Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is
Due to their text-only nature, they sidestepped the problem of writing for widely divergent graphics architectures. This feature meant that interactive fiction games were easily ported across all the popular platforms at the time, including CP/M (not known for gaming or strong graphics capabilities). The number of interactive fiction works is increasing steadily as new ones are produced by an online community, using freely available development systems.
The term can also be used to refer to digital versions of literary works that are not read in a linear fashion, known as
Medium
Text adventures are one of the oldest types of
Input is usually provided by the player in the form of simple
Despite their lack of graphics, text adventures include a physical dimension where players move between rooms. Many text adventure games boasted their total number of rooms to indicate how much gameplay they offered.[2] These games are unique in that they may create an illogical space, where going north from area A takes you to area B, but going south from area B did not take you back to area A. This can create mazes that do not behave as players expect, and thus players must maintain their own map. These illogical spaces are much more rare in today's era of 3D gaming,[2] and the Interactive Fiction community in general decries the use of mazes entirely, claiming that mazes have become arbitrary 'puzzles for the sake of puzzles' and that they can, in the hands of inexperienced designers, become immensely frustrating for players to navigate.
Interactive fiction shares much in common with Multi-User Dungeons ('MUDs'). MUDs, which became popular in the mid-1980s, rely on a textual exchange and accept similar commands from players as do works of IF; however, since interactive fiction is single player, and MUDs, by definition, have multiple players, they differ enormously in gameplay styles. MUDs often focus gameplay on activities that involve communities of players, simulated political systems, in-game trading, and other gameplay mechanics that are not possible in a single player environment.
Writing style
Interactive fiction features two distinct modes of writing: the player input and the game output. As described above, player input is expected to be in simple command form (imperative sentences).[5] A typical command may be:
> PULL Lever
The responses from the game are usually written from a
"That was the first place you tried, hours and hours ago now, and there's nothing there but that boring old book. You pick it up anyway, bored as you are."[7]
Many text adventures, particularly those designed for humour (such as Zork, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos), address the player with an informal tone, sometimes including sarcastic remarks (see the transcript from Curses, above, for an example). The late Douglas Adams, in designing the IF version of his 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', created a unique solution to the final puzzle of the game: the game requires the one solitary item that the player didn't choose at the outset of play.
Some IF works dispense with second-person narrative entirely, opting for a first-person perspective ('I') or even placing the player in the position of an observer, rather than a direct participant. In some 'experimental' IF, the concept of self-identification is eliminated, and the player instead takes the role of an inanimate object, a force of nature, or an abstract concept; experimental IF usually pushes the limits of the concept and challenges many assumptions about the medium.
History
1960s and 70s
Natural language processing
Though neither program was developed as a narrative work, the software programs ELIZA (1964–1966) and SHRDLU (1968–1970) can formally be considered early examples of interactive fiction, as both programs used natural language processing to take input from their user and respond in a virtual and conversational manner. ELIZA simulated a psychotherapist that appeared to provide human-like responses to the user's input, while SHRDLU employed an artificial intelligence that could move virtual objects around an environment and respond to questions asked about the environment's shape. The development of effective natural language processing would become an essential part of interactive fiction development.[8]
Adventure
Around 1975,
Stanford University graduate student
In early 1977, Adventure spread across
The popularity of Adventure led to the wide success of interactive fiction during the late 1970s, when home computers had little, if any, graphics capability. Many elements of the original game have survived into the present, such as the command '
Adventure was also directly responsible for the founding of Sierra Online (later Sierra Entertainment); Ken and Roberta Williams played the game and decided to design one of their own,[9] but with graphics.
Commercial era
Adventure International was founded by Scott Adams (not to be confused with the creator of Dilbert). In 1978, Adams wrote Adventureland, which was loosely patterned after (the original) Colossal Cave Adventure. He took out a small ad in a computer magazine in order to promote and sell Adventureland, thus creating the first commercial adventure game. In 1979 he founded Adventure International, the first commercial publisher of interactive fiction. That same year, Dog Star Adventure was published in source code form in SoftSide, spawning legions of similar games in BASIC.
