The past, present, and future of Interactive fiction

Рет қаралды 7,259

Жыл бұрын

Want to mix coding and writing to create wondrous works of fiction?
In this video I look at the past of interactive fiction including: Choose your own adventure, fighting fantasy, and lone wolf. I look at text-based computer games and infocom.
I then look at the new wave of platforms and works such as: Twine, Inky, Articy, Bandersnatch, Depression Quest, and many more!
Enjoy! And share your works with me.
All included media copyright their respective owners. And thank you to archive.org for the digitised books.
Test version - / the-past-present-and-f...

Пікірлер: 56

@rlopez8630 Күн бұрын

i was in 7th grade when i played Zork the first time back in '82. It might seem frustrating no to play now, but we were all enthralled at what seemed like a game where you could do anything you wanted

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 10 сағат бұрын

Certainly! I grew up more on early Sega games and even playing them again recently, what seemed amazing then now felt… a little old.

@devilofether6185 10 ай бұрын

One thing I would like to see from these tools is the ability to make UI elements, it would be nice to have a character sheet that is easy to access and modify

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 9 ай бұрын

Right now, your best bet for that is probably Inky into Unity, but I appreciate that isn't ideal. I have a long list of new tools to try, so maybe I will end up finding what you're also looking for.

@sen7826 2 ай бұрын

@@ChrisChinchillaWatch what would you think of a simple Java Swing app (because I assume there shouldn't be any complex or advanced graphics)? I am making text game right now from scratch, with plain Java. It's going to be a CLI program that runs just on the terminal or command prompt. But if I had to use UI elements the simplest thing for me to implement would be Swing.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 2 ай бұрын

@@sen7826 You can build interactive fiction anyway you want really, and some of the early ones would hae been coded from scratch. You just might like to try one of the tools mentioned to plan the script and story etc.

@johnpreston7744 17 күн бұрын

Love the video! Been researching this because I’ve been working on a fully analogue interactive fiction RPG and hadn’t found any until now. Pretty much everything modern seems to be digital to some extent. I’ll have to check out the Lone Wolf series because it looks a lot like what I’ve been making!

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 17 күн бұрын

Nice! They’ve all been republished and they’re even making new ones now. It was more popular in Europe but so much deeper and darker than fighting fantasy etc. hoping to make some of my own soon™️ too

@jenmoss6306 9 ай бұрын

I teach Creative Writing for New Media and found this roundup of games and tools really useful.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 9 ай бұрын

Great to hear, thank you! There should be some follow up videos soon.

@andrebernhardt9716 Жыл бұрын

Awesome introduction to IF, subscribed!

@juliangrantproductio Жыл бұрын

Great overview. Very enjoyable.

@PostcardsFromJapan 3 ай бұрын

Very interesting information! Thanks for introducing those tools.

@vojdie 3 ай бұрын

Thank you very much, this tour was highly informative ❤

@FlutterVR 10 ай бұрын

Awesome video! I'm working on a narrative VR game and researching IF because I'm not sure what approach to take. This overview was great and brought back a lot of memories too.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 10 ай бұрын

Glad I could help!

@philliphessel6788 2 ай бұрын

The paper format actually originated with the Tunnels & Trolls solos, starting with _Buffalo Castle_ in 1976. The limitations of that medium relative to digital programs were less significant when personal computers were more expensive, less powerful and less portable. “Not strictly interactive fiction but kind of” seems a bizarre way to speak of the medium to which the IF term was first applied, and in reference to which it finds most common usage. Colossal Cave Adventure debuted on minicomputer systems, and (broken up into three parts) as Zork for micros was the foundation for Infocom’s IF enterprise. The abbreviated title Adventure (used for the Scott Adams products with a less sophisticated parser) gave rise to the basically synonymous genre name for computer IF - “adventure games” - which outlived the commercial viability of the text-oriented form. That form is the focus of the annual Interactive Fiction Competition, which has featured among other significant works some to which peculiarities of the medium itself (and sometimes subverting conventions) are important artistic elements.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 2 ай бұрын

Yes, that is true. I actually even own a copy of a reprint of the Tunnels and Trolls book with one of the solo adventures. I guess I meant more than to outsiders (which I get the impression you're not); they think of interactive fiction in the digital form. Also, to be honest, filming and showing books on video is hard! But as someone who is currently rereading the Lone Wolf books and as this video has been popular, a roundup of originally physical examples could be interesting… So would how people actually made and made them, though I guess the tools would be less consistent. Personally, I am also more likely to make a more traditional print-based one as it requires less technical ability.

