Lecture 6: The 80s return?

You read right this week something 80s has come back - but don't run and hide, unlike bad musical throw-backs this is actually good, frustratingly!

Going by the name of interactive fiction this form of story-telling/entertainment was big during the 80's with companies such as Infocom. Despite this loss of popularity sites such as http://www.ifiction.org/ still produce new material. Its hard to tell if this is a game or a story, but either way it can become quite addictive. The idea, like in the picture is to progress the narrative by interacting with story. Originally this 'limited' form couldn't keep up with the advent of pictures and lost popularity. But in the same way that the book never translates to the film, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. No pictures arguably reduces interactive fiction's limitations, and if anything makes it closer to an actual book, and besides hopefully the average attention span hasn't decreased that much.

Today's technological developments also give this form of storytelling a new boost through the mobile nature of technology. There is potential for interactive fiction to download to mobiles or e-readers. No longer would people need to pretend to text in awkward situations. Mobile technology would increase its potential target audience and popularity massively. Some efforts have already been made to bring interactive fiction into the 21st century with sites such as http://code.google.com/p/iphonefrotz/ which brings interactive fiction to the iPhone. However interactive fiction isn't all good; whilst it is frustratingly addictive, it is ultimately frustrating. In a modern capitalist age it would also be hard to monetise interactive fiction considering the large amount of free games and software, having implications on its success and the amount Jamster will be able to convice you to waste on downloading it to your phone. Having said this, combining the principles of interactive fiction with new media developments could make the form viable and popular again to a mass market, although arguably slighlty more limited.

Forums such as rec.arts.int-fiction show that the interactive fiction community is still thriving. And this end this is what I've chosen to do make my artifact. Interactive fiction is new to me, and a challenge (writing in interactive fiction code maybe the least enjoyable thing I've done since watching Nick Griffin on question time) but seems like an interesting and un-developed area of e-publishing.
Intrigued about interactive fiction, try playing this Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy.

The next blog could be in two weeks time, so I recommend filling your time with Family Guy Season 8. Laters.