The largest company producing works of interactive fiction was Infocom,[12] which created the Zork series and many other titles, among them Trinity, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and A Mind Forever Voyaging.
In June 1977,
The term Implementer was the self-given name of the creators of the text adventure series Zork. It is for this reason that game designers and programmers can be referred to as an
In early 1979, the game was completed. Ten members of the MIT Dynamics Modelling Group went on to join Infocom when it was incorporated later that year.
In order to make its games as portable as possible, Infocom developed the
In a non-technical sense, Infocom was responsible for developing the interactive style that would be emulated by many later interpreters. The Infocom
Several companies offered optional commercial
These materials were very difficult for others to copy or otherwise reproduce, and many included information that was essential to completing the game. Seeing the potential benefits of both aiding game-play immersion and providing a measure of creative copy-protection, in addition to acting as a deterrent to software piracy, Infocom and later other companies began creating feelies for numerous titles. In 1987, Infocom released a special version of the first three Zork titles together with plot-specific coins and other trinkets.[15][16] This concept would be expanded as time went on, such that later game feelies would contain passwords, coded instructions, page numbers, or other information that would be required to successfully complete the game.
1980s
United States
Interactive fiction became a standard product for many software companies. By 1982
Outside the United States
Probably the first commercial work of interactive fiction produced outside the U.S. was the
In the early 1980s Edu-Ware also produced interactive fiction for the Apple II as designated by the "if" graphic that was displayed on startup. Their titles included the Prisoner and Empire series (Empire I: World Builders, Empire II: Interstellar Sharks, Empire III: Armageddon).
In 1981,
In Italy, interactive fiction games were mainly published and distributed through various magazines in included tapes. The largest number of games were published in the two magazines Viking and Explorer,[19] with versions for the main 8-bit home computers (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and MSX). The software house producing those games was Brainstorm Enterprise, and the most prolific IF author was Bonaventura Di Bello,[20] who produced 70 games in the Italian language. The wave of interactive fiction in Italy lasted for a couple of years thanks to the various magazines promoting the genre, then faded and remains still today a topic of interest for a small group of fans and less known developers, celebrated on Web sites and in related newsgroups.
In Spain, interactive fiction was considered a minority genre, and was not very successful. The first Spanish interactive fiction commercially released was Yenght in 1983, by Dinamic Software, for the ZX Spectrum. Later on, in 1987, the same company produced an interactive fiction about Don Quijote. After several other attempts, the company Aventuras AD, emerged from Dinamic, became the main interactive fiction publisher in Spain, including titles like a Spanish adaptation of Colossal Cave Adventure, an adaptation of the Spanish comic El Jabato, and mainly the Ci-U-Than trilogy, composed by La diosa de Cozumel (1990), Los templos sagrados (1991) and Chichen Itzá (1992). During this period, the Club de Aventuras AD (CAAD), the main Spanish speaking community around interactive fiction in the world, was founded, and after the end of Aventuras AD in 1992, the CAAD continued on its own, first with their own magazine, and then with the advent of Internet, with the launch of an active internet community that still produces interactive non commercial fiction nowadays.[21]
During the 1990s
Legend Entertainment was founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu in 1989. It started out from the ashes of Infocom. The text adventures produced by Legend Entertainment used (high-resolution) graphics as well as sound. Some of their titles include Eric the Unready, the Spellcasting series and Gateway (based on Frederik Pohl's novels).
The last text adventure created by Legend Entertainment was Gateway II (1992), while the last game ever created by Legend was Unreal II: The Awakening (2003) – the well-known first-person shooter action game using the Unreal Engine for both impressive graphics and realistic physics. In 2004, Legend Entertainment was acquired by Atari, who published Unreal II and released for both Microsoft Windows and Microsoft's Xbox.
Many other companies such as Level 9 Computing, Magnetic Scrolls, Delta 4 and Zenobi had closed by 1992.
