Late 80s, I think.
But not because people wanted more speculation in their fiction. They just wanted a group term for “fantasy, science fiction, and supernatural horror” and picked “speculative fiction” as a label.
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Thanks, Zarf. Speculative perhaps fit well the genre, because in my narrative, I, well, speculate also on the reciprocal of Clarke’s third law… among other things.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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I also don’t agree that IF is rooted in choice in that sense. Obviously there’s a lot of love for the style of game you’re describing, but it’s just one branch of IF. I wouldn’t even agree it’s more “interactive” — interacting with what?
Fresh from my mentioning Hellraiser in the Meaningfulness topic (Addressing the Human Condition in interactive fiction? - #6 by severedhand) I notice Clive Barker came along to help Roger Ebert. Wasn’t that nice of him.
I think Ebert was probably the highest profile expresser of the generational acknowledgment that videogames basically weren’t art as art had been received up to that point. I got this idea from David Cronenberg when he was talking about his 1999 film Existenz (great film) which is about a virtual reality game. He said (paraphrasing) on the nature of games vs films: games were more democratic, and then he said that thing about they weren’t art as we knew art by how it had been received up to that point. So I think he was implying – they were a large change to the bucket labelled ART, as opposed to the eternal (slightly?) smaller ones.
-Wade
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Would it be fair to say that the choices (illusory choices?) and puzzles presented to the player should reinforce the theme of the narrative?
For instance, an IF about human reliance upon machines in which the puzzles center around either:
A. interfacing with machines
B. figuring out how to do something without a machine which would be much simpler with one
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I can think of two pieces of advice I’ve heard for that specific scenario;
One is that Emily Short has suggested making games where the player cannot miss the plot because it essential to progress. So that would support your idea of tying progression to major choices. The context she was talking about was when games have branching storylines but put important content in an optional branch, making people confused later.
The other is that I’ve heard a few bigger authors like Short and Ingold talk about doubling down, where you present a choice that is desirable but has negative consequences, and offer a ‘are you sure?’ moment, which can help make people more invested.
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I previously made an RPG with multiple endings using the OHRRPGCE engine. I didn’t know much about CYOA structures at the time (and my knowledge is still pretty superficial). My game was totally linear in Acts 1 and 2, with Act 3 presenting several opportunities to branch off toward alternate endings.
My text adventure Hinterlands: Marooned! had a lot of endings, but it was basically a one-turn game, so a jack-in-the-box sorta thing.
My limited experience with Twine games implies that a lot of that genre focuses on these CYOA type structures.
I’ve played more parser IF, most of which has been relatively linear. Sure, there may be certain batches of puzzles that can be solved in any order, or periods when the player is allowed to roam at their leisure, but the plots themselves are mostly linear. Sometimes with a “final choice” or some other criteria that allows for different endings.
Is it actually common for parser IF to have branching plots? I’ve been looking at the charts shared by @HAL9000 and wondering how I would go about tackling one of these structures in Inform 7. The narrative I’ve been brainstorming is thematically conducive to at least one good divergence in Act 2, but I haven’t the faintest idea how this would actually play out.
Okay, I may just be thinking “aloud” at this point.
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Authorial control does not make art, that is a technicality. If one’s definition of art excludes computer games on a technicality, the problem lies with the definition. Even as a technical issue, the argument is not sound. Ebert showed a complete lack of understanding about how computer games are created. Most of them are authored with as much artistic control as an average independent film.
The player’s limited ability to control events or the story in a game does not disqualify the form as art. I see interactivity as an aspect that one-ups all other fine arts, instead. In that regard I claim that interactive fiction began becoming an art form not with AMFV or Trinity or Photopia, but “at the end of a road before a small brick building” on a PDP-10.
Another one of Ebert’s arguments is that gamers can not agree about which games are masterpieces of the medium. That is a completely bogus argument. As a film critic, he should have known better than anybody that popular agreement is not indicative of whether something is good art, or even if it an art form or not. I believe in the case of films his notion of agreement is not popular but an elitist one, which brings my case to its conlcusion:
Ebert’s original article was an obvious gatekeeping attempt, and so was his later article of apology. He responded to criticisms with “Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are best kept to yourself.” [emphasis mine] He was absolutely right with the last sentence, because his opinion was based on ignorance (his own admission) and therefore was not worth the energy spent to store them on a magnetic medium.
