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University

Micrdrilms

International

300 N. Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

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8517895

Buckles, Mery Ann

INTERACTIVE FICTION: THE COMPUTER STORYGAME "ADVENTURE"

University of California, San Diego Ph.D. 1985

University

Microfilms

International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

Buckles, Mary Ann
AH Rights Reserved

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University

San

of California
Diego

INTERACTIVE FICTION:

THE COMPUTER STORYGAME ADVENTURE

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

in German Literature

Mary Ann Buckles

Committee in

charge:

Professor
Pro fessor
Professor
Professor
Pro fessor

Martin W. Wierschin,
Donald Anderson
David Crowne
Jeffrey Elman
Cynthia Walk

Chairperson

1985

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Mary Ann Buckles

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1*1 *1M*J

ine

dissertation of Mary Ann
and it is acceptable
and form for publication

Buckles is a
in quality
on microfilm

^(UVtyJlJL

Chairper son

University of California, San Diego

1985

i ii

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For

Helen Lucile Buckles:

"Don't be a martyr, Mary Ann. It's too much work."
Thomas Euckles:

"Don't worry. Things will get themselves done somehow."

and most of all, for JACK WATHEY:

"Don't ever take *#&! off anybody."

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Table of Contents

Page

Dedication . iv

Acknowledgements . vi

Vita . vii

Abstract . viii

I Introduction . 1

II Adventure as a Game . 29

III Games and Literature . 46

IV Adventure and the Novels of Chivalry

and Adventure . 65

V Adventure 's Relationship to Mysteries . 87

VI A Structural Analysis of Adventure . 104

VII Point of View in Adventure . 133

VIII Reader Response . 162

IX References . 191

X Appendix . 201

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Working with my thesis advisor, Dr. Martin Wierschin, has
been a pleasure. I am grateful for his eagle-eyed editing,
his straightforward appraisals of my work, and for his
encouragement and interest throughout my years at UCSD. I
am also grateful to the committee members from the Litera¬
ture Department, Cynthia Walk, William Fitzgerald, and David
Crowne, not only for their helpful suggestions with this
dissertation, but for putting up with my cussedness as a
student. With Jeff Elman and my computer mail pal and
friend, Don Anderson, I have enjoyed entertaining, useful,
and frivolous conversations. Many thanks. My friendships
with Brigitte Schmidt, Pricilla Lore, and Kay Kruger have
been a source of pleasure and comfort. Sherry Rosenthal has
been away for two years, but she left me her car as a very
practical way of making my daily life easier. (And has it
ever!) My father, Thomas Buckles, has visited me many times
in the last few years. Thanks, Dad!

JACK. You shared all-nighters with me in awful EECS 70, sat
through Star - Trek I,II,+ III , Iron , Star Wars , The Empire
Strikes Back , Return of the Jeddi , Dark Star , and War Games
for a chapter I never wrote, helped me with the technical
side of the dissertation, boosted my spirits when they were
down-way-down, and helped me along every step of what at
times seemed a torturous path. Thank you from my heart.

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VITA

19 80 -
1978 -
1980 -
1982 -
1985 -

June 1, 1952 - Born - Lynwood, California

B. A. ,

University of Southern California,

Diplom (Equivalent of B.A.),

Akademie der Musik in Wien (Austria)

M. A. ,

University of California, San Diego

Candidate in Philosophy
University of California, San Diego

Doctor of Philosophy

University of California, San Diego

vii

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Interactive Fiction:

The Computer Story Game Adventure

Mary Ann Buckles

Doctor of Philosophy in German Literature
University of California, San Diego, 1985
Professor Martin Wierschin, Chairperson

Adventure and other narrative-based computer games
have been labelled interactive fiction. They are written in
words in the form of simple scenarios featuring comic-strip
type characters with which the reader/player can verbally
interact to create stories.

In the opening chapters of this dissertation, the
emphasis is on Adventure 1 s affinities with traditional
literature. I explore the close relationship between play,
games and literature. A discussion of the traditional
literary models and narrative strategies that are used in
its story follows. The similarities and differences between
Adventure and conventional stories of detection are del-

viii

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ineated, because both types of stories have as their primary
goal the solution of a narrative puzzle. A Proppian struc¬
tural analysis of Adventure indicates that although many
elements, functions, and moves described by Propp in simple
folktales form the structural basis of Adventure , it still
cannot be considered a folktale. I compare Adventure , the
first major literary work of the new computer medium, with
the sixteenth century prose Novels of Chivalry and Adven¬
ture, whose propagation came to be closely tied to the then
new technology of the printing press.

The innovative use of the literary technique of
point of view in Adventure is then discussed. Not only is
the narrator an actor in the Adventure story, the reader
interacts with the narrator, so it is possible for the
reader to be an active participant in the story-telling pro¬
cess for the first time in fixed text literature.

The most interesting findings of the study are the
closed-loop quality of interactive fiction and the intros¬
pective, contemplative nature of the interactive medium. To
be able to read interactive fiction, it is necessary to
apply the scientific method to one’s own thinking. Based on
these qualities, I conclude that interactive fiction can
develop into a serious artistic medium.

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INTRODUCTION

Interactive fiction can be seen as a new form of
"literature" 1 in which the reader, for the first time, takes
part in writing the story as (s)he reads it. Masquerading
as computer games that require the reader to make simple
commands or requests of the fictional story-teller as the
narrative progresses, works of interactive fiction have
burgeoned in numbers and quality since their birth in the
mid-sixties. In this dissertation I focus on the first com¬
plex interactive story, Adventure , 2 show how it compares to
other forms of literature, where it departs from the tradi¬
tional text, and how it affects the reader's and author's
roles.

Although Adventure and other works of interactive
fiction are not printed in books, their form, story content,
and effects are clearly outgrowths of the more familiar
types of literature. Indeed, there are many more respects in
which interactive fiction is similar to conventional litera¬
ture than areas where there are differences. One of the
main strengths of interactive fiction is its roots in such
story-telling modes as mystery, fantasy, and adventure. In
what follows, I hope to show that the interactive text is a
peculiar extension of the written story form which has been
prompted by the technological developments of the last two
decades. This dissertation focuses on Adventure , but the
points made in comparing it to traditional forms of fiction

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apply to the medium in general and are not limited to this
specific work.

I have based my examination of the literary aspects
of the interactive text and medium on a broad working defin¬
ition of literature, one which includes the most widely-
accepted elements of the many "definitions” found in dic¬
tionaries and literary criticism. The Oxford English Dic¬
tionary defines literature as "...the body of writings pro¬
duced in a particular country or period, or in the world in
general. Now also in a more restricted sense, applied to
writing which has some claim to consideration on the ground
of beauty of form or emotional effect."3 Gero von Wilpert 2 *,
Rene Wellek and Austin Warren^ add to this basic definition
the idea that literary works have no purpose external to
themselves, and most discussions of the term emphasize the
imaginative quality of literary compositions.6 As Wellek
observes: "The centre of literary art is ... the reference
to a world of fiction, of imagination.7 Roger Fowler, Karl
Beckson, and Arthur Ganz view the the literary work as an
artifact of the author's mind: "literature 'imitates',
'depicts', 'represents', 'presents', 'embodies' (etc.) peo¬
ple, objects, societies, ideas''^; it is "a made thing, an
artefact, a single, unique, construct; a hard enduring
object;"9 literary works are "embodiments of some of man's
feelings and thoughts, they are experiences shaped into
aesthetic forms."10 Beckson and Ganz list four major func¬
tions of literature: entertainment, escape into fantasy, the

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inculcation of moral and spiritual values, and gaining a
better understanding of "the forces which motivate men and
the place of man in society and in the universe."^

Adventure can be treated as literature because it is
written in words, conveys stories, and can evoke powerful
emotional involvement in the imaginary world it embodies. As
Anthony Niesz and Norman Holland write in their article
"Interactive Fiction":

Both interactive and traditional fiction rely upon
the use of written texts, or upon the elements of
narration, plot, and dialogue. ... It is this reli¬
ance upon verbal utterances, upon language, upon
texts in the broadest sense, which makes interactive
fiction nevertheless a subspecies of literature,
regardless of its mechanics of video screens, key¬
boards, and computer chips, regardless of the enigma
it may be to literary theory.^

Interactive fiction is a form of narrative whose
words are stored and transmitted in a different way than
other types of oral or written literature. Its text is
stored in the computer's memory, activated by the reader's
input, and ordinarily printed on a video screen instead of
on paper. Yet the method of storage and transmission of
verbal information does not fundamentally transform its
words into something else. The medium is verbal whether it
is spoken, written, read, or heard. Words are words,
independent of their method of storage a-’d transmission —
in books, on magnetic tape, or in peoples' heads; through
sight reading, touch reading (braille), or listening.

A more specific reason for analyzing the literary

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aspects of Adventure is based on what its words do: they

tell stories. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a story
as "A narrative of real or, more usually, fictitious events,
designed for the entertainment of the hearer or reader; a
series of traditional or imaginary incidents forming the
matter of such a narrative.” 12 The stories in Adventure
entertain by involving the reader in an imaginary world.
Although the interactive text is organized in a computer
program, the imaginary world is embodied in the text just as
in any other literary work. Some of the formal elements and
most of the content of the stories themselves are culturally
familiar. The events depicted are not presented at random,
but through the technical device of a narrator and many of
the situations presented are variations of other literary
stereotypes.

Interactive fiction serves the four functions of
literature discussed by Beckson and Ganz. Clearly, Adven¬
ture and other works like it are meant to be read for enter¬
tainment, escape into fantasy, disinterested pleasure and
emotional effect. What is perhaps not so clear is that the
process of reading interactive fiction is morally grounded
and can be a playful way of gaining a deeper understanding
of oneself. To read interactive fiction is to practice the
philosophy of science in an artificial, restricted, ima¬
ginary world. Truth is determined by observing and analyz¬
ing events, distancing oneself from one's own preconcep¬
tions, testing whether one's interpretation of the events is

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actually correct, and forming a new interpretation if it is
not.

What Adventure and other works of interactive fic¬
tion lack at this time is depth of ideas and beauty of form
and writing. Today, critics usually study a literary work
of lesser value as a way of discussing popular culture. The
literary work is not an end in itself, but as a means to
understanding the cultural patterns and the society that has
produced it, exploring the effects of the mass media, or
elucidating good taste and high culture by comparing it to
bad taste and popular culture. Adventure is a work of popu¬
lar literature; however, I do not focus on it as a way of
clarifying issues of popular culture. I do not seek to
better understand the cultural stereotypes it expresses nor
do I use it as a way of studying the computer sub-culture or
current popular culture tastes.

The first part of the dissertation deals with the
nature and relationship of play, games, and literature. In
Chapter One, I describe Adventure as a game and examine the
underlying qualities of fantasy, curiosity and challenge.
Chapter Two is a general discussion of the importance of
play in literature, based on Johan Huizinga's hypothesis
that the play instinct is the basis of culture and aesthetic
response. Here, literature is approached as a game.

The second part of the dissertation deals with
Adventure as a part of the narrative tradition. In Chapter
Three, the narrative structure and literary effects of

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Adventure are compared to those of the sixteenth and seven¬
teenth century Prose Novels of Chivalry and Adventure, It
is in this chapter that the question of "low literature” and
"high literature" is raised; I view interactive fiction in
its present stage as an immature medium capable of artistic
development. In Chapter Four, I compare Adventure to mys¬
tery literature as a way of focussing on the puzzle-element
of interactive fiction. A Proppian structural analysis of
Adventure follows in Chapter Five.

In the third part of the dissertation, attention is
turned from the ways that interactive fiction resembles con¬
ventional literature to the ways in which it differs from
it. In Chapter Six, I examine the revolutionary role the
narrator plays in the fluid, interactive text. In Chapter
Seven, the dissertation concludes with a close look at the
reader's role in the creation of the interactive text.

To facilitate critical comparison with the esta¬
blished genres of narrative literature, let me first
emphasize what Adventure and other works of interactive fic¬
tion are not: they are not video arcade games. They do not
resemble games like Donkey Kong, 13 Space Invaders , 1 ** or Pac-
Man , 15 which require good hand-eye co-ordination and quick
physical reactions. There are no flashing lights, beeps, or
grinding noises. The reader enters words into the computer
to communicate with the narrator and generate the story;

(s)he does not press buttons to aim electronic projectiles
or fire simulated weapons. To assume that a computer

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program or computer game could not have anything to do with
literature would be to confuse the physical medium with the
literary work itself. By such logic books would not be
treated as literature because paper, ink, cloth, and glue
are not literature.

I have chosen to study Adventure for several rea¬
sons. It is among the best and most complex of very early
interactive fiction, thus it will be a good starting point
and basis of comparison for further developments in the
field. Adventure is readily available at UCSD and other
universities and research centers that have the UNIX operat¬
ing system. This has made it possible for me to interview
many people who play Adventure, people from fields unrelated
to computer science or literature in order to get reactions
to it in addition to my own experiences. Its widespread
availability at universities makes it a suitable choice for
critical discussion of interactive fiction.

The reasons for limiting the discussion to Adventure
are the following. The field of computers has been and
remains dynamic; we are at the beginning of what could be an
explosive development of interactive fiction. Each new
advancement in computer technology makes new ways of writing
interactive fiction possible; this may mean that any defini¬
tion of interactive fiction will become outmoded as soon as
it has been written. I believe the detailed examination of
the literary aspects of one work at this time will lay the
necessary groundwork for later, more complete studies of the

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interactive fiction genre as a whole.

Because interactive fiction is so different in its
presentation from the linear narratives with which we are
familiar, I shall use a new system for footnoting the
excerpts from Adventure . In a fixed, linear text only one
point, a line or a page number, is sufficient for a refer¬
ence to be established, but in interactive fiction the text
is neither fixed nor linear. The story plot the reader
creates while playing Adventure is a result of a dynamic
interaction of time, place, objects the reader carries or
encounters, and the language (s)he uses. Therefore, the
footnotes I use do not refer to line or page numbers from
the text created by the reader, but to the line numbers from
the appropriate part of the Adventure program. This program
consists of several computer files, one of which, "glorkz,"
contains most of the text messages. I have included
"glorkz" in the appendices.

A final note on terminology: games like Adventure do
not yet have a generally accepted name. The term "interac¬
tive fiction" was introduced by a Florida computer company,
Adventure International, 1 ^ anc | points to one of the distin¬
guishing characteristics of the game. Yet there are other
types of fiction I consider interactive; for example, I view
Dungeons and Dragons as a type of interactive drama. My own
term for the phenomenon, "computer story games," is a desig¬
nation that can also be applied to Thayer s Quest , ^7 an
interactive computer story game told in pictures instead of

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words. I have also used "narrative computer games," but I
can imagine question-and-answer narrative games on the com¬
puter that would not fit in the category of fiction, and
there are children's books which include computer program¬
ming problems as part of the story.18 "Adventure games" 19
is the popular name because Adventure is the most widely
known of them. "Adventure games" might win out in the long
run, much as "Kleenex" is used instead of "facial tissue" or
"Scotch tape" instead of the more descriptive "cellophane
tape" (which is now made of acetate!). But while all types
of "Kleenex" can be used to blow one's nose, not all "adven¬
ture games" are interactive fiction on the computer. Also,
"adventure games" does not describe the specific type of
story content (mystery, exploration, war setting, fantasy,
etc.). "Tex t, adventures"^ (as opposed to video games) is a
favorite in computer circles, but is inappropriate from a
literary point of view. In the title of this dissertation,
"Interactive Fiction: The Computer Story Game Adventure " I
have incorporated as many of these terms as I possibly
could, in the hope of expressing as many terminological
key-words as possible for future computer bibliography
searches.

Adventure is a tale much like those in the tradition
of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth,21 as
well as a treasure hunt in the mold of Robert Louis
Stevenson's Treasure Island .22 Both Adventure and Journey
to the Center of the Earth take place in caves. Therefore,

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many of the descriptions of setting are similiar. Surpris¬
ingly, the cave descriptions in Adventure are often more
realistic than in Verne's story: the original author, Willie
Crowther, is a real life spelunker whereas Jules Verne
explored only in his imagination. Neither work has any
deeper meaning hidden in the story, but they can impart a
tremendous sense of excitement about the wonders and mys¬
teries of nature, the joy in exploration and finding out
what lies around the next corner, and the fear of what might
happen in the next tunnel. Each contains a series of obsta¬
cles set by nature which must be overcome before exploration
can continue. Adventure is related to Treasure Island in
two main ways. The desire for treasure motivates the
stories so they are both like adolescent wish-fulfillment
fantasies, and both were inspired by maps: location and phy¬
sical setting dictate the process of action. Stevenson
explained how he got the idea for his famous adventure
story. He sometimes made colored drawings, and on one of
those occasions he states:

...I made the map of an island; it was elaborately
and (I thought) beautifully coloured; the shape of
it took my fancy beyond expression; it contained
harbours that pleased me like sonnets; and with the
unconsciousness of the predestined, I ticketed my
performance 'Treasure Island.’ I am told there are
people who do not care for maps, and find it hard to
believe. ... as I paused upon my map of 'Treasure
Island,' the future character [sic] of the book
began to appear there visibly among imaginary woods;
and their brown faces and bright weapons peeped out
upon me frora unexpected quarters as they passed to
and fro, fighting and hunting treasure, on these few

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square inches of a flat projection. The next thing
I knew I had some papers before me and was writing
out a list of chapters. 2 3

Later, he repeated:

...the map ,as most of the plot. 21 *

Adventure , too, began as a map, or rather as a computer
model. In his article, "Adventures in Computing," Walt
Bilofsky writes:

Adventure was always grounded firmly in reality.

Will Crowther, the original author, was a co-worker
of mine at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc., the Cam¬
bridge, Mass., research firm which built such pro¬
jects as the ARPANET and the TENEX operating system.
Will used to drive down to Kentucky monthly to join
other amateur spelunkers in exploring Colossal Cave,
an actual huge cavern. Topographical data was
stored in BBN’s computers and was used to produce
maps of the cave. It's not surprising that
Adventure’s Colossal Cave, at least up to a point
(or down to a point) is the same as the one in Ken¬
tucky, and the description and geology of the first
few levels are consistent and accurate. 2 5

Many elements of Adventure are similiar to those of
the mystery because there are puzzles to be solved and
investigations to be made; in other ways it resembles the
folktale, especially in respect to structure. Therefore,
two sections of the dissertation are devoted to Adventure's
relationship to mystery literature and to its folktale-like
structure.

The authors have drawn some of the content, charac¬
ters, and motifs in Adventure from science fiction and fan¬
tasy literature, especially from Tolkien's The Lord of the

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Rings .26 For example, in a personal letter to me, the
second main author, Don Woods, wrote that he had "glanced at
Tolkien's description of 0rodruin"27 i n the Lord of the
Rings before he wrote "Breathtaking View." In The Lord of
the Rings , Orodruin, or Mount Doom, is the volcano in the
Land of Mordor where the evil Sauron forged the One Ring of
Power. It erupted whenever evil was on the rise again.28
"Breathtaking View" transmits a sense of foreboding to
readers, but unlike Orodruin, it does not have any special
significance in the story. Here are Tolkien's depictions of
this growing, fiery symbol of threat:

Far beyond it, but almost straight ahead, across a
wide lake of darkness dotted with tiny fires, there
was a great burning glow: and from it rose in huge
columns a swirling smoke, dusky red at the roots,
black above where it merged into the billowing
canopy that roofed in all the accursed land. ...

Ever and anon the furnaces far below its ashen cone
would grow hot and with a great surging and throb¬
bing pour forth rivers of molten rock from chasms in
its sides. Some would flow blazing towards Barad-
dur down great channels; some would wind their way
into the stone plain, until they cooled and lay like
twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented
earth. Sam beheld Mount Doom, and the light of it
... now glared against the stark rock faces, so that
they seemed to be drenched with blood. 29

Eastward Sam could see the plain of Mordor vast and
dark below, and the burning mountain far away. A
fresh turmoil was surging in its deep wells, and the
rivers of fire blazed so fiercely that even at this
distance of many miles the light of them lit the
tower-top with a red glare.30

The Mountain crept up ever nearer, until, if they
lifted their heavy heads, it filled all their sight,
looming vast before them: a huge mass of ash and
slag and burned stone, out of which a sheer-sided
cone was raised into the clouds. 31

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And then at last over the miles between there came a
rumble, rising to a deafening crash and roar; the
earth shook, the plain heaved and cracked, and Oro-
druin reeled. Fire belched from its riven summit.
The skies burst into thunder seared with lightn¬
ing.32

Compare it to Wood's "Breath-taking View":

Far below you is an active volcano, from which great
gouts of molten lava come surging out, cascading
back down into the depths. The glowing rock fills
the farthest reaches of the cavern with a blood-red
glare, giving everything an eerie, macabre appear¬
ance. The air is filled with the flickering sparks
of ash and a heavy smell of brimstone. The walls
are hot to the touch, and the thundering of the vol¬
cano drowns out all other sounds. Embedded in the
jagged roof far overhead are myriad twisted forma¬
tions composed of pure white alabaster, which
scatter the murky light into sinister apparitions
upon the walls. To one side is a deep gorge, filled
with a bizarre chaos of tortured rock which seems to
have been crafted by the devil himself. An immense
river of fire crashes out from the depths of the
volcano, burns its way through the gorge, and plum¬
mets into a bottomless pit far off to your left. To
the right, an immense geyser of blistering steam
erupts continuously from a barren island in the
center of a sulfurous lake, which bubbles ominously.
The far right wall is aflame with an incandescence
of its own, which lends an additional infernal
splendor to the already hellish scene. A dark,
foreboding passage exits to the south.33

Although Adventure is related to established forms
of literature, reading a computer story-game is quite dif¬
ferent from reading a regular book because the reader is
also a player, making moves and performing actions, just
like (s)he does in playing games. Adventure is a not a
story about a character exploring a cave, it is about what
happens to the reader as the reader explores the cave. In
The Lord of the Rings , for example, the characters Frodo

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Baggins and Samwise have stumbled on the view of Orodruin;
in Adventure it is the reader who is confronted with the
volcano below.

Having the reader as protagonist is not the only
innovation of computer story-games: using the computer as a
narrative medium also makes it possible for the reader to
interact with and take part in the story. Because the
reader can make certain choices about the way the story will
progress, a simplistic form of fixed-text interactive fic¬
tion is possible for the first time. By taking part in
creating the story, the reader takes on some of the func¬
tions of the author. I would like to emphasize here that
the reader cannot actually determine what will happen, but
(s)he can choose from alternatives implicit in the story and
has the illusion of control over the events. On the other
hand, in comparison with the traditional book medium, there
are also ways in which the reader can lose control over the
literary experience. (S)he can no longer simply continue
reading it, as in a printed narrative, to find out how the
story turns out; in interactive fiction, the reader must
actively make the story happen.

The next three examples illustrate how readers can
interact with the Adventure world and create a different
text each time they play, if they wish. All three people
started at the same position, the beginning of the game.

Yet after only six moves apiece, each came up with different
results. I have abbreviated "Narrator' 1 to "N:" and "Player"

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to "P:.

Example _1_:

N: You are standing at the end of a road before a

small brick building. Around you is a forest. A
small stream flows out of the building and down
a gully.

P: West

N: You have walked up a hill, still in the forest.
The road slopes back down the other side of the
hill.

There is a building in the distance.

P: North

N: You're at end of road again.

P: West

N: You're at hill in road.

P: West

N: There is no way to go that direction.

You're at hill in road.

P: East

N: You're at end of road again.

P: South

N: You are in a valley in the forest beside a

stream tumbling along a rocky bed.3**

Example 2 :

N: You are standing at the end of a road before a

small brick building. Around you is a forest. A
small stream flows out of the building and down
a gully.

P: Down

N: You are in a valley in the forest beside a

stream tumbling along a rocky bed.

P: Up

N: You are in open forest, with a deep valley to

one side.

P: Stream

N: I don't know how to apply that word here.

You're in forest.

P: Do wn

N: You’re in valley.

P: Building

N: You're at end of road again.

P: Building

N: You are inside a building, a well house for a

large spring.

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There are some keys on the ground here.
There is a shiny brass lamp nearby.
There is food here.

There is a bottle of water here. 35

Example 3!:

N: You are standing at the end of a road before a

small brick building. Around you is a forest.

A small stream flows out of the building and
down a gully.

P: Forest

N: You are in open forest, with a deep valley to

one side.

P: Up

N: There is no way to go that direction.

You're in forest.

P: North

N: You are in open forest near both a valley and a

road.

P: Forest

N: You're in forest.

P: East

N: You are in a valley in the forest beside a

stream tumbling along a rocky bed.

P: West

N: You're in forest.36

Recently, several series of children's books have
become popular which make the reader a character who chooses
the way the plot unfolds.37 for example, The Cave of Time ,38
a book for children around age ten, contains the following
instructions:

Do not read this book straight through from begin¬
ning to end! These pages contain many different
adventures you can go on in the Cave of Time. From
time to time as you read along, you will be asked to
make a choice. Your choice may lead to success or
disaster!

The adventures you take are a result of your
choice. You are responsible because you choose!
After you make your choice, follow the instructions
to see what happens to you next.

Remember--you cannot go back! Think carefully

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before you make a move! One mistake can be your
last ... or it may lead you to fame and fortune!39

Every book in these series contains many story units, each
of which last only a few pages. At the end of a unit,
either the story ends (and not always with a happy outcome
for the reader-protagonist!) or the reader is given a choic
and the story continues. The following example is from a
story about dreaming. The "you” refers to the reader:

"I'm glad you're here in the world of dreams come
true," says the old man. "Whatever you would like
to have is yours." You think for a minute of things
you would like—your favorite food, having your own
horse, going on a balloon ride. "You'll have to
decide quickly. It's almost time for you to wake
up," says the old man.

If you ask the man for all the candy in the world,
turn to page 12.

If you ask him for a horse to ride, turn to page 20.

If you ask him to take you on a balloon ride, turn
to page 14.

If you ask him for something you can keep after the
dream is over, turn to page 23.^

Due to the linear nature of text printed on paper,
the artistic effects of these techniques fall far short of
those in interactive fiction. Turning the pages of such a
book is cumbersome and time-consuming. The child is given
choices about which story unit will come next, but each
story unit is complete in itself. In interactive fiction
the reader makes choices about each individual step and
thereby constructs the story units for him- or herself.
Finally, in Adventure, the choices are not pre-defined; the

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reader must interact with the narrative screen. It’s a
finer way of composition, as in a kaleidoscope. An interac¬
tion with a fixed text is not possible.

The narrator in Adventure and other works of
interactive fiction functions as the mediator between the
reader and the fictive world. The reader's interaction with
the story extends to conversing with the narrator on a prim¬
itive level. To explore the cave and find the treasures,
the reader must learn how to use its "hands and eyes,"
which, in turn, involves communicating with the narrative
voice by asking it for instructions and giving it direc¬
tions. The reader must learn how the author programmed the
narrator to "think" (if a computer can be considered capable
of thought-like processes) and what kind of language the
narrator understands.

