Week 5 - Adventures in Text

This week we’ll look at several videogames whose main interface is restricted to text. Some take this route because they’re from so long ago that text was the only feasible play medium for digital games of the day. Some, on the other hand, are from the last few years.

Your homework this week is as play-intensive as it is reading-intensive! I’d like you to play some of the games listed below before our lab meeting – I’ve marked which ones. I’ll quiz you about what you found inside them, and then we’ll discuss how they compare with one another and with Lost Pig, a more involved text game we’ll play together in class.

Questions to ponder:

• All of these games present their content as stories, to varying degrees. Why tell a story in text as a game, rather than as more traditional fiction?
• Compared to other videogames, how much do players’ choices really effect things, when the output is just blocks of text?
• These works have little or no graphics. Should these even be called “videogames”?
• Heck, are they even “games”?

Hunt the Wumpus (Gregory Yob)

Play this game before class. It’s very short. Play it a few times, and see if you can get your head around how it works.

In this game from the deep history of computer-game culture (dude, it’s older than I am) you are a hunter, in a mysterious cave with the deadly (albeit sleepy) Wumpus. You’ve got a bow and arrows and a big empty spot over your fireplace begging for a Wumpus-sized trophy. Go get it. Try not to die.

• A free web-based Hunt the Wumpus game.
• Hunt The Wumpus on Wikipedia – but see if you can figure out the shape and content of the game’s world before you read this.

Choice of Broadsides (Heather Albano)

Play this game before class. It’s longish. Plan to spend an hour or two to work all the way through it.

A story about a young naval officer in the Napoleonic Wars – sort of.

The game communicates with the player only through text, but the player picks their way through the game using a multiple-choice system. As you play, pay attention to the background workings of the game that are exposed to you, and think about how it all works together to tell a story.

• Choice of Broadsides on the web. This is a free, web-based version of the game. If you prefer to play it on iOS or Android, you can find appropriate links on that same page.
• Choice of the Dragon, by Dan Fabulich. Another game by the same publisher, with a similar interface, but very different subject matter. Playing this is optional – if you liked Broadsides but have had enough of the sailor’s life, try this one on for size.

Lost Pig (Admiral Jota)

We’ll play this together in-class. You don’t need to play (or even study) it ahead of time, though you certainly can if you wish.

A story about an Orc named Grunk. He has lost his pig. He’s got to find it, but he isn’t very bright. Maybe you can help?

This is a work of interactive fiction, where both the input and and the output are English text. (Or, in this case, English with an Orcish accent.) Games like these were literally the most dominant kind of computer game for much of the 1980s. By today’s standards, though, they’re very hard for a brand-new player to figure out. We’ll examine this game type’s strengths and weaknesses in-class.

• A web-playable version of Lost Pig
• Some player aids for those new to interactive fiction:
  • A postcard-sized cheat sheet of common IF interactions, by Lea Albaugh and Andrew Plotkin.
  • A Beginner’s Guide to Interactive Fiction, by Stephen Grenade and Emily Short.