Interactive Fiction Blog

                        Interactive fiction was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I remember how hard I thought it was to get through the first time I played it and wondered how it were even possible for the author to create such a thing. Interactive fiction is very complex, but once I understood it, I was very interested in it. According to the secondary text, “A Beginner’s guide to playing Interactive Fiction”, it is a combination of both a story and a computer game (Ramsberg, p2). The reader takes on the role of the main character and must make decisions to make it through the story. There are many different paths a player can take and that is one of the most interesting things about IF; it all depends on the reader.       

                My favorite piece of interactive fiction we played was definitely Galatea. Galatea was a statue that had come to life that I, the player, was able to interact with. There were many different outcomes to Galatea. My main goal was to keep Galatea interested in the conversation, for many of my classmates irritated her and she ended the game. She explains the artist who created her and how she was in love with him. She is very moody, so it is important to keep her happy and not ask too much about her, but also not to tell too much about yourself. Some elements of interactive fiction that are present in this piece are the interaction between the player and the non-player; it could take multiple paths, and may result in a rewarding experience (Ramsberg, p2).

                A much more difficult piece of interaction fiction we played was All Roads. All Roads had a variety of different rooms that you must travel through in order to reach the goal, as well as facing several conflicts each time. It was much harder to get from one phase to another with All Roads than it was with Galatea. The player starts off and is about to be hung, but must escape from the crowd. After that, the player is stuck in a room that is being guarded by an armed man and the player must get out in order to continue on. This specific piece of IF was a good guide for creating my own IF. Because there were so many different rooms and items, it gave me an idea of how to give the player hints on what to do next. Rather than just telling them what to do, the author gives subtle hints in his explanations.  

       

         I believe the most difficult thing about completing the interactive fiction stories is understanding what to say. Sometimes, it is very difficult to come up with ideas to say in order to continue with the game. It is not easy to just think of what the player should be doing if you are having difficulty understanding what is going on. I had to ask for help several times in order to know how to keep the game going. 

         I was first introduced to the program Inform 7 in this class. At first, it was confusing to get used to. There are so many different words and symbols you must include in order to make your IF run smoothly. For example, if you forget to enter in quotation marks in a place where it is necessary, your whole game can get messed up. That was probably the most difficult thing for me to get used to, entering in the correct words and symbols. I would go to play my IF and an error would occur every time. I would have to click on the error and view where it was that I messed up and it was usually me using incorrect words or symbols. We also had to learn how to word what to say correctly in our IF. It was required that we explain certain rooms are indeed rooms, and that some “things” in these rooms are scenery that the player cannot take. For example, I had to write, “the receptionist’s desk is scenery,” so that the player knew it was there but it made sure that they could not move it. Also, in order for the player to know that the magazines were in the waiting room, I had to write, “The magazines are in the waiting room.” The paper labeled “Getting Started with your Interactive Fiction” helped guide me through the process.

         After beginning to create my own piece of Interactive Fiction, I realize just how difficult it is. It is very frustrating, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes very fun. It was difficult to decide what my IF should be about, but I decided it would be both simple and fun to make it about a silly elderly man who is going to see his doctor about test results. Choosing the dialogue for the old man is my favorite part, as well has having him interacting with different non-players. It was also difficult for me to make it apparent to the player what to do next. I would forget that they do not know what I want them to do, so I would have to remind myself to put in clues. There are still many contributions I would like to make to my IF, in order to reach my full potential. Though it is not complete, I have a good idea of where it is going and what the goal of the story is!

         The goal of my piece of interactive fiction is to have to player be able to figure out their diagnosis at their doctor’s appointment and to determine exactly what is going to be done about it. My story also contains three different rooms and three different non-players. My three rooms are the parking lot, the waiting room in the doctor’s office, and the examination room in the doctor’s office. In the parking lot, the player has to figure out that they must get inside the office in order to check in. Once in the waiting room, the player meets the first two non-players, the receptionist and another patient. The player must realize that he has to check in with the receptionist and that he is able to have a conversation with the patient that is waiting in the waiting room. We were also assigned to put something in one of our rooms that the player can take. So, in the waiting room, I explained to my player that the magazines are in the waiting room, allowing the player to read a magazine while he waits. Dr Reilly is the third non-player in my IF that my player interacts with. She is found when the player makes his way into the examination room. Once in the examination room, the player must interact with the doctor and figure out what he is being diagnosed with.