In interactive fiction, the reader's sense of story
time and space is also very different from that in tradi¬
tional fiction. The reader experiences the events of the
story sequentially, as they are happening. There are only
limited temporal lapses or omissions compared to those in
conventional stories and far less skipping over locales or
objects in the cave. The action takes place step by step,
and the reader participates in each independent story ele¬
ment. This does not necessarily make for a better told
story, but it does heighten the reader's sense of being a
participant and prime mover in the story. Because of these
aspects, most people I interviewed described it as a new

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reading experience.

In some important respects, the reader actually does
gain control over spatial and temporal aspects of the action
in interactive fiction. The story stops each time the
reader must decide where to go next in the cave or how to
overcome an obstacle or solve a puzzle. If the reader makes
choices quickly, the story progresses quickly; if the reader
has difficulty deciding what to do, the action slows down.
How very different this is from a story in a book! For
example, when I am baffled in a detective or spy story, I
read faster and faster so I can find out what happened or
what will happen. In contrast, when I am stumped by a puz¬
zle in Adventure the story stops altogether until I figure
out what to do. Being confronted by problems and choices in
Adventure is more like facing unimportant decisions in real
life than like reading about how the characters in books
deal with their problems. To use a descriptive term of com¬
puter jargon, by being more of a "real-time" story, Adven¬
ture can seem like more of a real-life story. In the area
of computers "real-time" means that data are gathered, pro¬
cessed and acted upon continuously and rapidly, rather than
each step of the process being completed before the next
step is carried out.^l To apply the analogy to Ad venture ,
then, instead of the story being laid out in its entirety
for the reader as in a book, each individual move in Adven¬
ture is determined separately by the choices the reader
makes. The story is composed during the process of reading.

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These innovations in a fixed text narration, i.e.
the reader interacting with the narrator and acting as pro¬
tagonist and writer, were made possible by advances in com¬
puter technology but inspired by the fantasy role-playing
game, Dungeons and Dragons. ^2 j n Dicing with Dragons : An
Introduction to Role - Playing Games , Ian Livingstone
describes these games as a sophisticated form of make
believe. ^3 Each player creates a persona with differing
physical and mental attributes, determined by the role of
dice. Then the player assumes the role of this character
and verbally acts out a story guided by the story game
referee, the "Dungeon Master.” The stories often take place
in imaginary medieval, fantasy, or science fiction settings.
In these games, each player is a character in the story, as
well as the creator or author of his or her own role and
dialogue.^ The Dungeons and Dragons player acts out the
story with others, and in much the same way the Adventure
reader thinks out and imagines his or her role while creat¬
ing the text. The idea of the reader interacting with the
narrator is also an outgrowth of Dungeons and Dragons ♦ John
Butterfield, Philip Parker and David Honigmann describe the
interaction between the narrator, or Dungeon Master, and the
players in Dungeons and Dragons :

"The game can be regarded as a conversation between
the D.M. [the Dungeon Master] and the players, the
former describing what is happening to the charac¬
ters (’You are standing in a ten-foot-wide passage¬
way; ahead is a solid oaken door with intricate

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stone carvings round the frame...') the latter
describing their actions ('All right, I'll kick the
door down') . **5

Although similar verbal player-narrator interactions take
place in Adventure and Dungeons and Dragons , communication
with the electronic narrator in Adventure is obviously infe¬
rior to interaction with an imaginative Dungeon Master, who
is capable of human dialogue.

When I first started this study, I had intended to
extrapolate some of the ways literature will be produced and
modified through the application of computers by examining
how the printing press affected literary production. The
idea that the long term development of modern western
literature has been influenced by the invention of the
printing press seems obvious. I was surprised to discover
that this area remains unexplored. Elizabeth Eisenstein
devotes the entire opening chapter of The Printing Press as
an Agent of Change *^ bemoaning the lack of scholarly atten¬
tion to this important field. She writes: "The effects pro¬
duced by printing have aroused little controversy, not
because views on the topic coincide, but because almost none
have been set forth in an explicit and systematic form.

Indeed those who seem to agree that momentous changes were
entailed always seem to stop short of telling us just what
they were," 1 *? Two examples she cites are Ernst R. Curtius'
one line ' : discussion" of the topic and the no less excep¬
tional side-stepping of the issue by Douglas McMurtrie,
whose work is considered to be one of the definitive

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treatments of the topic. Curtius wrote: "The immense and
revolutionary change which it [the invention of printing]
brought about can be summarized in one sentence: until that
time every book was a manuscript.McMurtie commented: "It
would require an extensive volume to set forth even in out¬
line the far-reaching effects of this invention in every
field of human enterprise."^9 Eisenstein criticizes them by
writing: "In both instances we learn nothing more about
seemingly momentous consequences save that they occurred.

Nor is the curious reader offered any guidance as to where
one might go to learn more."50 Marshall McCluhan has pointed
out many areas connected with a print-oriented culture that
are in need of study, yet his jumbled and emotion-charged
approach seems not to have inspired any such attempt.51
In its present initial stage of development, I
believe interactive fiction is a type of popular literature.
Abraham Kaplan defines popular literature not as "the degra¬
dation of taste but its immaturity, not the product of
external social forces but produced by a dynamic intrinsic
to the aesthetic experience itself."52 pj e characterizes
popular literature as basically formless and stereotyped,
with the reader's interest focussed on the outcome instead
of the unfolding of the plot.53 as in other works of popular
literature, the structure in Adventure is based on limited
and well-defined formulae. The sense of novelty it arouses
in readers can be traced to variations within the schemata
and the complexity of the sub-plots. Characterizations are

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minimal, and the actions usually don't point to any deeper
meanings. The object is to entertain.

I do not believe that the literary limitations of
Adventure means that computer story games are of necessity a
sub-literary genre, or that there is something about the
computer medium itself which pre-destines interactive fic¬
tion always to be frivolous in nature. The development of
film can be taken as an analogy. In the introduction to The
Popular Arts : A Critical Reader ,54 Irving Deer and Harriet
Deer describe how early film was considered an unsophisti¬
cated and unartistic medium, "so crude in its initial stages
that it was considered to be beneath contempt.”55 Only with
D.W. Griffith's Birth of _a Nation 56 anc j later through Char¬
lie Chaplin's films did audiences become aware "that the
film had a capacity for communicating mature artistic
experiences.”57 v/e can expect computer technology to con¬
tinue undergoing rapid growth and this, in turn, will pro¬
vide the technical basis for a sophistication and maturation
of interactive fiction. In addition to growth in the com¬
puter technology itself, we can also project a "democratiza¬
tion of computer use" which might be analagous to the "demo¬
cratization of reading"58 that characterized the spread of
printing. We can suppose that with more people reading
interactive fiction, there will be a concomitant upsurge in
both the number and quality of computer story games created.

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FOOTNOTES: INTRODUCTION

1. A discussion of the term "literature” follows
shortly. See footnote no. 3.

2. Willie Crowther and Don Woods, Adventure , UNIX
Version, 11. 1316-1319* (See Appendices for references to
Adventure by line number.)

3. The Oxford English Dictionary : Being _a Corrected
Re - Issue with an Introduction , Supplement , and Bibliography
of New Eng lish Dictionary on Historical Principles founded
Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological
Society , Vol. VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press'^ 1961)7 p. 342.

4. Gero von Wilpert, SachwOrterbuch der Literatur
(Stuttgart: Alfred Kroner Verlag, 1979), p. 463.

5. Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Litera-
ture (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 19567, p. 27.

6. Roger Fowler, Ed. A Dictionary of Modern Criti-
cal Terms (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
19737T~PP. 105-107.

7. Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature , p. 25.

8. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms,

p. 106.

9. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms,

p. 107.

10 .

Dictionary.
131 •

Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz, Literary Terms : A
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975), p.

11. Beckson and Ganz, Literary Terms , p. 132.

12. Anthony J. Niesz and Norman N. Holland,

"Interactive Fiction" in: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 2, No. 1,
p. 125. ’

13. The Oxford English Dictionary , p. 1041.

14. Donkey Kong, (Nintendo).

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15.

Space Invaders , (Sego).

16. PacMan , (Bally Co.).

17. Bob Liddil, "Interactive Fiction: Six Micro
Stories," in an issue devoted to artificial intelligence in:
Byte , Vol. 6 ., No. 9 (1981), p. 436.

18. Rick Dyer, Thayer 1 s Quest (Carlsbad, Califor¬
nia: RDI Video Systems). For a description of the game, see
Matt Damsker, "Newest Game in Town--Thayer• s Quest," Los
Angeles Times, July 7 , 1984.

19. See, for example: Floyd McCoy and Lois McCoy,
The Bytes Brothers: Program a Problem, A Solve It Yourself
Computer Mystery (Toronto, New York, London, Sydney: Bantam
Books, i9iprr;

20. David Thompson, "The Cottage Computerist: Writ¬
ing Games is an Adventure," Profiles: The Magazine for
Kaypro Users , Vol. 2, No. 1 (1984), pp. 14-15, 19.

21. Thomas Enright, "Choose Your Quest," Profiles :
The Magazine for Kaypro Users, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1984), pp.
30-31“, 34-37,^2-71:

22. Jules Verne, A Journey to the Center of the
Earth , in: Works of Jules Verne , ed., Claire Booss - CNew
York: Avenel Books, 1963 ), pp. 217-390.

23. Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (Lon¬
don, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1955).

24. Steveson., Treasure Island ,, pp . xiv -xv.

25 ♦ Stevenson , Treasure Island , p. xxi.

26. Walt Bilofsky, "Adventures in Computing," Pro¬
files: The Magazine for Kaypro Users, Vol. 2, No. 1 ( 1 984) ,
p. 25.

27. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1954).

28. Personal computer mail communication from Don
Woods, March 21, 1984.

29. Robert Foster, The Complete Guide to Middle -

Earth : F rom ' The Hobbit * to ' The Silmarillion ' TNew York:
Ballantine Books, 1974), pp. 397-398.

30. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p. 214.

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31.

Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings , p. 221.

32. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings , p. 267.

33. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings , p. 276.

34. Adventure . 11. 261-279.

35. Adventure, 11. 1-3; 4-5; 303; 304; 1337, 304;

303; 7-8.

36. Adventure, 11. 1-3; 7-8; 9; 1341, 307; 306;
303; 6; 1166,HIT68, “1209, 1211.

37. Adventure, 11. 1-3; 9; 1337, 307; 10; 307; 7:

307.

38. This list of such series is not complete, but
it should give some idea of the genre’s widespread popular¬
ity.

A What-Do-I-Do-Now Book (New York: An Infocom Book,
Tom Doherty Associates, 1983).

An Endless Quest (Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: TSR Hob¬
bies Inc., 1982).

Choose a Pathway to the Magic Realms (Bergenfield,
New Jersey: New American Library, 1984).

Choose Your Own Adventure: You're the Star of the
Story! (Toronto, New York, London, Sydney: Bantam, 1979).

Dragontales (Bergenfield, New Jersey: New American
Library, 1984) .

Magicquest (New York: Tempo Books, 1976).

Pick a Path to Adventure, Fantasy Forest (Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin: TSR Hobbies Inc., 1983).

Plot Your Own Horror Stories (New York: Simon and
Schuster Wanderer Books, 1982).

Sorcery! (New York: Penguin Books, 1983).

The Star Challenge Series, A Yearling Book (New
York: Dell Publishers).

The Time Machine Series (Toronto, New York, London,
Sydny: A Byron Press Book, Bantam, 1984).

Which Way Books (New York: Pocket Books, Simon and

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Schuster, 1982).

28. Edward Packard, The Cave of Time (Toronto, New
York, London, and Sydney: Bantam Books, 1979).

39. Packard, The Cave of Time , p. 1.

40. Edward Packard, Dream Trips (Toronto, New York,
London, and Syndey: Bantam Skylark), p. 7.

41. Rose Deakin, Understanding Micro - Computers : An
Introduction to the New Personal Computers for Home and
Office (Bergenfield, New Jersey: New American Library,

1982), pp. 36-37, 98, 176.

42. Personal computer mail communication from Don
Woods, March 21, 1984. The reference to the game itself is:
Gary Gygax, Dungeons and Dragons (Lake Geneva, Wisconsin:

TSR Hobbies Inc7, T974).

43. Ian Livingstone, Dicing with Dragons: An Intro-
duction to Role - Playing Games (New York and Scarborough,
Ontario: New American Library, 1982).

44. For descriptions on playing Dungeons and Dra¬
gons , see: John Butterfield, Philip Parker, and David Hon-
gimann, What is Dungeons and Dragons ? (New York: Warner
Books, 1982); and Ian Livingstone, Dicing with Dragons : An
Introduction to Role - Playing Games (New York and Scarbor¬
ough, Ontario: New American Library, 1982).

45. John Butterfield, Philip Parker, and David
Hongimann, What is Dungeons and Dragons? (New York: Warner
Books, 1982) , p .~ 2 .

46. Elisabeth Eisenstein, "The unacknowledged revo¬
lution, ” in: Elisabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an
Agent of Change : Communications and Cultural Transformations
in Early - Modern Europe (Cambridge, London, New Rochelle,
Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp.
3-42.

47. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of
Change , pp. 6-7.

48. Ernst R. Curtius, European Literature and the
Latin Middle Ages , tranl. by Williard Trask (New York:
Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series, 1953), p. 238.

49. Douglas McMurtie, The Book (Oxford, New York,
and London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 136.

50. Eisenstein, The Print Press as an Agent of

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Change , p. 7.

51. Marshall McCluhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy : the
Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 196275 and Understanding Media : the Extensions of Man
(New York: New American Library, 1964).

52. Abraham Kaplan, ’’The Aesthetics of the Popular
Arts," in: Harriet Deer and Irving Deer, The Popular Arts: A
Critical Reader (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967).

P- 319-

53. Harriet Deer and Irving Deer, The Popular Arts :
A Critical Reader (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967) ,
pp. 319-323.

54. Deer and Deer, The Popular Arts: A Critical
Reader, pp. 1-20.

55. Deer and Deer, The Popular Arts: A Critical
Reader, p. 9.

56. D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation , from Tho¬
mas Dixon's novel, The Clansman , Epoch.

57. Deer and Deer, The Popular Arts : A Critical
Reader , p. 13 .

58. Eisenstein discusses the effects of the print¬
ing press on literacy throughout her book, The Printing
Press as an Agent of Change.

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ADVENTURE AS A GAME

In "What Makes Things Fun",1 Thomas Malone, a
psychologist, postulates and then examines qualities that
make computer games so fascinating to many people. Accord¬
ing to him, the most popular games share several charac¬
teristics: they have very clear goals of variable levels of
difficulty, there are different types of goals, and they can
simultaneously appeal to different types of fantasies.

Malone found that among young children word games, such as
Adventure , were among the least popular games, while games
involving projectiles, destruction, flashing lights and
sound were the most popular. Yet Adventure , like chess,
appeals to adults more than children, and if UCSD is any
indication, the adults to whom it appeal are educated,
well-read people.

One reason Adventure can appeal to sophisticated
people is that it is a relatively complicated game, though
not nearly as complex as chess. Solving the problems
presented in it demands situational analysis, deductive
thinking, and concentration. Several levels of rules must be
discovered and figured out in order to play. One of the
fascinating aspects of Adventure is that the reader must
figure out how the game and narrative works, i.e.:

1 . how to communicate with the
computer/narrator

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2 . how to make moves

3 . where the cave is in the first place

4. where one is in the cave

5 . where and what the treasures are

6 . how to overcome obstacles

7 . how to obtain the tools necessary to get
the treasures

8 . and how to get the treasures back to the
surface once they have been won.

During this entire process, the player must also fend off
attacks and keep track of supplies needed to explore the
cave, such as food, water, and light. There are indeed
various and variable levels of difficulty: the player must
move through the cave as expediently as possible, which
means finding, collecting, and safely depositing treasures
in few moves. Score is kept in a ratio of number of points
earned per number of moves, and each skill level is awarded
a certain name. At the end of the game the reader is given
the points earned and resulting ranking in one of the follo-
ing messages:

You are obviously a rank amateur. Better luck next time.

Your score qualifies you as a novice class adventurer.

You have achieved the rating: "experienced adventurer".

You may now consider yourself a "seasoned adventurer".

You have reached "junior master" status.

Your score puts you in master adventurer class c.

Your score puts you in master adventurer class b.

Your score puts you in master adventurer class a.

All of adventuredom gives tribute to you,

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adventurer grandmaster !2

What makes Adventure different from most other com¬
puter games, though, is that it is narrative, that the
reader uses words to make the action progress, and that it
involves complicated fantasies which the reader/player helps
to generate. Adventure is a "literary game."

In its present form, Adventure is at the level of
popular forms of literature. Like many mystery novels or
best-sellers, or TV programs or romance novels, it is writ¬
ten for a specific audience and its main purpose is enter¬
tainment. Most popular literature is not interesting enough
to be read more than once because it lacks multiple levels
of meaning and relies on structures already known to and
expected by its readers. Adventure is much the same. Once
a reader/player has successfully moved through the cave,
explored its hidden recesses and captured its treasures, its
novelty wears off and it has little more to offer as a work
of fiction.

One of the things Adventure can give its readers,
though, is the fantasy world a reader can create in response
to the narrative material. Adventure is a delightful game
partly because it can help its players to imagine themselves
in a world very different from their own. As the instruc¬
tions state: "Magic is said to work in the Cave. "3 Players
seek out this imaginary underground world to envelope them¬
selves in mystery, adventure, and excitement. It is there¬
fore a very different kind of computer game from the usual

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shoot-'era-up, destroy-the-alien-spaceship video arcade
variety. Although the object of Adventure is to win the
medium is verbal, not visual, and perhaps even more impor¬
tant, most of the fun of playing comes from the elaborate
fantasies the game can arouse.

In Adventure , the game is embedded in a story. The
player must find and explore a cave that is "somewhere
nearby." 1 * As mentioned, Adventure is competitive and the
object of the game is to accumulate points. To do this, one
must find the treasures in the cave, each of which has a
certain number of points attached to it, figure out how to
get the treasure into one's possession, and then how to
bring it back and deposit it in the building on the surface.
The scoring system is quite complicated and takes into
account not only how many treasures the player has acquired,
but also how the reader goes about locating them, exploring
the cave, and even getting into the cave in the first place.
Points are deducted for quitting, dying, or being killed.
Some puzzles are more difficult than others to solve, and
the player is given more points for their solution.

All this is more difficult than it sounds, because
one of the quirks of Adventure is that players must figure
out the rules of the game for themselves. Players are given
only the barest information on how they can communicate with
the computer-narrator, how they can move, and the
whereabouts of the cave. Furthermore, once the player is in
the cave, figuring out how to survive, overcome obstacles,

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and obtain the treasures can be quite challenging, for the
laws of nature do not always apply in this fantasy setting;
the cave is a subterranean world of magic.

In case any readers of this dissertation have not
played Adventure or similiar computer games, I would like to
present some examples from game texts to illustrate how it
is played. When the player begins the game, the welcoming
message appears on the video terminal screen and the reader
is asked if (s)he would like instructions. If the player
types "yes," the computer displays the following text:

Somewhere nearby is Colossal Cave, where others have
found fortunes in treasure and gold, though it is
rumored that some who entered are never seen again.
Magic is said to work in the cave. I will be your
eyes and hands. Direct me with commands of 1 or 2
words. I should warn you that I look at only the
first five letters of each word, so you'll have to
enter "northeast" as "ne" to distinguish it from
"north". (Should you get stuck, type "help" for
some general hints. For information on how to end
your adventure, etc., type "info".)5

Then the game begins. The player is given this message:

You are standing at the end of a road before a small
brick building. Around you is a forest. A small ,
stream flows out of the building and down a gully.®

Although many first-time players type "help" and get
more instructions, others are brave and try to play immedi¬
ately without them. One of the first difficulties they
encounter is trying to even talk to the narrator. Here is
the script of such an opening attempt.

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N: Welcome to adventure!! Would you like instruc¬

tions?

P: No

N: You are standing at the end of a road before a

small brick building. Around you is a forest.

A small stream flows out of the building and
down a gully.

P: Go to the building

N: I don’t know that word.

P: Walk toward the building

N: I don't know that word.

P: Go in the building

N: You are inside a building, a well house for a

large spring.

There are some keys on the ground here.

There is a shiny brass lamp nearby.

There is food here.

There is a bottle of water here.

P: Pick up the keys

N: I don't know that word.

P: Take the keys

N: I don't know that word.

P: Carry the keys

N: I don't know that word.

P: Why not

N: I don't know that word.

P: Walk outside

N: You're at end of road again.

P: Walk west

N: You have walked up a hill, still in the forest.

The road slopes back down the other side of the

hill.

There is a building in the distance.

P: Walk east

N: You're at end of road again.

P: Walk east

[...later, after the reader has gotten lost and

evidently frustrated]

P: Go away!

N: I don't know that word.

P: Get lost!

N: I’m as confused as you are.

P: Help me?

[At this request, the help message appears]

Obviously the narrator recognizes only a terse
language of its own, and the player must learn to speak
it if anything is to happen. Either players figures

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this out themselves ( and many do), or they can find out

by typing "help." The result is this message:

I know of places, actions, and things. Most of
my vocabulary describes places and is used to
move you there. To move, try words like forest,
building, downstream, enter, east, west, north,
south, up, or down, I know about a few special
objects, like a black rod hidden in the cave.
These objects can be manipulated using some of
the action words that I know. Usually you will
need to give both the object and actions words
(in either order), but sometimes I can infer the
object from the verb alone. Some objects also
imply verbs; in particular, ’’inventory" implies
"take inventory", which causes me to give you a
list of what you’re carrying. The objects have
side effects; for instance, the rod scares the
bird. Usually people having trouble moving just
need to try a few more words. Usually people
trying unsuccessfully to manipulate an object
are attempting something beyond their (or my!)
capabilities and should try a completely dif¬
ferent tack. ...°

To show how the game can be played, I include a
longer excerpt of a game text:

N: You are standing at the end of a road before a small

briok building. Around you is a forest. A small
stream flows out of the building and down a gully.

P: Enter building

N: You are inside a building, a well house for a large

spring.

There are some keys on the ground here.

There is a shiny brass lamp nearby.

There is food here.

There is a bottle of water here.

P: Take lamp

N: OK

P: Carry food

N: OK

P: Take keys

N: OK

P: Take water

N: OK

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P: Downstream

N: The stream flows out through a pair of 1 foot diame¬

ter sewer pipes. It would be advisable to use the
exit.

You’re inside building.

P: Exit

N: You're at end of road again.

P: Go downstream

N: At your feet all the water of the stream splashes

into a 2- inch slit in the rock. Downstream the
streambed is bare rock.

P: Rock

N: You are in a 20-foot depression floored with bare

dirt. Set in the dirt is a strong steel grate
mounted in concrete. A dry streambed leads into the
depression.

The grate is locked.

P: Unlock

N: The grate is now unlocked.

P: In

N: You are in a small chamber beneath a 3x3 steel grate

to the surface. A low crawl over cobbles leads
inward to the west. 9

(The player is now in the cave.)

I hope this example reveals how complicated playing
Adventure can be. It is a brain-teaser in many different
ways. Figuring out how to play is a little like being
exposed to a new culture where language is used in an unac¬
customed way; one actually speaks to a computer program, To
even move through the cave is a challenge since Colossal
Cave is like a real cave—one must always remember how to
retrace one's path or face figurative death. Orientation is
so difficult that many players make maps for themselves.

The puzzles are always challenging, sometimes whimsical,
sometimes funny. Solving the problems not only demands log¬
ical analysis, but must also be based on the players'
knowledge of the nature of things, some of which don't even
exist in the real world, such as dragons and trolls. Still,

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perhaps the most captivating and distinguishing aspect of
Adventure is not the complexity of its rules and scoring
system, but the elaborate fantasy in which the puzzles, and
rules, and challenges are masked.

We live in a time in which two of the most popular
forms of entertainment require only a passive participation
by the audience. Television and film provide images for
their viewers. As Jerry Mander puts it, "You have opened
your mind, and someone else’s daydreams have entered." 10
Playing computer games and reading books take a great deal
of personal effort—one must think and imagine for oneself.
Why should people enjoy something at which they have to work
so hard?

Sigmund Freud believed that people needed to fan¬
tasize and daydream as a way of fulfilling conscious and
unconscious wishes.11 Both Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud
understood games as an attempt to relive passively experi¬
enced traumatic events in an active, controlling role.12
White believes that there is an important drive involved in
motivation besides the reduction of primary needs, a drive
he calls "effectance."13 it is the desire for competence
and feeling effective in dealing with the surrounding
environment. The pleasure one gains from exploring, manipu¬
lating objects, and developing one’s skills can be explained
by this human need for personal accomplishments. Curiosity,
which depends on novelty, complexity, surprisingness, and
incongruity, may be another driving force in our

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personalities and has been studied extensively by Berlyne."^
It appears that challenge, fantasy, and curiosity can be
more powerful motivators than laziness.

Thomas Malone explores the concepts of challenge,
fantasy, and curiosity to explain why computer games are so
much fun, or as he puts it, so intrinsically motivating.^

In order for something to be challenging, "it must provide
goals whose attainment is uncertain."16 The ultimate goal
in Adventure is to acquire enough points to become a wizard.
In general, there are several ways discussed by Malone that
achieving a goal can be made uncertain, 1. variable diffi¬
culty level 2. multiple level goals 3. hidden information 4.
randomness.17 Adventure makes use of them all. 1. The
puzzles become progressively more difficult. For example,
one of the first problems the player faces inside the cave
is capturing a bird in order to drive away a "fierce snake"
barring the player’s way. ^8 jf ^he player commands "catch
bird," the bird is frightened and flies away. Although it
is difficult for the reader to imagine how not to frighten
the bird, there is a hint in the help message. ”*9 Later in
the game, there will be no hints. 2. There are multiple
level goals; as I have stated elsewhere, one can achieve
various rankings. 3- Each one of the puzzles is based on
hidden information. In the case of the bird, for example,
the hidden information is that the bird is afraid of the
black rod. To catch the bird, one must first drop the black
rod.20 4 # j n Adventure, the pirate and the dwarves appear at

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unexpected times. They provide the randomness factor.

There are two more concepts to be discussed in the
area of challenge and uncertain outcome: game strategy and
self-esteem. McKinsey studied mathematical game theory and
stated, "...after optimal strategies of a game are known, it
ceases to offer any intellectual challenge, and most people
stop playing it."21 There is a known optimal strategy for
playing Tic Tac Toe; for chess there is not. Although
Adventure is not nearly as complex as chess, each puzzle is
different, and some strategies that are successful in solv¬
ing one puzzle are unsuccessful in another.

The reason challenges and goals hold our attention
is because they can give us feelings of success — they
engage our self esteem.22 one of the things that can make
playing Adventure so delightful is the feeling of achieve¬
ment that comes from just moving through the cave and
exploring new parts of it. It is the same type of pleasure
that motivates hikers, campers, bicyclists, and other
adventurers—mastering the surrounding environment.

