Use Your Imagination
The recent 2004 interactive fiction competition encouraged me to try this antiquated form of computer gaming once again. A decade ago when I last played these games they were called text adventure games, and while the quality of writing has improved, the gameplay is still as frustrating as ever. What would it take to bring interactive fiction (IF) back into the mainstream?
I suspect that when IF was part of mainstream gaming twenty years ago, most gamers were the type of person who could appreciate the slow-paced detail and delightful frustration that it offered. It was also unique, in that other games of the day (mostly arcade games) could not match the depth of play. These days it is less unique, when even 3D shooter games offer adventure in the form of deep storylines, puzzles, and scripted dialog. Add to that streamlined action, tactics, special effects, and intuitive interfaces, and it’s no wonder that IF has withdrawn to the fringe of gaming.
However IF does still have something unique to offer. No amount of polygons or raytracing can replace the realism of your imagination as you wander through worlds of prose. It also has a higher potential for interactivity, because it is much cheaper to write an alternate scene than it is to hire artists, animators, programmers and voice-actors to create one. The reason that IF is no longer mainstream is because the modern day gamer has come to expect more streamlined, easier to play games, and for obvious reasons it is very difficult to market against the latest 3D games.
In the original adventure games, the world consisted of rooms, objects, and characters (which are really just objects that might be capable of talking, moving and fighting). Some objects could be carried and used elsewhere, while others were part of the furniture. To use an object, you had to specify exactly how you wished to use it. Characters operated in a similar way – when you talked to them about a particular subject, some dialogue was unlocked. A few innovations have been added over the years, such as branching dialogue, the ability to use synonyms for objects and actions, inheritance hierarchies, and scripting systems that allow more detailed game logic. The core concepts are still the same.
Writers of IF have endeavoured to make the most of this system, but the very structure of the game promotes a situation where the player ends up aimless and confused. Good writers attempt to weave puzzles into the story and make the solutions logical rather than arbitrary. However to remain satisfyingly challenging, the solutions cannot be obvious, and the player will inevitably end up trying many different solutions before stumbling upon the correct one. Interaction with characters and objects devolves into a matter of guessing the right phrase to unlock the next part of the “puzzle”. It then becomes obvious to the player that their decisions have no consequences, and they lose interest. Well-devised IF can overcome these problems to an extent, but even the top entries of the 2004 competition had these problems.
Look at how graphical adventure games evolved. The interface was streamlined by replacing the command prompt with a mouse cursor that could select objects and actions. There’s no reason why IF can’t have a GUI that does something similar. It could go even further, and make the list of available actions context sensitive. Having the game use a GUI could allow different windows to display different information, such as the time, the player’s current status, inventory, or even their journal. Graphic adventures allowed the player to instantly see what was happening in a scene, and to focus on the details they want to. A text game could highlight words in the scene description, and pop-up a more detailed description of that thing when the mouse cursor rests over it. There is a lot of room for IF to innovate in terms of user interface.
However, it’s not only the interface that needs to evolve. The world simulation that goes on behind the scenes is a more complex area, but it needs to be addressed too. I believe that the major problems of current systems are their passiveness and lack of consequences. Of course the computer still has to wait for player input before it can respond, but time should pass in the game world as the player looks around, uses objects and interacts with characters. And as time passes, the world should change. Characters should get impatient, leave, start and stop doing things. This only needs to be done to a small degree for the game to seem a lot more dynamic, and to introduce some consequences for wandering around the map trying to use the spanner that you just picked up on every other item in the game.
The more consequences there are for a player’s actions, the more interesting the game will be for them. And as long as it makes sense to the player, I believe it is fine to include early-game-ending consequences too - such as player death. Of course an automatic save game system is necessary for this to be not too frustrating.
Another alternative for adding consequence to the player’s actions is to change the game engine from being a world-simulation to being a plot-simulation. In essence this means making IF more like “choose you own adventure” books, where the player is presented with a set of options at each branch in the plot. This pushes the player through the story and ensures that they will never be lost or confused about what to do next. It does limit the options the player has considerably, but the options being lost are largely uninteresting or useless options, so I believe this to be a good thing. In these types of games, the plot branches can never be too big, but the player will still have a lot of options to choose from if there are many smaller branches. Because these short branches will inevitably rejoin the main plot arc, the consequences of the player’s options can be stored to affect future situations accordingly.
