Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction

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Nick Montfort (Associate Professor of Digital Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Twisty Little Passages

An Approach to Interactive Fiction

Nick Montfort (Associate Professor of Digital Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

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English

MIT Press
11 February 2005

Literature: history & criticism; Computer games: strategy guides

Series: The MIT Press

A critical approach to interactive fiction, as literature and game.

Interactive fiction-the best-known form of which is the text game or text adventure-has not received as much critical attention as have such other forms of electronic literature as hypertext fiction and the conversational programs known as chatterbots. Twisty Little Passages (the title refers to a maze in Adventure, the first interactive fiction) is the first book-length consideration of this form, examining it from gaming and literary perspectives. Nick Montfort, an interactive fiction author himself, offers both aficionados and first-time users a way to approach interactive fiction that will lead to a more pleasurable and meaningful experience of it.

Twisty Little Passages looks at interactive fiction beginning with its most important literary ancestor, the riddle. Montfort then discusses Adventure and its precursors (including the I Ching and Dungeons and Dragons), and follows this with an examination of mainframe text games developed in response, focusing on the most influential work of that era, Zork. He then considers the introduction of commercial interactive fiction for home computers, particularly that produced by Infocom. Commercial works inspired an independent reaction, and Montfort describes the emergence of independent creators and the development of an online interactive fiction community in the 1990s. Finally, he considers the influence of interactive fiction on other literary and gaming forms. With Twisty Little Passages, Nick Montfort places interactive fiction in its computational and literary contexts, opening up this still-developing form to new consideration.

By: Nick Montfort (Associate Professor of Digital Media Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 431g
ISBN: 9780262633185
ISBN 10: 0262633183
Series: The MIT Press
Pages: 302
Publication Date: 11 February 2005
Recommended Age: From 18
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Nick Montfort is Professor of Digital Media at MIT. He is the author of Twisty Little Passages- An Approach to Interactive Fiction and Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities; the coauthor of Racing the Beam- The Atari Video Computer System and 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); - GOTO 10; and the coeditor of The New Media Reader (all published by the MIT Press).