Unintentional Review and Reminiscences on Interactive Fiction
Despite getting more sleep last night, I'm still tired. I need to make it an early night again.
I was sorely, sorely tempted to stay up too late playing the game my dad bought me over the holidays. Have any of you played any interactive fiction? I started out when I was little with Infocom games like Wishbringer, Enchanter, or even HHGttG on the Commodore 64. These are adventure roleplaying games, but entirely in text. No graphics whatsoever.
I was probably hooked by watching my mother making maps on notebook paper as she navigated her way around the world of Wishbringer, collecting scrolls to learn spells, exploring the lonely mountain and the enchanted castle, trying to ensure she had enough food and water to keep from starving. Ever since, I've loved the whole genre of text adventure games. Zork is probably the most famous one, though to my chagrin I've barely scratched the surface of that one.
Of course the interface was a little clunky in the older ones. Every action had to be a typed command. "Go east." "Pick up scroll." "Fill jug" you type. "Fill jug with what?" asks the game, ignoring the presence of the sprightly babbling brook nearby. You get used to it though, and your commands reward you with marvelous word-pictures that your mind fills in to your own taste and imaginings. Eventually, I think the interface becomes nearly as transparent as any point-and-click game could be, and the mental images can be even better than the digitally-created ones.
My dad, knowing my love of the genre, saw a work of modern interactive fiction for sale on Steam and bought it for me. I played about an hour and a half of it last night and I adore it! The interface is updated in some ways, and simply changed in others. Rather than typing out comments, you point and click one of several options in each scene. There's no user-directed walking about; you encounter scenes as they come and tell the program what you're doing. You don't get to decide you'd rather be at some other place and leave. In this way, it's more like an interactive novel than a fantasy role-playing game, and I do miss some elements of games that allow freer movement and interaction with the virtual space.
Regardless, this is a wonderful game. It adds a lot of social maneuvering and moral decision-making that reminds me a bit of Dragon Age. I found myself angsting over the proper choices to make to solve the problems at hand, sure. But I angsted just as much, or more, over the proper way to react to an overture of friendship from someone I felt sympathy for but discomfort with, or to a surprise declaration of love from someone I didn't want to disappoint. Another difficult choice to make is whether to direct my energy toward academics to earn a scholarship so that my parents, who worry about being able to afford my college tuition, don't have to stress so much on my behalf; toward solving the mysteries that are cropping up around the school; or toward social and romantic relationships that might end up distracting me from the former two choices, as such things often do! The game really draws me into the high-school student protagonist's life.
Another thing that reminds me of Dragon Age is the diversity and inclusiveness. Is your character gay? Female? Bisexual? Male? Straight? These are all options. I'm playing a somewhat shy, bi boy (raise your hand if you're surprised....) and have gotten attention from members of both genders, including the amazingly cute boy in one of my classes who I get so nervously tongue-tied around that I ran away from my first conversation with him. Adorable!
I may actually do a couple of play-throughs of this game. Maybe I'll go in the other direction and be a socially confident athletic girl next time who's aiming for a sports scholarship. There seem to be a lot of paths to walk. And for later, the maker, Choice of Games, has produced a number of games of this variety that sound appealing. For instance, they wanted create a swashbuckling 19th century British Navy setting, but include gender diversity and equality, which is very important to the team. The game's navy is much as might be expected if you are a male protagonist. If you play as a female though, the navy is still all one sex, but that sex is female, and you exist in a matriarchal society where peacock-pretty men vie for the attention of powerful female officers. How fun is that?
These may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm really happy I was introduced not only to modern interactive fiction, but to a company that's trying really hard to make queer and non cis-male gamers feel welcome and even empowered. I didn't mean to start writing a big long review, but I guess I did. It's because I like this game so much! If this sounds interesting, please go check them out. It looks like most of their games are $5 or so.
https://www.choiceofgames.com/
I was sorely, sorely tempted to stay up too late playing the game my dad bought me over the holidays. Have any of you played any interactive fiction? I started out when I was little with Infocom games like Wishbringer, Enchanter, or even HHGttG on the Commodore 64. These are adventure roleplaying games, but entirely in text. No graphics whatsoever.
I was probably hooked by watching my mother making maps on notebook paper as she navigated her way around the world of Wishbringer, collecting scrolls to learn spells, exploring the lonely mountain and the enchanted castle, trying to ensure she had enough food and water to keep from starving. Ever since, I've loved the whole genre of text adventure games. Zork is probably the most famous one, though to my chagrin I've barely scratched the surface of that one.
Of course the interface was a little clunky in the older ones. Every action had to be a typed command. "Go east." "Pick up scroll." "Fill jug" you type. "Fill jug with what?" asks the game, ignoring the presence of the sprightly babbling brook nearby. You get used to it though, and your commands reward you with marvelous word-pictures that your mind fills in to your own taste and imaginings. Eventually, I think the interface becomes nearly as transparent as any point-and-click game could be, and the mental images can be even better than the digitally-created ones.
My dad, knowing my love of the genre, saw a work of modern interactive fiction for sale on Steam and bought it for me. I played about an hour and a half of it last night and I adore it! The interface is updated in some ways, and simply changed in others. Rather than typing out comments, you point and click one of several options in each scene. There's no user-directed walking about; you encounter scenes as they come and tell the program what you're doing. You don't get to decide you'd rather be at some other place and leave. In this way, it's more like an interactive novel than a fantasy role-playing game, and I do miss some elements of games that allow freer movement and interaction with the virtual space.
Regardless, this is a wonderful game. It adds a lot of social maneuvering and moral decision-making that reminds me a bit of Dragon Age. I found myself angsting over the proper choices to make to solve the problems at hand, sure. But I angsted just as much, or more, over the proper way to react to an overture of friendship from someone I felt sympathy for but discomfort with, or to a surprise declaration of love from someone I didn't want to disappoint. Another difficult choice to make is whether to direct my energy toward academics to earn a scholarship so that my parents, who worry about being able to afford my college tuition, don't have to stress so much on my behalf; toward solving the mysteries that are cropping up around the school; or toward social and romantic relationships that might end up distracting me from the former two choices, as such things often do! The game really draws me into the high-school student protagonist's life.
Another thing that reminds me of Dragon Age is the diversity and inclusiveness. Is your character gay? Female? Bisexual? Male? Straight? These are all options. I'm playing a somewhat shy, bi boy (raise your hand if you're surprised....) and have gotten attention from members of both genders, including the amazingly cute boy in one of my classes who I get so nervously tongue-tied around that I ran away from my first conversation with him. Adorable!
I may actually do a couple of play-throughs of this game. Maybe I'll go in the other direction and be a socially confident athletic girl next time who's aiming for a sports scholarship. There seem to be a lot of paths to walk. And for later, the maker, Choice of Games, has produced a number of games of this variety that sound appealing. For instance, they wanted create a swashbuckling 19th century British Navy setting, but include gender diversity and equality, which is very important to the team. The game's navy is much as might be expected if you are a male protagonist. If you play as a female though, the navy is still all one sex, but that sex is female, and you exist in a matriarchal society where peacock-pretty men vie for the attention of powerful female officers. How fun is that?
These may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm really happy I was introduced not only to modern interactive fiction, but to a company that's trying really hard to make queer and non cis-male gamers feel welcome and even empowered. I didn't mean to start writing a big long review, but I guess I did. It's because I like this game so much! If this sounds interesting, please go check them out. It looks like most of their games are $5 or so.
https://www.choiceofgames.com/