Choicescript - What the Hell?

In the specific context of Introcomp, Jacq’s position on this has always been the names-are-descriptions, broad-tent one: if it’s interactive, and it’s fiction, then it’s IF. (This position has not been very hard-tested, admittedly. I’m sure non-fiction parser-IF would get in, and I doubt that Canabalt would. And these positions are inevitably influenced by the fact that in our corner of the world, IF is a prestige term, and Jacq really likes The Mystery of Chimney Rock, much as zarf really likes Myst.)

In the past, the way the comp has dealt with this has been to let everything in and let the voters sort 'em out; this has been simplified because in the past the non-parser-IF entries have typically not been very good, so the less theory-minded players have been mostly in agreement with the grognards. This is plainly not the case this Introcomp.

I think that parser-IF and CYOA have a close and special relation (primarily text-based; structure driven by narrative) that’s roughly as strong as the one zarf advocates between parser-IF and first-person adventure. That said, there is a pretty obvious difference in how they are created, played and judged, and they tend towards different kinds of narrative and content. Obviously it’s legitimate for people to enjoy one and not the other. If the major comps and the XYZZYs were routinely swamped by CYOA entries, then there’d be a reasonable case for some comps to go parser-only or have separate categories; but Introcomp is not really that kind of scale. I think that, right now, we’ve got a lot to gain from watching other kinds of narrative game. And this is easier to do when we invite more people in, even if it’s only to feast upon their delicious brains.

Awesome forum, thanks for logging me out in the middle of my essay-length post! Sure, I’d love to write it again! :imp:

Sigh.

So anyway…

Sorry for necroing the thread, but I was just browsing around, and I had no idea there was this kind of hate for CYOAs out there. Granted, I haven’t played any of the contest entries in question, and I’ve only messed around with a couple of the Choice Of games in the past, but the genre is kind of a passion of mind.

First, I don’t get how anyone can say it doesn’t count as interactive fiction. It’s fiction…that you effect the outcome of…by interacting with it, and depending on the style the author’s going for–interactive novel, RPG, or exploration and puzzle solving–it can track inventory and a host of other variables, include a combat and skill system, etc. It can be just as complex as traditional IF, just in a different way. (Though then again there are CYOAs that do a decent job imitating IF, and IF written in the style of CYOAs, so the water is significantly muddied here)

There are exceptions, but IF tends to focus more on micro actions (you want to leave the room = x desk, open drawer, get key, unlock door with key, out) while CYOAs–especially the interactive novel sort that I’m most familiar with–often take a broader approach (the family inn is failing = sell it now and get out VS visit a shady loan shark VS set up gambling tables and hire hookers…and these are not just cosmetic choices, each one leads to a completely different play experience.)

A hallmark of good IF is creating the illusion of freedom, but most puzzles only have one solution, and games with true multiple paths are rare. Just straight up showing the options that are available may take away from the ‘game’ elements of hunting for them, but where CYOAs shine is in offering meaningful choices with real consequences.

In a CYOA, whether you made the right choice or the wrong one, the story keeps moving. The puzzles aren’t about figuring out the specific command that will allow the plot to progress, they’re about manipulating the plot itself. A rash action in the character’s youth may come back to haunt them thirty years later, a nation might fall into decline or enter a golden age because of the person they helped put into power, there may be people they never meet and entire storypaths you’ll have to save for subsequent playthroughs because you decided they were going to follow a guide through the mountains instead of traveling by ship…and of course there can be entire stories hidden within those stories too.

So I guess what I’m saying is that while I can understand if CYOAs are a thing some people just personally can’t get into or aren’t interested in, it might be better to be a little more informed about what they’re about and what they can do before dismissing the entire medium out of hand.

2 Likes

If there’s no parser, it can’t be IF. Damn the day when Infocom decided to stop calling them “text adventures” and came up with “interactive fiction”.

You can’t just take the words “interactive” and “fiction” and apply them everywhere. There are terms in this life that refer to very specific things. To keep it somewhat related, you can’t call Dungeons and Dragons an “adventure game” just because there’s artwork with graphics in the books and you’re having an adventure while playing. No. Whether you like it or not, “adventure game” refers to a certain type of game. In the same manner, you can’t just come up with something that is “interactive” and “fiction” and call it Interactive Fiction.

Please! “Choose Your Own Adventure” is a perfectly fine term. Why on earth would you want to confuse the genre in the first place? With that logic, we can also describe Zork as a CYOA work. Because it’s an adventure and you’re making choices. But it isn’t what people expect a CYOA game to be.

So don’t do it.

I agree that in most situations the terms ought to be kept separate to avoid confusion, but at their core they’re very similar things that attract a very similar audience. And depending on how the author chooses to frame and present their game they can be almost interchangeable. (there are 50 games with CYOA tags on the IFDB, and I’ve played a couple of CYOAs in browsers where you move from location to location, collecting items to solve puzzles)

Just out of curiosity, would you say a game like One Week (written in TADS) shouldn’t be allowed to enter IF competitions?

Then come up with term that encompasses both IF as well as CYOA as its sub genres. For CYOA to be almost interchangeable with IF, it would need a parser. Of course if a CYOA work has a parser, then it would qualify as IF.

If it was up to me, no. The language used to write something is an implementation detail. It could just as well have been written in C or whatever.

“Choose Your Own Adventure” is a trademark of Chooseco, the company that publishes the “Choose Your Own Adventure” brand of books and software.

I think there’s a fair argument that their mark may be genericized at this point (since everybody uses it to describe just any product in that style) but let no one suggest that “CYOA” is a perfectly fine term.

1 Like

In your view, is there anything that’s interactive fiction but isn’t a text adventure?

As I see it, adventure games have puzzles and some space for exploration. Text adventures are a subset of that, in that they restrict themselves to just text. You can’t give me a text adventure without puzzles, or a text adventure without exploration, but you can write interactive fiction without puzzles or exploration.

1 Like

As with most things, language is what its users make of it. This is so generally acknowledged that even dictionaries don’t really pretend to prescribe the correct spellings of things anymore; they now frame their mission as describing the most regularised forms in common usage.

Viewed that way, the classification of CYOA as ‘interactive fiction’ is a fait accompli. There is a sizeable and growing community of practitioners and sites calling it that. They have a case, and whether or not you agree with it, there’s not much you can do, because one particular implementation at the confluence of ‘interactivity’ and ‘fiction’ does not really carry any power to lock down that rather obvious combination of words and bar any other implementation from using it.

PLQ.

1 Like