Chap. 4 / Zork

Chapter 4 covered interactive fiction which is a genre of e-lit. The comparisons Rettberg makes to Zork and other interactive fiction games like Galatea are conversational and tend to further his description of interactive fiction. He describes interactive fiction as the early stages of computer games, some which don’t even have graphics. The evolution from text to things like graphics and graphics cards is the physical evolution of interactive fiction. Video games of the time and today have grown more interactive in relation to thing like hypertext. In games you can chose from a series of options which have potential to change the story line or ending. The growth of computer gaming has slowly killed this idea of interactive fiction by introducing new ways to explore the story. Apart from the original interactive fiction guidelines from the era, the changes made have slowly left these guidelines behind. In the last section of the chapter Rettburg states; “Games are arguably the most predominant form of storytelling in contemporary digital media, and some games have become shared cultural referents”. I agree with this statement, playing computer games myself, I have seen the stories told through games grow in sophistication and although they aren’t written lit they still portray great stories.

After not really understanding Zork I had to read some reviews online and watch some YouTube but after learning the game take up to 10 hours to complete I knew I wouldn’t be beating it, however, watching some YouTube videos on it and seeing the choices people made to work there way around the map and house made me think of current horror games, although there is no graphics in Zork it kind of plays out like a current gen horror game and you can make many wrong choices which make you have to back track or even restart. It is a cool game especially from the time, the depth and understanding AI push Zork over the top. I think a modern recreation of something similar would be cool especially in today's world where the AI can hold so much more information creating almost infinite story lines/ options.

Mason Sweet