Malone’s second major category in determining what
makes things fun is curiosity.23 Based on work by Piaget
and Berlyne, he defines curiosity as an "optimal level of
informational complexity,"24 which means that an enjoyable
problem should be novel and complex but not incomprehensi¬
ble. Challenge and curiosity are related: "Not only are the
two concepts parallel, but in a way, either concept could
subsume the other. Challenge could be explained as

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curiosity about one's own ability. Curiosity could be
explained as a challenge to one's understanding."25

There are important differences, though. Challenge
engages self-esteem, while curiosity does not. Also,
curiosity appears to have a physical, sensory basis in
humans. Malone believes that cognitive curiosity is aroused
when a person’s knowledge structures are incomplete, incon¬
sistent, and parsimonious.26

Wanting tc know "who done it" in a mystery novel is
a good example of the "cognitive motivation to bring com¬
pleteness to your knowledge structure."27 Adventure is
structured around mini-mysteries and puzzles for which the
reader must provide the solution. Many readers spend hours
and hours both at the computer terminals and away from them
trying to "complete their knowledge structures." They try
to figure out the answers to the compelling problems they
face in the story: "What will I find if I go down the steps
into the pit? How can I get the dragon off the precious Per¬
sian carpet? How can I find my way back to the surface if
my light is dimming and will soon go out?"

Another way that Adventure arouses interest and
curiosity is expressed in the idea of magic. The normal
laws of nature do not necessarily govern the world of the
cave; the reader has to find out what rules do apply, i.e.
make his or her cognitive structures more consistent. There
are chambers in the cave, for instance, where one need only
say the magic words (if one has figured them out!) to be

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transported instantaneously back to the building on the sur¬
face.28 xhe idea that there could be a withered little
beanstalk murmuring "water, water"29 i S inconsistent with
our knowledge of the real world, but consistent with what we
know from fairy tales.30

Malone writes, "One way of stimulating curiosity by
appealing to parsimony is to give a number of examples of a
general rule before showing how (or letting students dis¬
cover that) all the examples can be explained by the single
new rule."31 Especially at the beginning of the game, trying
to form an Adventure world view, trying to figure out
Adventure *s laws of nature is appealing and compelling.
Another example of the type of general law the reader can
discover is that every object ■ -und in the cave has some
purpose, if not at the moment then later. One general rule,
then, can be formulated like this: If you find something new
in the cave, take it with you. If you've got too much to
carry, take inventory, drop something unimportant and take
the new object. You'll probably need it soon.

Adventure is a very captivating story — it arouses
a curiosity that the reader knows can be satisfied. It com¬
bines curiosity and challenge, for it provides repeated and
varied opportunities to challenge one's understanding and
raise one's sense of self-esteem. Challenge and curiosity
are the two defining qualities of computer games in general,
and Adventure shares these qualities with them. Yet there
are several things that separate Adventure from what can be

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considered the average computer game. Sensory curiosity is
not aroused directly with noises, flashing lights, or other
visual effects. Because it is conveyed in words, each
reader or player must imagine the story without any props.
Fantasy is the main element that distinguishes interactive
computer fiction from other video games, and along with the
verbal medium, the main element through which it is related
to literature. There are other games, such as Rogue ,32 W ith
themes from sci-fi, fantasy, and sword and sorcery litera¬
ture; what distinguishes Adventure from them is the medium
— words — which promotes imagery and action-oriented ima¬
gination .

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FOOTNOTES: ADVENTURE AS A GAME

1. Thomas Malone, What Makes Things Fun to Learn?

A Sjtudy of Intrinsically Motivating Computer Games. Techni¬
cal Report No. CIS-7, SSL-30-11 (Palo Alto, Calif.: Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center, 1980).

2. Willie Crowther and Don Woods, Adventure, 11.
1751-1759.

3. Adventure , 1. 1318.

4. Adventure, 1. 1316.

5. Adventure , 11. 1316-1323-

6. Adventure, 11. 1-3.

7. Adventure , 11. 1430; 1-3; 1418; 1418; 6; 1166

1168,

1209,

1211;

W8;

141 8

; 1418; 141 303; 4

-5;

303

; 141

1434.

Adventure,

11. 1

-3; 6; 1166,

1168,

1209,

1211;

1409;

145;

305; 303; 11

-12;

13-

15;

1171;

1371 ;

16-17.

Adventure,

11. 1

-3; 3, 1166,

1168,

1209,

1211;

1409;

145-

146, 305; 303

; 11-

12;

13-

15,

1171;

1371;

16-17.

10. Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimina-
tion of Television (New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc,
1975), p. 240.

11. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle ,
trans. James Strachey (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., Inc.,

1961), pp. 10-11.

12. See especially: S. Freud's chapter entitled
"Wish-fulfillment," The Interpretation of Dreams and On
Dreaming , The Standard Edition of The Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey, Vol. 5 (Lon-
don: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis,
1958), pp. 550-572;

Also: Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense ,
trans., Cecil Baines, in: The Writings of Anna Freud, Vol. 2
(New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1974),
pp. 111-115.

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13. R. White, "Motivation reconsidered: The concept
of competence," Psychological Review , No. 66 (1959), p. 297.

14. D.E. Berlyne, Conflict, Arousal and Curiosity ,
(New York: McGraw Hill, I960); and Structure and Direction
in Thinking , (New York: Wiley, 19657^

15. Malone, What Makes Things Fun to Learn .

16. Malone, What Makes Things Fun to Learn , p. 50.

17. Malone, What Makes Things Fun to Learn , p. 50.

18. Adventure, 11. 1183; 1191.

19. Adventure , 11. 1387-1405.

20. Adventure, 11. 1397.

21. J.C.C. McKinsey, Introduction to the Theory of
Games, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952. From: Malone, What
Makes Things Fun to Learn , p. 52.

22. Malone, What Makes Things Fun to Learn , p. 56.

23- Malone, What Makes Things Fun to Learn, pp.

60-63-

24. Piaget and Berlyne in: Malone, What Makes
Things Fun to Learn, p. 60.

25.

Malone,

What

Makes

Things

Fun

Learn,

P-

61.

26.

60-63.

Malone ,

What

Makes

Things

Fun

Learn,

•

27.

Malone,

What

Makes

Things

Fun

Learn,

P-

62.

28. Adventure, 11. 21-23; 60-62.

29. Adventure , 1. 1219.

30. Specifically, the well-known fairy tale, "Jack
and the Beanstalk."

31. Malone, What Makes Things Fun to Learn , p. 63 .

32. Michael C. Toy, Kenneth C.R.C. Arnold, and
Glenn Wichman, Rogue . The following description of the game
is from the UNIX Programmer 11 s Manual , listed under R0GUE(6):

Rogue is a computer fantasy game with a new twist. It is
crt oriented and the object of the game is to survive the

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attacks of various monsters and get a lot of gold, rather
than the puzzle solving orientation of most computer fantasy
games .

To win the game (as opposed to merely playing to beat other
people high scores) you must locate the Amulet of Yendor
which is somewhere below the 20th level of the dungeon and
get it out. Nobody has achieved this yet and if somebody
does, they will probably go down in history as a hero among
heros .

When the game ends, either by your death, when you quit, or
if you (by some miracle) manage to win, rogue will give you
a list of the top-ten scorers. The scoring is based
entirely upon how much gold you get. There is a 10? penalty
for getting yourself killed.

ROGUE, The UNIX Programmer 's Manual (6^) , 4.2 Berkeley
Software Distr j but ion , 1*953.

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GAMES AND LITERATURE

There are African cultures in which no differentia¬
tion is made between instrumental or vocal music and dance:
they are all simply considered music.’ 1 For the ancient
Greeks, music "...not only embraced singing and dancing to
instrumental accompaniment but covered all the arts, artis-
tries, and skills presided over by Apollo and the Muses. "2
In western culture we tend to view each aspect as a
separate, independent artistic medium. But we also have
many examples of art forms that are fusions of two or more
other modes of expression. Songs are melody and words;
opera is orchestral music combined with vocal music, mime,
paintings, architecture, literary texts, and sometimes
dance. Some types of "pure" literature are combinations of
several modes: drama texts can be performed on stage, but
also be read as literature; poetry is related to music
through rhythm and sounds, as demonstrated by the German
musical Kunstlied sub-genre, and medieval lyrics and heroic
epics were intended to be sung.

Analogously, Adventure is both a computer game and a
work that can be read. There should be nothing foreign about
this idea: embedding games in stories and stories in games
is quite common. In the next section, I include a few exam¬
ples of game-story hybrids that are familiar to us.

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The Riddle as a Game and in Literature

In order to make logic problems more fun to solve,
many of them are not expressed in mathematical symbols, but
camouflaged as stories. The following well-known example
illustrates in a simplistic way how the information which is
needed to solve a logical problem can be presented within
the framework of a scene or story.

A man was looking at a portrait. Someone asked him,
"Whose picture are you looking at?" He replied:
"Brothers and sisters have I none, but this man's
father is my father's son." Whose picture was the
man looking at?3

This is a very simple example of a logic riddle, but in some
the surrounding fantasy elements attain the length and com¬
plexity of short stories. Logical relationships, processes,
and dynamics are represented in descriptions of human rela¬
tionships, social interactions, and events. Especially in
the longer stories, the situations seem to be chosen not
only because they express the logical relationships so well,
but because we can interpret them as moral or aesthetic
problems. This places them within a context that can be
more than just puzzle-solving; solving them becomes person¬
ally meaningful and important. Often the stories are imita¬
tions of literary genres or characters that are already fam¬
iliar to the reader. A story might have the same structure
and motifs of a fairy tale, for example, or be built around
a quest for treasure or wisdom, or involve beloved fictional
characters like Dracula or Sherlock Holmes.

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One of the most common devices is to disguise the
logic problems as mysteries. George Summers introduces his
book, New Puzzles in Logical Deductions, in the following
fashion:

The puzzles in this book have been composed to
resemble short "whodone it" mysteries. Each puzzle
contains a number of clues, and it is up to the
reader, or "detective," to determine from these
clues which of various solutions is correct. ... In
some of the puzzles an actual criminal must be
sought, but the greater part of them concern more-
or-less innocent people. ...**

In most of the stories the reader can identify with charac¬
ters' wishes or needs. Since their goals make sense to us,
there is a reason, a motivation for solving the problems,
i.e. we fulfill our own needs vicariously by fulfilling the
characters' needs. Often the problems are couched in a prim¬
itive psychology of reward and punishment: if the heroes
answer the questions correctly they win something valuable,
and if not, they die. There are stories about kings and
princesses, fictional characters like Alice in Wonderland,
Sherlock Holmes, Tweedledum and Tweedlsdee, logic anecdotes
about real people (von Neumann and Einstein are two favor¬
ites) , and complicated stories about beings who can possess
either one set of characteristics or a completely different
set and must somehow be differentiated. Werewolves, zombies
and the insane are common characters for logical stories of
this nature. The next example consists of two excerpts from
"Is Dracula Still Alive," and have been chosen to show the

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two main poles of presentation in logic problem stories. In
the first part, the information aspect is emphasized, in the
second the artistic or fantasy element. The narrator of the
story wants to find out whether Count Dracula is still
alive, in which case he wants to meet him, or if he has been
destroyed to see his actual remains.

Part 1:

At the time I was in Transylvania, about half the
inhabitants were human and half were vampires. The
humans and vampires are indistinguishable in their
outward appearance, but the humans (at least in
Transylvania) always tell the truth and the vampires
always lie. What enormously complicates the situa¬
tion is that half the inhabitants of Transylvania
are totally insane and completely deluded in their
beliefs—all true propositions they believe to be
false and all false propositions they believe to be
true. The other half are completely sane and know
which propositions are true and which ones
false.... 5

In this part of the story, the author is concerned
with conveying information, not with embellishing the artis
tic or fantasy effects. The tale continues, and the inten¬
tions of the author shift from presenting the logic problem
to telling an interesting story. Supposedly, after talking
with inhabitants and several unsettling experiences, the
narrator finds his way to Dracula's Castle and finds that
the Count is indeed alive and has "requested" an audience
with his guest.

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Part 2:

"Are you aware that I always give my victims some
chance of escape?" No," I honestly replied, "I was
not aware of this." "Oh, indeed," replied Dracula,

"I would not think of depriving myself of this great
pleasure." Somehow or other, I did not quite like
the tone of voice in which he said this:: it savored
of the supercilious. "You see," continued Dracula,
"I ask my victim a riddle. If he correctly guesses
the answer within a quarter of an hour, I set him
free. If he fails to guess, or if he guesses
falsely, I strike, and he becomes a vampire for¬
ever

In summary, the authors of logic problems make use
of literary devices to breath life and interest into their
games. They disguise the problems as little stories and
induce the reader to believe there is a reason for solving
the problems other than to simply solve logic problems.

Riddles appear to be one of the oldest types of
literature.7 Andre Jolles classifies them among his nine
"simple forms" of literature and describes them as an exami¬
nation or a competition between questioner and answerer.8
Many folktales contain or are constructed around riddles;
there are several riddle-tales in Grimm's collection. 9 in
folktales such as "The Devil with the three Golden Hairs"
the riddle takes the form of difficult questions to which
the hero must find the answers. Often the enemy is tricked
out of knowledge. There are several "riddles" like this in
the Old Testament, such as when the Queen of Sheeba tests
Solomon's wisdom by asking him to distinguish between real
flowers and the exquisite imitation flowers she has had
made, and he opens a window to let a bee into the room. In

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other stories, though, a true riddle serves as a test of the
hero or heroine. In the story of Turandot in the collection
”1001 Nights,” for example, Prince Kalaf wins the hand of
the princess when he can solve the riddle she poses him.^
Huizinga, who traces the history of competitions in
knowledge, focuses especially on the sacred function of the
poetic riddle.I 2 He views the riddle as a "ritual element
the highest importance," as a literary form, and yet "essen¬
tially a game,"^ a view shared by Richard Beitl. - * 1 * The
spirit of competition in wisdom or knowledge expressed in
the literary motif of the capitol riddle, in which the
player's life is at stake, is present in Hindu tales (for
example, the story of King Yanaka holding a theological
riddle-solving contest among the Brahmins with a cow for a
prize) , in Greek literature, (the riddle posed by the
Sphinx, for example), as well as in the German tradition of
the Halsraetsel.15 Huizinga believes that mystic and eso¬
teric philosophy are outgrowths of these "games,”16 anc [ that
one of the literary derivitives of the riddle is the philo¬
sophical or theological interrogative discourse.1?

Words as Games

One of the first possible hybrids of literature and
games to come to mind are word games. Many types of games
besides crossword puzzles use words as their building
material -- anagrams, antigrams, palindromes, chain verses,
saws, word surgeries, pangrammatics, transpositions, letter

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patterns, geometric forms, numerical logology, which Howard
Bergerson refers to collectively as "literary chess."18
Studying literature promotes or is partly based on a fasci¬
nation with language and words. For most people a passion
with words is actually a love of the ideas that find their
expression in language. Not so, however, with the true
logophile. They love words not for the meanings they
express, but for the words themselves: for their structure
or sound or for the games that can be played with them. For
logophiles, words are beautiful in and of themselves and are
objects of art, to be "examined and evaluated, admired or
criticized, accepted or rejected."19 Willard Espy expresses
this unusual relationship like this: "...I do not treat them
(words) as equals, but as pets, to be striked or kicked
according to their desert and my whim."20 Borgmann consid¬
ers words to be "objects of beauty in the world of
language."21 For both, words like "subbookkeeper,"
"stressed," and "triennially" are "shining paragons of the
loveliness of language."22

Games in Literature

Although language is the artistic medium for both
recreational linguistics and literature, language is used in
literature as a means of artistic expression; in recrea¬
tional linguistics it is not. It is not surprising, however,
that many poets are logophiles, and that their literature is
in great part and expression of their loveplay with words.

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In Play in Poetry ,23 Louis Untermeyer has collected
various poetic expressions of a playful impulse with words.

One of his main points is that playfulness and seriousness
are not exclusive, a belief held even more strongly by Huiz¬
inga, who states: "Play is a thing by itself. The play-
concept as such is of a higher order than is seriousness.

For seriousness seeks to exclude play, whereas play can very
well include seriousness."24 Even as ernest an artist as
Goethe paradoxically characterized his tragedy Faust as
"these very serious jokes" ("diese sehr ernsten Scherze")25
and believed that true art is based on an inner connection
between seriousness and play ("Nur aus innig verbundenem
Ernst und Spiel kann wahre Kunst entspringen.")26

To support the thesis that word games can be used
seriously, many of Untermeyer's illustrations of the games
to be found in literature are taken from very serious poe¬
try. In a section on the games in religious poetry, for
example, I found a poem by John Donne that I recognized as a
song of meditation used in some protestant churches today:

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new. 27

The entire poem is a series of strange, witty paradoxes
which culminates in the idea of the speaker begging God to
rape him as a means of purification and unification with

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God:

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betrothed unto your enemy:

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthral me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.28

Untermeyer gives other examples of word games in serious
poems: puns, anagrams, acrostics, and poems in which the
first letter of each succeeding final rhyming word is
dropped. He believes the spirit of play to be especially
strong in Emily Dickenson's poetry, where "the mingling of
rapture and irreverence ... makes death a plaything and God
a playfellow. 29 Here is one of her most curious playful-
religious poems:

Papa above!

Regard a Mouse
O'er powered by the Cat ;

Reserve within thy Kingdom
A "mansion” for the Rat!

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Snug in seraphic Cupboards
To nibble all the day,

While unsuspecting Cycles
Wheel solemnly away! 30

And a lighthearted poem about death,

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality ...31

in which "Death becomes a genteel suitor ... a stiffish New
England gentleman taking his lady for an afternoon drive
into the country."32

Eugen Gomringer is a modern poet/logophile who
emphasizes the game aspects of his poetry. He describes new
poetry as:

... object of thought in a play of ideas... it
will serve man through its objective play elements,
as the poet will serve man through his special knack
for just this kind of play: for the poet is an
expert in the principles of play & language, the
inventor of their future formulations.33

and then playfully defines it and un-defines it in a poem:

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words are shadows

shadows become words

Ur-

words are games
games become words

are shadows words
do words become games

are games words
do words become shadows

are words shadows
do games become words

are words games
do shadows become wordsS 1 *

Gomringer makes use of palindromes, anagrams, permutations,
and other word games. The following poem is one of his
well-known ideograms:

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silence

silence 35

Hypothesizing that poetic devices all grow out of
the poet's playfulness with words, thoughts, and language,
Untermeyer talks of metaphor as

a game in which the wit of the writer and the wit of
the reader are matched. ...It is an intellectual
game, this saying one thing and meaning another, a
verbal sportiveness; the poet points the way, and
the reader's mind romps along.36

Huizinga agrees: "Behind every abstract expression there lie
the boldest of metaphors, and every metaphor is a play upon
words. Thus in giving expression to life man creates a
second, poetic world alongside the world of nature."37
Untermeyer also views rhyme as a way of having fun with
words and playing with rules:

Rhyme itself is a form of play; it is something
between a metaphor and a pun. Like a metaphor it
plays with the relation that has both a similarity
and a difference; like a pun it plays with a word
not as a word but as a sound. Like both the meta¬
phor and the pun, it charms the hearer with the dual
pleasure of anticipation and fulfillment, suspense
and surprise. ... Children enter this game and
understand its rules before they leave the nur¬
sery . 38

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Literature as a Game

There are so many ways of playing with words and
putting games into a literary text, that it is difficult to
distinguish the principle of "games in literature" from
"literature as a game." However, just such a definition is
necessary, I believe, in order to deal with as unusual a
genre as "computer story-games." I propose the following
general differentiation with the understanding, of course,
that "games in literature" and "literature as a game" is a
continuum, with Adventure on the far end of the "literature
as a game" spectrum. The object of the work is the deter¬
mining factor: If the main goal is for the reader to deci¬
pher some veiled meaning or to figure out the answer to a
question or puzzle posed by the work, it's basic character
is game-like. Frank Stockton's "The Lady or the Tiger,"39
mystery/detective literature and some aspects of hermetic
and Baroque poetry can, I believe, be viewed as games. One
the other hand, if a puzzle posed in the work is also
answered in the work so that the reader is not responsible
for the solution, it is not a game. There might be clever,
playful literary devices in them that can be considered as
little games, but these are used to enhance the meaning or
beauty. It is then the depiction or representation of some
meaning or aesthetic experience that is the main object.

Another way of differentiating "games in literature"
from "literature as a game" is to determine who it is who
plays the games, the reader or the author. In hermetic

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poetry, for example, the poet plays with secret messages,
knowing all the while what his ciphers mean (at least, one
would assume the poet knows what (s)he is writing about).

The reader, however, does not know what they mean and must
try to figure them out. In a poem like Donne’s "The Flea,"
on the other hand, the author poses a puzzle, plays with it,
and explains it to the reader.

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

Me it sucks first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Confess it, this cannot be said
A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pampered swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas, is more than we would do.^°

There are, then, examples of traditional literary
works whose basic character is that of a game. Adventure is
a literary game with an added dimension made possible by the
computer: interactive participation by the reader.

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Play

In Homo Ludens , Huizinga has made a strong ease for
the idea that the play instinct is one of the main bases of
culture.The most basic connection between games and
literature is the element of play, from which both derive:
literature and games are both forms of playing. A competi¬
tive computer game is quite obviously play, and the elements
of play in poetry and literature are also clear. As Huiz¬
inga states:

Play, we found, was so innate in poetry, and every
form of poetic utterance so intimately bound up with
the structure of play that the bond between them was
seen to be indissoluble.^2

Although there are other hybrids of literature and
games, I believe that interactive computer story-games are
the most closely bonded combination of these two functions
that have yet developed. The narrated setting and the
reader's interaction with the setting are the representation
and imitation of an imaginary world. At the same time, the
reader competes with the author of the work, and in Adven¬
ture , for ranking, i.e. against a scale based on accomplish¬
ments of other player-readers. Adventure, then, is the
fusion of the principles of competition, rules with make-
believe, of winning or losing with reading.

In Man , Play , and Games, Roger Caillois postulates
that theater is the most basic connection between ludic
behavior — which he defines as calculation, contrivance,

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and subordination to rules (i.e. game-playing)—and mimicry
or make-believe, the area to which literature belongs:

Ludus is also readily compatible with mimicry. ...
it is the theater which provides the basic connec¬
tion between the two, by disciplining m^aicry until
it becomes an art rich in a thousand diverse rou¬
tines, refined techniques, and subtly complex
resources.^3

In theater, the mimetic, aesthetic qualities take precedence
over the "rules" aspects. Because computer games are in
their infancy, this emphasis is reversed in interactive fic¬
tion. This does not preclude a maturation toward the
aesthetic, however. As Huizinga writes:

As a culture proceeds, either progressing or
regressing, the original relationship ... does not
remain static. As a rule the play-element gradually
recedes into the background, being absorbed for the
most part in the sacred sphere. The remainder crys¬
tallizes as knowledge: folklore, poetry, philosophy,
or in the various forms of judicial and social life.
The original play-element is then almost completely
hidden behind cultural phenomena. But at any
moment, even in a highly developed civilization, the
play-* instinct' may reassert itself in full force,
drowning the individual and the mass in the intoxi¬
cation of a immense game. 2221

For many people, the computer is just a big, expen¬
sive toy. In "fooling around" with it, new forms and re¬
combinations of play, games, and art are being created.
Adventure makes a game out of reading, imagining scenes and
events, and make-believe.

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FOOTNOTES: GAMES AND LITERATURE

1. Elliot Skinner, ed., Peoples and Cultures of
Africa : An Anthropological Reader (Garden City, New York:
American Museum of Natural History Press, 1973), from the
Introduction to the chapter "African Aesthetics and Recrea¬
tions," p. 507; in the same volume see: J.H. Kwabena Nketia,
"African Music," pp. 598.

2. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens : A Study of the
Play-Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955) , p.
1W7

3. Raymond Smullyan, What is the Name of This Book:
The Riddle of Dracula and Other LogicaTTuzzles' ^'Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978), p. 7.

4. George Summers, New Puzzles in Logical Deduc-
tions (New York: Dover Publications, 196137, p. 1.

5. Smullyan, What is the Name of This Book , p. 158.

6. Smullyan, What is the Name of This Book , p. 167.

7- SachwOrterbuch der Literatur , ed. Gero von Wil-
pert (Stuttgart: Alfred Kroner Verlag, 1961), p. 488.

8. Andre Jolles, Einfache Formen (TGbingen: Max
Niemeyer Verlag, 1956), pp. 126-149, 134-135.

9. See, for example, "Das Hi rtenbCtblein," (Nr.

152), "Das Ratsel," (Nr. 22) and "Die kluge Bauerntochter,"
(Nr. 94) in: Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Kinder- und
Hausmarchen (Munich: Winkler Verlag, 1819.

10. "Der Teufel mit den drei goldenen Haaren," (Nr.
29), Brader Grimm, Kinder - und Hausmarchen , pp. 156-162.

11. "Turandot," in: 1001 Nights .

12. See Huizinga's chapter entitled "Play and con¬
test as civilizing functions," in Homo Ludens , pp. 46-75;
also pp. 133-5.

13- Huizinga, Homo Ludens , pp. 110-111.

14. WOrterbuch der Deutschen Volkskunde , ed.

Richard Beitl (Stuttgart: Alfred Kroner Verlag, 1955), p.

626.

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15. Huizinga, Homo Ludens , pp. 105-118. For a
typological and literary-historical overview of riddles,
see: Mathilde Hain, Ratsel (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Ver-
lagsbuchhandlung, 1966).

16.

17.

18.

York: Dover

Huizinga, Homo Ludens , pp. 107 and 110.
Huizinga, Homo Ludens , p. 112.

Howard Bergerson, Palindromes and Anagrams (New
Publications, 1973). p. 2.

19- Dmitri A. Borgmann, Language on Vacation : An
Oli o of Orthographical Oddities (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1965), p. T.

20. Williard Espy The Game of Words (New York:
Bramhall House), p. 14.

21. Borgman, Language on Vacation , p. 3.

22. Borgman, Language on Vacation , p. 3.

23- Louis Untermeyer, Play in Poetry (New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1938), p. 51.

24. Huizinga, Homo Ludens , p. 45.

25. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethes Werke,
hrsg. im Auftrag der Grossherzogin Sophie von Sachsen, Vol.
49 (Weimar: H. Bohlau Verlag, 1887-191 9), p. 149.

26. Goethe, Goethes Werke , Vol. 47, p. 205.

27* John Donne, The Complete Englis h Poems, ed.
A.J. Smith (New York: St. Martin r s Pre'ss, "i97T)'7""p.~*314.

28. Donne, The Complete English Poems , pp. 314-315.

29. Untermeyer, Play in Poetry , p. 51.

30. Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems , ed. Thomas
H. Johnson (London: Faber and Faber"j 1970), p. 32.

31. Dickinson, The Complete Poems , p. 350.

32. Untermeyer, Play in Poetry , p. 49.

33. Eugen Gomringer, The Book of Hours and Constel¬
lations : Being Poems of Eugen Gomringer Presented by Jerome
PothenSerg" ! ecf. and trans. Jerome Rothenberg (New "York,
Villefranche-sur-mer, Frankfurt am Main: Something Else
Press , Inc.) , n. pag .