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Yes. That’s craft, though, not intent.
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A bunch of semi-random thoughts and resources, which may or may not be helpful:
@zarf’s talk at Northeastern covered something that (I think) isn’t often explicitly discussed: think about on what layers you’re giving the player freedom and which layers are more guided, and how you balance that. So Parser games tend to have quite a lot of freedom to move around the world and manipulate objects, but in service of a usually linear story. Choice games generally have more limited choices mechanically but sometimes focus more on having the story change.
Emily Short’s post Mailbag: Self-Training in Narrative Design links to a whole pile of things, a few of which get at using writing and mechanics intentionally in literary ways, I think? Maybe particularly Cat Manning’s Successful Reflective Choices, Sam Kabo Ashwell’s Bestiary of Player Agency. The old Choice of Games blog posts about structure (IIRC this one links to the others?) are interesting in a more mechanical authoring look at one particular structure. Jon Ingold’s Sparkling Dialogue talk is about some ways to write dialogue choices that are more literary and less mechanical: let the subtext do the work, trust your readers to understand rather than bashing them over the head with bluntly mechanical text.
Not linked there but also interesting: Stacey Mason’s very short paper On Links: Exercises in Style talks about the poetics of links as punctuation, exercises in how the meaning changes as you break a text at different points and emphasize different words by making them the source of a link. Very hypertext-specific, but I feel like this way of thinking could have insights for parser game design as well? Maybe? Where do you break the description between the room and object descriptions, what do you have to use another command to ask for, and how does that shape your perception of it? Also her (long) PhD Thesis Responsiveness in Narrative Systems presents a nice way of thinking about player “agency”: I think that’s worth skimming through for the big picture if you have time.
And Susana Tosca’s (also very short paper) A Pragmatics Of Links is an approachable intro to the “relevance theory” of meaning in literature and how it applies to links: that we expand/brainstorm ideas of what we might expect to happen when we click a link, and then contract our ideas and contrast that with what actually happens. I feel like it’d be interesting to think of parser commands in that light too.
And if you want to throw money at something, Hannah Nicklin’s book Writing for Games talks about the writing side (as opposed to the narrative design side; she’s looking more at the actual putting-words-to-the-design part) and while it’s partly a guide to what to expect in the industry, how to work with teams, and trying to set out terminology, she also references a lot of theory and practice from interactive theater and other interesting places. And it has some case studies and practical exercises.
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I think all this boils down to “What do you want to say?” What facet of the human condition do you want to address? I wanted to write a game about the terrible loss of my mother’s sparkling intelligence and language as her dementia progresses, and the inevitability of her death, and how that road is and would continue to be one of constant loss and sorrow. This is something that will happen to the majority of us either with family or friends or ourselves-- hence, a big “human condition” topic. So I wrote about that and got a lot of nice feedback. It worked probably because I desperately needed to work out those issues for myself and so I was really invested in getting it right. So while I think writing guides are worth reading, none of that will matter if you don’t have something you really need to explore.
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I think I agree with you that the key here is having something to say that is worth saying about something universal (or so common it might as well be), and all the craft advice should be used in service of that central idea. That “having something to say” part seems more difficult to discuss and tease out than the craft. I’m not sure it’s as simple as “either you have something to say or you don’t,” but it seems like maybe it’s something that comes more from observing the world around you and digging within yourself than from any writing advice that can be easily doled out. I’ll keep thinking on this.
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I do think you must first have observed something about humanity. But that’s alerady said. So I want to say something about IF: I think some IF concepts can be used for such a topic, for example:
- a deeply programmed NPC (or one that seems so), think of something like “Galatea”
- rooms as expression of concepts (be it life phases, emotions, etc)
- interacting with items slowly uncovering some hidden truth, think of “Babel”
- descriptions of rooms or items transporting something philosophical or so
The above examples (Babel and Galatea) are not mentioned because of their meanings, but instead because of their mechanics.
