Interactive Fiction — How I started loving it

Or how i started ‘living’ it

A few months ago I ventured into an interesting domain — a blend of gaming and fiction reading. Interactive fiction is also synonymous to Text Adventures.

As Wikipedia puts it:

Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment.

Most of us love to read, many of us love fiction. It helps broaden our spectrum of imagination while we delve into another world of characters, plots, events, props and some dramatic sequences and liners. How about being able to control the story you’re reading? or better even, how about living inside of it?

That’s how I like to see Interactive Fiction (IF). IF puts you in the forefront of the story you’re reading, and makes you live it. Imagine Jane is walking in the woods with her side-kick, John, hunting for lost chambers and hidden treasure chests, and she is running from creatures that pace her vital organs breathing for air — you’re Jane and you’ve got to decide whether you “GO EAST” to the cave of nightmares, or you “TAKE KNIFE” from the floor to hurt the enemy. It would be interesting to read what Jane does in a regular story, but its awesome to control that next step.

William Crowther made the first IF game in 1976 to enlighten the faces of his 2 young children. It was a text adventure involving exploration of a cave with supernatural elements & Dwarves. The game is built upon a verb-noun paradigm and you have to take the story in the right direction to save the world from the doom of getting lost in a labyrinth or die surprisingly.

You can live this story here: At End of Road
(try to GO EAST, then EAT TASTY FOOD, then TAKE BOTTLE — type HELP for more instructions)

More stories can be found at http://textadventures.co.uk/

As a kid, I did read of stories with multiple endings or alternate endings, like the Goosebumps Give yourself Goosebumps series and I was certainly fascinated by the concept of turning to different pages for different story direction — but Interactive Fiction takes this on a whole new level of reading a story from inside, living it.

IF has more evolved since it first began. Use of visuals — images and videos — more props and complex plots, point-and-click interfaces and such features have taken it to more of a gaming experience. Check out the game I’ve personally played that uses a more visual approach to IF:

Dark Arcana
Apple iTunes Windows Phone Play Store

P.s. — I would love to see a mature social platform for reading and writing Interactive Fiction stories — just like Medium is for Everyone’s stories and ideas.