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34. Gomringer, The Book of Hours and Constella-
tions , n. pag.

35. Gomringer, The Book of Hours and Constella¬
tions, n. pag.

36. Untermeyer, Play in Poetry , pp. 4-5.

37. Huizinga, Homo Ludens , p. 4.

38. Untermeyer, Play in Poetry , p. 56.

39. Frank Stockton, "The Lady or the Tiger,” in:

The Best Short Stories of Frank . £. Stockton (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, n .d .).

40. John Donne, The Complete English Poems, pp.

58-59.

41. Huizinga, Homo Ludens , throughout the book, but
summarized p. 5.

42. Huizinga, Homo Ludens , p. 158.

43. Roger Callois, Man , Play , and Games , (New York:
The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961), pp. 30-31.

44. Huizinga, Homo Ludens, pp. 46-47.

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Adventure , FIRST WORK OF A

LITERARY MODE IN ITS INFANCY

Adventure can provide its readers the fascinating
experience of interacting on a simple level with a written
text and actually having an influence on the construction of
the story they are reading. The story itself, however, is
of low "literary” value. One might ask whether interactive
fiction will be yet another form of formula or trivial
literature or mind-deadening, commercially oriented enter¬
tainment as T.V. has turned out to be. In what follows, I
hope to show that the low "literary" quality of Adventure is
a function of the immaturity of its artistic medium, not of
any intrinsic technical/aesthetic limitation of the computer
as a literary medium.

In general, literary criticism has as its object
"belle lettres," i.e. works belonging to a canon of recog¬
nized literary works. This canon is constantly changing,
and the criteria for what constitutes "good literature" are
fluid and not easily defined. The study of popular litera¬
ture deals with the theoretical questions about the "other"
kinds of literature, which, in addition to formula or
trivial literature, have variously been called folk-, minor¬
ity, minor, para- or sub-literature, middle-brow literature,
and the literature of Low Culture. The following are some
of the issues on which the criticism of popular literature
focuses that are relevant in the discussion of interactive

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fiction and Adventure : the role of the media, especially the
mass media, on artistic production; the role of a mass vs.
an elite audience; the results of the commercial aspects on
artistic production; the difference (if any) between art and
entertainment; and the related question of the criteria for
distinguishing between low literature and high literature.

I will be drawing on this body of study to support my con¬
tention that interactive fiction is not by nature low
literature, but merely immature. To illustrate this, I will
compare the first major work of interactive fiction, Adven¬
ture , to the most popular Prose Novel of Chivalry and Adven¬
ture, Amadis of Gaul , 1 and then contrast them very briefly
with television serials. I will make the case that although
all three forms share similar narrative structures and
resulting deficiencies, television is a medium whose commer¬
cial limitations are the cause of its low literary quali¬
ties, while the media of printed stories and interactive
fiction are not inherently limited.

The Prose Novels of Chivalry and Adventure were
prose-versions of medieval knightly verse epics. In their
manuscript form those epics had been recited to and read by
the nobility and the literate upper class. The early
printed prose-versions were still meant for the same edu¬
cated audiences. However, since the middle of the sixteenth
century they could be mass produced and were intended for an
audience which primarily included people from the lower
classes. The prose Romances of Chivalry and Adventure

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became the first truly popular form of printed literature
and seem to have appealed to people of all classes and lev¬
els of education. Commentaries from the time are very simi¬
lar to those made today about the seeming addictiveness of
computers and computer games. Compare Irving Leonard's com¬
ments on the Romances of Chivalry and Adventure to Walt
Bilofsky’s comments on Adventure;

"These tremendously popular works of fiction ...
stimulated the emotions and won the passionate devo¬
tion of all literate classes of Spain, from the
great Emperor Charles V himself to the, lowliest
clerk in his service. ... The pages of this chival-
ric fiction were thumbed with an enthusiasm amount¬
ing to a passion, and their fascination spurred the
illiterate to master quickly the art of reading.

... The aristocracy of every shade and degree,
including its womenkind, and even the clergy,
devoted much of their ample leisure to this divert¬
ing pastime."^

"Has anyone managed to stay involved in personal
computing for more than a short time without getting
trapped into the game of Adventure? (If some of you
haven’t, cancel all your appointments for a couple
weeks and order up a copy.) Adventure has captured
the imagination of both computing amateurs and pro¬
fessionals alike, and has inspired imitation like
nothing since the invention of programming

Adventure and the prose Romances of Chivalry and
Adventure are based on a story structure of more or less
independent units which are strung together and can be
expanded infinitely. This simple narrative pattern allows
an unlimited number of sequels to be added later and permits
multiple authorship — both Adventure and the Romances of
Chivalry and Adventure can be considered group efforts.

Amadis of Gaul, first printed in 1508, was written

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down by Garcia Rodriguez de Montalvo and based on an orally

transmitted chivalric romance cycle dating back to at least
4

1350. Montalvo conceived the original A madis book as a
means of earning money. Because of its popularity and com¬
mercial success, at least five other authors wrote sequels
to it over a period of half a century. Taken together in
its entirety, it is the story of "the adventures of Amadis,
his family and friends, and their children through several
generations."^ It is a tale that need never have ended, for
it is simply an accretion of one stirring experience after
another. Each adventure is complete, a story in itself, as
the following chapter headings indicate:

Chapter XVII. How Amadis was very well liked in the
court of King Lisuarte, and fi the news he learned con¬
cerning his brother Galaor.

Chapter XVIII. How Amadis fought with Angriote and
with his brother and overcame them, who were guard¬
ing a pass into a valley at which they were main¬
taining by force of arms that no one had a more
beautiful ladylove than Angriote had.'

The adventures do not have to be connected through any needs
of plot; there is no buildup or culmination of action. As
O'Conner observes:

"That a book should have a unifying idea and that
the various episodes should be relevant to it in
some way are considerations that, while not totally
alien, are scarcely native to Amadis or its genre.
The division into chapters and books has no con¬
sistent structural significance."®

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The only connection between the basic plot units, the
chapters, is spatial-temporal, i.e. something happens to the
hero in one place, then he moves on, and the next event
occurs. There is no internal connection, and the order in
which the adventures take place does not matter. Amadis of
Gaul is "long and rambling —words of praise by some
sixteenth-century standards, and the effect of the whole
is definitely less than the sum of its parts. The structure
was uncomplicated and made few demands on the authors' abil¬
ities. The looseness of structure also proved to have other
advantages besides narrative simplicity. If a volume about
Amadis was popular enough to be a commercial success, it
was very easy to add new books to the cycle. O'Conner
believes that its length was a sign of its influence:

"In general, the longer a chivalric prose narrative,
the better and more influential it was. This kind of
tale was written in such a way that, if popular
response warranted, succeeding books could easily be
added. Hence the number of volumes a romance
finally attained is an approximate gauge of its
popularity." 1 u

Some of the same things hold true with Adventure . It, too,
has a very loose structure and events in the story are con¬
nected successively through space and time, not by any
overall organizing meaning or point toward which all actions
lead. The events are more or less independent of each
other. Their sequence can be changed without affecting the
story because the order in which they occur is unimportant
to the plot. As in Amadis, the only connection between

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experiences in Adventure is spatial and temporal: the reader

wanders from one chamber in the cave to the next and either
finds something of importance or something happens to him or
her. There is only one type of internal structural connec¬
tion between story units in Adventure : there may be some
object in one location that is needed to overcome an obsta¬
cle in another. However, this is an easy device for the
writers to control. Also, there is a positive aspect to the
lack of a fixed sequence; it enables the reader to wander at
will through the cave in any direction (s)he chooses.

Like the Amadis cycle, Adventure was written by
several authors and is simply an accumulation of sub-tales.
It, too, is easily expanded. One just adds another subrou¬
tine to the program, i.e. adds another adventure to the
story.

Chivalric Romances have been considered "vast,
almost unreadable jumble(s) of episodes that stand as a fit¬
ting monument to sixteenth-century taste for the fantas-
1 1

tic," and in both them and in Adventure , quantity replaces
quality; profuseness is a substitute for depth. In Amadis,
the entangledness (which, by the way, was regarded in the
Renaissance as a very positive quality in a long narra¬
tive) 12 is achieved through a veritable multitude of heroes.
One hero’s story is described for no more than two or three
chapters at a time before the narrative switches to two or
three chapters of another hero's adventures for variety.
Complicatedness in Adventure is achieved through the

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difficulty of remembering the layout of the cave and through

the intricacies of the puzzles and brain-teasers the reader

encounters. In The Second Self : Computers and the Human

Spirit , '3 Sherry Turkle notes the worship in the computer

sub- culture of the fantastic, the bizarre, the complex or

the intricate. This applies not only to a style of program-

1 il

ming, but to tastes in literature (sci-fi and fantasy) and
music (Baroque). Adventure 1 s entangledness and complexity
is considered by this group to be an asset.

The prose Romances of Chivalry and Adventure and
Adventure are kindred spirits. They express a delight in
childlike fantasies of overcoming all difficulties, vanqu¬
ishing all foes, and being rewarded with treasure and suc¬
cess in the process. The hero leaves on a quest, a journey
in search of adventure and reward. The hero and characters
in the stories are basically cardboard figures and have no
internal conflicts and can be said to have no psychology at
all. The important thing in Adventure and the Prose
Romances of Chivalry and Adventure is that something
interesting is always happening, not the characters' per¬
sonal growth or the reasoning behind their actions. In this
respect both forms of narratives differ from maturation
processes depicted in fairy tales, for example. This is the
type of literature that appeals to the adolescent in us.

In Parameters of Popular Culture ,^^ Marshall
Fishwick describes the most commonly held view of Popular
Literature, i.e. that it is trivial, ephemeral, and shallow

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in nature. He writes that popular literature and culture is:
"designed for mass consumption and the. taste of the major¬
ity. Entertainment is the key, and money is the spur. The
word 'mass,' linked to media like television, radio, film,
and records, is often carried over to the audience. The
tacit assumption is that popular (or mass) culture reflects
the values and aspirations of Everyman." 1 In this view,
Popular Culture is rooted in folk culture as opposed to high
or elite culture, which is produced by artists whose eso¬
teric, artistically elaborate works cannot, by definition,
have wide popular appeal. Unlike popular works meant for
mass consumption, a high-culture work is "private," i.e. it
is not meant for mass consumption but rather the product of
an individual vision and, as Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel
put it, "bears the stamp of an original imagination; its
power depends upon its capacity to force us ’out of our¬
selves’ to attend to the range and quality of someone else's
mind." 1 ® According to this view, Popular Literature lacks
these qualities.

One eloquent critic of this type of analysis is
Leslie Fiedler. He calls the separation of "song and story
in High Literature and Low" an "unfortunate distinction." 1 ^
His irreverant name for High Literature is "compulsory
literature" since it is most often read because of having
been assigned in an English class in school, and refers to
Popular Literature as "optional literature" because it is
meant to be read strictly for enjoyment. He, then, is not

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of the opinion that "entertainment" is in any sense a
pejorative term or that it is a negative quality in a
literary work, nor does he believe that art is somehow dif¬
ferent from entertainment. In his discussion of optional
and compulsory literature he writes:

"It is an odd enough notion ... to "teach," say,
the plays of Shakespeare or the novels of Dickens
and Twain, works written to move and citillate the
free mass audience: to require, in effect a pleasur¬
able response from a captive student audience. ...
But it is even stranger to insist that while it is
proper, indeed incumbent on us, to find such pleas¬
ure in Shakespeare, Dickens or Twain, it is shameful
or regressive to respond similarly to Zane Grey,
Edgar Rice Burroughs or Margaret Mitchell; and
strangest of all to work out critical "stands" for
explaining why." 20

In a chapter entitled "Literature and Lucre," 21 Fiedler
examines the connection between money and literature and
disagrees with the assumption that Popular Literature is
commercial in nature while High Literature is not. Far from
condemning writers whose main motivation for writing is
money, he believes that the literary work "remains incom¬
plete until it has passed from the desk to the marketplace;
which is to say, until it has been packaged, huckstered,
hyped and sold." 22 He points out that among recognized High
Culture artists who were "shamelessly involved in the mark¬
etplace" 2 -^ are Shakespeare, Richardson, Balzac, Dickens,
Twain, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Bellow.

Fiedler believes that the literary appeal and the
popularity of a work are based on what he terms "mythopoeic

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power,which can be independent of formal excellence.

This approach to Popular Literature is closer to that of
Abraham Kaplan’s, which is described in a now famous arti¬
cle, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts.”^ Kaplan dif¬
ferentiates Popular Art from bad art, folk art, or minor
art. He considers the Rubaiyat and The Hound of the Basker-
villes , for example, to be good minor art works and defines
folk art as popular in the sense of being produced
"anonymously, without self-consciousness, and not in an
explicitly aesthetic context.

Kaplan approaches Popular Art as a particular type
of aesthetic experience: "popular art is not the degradation
of taste but its immaturity."^7 in his view, the form of
Popular Literature is immature because it is formless and
easy. Popular Literature is based on stereotypes, which
"present us with the blueprint of a form, rather than the
form itself. ... It is not simplification but schematization
that is achieved."^® He feels Popular Literature lacks a
second type of form: "Form is a displacement onto the object
of the structure of our experience of the object; it is this
experience that is the primary locus of aesthetic qual¬
ity. "^9 Another way of saying this is that Popular Art is
pre-d igested.

"Popular art provides no purchase for any signi¬
ficant effort to make it out. ... Our interest is
focused on outcomes (as in the well-named "who¬
dunit"), but not on the unfolding of events. ... so
long as we only want to know how it all comes out,

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it comes out just as it does with no effort on our
part, and we have only traced a shape rather than
experienced a form. ... Direct experience is
replaced by second hand apprehension, and all we
know about the object is as superficial as its hold
on us. u:5U

According to Kaplan, not only is Popular Literature pre¬
digested for its readers, its readers cannot tolerate ambi¬
guity: "We shrink from doing that much work—the work, that
is, of creative interpretation. ... Popular art is a device
for remaining in the same old world and assuring ourselves
that we like it, because we are afraid to change it."^
Finally, Kaplan says, "Popular art wallows in emotion while
art transcends it, giving us understanding and thereby
mastery of our feelings."32 it is not aesthetic, but
anaesthetic.

Amadis of C-aul and Adventure are both forms that fit
into the category of Popular Literature and resemble popular
television serials or soap operas in several respects. All

were made possible because of progress made in technology.

All three share the same simplistic narrative form which
neglects ideas and aesthetic development in favor of action
and intricacies of plot. They are based on a story struc¬
ture of independent units that can be strung together infin¬
itely and which exclude something we consider necessary for
a literary work to be considered good: a unifying idea that
establishes existential relevance for the audience. The
sequence of the story units that are independent of some
greater whole is basically irrelevant, and they allow

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unlimited additions and sequels; since they do not serve any
unifying artistic vision, they do not have to be written
under the guidance of one particular individual vision and
permit multiple authorship. In the case of the Novels of
Chivalry and Adventure the causes of these defects did not
prove to be insurmountable: the Novels of Chivalry and
Adventure were the literary predecessors of our great
novelistic tradition (such as Don Quixote and Simplicis-
simus ). On the other hand, different causes of the same
defects in television have prevented television serials, for
example, from developing as an artistic form.

The Novels of Chivalry and Adventure were eventually
marked by the commercial and the market demands of the
printing press medium and a mass audience. Every accusation
Fishwick discussed in Parameters of Popular Culture can be
leveled, for example, at Amadis of Gaul . It was originally
conceived as a money-making scheme, not as an artistic
endeavor. It was intended to reach a mass audience and was
therefore based on the unsophisticated popular folk tradi¬
tion, not on the written tradition, in which only works of
great value were worthy of the work involved in producing
manuscripts. In some sense, Montalvo was not even what we
have come to view as a creative artist: Amadis is basically
the translation of a popular folk tradition from the oral to
the printed medium. The narrative strategies he used in his
stories, as mentioned several times, are simplistic and an
easy way of telling a story. They also contributed to his

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stories being easily understood by the widest possible audi¬
ence, who didn’t have to do much of what Kaplan terms
’’creative interpretation.”33 That his stories didn’t have
any unifying goal is not surprising — there was no tradi¬
tion of this in entertainment literature.

Although the Novels of Chivalry and Adventure suffer
under all the ills that Fishwick ascribes to Popular Litera¬
ture, there was nothing inherent in the medium, however, to
prevent the development of a High-Culture tradition in
printed entertainment literature. Through accident (as
appears to have been the case with Don Quixote ,which was
written as a satire on the Novels of Chivalry and Adventure)
and through experience and experimentation with the printed
text, authors learned how to work with the printed medium.
The commercial aspects of the book-writing trade did not
limit individual creativity. Other than being able to sup¬
port themselves while they wrote, writers of the Novels of
Chivalry and Adventure did not need great financial backing
to do business. If their book did not sell well, they did
not lose an investment. Also, as the market for books grew,
an author had more people to sell his books to while the
number of books he had to sell to bring a profit remained
the same. Since the printed medium did not bring with it
any inherent commercial limitations, it allowed the produc¬
tion of High Culture and Low Culture works.

Contrast a medium without inherent limitations, such
as the printed text, to one that, from an artistic and

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creative point of view, seems fatally flawed. The commer¬
cial nature of television does prevent the development of
individual creativity. It takes an enormous amount of money
to produce a television program. The individual programs
are not themselves sold to the audience, as books or films
are, instead their costs are underwritten by sponsors. The
sponsors, in turn, hope that viewers of the television pro¬
grams will be motivated by the advertisements that are
interspersed throughout the show to buy the sponsor's pro¬
ducts. The emphasis therefore, is not on selling the
literary product, per se, but on advertising some unrelated
secondary product. Because the primary purpose of televi¬
sion is to sell these secondary products, all artistic con¬
siderations are subservient to this cause. Art and enter¬
tainment are not sold for themselves, but used to create
audiences for the advertisements. Producers want to be able
to guarantee their sponsors this audience, and they aim for
general program loyalty, not for good individual works.35

All of this, of course, stifles creativity. Instead
of judging a script for its artistic merits, market studies
are done to determine what has sold well before. This is a
cause of the stereotyping Kaplan deplores. Due to the
unforgiving structure of television programming, a work must
be constructed around rigid formula — a few minutes of
presentation interrupted at specified times by commercials,
each program and portion of program exactly timed. Some
authors of printed literature also faced commercially

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determined structuring of their work, but the printed medium
is more forgiving. Charles Dickens, for example, wrote some
of his novels in installations for publications, so he, too,
was faced with deadlines and breaking the story into small
pieces. His artistic works were also partially structured
around non-literary considerations, but he had leeway on the
length of each installment, and if it was necessary, publi¬
cation could be postponed a few days. With television, the
only way of maintaining the amount of material that must be
presented on schedule is through multiple authorship. Ideas
based on market studies and joint-effort, dead-line oriented
writing do not encourage individual vision or creativity.

The television medium is not merely immature. The commercial
structure and barriers support the view of Popular Litera¬
ture described by Fishwick and make television a hostile
environment for producing works of artistic or aesthetic
depth.

Ad ventur e, as the first stage in the development of
interactive fiction, seems to fit in the category of what
Kaplan calls "folk art" as easily as it does into his
category of Popular Literature as immature art. It was
written "anonymously, without self-consciousness, and not in
an explicitly aesthetic context.The original writer
shared his work with the computer community by declaring it
"public domain" and making it available to private computer
networks. The second major author gave it its general form,
and from there it has become a community effort. There are

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many versions, and anyone with access to the source code can
easily create their own additions.

Surprisingly, Adventure completely lacks the commer¬
cial nature which supposedly is the basis of Popular Litera¬
ture. It was written for fun, not for profit of any kind to
anybody. Other works of interactive fiction have been pro¬
duced commercially, but there is no danger that the commer¬
cial aspects will exclude artistic development, as with
television. The financial side of creating a work of
interactive fiction is similar to that involved in writing a
book: no great capital investment is needed. The author
must support him- or herself and either be a programmer or
work in conjunction with a programmer who must also be sup¬
ported .

The financial side of marketing interactive fiction
is also similar to the financial side of selling books; a
work need not be aimed at the widest possible audience,
since it is sold as an individual product. Because it is
not necessary to appeal to a mass-audience, the idea of the
"lowest common denominator" as a guiding literary principle
is missing. If anything, one must assume that the readers
of Adventure and other works of interactive fiction are more
highly sophisticated and better educated than the reading
audience in general. Unlike video arcade games, access to
language-based computer games is more or less restricted to
those who work in a computer-related industry or academia,
or who own and operate a computer and the necessary

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software.

One thing that speaks for the artistic future of
interactive fiction is its audience's love of complexity,
difficulty, creativity, and what Sherry Turkle has called
"radical individuality."37 in Adventure this is expressed
as a fascination with intricate and complicated puzzles, but
there is nothing to hinder this fascination from extending
to aesthetic qualities, as well. Many readers say they do
not care about the puzzles in Adventure , but are caught up
in the process of visualizing themselves acting in an ima¬
ginary world. Readers of interactive fiction do not shy
away from ambiguity; they seek it in reading a work they
must actively create while constantly facing the frustration
of not knowing how this is to be done. In the section on
Reader Response I will discuss the reader's tendency towards
simultaneous intense emotional involvement and critical dis¬
tance towards his or her actions; suffice it now to say that
interactive fiction is not of any necessity pre-digested or
"an anaesthetic."

Like Montalvo and the writers of the Novels of
Chivalry and Adventure, Crowther did not write a creative
story, per se. Adventure , too, is basically an extension of
its original medium into a new medium. Amadis is the trans¬
lation of an oral tradition into a printed work, and Adven¬
ture is the translation of the structures of a computer
model of a cave into story form. Its narrative form is both
a reflection of the structure of a computer program and a

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simple technique of story-telling that is easy to master.

There is nothing to prevent the development of
interactive fiction from artistically immature works to
works of High Culture. Adventure is of low literary quality
first because its authors were programmers who neither
intended to write a literary work nor were skilled in the
use of narrative, and second because the literary aspects of
the technical medium have not yet been explored. At the
time of this writing, at least two promising works of
interactive fiction are being written by successful authors
in the Popular Literature tradition, Michael Crighton ( The
Andromeda Strain )^ and Douglas Adams ( The Hitchhiker * s
Guide to the Galaxy ^ and The Restaurant at the End of the
Universe ) I believe that writers will first ''practice"

with interactive fiction by writing stories that are basi¬
cally similar to the fixed-text printed tradition. With
technical development of the computer medium and the growing
experience of writing interactive fiction, I think a com¬
pletely new type of story will someday emerge.

One difficulty I do foresee and view as inherent to
the interactive computer medium will be creating non¬
stereotype, subtle characters with whom the reader can
interact. One obvious way around this problem will be to
have the reader interact with characters who are not human
and will not have to respond as such, but I think a more
radical solution will come to characterize interactive fic¬
tion. Because our narrative tradition is so deeply involved

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with characterization and human psychology, it is foreign
for us to consider the possibility of a narrative form that
does not focus on them. Unless or until artificial intelli¬
gence can imitate human language on any sophisticated level,
however, I think that a new focus will be necessary, and be
one new aspect interactive fiction will bring to literary
tradition.

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FOOTNOTES:

FIRST WORK OF A LITERARY MODE IN ITS INFANCY

1. Garci Rodriquez de Montalvo, Amadis of Gaul.
Books I and II, trans. Edwin B. Place and Herbert Cl Hehra.
(Lexington: TEe University Press of Kentucky, 1974).

2. Irving Leonard, Books of the Brave : Being an
Account of Bo oks and of Men in the Spanish Conquest and Set¬
tlement of the Sixteenth - Century New Wor"I(i . (New York: Gor¬
dian Press, Inc~ 1964), pp. 19-20.

3. Walt Bilofsky, "Adventures in Computing,” Pro-
Files: The Magazine for Kaypro Users, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1983),
p. 34.

4. Frank Pierce, Amadis de Gaule , (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1976), p. 18.

5. John J. O'Conner, Amadis de Gaule and its Influ¬
ence on Elizabethan Literature" (New "Brunswick" Rutgers
University iVess, T970), p.' 6.

6. de Montalvo, Amadis , p. 185.

7. de Montalvo, Amadis p. 196.

8. O'Connor, Amadis de Gaule and its Influence on
Elizabethan Literature , p. 89.

9. O'Connor, Amadis _d Gaule and its Influence on
Elizabethan Literature , p. 5.

10. O'Connor, Amadis de Gaule and its Influence on
Elizabethan Literature , p. 47

11. O'Connor, Amadis de Gaule and its Influence on
Elizabethan Literature , p. 230.

12. O'Connor, Amadis de Gaule and its Influence on
Elizabethan Literature, p. 815.

13* Sherry Turkle, The Second Self : Computers and
the Human Spirit, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp.
175- 183.

14.

Turkle,

The

Second

Self,

pp.

15.

Turkle,

The

Second

Self,

pp.

219-220

16. Marshall Fishwick, Parameters of Popular Cul-
ture, (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular
Press, 1974).

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17. Fishwick, Parameters of Popular Culture , p. 1.

18. Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel, The Popular
Arts , (New York: Pantheon Books, 1965), p. 50.

19. Leslie Fiedler, What Was Literature? Class Cul¬
ture and Mass Society, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982) ,
p. 13.

20.

Fiedler,

What

Was

Literature?, pp. 13

21.

Fiedler ,

What

Was

Literature?, pp. 23

22.

Fiedler ,

What

Was

Literature, p. 24.

23.

Fiedler ,

What

Was

Literature, p. 27.

24.

Fiedler,

What

Was

Literature, p. 36.

25. Abraham Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular
Arts," in: Harriet Deer and Irving Deer, The Popular Arts: A
Critical Reader (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967) .

26. Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 316.

27* Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 319.

28. Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 320.

29* Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 322.

30. Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 323.

31. Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts, p.

325.

32. Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 329.

33. Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 325.

34. Walter Starkie, "Introduction," in: Miguel de
Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote of La Mancha , trans. and
introduction Walter Starkie, ("New York and Scarborough,
Ontario: New American Library, 1964), p. 28.

35. For a discussion of television production, see:

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Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Televi¬
sion , (New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1961).

36. Kaplan, "The Aesthetics of the Popular Arts,"

p. 316.

37. Turkle, The Second Self , p. 215.

38. Michael Crighton, The Andromeda Strain ,

39. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the

Galaxy (New York: Harmony Books, H

40. Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the
Universe (New York: Harmony Books'! 1980) .

