As the title says, are there any particularly good books about interactive fiction (more about games themselves than how to write them) out there? A friend of mine has a birthday coming up, and he’s one of the few irl people I share an enjoyment of interactive fiction with, so I was looking to give him some kind of interactive-fiction related gift, and thought a book might be a good place to start looking. I’ve heard of Twisty Little Passages, but was worried it might be a little dense. That could very well be a wrong impression, though!
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There’s also 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron Reed!
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I got a copy of The Secret History of Mac Gaming as an IFComp prize last year; it’s not IF-specific, but if they’re into microcomputer-era games and early text adventures, it’s neat and not too dense!
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Thank you!
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(sorry for the random accidental quote there)
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This looks awesome; now I’m wanting to read this myself!
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I remember using worldcat.org to find a library with Twisty Little Passages. It was in several university libraries I could just walk in. While I liked it, yes, I’m pretty sure it’s a tougher read than the other books. It’s intended to be academic.
I had to pretty much say, okay I’m sitting in the reading room and not getting up until I finish. So that seems like a good option if you are near such a university. (I was lucky to be.)
Also, sadly, TLP isn’t available on archive.org unless someone has print disabilities so that option’s out.
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Adding some parser-focused things because that’s my primary interest, hopefully others will supplement with some choice-based work.
Graham Nelson’s The Craft of Adventure is a classic collection of essays on game construction from the ‘90s, well worth a read. More recently, the IF Theory Reader is a longer collection of essays on the same topic, some more abstract, difficult, and/or abstruse than others.
A good general book on the history of parser IF (as of 2006, though much has changed since then) is Jimmy Maher’s Let’s Tell a Story Together.
Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when parser-based interactive fiction was a commercially viable video game subgenre and what hobbyist scene there was was still trying to design things in general-purpose programming languages like BASIC, there was a whole slew of “how to write adventure games on your computer” books, often targeted at precious children and teens. Many of these are now available free online in PDF form. I fondly remember Lipscomb and Zuanich’s BASIC Fun with Adventure Games and Richard Vile’s Programming Your Own Adventure Games in Pascal; also maybe worth mentioning are Jenny Tyler and Les Howarth’s Write Your Own Adventure Programs For Your Microcomputer and Les Howarth and Cheryl Evans’s Write Your Own Fantasy Games for Your Microcomputer.
EDIT. I mention a few “writing and theory” texts specifically because those ones in particular also have excellent bits of criticism and history.
EDIT AGAIN. Whoops! Looks like the original poster is looking for physical books for a gift, which I seem to have missed, somehow. Sigh. Leaving this up anyway in case it’s useful to anyone else who stumbles across the thread.
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Kickstarted it and loved it!
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Skallagrigg, by William Horwood, is a novel in which classic IF is treated as an utterly life-transforming art form. I haven’t read it in a long time but remember it fondly.
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When I got back into text adventure games I found PDFs of this (and Aaron Reed’s Inform 7 book) quite easily and without any expertise. I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing, but you could certainly try before you buy.
P.S. In my defence, I did go on to buy a second-hand copy of Aaron Reed’s book, but haven’t read or bought the other one yet.
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I know it doesn’t directly answer the OP, but Patrick did such a great job listing articles and essays, that I thought it prudent to include:
For those that don’t already know and any lurkers finding these resources, it’s a platform for in-depth theory and criticism of Interactive Fiction with a bunch of really good pieces already.
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Still very appreciated, if not for my friend then for my own IF interest!
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IFWiki has a list of IF-related books: Book list
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This new book about Zork is available, though if you live in the states you might have trouble getting it due to our ongoing tariff situation (it’s shipped from Australia).
I have an essay in there; it’s readable for free at my Infocom blog (if their games interest you).
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I can’t praise this book enough. It’s beautifully written, beautifully typeset, and an absolute treasure trove of information and analysis about every obscure corner of the IF world. Best book I read in 2023 by far.
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Also the original version of the articles is still online, so you can go check those out before spending money, if you’re not convinced yet.
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