In 1991 and 1992, Activision released The Lost Treasures of Infocom in two volumes, a collection containing most of Infocom's games, followed in 1996 by Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom.
Modern era
After the decline of the commercial interactive fiction market in the 1990s, an online community eventually formed around the medium. In 1987, the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction was created, and was soon followed by rec.games.int-fiction. By custom, the topic of rec.arts.int-fiction is interactive fiction authorship and programming, while rec.games.int-fiction encompasses topics related to playing interactive fiction games, such as hint requests and game reviews. As of late 2011, discussions between writers have mostly moved from rec.arts.int-fiction to the Interactive Fiction Community Forum.[22]
One of the most important early developments was the reverse-engineering of Infocom's
For years, amateurs with the IF community produced interactive fiction works of relatively limited scope using the Adventure Game Toolkit and similar tools.
The breakthrough that allowed the interactive fiction community to truly prosper, however, was the creation and distribution of two sophisticated development systems. In 1987, Michael J. Roberts released TADS, a programming language designed to produce works of interactive fiction. In 1993, Graham Nelson released Inform, a programming language and set of libraries which compiled to a Z-Code story file. Each of these systems allowed anyone with sufficient time and dedication to create a game, and caused a growth boom in the online interactive fiction community.
Despite the lack of commercial support, the availability of high quality tools allowed enthusiasts of the genre to develop new high quality games. Competitions such as the annual Interactive Fiction Competition for short works, the Spring Thing for longer works, and the XYZZY Awards, further helped to improve the quality and complexity of the games. Modern games go much further than the original "Adventure" style, improving upon Infocom games, which relied extensively on puzzle solving, and to a lesser extent on communication with non player characters, to include experimentation with writing and story-telling techniques.
While the majority of modern interactive fiction that is developed is distributed for free, there are some commercial endeavors. In 1998, Michael Berlyn, a former Implementor at Infocom, started a new game company, Cascade Mountain Publishing, whose goals were to publish interactive fiction. Despite the Interactive Fiction community providing social and financial backing Cascade Mountain Publishing went out of business in 2000.
Other commercial endeavours include Peter Nepstad's 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, several games by Howard Sherman published as Malinche Entertainment, The General Coffee Company's Future Boy!, Cypher, a graphically enhanced cyberpunk game and various titles by Textfyre.[23] Emily Short was commissioned to develop the game City of Secrets but the project fell through and she ended up releasing it herself.[24]
To learn more about the history of interactive fiction, see the Get Lamp documentary.
Notable works
- Adventureland, by Scott Adams, is considered one of the defining works of interactive fiction.
- The Zork series by Infocom (1979 onwards) was the first text adventure to see widespread commercial release.[25]
- Leisure Suit Larryvideo game series.
- The Hobbit, by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler of Beam Software (1982) was an early reinterpretation of an existing novel into interactive fiction, with several independent non-player characters.
- Planetfall, by Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1983), featured Floyd the robot, which Allen Varney claimed to be the first game character who evoked a strong emotional commitment from players.[26]
- Suspended by Michael Berlyn was an Infocom game with a large vocabulary and unique character personalities.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1984), involved the author of the original work in the reinterpretation.
- A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Steve Meretzky of Infocom (1985), a story-heavy, puzzle-light game often touted as Infocom's first serious work of science fiction.[27]
- Silicon Dreams, by Level 9 Computing (1986), a trilogy of interactive science fiction games.
- Leather Goddesses of Phobos by Steve Meretzky, a risqué sci-fi parody from Infocom.
- Curses, by Graham Nelson (1993), the first game written in the Inform programming language. Considered one of the first "modern" games to meet the high standards set by Infocom's best titles.[29]
- easter egg.