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Yeah, I agree with Amanda on this. “Addressing the human condition” can mean a lot of things to different people – like, I found No One Else Is Doing This from last year’s comp had a lot to say about the experience of doing grassroots political work, which is something that I’m pretty familiar with through my work and think is really important for social change, but I suspect for most people it felt like an interesting look at a specific job and wouldn’t rise to the level of addressing the human condition.
So I think we’re really talking about the big, universal experiences – growing up and finding one’s place in the world, starting a family, dying, and seeing all that stuff happen to friends and family. And the thing is, it’s very easy to write a story that incorporates those elements but does so in a banal way that doesn’t feel especially insightful, precisely because these are such common events in all kind of fiction, and can easily feel cliche. So starting out from a place of “I want to address the human condition!” is likely to fail; even starting out in a place of “I have a take on one of these issues that I am bursting at the seams to share” can be risky! But I do think that paradoxically, the more subjective and specific your story, the more universal it can feel – this is connected to the empathy and recognition part that Drew alludes to above, which requires something human we can relate to rather than a bland archetype.
I do agree too that fitting gameplay to theme is important for making these kinds of stories work in an interactive context – though in my view that’s as important for the benefits of doing this right (the elegant interplay of interactive elements and narrative reinforcing the impact of both) as avoiding the negatives of messing it up (players who are stymied by brain-teasers or puzzled by low-context choices are unlikely to have bandwidth left over to consider the human condition). Choice and consequences may be one way of doing this, but I wouldn’t think necessarily so – certainly when I’ve experienced these kinds of big events, I often haven’t felt like I have a lot of choices beyond how to respond.
Lastly, the genre conversation feels like it should be irrelevant – since why should genre matter for this kind of stuff – but I think actually is on point. Possibly this is just reflecting my own biases, but I’ve found the IF (and other fiction, for that matter) that successfully does this sort of thing tends to be more grounded in the real world. A fantastical element or two can definitely work – others have mentioned Repeat the Ending and Computerfriend, for example – but I think both of those games start out from a very grounded set of experiences, which is the right approach. Too much variation from the real world means the player can wind up spending a lot of their attention on what’s different from their experiences, rather than what’s the same (would this be a place to gently suggest that in this context, the F/SF focus on worldbuilding combines unfruitfully with the systematic lack of an editing process for amateur IF?)
Beyond these general considerations, I wrote up some more specific thoughts in my post-game notes for Sting that maybe bear on this question too – big spoilers though and if you’re interested in this topic, it might be better to play the game first (it’s relatively short and relatively easy!)
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You eventually have to pick a lane and see the strategy to it’s conclusion. Not only do you have to dig deep within yourself, you have to dig in with your message and not waffle. Say what you have to say. Essentially, if you are passionate about the theme, you’ll find that you will have a lot to say about it and that will carry you through.
As a side note, when you first started this topic, I felt that you were leaning towards bona fide literature (Moby-Dick or The Great Gatsby stuff). That’s human condition writing without a doubt. Now that you are mentioning sci-fi, I wonder if you are wanting to say something about society in general. A lot of science fiction waivers between the inner struggle of people and that broader message of where we stand as a society. One side is more about people and the other side is more about things/concepts. Things don’t tend to constitute literature even though they too can carry a lot of weight. One could argue that one is the logical perspective of the human condition and the other is the emotional side.
I love sci-fi, but I don’t pretend that the struggles of a person in a holographic simulation is literature. That’s just good drama. I’m not starting a debate here about the qualities of sci-fi though. Just something to contemplate. I think you can draw you own conclusion from what I’m saying.
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Okay, so you specifically did not say “all”, but the rest of your statement sounds like “all”.
Nah.
Big disagree.
I was originally going to hold my tongue until I had enough energy to have a proper conversation about this.
This is a topic that I specifically do not want to remain silent on, though, no matter how hard the mental illness is afflicting me today, especially when friends and strangers both know me as the freak who really likes science fiction.
So while I cannot turn my thoughts into words right now, I just want it on record that I did not scroll past this without saying “no”.
And that’s obviously not sufficient for anyone looking for justification or a discussion, but…
… justification and discussion don’t seem to be what you’re looking for, either, so maybe this is an acceptable transaction of words.
Anyway, without wasting any more time: “Nah.”