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"ADVENTURE'S" RELATIONSHIP TO MYSTERY LITERATURE

In trying to categorize a new literary phenomon such
as interactive fiction, it is useful to compare it to
related, contemporary literary forms. One genre which
interactive fiction in general, and Adventure in particular
resembles, is mystery literature, a genre that can also be
viewed as a game in the form of a story. Computer story-
games such as Adventure and traditional mystery literature
have as their primary goal the solution of a narrative puzz¬
le. Both of these types of hermetic tales contain secrets
— and both are physical secrets, not conceptual secrets.
Although most mystery stories involve crimes and detectives
of some sort, they are not absolutely necessary; Poe's
"Gold Bug," like Adventure , is a treasure hunt. According to
Robert Champigny:

From the reader’s standpoint, a hermeneutic tale has
to be an investigation story but the narrated pro¬
cess does not need a fictional investigator in order
to function as an investigative sequence. ^

Adventure and mysteries, as popular literature, are
based on their common goal of presenting and solving a mys¬
tery, they resemble each other in important aspects of plot,
some structural features, and in the dynamics of their
readers' responses. Understandably, they also appeal to
their readers for some of the same reasons. Despite their
being "trivial literature," their audiences are not

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necessarily those one usually associates with "pop” best¬
sellers and other forms of "formula literature". Mystery
literature has been called the popular, or "formula litera¬
ture" of the intellectual ,2 and j believe that computer
story games can be viewed in the same way.

Ever since Poe wrote the first detective story in
1841 ("The Murder in the Rue Morgue"), mystery, detective
and spy stories have been compared to games. It comes as no
surprise that Poe was a "master at solving cryptograms and
other complicated thought problems."3 The stages in the
genre's historical development are even designated by the
different types of games to which they are compared: the
early stories such as the Sherlock Holmes series are called
crossword-puzzle types,^ mystery novels like those of Agatha
Christie and Dashiell Hammet called puzzles of interlocking
pieces,5 and the James Bond and spy stories compared to
games of chess.6 As Nigel Morland writes:

...the novel of pure detection, in which action and
physical excitement are at a minimum, and the whole
emphasis falls on the niceties of deduction; these
stories are puzzles pure and simple and entirely
intellectual in their appeal...7

Some writers and critics have even established game
"rules" to make sure the game or competition between the
reader and the characters, or the reader and the author, is
fair. One of the first and most important of the
guideline-makers was R.A. Knox,^ who set forth ten rules to
give the reader a sporting chance—such as that the author

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must at least mention the criminal early on in the story, no
supernatural elements may be introduced, there may not be
more than one secret passage per story, no secret twin-
brothers or sisters may be suddenly appear to explain the
crime, and so on. The idea that mysteries are games with
rules and that the author must "play fair" with the reader
can be seen in the humorous initiation oath of the famous
"Detection Club," founded by G. K. Chesterton, Anthony Berke¬
ley Cox, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and others:

Ruler: Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a
vital clue from the reader?

Candidate: I do.

Ruler: Do you promise to observe a seemly modera¬

tion in the use of Trap-Doors,

Chinamen...and utterly and for ever to
forswear Mysterious Poisons unknown to sci¬
ence??

Members of the authors' club are also forbidden to have
their detectives use "Feminine Intuition, Mumbo-Jumbo,
Jiggery-Pokery, and Coincidence" in solving the puzzles. 10
In 1928, S.S. Van Dine (a pseudonym for mystery writer W.H.
Wright) provided twenty rules for mystery fiction so the
reader would have an "equal opportunity with the detective
for solving the mystery." 11 >* In " The Sim P le Art of Murder,"
Raymond Chandler concluded that Van Dine's rules were artif¬
icial and that they kept mystery literature from developing
into an art form. He proposed changes to make mysteries more
realistic, such as allowing professional criminals to commit
the mysterious crimes, and accepting psychological factors

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as the basis of a plot .^

One of the few critics who denies any competition
between the reader and the writer is William Aydelotte. He
writes:

A detective story is not an invitation to intellec¬
tual exercise or exertion, not a puzzle to which the
reader must guess the answer. On the contrary, the
claim of detective stories to be puzzle literature
is in large part a fraud, and the reader, far from
attempting to solve the mystery himself, depends on
the detective to do it for him."13

He reasons that there is no competition, because the reader
does not really have all the information necessary to solve
the case; the writer hides or distorts the facts in order to
fool the reader. I do not believe that this reservation
refutes the game-like character of the detective genre.
Trickery and the ability to manipulate rules to one's own
advantage is an admired quality in gamesmanship. Even
Aydelotte concedes that the fact that sets of rules like
these have evolved and constantly been redefined is of
importance. As he says, because mystery literature is so
often regarded as a genre of intellectual games, writers are
more likely to try to create puzzles that are fair and
readers are more likely to be lead to read detective stories
as puzzles, whether they are actually puzzles or not. I 1 *

Readers of "game-literature" such as mystery stories
and computer story games delight in the suspense of guessing
what happened, what will happen, and what will have hap¬
pened, and they love matching wits, or imagining that they

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are matching wits, with the author. In the eyes of readers,
the fascination of the intellectual challenge in mystery
literature and Adventure seems to make up for other literary
weaknesses. Characterization and style have suffered from
the all-consuming goal of making the plot as thick as possi¬
ble. Also, in both Adventure and in detection literature,
events and characters' choices are often not explained
psychologically. The emphasis is on the who, what, when,
where, and how—not on the why.

One can always invoke some kind of madness or a
desire to commit a perfect crime. After all, the
function of the murderer in a detecive-and-opponent
story is to test the detective. Other motives are
ornamental."15

In mystery stories, the crime that has been commit¬
ted at or even before the beginning of the story is of
minimal value in and of itself. As Jochen Vogt explains,
first the author establishes that the crime is in fact puzz¬
ling; then the detective appears on the scene a the profes¬
sional unraveller of the secret.16 The crime, which gives
the puzzle shape, is interesting solely in its function of
providing the motivation for the important part of the
story—the hero's process of unravelling the mystery. Yet
the author does not have to provide any plausible motivata-
tion for the crime itself.

In Adventure , too, there is a curious lack of
motivation for the things that take place. This is probably
due to its having been written as a game: in games it is not

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very important that the fantasy setting makes sense to us.
In the Adventure world, the puzzling and improbable events
are explained away as magic. There is no reason given to
explain why there should be treasures hidden in the cave or
why a small bird can kill the fierce green snake. In a
world governed by magic, things need no explanation. They
happen, just as wondrous events happen in fairy tales, such
as people being turned into animals, animals being able to
talk, or Walt Disney fairy godmothers turning pumpkins into
golden coaches. Furthermore, the lack of motivation that
characterizes mysteries has another facet to it in Adven¬
ture , for much of the story in Adventure — the problem
solving part — does not take place in the text at all. In
mysteries, the author describes step by step how the prota¬
gonist unravels the puzzle. The motive given to explain why
the crime had been committed in the first place might not
bear much scrutiny, but every action the protagonist takes
in solving the crime's secret is explained, rationalized,
and described in great detail. There is a reason behind
every move the protagonist makes; half the fun of reading
mysteries is being led and mislead by the protagonist's rea¬
soning process.

In Adventure , on the other hand, it is the reader
who goes through the process of solving the puzzles, and the
reader does not get to explain the line of reasoning behind
the choices he or she makes. If two or more people play
Adventure together, they often discuss not only what to do

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next, but why they think some move will work or not. While
the solitary reader does find out from the results or lack
of results of his or her input whether the reasoning is
correct or incorrect, the pleasure of having this thinking
process discussed and described is missing. In Adventure ,
both the fictional world and the reader's response to it
remain unexplained.

While Adventure and mystery literature resemble each
other closely in their game-like character and in some of
the resulting literary effects, it comes as a surprise that
they are quite possibly only distantly related in structure.

Vladimir Propp analysed Russian folktales and
discovered that they have an underlying structure which is
common to them all.^7 Since computer story-games are struc¬
tured computer programs,^ their underlying structures are
easily determined. The same cannot be said of mystery
literature; Buchloh and Becker state categorically that
there is no single form of mystery literature.^9 They dis¬
cuss four separate main types of mysteries which they
believe could be structurally modelled, but even these
categories they find to be too general. Their categories
are: 1 . The pure mystery, or "crossword puzzle type,"20 2 .

The mystery as "novel of manners,"21 3 . The psychological

criminal novel22 anc j 4 , The Thriller.^3 Morphological ana¬
lyses of mystery literature have been done, but mostly they
have referred to individual works, not even to sub¬
categories, much less to the genre as a whole. To date, no

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definition of mystery literature exists, morphological or
otherwise. Instead, critics have examined only story ele¬
ments, such as character-configurations, setting, kinds of
action, and the various types of detectives.24

The nature and character of the puzzles in mystery
literature and in Adventure are different. In traditional
mystery literature, the puzzles usually consist of crimes
which have already taken place or of the attempt to thwart
plans that have already been set in motion, and the detec¬
tive and reader must try to reconstruct what has already
happened based on the clues they come across and their
knowledge of human nature and the surrounding environment.
The logic is one of deduction,

Sherlock Holmes is the most obvious example of the
detective as a "thinking machine,” one who has mastered
this "science of deduction and analysis.”25 This method of
detection has its philosophical roots in the optimism of the
enlightenment.26 jt is the principle that when everything
impossible has been excluded through a process of deduction,
the only remaining possibility, no matter how improbable, is
the answer. Paul Buchloh writes that the clever cover-up of
a crime by the criminal can be unmasked through the
ingenuity of the detective.27 '*what is hidden in the story,"
he says, "will be brought by the story to light.28 Sher¬
lock, and to a lesser extent his friend, Dr. Watson, are
representatives of the scientific method: they base their
analysis on exact measurements and keen observations,

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deduction and combination. Then they, or at least Sherlock,
test their hypotheses through experiment.

The puzzles in Adventure are of a completely dif¬
ferent nature, are based on a different logic, and I believe
are grounded in a different and new philosophical back¬
ground. In Adventure , the secret is not known in advance,
and it soon becomes clear to the reader that different rules
apply than in familiar mystery literature or in the real
world. Instead, readers often come across objects that are
clues to puzzles they will encounter in the future. As in
mystery literature, place and setting are important.

Whereas mysteries are usually built around one main puzzle
with the story telling about the process of solution, Adven¬
ture has many puzzles; the process of solving the puzzles is
silent, since it takes place in the reader's head.

Unlike mystery literature, a temporal distinction
plays a crucial role: the puzzles in Adventure are always to
be found in the present and in the future. In mystery
stories, the process of deduction dictates a type of recon¬
struction of what must have happened at some point in the
past. In a type of retroactive denouement, the detective
and reader base their analysis on deduction. In an interac¬
tive game such as Adventure , the reader is not necessarily
presented with a problem that has occured or been set into
motion in the past. Instead, she or he must take the ini¬
tiative to uncover the problems, which are temporally ahead
of one in the game, either directly in front of the reader

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(in the present tense), or far ahead, at some unknown time
in the future. Also, the reader doesn’t even know what the
problems are going to be that he or she will encounter. In
mystery literature, the problem is stated at the beginning
— a murder has taken place, a valuable object has been
stolen, or a wicked plan has been hatched.

The logic needed to solve the problems in Adventure
is not identical to that needed for reading traditional mys¬
teries. Adventure is based on the type of thinking involved
in solving and debuging computer programming problems. Let
me describe in more detail how one solves two types of prob¬
lems in Adventure .

One of the first puzzles the reader confronts in a
cave is having the way barred by a fierce green snake. 2 9
Based on our knowledge of snakes, the answer to this problem
should be clear. We know that snakes are dangerous, but
that they usually attack as a form of defense. We know
animals often attack if their territory is invaded, that
they are often more afraid of us than we of them, and that
they will try to run away from us if at all possible. It is
not in the nature of snakes to ’’stand guard" over an object
or a place. Three logical solutions to this problem might
be to frighten the snake away by throwing rocks or making
noise, to kill it with rocks or with the axe we’re carrying
— or the most likely solution — to just keep our distance
and avoid it.

In the cave, however, animals do not behave as they

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do in real life, according to natural laws. If the reader
tries to frighten the snake, the narrator-guide replies it
doesn't understand. If the reader tries to attack the
snake, the response is "Attacking the snake both doesn’t
work and is very dangerous ."30. Should the reader try to
avoid it or go around it, the narrator says "You can't kill
the snake, or avoid it or drive it away or anything like
that. There is a way to get by, but you don't have the
necessary resources right now. "31

The first step in solving this specific problem,
which is a similar technique in most of the puzzles in the
cave, is usually trial and error. Most readers do try to
scare, kill or walk around the snake. When they discover
that these do not work, they review in their minds what they
have found in the cave up till this point: a birdcage,32 a
cheerful little bird,33 a nd a rusty rod with a star on the
end of it.3^ Many readers try to throw the rod at the
snake, thinking it must be some sort of magic weapon. The
result? "You can't kill the snake, or drive it away, or
avoid it..."35 The only thing left to try is to catch the
bird and release it near the snake. "The little bird
attacks the green snake and in an astounding flurry drives
the snake away."36

This type of reasoning is based on a familiarity
with games and rules,37 no t 0 n the ratiocination of mystery
literature. Not surprisingly, it is very much like the rea¬
soning needed in computer programming, i.e. understanding

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and manipulating arbitrarily established rules. Many people
consider computer programming to be the ultimate game, and
each programming language as a different set of rules. One
of the rules of the game of Adventure is this: if readers
find some object in their wanderings, no matter what it is
and how useless it might seem at the time, they should pick
it up and take it with them. They will probably need it for
a problem they will encounter soon. The second principle
for solving problems in Adventure is trial and error. This
is one of the secret principles of computer programming.
Programmers are taught not to to solves problems by trial
and error; nevertheless, many of them do.

Trial and error is also a good approach to the Per¬
sian rug problem. At one point in the cave the reader comes
across a dragon lying on a precious Persian rug.38 j have
seen the problem solved in two ways. One reader reasoned
that dragons breathe fire, and that the nearby stream was
the clue pointing to the solution of the problem. When he
poured water on the dragon it did die, but the water ruined
the Persian rug. Another reader got frustrated when he
couldn't find any clues and told the guide to kill the dra¬
gon. The guide answered, "What, you want me to kill a dragon
with my bare hands?"39 when the reader flippantly typed in
"yes," the guide responded, "Congratulations! You have just
vanquished a dragon with your bare Hands! (unbelievable,
isn't it?)" 40

There is another area in which Adventure and mystery

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literature differ. Mystery literature makes abundant use of
realistic elements as a means of leading the reader to
believe that the story is, or could be, true. Adventure
lacks any pretext of truth or reality. The mundane serves
different functions in mystery literature and Adventure .

Mystery literature is famous for detailed and accu¬
rate descriptions of setting. Sherlock Holmes knows every
street in London, and most of his literary descendents have
a sense of orientation like geographers. Many descriptions
are so true to life that mystery readers can often find
their ways through the cities in the stories by using the
books as maps. It is as if the detectives view their sur¬
roundings with a detached eye and nothing, but nothing,
escapes their notice.

Although there are many realistic elements used in
mystery literature, it is certainly not the case that mys¬
tery literature is realistic. As Robert Champigny writes:
"fictional murder, investigation, and investigator are ...
bathed in unreality."^ As I have mentioned before, a mys¬
tery author needn't bother giving any more elaborate expla¬
nation of a murderer's motivation than madness or the desire
to commit a perfect crime. Detective characters such as
Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, or James Bond are clearly fan¬
tasy figures; it is difficult to imagine them as real peo¬
ple .

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100

Despite these differences, however, there is a
strong connection between games and mystery literature, i.e.
the overriding goal of solving a puzzle and the aspect of
irreality. Indeed, several recent works of interactive fic¬
tion are mystery stories: in "Deadline” the reader is the
detective for a murder that has been committed and must
analyse the police reports, question suspects, and send evi¬
dence to the crime lab;^2 "Witness" the reader is not
only the detective, but also provides the evidence at the
accused's trial.^3 Based on this natural affinity, I believe
it likely that mystery literature will add a new computer¬
ized dimension and that writers of mysteries will be among
the first to take advantage of the literary possiblities
this new medium has to offer.

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101

FOOTNOTES:

"ADVENTURE'S" RELATIONSHIP TO MYSTERY LITERATURE

1. Robert Champigny, What Will Have Happened : a
Philosophical and Technical Essay on Mystery Stories (Bloom¬
ington, London: Indiana University Press, 1977), p. 15-16.

2. R. Austin Freeman, in: Paul Buchloh and Jens
Becker, Per Detektivroman : Studien zur Geschichte und Form
der englischen und amerikanischen Detektivliteratur
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973), p.

70.

3. Klaus Guenther Just, "Edgar Allan Poe und die
Folgen," in: Jochen Vogt, Der Kriminalroman : Zur Theorie und
Geschichte einer Gattung , Vol. I (Muenchen: Wilhelm Fink
Verlag) , p. 13.

4. Paul Buchloh and Jens Becker, Der Detektivroman :
Studien zur Geschichte und Form der englischen und amerikan-
ischen Detektlvliteratur , (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche

Buchgesellschaft, 1973), p. 70.

5. Buchloh and Becker, Der Detektivroman , p. 53.

6 . Umberto Ecco, "Die Erzaehlstrukturen bei Ian
Fleming," in: Jochen Vogt, Der Kriminalroman , p. 268.

Irving

Reader

7. Buchloh and Becker, Der Detektivroman , p. 82.

8 . Buchloh and Becker, Der Detektivroman , p. 80-95.

9. Buchloh and Becker, Der Detektivroman , p. 85.

10. Buchloh and Becker, Der Detektivroman , p. 85.

11. Buchloh and Becker, Der Detektivroman , p. 86.

12. Buchloh and Becker, Der Detektivroman , p. 91.

13* William Aydelotte, "The Detective Story," in:

Deer and Harriet Deer, The Popular Arts : A Critical
(New York: Scribner's Sons), p. 144.

14. Aydelotte, "The Detective Story," in Deer and
Deer, The Popular Arts , p. 145.

15. Champigny, What Will Have Happened , p. 18.

16. Jochen Vogt, Der Kriminalroman, p. 14.

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102

17. Vladimir Propp , Morphology of the Folktale ,
trans. Laurence Scott (Austin and London: University of
Texas Press, 1977).

18. A structured program is one in which the number
of branching statements is minimized. The problem to be
solved is broken down into easily manageble sub-problems,
each of the solutions to the subproblems is a subroutine and
the main program consists almost entirely of subroutine
calls. See also Kenneth Bowles, Problem Solving Using PAS-
CAL , New York, Heidelberg, Berlin: Springer Verlag^ 1979, p.
539.

19.

Buchloh

and

Becker,

Der

Detektivroman,

15.

73.

20 .

Buchloh

and

Becker ,

Per

Detektivroman,

. 70-

75.

21 .

Buchloh

and

Becker,

Der

Detektivroman,

. 73-

77.

22 .

Buchloh

and

Becker,

Der

Detektivroman,

. 75-

79.

23.

Buchloh

and

Becker,

Der

Detektivroman,

. 77-

24.

Buchloh

and

Becker,

Der

Detektivroman,

P-

15.

25.

Buchloh

and

Becker ,

Der

Detektivroman,

P-

20 .

26.

Buchloh

and

Becker,

Der

Detektivroman,

P-

40.

27.

Buchloh

and

Becker ,

Der

Detektivroman,

P-

35.

28.

Buchloh

and

Becker,

Der

Detektivroman,

35.

29. Adventure, 1. 1191.

30. Adventure , 1. 1382.

31. Adventure , 11. 1352-1354.

32. Adventure , 1. 1174.

33. Adventure , 1. 1183.

34. Adventure , 1. 1176.

35. Adventure , 1. 1352.

36. Adventure, 11. 1364-1365.

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37. Walt Bilofsky, "Adventures in Computing," Pro¬
files, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1 983), pp. 24-25.

38. Adventure , 11. 1306-1307.

39. Adventure , 1. 1385.

40. Adventure , 11. 1243-44.

41. Champigny, What Will Have Happened , pp. 50-51.

42. Thomas Enright, "Choose Your Quest: There’s
More to Text Adventures than Fighting Dragons" in: Profiles:
The Magazine for Kaypro Users , Vol. 2, No. 1 (1 983) , p. 36.

43. Enright, "Choose Your Quest," pp. 42-43.

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A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF "ADVENTURE"

The following structural analysis of Adventure is
modelled on Vladimir Propp's approach to Russian folktales.^
Propp, who showed that all of the folktales he studied have
the same underlying structure, defined the elements and
functions that make up this basic structure and described
their relationships to each other. Proppian analyses are
appropriate for texts which emphasize strong, clear plots
over psychologically-oriented works with little or no
action. The literary aspects of Adventure , i.e. the narra¬
tive descriptions of the cave setting and figures in the
cave, lead readers to imagine what their actions would be in
the cave situations they encounter. In that sense, Adven¬
ture is action-oriented. There are many elements, func¬
tions, elemental and functional relationships, and moves
that Propp describes in simple folktales which form the
structural basis of Adventure as well.

First, Propp studied the tale according to the ways
in which the dramatis personae function, i.e. according to
the significance of the characters' actions in the course of
the fictional events.2 He determined that although there are
innumerable characters, the number of their functions is
very limited, and that this accounts for the dual quality of
the tale, i.e. "its amazing multiformity, picturesqueness,
and color, and on the other hand, its no less striking uni¬
formity, its repetition."3 At least on the surface, the

104

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105

way in which the figures whom the reader encounters in
Colossal Cave function corresponds to Propp’s categories
describing the folktale. While the number of functions and
variations known to the folktale are limited in number, the
functions in Adventure are also limited by the lack of
sophistication in their development. This is due in main
part to the Adventure characters’ lack of depth and symbolic
meaning as compared to the archetypal characters and dynam¬
ics of the folk- or fairy tale.

The main function-pair in Adventure is what Propp
calls "Lack" and "Lack Liquidated," which is also the culmi¬
nation of the narrative in folktales:

Villa. One member of a family either lacks some¬
thing or desires to have something.**

and

XIX. The initial misfortune or lack is liquidated. 5

Other Proppian categories to be found in Adventure are vil¬
lainy :

VIII. The villain causes harm or injury to a member

of a family®

departure:

XI. The hero leaves home?

XIV. The hero acquires the use of a magical agent.8

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struggle:

XVI. The hero and the villain join in direct com¬
bat ,9

victory:

XVIII. The villain is defeated 10
and return:

XX. The hero returns 11

I will also discuss several Proppian functions which appear
in the computer game only in a highly modified form.

Propp found that the sequence of functions in folk¬
tales never changed, which led him to number them as he did.
Although I will follow his numbering order in the following
breakdown of Adventure's functions, it must be kept in mind
that the sequence of events in interactive fiction is not
the same as in a fixed text. I will talk about both the
nature of the characters and the sequence.of functions in
more detail in the interpretation section of this chapter.

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Proppian Categories of Character Functions

VIII. The villain causes harm or injury to a member
of a family (A: Villainy) 12

Propp believed villainy to be the most important
function in the folktales he examined—more important even
than lack.^ This is not the case in Adventure . In my view,
the lack of true villainy constitutes one of the main struc¬
tural and ideational differences between folktales and
Adventure. Folktales are the artistic, action-based
representation of a specific form of idealistic folktale-
ethic 1 ^; Adventure does not deal directly with ethical prob¬
lems .

According to Webster, a villain is "a person guilty
of evil deeds...or a wicked character in a novel, play, etc.
who opposes the hero." 1 ^ j n folktales, the villain is the
symbolic representation of forces working to seemingly
hinder, but actually promoting, the hero's or heroines'
development. For the child, these forces are perceived as
"evil" impulses directed against it. 1 ^ propp defines several
forms of villainy that could be seen as being applicable to
Adventure, e.g. seizing the magical agent (A2), 1 ? plundering
(A5), 1 ® causing bodily harm (Ab), 1 ^ and committing murder
(A14). 20 In Adventure , however, the meaning and emotional
impact of these actions is so watered down that I don't
believe one can speak of villainy. The two types of figures
who oppose the hero, dwarves and the pirate, are not capable

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108

of ’•evil." They do things that hinder and threaten the
reader; they steal the reader’s treasure and even "kill" the
reader, although "death" is meaningless and not even always
permanent in the game. But since Adventure * s "villains" are
not representations of anything else, neither parental fig¬
ures nor psychological drives or impulses, their deeds are
destructive without being "wicked." The pirate and the
dwarves in Adventure are not artistically or psychologically
effective as villains because they are stick figures which
have nothing to do with ethics, "good" or "evil," or aspects
of personal devolvement.

The reason Propp considered villainy so important is
because it is the prime motivator of action in folktales.

Ke states "...the complication is begun by an act of vil¬
lainy. "21 This is not the case in Adventure . When the
reader begins the game and is standing on the road, nothing
has been done to him or her, nor does the reader lack or
suffer from anything. The reader plays the game and ini¬
tiates actions out of a desire for adventure, fun, and to
gain a sense of achievement and personal power, not to
resolve any difficulties. Later, when the pirate steals the
reader's treasure or the dwarves attack, it does not provide
one of the main complications of the story. They are just
two among many minor difficulties the reader encounters
along the way in the cave.

VIII.a One member of a family either lacks

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109

something or desires to have something, (a:
lack).22

In the opening scene, the reader is told that there
are treasures to be had in the nearby cave, but that there
will be great danger involved., in obtaining them. The reader
desires, but doesn't actually "lack" the treasures and goes
in search of them. In Propp’s terminology the protagonist
(the reader) is a seeker hero. This function is repeated
again and again in Adventure .

Although Propp does not list all the possible types
of objects the protagonists in folktales can lack or desire
because the list would be too long and because the objects
do not determine the structure,23 it is certainly possible
to determine what types of objects a reader can lack in
Adventure : magical agents (a2), wondrous objects (a3), the
treasures themselves (a5), and such rationalized forms as
the means of existence or money (a5).

The first puzzles in Adventure revolve around
obtaining the mundane objects needed to explore a cave, i.e.
the key to unlock the grate at the cave's entrance, a source
of light, food and water. Later on, the reader must continue
to keep track of supplies. There are a few more instances
when the reader lacks rationalized means of existence—in
order to obtain more batteries for the flashlight, for exam¬
ple, the reader must drop coins in a vending machine at the
end of a maze. Mostly, though, the objects lacking are from
the more imaginative categories: magical agents such as the

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110

wand, which creates a crystal bridge across the fissure;
wondrous objects, like the bird that kills the snake; and of
course the treasures in the cave, the precious Ming vase,
the silver, gold, diamonds, and so on.

XI. The hero leaves home. (Departure )^

While the reader does go away on his or her explora¬
tions at the beginning of Adventure , in no way does this
express the implications that the idea of "leaving home" in
folktales does. First, the reader's starting place is on a
road; the reader-protagonist is therefore already underway
when the story begins and doesn't depart from anything or
anyplace. But more importantly, to leave home means many
things in a folktale because "home" is not just a place, but
a multi-faceted symbol. When a hero or heroine leaves home
in a folktale, the story often deals on a deeper level with
the existential goal of achieving sexual, emotional, or
intellectual maturation. Multiplicity of meaning and sym¬
bolism are missing in Adventure , and the "departure" in
folktales, with all its emotional and symbolic content, can¬
not be equated with the reader's departure in the Adventure ,
which is simply the first move in a game.

