Twisty Little Passages *
Montfort, Nick
MIT Press 2003
ISBN 0-262-13436-5
286pp
Date finished: 2004-04-13
[Buy this book] (why?)
This is a fine history of the interactive fiction form, from Adventure up to the present day. The conventions of IF games are carefully dissected in the opening chapter. Adventure and the original Zork get entire chapters to themselves, followed by an excellent discussion of the commercial years of the 1980s when Infocom and other companies marketed text adventures. The companies all slipped into obscurity or bankruptcy in the early 90s, and chapter seven covers the subsequent explosion of amateur creativity as free development tools became readily available. (I really, really wish I could find time to play some of the recent games; many of them sound quite intriguing. Maybe I'll get around to them in my retirement years.)
Montfort argues that the form most comparable to interactive fiction is not novels or role-playing games, but the riddle. Solving a riddle such as "Thirty white horses on a red hill / Now they champ, now they stamp" requires you to figure out the riddle's metaphor; you have to enter the worldview of the riddle's author in order to understand the riddle's logic and find the answer. The narrative and puzzle components of IF are not in conflict, Montfort argues, but must fit together for a satisfying experience. This is an original viewpoint, and I think it's an illuminating one, though it doesn't provide any obvious guidelines to IF authors.
The text is also surprisingly readable for an academic work, with occasional dry humour and mercifully little jargon. Because it's a good history and contains a number of worthwhile insights, I strongly recommend this book for any current or former IF fan.