Spring Break
Text-based computer game lets players interact with story
Laura L. Hogue
Issue date: 4/26/01 Section: Focus
Imagine yourself creating a game with a world for other people to inhabit on your own computer. It is a world without sounds or visuals. Now, put yourself into the textual world and imagine yourself in that world and living through the game.
While playing the game, you’re in control of what happens when and what the character that you have assumed does. But it’s not as easy as moving a joystick from one scene to the next. This game is completely text-based and it’s called interactive fiction.
At first glance, these games may seem ancient, resembling the workings of computers 20 years ago.
Relying solely on the player’s interaction, the game requires its players to read the given text and use their imagination to develop the storyline.
If the game tells you there’s a flower, you may say “examine flower.” It may reply, “Which flower do you mean: the rhododendron or the chrysanthemum?”
This example is from the interactive fiction Web site of English professor Dennis Jerz.
For Jerz, playing these interactive games isn’t just a hobby, it’s research. He also has judged a few games through interactive fiction communities on the Internet.
But there are some limits when it comes to playing. The author of the game closes off certain options. For example, the player could type “jump out of window” and the game will reply by saying, “That’s not a good idea,” Jerz said. Only the ideas that are coded in the game have a baring on the story.
“When I fire up an interactive fiction game, I’m stuck until I type the right words,” Jerz said. “So I have to read, reread and think and rethink.
“You talk to the computer in ordinary English.”
Jerz said the game puts you in this particular situation that makes you use your wits, logic and textual criticism skills to find out what you are suppose to do.
You would say, “Examine bird.” The computer would respond in ordinary text.
“This was pretty amazing for the time,” Jerz said, “because even the other computer games that were popular were ones in which you had to memorize codes and you had to type in grid coordinates and things like that.”
While playing the game, you’re in control of what happens when and what the character that you have assumed does. But it’s not as easy as moving a joystick from one scene to the next. This game is completely text-based and it’s called interactive fiction.
At first glance, these games may seem ancient, resembling the workings of computers 20 years ago.
Relying solely on the player’s interaction, the game requires its players to read the given text and use their imagination to develop the storyline.
If the game tells you there’s a flower, you may say “examine flower.” It may reply, “Which flower do you mean: the rhododendron or the chrysanthemum?”
This example is from the interactive fiction Web site of English professor Dennis Jerz.
For Jerz, playing these interactive games isn’t just a hobby, it’s research. He also has judged a few games through interactive fiction communities on the Internet.
But there are some limits when it comes to playing. The author of the game closes off certain options. For example, the player could type “jump out of window” and the game will reply by saying, “That’s not a good idea,” Jerz said. Only the ideas that are coded in the game have a baring on the story.
“When I fire up an interactive fiction game, I’m stuck until I type the right words,” Jerz said. “So I have to read, reread and think and rethink.
“You talk to the computer in ordinary English.”
Jerz said the game puts you in this particular situation that makes you use your wits, logic and textual criticism skills to find out what you are suppose to do.
You would say, “Examine bird.” The computer would respond in ordinary text.
“This was pretty amazing for the time,” Jerz said, “because even the other computer games that were popular were ones in which you had to memorize codes and you had to type in grid coordinates and things like that.”