tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post8219175825929188604..comments2024-03-28T21:13:53.845+00:00Comments on Fabled Lands: Hot and cold about interactive literatureDave Morrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-49920454861119877982016-01-24T17:52:41.254+00:002016-01-24T17:52:41.254+00:00I probably wouldn't call it a novel as that im...I probably wouldn't call it a novel as that implies that it's told in prose - but an interactive story, certainly.Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-50667470361840849492016-01-23T23:16:29.753+00:002016-01-23T23:16:29.753+00:00With reference to text and interactive novels, wou...With reference to text and interactive novels, would you consider a game like Planescape: Torment an interactive novel? I know I would.Kodanshihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11034518389655658322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-35247152008448684022015-03-12T15:20:06.053+00:002015-03-12T15:20:06.053+00:00That's very annoying. Thanks for pointing it o...That's very annoying. Thanks for pointing it out, Jeffrey. It's doubly frustrating because I paid for a developer to create an Amazon Active Content (ie fully interactive) version, and the publisher said, "Wait until the Android version is ready and we'll publicize both." And I waited, and then Amazon closed down Active Content - so the money spent developing that was completely wasted. And then the Android version finally came along, the publisher gave it zero publicity, and now it seems not to be available. This is why more and more authors are going indie these days!<br /><br />I think there's an epub version out there somewhere but I'm not sure of the link. "Frankenstein by Dave Morris" and "epub" might find it.<br /><br />Anyway, thanks for the 5 stars but I guess the only place to put a review is the App Store. Or on your blog? Either way, I appreciate your interest and kind words.Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-9528888709054961582015-03-12T00:36:12.398+00:002015-03-12T00:36:12.398+00:00I finished Frankenstein the other night and immedi...I finished Frankenstein the other night and immediately went back to play it again. Section 2 from the perspective of Adom was just brilliantly done and kept me up nights just thinking about it and how I would deal with being born into such a situation. <br />As an aside, the link you gave me earlier is dead and the app seems to be removed from the Play store. I already gave the app 5 stars, but I wanted to write a proper review. Jeffrey Deanhttp://www.greekwinter.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-14145936484422601672015-03-05T17:49:33.027+00:002015-03-05T17:49:33.027+00:00I'm not convinced The Odyssey is *merely* the ...I'm not convinced The Odyssey is *merely* the 8th century BC's answer to Conan, but there no doubt is a lot of action-adventure to it. I think if I'd done it then it would have been the first gamebook actually written as an epic poem, anyway - could be wrong about that.<br /><br />I already did Crypt of the Vampire, so no need to go back to that. But if I write any more text-driven interactive stories I'd certainly go with a literary rather than pulp/genre focus.Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-65251604109699082252015-03-05T14:40:28.759+00:002015-03-05T14:40:28.759+00:00Seems like and Interactive Odyssey would be pretty...Seems like and Interactive Odyssey would be pretty pulpy -- go here, kill something, go there, escape danger, etc.<br /><br />I haven't bought Frankenstein as it's not my thing, but I would totally get Dracula. You mentioned epistolary novels lending themselves to interactivity...Taigaolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16405757070245766497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-32427174280812886612015-03-05T10:08:00.660+00:002015-03-05T10:08:00.660+00:00Funny you should say that. After I wrote Frankenst...Funny you should say that. After I wrote Frankenstein, Profile Books (the publisher) asked what I'd like to follow it up with. They favoured Dracula, but I suggested an interactive epic poem based on Homer's Odyssey. I don't think they realized I was serious.Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-15296867469099453082015-03-04T23:51:55.721+00:002015-03-04T23:51:55.721+00:00TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I...TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, <br />And sorry I could not travel both <br />And be one traveler, long I stood <br />And looked down one as far as I could <br />To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5 <br /> <br />do you take the road less travelled turn to 50<br />or take the more frequently travelled path, in which case turn to 86Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-91403152231573074862015-03-04T22:38:00.364+00:002015-03-04T22:38:00.364+00:00Thank you on two counts, Jeffrey. First for the pr...Thank you on two counts, Jeffrey. First for the praise (obviously!) but also for highlighting that omission. I need to correct the sidebar tab so it points to a page with links to both versions. Hope you enjoy the rest of the story.Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-45383817709374134872015-03-04T20:35:56.469+00:002015-03-04T20:35:56.469+00:00Quite odd . I suppose it's entirely possible ...Quite odd . I suppose it's entirely possible that I misattributed an anti-Android sentiment to you after reading it from another gamebook blogger. I distinctly recall reading it, but I am clearly in error thinking it was written by yourself as I find myself unable to find the post in question. <br /><br />After being unable to find your Frankenstein app in the Play store, I came here looking for a link some months past, and noted that your sidebar lists it as "Available in the App Store" with no mention of Android which must have cemented my mistaken assumption that it was never released on Android at all. Either way, I have it now and I'm halfway through part two. It's not difficult to see now why you are so fond of this particular work. It is exactly what I've been looking for interactive fiction to evolve into: adult-level high quality prose which reads as an interactive novel. Jeffrey Deanhttp://www.greekwinter.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-14284360311144272372015-03-04T08:30:28.063+00:002015-03-04T08:30:28.063+00:00Poor Android sales? Apps on iOS only? Huh? There m...Poor Android sales? Apps on iOS only? Huh? There must be another Dave Morris out there saying these things!Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-20412105374627061792015-03-04T00:48:00.666+00:002015-03-04T00:48:00.666+00:00You know what's crazy? I searched for that nu...You know what's crazy? I searched for that numerous times and never found it (plenty of other Frankenstein apps on the marketplace, but I never found that one. Then I read about how you only wanted to put things on iOS from now on due to poor Android sales so I assumed it simply wasn't released on Android. Thanks for the link! Purchased!Jeffrey Deanhttp://www.greekwinter.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-38783682529397961142015-03-04T00:26:45.127+00:002015-03-04T00:26:45.127+00:00I can help with that, Jeffrey. Frankenstein has be...I can help with that, Jeffrey. Frankenstein has been out in Android format for quite a while now:<br /><br />https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bbg.frankenstein&hl=en_USDave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-68834388189090437102015-03-03T17:55:54.669+00:002015-03-03T17:55:54.669+00:00Not being a fan of remakes, I likely would not see...Not being a fan of remakes, I likely would not see the need for nor advocate an interactive remake of any classic literature. I feel that if a story is going to be interactive it would need to be designed that way from the ground up. Adapting a traditional book which, by definition, has a singular path through with no room or need for deviation, into a gamebook with multiple paths would necessitate a considerable amount of changes to the source material, as well as the introduction of plot points never found in the original. <br /><br />On the other hand, if a book or series is designed to be interactive from the beginning, there is much more you can do with it. The player/reader can join several different factions, explore alternate motivations and reach vastly differing conclusions at the end of the story. <br /><br />The concept I wish to explore in my series is a riff on the structure of gamebooks and the nature of time as a wheel within them. The overarching plot for the series explains the player's repeated delves through different paths and endings, allowing every path to be series 'canon' to the story. A concept I have been working on integrating in the books is that of the author, myself, willfully constraining the main character to certain paths, making some choices more likely than others, and manipulating the mind of the character/player into finally choosing the path I want in order to manipulate the current iteration of the wheel to my favor (my avatar in the series is JD, a sentient computer who creates the gamebook simulation which volunteers (the readers) are run through) Ultimately, the author is the antagonist, creating alternate paths by which the player can die, prematurely aborting the simulation, and introducing limited choices for advancement to force the player where he wants them to go step by step, iteration by iteration. <br /><br />Now it's entirely possible that I simply may not have the experience as an author to convey these concepts effectively. My first book came out a bit more pulpy than I had originally intended. The above concept is spread out across multiple novel-length books which appear on their surface to be more action-oriented gamebooks with vastly differing endpoints. Each book has its own plot which is perfectly playable on its own, but the external story plays out through all of them, detailing the volunteer/reader delving into the simulation in attempts to discover a secret to avoid a major world-ending catastrophe. The reader does