Apart from improving the interface and game mechanics, IF game engines could benefit from more user-friendly editing software. Modern games of other genres have editors that give game designers a decent interface for creating their works of art. Similarly, interactive fiction needs to be made more accessible to writers of regular fiction. It may not be possible to provide a purely graphical interface for the more complex types of scripted games, but it is at least possible to provide a decent development environment for them. Visual map graphs, object and property lists, context sensitive help, automatic code generation, and code completion would all assist talented authors in the creation of better interactive fiction. Once the quality and depth of IF is similar to that of a good novel, if may even be possible to start selling it.
In order to sell an IF game these days, a developer might have to do something most other developers now do – license some intellectual property. If a profit-sharing deal can be made rather than having to pay an up-front price, then this is a realistic possibility. Professional level interactive fiction based on licenses such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings would sell quite well – if given some decent marketing.
Unfortunately nobody has tried marketing IF for over decade, and most gamers don’t even know people are still writing IF. It would be very challenging to break through people’s preconceptions of what interactive fiction is, and bring it back into the realm of popular gaming. The backing of major licenses would help this process a lot, but until then, enthusiasts can still start things changing. Fans could request gaming websites to cover IF events, and even provide IF game rankings and reviews. Overall, the level of interest in IF seems to be increasing, and I remain optimistic about the future of this interesting genre of computer games.
I suspect that when IF was part of mainstream gaming twenty years ago, most gamers were the type of person who could appreciate the slow-paced detail and delightful frustration that it offered. It was also unique, in that other games of the day (mostly arcade games) could not match the depth of play. These days it is less unique, when even 3D shooter games offer adventure in the form of deep storylines, puzzles, and scripted dialog. Add to that streamlined action, tactics, special effects, and intuitive interfaces, and it’s no wonder that IF has withdrawn to the fringe of gaming.
However IF does still have something unique to offer. No amount of polygons or raytracing can replace the realism of your imagination as you wander through worlds of prose. It also has a higher potential for interactivity, because it is much cheaper to write an alternate scene than it is to hire artists, animators, programmers and voice-actors to create one. The reason that IF is no longer mainstream is because the modern day gamer has come to expect more streamlined, easier to play games, and for obvious reasons it is very difficult to market against the latest 3D games.
A Little History
Let’s take a quick look at how IF has changed in the last twenty years. The original text adventures displayed text that described the scene to the player, who then decided what they wanted to do, and typed in a command. If the command was recognised by the game, it described the resulting effects. If it didn’t understand a word used in the command, it displayed an error message. This interface was obviously copied from the computer operating systems that existed when the genre was born, however it is still used today!In the original adventure games, the world consisted of rooms, objects, and characters (which are really just objects that might be capable of talking, moving and fighting). Some objects could be carried and used elsewhere, while others were part of the furniture. To use an object, you had to specify exactly how you wished to use it. Characters operated in a similar way – when you talked to them about a particular subject, some dialogue was unlocked. A few innovations have been added over the years, such as branching dialogue, the ability to use synonyms for objects and actions, inheritance hierarchies, and scripting systems that allow more detailed game logic. The core concepts are still the same.
Writers of IF have endeavoured to make the most of this system, but the very structure of the game promotes a situation where the player ends up aimless and confused. Good writers attempt to weave puzzles into the story and make the solutions logical rather than arbitrary. However to remain satisfyingly challenging, the solutions cannot be obvious, and the player will inevitably end up trying many different solutions before stumbling upon the correct one. Interaction with characters and objects devolves into a matter of guessing the right phrase to unlock the next part of the “puzzle”. It then becomes obvious to the player that their decisions have no consequences, and they lose interest. Well-devised IF can overcome these problems to an extent, but even the top entries of the 2004 competition had these problems.
