Twisty Little Passages
An Approach to Interactive Fiction
by Nick Montfort · first published 2003
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6HN commenters
2019–2024first – last mentioned
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Zarf has a comprehensive list of references to the IF world, except for this one book, a critical study of IF as both literature and game: Twisty Little Passages - An Approach to Interactive Fiction By Nick Montfort https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/twisty-little-passages
on “Zarf’s Interactive Fiction (2017)” ↗…material for those that want to dig further: 1. Get Lamp, a documentary film on text adventures and Infocom, a legendary publisher of test adventure games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Lamp 2. Twisty Little Passages by By Nick Montfort. A book applying literary critique to text adventure games. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/twisty-little-passages
on “1977: Zork” ↗…not surprisingly we play nethack (rogue like) [5]. I am also into interactive fiction and started them off on Adventure [6]. If you are interested in interactive fiction, then you might enjoy reading "Twisty Little Passages - an approach to interactive fiction" by Nick Montfort [7]. Full disclosure, I believe that the main reason I am able to pull this all off is that my wife and I home-school our children. It is a challenge…
on “Sugar: An activity-focused, open-source software learning platform for children” ↗…doing things incrementally, rather than presenting everything full-blown. How to Make an RPG - Build a retro-style JRPG from scratch https://howtomakeanrpg.com/ Mazes for Programmers: Code Your Own Twisty Little Passages by Jamis Buck - covers a whole gamut of different maze generation algorithms. This author also has a great book on doing a raytracer step by step. https://www.amazon.com/Mazes-Programmers-Twisty-Little-Passa...…
on “Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?” ↗We happen to be doing Twisty Little Passages in our book club this month. Excellent timing.
on “30th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition” ↗…critically analyzed over the past 50 years. Although the "click the keyword" modern I.F. really doesn't do it for me. I prefer the open-ended interpreters. There is a doctoral thesis on this called "Twisty Little Passages". It discusses several "fundamental laws" of I.F. that were derived from the Infocom games of the 70's and 80's, such as your "bubblegum" complaint. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Twisty-Little-Passages-Approach-Inter...
on “50 Years of Text Games – A 2021 Journey from Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon” ↗…a revival of interest and an influx of a new community. I'd never heard of zzt before today. It appears to be a way to make text games of some sort, a la Zork I imagine? In July I will be reading the Twisty Little Passages book, and I think I may have found the software to use while going through the book. EDIT: nope. ddg shows it does some sort of top down map with enemies etc. Closer to a 'retro Game Maker 7' or Clonk…
on “We Are Still Out Here” ↗