not actually play the protagonist, he plays the volunteer exploring the protagonist's memories searching for answers only the protagonist knows. <br /><br />Point of all of this being, I think there are still realms to be explored yet by authors interested in interactive prose without fully changing the medium into what may as well just be a video game. The fact of the matter is that most gamebooks are written in a young adult and/or pulp style, but there's no reason that should be a requirement for the medium. I wanted to transcend that barrier, but I believe I fell somewhat short (although I'm still proud of the first book and the second and third which are both about halfway finished) by focusing too much on gameplay elements and less on the actual character development. It's a difficult line to find between game and book, but in some ways that's half the fun of creating them. Plus, I'm still honing my craft so hopefully things will just get better over time.<br /><br />Anyway, I enjoy your blog and while I don't always agree with everything, your posts and your books have done quite a bit to help shape me as an author. I very much want to play Frankenstein, but unfortunately I only have Android devices at the moment. When I get my first iOS device, that's the first app I intend to purchase since you consistently seem incredibly proud of it. Jeffrey Deanhttp://www.greekwinter.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-54450084620426226132015-03-02T23:52:38.816+00:002015-03-02T23:52:38.816+00:00Ah, the question of dice in gamebooks is a whole o...Ah, the question of dice in gamebooks is a whole other debate that - yep, I just looked back and we discussed it here:<br /><br />http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/do-gamebooks-need-dice.html<br /><br />And that led on to the more interesting question of whether interactive stories should be designed with random elements at all:<br /><br />http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/does-interactive-fiction-need-randomness.html<br /><br />And Paltogue wrote a very interesting post on Lloyd of Gamebooks about how even action-driven gamebooks work a lot better (and are more dramatic) if fights aren't resolved randomly:<br /><br />http://www.lloydofgamebooks.com/2014/09/fighting-without-dice.html<br /><br />If we collected all these old posts together there'd be a whole book of this stuff. But I digress. It's interesting what you say about reading. I devour novels at a pretty fast rate, so nobody needs to sell me on the value of prose. A good novel can do things that no other storytelling medium can achieve. Most gamebooks, though, just wouldn't rate against a novel. I'm flattered that you like Heart of Ice, but at best it's high-quality pulp. If I were to turn it into a novel as it is then it would hardly compare to Greg Bear or David Brin, say. (I'm not being unduly modest; I'll put Frankenstein alongside them any day!) <br /><br />Although I'm an avid gamer, I don't ever feel the need when reading a novel to make choices. How would Lolita be improved by interactivity? Or 1984? Or The Sun Also Rises? Or The End of the Affair? But if you can answer those questions then I'll be sure to buy your interactive versions :)Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-39049419621822877572015-03-02T23:35:33.008+00:002015-03-02T23:35:33.008+00:00I can't really speak as a devotee of the mediu...I can't really speak as a devotee of the medium because I see myself as a roleplayer, not a gamebook reader. Certainly if somebody gave me a novel with pictures in then I wouldn't look at them. I want my imagination to render that world, not the artist's!Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-21341356818069464322015-03-02T23:22:18.574+00:002015-03-02T23:22:18.574+00:00I believe that there is much to be said for increa...I believe that there is much to be said for increasing the visual elements to game books, the Sorcery! apps being an excellent example of the usage of an interactive map. That said, there still seems to be a market out there for game books which rely primarily on text to convey a sense of environment, direction, and character.<br /><br />A valid reason for gamebooks to hold onto their roots and play up novelistic elements? I think there is more than enough room for authors and designers to branch out in both directions. My preference for text-based interactive tales is very simple to explain: I enjoy reading. I realize that love of reading page after page 'walls of text' is almost anachronistic in today's society, but I feel very little need for flashy interactive maps and puzzles in my gamebooks. I'm MUCH more interested in world building, story, and fantastic descriptions. <br /><br />I suppose one could counter that with 'Well then why not simply read a book? Why a gamebook?" The answer to that is a bit difficult. On one hand there's the nostalgia factor. I was raised on gamebooks and when I grew up I felt that there was a severe lack of interactive fiction aimed at adults. This is still the case in large part, although many game