Interactive Fiction and the Need to Preserve Its Artifacts

             In 1975 when Will Crowther wrote ADVENT he gave birth to a wholly new form of literature. Dubbed “Interactive Fiction,” this genre became a staple of computer software in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

            Today, the concept of Interactive Fiction, or IF, is foreign to much of the populace, which has long since traded in text based adventures for their graphical counterparts offered on modern computers. Despite this, IF still commands a presence on the Internet thanks to the diligence of the community it has spawned.

There has been plenty written about the need to preserve the games of Interactive Fictions themselves. “Preserving Virtual Worlds” was creating at the University of Illinois in August 2008 with the mission of “developing basic standards for metadata and content representation; and investigating preservation issues through a series of archiving case studies representing early games and literature …” 

The IF community has done well to ensure that the spirit of IF lives on. The Interactive Fiction Competition is held yearly (now in it’s 17^th year) and it encourages people to write their own, new titles. More recently the release of the iOS app ‘Narratavius,’ which was designed to bring IF to Apple’s app store, was funded by the community via a Kickstarter campaign and pulling in an additional $437 over its $600 goal. From these examples we can see that, indeed, the spirit of IF lives on. 

There are also multiple websites that are dedicated to the preservation and recreation of IF, offering them for download or to play directly in a browser. Most of these are fan efforts, not scholarly editions. 

It’s important to remember however that preserving IF doesn’t stop with preserving the works by themselves, as they do not exist in a vacuum. From the “Preserving Games Project” from the University of Texas we see that, “Most of the current preservation projects for new media and video games focus on the end products: the "final" art objects or the released video games themselves.” This statement is true among the IF community as well. This is not by itself a bad decision. Given the choice, many scholars would rather have the works themselves over any artifacts related to the topic.  Still, this will only provide a cursory glance at what IF really was during the peak of it’s popularity.

The artifacts that are most important to preserve would be box art and manuals (if produced with the work), documents that the creators used when building the games and that the players used when experiencing them, and the communication that existed in the community. These may seem like broad categories, but given the multiple forms these artifacts have taken, it would not be possible to successfully collect this data otherwise. 

IF, like many games, is not simply a matter of playing through the game to the end. It’s about exploring the pictures associated with that title, or pouring over the books that came with them. For this reason, we need to make an effort to preserve as best we can the original contents, packaging, and the marketing of IF titles. 

            With regards to cataloging box art and advertisements the work has already been started on the Internet thanks to the careful work of hobbyists. Two websites that do this best are infocom-if.org and csd.uwo.ca/Infocom. They focus exclusively on Infocom, the largest business that focused on IF, but they provide some of the most robust collects online. Both sites feature an exhaustive list of Infocom games and includes details about the packaging of the games and advertisements that Infocom put out, including scans of many ads and boxes as well. This gives the games the context that they deserve and provides an understanding of the tactile artifacts associated with IF. 

            If we already have this information readily available it seems be unpraticle to create another digital repository for this information. However when looking at the sites themselves, we find that the images are small (many measuring only 540 x 660 pixels), which while suitable for the web, would not be adequate for any work in print. Also there are no encoded pieces of work or text-dumps, the written text of a game extracted and placed in a plain text document, which would help in engaging with the fiction in more meaningful ways.

            It is disconcerting to also see that neither of these sites have not been updated since the fall of 2010. Comparing this to a more “traditional” online archive, The Walt Whitman Archive, which updates monthly, we can see that the website may easily fall into disarray. It is important to note that the updates do not have to appear in the form of new content, but an upgrading of code or the interaction with the community that surrounds the site. 

            Another important aspect of cataloguing IF would be to collect the notes that were taken by both the authors and the players.

In the documentary “Get Lamp” by Jason Scott, the audience is given insight into just how important note taking and mapping can be to enjoying IF. “It’s very rarely that I find myself playing a game of IF without taking notes…I like having my own little…notch on the bed post…my own little progress bar,” David Welbourne, a long time player of IF, states. Since it is of importance for scholars to study the way that people interact with the texts of their time, these notes would be beneficial to archive.

Apart from the notes that individuals make, it is also important to save the notes that the authors of IF use to create their works. The “Whitman Archive” sports the notes that the esteemed poet wrote throughout his lifetime, and authors of IF should not be held to any lesser of a degree. The “Preserving Games Project,” located in the University of Texas shares this feeling. From their homepage, we can see “...there is the realization that digital preservation starts with creation; it is impossible to reliably and authentically preserve an object without having a very good idea of the circumstances and particulars of that object's creation.” 