The function in fairy tales defined by Propp as the
hero leaving home is therefore found in only a modified form
in Adventure . They are similiar in that the seeker-heroes in
both types of works have search as their goal, but besides
the dissimiliarities in meaning and effect that I mentioned

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above, there is also a major structural difference. Propp
observed that in folktales, the function of departure is
always followed by the appearance of what he calls a donor,
from whom the reader obtains some necessary (usually magi¬
cal) agent.25 There are many obstacles in the cave that can
only be overcome by some special agent, but the reader
acquires them one by one, by him or herself; they are not
given by a donor, who is — in folktales — a psychological
entity.

There is only one case which might fall into the
category of the reader's meeting a donor: a bear locked up
in a golden chain who can be helpful to the reader if it is
released. When the reader-explorer discovers Barren Room,
(s)he finds that there is a "ferocious cave bear eying you
from the far end of the room! The bear is locked to the wall
with a golden chain! "26 when the reader throws the bear
some food, it becomes calm and friendly, and if it is
released it follows the reader through the cave. Should the
reader meet up again with the troll who demands a treasure
before it will allow anyone across the toll bridge it
guards,27 the bear will drive it away and no toll will be
necessary.

However, even though the bear acts in a way that is
positive from the reader's point of view, I don't believe it
can be called a donor. If a story is not morally grounded,
just as there can be no real villainy, there can also be no
real donors. The most that can be said about the figures in

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112

Adventure is that they function in a mechanically destruc¬
tive way toward the reader-protagonist. There are no fig¬
ures in Adventure who have, or are capable of, any particu¬
lar goodwill towards the reader-protagonist.

XIV. The hero acquires the use of a magical agent.

(F: provision or receipt of a magical agent.)28

In Adventure , the reader must obtain and figure out
how to use many objects that work in magical or wondrous
ways in the cave. Propp lists nine forms by which magical
agents can be transferred in folktales, but although there
are many magical objects in Adventure , there are only three
forms of transfer in the game.

FI. The agent is directly transferred.29 According
to Propp, this form often takes on the character of a reward
or gift given by someone. Although there are no other char¬
acters in Adventure to give the reader any presents, some¬
times the reader overcomes obstacles to obtain the magical
object, and the idea of it being a reward is implicit in the
act of winning it.

F5. The agent falls into the hands of the hero by
chance (is found by him) .30 This is by far the most common
way the reader obtains the wondrous objects in Adventure .

In most cases, the reader more or less stumbles across the
magical or wondrous agents as (s)he explores the cave.

F8. The agent is seized.31 There are two examples of
this form of agent transfer in Adventure. The reader can

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113

find the treasure that the pirate has stolen in the maze,
and when the bear chases the troll away, the troll drops the
treasures that have been tossed to it, which the reader can
then claim as his or her own.

XVI. The hero and the villain join in direct combat.

(H: struggle)32

This function, too, has considerably more importance
in the folktale than in Adventure . As I have already
pointed out, at random intervals in the game the reader is
forced to fight the attacking dwarves, but this struggle has
no ethical or symbolic implications for the story. In folk¬
tales, the villains are usually closely connected with the
the underlying function of the story: either they have
caused the initial misfortune (VIII. villainy), or they
prevent the hero from obtaining the person or object needed
(Villa, lack). The dwarves in Adventure do not guard any¬
thing, nor do they want to prevent the protagonist from get¬
ting any magic object or treasure. They serve as a means of
testing the reader, but the question is only whether the
reader picked up the axe when (s)he last saw it, or if the
reader knows the cave well enough to escape the dwarf by
fleeing to one of the places where they can use a magic word
to get back into the safety of the building.

XVIII. The villain is defeated (I: victory)33

If the reader does possess the axe when a dwarf

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attacks, it is possible to "kill" the creature. Its body
will then "vanish up in a cloud of greasy, black smoke."3 1 *
The reader doesn't actually have much control over the
struggle; it is not depicted in detail and it doesn't appear
to depend on any observable skill. The only thing the
reader can command that the narrator understands is "throw
axe." It doesn't understand "kill dwarf," or "run away" or
"hide." Since the dwarves are just a random game factor and
the outcomes of struggles with them basically outside of the
reader’s control, the functions that are connected with them
(struggle and victory) are not ethically meaningful for the
action in Adventure as they are in folktales.

XIX. The initial misfortune or lack is liquidated

(K: lack liquidated)35

For the Adventure reader, every time (s)he experi¬
ences the sense of missing something, be it a treasure or
some object necessary to continue, the main game function
pair of "lack-lack liquidation" is activated. The reader's
feeling of lacking something is relieved when (s)he obtains
the missing object. Propp describes eleven different ways
this happens in folktales; in Adventure there are five:

K1. The object of a search is seized by the use of
force or cleverness36 This is the usual way in Adventure of
obtaining the treasures, for each treasure is protected by a
puzzle of some sort. For example, even if the reader finds
the precious Ming Vase,37 because the narrator only

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understands the word "drop," and not "place" or "put," there
is no way to place it on ground without breaking it. The
reader must figure out that the velvet pillow (s)he found
earlier is meant to "cushion" the fall of the vase. 38
reader must first drop the velvet pillow, and only then drop
the vase on it.

K4. The object of a quest is obtained as the direct
result of preceding actions.39 Adventure , these "preced¬
ing actions" can be understood as the reader's accomplish¬
ment in exploring the cave and finding the objects.

K6. The object is obtained instantly through the use
of a magical agent.^0 When the reader waves the rod at the
impassable fissure, for instance, a crystal bridge appears.

K7. The object of search is caught. 1,1 There is only
one example of this in Adventure . The reader must catch the
bird to kill the snake.

K10. A captive is freed.**3 Again, this takes place
only once in the game. If the reader feeds the bear and
releases it, the reader can take its golden chain as treas¬
ure,^ 1 * and the bear will frighten away the troll.

XX. The hero returns ( return)

This takes place in Adventure whenever the reader
return? to the building on the surface and drops the accumu¬
lated treasure. This can be accomplished by retracing one's
path, or by knowing which caverns in the cave have magic
words associated with them. If the reader knows the correct

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magic word for the particular cavern, (s)he will be tran¬
sported instantaneosly back into the building.

Non - Proppian Character Functions in Adventure

There are several functions and story outcomes in
Adventure that Propp did not describe in folktales. I have
called them death, reincarnation, losing, and quitting. So
as not to confuse the Proppian designations by alphabetical
characters with my own, I have doubled the characters used
to designate functions peculiar to Adventure , i.e. XX, YY,
ZZ, and QQ.

(XX: death) The hero(ine) dies.^7

Fairy tales usually end with the successful achieve¬
ment of the goal by the protagonist,^ but it is in the very
nature of games that the outcome must be unpredictable. In
folktales, when the protagonist and villain join in direct
combat, the hero wins. This is not necessarily the case in
Adventure ; here the hero(ine) can be defeated in combat with
the dwarf and be killed,^9 fall into a pit and break every
bone,50, or be buried in a river of molten lava,51 to men¬
tion a few of the possibilities for death. When the Adven¬
ture reader ’•dies," one of two things result: either the
hero(ine) loses the game, or (s)he is reincarnated. Again,
there are no categories defined by Propp which describe
these possibilites.

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117

(YY: reincarnation) The hero(ine) is reincarnated.

Whenever the reader gets killed, the narrator asks
if it should attempt reincarnation.52 ^he reader agrees
and the reincarnation is successful, the reader will find
him or herself back in the building. There is no guarantee,
however, that the reader will still possess the lamp. If
the reader was "killed" and reincarnated in a magic room in
the cave, i.e. a room where the reader need only say the
magic word to be magically transported to the building and
back again, 53 it is possible for the reader return there and
pick up the lamp where it was dropped. The game can be con¬
tinued. However, if this procedure is not possible, the
reader loses the game—either by being forced to quit, or by
stumbling in the dark into a pit.

(ZZ: losing) The hero(ine) loses the game.

One loses Adventure by dying without being reincar¬
nated, or by using too many moves without gaining any treas¬
ure or going anyplace. The narrator then states:

N: Now you’ve really done it! I'm out of orange

smoke. You don't expect me to do a decent rein¬
carnation without orange smoke, do you?

P: yes

N: Okay, if you're so smart, do it yourself! I'm

leaving!5*

(At this point, the game is over and the reader's

score and ranking are displayed.)

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(QQ: quitting) The hero(ine) quits the game.

This can happen at any time and can either be com¬
pletely voluntary on the reader’s part, or happen under
duress. For example, if a reader has lost the lamp, it is
certain that (s)he will fall into a pit and die within a few
moves. Rather than die and lose the game, most people will
quit voluntarily. The narrator asks if the reader really
wants to quit, and if the answer is "yes” the player’s score
and ranking are displayed.

Other Elements Described by Propp

Propp also talks about some other story elements
besides the character functions that are very important in
the folktale. One of these other elements, which Propp calls
notification,55 also plays a role in the development of
action in the computer game. In Russian folktales, when the
individual functions in a sequence of functions are per¬
formed by different characters, each character must find out
in some way what has happened previously. This element of
notifying the characters often serves as the logical bridge
between functions. Propp writes ”... an entire system for
the conveying of information has been developed in the tale,
sometimes in very artistically striking forms.”56

There are many cases of notification in Adventure ,
but unlike the communications in folktales, the messages in
Adventure are usually not transmitted through any

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characters. They appear in rather unlikely shapes and
places, either as a voice apparently corning from nowhere, or
written on tablets in the wall, or even as signs or instruc¬
tions. For example,

At "y2": A hollow voice says "plugh."57

At the end of the maze the reader is informed:

There is a message scrawled in the dust in a flowery
script, reading: "This is not the maze where the
pirate leaves his treasure chest."58

Or again:

There is a massive vending machine here. The
instructions on it read: "Drop coins here to receive
fresh batteries."59

In both Adventure and folktales, notifications are
used to provide the information necessary to connect various
functions, but in Adventure , they also are needed as hints
to the reader. If the writer-programmer had not provided
them, the reader would not have nor be able to get the
information (s)he needs to figure out the solution to the
puzzle in question.

The Sequence of Functions in Adventure

Propp discovered that the sequence of the functions
in folktales is stable. But a computer story game is dif¬
ferent from oral or written fairy tales. It is a printed

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text, but it is neither a fixed text nor is it read in a
linear fashion, i.e. from beginning to end. Although the
internal, programmed structure of Adventure is similiar to
that of the folktales described by Propp, it is left to to
the reader to determine which fictional events will take
place, their order, and thereby the actual sequence of the
functions.

Each trip through the cave with its accompanying
story in the reader’s mind can be different if the reader
wishes it. (S)he can choose where to go in the cave as well
as which objects to carry. If a reader cannot figure out
how to solve the puzzle connected with a particular treas¬
ure, (s)he will not be able to obtain it. The reader can
also choose not to pick up any treasures or solve any puzz¬
les, but simply explore the cave.

The reader, then, has some choice about which func¬
tions his or her journey will contain. If, for example, the
reader plays the game with the sole intention of exploring
the cave, but not in obtaining any treasures, there is nei¬
ther lack, nor lack liquidated. According to Propp, most
folktales are motivated either by lack or by misfortune. In
this respect, Adventure would not be structurally related to
folktales. In some sense, the individual readers determine
the structure and nature of each journey of the imagination
taken in Adventure.

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121

Is " Adventure " an Undeveloped Form of the Folktale ?

The structure of Adventure is to some degree related
to that of the folktale, yet there is a significant struc¬
tural difference between the two: despite the constant
action, Adventure has no plot. The opening lines of the
game let the reader know there are treasures in Colossal
Cave, but most of the readers I interviewed said they were
impelled by curiosity and challenge, not by a need to win
points, i.e. not by a "lack" of points. Generally, the only
time readers feel they lack something is when they are try¬
ing to solve a puzzle and know they are missing some
necesary object.

With neither "villainy" nor "lack," nor even a true
"departure" to set the tale in motion, there is no beginning
as there is in folktales. There are three main areas for
the reader to explore: the ground above the cave, the main
cave, and the wizard’s cave, but other than this, there is
little suprastructure. Because there is no real departure
for the reader, the only focal point of reference in Adven¬
ture is simply a place, the building where the reader can
drop and save any acquired treasures, and not a state of
being or stage of development. Without a beginning, there
can be no progression and no end. Adventure consists of a
series of the same moves Propp found in the folktale, but
there is no story development, which is one of the main
characteristics of the folktale.

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122

The lack of a beginning and an end, or in Proppian
structural terms an encompassing "function set," is also the
reason Adventure cannot be considered a quest or a romance.
Patricia Parker describes the main characteristic of
romances as "a form which simultaneously quests for and
postpones a particular end, objective, or object..."6°

There are also superficial similarities between the
dramatis personae and abstract style of folktales and those
of Adventure . In both types of work we are told very little
about the characters ; at the most one or two things that
characterize them. We only know what they do. "Die Per-
sonen weisen sich nur durch ihre Handlungsweise aus, wobei
jede auf eine Oder hoechstens zwei Eigenschaften festgelegt
wird."6l Th e abstract style of fairy tales is a result,
according to Luethi, of the precision in the story develop¬
ment, the one-dimensionality of the fictional world, and the

flatness of characterizations.^2

The difference between Adventure and fairy tales
does not lie in the structure, style, or in the subject
matter, but rather in the ultimate goal these technical
aspects of storytelling serve: the meaning to be imparted.
Even as children, most of us knew that fairy tales have a
message. They deal with their own definitions of right and
wrong, good and evil, ugliness and beauty. As Jolles puts
it, fairy tales have to do with an action-based ethic or a
naive morality ("die Ethik des Geschehens Oder die naive
Moral).63 Folktales are perhaps the most refined archetypal

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123

literary form of sublimation.

The symbolic style, typical characters, and strait-
forward plot are archetypal; they can stand for many dif¬
ferent people or types of people, personality qualities,
roles, common human experiences, and personal relationships.
Bruno Bettelheim writes: "It is characteristic of fairy
tales to state an existential dilemma briefly and pointedly
... The fairy tale simplifies all situations. Its figures
are clearly drawn, and details, unless very important, are
eliminated. All characters are typical rather than
unique."6^ Luethi emphasizes the sublimation in folktales
of hatred, love, helpfulness and cruelty, self-sacrifice and
elimination; all the elements of human existence. He sums
up: "Im Maerchen sublimiert sich die Welt."65

The underlying source of the narrative weaknesses in
Adventure is its lack of meaning. The characters the reader
encounters in the fictional underworld have no significance
other than to pose a puzzle for the reader. While the char¬
acters in folktales are archetypes and abstractions of human
emotion, consciousness and unconsciousness, the figures in
Adventure are signs which replace the folktale's universal
symbols. Some of the fragmentary functions in Adventure can
be traced back to this. For example, in a folktale, a dwarf
might personify some archetypal, unconscious human experi¬
ence. If one of these symbolic characters opposed the hero
(villainy), the hero would remedy the situation by defeating
the villain (victory), usually by the same means the villain

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124

used in the first place. But when the pirate steals the
reader's treasure in Adventure , the reader regains it by
finding it.66 The triumph and revenge aspect is missing
entirely. The reader has little emotional involvement with
the characters because they, in turn, do not represent any
emotional or spiritual facets of human existence. As far as
the reader is concerned, they are positive or negative fig¬
ures, not folktale-like characters who represent some par¬
ticular force in the psychological struggle for personal
evolvement.

The main function pair of a folktale (villainy/vic¬
tory or lack/lack liquidated) is the structure through which
some type of personal or emotional development can be
expressed. The development that takes place on the surface
of folktales, and rendered through the fictional events, is
representative of some type of symbolic development, usually
from a state of lacking something or having been victimized
to a state of having what was formerly missing or having
"justice" carried out. There is movement from one state to
another, better state. As Bettelheim remarks: "...fairy
stories represent in imaginative form what the process of
healthy human development consists of..."67 Although Adven¬
ture shares many of the same structures it cannot be classi-

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125

fied as a folktale. What Underlying Set of Conventions Do
the Structural Elements Support ?

In Adventure , the structural elements and character
functions Propp described in folktales are the narrative
representation of the IF-THEN statements in the computer
program. Instead of depicting the dynamics of personal
struggle and growth, as in the folktale, each structural
pair provides either the clue or a reward to a particular
puzzle. The individual characters, situations, and choices
are not based on any unifying idea or system of "rules"
about good and evil, nor do the treasures symbolize emo¬
tional values or the rewards to be gained through personal
development.

In folktales, for example, it is common for the pro¬
tagonist to spare an animal (s)he meets and be rewarded when
the animal helps the protagonist out of gratitude. One
psychological interpretation for this could be that the
animal symbolizes some instinctive force of one's personal¬
ity or a emotional drives. By befriending the beast, i.e.
viewing these initially frightening or rejected parts of
one's personality not as enemies to be repressed or maimed,
the drive can prove itself to be a useful and positive force
in one's life. In Adventure , the only question the reader
must ask him or herself is whether a creature is threatening
or not. If it seems frightening, the reader must overcome
it or appease it in some way, yet even in the case of an
ugly, threatening figure, it is not clear whether there is

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126

any criteria for distinguishing between an animal to be
killed or one the reader should appease. Even when the
creature is not harrassing the reader, sometimes it must be
killed, as in the case, for- example, of the sleeping dragon.
Instead of depicting the dynamics of personal struggle and
growth, each structural pair provides either the clue or a
reward to a particular puzzle, and the ethical basis of the
clues is not consistent.

However, only one of the readers I have interviewed
said he knew the game was not morally grounded when he first
started playing Adventure . He is the only one who played
Adventure strictly as a game. All others assumed it had a
conventional moral basis, because reading Adventure is so
similar to reading other stories. In general, readers con¬
sidered the ethical implications of their actions much more
in their opening attempts at playing than in their later
attempts. For example, they were much less likely to "kill
first, ask questions later," i.e. try other, non-violent
solutions. The more they played, though, the more they
treated the creatures as stick figures without an ethical,
moral relationshp to the player.

When a reader starts playing Adventure (s)he must
make sense out of the surroundings. Part of this is figur¬
ing out his or her own relationship to the entities and
objects (s)he encounters. (S)he interprets events and makes
choices constantly, and in order to do so, creates a fantasy
about what the game means. Each time (s)he encounters a new

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127

puzzle, it is like an experiment providing another opportun¬
ity to confirm, reject, or revise the interpretation. Read¬
ing a detective story is a somewhat similar process, except
that readers only know whether their interpretation of the
literal events was correct at the end of the book, instead
of step by step, and they can never be sure if they have
correctly interpreted the deeper meanings.

With interactive fiction, at least readers have
objective criteria for judging whether their interpretation
is not incorrect, even if they don’t always change their
interpretation if it is proven to be incorrect. I have used
the phrase "not incorrect" as something different than
"correct." A reader can give the correct answer to a prob¬
lem, but the logic and fantasy behind their conclusion can
be all wrong. For example, one reader interpreted her adven¬
ture as entering a cave which all the creatures inhabited
and she was an intruder. It was her duty not to disturb the
creatures if possible. She therefore assumed that the pur¬
pose of the wicker cage was to catch and cage any cave
creature she didn't want to kill outright, a hypothesis
which seemed to be confirmed for her when she could cage the
bird without killing it. Based on this assumption, she
later tried to cage the snake and the dwarf, as well.

Although there is no moral basis to the prompt text
or to the solution of the narrative puzzles themselves,
there is a principle of action the reader practices in the
process of reading that can be useful when carried over into

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128

the real world, i.e. reality testing. While playing Adven¬
ture, readers test their interpretation of the story and
events many times over. If they can’t solve a puzzle (which
is the state people are in much of the time they are play¬
ing) , they must face the fact that they don't have enough
information, that they overlooked or misjudged the informa¬
tion they do have, or that their general view of the story
might be wrong. Again and again they must consciously review
precisely what they think, why they think it, and search for
alternative ways to interpret the situation. Therefore,
even as readers are totally involved and making choices,
they must maintain a critical attitude toward themselves and
the fictional situations they confront. This contradicts
the ethics of events in folktales.

The same character functions that serve to
"represent in imaginative form what the process of healthy
human development consists of" in fairy tales can also be
used in the conflict presentation/solution process in
interactive fiction which can lead to an examination of
one's own attitude toward problems in life. The case of the
woman who tried to cage every creature she met in Adventure,
including the dwarf throwing axes and knives at her is an
example. After it became apparent that she would try nego¬
tiating with the animals, avoiding them, appeasing them,
feeding them — anything but kill them, even when they were
attacking her -- she and her playing partner had a philo¬
sophical argument as to the validity of her attitude. He

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129

insisted that she throw the axe at the dwarf, and she
insisted variously that "there is good in every creature,"
"do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and "of
course it's justified in trying to kill us, we’re enfringing
on its territory." The dwarf then killed them, they were
reincarnated, attacked by the dwarf again, she tried a few
more non-violent tactics and was killed a second time. At
this point she observed that she guessed the same thing hap¬
pens to her in real life. She always tries to see only the
good in people and then they dump on her. Whether she will
draw any real-life consequences from this observation is
another question, but she did modify her game-strategy. She
refused to drop either the axe or the cage, but she did kill
dwarves on sight. She no longer tried talking to them or
caging them first. There is, then an underlying set of con¬
ventions in Adventure that is analogous in some sense to the
moral underpinings of folktales, but it is the process of
decision- making based on self examination and motive
analysis the reader undergoes while solving problems, not
the depicted actions and events in the story.

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FOOTNOTES: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF "ADVENTURE"

1. Vladimir Propp, T he Morphology of the Folktale,
trans., Laurence Scott (Austin and London: University of
Texas Press, 1977).

2. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale, pp. 20-

21 .

3. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 21.

4. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale, p. 35-36,

53-55. -

5. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 53.

6. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 30.

7. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 39.

8. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 43.

9. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 51.

10. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 53.

11. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 55.

12. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 30.

13. The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 30.

14. For an overview of definitions of the folktale
genre, see: Max Lathi, Marchen , Sammllung Metzler Vol. 16
(Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1974),
pp. 1-4.

15. Webster * s New World Dictionary of the American
Language , David B. Guralnik, ed., Concise Edition (Cleveland
and flew York: The World Publishing Co., 1964), p. 828.

16. Max Lathi, Marchen , p. 31.

17. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 31.

18. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 31.

19. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 33.

20. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 33.

21. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 31.

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131

22.

Propp , The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

P. 35.

23.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 36.

24.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 39.

25.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

P. 39.

26.

Adventure,

11. 1259, 1312.

27-

Adventure,

11. 1588-1589-

28.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 43.

29.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 44.

30.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 44.

31.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

F olktale,

p. 45.

32.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 51.

33.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 53.

34.

Adventure,

1. 1566-1167.

35.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

F olktale,

p. 53.

36.

Propp, The

Morphology of

the

Folktale,

p. 53

37. Adventure , 11. 173-175; 1295.

38. Adventure , 11. 171-172; 1189.

39. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 54.

40. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 54.

41. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 54.

42. Adventure , 11. 1183-1184.

43. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 55.

44. Adventure , 11. 1312-1313-

45. Adventure , 11. 1588-1589.

46. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale, p. 55.

47. Adventure , 1. 1451.

48. Theresa Poser, Das Volksmaerchen: Theorie,

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132

Analyse , Didaktik (Muenchen: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1980),
pp. lS-19.

49. Adventure , 11. 1335; 1532-1534.

50. Adve nture , 1. 1356.

51. Adventure , 11. 1527-1529.

52. Adventure , 11. 1451-1457; 1458-1461; 1462-1464.

53* "Plugh," or "xyzzy," for example.

54. Adventure , 11. 1462-1464.

55. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale, pp. 71-
73.

56. Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale , p. 70.

57. Adventure , 11. 323; 1336.

58. Adventure , 11. 1264-1265.

59. Adventure , 11. 1269-1270.

60. Patricia Parker, Inescapable Romance : Studies
in the Poetics of a Mode , (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1979), p. 4.

61. Poser, Das Volksmaerchen: Theorie, Analyse,
Didaktik , p. 16.

62. Lathi, Maerchen , pp. 32-34; and Lathi, Es war
einmal .♦.: Vom Wesen des Volksmaerchens, (Gottingen: Van-
denhoeck and Ruprecht, 1968 ), pp. 31-41.

63 . Andre Jolles, Einfache Formen: Legende, Sage,
Mythe , Ratsel , Spruch , Kasus , Nlemorabile , Marchen , Witz
(Tabingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag“ 1965), p. 240.

64. Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment : The
Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales , (New York: Vintage
Books, 1 977), p. 5T

65. Max Luethi, So leben sie noch heute : Betrach-
tungen zum Volksmaerchen TGoettingen: Vandenhoeck and
Ruprecht, 1976), pp. 33.

66. Adventure , 1. 1287.

67. Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, p. 12.

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POINT OF VIEW IN ADVENTURE

For most readers, the way Adventure is narrated, the
way the story is transmitted seems to be something com¬
pletely new. In Adventure, the reader has become one of the
characters, even the protagonist. Not only is the story
about what happens to the reader, the reader is the one who
makes the story happen, not the one who is- the ultimate
recipient of the story. In traditional literature the
reader acquires the story, he or she actively takes in the
story and identifies with the characters, but certainly
doesn't take any part in creating it. Also, the reader of
literary prose fiction is not the one responsible in the
text for criticizing the action or the characters.

Letting the story tell itself through character-
narrators is a modern development. As Joseph Warren Beach
observes, one of the techniques Henry James used is the fol¬
lowing :

"...the story tells itself; the story speaks for
itself. The author does not apologize for his char¬
acters; he does not even tell us what they do but
has them tell us, themselves. Above all, he has
them tell us what they think, what they feel, what
impressions beat in on their minds from the situa¬
tions in which they find themselves^

Especially during the Victorian period, narrating the story
was the task of the author, who interpolated events in the
story with his or her own comments. The following examples
are intended to illustrate such authorial interference. They

133

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134

are taken from Charles Dickens's Hard Times .2 The narrator
makes his point by rendering a scene from the M'Choakumchild
school, mostly through quoting the characters' conversations
with each other.

"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman [the
schoomaster, Mr. M’Choakumchild], smiling in the
calm strength of knowledge.

Sissy blushed, and stood up.

"So you would carpet your room — or your husband's
room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband
— with representations of flowers, would you," said
the gentleman. 'Why would you?'

"If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,"
returned the girl.

"And is that why you would put tables and chairs
upon them, and have people walking over them with
heavy boots?"

"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush
and wither if you please, sir. They would be the
pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I
would fancy —" "Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't
fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming
so happily to his point. "That's it! You are never
to fancy."

"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind
solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind."
"Fact, fact, fact!" said the gentleman. And "Fact,
fact, fact!" repeated Thomas Gradgrind.

"You are to be in all things regulated and
governed," said the gentleman, "by fact. We hope to
have, before long, a board of fact, a people of
fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the
word Fancy altogether ."3

This type of dialogue is not naturalistic and seems quite
heavyhanded to us. The story is not being told through the
eyes of the characters, but rather, the author speaks his
ideas through their mouths.

