Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction

Abstract

The idea that interactive fiction (IF) is potential narrative encourages the consideration of how it is potential – what space of narratives is defined – and of how the elements of IF correspond to narrative elements. There are rather direct correspondences between characters and events, certainly, but levels of simulation can also correspond in interesting ways to diegetic levels. While poetry generation systems, chatterbots, and video games originated before IF, the form has a rich and reasonably long history. This chapter traces a few threads of influence, explains some of the material ways in which interactors encounter IF, and considers modern‐day IF development systems in a bit more depth. The riddle helps to explain how figuration and a negotiation of understanding can take place in IF.