             The 70s and 80s were known for the use of zines to disseminate information between fans and hobbyists of multiple genres, and the IF hobby was not excluded from this medium. Multiple zines existed during the apex of IF’s popularity, featuring news regarding the hobby, guides for conquering certain games, and, most importantly, a way for fans of the genre to exchange ideas. Despite the importance of the zine with the fan community however there is a dearth of information on them. 

The most complete archive of any of these zines comes from Britain and is located at syntax2000.co.uk. “Syntax magazine” was created in 1989, when zines had fallen into relative obscurity. Because of this Sue Medley, one of the founders, “suggested a disk based adventure and RPG magazine…,” which would eventually make it much easier to catalogue online later. The editors would create the zine, then mail the disc to those that subscribed. Today, the entirety of the zines publication (90 issues) can be accessed for free online.

Sadly, the successful move to the web that Syntax magazine saw did not resonate to others. It is difficult to even ascertain the names of many of the zines that existed (I contacted Sue of Syntax magazine to aid me in this hunt). Even after acquiring a list of names however the details remain sparse.

            The result of a google search for specific popular zines of the time such as “Adventure Probe,” “Spellbreaker,” and “From Beyond” and causes concern. The most detailed account of any of these comes from ifwiki.org, which provides general information including that it “…ran from June 1986 until 2007, making it probably the longest running paper-based Adventure / IF fanzine.” Despite it’s longevity and popularity (achieving a distribution of 250+ issues at it’s height) the only content to exist online is this wiki entry and an HTML advertisement for the fanzine, which can now only be accessed via wayback. 

            Other fanzines suffered the same fate as “Adventure Probe,” making it difficult, if not impossible to track down any information on the web about them. In order to get a hold of this information, we would have to either track down collectors, or get into contact with the original publishers.

            Building the collection would prove to be a challenge in itself, but we can look to Mathas for a possible solution. “The sources for such a collection will likely primarily be private collectors. Online auction sites, such as eBay, are one possible starting point.” Since the collection that we would eventually want to produce would not be limited to the games themselves, it is not enough to simply grab the source code and start converting it for use on a modern browser or machine. 

It would serve well to be able to purchase a complete set (box, disc of the game, and any manuals or extras the game originally come with), or to purchase the various pieces individually to create a full set. Another solution would be to contact the owners of several of the already established websites to work out an agreement to either use their images or to borrow their source material in order to recreate the images as we would like them to be displayed.

Another issue to tackle is time. As we move further and further away from the original dates of publication for many of these items it is entirely possible that their scarcity will increase, making it more difficult, and more expensive, to track down these items. Zines in particular are susceptible to the wearing away of use and, if not stored away properly, decay.

Instead of purchasing the materials it would serve the author of this digital archive better to instead enlist the help of the community at large. As already shown the community around IF is one built on the love of the hobby, and it would be a cheaper route to be able to acquire materials in this manner by either borrowing materials or calling for donations.

Even if we did acquire every game released there are sometimes multiple versions of these games, which would need to be represented if we were to collect a complete set. These versions may be as simple as a conversion from one type of computer to another, or may even have slight variations of the narrative. “Adventure” itself boasts over 5 different versions, some with graphics, others with the total points value bring different. It will be necessary to also highlight the differences in these versions as well, which will take either interviews, taking notes through experiencing the work itself, or using programs to compare and contrast the code of each.

            An important point to remember with these artifacts, however, is that they are still copyrighted material. This would most likely not prove to be an issue, since the commercial sustainability of IF is no longer likely in the commercial sector. Still, whenever possible, it would behoove the curators to seek permission.

            Apart from cataloguing this, data the collection should also provide proper metadata and possibly encoded text –dumps (through XML). If these were done properly, the material would gain a greater presence in the academic community and be more of an aide for scholars. These things would not be difficult to do but require time and money to have provide the tools to use them. 

Another way that we may be able to encode the games would be to look at the documentation methods employed by the “Narratavius” app. Each “story” featured in “Narratavius” is tagged in certain ways that allows the program to properly perform. This may be a good way to not only encode the text for searching but also to have our encoded games work in the “Narratavius” program as well.

