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gusabus's review against another edition
5.0
Great book! Montfort does a great job at not only giving the history of interactive fiction, but also what makes it special.
dmarymac's review against another edition
4.0
I found this book in a search, because if it hadn't been written, I was going to write it. However, Montford, left no stone, literally (in IF), unturned on the topic. Super detailed and semantic. I just wanted to relive all of Infocom's games and find out what interactive fiction looks like nowadays. Also, best title ever.
thirtytwobirds's review against another edition
1.0
I got about a quarter of the way into this and had to stop. It's just awful.
I tried to give this one a fair shot. I really did. One of this author's other books, Racing the Beam, has enough technical content to make it worth wading through all the countless "I am smart so let me use lots of big-sounding words" pages.
Another of his books, 10 PRINT, starts off painful but eventually starts talking about *actual things* instead of handwavey wankery.
But this book never seems to evolve past the "let's define lots of impressive soundings words by referring to other impressive sounding words" stage. I had to stop. I couldn't take it. I'm sorry.
I tried to give this one a fair shot. I really did. One of this author's other books, Racing the Beam, has enough technical content to make it worth wading through all the countless "I am smart so let me use lots of big-sounding words" pages.
Another of his books, 10 PRINT, starts off painful but eventually starts talking about *actual things* instead of handwavey wankery.
But this book never seems to evolve past the "let's define lots of impressive soundings words by referring to other impressive sounding words" stage. I had to stop. I couldn't take it. I'm sorry.
tobiasj's review against another edition
5.0
Gives a great insight into interactive fiction, a must read.
nickfourtimes's review against another edition
3.0
1) "Works of interactive fiction also present simulated worlds: These are not merely the setting of the literature that is realized; they also, among other things, serve to constrain and define the operation of the narrative-generating program. IF worlds are reflected in, but not equivalent to, maps, object trees, and descriptive texts. The IF world is no less than the content plane of interactive fiction, just as the story is the content plane of a narrative."
2) "The riddle is not only the most important early ancestor of interactive fiction but also an extremely valuable figure for understanding it, perhaps the most directly useful figure in considering the aesthetics and poetics of the form today."
3) "The writing of an IF work is not some surface feature to be applied at the last moment any more than the choice of words in a riddle can be done 'last.' Although structure as well as writing is important, the writing is intimately related to the workings of an IF world. The arrangement of challenges and the way in which the IF world can be experienced can be discussed with reference to the riddle. (An art such as architecture, which considers that people may take different courses through a space, also has advantages in considering this aspect.) To understand how language functions in interactive fiction and what the literary aspects of interactive fiction are, the best comparison seems to be not to the novel but to the form of poetry considered here, the riddle. The riddle, like an IF work, must express itself clearly enough to be solved, obliquely enough to be challenging, and beautifully enough to be compelling. These are all different aspects of the same goal; they are not in competition. An excellent interactive fiction work is no more 'a crossword at war with a narrative' [...] than a poem is sound at war with sense."
4) "'I'd set my theme, I'd set my locations, and I'd start putting items in and putting in puzzles. I'd get the game about two thirds done and then I would stop. The next one third of the game literally came from the people I gave to play the game. I'd watch how they played the game, I'd watch what they tried to do with the items that I never thought they might try to do.'" (Scott Adams, on process)
5) "Developing twenty implementations of the Z-machine and twenty IF works would result in four hundred saleable products. Mike Dornbrook, Infocom's director of marketing, said this cross-platform availability was important to the company's bottom line: no single computer platform ever accounted for more than 25 percent of Infocom's revenue in any quarter."
6) "As is the case for other forms of computer literature, while creative progress in interactive fiction is essential to the future of the form, such progress will be almost impossible, and will be for all practical purposes irrelevant, if the number of people with a deep interest in interactive fiction, worldwide, is only in the hundreds. The true popularity of computer literature---not its mass marketability or brazen promotion, but rather making works in the form available to those outside a narrow academic or newsgroup-based community---is an essential, not incidental, concern for all writers who use the computer as a medium for their work."
