Interactive fiction

1. Interactive fiction

2. Let’s play a game! Stealing the Stolen by two sixth graders, Rachel and Sabrina. Based on the title, what is the object of the game?

3. IF defined History of IF Why IF in the classroom? Preparing for a successful IF experience navigating IF creating the IF story What we’ll cover today

4. Groupings and product descriptor Game design document leading to working in Inform 7 Working in Inform 7 Posting finished projects to the internet What we’ll cover today

5. As defined by teachers, IF is… • Creating and playing a game • Technology based • Collaborating • Problem solving • Creativity • A means to develop students’ reading comprehension and writing skills

6. IF defined by techies • A system that: • Produces text • Accepts text from the interactor (user) in reply • Produces more text based on the input • And repeats until some “final” reply has been reached --Nick Montfort, assistant professor, Digital Media, Writing and Humanistic Studies, MIT

7. Describing and defining IF—Nick Montfort • story • game • storygame • novel • world • literature • puzzle • problem • riddle • machine

8. IF is a legitimate form of storytelling. Just as the protagonist in a novel figures a way out of a problem, so does the “interactor” in IF.

9. Just a bit more background and we’ll dive right in

11. Ahh! But Interactive Fiction is alive, as you will soon see.

12. History of interactive fiction • Infocom: the leading text adventure software company in the late 1970s and early 1980s

13. Historically significant interactive fiction works • Adventure (or Colossal Cave Adventure) 1975

14. Historically significant interactive fiction works • Zork series 1975

15. Historically significant interactive fiction works • Mindwheel, by future poet laureate Robert Pinsky 1984

16. Historically significant interactive fiction works • Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 1984

17. Why IF in the classroom?

18. IF supports reading • Develops metacognitive skills • Many IF works are mini-puzzles or word problems that entail logic and problem solving. Students must: • recognize and define the nature of the problem • stop, analyze, and reflect • represent the problem, “How do I…?” • evaluate possible solutions (i.e. Will this action result in an unpleasant outcome…like death!)

19. IF supports reading • Supports guided, oral reading, and fluency • The problem solving nature of IF encourages re-reading in chunks • Collaborative problem solving • Repeated readings of a passage builds fluency

20. IF supports writing and other content areas • For students, IF can be an authentic assessment or enrichment for: • LA: descriptive writing and imagery • SS: historical simulations based on primary source documents • Sci: virtual lab • Math: convey understanding of math concepts

21. Addresses the standards • Illinois Subject: English Grade(s): 6 – 8 • Write to communicate for a variety of purposes. • Using available technology, produce compositions and multimedia works for specified audiences. • Compose well-organized and coherent writing for specific purposes and audiences. • Analyze audience and purpose for writing, and choose the appropriate form

22. IF keeps students invested • Attracts… • Gamers • Creative writers • Logical thinkers • Motivates • Develops the whole brain for those right or left brain students

23. Preparing for a successful IF experience—getting to know the IF game

24. Getting to know the IF game • Introducing basic IF commands to students

25. Getting to know the IF game • In a class period students experience IF online with: • Nine Points • 9:05 • Other appropriate, but longer works are: • A Bear’s Night Out • Mother Loose • Lost Pig • Zork • All can be found at the Interactive Fiction Database http://ifdb.tads.org/

26. Preparing for a successful IF experience—learning to program IF

27. Learning to program IF • Download Inform 7 at: • http://inform7.com/ • Choose your preferred platform (MAC, Windows, or Linux)

28. Learning to program IF • In a class period, or block, students experience one or more of the following Inform 7 projects to see the program in action: • Engelberg Tutorial, Mark Engelberg (at http://inform7.com/teach/resources-by-grade/) • Step I – Rooms and People, Jeremiah McCall • Any of our Lake Zurich projects (copy and paste the documents into Inform7, but include any formatting that becomes lost!)

29. Where does the writing come in? • Let’s look at Bow of Youth • …as seen in Inform 7

30. Preparing students for a successful IF experience Creating the IF story

31. Provide background • Students read excerpts from, answered questions, and discussed the article “How to Write an…Adventure Game” by Joe Martin • Students understand the: • Investigative nature of the game • NPC (non-player character) interaction • Puzzle solving aspects • Focus on narrative rather than reflex-based challenges • NOTE: While the article was written for graphics games, the concepts also apply to IF

32. Teachers: create student groups and let’s get started!

33. Coming up with a Concept Small groups brainstorm ideas Then complete Game Advertisement Sheet. About 2 class periods are needed.