As we can see, IF is not simply the composed of games, but the artifacts that surround them. To stay true to the spirit of IF, we must take on the task of collecting these artifacts, and creating a repository to preserve them reliably and honestly.

               

           

           

Works Cited

Adventure Probe. The Interactive Fiction Wiki. February, 2010. Web. April, 2012. < http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php>

Get Lamp: The Text-Adventure Documentary. Scott, Jason. 2010. Film

Granade, Stephen. IF Competition. 2011. Web. April 2012. < http://www.ifcomp.org/>

Ham, Michael. Narratavius Home. Web. April 2012. Web. April 2012. < http://narratavius.com/dotnetnuke/>

Ham, Michael. Narratavius Story Engine. Kickstater. November, 2011. Web. April 2012 < http://www.kickstarter.com/>

Infocom-IF. August 20, 2010. Web. Aprl 2012. < http://www.infocom-if.org/>

Mathas, Adam. Collecting and Preserving Infocom Interactive Fiction. 2010. Web. April, 2012. < http://www.adammathes.com/academic/rbsc/infocom.html>

Medley, Sue. About. Syntax Magazine. August, 2011. Web. April, 2012. < http://www.syntax2000.co.uk/hello.html>

Price, Kenneth. The Walt Whitman Archive. University of Nebraska – Lincoln. April, 2012. Web. April 2012. < http://www.whitmanarchive.org/>

Scheyen, Peter. The Games. Infocom. August 4, 2010. Web. April, 2012. < http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/>

Winget, Megan. Project Research Goals. Preserving Games. University of Texas. Web. April, 2012. < http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~megan/Games/>

No review

While I try to find a copy of whatever literature I am talking about and perusing it before writing these posts I found it quite difficult to do so this time.

Choose-Your-Own-Adventures novels are not part of my collection, so there will be no review today. This is all building up to Interactive Fiction (people following this blog will know) so be assured that I will be making my way through ZORK (hopefully in it’s entirety) before next Friday.

"Turn to page 7 to...."

Those of us (like the author) who grew up in the 80’s or early 90’s may remember a collection of books known as “Choose-your-Adventure”. These books were written to get children more interested in reading, by making it an active, rather than passive, pastime.

It should be rather easy to see why these can be considered literature, after all, they have binding, words, and story lines. Why should this blog then spend time on this subject, considering how easy it is to point out it’s literary merit.

The answer lies in Interactive Fiction, of which “Choose-your-Adventure” books were a precursor. These are software simulations allowing for a broad range of choices, not just “Turn to page 5 to kick the dinosaur egg”. We’ll get back on board with those at a later date.

I realize this post is write short, but I feel that is was necessary to at least bring up these books to use as a stepping stone for something a little more difficult later.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami is perhaps my favorite book and a surprisingly deep, Kafka-esque, post-modernist romp through the world underneath our feet. If it is so great though, why do I have such a hard time describing it?

The basic plot of “Wind-up Bird” involves a man named Toru and his wife that goes missing. That’s all that can really be said without giving away too much. And really, anything else that is said out of context comes across as very...silly (yes that's the word). This is not to say the book isn't serious or lacks depth, but rather that separated out it would be very hard to enjoy some of the plots if they weren't part of the whole.

In many ways the books serves to be a critique of Japanese culture, particularly the proliferation of fads and the corporate structure prevalent in the island nation. There's plenty to take away even if you have not been able to experience Japan first-hand however.

The main draw of the book comes from the binary worlds that Murakami crafts (something he is not totally unfamiliar with: see "Hard-Boiled wonderland and the End of the World")and how they bleed together. It’s a dynamic that has been done over and over again, and yet Murakami finds a way to really make it feel like a natural extension to the waking life and in some ways completely organic. After digesting the novel one may find themselves questioning how much of the novel is fiction.

Murakami's latest work was released jsut yesterday, so why not go out and pick this novel and that as well?

10/10 but your mileage may vary.

Zombies!!!

The author would like to first apologize for the lack of an update yesterday. There are excuses I could give, not the least of which involves a bottle of wine and a film from the 1930’s.

Since we began discussing board games Wednesday I want to take the time to analyze Zombies!!! published in 2001 by Twilight Creations.

Before we begin discussing the game as literature I would like to note that my family and friends find this game very fun and has been at the center of more than one night of entertainment.

