Video Games as Literature - Abby T.

    I agree with James O’Sullivan’s observations in his article “Good literature can come in digital forms – just look to the world of video games.” A lot of games that my brother plays – Valorant or Overwatch, for instance – seem to have a specific world and narrative behind the immediate gameplay that might be more traditionally associated with literature. At the same time, while electronic literature and games may share several elements, I do think that there is a difference between the two. The difference between these games and interactive fiction is, at least for me, that in the latter you are able to directly interact with a text that may have more of an active role in the piece, as opposed to just “lore.” In Chapter 4 of Scott Rettberg’s Electronic Literature, for instance, the author describes what appears to be the key element in interactive fiction: parser. Rettberg even uses this element to distinguish between interactive fiction and works from Twine, which uses hypertext instead. My own personal experience with a parser-based interface is very limited; Zork was actually my first exposure to it besides seeing videos of Façade online. To be honest, I found Zork a little confusing since I was never sure what exactly to write or if I was doing things correctly. I’m sure if I spent more time with it I could get used to the format and learn to enjoy it, but after getting stuck a couple of times I decided that it wasn’t for me, at least for now. 

    I did end up spending a lot more time with Jon Ingold’s All Roads. Again, I ran into the same problem that I had with Zork: I didn’t know what to write and so kept getting stuck. This time, however, I thought that the story was more compelling and decided to keep trying. After reading the help section, things were a lot clearer, but I still ended up confused and got stuck a few times. Nevertheless, I found the narrative very compelling. In the initial introduction, your character is about to be hanged, and you are able to transition from this state to another, which seems to be almost like another reality or dream from the same world. In this other space, you wake up and have to find a way out of a locked cellar. I really enjoyed the aesthetic of the storytelling, and the style of writing in general. It was also really hard to stop playing because I wanted to find out what would happen. So, in summary, I’d say I liked All Roads more than Zork both because I spent more time with it and had a little more experience, and because the narrative was more interesting to me. 

All Roads - Details (ifdb.org)