Nick Montfort Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction 14. Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction Nick Montfort Introduction The genre that has also been labeled "text adventure" and "text game" is stereotypically thought to offer dungeons, dragons, and the ability for readers to choose their own adventure. While there may be dragons here, interactive fiction (abbreviated "IF") also offers utopias, revenge plays, horrors, parables, intrigues, and codework, and pieces in this form resound with and rework Gilgamesh, Shakespeare, and Eliot as well as Tolkien. The reader types in phrases to participate in a dialogue with the system, commanding a character with writing. Beneath this surface conversation, and determining what the computer narrates, there is the machinery of a simulated world, capable of drawing the reader into imagining new perspectives and understanding strange systems. Interactive fiction works can be challenging for literary readers, even those interested in other sorts of electronic literature, because of the text-based interface and because of the way in which these works require detailed exploration, mapping, and solution. Works in this form are often less visually rewarding, and the rewards they do offer are only attained with time and effort. But text-based interactive fiction has provided some of the most the intricate and compelling literary simulations yet developed. Understanding how interactive fiction works, and how it has developed over the past three decades, is an essential part of the puzzle of literary computing. Characteristics of interactive fiction Formally, a work of interactive fiction (often called a "game," even if it does not exhibit the typical qualities of a game) is an interactive computer program. While some IF uses graphics, and, less often, sound or animation, the basis of the form is textual input and textual output. The interactor types a command to one of the characters, called the player character, such as "ask Galatea about her awakening," "enter the doorway," or "reboot the server." The program, in turn, describes whether or not the player character is able to perform this action and, if it is possible, narrates what happens in the simulated world as a result. Two important features of IF are some sort of language understanding, accomplished by the component called the parser, and some way of simulating the things that exist in a virtual world, along with their behaviors and interactions. This latter feature is provided by a program's world model. The world model simulates different areas, called "rooms," and the people, creatures, and objects that are in them. Rooms are connected in a graph, and the things they contain can themselves contain things. The output text is focalized by the player character. This simulation of an underlying world, from which the textual output is produced, makes it difficult to consider one's progress through interactive fiction as moving from one hypertextual lexia to another. Rather than imagining a fixed number of nodes of text, it is helpful to see the output text as being produced because of the simulation of the player character and the environment. Walking through a city may generate different texts depending upon the time of day, the events that are occurring in the city, the amount of light available, the state of mind of the player character, and the sensory abilities of that character. The parser and world model are essential to IF; there are also many conventions that works in this form follow. Typically, the player character is commanded to go to a new location by using compass directions or abbreviations of them: "go north" can be abbreviated "north" or simply "n." Some games use different sorts of directions or allow the interactor to refer to landmarks (e.g., "go to the coffee shop"), but the way of commanding a character to move is among the most widely recognized conventions in IF. Parodies and jokes in the form of interactive fiction transcripts will invariably use compass-direction commands. The instructions for the first interactive fiction, Adventure, declared "I will be your eyes and hands." While interactive fiction has been written in the first, second, and third person, it is conventional to refer to the player character in the second person, a feature of interactive fiction that is often remarked upon because it is so uncommon in other types of literary writing. The interactive fiction program itself, in its capacity as a narrator and an interface to the player character, is often referred to in the first person. The ability to converse with other characters is often provided in IF, and not always in the same way. The type of conversation that is possible with chatterbots such as Eliza/Doctor, Parry, and Racter is not an option in IF. In one format for conversation, the interactor can specify a topic by typing something like "ask Dunbar about the Loblo bottle." Some games change from the usual mode of input when it comes to conversation, having the interactor pick what to say from a menu of possible utterances. While chatterbots offer a more free-form interface for conversation, the interlocutors in interactive fiction, called non-player characters, also have the ability to take action within the simulated world and to affect the environment that the player character and the non-player characters share. A sample transcript Bronze is a recent work of interactive fiction that is conventional in many ways (a fantasy setting, the use of compass directions for movement) but is also welcoming to beginners and plays with a well-known tale in an interesting way. This game, by Emily Short, was developed in part to serve as an example for a new interactive fiction development system, Inform 7. When the seventh day comes and it is time for you to return to the castle in the forest, your sisters cling to your sleeves. "Don't go back," they say, and "When will we ever see you again?" But you imagine they will find consolation somewhere. Your father hangs back, silent and moody. He has spent the week as far from you as possible, working until late at night. Now he speaks only to ask whether the Beast treated you "properly." Since he obviously has his own ideas about what must have taken place over the past few years, you do not reply beyond a shrug. You breathe more easily once you're back in the forest, alone. Bronze A fractured fairy tale by Emily Short Release 9 / Serial number 060225 / Inform 7 build 3F37 (I6/v6.30 lib 6/10N) Have you played interactive fiction before? >yes If you have not played Bronze before, you may still want to type HELP to learn about special commands unique to this game. Drawbridge Even in your short absence, the castle has come to look strange to you again. When you came here first, you stood a long while on the drawbridge, unready to cross the moat, for fear of the spells that might bind you if you did. This time it is too late to worry about such things. An iron-barred gate leads north. >open the gate You shouldn't be able to open it, heavy as it is, but it swings aside lightly at your touch. The Beast said that it knows friend from enemy; and the castle, at least, still regards you as friend. >go north Entrance Hall There is no fire in the big fireplace, and no one is waiting for you here; the air is very cold. Over the gate, the old familiar warning sign is painted. Nick Montfort Various passages lead deeper into the castle: north towards the central courtyard, southwest to the guard tower, east and west into the libraries, the offices, the galleries. Somewhere in this maze, he waits; and he should be told as soon as possible that you did return. An iron-barred gate leads south to the drawbridge. >go east Scarlet Gallery You do not often come this way, into the older part of the castle, which is narrow and has a low roof. The walls, and the ceiling too, are deep scarlet, the color of the old king and queen that ruled here two hundred fifty years ago, when there was still a kingdom. >go southeast Scarlet Tower A little hexagonal room, from whose narrow window you can see the moat, the lawn, and the beginning of the forest outside. On the windowsill, a helmet waits, for the use of the sentry. >pick up the helmet You acquire the helmet, and assess it curiously. A very old helmet that you have seen the Beast wear (and quite foolish it looked, perched on a head it no longer fits: it would suit your head better). He told you once that the helmet was for night watchmen, scouts, and guards, to increase their vigilance and strengthen their hearing. Lines of writing arc over each ear, but you do not know the language in question. The commands above direct the player character to perform some of the most typical actions in an interactive fiction world: opening a gate, walking in a particular direction, and acquiring an object. The output from Bronzeshows that these ordinary actions can reveal a back story, and that through the exploration of a virtual space, a well-known story — in this case, that of beauty and the beast — can be transformed and inflected in interesting ways. The interactor's progress through the world of Bronze can continue, after the player character walks back to the entrance hall, like so: >w Great Dining Hall Such a long hall that the soup might get cold between one end and the other.