- Michael S. Gentry (1998) is a highly rated horror story inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.[30]
- Photopia, by Adam Cadre (1998), one of the first almost entirely puzzle-free games.[31] It won the annual Interactive Fiction Competition in 1998.[32]
- Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin (1998), an award-winning[33] espionage story with many twists and turns.[34]
- Varicella by Adam Cadre (1999). It won four XYZZY Awards in 1999 including the XYZZY Award for Best Game, and had a scholarly essay written about it.[35]
- Galatea, by Emily Short (2000). Galatea is focused entirely on interaction with the animated statue of the same name. Galatea has one of the most complex interaction systems for a non-player character in an interactive fiction game. Adam Cadre called Galatea "the best NPC ever".[36]
- Slouching Towards Bedlam, by Star C. Foster and Daniel Ravipinto (2003). Set in a steampunk setting, the game integrates meta-game functionality (saving, restoring, restarting) into the game world itself. The game won four XYZZY Awards.[37]
- The Dreamhold, by Andrew Plotkin (2004). Designed for those new to IF, it provides an extensive help section and tutorials. Although the puzzles are not too difficult, it can be a challenge for both novice and experienced players.[38]
- Façade by Michael Mateas, Andrew Stern and John Grieve (2005). An interactive drama using natural language processing.
- Lost Pig by Admiral Jota (2007). A comedic interactive fiction about an orc finding a pig that escaped from his farm. It won best game, best writing, best individual non-player character, and best individual player character in the 2007 XYZZY Awards.
- inkle (2014). An interactive adventure based on the novel by Jules Verne, it was nominated by TIME as their Game of the Year for 2014.[39]
- 9:05 by Adam Cadre. It is commonly seen as an easy gateway for people to get involved with interactive fiction.[40]
- Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, by Charlie Brooker (2018). An interactive film in the science fiction anthology series Black Mirror.
Software
Development systems
The original Interactive fiction Colossal Cave Adventure was programmed in Fortran, originally developed by IBM. Adventure's parsers could only handle two-word sentences in the form of verb-noun pairs.
.During the 1990s Interactive fiction was mainly written with C-like languages, such as
While familiarity with a programming language leads many new authors to attempt to produce their own complete IF application, most established IF authors recommend use of a specialised IF language, arguing that such systems allow authors to avoid the technicalities of producing a full featured parser, while allowing broad community support. The choice of authoring system usually depends on the author's desired balance of ease of use versus power, and the portability of the final product.[42]
Other development systems include:
- David Malmberg's Adventure Game Toolkit (AGT)
- Incentive Software's Graphic Adventure Creator (GAC)
- Inkle's inklewriter
- Professional Adventure Writer
- The Quill
- Twine
Interpreters and virtual machines
The Z-machine was designed by the founders of
Distribution
In addition to commercial distribution venues and individual websites, many works of free interactive fiction are distributed through community websites. These include the Interactive Fiction Database (IFDb), The Interactive Fiction Reviews Organization (IFRO), a game catalog and recommendation engine, and the Interactive Fiction Archive.
Works may be distributed for playing with in a separate interpreter. In which case they are often made available in the Blorb package format that many interpreters support. A filename ending .zblorb is a story file intended for a Z-machine in a Blorb wrapper, while a filename ending .gblorb is a story file intended for a Glulx in a Blorb wrapper. It is not common but IF files are sometimes also seen without a Blorb wrapping, though this usually means cover art, help files, and so forth are missing, like a book with the covers torn off. Z-machine story files usually have names ending .z5 or .z8, the number being a version number, and Glulx story files usually end .ulx.
Alternatively, works may be distributed for playing in a web browser. For example, the 'Parchment' project is for web browser-based IF Interpreter, for both Z-machine and Glulx files.
Some software such as
See also
- Hypertext fiction
- Electronic literature
- Visual novel, interactive fiction with graphics.
- Addventure
- Gamebook
- Graphic adventures, adventure games with roots in interactive fiction.
- Multi-User Dungeon(MUD), which may be considered as a kind of multiplayer or collaborative interactive fiction.
- Role-playing games, which are occasionally described as another form of interactive fiction.
