Now available: Two classics in interactive format

The Old Brick
Two free offerings from IF Classics (http://ifclassics.weebly.com/):

"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
"The Ugly Duckling" by Hans Christian Andersen

We are currently working on "The Hammer of God" by Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which should be available within a week.

Two possible download formats (in .zip files):

[list]
[*].quest story file + brief documentation file;
[/*:m]
[*]all source code files + brief documentation file.[/*:m][/list:u]
Our interactive classics always contain the complete public-domain text.

jaynabonne
I know you asked for feedback via your email, but I hope you don't mind if I drop some thoughts in here... I can send them in email as well if you wish.

To be honest, I have some mixed feelings about this. Any attempt to jam interactivity into a linear story after the fact almost always ends up with an "interactive" piece that is more or less linear - and with little true interactivity. In other words, given what it is, the player really has no choice in how things turn out. It becomes really a question of figuring out what to do next to move the story along. Many attempts just throw a "Press any key to continue" in there or have a link that moves you on. While some call that "interactivity", I think it can only barely be called that, if at all. (I won't get into the debate about that here. :) )

What I do find appealing about what you have done is that it can help to "bring the text alive" for the purposes of helping people to learn it or to perhaps just experience it at a more memorable level than might occur with just a read through. I do know that just the small parts I went through, having to work out the next step made me think more deeply about what I was looking at. So I think with that sort of goal, it might have some interesting promise.

I played a bit of the "Gift of the Magi" one, and I had some thoughts about it.

First, when I click on Della, I see "Dialog Della". I'm from the US (so this isn't a British/US distinction), but for me, the only time I have ever seen "Dialog" is in a computer context, in the sense of a "dialog box". In all other contexts, especially when referring to spoken words back and forth between characters in a literary context, I have seen it spelled "dialogue". I know I make that distinction in my own usage of it. I suppose there could be some debate about the spelling, but even if you prefer to stick with the "DIalog" spelling, in no context have I *ever* seem it appropriate to use it as a verb. So "Dialog Della" just seems horribly wrong to me.

Second, you set up the paradigm that the status window tells you the next interaction. That works well enough, but after I interacted with Della and then the couch, it said the next interaction was "Vestibule"... which wasn't in the list. That left me feeling adrift for a few moments. The game had set up its way of doing things, so I knew what to do, and then it abruptly changed it. Now, *I* know that vestibule is a place, and the only other place word in the list was "stairs", so I went to the stairs and then I saw the vestibule. But I think you might want to strive for some consistency, especially if you're dealing with students, and especially if it might be used by people who don't even know what a vestibule is.

Third, I know you are trying to constrain the player to only doing what you want, and also I get the sense that you have no intention really of embellishing the text. So you end up with objects and actions that basically are not appropriate right now. By doing that, you remove much of the true interactivity you could bring to the table by making the world so narrow and constricted. For example, a common thing to do in interactive fiction is to look at things. That is a basic staple, and an almost "given" as far as interaction goes. Now, I see in the objects pane something called "Left window", and when I click on it, I get a "Look out" verb. But when I do that, it tells me, "Della doesn't need to look out a window at this moment." First of all, why can't I look out the window? (I mean, I know why - because you'd have to add text. But from the player's point of view...) Second, why is it referring to Della? *I'm* the one trying to look out the window. Della is on the couch crying. That happens with all the unusable objects. It always responds "Della doesn't need..." which briefly made me wonder who I was.

I might have a clue about why you phrased it that way (as in, if you said, "You don't need to look out the window at this time," I might say, "Well, yes, actually I do. And you have no idea what my needs are."), but it seems overly constructed.

And I think that is my general take - everything seems contrived and constructed. Given that you can only interact with so many things at a time, you might want to consider only making objects appear that are actually relevant or able to be interacted with at the time. I know that will greatly restrict the list, but having all these strange choices like "pier glass" and "gas" that have no current uses (which leads to frustration) only shows how much the experience has been contrived to try to cram a linear story into an IF format. I was quite happy to find that I could open the cupboard, just to have something to do of my own volition. More of that would make the experience more enjoyable overall.

All that said, I do wonder how students will find it! :)

Silver
I think existing linear stories could work brilliantly in IF if you explore and implement alternative endings etc. The obvious foreseeable problem with that though is whether your writing style could convincingly branch off from a beautifully crafted and expertly edited classic to still maintain the overall level of professionalism. To those ends I'd suggest re-writing the text rather than cutting and pasting the original into your own work.

I don't really regard linear IF with just click to continue buttons as being interactive fiction (I come across it quite a bit with inkle stuff). If that was the case, every book ever written would be IF as it requires interaction to turn the page. Interaction with regards to IF generally means choices rather than just a story that you click a button to continue.

Coincidentally I only ever found out what a vestibule is in the last two years when it was mentioned over tannoy as being the area between two carriages on a train. I'm sure that isn't solely what it means but I never actually googled it. Perhaps I'll do that now.

(I should add that I haven't played any of the games; this was more a response to points jaynabonne raised).

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