Evolution Baby
I do think that IF can evolve into something that modern gamers will appreciate. While the lack of audio-visual stimulus makes it hard to promote IF these days, books are as popular as ever. Although IF could benefit from beautiful artwork, atmospheric soundtracks, and realistic sound effects, I don’t believe IF has to incorporate these elements. What I think IF needs to do is evolve like other genres of computer games have.Look at how graphical adventure games evolved. The interface was streamlined by replacing the command prompt with a mouse cursor that could select objects and actions. There’s no reason why IF can’t have a GUI that does something similar. It could go even further, and make the list of available actions context sensitive. Having the game use a GUI could allow different windows to display different information, such as the time, the player’s current status, inventory, or even their journal. Graphic adventures allowed the player to instantly see what was happening in a scene, and to focus on the details they want to. A text game could highlight words in the scene description, and pop-up a more detailed description of that thing when the mouse cursor rests over it. There is a lot of room for IF to innovate in terms of user interface.
However, it’s not only the interface that needs to evolve. The world simulation that goes on behind the scenes is a more complex area, but it needs to be addressed too. I believe that the major problems of current systems are their passiveness and lack of consequences. Of course the computer still has to wait for player input before it can respond, but time should pass in the game world as the player looks around, uses objects and interacts with characters. And as time passes, the world should change. Characters should get impatient, leave, start and stop doing things. This only needs to be done to a small degree for the game to seem a lot more dynamic, and to introduce some consequences for wandering around the map trying to use the spanner that you just picked up on every other item in the game.
The more consequences there are for a player’s actions, the more interesting the game will be for them. And as long as it makes sense to the player, I believe it is fine to include early-game-ending consequences too - such as player death. Of course an automatic save game system is necessary for this to be not too frustrating.
Another alternative for adding consequence to the player’s actions is to change the game engine from being a world-simulation to being a plot-simulation. In essence this means making IF more like “choose you own adventure” books, where the player is presented with a set of options at each branch in the plot. This pushes the player through the story and ensures that they will never be lost or confused about what to do next. It does limit the options the player has considerably, but the options being lost are largely uninteresting or useless options, so I believe this to be a good thing. In these types of games, the plot branches can never be too big, but the player will still have a lot of options to choose from if there are many smaller branches. Because these short branches will inevitably rejoin the main plot arc, the consequences of the player’s options can be stored to affect future situations accordingly.
Catch 22
Interactive fiction does not currently enjoy a lot of public exposure, mainly because it is no longer being sold. There is not a large base of creators or players, and the majority of IF is nowhere near a professional level of quality. Unfortunately this doesn’t help its exposure or popularity. However enough changes may be able to be made by enthusiasts to build up some momentum for IF, and help it break back into the mainstream.Apart from improving the interface and game mechanics, IF game engines could benefit from more user-friendly editing software. Modern games of other genres have editors that give game designers a decent interface for creating their works of art. Similarly, interactive fiction needs to be made more accessible to writers of regular fiction. It may not be possible to provide a purely graphical interface for the more complex types of scripted games, but it is at least possible to provide a decent development environment for them. Visual map graphs, object and property lists, context sensitive help, automatic code generation, and code completion would all assist talented authors in the creation of better interactive fiction. Once the quality and depth of IF is similar to that of a good novel, if may even be possible to start selling it.
In order to sell an IF game these days, a developer might have to do something most other developers now do – license some intellectual property. If a profit-sharing deal can be made rather than having to pay an up-front price, then this is a realistic possibility. Professional level interactive fiction based on licenses such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings would sell quite well – if given some decent marketing.
Unfortunately nobody has tried marketing IF for over decade, and most gamers don’t even know people are still writing IF. It would be very challenging to break through people’s preconceptions of what interactive fiction is, and bring it back into the realm of popular gaming. The backing of major licenses would help this process a lot, but until then, enthusiasts can still start things changing. Fans could request gaming websites to cover IF events, and even provide IF game rankings and reviews. Overall, the level of interest in IF seems to be increasing, and I remain optimistic about the future of this interesting genre of computer games.
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