books and interactive fiction released lately have done their best to fill that deficit. By 'for adults' I don't necessarily mean pulp violence or sexual situations either, I mean adult-level prose and characterization which was and still generally is lacking in most game books. Aside from that, there is simply a base enjoyment to reading a novel where you can change the outcome based on your choices. What I truly long for is a series of full length novels with adult-level prose where you can choose the direction the action or plot takes. This is what I was hoping Destiny Quest would be when I saw the size and density of the prose. DQ is great for what it is, but it truly deserves the 'Diablo of Gamebooks' reputation that it has been given as the plot takes a back seat to combat and item gathering.<br /><br />I tried to reach some of these goals in my game book Westward Dystopia, but I feel that I fell a bit short of what I actually wanted. I sacrificed a great deal of character development for gameplay and adventure/fighting elements which work great for a game book, but didn't quite reach the level I wished to have with characters possessing hopes and dreams that a reader could relate to and imagine themselves having. What I hope is that readers will find that I have crafted a world and environment that is interesting to explore and will keep them thinking after they put the book down. The kind of world building you accomplished with Heart of Ice which I still think about quite often (I would buy a sequel in a heartbeat, heh) It's a difficult balancing act to get right when designing interactive fiction. I also made the conscious decision to include digital dice (which I know you're no fan of) because I felt that apps like Appointment with FEAR fell flat with their mechanics working behind the scenes when compared with Gamebook Adventures. Perhaps that's just the old fogey in me clinging to the pencils and dice of the past or maybe a visual representation of the mechanics just works better for some people, it's hard to say. One thing I did to attempt to break the mold somewhat was to do a little self-conscious 4th wall breaking in having an in-story reason explained behind the reader only being presented with a limited number of choices after every section. In a perfect world, we could write stories that could branch off in hundreds of directions, but such a story would take years and hundreds of thousands of words to realize.<br /><br />I suppose my rambling point is that there is room for interactive fiction to branch out into more visual representations of apps and video games, but there is something about simple interactive prose that has a lasting appeal to me and I hope that doesn't go away any time soon. Jeffrey Deanhttp://www.greekwinter.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-52771947476710501002015-03-02T22:36:56.626+00:002015-03-02T22:36:56.626+00:00I find the idea of aversion to in-game illustratio...I find the idea of aversion to in-game illustrations to be rather odd, but this post has at least helped me understand why someone would wish to remove them and allow their imaginations to run wild, free of the "tyrannical literalness" of images.<br /><br />I recently received some fanmail for my Android gamebook Westard Dystopia which, while generally very positive, included what I thought at the time to be a bizarre request: Include an option to turn off images. I didn't understand it at the time due to a lack of included reasoning behind the request, but the above post clarifies the desire somewhat. I suppose I had simply automatically assumed that images were a staple of the genre. It never occurred to me NOT to include them!Jeffrey Deanhttp://www.greekwinter.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-17273420348937685702015-03-01T22:58:12.170+00:002015-03-01T22:58:12.170+00:00Btw, your point that "the act of reading pros...Btw, your point that "the act of reading prose might itself be disengaging the reader" reminded me of an earlier discussion we had around these parts on the good and bad ways to utilize prose in interactive stories:<br /><br />http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/how-do-we-make-gamebooks-pleasure-to.html<br /><br />So maybe we ought to reopen the comments on that post too. There could be a whole lecture course in this one topic :-)Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-32671649856922100402015-03-01T20:46:15.565+00:002015-03-01T20:46:15.565+00:00There's nothing in principle to stop a digital...There's nothing in principle to stop a digital gamebook from doing both of those things. For a long time I've thought that adventure games ought to carry on telling the story if you don't do anything. You'd still have the option to pause the game, but if you are genuinely stuck then after a while the character could figure out what to do next. Who knows, it might even encourage more people to play adventure games.