         My interactive fiction piece is definitely more interesting as is than if it were just pages in a book. IF gives the reader a chance to put in their own input and is challenging because they have to decide what happens. Though, it has been hard for me to understand how exactly to develop different outcomes for the story.

         After learning about interactive fiction, reading different pieces, and actually creating one, I believe that it is a very unique piece of literature. It is in some ways more interesting than just reading a story on paper because it allows you to have an input in the story and allows you to interact with the other characters. I think it is interesting that different players can end up with different endings, like in Galatea. Rather than just than simply being told what the ending is, you have to work for it. The player must go through the process of interacting with players and examining certain rooms to understand what is going on in the IF. I believe IF’s give the reader more of a chance to visualize what the plot of the story is because they are actually a part of it. Though, after going through the different pieces of IF in class and thinking about how complex they were, I was definitely less inspired when it came down to creating my own than I would have been if I was going to be writing a story down on paper.  IF’s are much more complex than just a story because they must be written with certain words so that you don’t tell the player too much, but you must be sure that you tell them enough so that they can continue on.

         Before experiencing IF in Reading and Writing Electronic Literature, I had never ever heard of such a thing. My first reaction to it was that it was an interesting idea, then that it was more fun than just reading a story, then that it was very frustrating and complex. My feelings towards it changed dramatically after having to complete my own. Though, I believe that interactive fiction is a complicated way of reading a story, I think it is a great way to allow readers to become involved in the stories they read and a new and exciting game that one can learn from!

All About Electronic Poems!

            Before taking this course, I had never experienced electronic poetry. I always thought that a poem had to be words written down, not with effects, animations, and sounds. After learning about electronic literature and viewing several, I have learned that I am even more interested in it than regular poetry. There are so many different ways the poet is able to convey his or her message to the reader. The sounds that are made, the way the words come onto the page, the different ways the poem is organized, the different colors and fonts that are used, and finally the ways that the poems can be viewed by different readers all fascinate me. For example, in some poems, you can click on certain words and the poem can explain to you something completely different than what somebody else would see. It really is an extraordinary way of creating a poem.

            The first secondary reading we read in electronic literature was “A Quick Buzz around the Universe of Electronic Poetry” by Deena Larsen. This article explains what electronic poetry is all about; it’s different attributes and the sensory information it contains. More specifically, after reading the article, I learned about symbiociation. Symbiociation, to me, are all of the different attributes that are included in an e-poem. For example, the article shows that in an electronic poem symbiociation is shown through the symbols, form, movement, imagery, navigation, and non-linear structure (Larsen, p1). All of these contributions merge together to form this poem that has such a deep and more expressed meaning. “Poets are even experimenting with new ways of creating poetic structures and navigating the poem so the same words may take on very different associations (and symbiociations) depending on the path the reader takes“(Larsen, p1). The author expresses to us here that the symbiociation of an electronic poem is the different associations that the poem uses. The article also explains how in e-poems, words and different links are sometimes hidden, insisting that the reader moves the mouse to release what is actually hidden (Larsen, p1).

            The next secondary reading we were assigned to read was called “Beyond Taxonomy: Digital Poetics and the Problem of Reading” by Talan Memmott. This article explains how electronic poems convert from being just on paper to being electronic. Also, what I got from this article was that no electronic poem could ever be the same. They are too complex and there are too many different contributions to them that two could ever be too much alike. “Two works that use the same technology may produce entirely different poetic events. Because digital poetry cannot be reduced to a genre of poetry, we must begin to consider the applied poetics of the individual practitioner” (Memmott, p294).  There are just way too many associations that contribute to an electronic poem to ever allow two poems to be similar.

            An electronic poem that we read in class that was very interesting to me was “Fidget” by Kenneth Goldsmith. In this e-poem, Goldsmith expresses every single action he does during a thirteen-hour period of time. Electronically, he makes the words come onto the screen at different times. Some arrive very fast; some arrive to the screen slower. Though, all the words (or phrases) begin to overlap and it’s hard to read everything that is thrown at you. Another interesting attribute to this e-poem is that you can click on the words and it will change what actions the poet is talking about. I found this interesting. Also, for certain slides, the poet would have the words enter the screen connected with lines. Different times of the day had different colors, fonts, and font sizes. This electronic poem is a perfect example of the many different attributions that can be included in an electronic poem.