2) "The riddle is not only the most important early ancestor of interactive fiction but also an extremely valuable figure for understanding it, perhaps the most directly useful figure in considering the aesthetics and poetics of the form today."
3) "The writing of an IF work is not some surface feature to be applied at the last moment any more than the choice of words in a riddle can be done 'last.' Although structure as well as writing is important, the writing is intimately related to the workings of an IF world. The arrangement of challenges and the way in which the IF world can be experienced can be discussed with reference to the riddle. (An art such as architecture, which considers that people may take different courses through a space, also has advantages in considering this aspect.) To understand how language functions in interactive fiction and what the literary aspects of interactive fiction are, the best comparison seems to be not to the novel but to the form of poetry considered here, the riddle. The riddle, like an IF work, must express itself clearly enough to be solved, obliquely enough to be challenging, and beautifully enough to be compelling. These are all different aspects of the same goal; they are not in competition. An excellent interactive fiction work is no more 'a crossword at war with a narrative' [...] than a poem is sound at war with sense."
4) "'I'd set my theme, I'd set my locations, and I'd start putting items in and putting in puzzles. I'd get the game about two thirds done and then I would stop. The next one third of the game literally came from the people I gave to play the game. I'd watch how they played the game, I'd watch what they tried to do with the items that I never thought they might try to do.'" (Scott Adams, on process)
5) "Developing twenty implementations of the Z-machine and twenty IF works would result in four hundred saleable products. Mike Dornbrook, Infocom's director of marketing, said this cross-platform availability was important to the company's bottom line: no single computer platform ever accounted for more than 25 percent of Infocom's revenue in any quarter."
6) "As is the case for other forms of computer literature, while creative progress in interactive fiction is essential to the future of the form, such progress will be almost impossible, and will be for all practical purposes irrelevant, if the number of people with a deep interest in interactive fiction, worldwide, is only in the hundreds. The true popularity of computer literature---not its mass marketability or brazen promotion, but rather making works in the form available to those outside a narrow academic or newsgroup-based community---is an essential, not incidental, concern for all writers who use the computer as a medium for their work."
lautzenheiser's review against another edition
4.0
As an avid IF gamer going back to the 80s and sometimes author in the last 5 years, I really enjoyed this retrospective into IF history. There were times when the book got a little dry, but it held my interest because it brought back childhood memories when I was playing old Scott Adams games on my Vic20 and finally graduated to my first few Infocom games. It brought back memories of my neighbor and I trying to create our own text adventure and to this day he and I talk about those days more often than not. The book brought back those types of memories for me, so for that I rate it highly. If you're new to the genre, then perhaps it's a bit dry yet well researched work, but for those of us that perhaps have a long history with Interactive Fiction, it will bring back great memories.
dustingm's review against another edition
4.0
Those who poorly rate this book for it being "dry" or "academic" completely miss the point -- this is a textbook, an academic history of interactive fiction from its progenitors to its current state (at the time of this book's publication). In that sense, this book fits in perfectly with the genre. I was particularly interested in the chapters on Adventure, Zork, and Infocom as they are the main reasons I became interested in IF in the first place, and this book doesn't disappoint. It is good to see an academic approach to this influential part of gaming history.
zerobot's review against another edition
3.0
A good resource, but the writing structure just totally breaks down in the final third. Feels like a victim of a “deadline.”
charliemudd's review
4.0
It wasn't until after I finished reading this that I realized it was actually classified as a textbook. Makes sense now. 95% of the population, hell, 99.9% of the population would hate this book. However, if you came of age in the early 80's and played Adventure and Zork, you will really appreciate this book. Very analytical, stretched some of the comparisons a bit, but all in all a pleasurable geek read.
danarama's review
3.0
Pretty interesting history and overview of text adventures/interactive fiction. A bit too dry and academic for my tastes.