As a game Zombies!!! comes packaged with tiles (which you use to make the board as you play), miniatures, cards, dice, chits, and the rules. That’s quite a hefty amount of items for one board game. All of these things can be seen as tropes, but having a lot of mechanics and tropes does not necessitate a good piece of literature.

Most of the pieces are necessary and very useful, although my friends and I find the cards to be of less use. most of the time they get discarded, forgotten about, or are never used. This is a good example of a game that has glutted itself on tropes and therefore undermines it’s value as literature.

As a simulation and a story-telling device Zombies!!! is both excellent and terrible. The chances for success and failure when fighting a zombie are 50/50 (although you have some small amount of control over the end result), which to me seems very realistic and it does add to sense of dread while playing. This is a great way to get people afraid and to represent the terror of the situation.

the objectives however make the game less realistic and less in keeping with the theme. There are two ways to win the game; first is by being the first to reach the helipad and the second is from killing 25 zombies. While the 25 zombie limit makes the game quicker to play, I find it weakens the the story-telling element. How does killing 25 zombies exactly secure victory for a person? It’s this question that casts doubt on this games legitimacy as high literature.

The rule book does come with a brief tale to set the stage for the game, all of the art is gruesome, which ties greatly into the themes and sense of foreboding.

Overall Zombies!!! is a great game (although it takes quite a bit of time to play and is very random)but a poor choice of literature. Keep in mind that the scores provided reflect the evaluation of the game as literature, not the quality of the game itself.

3/10 but your mileage may vary.

Alternative Literature: Board Games

Welcome to the first discussion of alternative literature! I know, I know, it’s all very exciting.

For this first installment we will be discussing board games. Before we begin however we do need to specify the term board game a little.

A board game is a subset of a group of games known as tabletop games, these would include tabletop RPGs, card games, war games and of course board games (which, no doubt, is the most well known version of tabletop gaming). There are two things that separate a board game from it’s tabletop brothers. The first is that the game is self contained, no other pieces must be bought, nothing has to be painted, and no one has to prepare the game in any way (other than become familiar with the rules). The second is that they generally come with a designated play area; a board , if you will. These differences mean that the games are fairly easy to pick up, cheap to produce, and, even if they are rather expensive, ensures a fairly cheap, cost/play ratio.

Now why then does the author insist that these games are literature. The answer is simple: they are story -telling and story creating devices. A board game simulates something, a romp through Candyland, the decisions involved to create a Monopoly, or the everyday problems of Life (see what I did there?) Board games have the edge over books in some ways because they engage the players to live through these dilemmas, even if they are watered down versions.

What I mean when I say they are story-creating devices is also simple. I’m sure that nearly everyone can name a time that the dice landed in their favor at the last minute, or through a shrewd play they were able to win the game. These kinds of stories don’t amount to much, but they are stories after all.

This may seem very general, and it is. In later installments we’ll be looking at rule books, the type of dice used, and even what the board looks like in order to gain a greater appreciation of this form as literature.

On a final note, those in Geekdon will notice that I have only specified very generic and in some ways some of the worst board games ever produced as examples. Rest assured that I play plenty of different games, I’m not limited to Milton-Bradley.

The Road

“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy is a very unfortunate book. I don’t mean to say that it is terrible, because that is far from the case. Rather what I mean is that it is very unfortunate to have had perhaps one of the worst adaptations into film I have ever seen.

McCarthy is perhaps best known to the majority of the world as author of “No Country for Old Men,” primarily due to the film. But to be honest, “The Road” is truly where McCarthy reaches his ape as an author.

The book is a gritty, depressing take on the “post apocalyptic” genre. For those unfamiliar with the themes there in allow me to explain. The world as you know it has ended. This could have been from nuclear war, bio-terrorism, global warming, or aliens crashing on earth. Whatever the reason the world is desolate.

McCarthy seems to be unbothered by many of the tropes within the genre, and instead focuses on the relationship between a man and his son. They travel together, trying to beat a winter to the ocean. On their way they come across cannibals, slavers, and various other people, all looking for a way to survive in the hostile world.

Unfortunately the author (of this blog) can’t discuss the true power of this book without giving away the ending. For those of you who saw the film and turned off, please give the book a chance. Despite McCarthy’s writing style (or perhaps because of it) the books reads phenomenally fast, while still being one of the densest pieces of literature to ever have been written.

10/10, but your mileage may vary.