- Interactive storytelling
- Get Lamp, a documentary about interactive fiction
Notes
- ^ Montfort, Nick & Urbano, Paulo (Tr.). A quarta Era da Ficção Interactiva Archived 17 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine. Nada, Volume 8. October 2006.
- ^ a b c d Rollings, Andrew; Ernest Adams (2006). Fundamentals of Game Design. Prentice Hall. Archived from the original on 17 February 2009.
- ^ Soultanis, Greg. Mullin, Eileen, ed. XYZZY News - The Magazine for Interactive Fiction Enthusiasts. Issue #4. July/August 1995. Archived 28 September 2004 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0-07-222428-2
- Imagine Media. March 1996. p. 41.
- ^ Giner-Sorolla, Roger (April 2006). "Crimes Against Mimesis". Archived from the original on 19 June 2005. Retrieved 17 December 2006. This is a reformatted version of a set of articles originally posted to Usenet:Giner-Sorolla, Roger (11 April 2006). "Crimes Against Mimesis, Part 1". Archived from the original on 2 November 2011. Retrieved 17 December 2006.Giner-Sorolla, Roger (18 April 2006). "Crimes Against Mimesis, Part 2". Archived from the original on 2 November 2011. Retrieved 17 December 2006.Giner-Sorolla, Roger (25 April 2006). "Crimes Against Mimesis, Part 3". Archived from the original on 2 November 2011. Retrieved 17 December 2006.Giner-Sorolla, Roger (29 April 2006). "Crimes Against Mimesis, Part 4". Archived from the original on 2 November 2011. Retrieved 17 December 2006.
- ^ Nelson, Graham Curses, 1993.
- ISBN 0-262-13436-5.
- ^ a b c Jerz, Dennis G. (17 February 2004). "Colossal Cave Adventure (c. 1975)". Dennis G. Jerz, Seton Hill University. Archived from the original on 6 September 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2006.
- ^ "Even the description of the volcano, which some writers have claimed was modelled after Mount Doom, was written with no particular vision in mind." "Interactive Fiction? I prefer Adventure". L'avventura è l'avventura. June 2001. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
- ^ "Jerz's Introduction (Storytelling and Computer Games; UWEC Panel, May 2001)". Jerz.setonhill.edu. Archived from the original on 30 December 2010. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ Graham Nelson (July 2001). "A short history of interactive fiction". The Inform Designer's Manual. Archived from the original on 27 August 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2006.
- ^ Allen Varney (9 December 2006). "Feelies". The Escapist, Issue #64. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007. Retrieved 10 July 2009.
- ^ Stephen van Egmond (17 April 2004). "FAQ 2/3: (2.3) How did Infocom make those neat packages?". Newsgroup: rec.games.int-fiction. Archived from the original on 18 September 2009. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
- ^ Peter Scheyen (1987). "Genuine Zorkmid coin minted for the Zork Trilogy". Archived from the original on 16 June 2006. Retrieved 10 July 2009.
- ^ Robin Lionheart (2009). "The Zorkmid Project". Archived from the original on 11 April 2009. Retrieved 10 July 2009.
- ^ a b c Maher, Jimmy (28 August 2012). "SAGA". The Digital Antiquarian. Archived from the original on 11 July 2014. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-262-13436-1.
Some special-purpose interactive fiction development systems were used by the ordinary home computer owner of the 1980s. An important early one was Donald Brown's 1980 freeware system Eamon, a system for creating text-based role-playing games... Eamon was used to create more than 240 games.
- ^ "Le collane avventurose in Italia (Adventure game series in Italy)". Ready64 (in Italian). Roberto Nicoletti. Archived from the original on 14 March 2010. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
- ^ "Bonaventura Di Bello". IFWiki. David Cornelson. Archived from the original on 12 March 2008. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
- ^ "Club de Aventuras AD". Caad.es. 13 November 2010. Archived from the original on 8 May 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "intfiction.org • Index page". www.intfiction.org. Archived from the original on 25 December 2011.