34. Room Identification Identify the rooms for your game. These are locations where the player will travel.

35. Room Directions • This is tricky! • PoliceStation is south of Museum. • PoliceStation is north of Declaration. • PoliceStation is east of Tomb. • PoliceStation is west of Pizzeria. • PoliceStation is southwest of wooden door. • wooden door is southwest of Shed

36. Write the Room Descriptions • The Front Yard is a room. • “Far off the side of the road is a huge, dark, mansion sitting on a flat lawn, where a man lives, your newly discovered thief. You are north of this house, and you notice that it has millions of small, circular windows staring out, but strangely all of the curtains are closed. There is a slightly foreboding air to the house, and a dark path continues to the northeast and another to the northwest, where barking can be heard.” Room and object Document

37. Object descriptions Identify objects that will be in each room (at least one per room is recommended). Fill out object worksheet (page 2 of the Room and object description document).

38. Game design document sample sensory imagery • Object #1 Rubber Ball Location: Back Yard My imagery sentence: The rubber ball is a thing. The description is "You pick up the red rubber ball and find that it is a squeaky toy, covered with solid bumps and dog slobber. Yuck!"

39. Optional sentence composing for rooms Students apply sentence composing methods previously learned

40. Sentence composing for rooms Opening Adjective: Deep in the forest is a green lawn, and on the lawn stands a miserable little hut on hen’s legs, where lives Baba-Yaga, an old witch grandmother.—Poster Wheeler, Vasilissa the Beautiful Far off the side of the road is a huge, dark, mansion on a flat lawn, where a man lives, your newly discovered thief.—by sixth grader Rachel

41. Groupings and product descriptor • Create groups of 2-4 members • Tic-tac-toe product descriptor • 1-2 class periods to brainstorm the group project • Identify locations, objects, any non-playing characters (including where they are located), and map

42. Getting your game design document into Inform 7 • Programming your game isn’t difficult. The best advice is look at sample code. • Don’t forget to playtest!

43. Releasing your game to the internet • A step by step PowerPoint is available at: • http://www.lz95.net/mss/faculty/mdooms/

44. Follow IF on Facebook!

45. Visit this webpage for all files and links! http://www.lz95.net/mss/faculty/mdooms/

46. Resources http://www.lz95.net/mss/faculty/mdooms/ Inform 7 download • http://inform7.com/ Inform7 Handbook, Jim Aiken • http://www.musicwords.net/if/i7hb.htm Universities teaching IF (compiled by Emily Short)--condensed • http://emshort.wordpress.com/ • Digital Composing, University of Vermont, 2009. • Virtual Worlds for Education, a course for practicing K-12 teachers taught by Anthony Hursh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009 • Archeologies of Story, University of Florida, 2008 • “Digital Writing in the Genres”, George Mason University, 2008 • “Interactive Narrative”, UCSC, 2007 • “Textual Media”, George Mason University, 2007 • “Introduction to New Media”, Stockton, 2007 • “Instructional Games”, Utah State University, 2007 • “AI”, Rochester Institute of Technology, 2006 • “Computer Game Design and Implementation”, University of Michigan at Dearborn, 2006

47. Resources Universities teaching IF (compiled by Emily Short)--condensed • “Computer Game Studies”, UCSD, 2006 • “Digital Studies”, University of Maryland, 2006 • “Game Concept and Design”, University of Baltimore, 2006 • “Game Design”, University of Technology, Sydney, 2006 • “Writing for the Internet”, Seton Hill, 2006 Where to play Interactive Fiction • IF database of games • http://ifdb.tads.org/ • An alphabetical listing of all interactive fiction from the Interactive Fiction Archive (on Parchment) • http://parchment.toolness.com/ • 2010 IF Competition • http://ifcomp.org/comp10/download.html • Infocom Adventures Online • http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/

48. Resources IF in the middle and high school • Jeremiah McCall, high school History • http://historicalsimulations.org/ • Brendan Desilets, middle school English • http://if1.home.comcast.net/~if1/index.html Follow IF • Interactive Fiction for Middle School on Facebook • People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction • http://pr-if.org/ • Nick Montfort, MIT • http://nickm.com/if/ • Get Lamp documentary • http://www.getlamp.com/

49. Resources •  Forums and User groups • Interactive fiction community forum • http://www.intfiction.org/forum/index.php?sid=3809614faf2f9fff2bb4e9ffe38cf67e • Google user groups • http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction/topics • http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction/topics?gvc=2