In the first sentence of the next example, the nar¬
rator is still describing the events from a certain dis¬
tance, although he does express his feelings in the somewhat

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sarcastic remark within the parentheses. But by the second
sentence, the narrator switches the point of view and openly
gives vent to his own interpretation:

He knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the
world (whatever they are), and all the histories of
all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers
and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and
customs of all the countries, and all their boun¬
daries and bearings on the two and thirty points of
the compass. Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild.

If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely
better he might have taught much more! 1 *

A later development in narrative technique was to
present this information directly. The story was told not
only in the words of the characters, but as if seen through

their eyes. The author depicted the events in such a way

that the reader would be given enough details to "intui¬
tively" be able to judge it and understand the atmosphere

for him or herself. The next example is taken from Lolita ,

by Nabokov. The narrator-protagonist, Humbert Humbert,
meets Lolita again after he has lost her for several years.
As readers, we feel as if we are looking at her through
Humbert's eyes, feeling and thinking Humbert's thoughts, as
if we are inside Humbert's mind:

Couple of inches taller. Pink-rimmed glasses. New,
heaped-up hairdo, new ears. How simple! The
moment, the death I had kept conjuring up for three
years was as simple as a bit of dry wood. She was
frankly and hugely pregnant. Her head looked
smaller (only two seconds had passed really, but let
me give them a much wooden duration as life can
stand), and her pale-freckled cheeks were hollowed,
and her bare shins and arms had lost all their tan,

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136

so that the little hairs showed. 5

In interactive fiction, the story is no longer dep¬
icted through the eyes of one of the characters; indeed,
some of the story events are not depicted at all! In
interactive fiction, there is a gap in the story: the narra¬
tor only describes the scene around the reader-protagonist,
and the reader must decide what to make the story do next.
The reader takes over some important functions of the narra¬
tor in traditional literature.

There are a few cases in Adventure in which the nar¬
rator actually does comment on the action, but this is
always a matter of humor. In these cases the narrator seems
to mock the reader's choice. The humor is based on the
reader's uncertainty concerning the narrator's role, and
derives from the discrepancy between the reader's emotional
impression that the narrator knows what the reader is doing
as if it were a human, and the reader's intellectual
knowledge that the narrator is just a set of computer
prompts. The programmer/writer predicted the readers'
responses far in advance and programmed the computer's
responses accordingly. The reader has been out-foxed by the
programmer, not by the narrator. For example, if the reader
types in various commands that seem obvious to humans but
which the computer does not understand, the narrator seems
stupid. When the reader then types in something (s)he
assumes the computer won't understand (such as an obscenity

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or "get lost!"), but it responds as if it does (for example,
"Watch it!" or "I’m as confused as you!"^), the effect can
be startling and funny.

For most readers the way Adventure is narrated, i.e.
the way the story is transmitted is quite novel. Only part
of the story is narrated, i.e. the situation and presenta¬
tion of the conflict; the reader is responsible for making
up the resolutions to the conflicts and for deciding where
to go in the cave. Until the computer, it has been impossi¬
ble for the reader to have influence on a written text and
be directly involved in changing a story. In interactive
fiction, the interaction of the reader with the story
through the narrator is admittedly somewhat primitive, but
it is now possible; it does take place, whereas in printed
literature it does not and cannot. Because there is no dep¬
icted protagonist, because the narrator does not actually
render many of the main events and processes that lead to
events in the story, and because the narrator serves in a
completely different capacity from the narrators in "regu¬
lar" literature, the point of view in Adventure is unlike
any of the commonly recognized categories. It is one of the
main things that differentiate interactive fiction from
fixed-text fiction. In interactive fiction, both the narra¬
tor and the reader h: - e new roles, and the historical trend
towards having the story tell itself has been carried one
step further.

In the next section, I will discuss this new way of

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138

presenting the story. First, I will give a short review of
the concept of point of view, its historical development in
fiction, and some of the ways that literary critics have
dealt with it. Then I will analyse the point of view in
Adventure and compare it to established catagories. I
attempt to define some of the parts and the relationships in
the point of view of Adventure by following Norman
Friedman's strategy for defining point of view,7 and answer¬
ing some of the questions he posed about the narrator and
the "adequate transmission of his story to the reader."8

Point of View and " Adventure "

When we talk about literature, "point of view" can
refer to such varied aspects of the author's relationship to
the story as the intellectual, or moral, or emotional orien¬
tation he or she expresses in the literary work. The most
important meaning of point of view, however, has come to be
that of "focus of narration," or the angle from which the
story has been written.9 This includes what Henry James
called the "central intelligence"^ governing the story—the
person from which the story is told (such as first or third
person) , whether the central intelligence is conscious of
itself or not, and whether it has an active role in the
story. Point of view also refers to the distance the narra¬
tor has from the characters in the story, the author and the
reader, as well as to the way the story has been told, in

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139

this case, the main distinctions are scene and summary.

From the works of the ancient Greeks to modern fic¬
tion, a trend towards the disappearance of the author can be
traced, both in the use of scene and summary, as well as in
the various types of distance an author can achieve through
the choice made among different types of narrators.^ This
trend toward authorial extinction is carried one step
further in interactive fiction such as Adventure . Aristotle
differentiated between "imitation" and "simple narration." 1 2
If an author tried to speak through one of the characters,
and assumed the language, thoughts and mannerisms of the
character in order to tell the story, the author was telling
the story directly, through the artistic device of imita¬
tion. Therefore, he considered the use of direct speech and
dialog to be the purest forms of imitation. Passages of
text written in indirect speech, in which the author was the
one who told about the events of the story, he called "sim¬
ple narration."

Through the Victorian period, the author did not
disguise his or her comments; the author was part of the
text: "...the trade mark of the Victorian novel is the

presence of the author, ever poised to intrude a comment, to
interpret the characters, or to write an essay on cabbages
and kings."13 it was at the turn of the twentieth century
that the relation between the author, the narrator and the
story subject became one of the predominant topics for crit¬
ical evaluation. Henry James was obsessed with eliminating

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himself from the text. He believed that if a story could be
told from the point of view of the consciousness of one of
the characters in the story, the the story would gain in
-vividness, immediacy, and impact on the reader. Similarly,
Percy Lubbock believed that artistic truth meant creating a
compelling illusion of reality, and that the presence of the
author in a story threw up an obstacle to this illusion:

The art of fiction does not begin until the novelist
thinks of his story as a matter to be shown, to be
so exhibited that it will tell itself. 11 *

Mark Schorer discussed another advantage in restricting the
point of view to that of the characters instead of the
author—"thematic definition." "*5 in his opinion, by elim¬
inating the author's voice from the story, he or she can
achieve a better, more believable artistic definition of' the
values.

J_) Who talks to the reader ?

For the computer programmer/writer, the narrator in
interactive fiction is simply a standard "oriented prompt,"
a message embedded in the program to the user that is
displayed on the screen or typed out on the printer. To
make the game Adventure more interesting, the programmers
used one of the basic techniques of art: they gave the ideas
and information contained in the prompts a shape. The
prompts became part of a vaguely described entity endowed

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141

with some human-like characteristics and abilities. The
authors don't speak to the game players directly — they
speak to them through this fictional being.

Whenever the reader begins the story-game from anew,
(s)he is asked if they would like instructions. Included in
these directions is the narrator's definition of itself,
with a hint to the reader about the limitations of its
understanding, its abilities and its role in the story/game.

I will be your eyes and hands. Direct me with com¬
mands of 1 or 2 words. I should warn you that I
look at only the first five letters of each word...I
know of places, actions, and things. ...Usually peo¬
ple trying unsuccessfully to manipulate an object
are attempting something beyond their (or my!) capa¬
bilities and should try a completely different

tack. 1 ^

The reader's only connection with the Adventure
story is through the narrator, yet each reader makes up his
or her own mental image of who the narrator is. Although it
speaks in the first person singular and functions as if it
takes part in the story, it is not described as a character,
or even as an independent being with a shape or personality.
It defines itself in the introduction as an extension of the
reader. It is described in terms of its role in the story-
-as the visual connection to the events in the tale (''I will
be your eyes"), and as the reader's tool for manipulating
the events and making things happen ("I will be your
hands"). But the narrator/guide connects the reader to the
story in ways that have not been explicitly stated when it

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142

was described in the introduction. The narrator not only
functions as "hands and eyes," it expresses what on the sur¬
face appears to be emotion, has the rudiments of a personal¬
ity, some very limited type of intelligence, and a voice.

For the first time in printed literature, in other words,
the narrator can not only speak to, but speak with the
reader. As a result, different readers have very different
impressions about who it is telling the story. Let me give
some examples of the attributes I just mentioned. The first
example shows the level of "conversation" the reader and
narrator carry on.

Example 2 :

N: Welcome to adventure!! Would you like instruc¬

tions?

P: no

N: You are standing at the end of a road before a

small brick buliding. Around you is a forest.

A small stream flows out of the building and
down a gully.

P: enter building 1 ?

One can infer from the statement that follows (in
Example 2) that the narrator has some intelligence. Without
prompting by the reader, it has not only spotted and
analysed a problem, but extrapolated the possible future
results if the problem is not remedied.

Example 2 :

(The reader is in the cave but has not yet given the

command to turn on the flashlight.)

N: It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will

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likely fall into a pit.

The two following excerpts should make it clear how
readers can believe the narrator combines reasoning ability
with emotional attitudes. Since the basic tone of speech
expressed in such exchanges is fairly consistent, it is pos¬
sible to deduce that the narrator has some type of personal¬
ity :

Example 3:

You are in a long sloping
sharp walls.

corridor with

ragged

There is an enormous clam
tightly closed.

here with its

shell

take clam

go south

You can't fit this five-foot clam through that

little passage!19

In the final example it even appears as if the nar¬
rator is conscious of itself. It speaks as if it knows
itself and is insecure about some of its abilities:

Example 4:

P: throw axe (at attacking dwarf)

N: You attack a little dwarf, but he dodges out of

the way.

One sharp nasty knife is thrown at you!

It gets you!

Oh dear, you seem to have gotten yourself
killed. I might be able to help you out, but
I've never really done this before. Do you want
me to try to reincarnate you?

P: yes

N: All right. But don't blame me if something goes

wr.

—Poof! !--

You are engulfed in a cloud of orange smoke.
Coughing and gasping, you emerge from the smoke

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144

and find ....

You're inside building. 20

How do readers come to identify the narrator, since
it is barely identified for them and is so very different
from the narrators in printed literature with whom we are
most familiar? From my conversations with other Adventure
players, it seems that most readers' conception of the nar¬
rator is based on extrapolations of their experiences with
technology, computers, and science fiction.

First, we all have some concept of the need for a
mechanical intermediary to protect us in hostile environ¬
ments. For example, we know we cannot live deep under water
or in the upper atmosphere or outer space unless we use some
sort of protective suits or cabins; in such environments we
do not have direct access to our surroundings. In order to
manipulate, interact with and sometimes even perceive these
environments we use mechanical and electronic means, so the
idea of indirect interaction with an environment through
some non-human intermediary is not foreign to us. Also,
although the narrator is described only conceptually in
terms of its apperceptive and manipulative functions, most
Adventure readers know enough about similarly functioning
computer games and have been exposed to enough science fic¬
tion stories and movies to be able to fill in imaginary
details. They give the narrator-entity some sort of shape
in their minds.

Many readers consider the narrator in Adventure to

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145

be a cross between "HAL", the omniscient computer in
, "2001”,21 and ELIZA , 22 the computer program that simulates a
psychiatrist. The computer in ”2001” controls the space
ship, i.e. it is the intermediary environment housing and
protecting the humans from the environment of space. The
narrator in Adventure serves in an analogous capacity: the
reader cannot see or touch the Adventure world directly, and
the narrator serves as the means of connecting the reader
with the Adventure world, just as the computer-spaceship is
the means in "2001" by which the humans can navigate through
the "world" of outer space. The theme of humans’ dependence
on machines is common in sci-fi literature 2 3. the average
Adventure reader can draw on this background to help imagine
what the narrator in Adventure might be like.

The analogy with ELIZA is even more direct. ELIZA
is also just standard oriented prompts; yet people can talk
to "her" and "she" (it) will answer in an apparently mean¬
ingful way. The experience of communicating with such a
computer is analagous to talking on a telephone: just
because you can't see the other person doesn't mean he or
she is not there. Finally, there is a tendency in people to
interpret inanimate objects that have anthropomorphic
features as having feelings and to respond to the in the
same way they would to people.24 Some readers think about
the narrator in Adventure in some of the same ways they do
about people. They talk to it, they tell it to shut up,
they thank it when they get a treasure, etc.

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146

Who, then, talks to the reader in Adventure ? Who¬
ever the reader believes it to be.

In interviewing Adventure players I was struck by
the variety of their conceptions of the narrator's identity.
Some readers considered it to be simply computer prompts
indicating the current subroutine the computer was execut¬
ing: for them the narrator was the author's thoughts and
plans being executed and described. Some Dungeons and Dra¬
gons players considered the narrator to be the written
instruction of the "Dungeon Master," i.e. the author guiding
the game, while others told me they imagined they were talk¬
ing to themselves, because the narrator identified itself as
their own hands and eyes. Expanding on the idea of the nar¬
rator as the author's plan, other readers interpreted the
prompts as the game presenting itself to them or as "the God
of the Adventure world." They apparently meant a god who was
similar to the the "Clockwork God" of the 18th century; i.e.
as the laws of nature. Another interpretation was of the
narrator as an imaginary or electronic character. Of the
readers who viewed the narrator as a character in the story,
some thought of it as a computer like the one in "2001," who
controls the surrounding environment; others as an invisible
stand-alone computer like R2-D2 of Star Wars, 25 accompanying
them through a foreign world. Those who endowed it with
varying degrees of feelings and personality considered it to
be an android, like R2-D2's companion, 3-CPO.

Much of the story, we can see, takes part in the

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reader's head. Whether the the narrator should be considered
the author's voice, their own mind's voice, the game itself,
or some type of character — a witness, a participant, one
of the protagonists, or an antagonist — depends in the end
on the reader.

2 ) From what position regarding the story does the narrator
tell it?

As Nick in The Great Gatsby , 26 the narrator in
Adventure is a character who both observes events and takes
part in them. Acting as the reader's eyes, it perceives and
describes the cave and the reader's position in it:

You are in a debris room filled with stuff washed in
from the surface. A low wide passage with cobbles
becomes plugged with mud and debris here, but an
awkward canyon leads upward and west. A note on the
wall says "magic word xyzzy".27

You are in a splendid chamber thirty feet high.

The walls are frozen rivers of orange stone. An
awkward canyon and a good passage exit from east and
west sides of the chamber.^8

Yet, unlike Nick, the narrator in Adventure is
always immediately in front of the action, observing every
scene in the story and every event directly, as it is taking
place. Although the character Nick is a witness of events
and sometimes a participant in them, he does not take part
in every aspect of the story, as does Adventure 's narrator.
Sometimes Nick is told by other characters in the story
about events and their ramifications, including the effects

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they have on the mental and emotional states of characters.

The narrator does not tell the story from the posi¬
tion of the reader, either, inspite of its claim in the
introduction of being an extension of the reader ("I will be
your hands and eyes”). The narrator is the go-between for
the reader in the imaginary cave environment he or she can
neither see nor touch. Yet in the course of the story it
must become clear to the reader that the narrator is a com¬
pletely separate entity. It takes part in the action by
carrying out the reader’s commands, but it does not describe
how it carries out the commands and it never uses the '’we”
form, even if it appears that the events should be happening
to both reader and narrator since both are apparently moving
through the cave together. It observes the actions of the
reader with the same detached attitude as it observes the
cave. The story, then, is told from the point of view of a
robotic/computer, which is close to the events, observes the
events, and even plays a role in the events, but which is
totally unaffected by them.

How much does the narrator know ?

How much does this narrator, the reader's guide and
body, actually know about the story? Omniscient narrators
have access to many different types of information: thoughts
and feelings of characters (and sometimes even of the
author), being able to view the story from many different
angles, shifting the point of view from one character to

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149

another or from one angle to another. The narrator appears
to know the entire story from beginning to end, but chooses
what portions of that story it will reveal to the reader at
what point in time. Friedman refers to narrators who are
characters in the story as "'I" as Witness* narrators. The
author "hands his job completely over to another"29 anc ] does
not have any direct voice in communicating the story at all.
"The witness-narrator is a character on his own right within
the story itself, more or less involved in the action, more
or less acquainted with its chief personages, who speaks to
the reader in the first person."30 Because of this, the
witness-narrator should only know what the character would
know; the character who serves as narrator can only tell
about thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that the character
could plausibly possess. Friedman calls this telling the
story from the "wandering periphery."31 The protagonist in
the story can also serve as narrator. The same logic
applies as when the story is told from the point of view of
a character who witnesses the story — the protagonist-
narrator can only describe its own thoughts, feelings, and
perceptions: it sources of information must be limited to
those the protagonist in he story would have access to if
the story were taking place in real life. In Selective
Omniscience, ostensibly there is no narrator at all. The
events are related as if they were in the process of going
through the mind of the character. "Instead, therefore, of
being allowed a composite of viewing angles, (the reader) is

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150

at the fixed center."32 The fi na i narrator-category of
importance in determining the nature of the narrator in
Adventure Friedman calls "The Camera. "33 p or him, this point
of view appears to be the ultimate form of authorial exclu¬
sion. Here, the story is told as a series of events as if
they were recorded by a mechanical medium, as if there were
no selection or arrangement or shaping of a story. It is as
if there was no interpretation of the story, no selection of
what is important, no arrangement of the actions to exem¬
plify or reify meaning. The recording medium perceives
events as they come within its means of perception. Its
function is to "transmit unaltered a slice of life.'^ 1 *

At first glance, it would seem as if the narrator-
guide in Adventure does not know everything about the story.
But scrutinizing the narrator’s role and comments more care¬
fully reveals certain discrepencies. In describing things
to the reader, it always picks out only the most important
things in the cave. It is selective and seems to have
evaluated the objects and pathways around it; it does not
give the reader any extraneous information. This suggests a
knowledge of the cave that a true mechanical guide could not
have, or could only have if it had been through the cave
before and "knew" the cave, yet if the reader asks the guide
about some other part of the cave not immediately in front
of it, for example, "Find water," it says "I can only tell
you what you see as you move about and manipulate things. I
cannot tell you where remote things are. "35 The guide

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151

evidently does have some sort of memory of past events; it
keeps track of objects the explorer needs, such as food and
water, and it would seem to have enough intelligence to be
able to make a judgement about the future: "You’d best start
wrapping this up soon. "36

The narrator in Adventure is similar in some ways to
the "Camera" narrator Friedman discusses, but much more com¬
plicated. It carries out commands given by the reader.
Without informing the reader how it completes tasks, on com¬
mand it opens locks, picks up and drops objects, aims and
throws axes at the attacking dwarfs, moves the reader
through the cave, keeps an inventory of objects it carries
for the reader, etc. This suggest that it has a memory and
the very least is capable of complex calculations. It is
inanimate, like a robot with no feelings or mental states
that are part of the story to be told. Yet, unlike the
"Camera," this robotoid narrator does take an active part in
the story. The reader sees the cave through the eyes of the
narrator and manipulates the objects in the cave to make
things happen through the narrator. The narrator has many
of the same functions as the robot-computer of "2001": it
can not only see, but see ahead, i.e. predict results that
will take place in the future if a course of action taking
place in the present should continue.

You’re in cobble crawl. It is now pitch dark. If

you proceed you will likely fall into a pit.37

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3.) What channels of information does the narrator use to
convey the story to the reader ?

The main types of information the narrator uses to
transmit the story are sensory: mostly visual, but also
acoustical and tactile. Most information corresponds to
what a person would see, hear, or feel in the described
situation. The excerpts below illustrate how this sensory
information is commonly expressed in Adventure .

You are at a complex junction. A low hands and
knees passage from the north joins a higher crawl
from the east to make a walking passage going west

The air is damp here.38

You are in a magnificent cavern with a rushing
stream, which cascades over a sparkling waterfall
into a roaring whirlpool which disappers through a
hole in the floor. ...39

The reader needs this information to know where he or she i
in the cave. Most of the story units give information for
the reader to orient themselves spatially like this, but
there is also a temporal aspect to the tale: time = moves.
The narrator keeps track of the reader's supplies such as
food, water, and light, and compares them to how many moves
the reader has made. This is equated to the supposed time
the reader has spent in the cave. It warns the reader, who
must then leave the cave, solve the problem, or "die":

Your lamp is getting dim. You'd best start wrapping
this up, unless you can find some fresh batteries.

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153

I seem to recall there's a vending machine in the
maze. Bring some coins with you. 2 * 0

However, the narrator apparently has access to a
much wider range of knowledge about the Adventure world than
what it (or the reader) could logically see, hear, or feel.
Examine the next excerpts:

You are in the softroom. The walls are covered with
heavy curtains, the floor with a thick pile carpet.

Moss covers the ceiling.

A small velvet pillow lies on the floor.^

This is the oriental room. Ancient oriental cave
drawings cover the walls. ...

There is a delicate, precious, Ming vase here!^2

How did the narrator know enough to be able to iden¬
tify things it had never seen and places it had never been
before? How did it know about the nature of the softroom,
i.e. its softness, and why did it tell the reader instead of
letting the reader come to his or her own conclusion about
the nature of the room? In the examples above, "soft" is a
hint to solving the problem of dropping the Ming Vase treas¬
ure in the building without it breaking. The solution is to
first drop the velvet pillow, then to drop the vase on the
velvet pillow. (Note: The narrator only understands the word
"drop," not words like "carefully place" or "put.")

Even more astonishing is the narrator's ability to
bring "dead" readers back to life:

(The reader has fallen into a pit, broken every bone

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15M

in his or her body, and is dead.)

N: Do you want me to reincarnate you?

P: yes

N: All right. But don't blame me if something goes

wr.

-Poof!-You are engulfed in a cloud of

orange smoke. Coughing and gasping, you emerge
from the smoke ...^3

It would appear that only an omniscient author could
know where it is in the cave without having been there
before, and select what turns out to be information the
reader will need later to solve some puzzle. Omniscient
narrators don't need to explain how they know or do things;
they just do. They also don't need to justify their ability
to raise the dead. The readers who consider the narrator to
be the thoughts, words, and feelings of an author who is
limited by technical constraints to short prompts feel that
Adventure is written from the point of view of an omniscient
narrator. The channels of information used to convey the
story to the reader are consistent with an omniscient narra¬
tor, whether that narrator is the author, or a set of com¬
puter prompts that simply display which part of the program
it is in at any given point, or the "God of the Adventure
game," or the game itself talking to the reader.

However, many readers do not see it that way. The
channels of information used to communicate the story to the
reader can also be interpreted as those of a narrator with
limitations. If the reader considers the narrator to be a
character, then the channels of information are those of
some type of electronic guide with visual, aural, and

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155

tactile sensors, who has either been through the cave
before, or has been programmed to recognize and interpret
certain data. There have been enough sci-fi and fantasy
stories and films about bionic people to even make the idea
of a reincarnation through super-sophisticated technology
(or magic!) seem conceivable. Judging by the information
given, it is impossible to distinguish whether the narrator
is an omniscient author or merely a character in the story.

If one reads Adventure like one reads "normal"
literature, then the narrating-prompts act as a character, a
character who not only observes the situations and actions,
but also takes part in them. The role it plays is that of
robotic guide through a cave that humans cannot perceive for
themselves. The types of information used to transmit the
story are those of a robot which can see and touch the world
around it, an electro-mechanical being which interprets the
sensory data it receives for the human it is guiding, and
which carries out the human’s commands, although it couldn't
care less about either the human or the results.

From around the time of Henry James to the present,
writers have been concerned with "finding a centre," a
"focus" for their stories. One solution was to limit the
narrative vehicle by "framing the action inside the con¬
sciousness of one of the characters within the plot
itself.Assuming that the reader considers the narrator
to be some type of being, then the part of the story that is
depicted is narrated by a character in the story.

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156

Almost by accident, it seems, the unsophisicated
computer programmers/writers of Adventure have been able to
limit the narrative vehicle as well as they have without
being consciously concerned with doing so. Part of their
success in this technical aspect of presenting the story is
due to the presumed limitations of an electronic or mechani¬
cal, robot-like narrator. Unlike a human narrator, who
presumably has a heart and soul, the mental or emotional
states of an inanimate narrator have to be dealt with in a
manner commensurate with their existence, i.e. minimally, if
at all. In other words, the writers have, by default, come
up with a limited narrative vehicle.

In Adventure , the story does "tell itself;" the
reader does find out only that type of infomation from the
narrator to which either an omniscient author-narrator or a
character-narrator (some type of electronic guide) could
conceivably have access. Acting as the interface between the
Adventure world and the reader, the narrator tells what it
sees and knows. Although the way it expresses itself simu¬
lates peevishness and fussiness at times, this is the only
emotion it imitates. Oth<= ioS ^n-Af 'no detectable feel¬

ings, so none are depicted in Adventure ; any emotions raised
in Adventure are located in one character only — the
reader. As such, they remain undepicted, though not neces¬
sarily unexpressed. Adventure is such a gripping tale that
many reader-players find it impossible to read silently.

They often groan, moan, whoop in elation, and talk to or

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157

yell at the computer.

4.) AJ; what distance does the narrator place the reader from
the story ?

The answer to this final question, of the reader's
distance from the story ("near, far, or shifting") is: never
has the reader been so close to the story. One of the most
captivating aspects of Adventure is the immediacy of the
story: for the first time in printed literature, it is pos¬
sible for the basic temporal state of the story to be the
continuous present. The narrator depicts the scenes and
events in the cave either as they are in the process of hap¬
pening or immediately after they have taken place. The fol¬
lowing excerpt should illustrate how interactive fiction
leads to a greater sense of "real-time" action:

N: There is a tiny little plant in the pit, murmur¬

ing "water, water, ..."

P: pour water

N: The plant spurts into furious growth for a few

seconds.

You're in west pit.

There is a 12-foot-tall beanstalk stretching up
out of the pit, bellowing "water!! water!!" 1 *^

The reader not only observes scenes and events
through the narrator as in "regular" literature, but can
also have an influence on them, change them, manipulate
them. In the above example, if the reader had not poured
water on the plant, nothing would have changed; no matter
how often he or she returned to west pit, no matter how long

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158

he or she stayed there, the little plant would have contin¬
ued murmuring "water, water" and stayed its same size.
Although Adventure is a printed text, it is not a fixed text
and without the reader's participation, the story would sim¬
ply not progress. All the narrator does is to present the
reader with situations and carry out the reader's instruc¬
tions to it if it is able. In some sense, it is the reader
who determines what the narrator sees, since the reader
decides where to go in the cave. Although the readers'
reactions to events, their mental and emotional states and
responses, and the logic they used to solve the problems are
not depicted, they are an integral part of what happens in
Adventure ; nothing would take place without the reader's
active involvement; without them there would be no story.

The reader is closer to the story than ever before.