- ^ "Home of the Best Interactive Fiction". Textfyre.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ Emily Short (5 October 2003). "City of Secrets". Archived from the original on 9 January 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2006.
- ^ Article at The Dot Eaters. 2006. Archived 14 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Allen Varney (23 August 2005). "Read Game". The Escapist, Issue #7: Classical Studies. Archived from the original on 18 August 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2006.
- ^ "ISSUE #5". SPAG. 19 April 1995. Archived from the original on 25 January 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "ISSUE #9". SPAG. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "XYZZYnews Issue #1 Interview: Graham Nelson". Xyzzynews.com. Archived from the original on 30 October 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "Anchorhead". Wurb.com. 30 June 2000. Archived from the original on 27 January 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "Interactive Fiction Bibliography - Manifestos and Taxonomies". Jerz.setonhill.edu. Archived from the original on 3 March 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "History of the 14th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition". Ifcomp.org. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "XYZZY Awards: 1998 Winners". Xyzzynews.com. 6 February 1999. Archived from the original on 2 February 2007. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ "Spider and Web". Wurb.com. 30 June 2000. Archived from the original on 9 January 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ Montfort, Nick; Stuart Moulthrop (July 2003). "Face It, Tiger, You Just Hit the Jackpot: Reading and Playing Cadre's Varicella" (PDF). fineArt Forum Vol. 17 No. 8. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 June 2008. Retrieved 17 December 2006.
- ^ "Photopia is a short story, Varicella is a world". January 2002. Archived from the original on 18 January 2007. Retrieved 17 December 2006.
- ^ "Results of the 9th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition". Archived from the original on 23 November 2008.
- ^ "People's Republic of Interactive Fiction". Archived from the original on 12 January 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
- ^ Peckham, Matt. "These Are the Top 10 Video Games of 2014". Time. Archived from the original on 23 November 2017.
- ^ Bibby, Jay (11 June 2008). "9:05". Jay Is Games. Archived from the original on 7 January 2017. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
- ^ "Games of the 12th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition". 2006. Archived from the original on 3 January 2007. Retrieved 17 December 2006.
- ^ Granade, Stephen. "Choosing a Text Adventure Language". Archived from the original on 5 December 2006. Retrieved 17 December 2006.
Further reading
- Montfort, Nick (2005). Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. ISBN 978-0-262-63318-5.
- Keller, Daniel. "Reading and playing: what makes interactive fiction unique" p. 276-298. in Williams, J. P., & Smith, J. H. (2007). The players' realm: studies on the culture of video games and gaming. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0-7864-2832-8
- Reed, Aaron (2010). Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. ISBN 978-1-4354-5506-1.
- Seegert, Alf. (2009), "'Doing there' vs. 'being there': performing presence in interactive fiction", Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds 1: 1, pp. 23–37,
- Robinson Wheeler, J, & Kevin, Jackson-Mead (2014), "IF Theory Reader", JRW Digital Media.
External links
- Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive, a more user-friendly interface for the IF archive.
- A Brief History of Interactive Fiction, a timeline of events in interactive fiction history at the Brass Lantern website.
- The Interactive Fiction Reviews Organization (IFRO), huge repository for text adventure game reviews written and rated by Interactive Fiction community players and members since 2004.
- The Interactive Fiction Archive, a large archive of free-to-download and play interactive fiction (random mirror).
- Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB), a community site where one can find personalized recommendations for IF games to play.
- Interactive Fiction: More Than Retro Fun, a beginner's introduction and setup guide to Interactive Fiction games and interpreters
- The Interactive Fiction Wiki, a MediaWiki wiki specific to Interactive Fiction.
- Parchment, a z-machine interpreter written in javascript and playable in any browser. Links to many playable games.
- Something about Interactive Fiction – MobyGames examines the history (and future) of this gaming genre.
- SPAG, the quarterly e-zine of the Society for the Promotion of Adventure Gaming
- Text Adventures at Curlie
- Web-adventures, an online z-machine interpreter