And that’s all I can muster for the moment.
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You’re obviously passionate about sci-fi. So am I. It’s all good.
My point is that perhaps Cody Gaisser is looking at the human condition from a different point of view, one that’s not accepted as traditional literature. I thought this was constructive and potentially beneficial to point out. His topic is primarily about literature, which is arguably a very elitist category of writing. I just want him to make sure that he does in fact want to actually write literature. If my ignorant perspective makes him think, “No, you’re wrong. I can make this work,” then I would be really happy. I just feel that it’s good to challenge people’s perspectives. It’s always at the risk of offending though.
I encourage you to start a new topic about this. I’d love to hear a perspective that lifts sci-fi to a higher artistic standard. We probably agree on a lot of things. We may even be at odds over entirely different matters on this. I think that may be the case, actually. Let’s not derail this topic any further though.
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Maybe in the future. I don’t have it in me right now.
Absolutely.
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I suspect I might have stepped in it by using the word “literature,” which I am realizing is a loaded term. I was really just trying to spark a discussion about how to be a better author of interactive fiction, from which I could probably learn something and improve my art/craft. I personally think science fiction and fantasy (and horror and romance and cartoons and pop music) can have a lot to say about what it is to be human, and I don’t think of them as any less than any other form of (excuse me again) “art.”
I am just at the point where I’m beta-testing one game and brainstorming/outlining another. I’m having thoughts like “how can I make the next one better?” and “what does it mean to be a better writer?” and “what is my theme and how do I explore it effectively?”. I’ve been watching writing courses on YouTube, listening to audiobooks, reading interviews with authors, and generally trying to get myself into the headspace to write more effectively. Still, interactive fiction is a different medium that static fiction. There are mechanics and choices, and anyway most books aren’t a series of room descriptions. There’s enough similarity that I imagine the typical writing advice will still largely apply to IF, but there’s enough difference to warrant special consideration, so I came here to see what the community thinks.
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(This was written before Cody’s latest post, which I like!)
I agree that good literature should not have fantasy or sci-fi elements in it.
Having non-human beings from an advanced civilization create weapons for human warriors weakens the emotional impact of human effort, which is why the Iliad is not literature.
Giants, summoning the dead with blood and polymorph spells are frankly ridiculous, which is why the Odyssey is not literature.
Fanfiction of the Bible with a self-insert protagonist that puts all of the author’s enemies in literal hell is Mary Sue at its worst, which is why the Inferno is not literature. Let’s not even get started with other fanfic like Paradise Lost and its obvious lust for the Satan character!
I have no respect for creators of large franchises that have so many sequels that you’d have to watch hours to catch up, or that have stories with witches, ghosts, spirits, literal demon summoning, splatter horror like baking heads in a pie, etc. Shakespeare needs to cut back on his Henrys and Fairies before I’d ever consider him literature.
Frankenstein? Not literature. A real author could tease out the same feelings and message with a human antagonist instead of requiring a monstrous one.
Faust has no real literary content, just a series of magic scenes and a big set-piece Walpurgis Nacht that is essentially bad CGI but in text version.
Don Quixote has too many poop jokes to be serious literature.
Dracula borrows heavily from older stories and the whole bloodsucking thing is a just an underhanded way of writing about the fear of more attractive foreign men seducing women. Not literature.
Journey to the West has a monkey with a magic extending staff who pees on Buddha’s hand and fights with a dragon and a pig. It’s rank fantasy and even has a popular anime adaptation, which is the #1 sign something is not literature.
Peer Gynt has a guy that melts souls down into buttons, literal trolls, etc. Not literature.
The Bible can’t be literature, it has a talking donkey and chariots of fire.
Beowulf? Come on; a dragon, a cursed ring, a cave monster and a fight with a magic sword that lasts for hours? without breathing? Not literature.
The only real literature was written by a man named Bartholomew Micklecrabs in 1976 while under the influence of LSD. It was a 200 page analysis of a conversation he had in a laundromat with his mailman who is also his best friend. It only has 6 words of dialogue and the rest is a metaphor for how the spinning of the drum reminded him of his depression. After he wrote the manuscript he burnt it and consumed the ashes, and the world has been without true literature ever since then.
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