            After researching an electronic poem of my own, I found “Sinking” written by Ingrid Ankerson. This e-poem had sound, that was just music without words. The background color stayed the same the whole time, like royal blue water. The font typically stayed the same with the exception of a few words that were bolded and enlarged, leading me to believe that these words have deeper meaning. Ankerson compares washing her dishes to a time when she was younger when she thought she knew how to swim. After watching the whole poem, I concluded that she was comparing “thinking” she knew how to swim to “thinking” she had everything under control in her life. She was using the dirty dishes as sort of a metaphor, for all of the things piling up in her life. The music seemed to have the same feel as her words did and sent across a sort of nervous message. Another thing I found was that was odd in the poem was that the author ended it will the word “knife”. There were many different utensils that she could have concluded with but instead, she expains how out of all of the dishes, she will start with washing the knife. Because she seemed angry and disappointed in herself throughout most of the poem, it made me nervous when I realized that she had ended with that word. “Sinking” was a very interesting digital poem that consisted of maybe of the attributes I have talked about.

            The first electronic poem I was introduced to in this class was classed “The Mermaid” by Alis Young. This poem was very interesting because when you first open it, the only thing you see are a bunch of, what seem to be words, mixed together. Though, when you drag your mouth over the words, they seem to extend, depending on which way you move the mouse. The words are very fidgety, so they are hard to comprehend. Though, there is one phrase that is legible and does not move no matter what. It is, “The mermaid found a swimming lad,” in all capital letters. Once you read that, you must try to maneuver your mouse over the words in such a way that they are right side up and in clear view. There is no sound to this poem, but the background stays this fusia pink color and the font is in white letters. Maybe this is because the mermaid is a female, and pink is looked at as a girly color. Mermaid is a good poem for trying to figure out and understand what the point is of having the poem set up in such an odd way. In class when we discussed the poem, we came up with the idea that maybe it is because there is so much going on at one time, and it is supposed to be sort of confusing. The way you have to try to make the words be still and upright is kind of like the way you have to understand the meaning of the words.

            After learning about what exactly an electronic poem is and experiencing so many of them, I was assigned to created one of my own. Because I am not very good with the computer, I was nervous how it would turn out. Though I am only in the start of my first electronic poem, I am finding it very fun to include all of the different attributes. My favorite part is finding color, images, and fonts that relate to the message I am trying to convey. Because I am writing about an electronic poem about my niece that will be born shortly, it was interesting to experiment with all the different attributes that can relate to a newborn and a new member of our family. I believe the images I found will allow me express my message more freely than if I were simply writing a poem on paper.

            Originally, I wanted my electronic poem to be about my father. But the idea quickly got terminated when I realized that I did not exactly know how to fully express my ideas about him through different contributions to my poem. I thought that writing about my niece would be a fun, exciting, interesting way to convey a message to my reader. The thing about the creative process that frustrates me most is definitely figuring out how to work Microsoft Power Point. I am not an expert with computers, so learning how to do different, fun themes with my poem is not easy. There are certain ways I want the words to move onto the screen and certain ways I hope that the words will fit together on the screen and because I do not have the knowledge I am unable to achieve it. I also wanted to do something similar to what the poem “Fidget” by Kenneth Goldsmith did. I liked how when you clicked on a word, the author would change what the poem was talking about. It started talking about something different. I would want to do something like that for my poem, but I do not know if this software allows it, or what software would.

            In my opinion, electronic literature is an interesting way of getting the message across to the reader; whether it be through words, colors, fonts, sounds, etc. There are so many different ways to go about making an electronic poem and that’s why I believe I find it to be so unique and creative. Learning about electronic literature has been very new and exciting to me and I am anxious to see how my very own e-poem turns out.

Citations

1) Currents in Electronic Literacy Fall 2001 (2),

<http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/fall01/larsen/quickbuzz.html>. 

2) Memmott Talan. “Beyond Taxonomy: Digital Poetics and the Problem of Reading.” Mit Press 293-206. Web. 3) http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/fidget/index.html

3) http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/fidget/index.html

4) http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/spring2000/sinking/sinkingmain.htm#

5) http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/summer2001/yeats/launch.html