Shaping Stories and Building Worlds on Interactive Fiction Platforms
Name
Shaping stories.pdf
Size
3.13 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f6c9f95d24be490e0b48c641b4cfc023
Author(s)
Mitchell, Alex
Montfort, Nick
Date Issued
December 2009
Journal
Proceedings of the 2009 Digital Arts and Culture Conference
Publisher
Digital Arts and Culture
Citation
Mitchell, Alex, and Nick Monfort. "Shaping Stories and Building Worlds on Interactive Fiction Platforms." 2009 Digital Arts and Culture Conference (December 2009).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Adventure game development systems are platforms from the developer’s perspective. This paper investigates several subtle differences between these platforms, focusing on two systems for interactive fiction development. We consider how these platform differences may have influenced authors as they developed systems for simulation and storytelling. Through close readings of Dan Shiovitz’s Bad Machine (1998), written in TADS 2, and Emily Short’s Savoir-Faire (2002), written in Inform 6, we discuss how these two interactive fiction authoring systems may have influenced the structure of simulated story worlds that were built in them. We extend this comparative approach to larger sets of games, looking at interactive wordplay and the presentation of information within the story. In concluding, we describe how critics, scholars, and developers may be able to more usefully consider the platform level in discussions of games, electronic literature, and digital art.
MIT Department
MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://simonpenny.net/dac/day2.html
