

The problem with the Akre post is that it doesn't allow for that kind of diversity. It just folds everything into the Oasis from Ready Player One. And that brings its own set of issues. Vox has already tracked how attitudes have shifted since the book was published in 2011. (Some people still like it. And that's great! It's okay to like terrible things. It's less okay to declare that those terrible things will be the future for everyone.)

Overall, the tone of the post is consistent. It's a narrow view of a favorable future that is designed to appeal to people who like online games, esports, twitch streaming, Ready Player One, and the Super Bowl.

It's just weird that Twitter's algorithms thought I was one of those people.