<br /><br />Prose is not the issue, you're right. Prose handles some things that are very hard to handle using other media - though audio might be preferable to written text in most of those cases. However, in most plot-&-information scenarios, visuals beat prose. For example, a crime scene strewn with clues. In prose you have to list one clue after another, including in that list a bunch of things that are just red herrings, which is almost inevitably asking the player to skim. Visuals give you all that information at once.<br /><br />I realize that gamebook purists are interpreting all this as "text evil, visuals good" but that is not what I am saying. Text could be the perfect medium for some kinds of interactive story. But it's not very good for the traditional action-driven swords-&-sorcery adventure that was the staple fare of the gamebook medium 20-30 years ago.Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-76820163308481529002015-03-01T19:42:06.544+00:002015-03-01T19:42:06.544+00:00I've been having another think about this. I d...I've been having another think about this. I don't think prose is the main issue. I think it's an issue in the sense that information needs to be conveyed to the reader and there are always going to be different ways to present information efficiently so they don't disengage from your world, but when I think that the act of reading prose might itself be disengaging the reader, because it postpones their choices and requires patience, I think it gets to the issue of interruptions.<br />First, you can't interrupt a gamebook while it's talking to you. You can skip ahead to the next choice, but the story won't react to your ignoring what happened inbetween. All it can do is try to keep you listening to what it has to say until it decides it's time for you to act.<br />Second, a gamebook can't interrupt you. If it decides it's your turn to act, it can't take your lack of immediate decision as a sign that it should carry on telling the story until you decide to intervene. And every moment it 'chooses' to wait silently for you to make up your mind disinvolves you.<br />Is that a fair point?narrativiumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13066217434148706799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-61145327639980454502015-03-01T12:29:52.133+00:002015-03-01T12:29:52.133+00:00Of possible interest: there's a parallel discu...Of possible interest: there's a parallel discussion about this post going on at Librojuegos.org:<br /><br />http://librojuegos.org/2015/02/luces-y-sombras-de-la-literatura-interactiva-por-mirabilisdave/#comment-611Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-58154684282447981652015-02-27T06:38:00.067+00:002015-02-27T06:38:00.067+00:001. I don't disagree that forcing the reader to...1. I don't disagree that forcing the reader to repeat things over and over again is a design flaw, but it's something I've encountered in almost every electronic interactive story that I've ever experienced. Both Western and Japanese works are guilty of this. The ability to fast forward through the text is common, but outright scene skipping is rare. Gradually revealed flowcharts of the plot that the reader can click on to replay previously read sections are rarer still. And aside from secret cheat codes, I've never seen a work that allowed the reader to directly set flags or stats to previously earned values. These aren't difficult technical problems, so why do you suppose this design flaw continues to exist? I honestly have no idea.<br /><br />2. I wasn't thinking about Fallen London, but it would fall under the category of having too much brevity for my tastes. "Less is more" is acceptable to me when it's applied to setting, but not when applied to character. If the level of characterization drops beyond a certain point, then I'm just not as invested in the story. Juxtapositionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250753247901257675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-32908420190838504242015-02-27T00:52:25.660+00:002015-02-27T00:52:25.660+00:00You're right, Ruber. I was making a more gener...You're right, Ruber. I was making a more general point there about the entire discussion, but I also found that some of the uses of the map to make choices seemed a little awkward in Sorcery. Just some examples like climbing the tree or exploring the cell, as you say. Given the structure of Sorcery (ie that it's a map-plus-text gamebook rather than a full point-n-click adventure game) those sections would have been better handled in text than via the map. That's not to say that another graphical solution wouldn't have been better still, but (as Inkle readily admit) the advantage of text is that it's cheap.Dave Morrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14468228790874490693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2141372262111342844.post-90205615805487702752015-02-26T20:27:07.554+00:002015-02-26T20:27:07.554+00:00About reducing the discussion to CLI and GUI I jus...About reducing the discussion to CLI and GUI I just wanted to point to that thought about the maps, that's all.Ruber Eaglenesthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13725131659052138253noreply@blogger.com