@OlliePer 6 ай бұрын

Brilliant overview and video Chris. I'll be in touch!

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 6 ай бұрын

Thanks! Hopefully more similar content soon!

@devonguinn1890 Жыл бұрын

Fantastic video!

@ChrisChinchillaWatch Жыл бұрын

Thank you! More to follow

@carnivorous_vegan 8 ай бұрын

Very well made, valuably educational video

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 8 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@lesath7883 9 ай бұрын

Nice. Very nice. Thank you.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 9 ай бұрын

Most welcome 😊

@uziao 4 ай бұрын

thank you from Brasil

@collinvisser7108 6 ай бұрын

Neat video - Where is the Future part 17:18 start with publish 18:20 is why. If you can give me a time stamp please. I did like the idea of making a talking Interactive fiction - that does sound very cool. thx

@gjsb6wfg995 25 күн бұрын

But of course, the Narcoman Pavlik bests them all, though I don't think it's still on yt

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 25 күн бұрын

That’s a game or an engine or?

@javiercabrera2051 5 ай бұрын

CYPHER: Cyberpunk Text Adventure Game needs some love here.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 5 ай бұрын

I'm going to try and get back into game reviews in 2024, so noted!

@jan_Wilo 9 ай бұрын

id like to mention markiplier's "a heist with markiplier" and "in space with markiplier" here on youtube!

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 9 ай бұрын

Are they games or videos, or?

@jan_Wilo 9 ай бұрын

@@ChrisChinchillaWatch videos kinda like the movies with options

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 9 ай бұрын

@@jan_Wilo Ahh, OK, thanks, will take a look :)

@FabioBittar 9 ай бұрын

Why did you ignore Adventuron? It's imho the best one out there.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 9 ай бұрын

Not ignored, never heard of until you mentioned it now. Will add it to the list.

@mystaofthemoon 2 ай бұрын

there's 2 steve jacksons, and it's not the other one

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 2 ай бұрын

It's confusing isn't it 😆

@Eva-km5ng 6 сағат бұрын

"Depression Quest is famous for other reasons which I won't go into here" 💀💀💀

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 2 сағат бұрын

Well, yes…………… it was probably just best left alone in this video

@GabrielCsanalosi786 Жыл бұрын

Have you looked into Dungeons AI's platform for creating generative AI text based games?

@ChrisChinchillaWatch Жыл бұрын

Do you mean AI dungeon as that's in the video, but maybe it's something else with a similar name. Yo might have noticed that i started a new video series, and AI-generated games will be on the list for that too.

@GabrielCsanalosi786 Жыл бұрын

@@ChrisChinchillaWatch Yes, I misspoke. They have a beta platform called Voyage that looks interesting.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch Жыл бұрын

@@GabrielCsanalosi786 Cool, will take a look

@mystaofthemoon 2 ай бұрын

man edging me by saving twine til the end but keeps referring to it

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 2 ай бұрын

Haha, well, you know, it's the small grey elephant in the room.

@rww1026 4 ай бұрын

Kinda curious why my comment was deleted. Not angry, just curious. Oh, well. 🙂

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 4 ай бұрын

I don't normally delete comments, so I don't think it was me, and I'm not sure the Google mother ship will ever tell you... Sorry!

@rww1026 4 ай бұрын

@@ChrisChinchillaWatch It was just a message chastising you a bit for not including Ren'Py in your tools list for creating interactive fiction. It's the fifth most prevalent format for games released on Steam, for example. It's a scripting environment simple enough to get started right away, but can get as detailed as you want since you can drop directly into Python when needed. Perhaps it was deleted because I included the URL for the Ren'Py site? Anyway, that's it.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 4 ай бұрын

@@rww1026 Maybe your chastising was too harsh ;) I have never seen the comment or heard of the tool, but have some follow up videos on the list, so I'll add it!

@vinceboston7451 10 ай бұрын

Did you say "ec-cetra ec-cetra"??? It's ET-cetera. From the Latin et meaning "and". (Ex: Et tu Brute?) The Queen is rolling in Her grave. Such bad English.

@ChrisChinchillaWatch 9 ай бұрын

No, I said "eggcetra" :)

@chmod0644 7 ай бұрын

Shouldn't it be Cicero rolling in his grave?