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At the University of North Dakota we recently held our 41st annual Writers Conference, the theme had a strong focus on New Media. Nick Montfort, Stuart Moulthrop and Mark Amerika were a few of the authors that had come to the conference. The concept of a video game being literature was one of many things discussed.games being literature was one of the topics discussed.

>>I do not (repeat do NOT) use the "home keys"
>I can understand getting away with not using the ';', but this post itself contains all the home keys.

I tore out type ere I wrote, to type up top:
upper typewriter row, pert repertoire.
Reporter, I quote to you: To write, pop type out.
Retire typewriter row two. Your tri-row?
Rip it out, too. Tour your top row territory.
Queer tip, you retort? I worry your poor typewriter?
To torque it out -- typewriter terror?
You require row two, your tri-row prop?
You pout, try to quip. (Poor etiquette.) You titter.
(Poorer propriety.) You utter uppity output?
Quiet, you! Quit it! You purport to write.
I tire to peer to your rot, your petty writ,
to eye your wire report. You write pyrite,
terrier to torpor. I pity you, preppie yuppie.
I tutor you, tyro, to uproot your trite tree,
put type to pyre. Rupture type. Write to write.
I erupt. I riot. I prototype pure power
to write. I, upper typewriter requiter.
I outwit you, too. To perpetuity, I write poetry.
You, to put it true, putter out rote poop.

(with regards to Nick Montfort)

...Roll over

And it looks like we're down to 7.. Nick Montfort's Book and Volume is no longer listed with a brief statement here.

...Roll over

And it looks like we're down to 7.. Nick Montfort's Book and Volume is no longer listed with a brief statement here.

.. play those games linked, have a look at http://nickm.com/if/faq.html

Oh yes! Photopia! Great stuff. I've never been a great fan of interactive fiction (mainly because Zork and its sequels constantly stumped me when I played them on the venerable C64), but Photopia was truly an experience. I remember getting the chills when I finished it.

The great thing about Photopia is that for one, its puzzles are always obvious. So much so, that most of the time they don't even classify as traditional IF puzzles. There are some gems, however. Especially the IF mainstay, a maze, is done simply beautifully. Photopia focuses completely on story and that is a Good Thing by all accounts.

Another great (but very different) piece of IF is Winchester's Nightmare by Nick Montfort. I also enjoyed Narcolepsy (also by Adam Cadre and winner of the 2003 XYZZY award for best writing), although I never finished it.

Name a game that had Myst-like gameplay (regardless of the graphics quality) before Myst itself? I can't think of a single one.

How about Zork. Or Adventure, for that matter. They're all part of a genre called Interactive Fiction, and I personally don't have much interest in them.

All of the reviews I've seen, including my own, have been uniformly positive. You can see some of those reviews listed on the author's page about the books. It's an extremely accessible book, which isn't easy to do, and the highest praise I can give it is that I wish I'd written it.