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Interactive Fiction Then and Now

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the infocom-4-eva dept.

Flipkin writes "Interactive Fiction was immensely popular in the 80s and believe it or not has a strong, albeit small, following today. MobyGames takes a look at the origins and history of Interactive Fiction and where it is heading." These games really were some of the best I've ever played.

4 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. No mention of MUDS?!? by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Informative
    How can you write an article about IF and not mention MUD's, which continue to be popular even today? These games not only continue the text-based adventure tradition, but they also allow for interaction with other players within the text "world."

    -Eric (former alum of the Kobra MUD)

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  2. No mention of online IF? by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, I'm really surprised that this article could completely miss online IF (otherwise known as MUDs). Not only are there commercial entities successfully running online IF (such as Iron Realms it allows for a much larger story to be told.

    The big problem with IF is that you can't do whatever you want. You're limited to what the creator was able to forsee and program. Not so with MUDs, which are able to have long and rich stories. The reason MUDs are able to overcome this limitation is that they have staff running it all the time, who are constantly adding new code updates and story updates.

    An example of a player run storyline is in ArmageddonMUD, which is based on Dark Sun. In it a player playing a dwarf decided to free his fellow dwarves who were slaves in the obsidian mines, and lay seige to the city-state that had kept them enslaved. This was entirely thought up by players, and with the staff's help, done by the players.

    MMOs sometimes attempt to be roleplaying games, to enable an interactive story to be told. But they're even further limited by the fact that, you can't do what you want. You can only do what animations have been coded. Again, MUDs don't have this limitation, with any action being able to be provided by emoting. MUDs have the advantage over IFs in that they are multiuser. Whereas in an IF there's no-one but yourself.

    So I'm very surprised that something discussing interactive fiction, including it's future (which IMO are MUDs, with more and more being created every day while others continue to be run for over 10 years), didn't feel the need to mention MUDs.

  3. Re:Choose Your Own Adventure Books! by _|()|\| · · Score: 4, Informative
    I was a huge fan of the Lone Wolf series.

    The author of the Lone Wolf series has generously allowed many of them to be published on line, free of charge.

  4. Re:Play these games on PalmOS by Xamien · · Score: 4, Informative
    The Inform compiler is available from inform-fiction.org for those who want to try their hand at actually creating old-school IF. It produces story files for the Z-machine that will run under Frotz. There is also an online copy of the Inform designer's manual available.

    Inform isn't the only system available for creating IF -- see the rec.arts.int-fiction Authorship FAQ.

    On a related note, the Interactive Fiction Competition is apparently still going strong after over a decade, with entries sorted by authoring system.