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FOOTNOTES:

POINT OF VIEW IN "ADVENTURE"

1. Joseph Warren Beach, The Twentieth Century
Novel: Studies in Technique (New York and London, 1932),
p. 14.

2. Charles Dickens, Hard Times (New York: Penguin
Books, first published 1854; published in Penguin English
Library 1969).

3. Dickens, Hard Times , pp. 51-52

4. Dickens, Hard Times, p. 53.

5. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (Berkeley: Berkeley
Medallion Books,

6. Adventure , 11. 1449; 1434.

7. Norman Friedman, "Point of View in Fiction," in:
Philip Stevick, The Theory of the Novel (New York: The Free
Press, 1967), pp. 1 0S— 137 .

8. Friedman, "Point of View in Fiction," in: Stev¬
ick, The Theory of the Novel , pp. 118-119.

9. Friedman, "Point of View in Fiction," in: Stev-
ick, The Theory of the Novel , p. 85

10. Henry James, The Art of the Novel : Critical
Prefaces, ed. R.P. Blackmur (New York and London^ 1934),

PP• 37—3 8.

11. For a summary of the historical development of
point of view, see Friedman's article, "Point of View in
Fiction," in: Stevick, The Theory of the Novel, pp. 108-
137.

12. Friedman, "Point of View in Fiction," in: Stev¬
ick, The Theory of the Novel , pp. 110-111.

13- Aristoteles, The Poetics , tras. W. Hamilton
Fyfe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), PP- 23,

95.

14.

Haven, 1918)

15.

Stevick, p.

16.

Percy Lubbock, The Method of Henry James (New
pp. 56-71•

Mark Schorer, "Technique as Discovery," in:
67.

Adventure , 11. 1318; 1319; 1387; 1398-1401.

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17.

Adventure,

11. 1430; 1-3.

18.

Adventure,

1 . 1346.

19.

Adventure,

11. 192; 1409; 1496.

20 .

Adventure,

11. 1384; 1333; 1408; 1451-1453;

1454; 1457 ;

3wr~~

21. Stanley Kubrick, dir., 2001: A Space Odessey,
UK:MGM, 1968.

22. Joseph Weizenbaum, Eliza . The program "simu¬
lates" a Rogerian psycholanalyst. See The UNIX Programmer's
Manual entry under "doctor."

23. Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich, Ed., The
Mechanical God (Westport, Connecticut, London, England:
Greenwood Press, 1982 ). Almost every article in this col¬
lection deals with the consequences of humans' dependence on
machines.

24.

Currents,"

Brian Aldiss, "Robots: Low-Voltage Ontological
in: The Mechanical God, p. 3-12.

1977

25.

•

George Lucas, dir., Star

Wars, Lucasfilms,

York

26. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The
: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1 92577

Great Gatsby

(New

27.

Adventure, 11 . 20-23.

28.

Adventure, 11. 25-27.

ick,

29.

Theory

Friedman, "Point of View
of the Novel, p. 125.

Fiction,"

in: Stev-

ick,

30.

Theory

Friedman, "Point of View
of the Novel, p. 125.

Fiction,"

in: Stev-

ick,

31.

Theory

Friedman, "Point of View
of the Novel, p. 125.

Fiction,"

in: Stev-

ick,

32.

Theory

Friedman, "Point of View
of the Novel, p. 128.

Fiction,"

in: Stev-

ick,

33.

Theory

Friedman, "Point of View
of the Novel, p. 130-131-

Fiction,"

in: Stev-

ick,

34.

Theory

Friedman, "Point of View
of the Novel, p. 130.

Fiction,"

in: Stev-

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161

35.

Adventure,

11 .

1416-1417-

36.

Adventure,

11 .

1626-1627.

37.

Adventure,

11 .

312 ; 1346.

38.

Adventure,

11 .

112-114.

39.

Adventure,

11 .

168 - 170 .

40.

Adventure,

11 .

1612-1614.

41.

Adventure,

11 .

171-172; 1189

42.

Adventure,

11 .

173-174; 1295

43.

Adventure,

11 .

1452-1457.

44.

Friedman, "

Point of View in 1

Theory of the Novel , p. 112.

45. Adventure . 11 . 1219; 1220 ; 322 ; 1221-1222.

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READER RESPONSE

In the opening chapters of this dissertation the
emphasis was on Adventure * s affinities with traditional
literature. First, the close relationship between play,
games, and literature was explored. A discussion of the
traditional literary models and narrative strategies that
are used in its story followed. A comparison was made
between Adventure , the first major literary work of the new
computer medium, and the sixteenth century prose Novels of
Chivalry and Adventure, particularly Amadis of Gaul , whose
propagation came to be closely tied to the then new technol¬
ogy of the printing press.

The fluid nature of the computer narrative created
as Adventure is played has important ramifications for the
function and construction of the text, as well as the role
of the reader. Therefore, in the section on the narrator and
point of view in Adventure , I began a refocus of attention
from Adventure’s similarities to traditional literary models
and techniques toward some of its differences. The narrator
in Adventure acts as some type of character in the story,
but has access only to that part of the story the reader
directly activates. The narrator actually interacts ver¬
bally with the reader, responding to his or her commands to
manipulate objects or move through the cave. In a sense,
then, the text communicates with the reader through the nar¬
rator. (This idea is summed up nicely, I think, in a

162

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163

message joke I saw displayed on screen, a UNIX "fortune
cookie" that went something like this: "Ours is a strange
relationship, for you are a person, whereas I am only a sen¬
tence.")

In this chapter I will examine one of the major
differences between conventional and interactive fiction:
the role of the reader. The emphasis will be on the conse¬
quences of the reader's physically and imaginatively creat¬
ing part of the written text and deciding where (s)he wants
to go in the cave, which objects to pick up or drop, and how
to solve the problems (s)he encounters. This changes the
way the reader "reads" the text and re-casts the reader as
the co-author of any interactive text. It also means that
the interactive text cannot be exhaustively consumed, not
even theoretically. I shall also discuss the "closed loop"
nature of the reader's response to interactive fiction, and
compare it to the open loop nature of the reader's response
to conventional written fiction. Because interactive fic¬
tion represents the first closed loop system in printed
literature (i.e. a system which includes a feedback mechan¬
ism) , issues of authorial control and intention must be
redefined vis-a-vis the traditional text.

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164

Textual Gaps

One of the critical issues in studies of reader
response is what is not written in the text itself, ideas
that the reader fills in. Wolfgang Iser calls these
"blanks” or "gaps" in the text. "They (the blanks in the
text) indicate that the different segments of the text are
to be connected, even though the text itself does not say
so. They are the unseen joints of the text, an as they
mark off schemata and textual perspectives from one another,
they simultaneously trigger acts of ideation on the reader's
part." 1 Iser uses an image from The Figure in the Carpet by
Henry James^ to illustrate the concept.3 in James's story,
the meaning of a literary work is compared to the complex
designs in a Persian carpet. The patterns consist not only
in the presence of the designs themselves, but in the back¬
ground or space surrounding and connecting various designs
as well. According to Iser, meaning in a literary work is
not only what is precisely formulated on the printed page;
meaning can also be found in what is missing from the text.
He believes meaning can only be grasped as an image, an
image which provides the filling for what the textual pat¬
tern structures but leaves out. 1 *

In the article "Interactive Fiction,' 0 Niesz and
Holland observe that interactive fiction only superficially
appears to fit Iser's model of reading. They observe:

The interactive reader is not limited but (as in any

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165

text) free to respond in idiosyncratic or even
bizarre ways ... the text simply provides materials
which the reader has unlimited freedom to shape,
edit, and assemble into an experience that is conge¬
nial to his own identity. The text then gives its
own good, bad, or neutral feedback to the response
the reader has brought to bear. 0

I believe that the question of whether interactive
fiction acts out Iser's model of reading is complicated and
can not be answered in such a simple way. Iser's model does
not apply to interactive fiction, but for reasons other than
those Niesz and Holland suggest.

First, the blanks and gaps in the traditional and
interactive texts are different in nature. When a segment
of the interactive text is displayed on the screen it is
followed by emptiness, which the reader can fill with his or
her own physical textual input (based on an imaginative
response to the text as the reader perceives it). This is
not the same as the text segments and gaps in traditional
literature. In the conventional text, all the text segments
and the gaps between the segments exist at all times in the
text. The reader can read all of the segments of text, even
if they have not filled in the gaps in meaning. The reader
does not even know for sure where or if there are gaps in
the text, since they are not textually distinct. In
interactive fiction, the reader cannot continue reading
without interpreting the blanks as (s)he can in a conven¬
tional text. Also, in interactive fiction, at least the
physical gaps in the texts are clearly marked. After a seg¬
ment has been displayed on the screen, the computer waits

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166

for some type of reader input. The reader cannot simply
read on and figure out what the missing link meant at some
later point in the text.

Second, Niesz and Holland are correct in saying that
as long as the reader types in any reply whatsoever, (s)he
will always receive some type of counter-response from the
computer. The reader's input does fill in a physical blank
in the text, and leads both to the display of some new tex¬
tual segment and the creation of a new textual blank. It
does not mean, however, that the reader "has unlimited free¬
dom to shape, edit, and assemble (the textual materials)
into an experience that is congenial to his own identity."
While a blank in the physical text can be filled by some
bizarre reader input, the gap in meaning will riot. This gap
in meaning will be apparent to the reader, as the following
Adventure script excerpt illustrates.

You are in a 20-foot depression floored with bare
dirt. Set into the dirt is a strong steel grate
mounted in concrete. A dry streambed leads into the
depression. The grate is locked.

Unlock grate

The grate is now unlocked.

Drop keys
OK

South

You are in open forest, with a deep valley to one
side. (The reader finds his way back to the slit.)
Go in.

I don't know in from out here. Use compass points
or name something in the general direction you want
to go. You're at slit in streambed. There are some
keys on the ground here.

Go grate.

I don't know how to apply that word here.

West

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167

N: You’re in forest. (Reader finds his way back to the

slit, outside the grate.)

R: East

N: You're in forest. (Reader finds his way back to the

slit again.)

R: Through grate.

N: I don't know that word.

R: Go down. (Finally, the reader enters the cave.)'

It is obvious that this reader was not satisfied with just
any response to what he has typed in. Because he had to
find his way back to the cave each time he went the wrong
direction, this portion of text actually took him thirty-six
moves instead of the nine I have depicted here. Repeatedly,
he filled in the blanks in the text without completing the
gap in meaning he perceived. Based on past experience of
story and narrative structures as well as the conventions of
playing Adventure , he knew it was highly probable that the
author intended for the reader to unlock the grate with the
keys he found in the building and enter the cave. He knew
that he had not yet figured out and completed the specific
blank the author placed in the text for the reader to fill.
Unless readers solve the problems they face, parts of the
text will be closed.

My own image of interactive fiction is of a Persian
carpet which runs under a locked door into another room, and
is therefore only partly visible. The narrative patterns or
structures consist of the text produced by the computer and
the blanks which are then filled in by the reader. In addi¬
tion, the reader must also try to foresee or project the way
the author must have intended the story patterns to

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168

continue. First, though, the reader must find the correct
key to unlock each puzzle in order to complete the pattern
(s)he perceived.

The Reader as Author

Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, and Norman Holland all
deal with the idea of the act of reading as readers "writ¬
ing" texts.® What they mean by this is that the meaning in a
literary work is not contained in the written text itself
because a written text is only "marks on a page." The mean¬
ing of the marks on the page must be created by each reader
in his or her own mind. Todorov pictures the relationship
of author, text, and reader^ thus:

1. The author's account 4. The reader's account

t r

2. The imaginary universe 3* The imaginary universe

evoked by the author —> constructed by the reader

He calls the difference between stage 2 and 3 as significa¬
tion and symbolization.^ Fictional events are signified by
the words in the text (i.e. the events depicted in the
text), but the implications of the events are symbolized.
"Signified facts are understood: all we need is knowledge of
the language in which the text is written. Symbolized facts
are interpreted; and interpretations vary from one subject
to another."^ 1

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In interactive fiction, Todorov's chain of connec¬
tions between the reader, the author, and the text form a
closed loop. The gaps in the interactive text must be physi¬
cally filled in by the reader, which in turn activates new
portions of the author’s imaginary world.

1. The author's account

2. The imaginary universe <-- 5. The reader’s text

evoked by the author

V T

3. The imaginary universe

constructed by the reader —> 4. The reader's account

I have emphasized repeatedly that the interactive
text is neither fixed on pages nor organized by the author
in the conventional linear fashion. In interactive fiction
the author structures the story materials to be activated
dynamically, not in a linear story form. Each aspect of the
story — objects that can be carried, vocabulary the program
recognizes, locations, and treasures — is contained in a
separate program subroutine or data structure. The reader
is the co-author of the interactive text because these story
aspects are activated by his or her input. Within certain
constraints, the reader chooses which objects to carry and
where to go in the cave (etc.), so the program reconstitutes
the story materials (which have been provided by the author)
at each move in accordance with the reader's input, but the

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170

reader is in charge of assembling the story.

The re-constitution of story materials at the end of
each narrative unit or move is not possible in a text that
is fixed. As I described in the introduction, some attempts
have been made to provide reader/text interaction in fixed-
text books (for instance, the "Choose Your Own Adventure" or
"You Are the Star" series). Such texts are tree-structured
instead of linear, i.e. multiple pathways of story lines can
branch from one single node. In a fixed text, it is possible
to provide multiple story endings and plot options from
which the reader can choose. For example, the children's
"Choose Your Own Adventure" story, The Cave of Time, 12 has
56 unique stories. However, the reader can function at most
as an editor who decides the sequence of the pre- formulated
parts of the text, not as an author whose ideas about a
story create new text.

The astronomical number of potential interactive
texts a reader can create compared to those of fixed-text
literature makes it qualitatively different from conven¬
tional literature. Because the interactive text is meant to
be assembled step by step, it does not imply a particular
reading; it is an infinitely plural, open text. Iser postu¬
lates an "implied reader" "*3 of conventional literature and a
text which "asks" to be read in a particular way: "The text
provokes certain expectations which in turn we project onto
the text in such a way that we reduce the polysemantic pos¬
sibilities to a single interpretation in keeping with the

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171

expectations aroused, thus extracting an individual confi-
gurative meaning."^ Even Fish, who believes that each
reading experience is actually the "writing" of a new text
argues against the "infinitely plural or open text." 1 ^

The great number of different texts that can be gen¬
erated with Adventure results from the various permutations
and combinations of manipulations of objects and from the
many different sequences by which places in the cave can be
encountered. Strictly speaking the number of different
texts must be infinite, since it is possible to travel in
repetitive loops within the cave and because (as Holland and
Niesz point out) ° the reader can type in any comment and
elicit at least some response. However, a text containing
great repetition or innumerable nonsense commands is likely
to be quite boring, so one could reasonably argue that it is
unfair to claim such an infinite range for Adventure . Even
so, it is easy to demonstrate that, without resorting to
repetitive loops and nonsense commands, the number of dis¬
tinct possible texts is immense. I asked a scientist of my
acquaintance to give me a more exact idea of how many possi¬
ble texts there are in Adventure . This is what he had to
say:

As an illustrative example, consider just the "bat¬
tery maze" in Adventure . There are only twelve dif¬
ferent locations here, eleven of which are each con¬
nected to nine or ten of the others. For the sake
of calculation, let us restrict the reader such that
he or she passes through the entire maze from the
outside to the battery chamber and back out again,

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172

without ever entering the same location more than
twice (once while entering and once while exiting).
This eliminates the possibility of repetitive loops.
To exclude nonsense commands we can impose the
further restriction that only commands having to do
with movement within the cave and the dropping of
objects are allowed. Even within these rather res¬
tricted conditions, the number of different ways to
experience the battery maze (and hence the number of
unique texts) is 187 billion trillions or
186 , 777 , 870 , 000 , 000 , 000 , 000 , 000 .

To appreciate just how large this number is,
assume that a fast typist with a good knowledge of
the maze could move through all twelve locations,
dropping objects along the way, within thirty
seconds. For such a person to experience the bat¬
tery maze exhaustively would require 197 trillion
years, a period 13>000 times longer than the age of
the universe. The inexhaustible nature of Adventure
results not just from the limitation of the human
lifespan, as one might have guessed, but also from
such seemingly more generous constraints as the
lifetime of the sun and the durability of the pro¬
ton . 1 '

(See appendix for complete analysis)

Norman Holland has dealt with the way a reader's
psychological make-up affects the interpretation of the con¬
ventional linear text. He writes: "Each reader recreates
the original literary creation in terms of their own per¬
sonalities."^ Based on their interpretations, readers will
"see" in the text almost exclusively what they want to see,
or as Stanley Fish puts it: "The interpretation determines
what will count as evidence for it, and the evidence is able
to be picked out only because the interpretation has already
been assumed." '9

Regardless, however, of the number of independent
interpretations there are of a given text, the linear or
tree- structured text itself is permanent and unchanging.

In interactive fiction, readers' interpretations of the

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173

story events taking place shape their succeeding responses
and therefore shape the creation of the physical text, i.e.
the marks on the page. Consider the following examples:

One reader believed the treasures in the cave were
left by the good wizard of a long-vanished civilization.

The cave had been taken over by the wicked dwarves and
trolls. The goal of the story was to solve all the problems
in the cave, after which the long-lost secrets of the noble
civilization would be revealed and truth, justice, beauty
and magic would reign again. (This fantasy appears to draw
on themes from fantasy literature such as Lord of the
Rings^ 0 or LaGuinn's Earth - Sea Trilogy ).^ 1 The physical
texts this reader created showed a variety of reading stra¬
tegies, including entire games spent only in exploration,
puzzle-solving, or acquisition.

Another reader, the camper-backpacker described ear¬
lier, imagined that careless spelunkers had left the treas¬
ures in the cave, much as she had experienced real-life
careless campers leaving their garbage in the wilderness.

She refused to see the creatures in the cave as evil;
rather, they were a part of nature and merely defending
their territory (much as a bear would in the real-life wild¬
erness she loves). She played the game, i.e. created new
texts, accordingly. Basically, she wanted to clean up the
cave. She picked up everything she found and was reluctant
to drop anything. This meant that if she came across a
treasure, such as the pile of gold coins, she would leave it

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rather than drop the keys or food she was carrying. Hers
was the only text I observed in which the birdcage was never
dropped. The birdcage was the most important object in the
cave for her, since she hoped to avoid killing animals by
caging them. If she couldn't take the birdcage with her
into one of the cave passages, she simply wouldn't go in
that direction. Obviously, she created highly unusual,
individualistic texts, texts that are not likely to be
duplicated in their general form ever again by other
read ers.

Yet another reader interpreted taking the treasures
in the cave as stealing them. This reader had had fantasies
as a child of stealing the things she knew her parents could
not buy. Stealing the treasures in the cave elicited both
guilt and highly pleasurable feelings. From the texts she
created, it was clear that each time this reader found a
treasure, she would immediately retrace her steps, returning
to the building as quickly as possible to deposit and
thereby secure it. Scripts of her texts showed, for exam¬
ple, that she avoided the battery maze as long as possible.
She was not interested in solving intricate problems, only
in acquiring treasures.

Each of these readers picked out a different theme
in Adventure , and each created a physical text on the screen
that reflected his or her particular theme. Adventure can
be read as a story of exploration, of acquisition, of
attempts at communicating with the narrator, of revenge, or

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175

any other number of ways. In each of these readings, the
reader will create a correspondingly different written text.
Stories and Supra - Stories

One of the most interesting things to have come out
of interviewing so many readers was discovering just how
wide a range of readings is possible with a dynamically
created text such as Adventure . Literary critics have
looked at the theoretical problems posed by variance in
interpretations of texts for many years. Norman Holland
accounts for the wide range and contradictory interpreta¬
tions of texts as resulting from the intra-psychic dynamics
of individual readers. 22 Stanley Fish uses the contradic¬
tory interpretations to support his contention that the
literary experience should be studied, not only the literary
text. 2 3

In interactive fiction, the interpretations of the
story events are so important and have such far-reaching
effects on the reader’s construction of the physical text
that they take on a shape and quality of their own. The
magnitude of their importance gives them a new dimension
compared to Todorov's ’’reader's account 1 ' in conventional
fiction. Because they are complete stories on their own and
distinguishable from the physical text they are created to
explain, I would like to give them a specific designation.

I do this to distinguish them conceptually from the story or
events expressed in the text itself. I call the events
expressed in the text the story, and the reader's story in

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176

their minds explaining these events, the supra - story . Modi¬
fying Todorov's diagram cited above even further, I would
like to change "the reader's account" to "the reader's
supra-story":

1. The author's account

2. The imaginary universe <-- 5. The reader's text

evoked by the author

t r

3. The imaginary universe —> 4. The reader's

supra-story

One supra-story can be the basis for readers writing
many different texts. Using the examples above, the first
reader's stories were the texts she created of exploring the
cave, solving the puzzles, and acquiring the treasures. Her
supra - story was the explanation that the treasures had been
left by a good wizard of a long-vanished civilization which
she could reinstate by solving all the problems in the cave.
The second reader's stories were about collecting anything
she could find in the cave and negotiating or trying to cage
the cave creatures. The idea that bad spelunkers had left
their junk in the cave and that the creatures in the cave
were merely defending their territory was her supra - story .

The motivation that accounts for the creation of
supra- stories which are 1. complete in themselves and 2.
are more than the texts they elicit and from which they in

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177

turn are elicited, is the basic psychological drive to
establish context.

Gregory Bateson based his famous "double-bind"
theory on the idea that understanding of individual events,
be they language, emotions, or relationships, only takes
place within a given context.2^ If the message of the
events contradicts the context, a double bind will occur.

He writes that learning and experiencing occur "within a
wider context — a metacontext if you will — and that this
sequence of contexts is an open and conceivably infinite
series ... what occurs within the narrow context ... will be
affected by the wider context within which this smaller one
has its being. "25

Fish also uses the idea of context to explain the
differences in interpretations of the same text. Events and
language can only be understood within a situation. "There
is never a time when assumptions are not in force."26 He
shows that no sentence, event or utterance is unambiguous,
because they can never not be in context.2? This is the
basis of his assertion that what a reader sees in the text
is a function not of what is "in the text" but of the
reader's interpretive activities at a primary level, for
interpretations are part of the context within which one
reads a work.

The fact that interactive fiction seems to elicit
the construction of highly individual contexts from readers
more powerfully than does conventional fiction can be

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178

understood for the following reasons: Readers must make the
text happen. They must find patterns in the fictional
events, because the physical gaps in the text mean that the
textual patterns are incomplete. They must make fairly
sophisticated assumptions in order to hazard guesses about
completing the text. Many readers get intensely, emotion¬
ally involved in the fictional events because of their
step-by-step activity in exploring the fictional world and
mastering the fictional events. This can unlock strong
feelings and memories of associated events from their own
lives which they then build into the imaginary world they
are creating. Finally, the fictional events in Adventure ,
for example, are only minimally explained, i.e. there is
little context provided for the reader by the author.

In this one sense, interactive fiction's quality of
evoking emotionally charged and intellectually complete con¬
texts for the text makes it more similar to the open textu-
ality of lyrical poetry than the tightly woven textual
fabric of fiction. In fiction at least the story on the
surface is depicted in the text; the reader knows what hap¬
pened because the fictional world is clearly laid out. This
is not necessarily the case in lyrical poetry. Here the
reader has to relate the metaphors, images, similes, and
other rhetorical figures to his or her own experiences in
order to figure out what the poem is even about. In lyrical
poetry there are often as many blanks in the text as there
are meanings.

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In the openness of the text, Adventure seems to have

a rather poetic quality of making readers imagine much more
for themselves than is usually required in reading fiction.
In both interactive fiction and lyrical poetry, readers must
make up their own stories and explanations for the fictional
events.

Interactive fiction is unique in being a closed loop
system of literature, as opposed to conventional, linear or
tree- structured texts. Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclo¬
pedia defines open and closed loop systems in the following
fashion:

A feedback loop or closed loop is a signal path
which includes a forward path, a feedback path, and
a summing point, and which forms a closed circuit.

... By contrast, an open loop or open-loop control
may be defined as a single path without feedback.

For example, a process or machine that is prepro¬
grammed to function on a time basis and does not
take into consideration continuous measurements of
the end results as a criterion for adjusting the
control system is open loop. 28

Todorov's original diagram clearly depicts the
open-loop nature of conventional literature. The reader's
ideas and interpretations which have been elicited by the
literary work have no effect on the literary work itself.

In interactive fiction, though, the reader's interpretation
forms the literary work. If a reader is reading Adventure
as a story of exploration instead of one of acquisition,

(s)he will only give the commands necessary to explore. The
interactive text responds to a reader's feedback, therefore

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180

the reader and the interactive text form a closed loop sys¬
tem .

1. The author's account

2. The imaginary universe <— 5. The reader's text

evoked by the author

* t

3. The imaginary universe

constructed by the reader —> 4. The reader's account

As a closed loop system, the interactive text eli¬
cits, responds to, and is formed by the reader's feedback.

As such, for the first time the reader has some means of
checking whether (s)he has understood the author's inten¬
tions. If the reader doesn't read or understand the story
at least roughly in the way the author intended, the story
simply stops. Conversely, the reader's "correct" interpre¬
tation is rewarded by the elimination of obstacles, the
acquisition of treasure, the freedom to move through the
cave, etc. All of this is made possible by the fact that in
interactive fiction, the way a reader responds to the text
affects what comes next in the text.

The closed loop nature of interactive fiction means
that both the author and the reader gain a new type of con¬
trol over the text. The author exerts a measure of control
over the reader's thinking and interpretation, because the

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181

story will stop if the reader doesn’t type in commands for
story possibilities the program allows and solve the prob¬
lems in the way the author wishes. The reader gains control
because (s)he can choose where to go in the cave and what to
pick up, as well as whether (s)he will read the game and
create corresponding texts of stories of acquisition, com¬
munication, or exploration.

The Scientific Method in the Process of
Reading Interactive Fiction

One of the basic tenets of reader response theory is
the idea that literary criticism should be the analysis of
the readers* experience of a literary work. Wolfgang Iser
observes: ’’Meaning is no longer an object to be described,
but an effect to be experienced."29 Fish also emphasizes
the need to analyze readers' acts of interpretation:

The meaning they (the reader's activities) have is a
consequence of their not being empty; for they
include the making and revising of assumptions, the
rendering and regretting of judgments, the coming to
and abandoning of conclusions, the giving and with¬
drawing of approval, the specifying of causes, the
asking of questions, the supplying of answers, the
solving of puzzles. In a word, these activities are
interpretive — rather than being preliminary to
questions of value — and because they are interpre¬
tive, a description of them will also be, and
without any additional step, an interpretation, not
after the fact, but of the fact (of experiencing).3°

The

with Fish's
literature.

process of reading interactive fiction meshes
analysis of the process of reading conventional
But in interactive fiction, these acts (making

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182

and revising assumptions, rendering and regretting judg¬
ments, coming to and abandoning conclusions, etc.) are part
of a specific framework of thought. Interactive fiction can
almost be considered a type of training in decision-making
based on a critical, self- questioning, reflective attitude
toward problems. Combined with the feedback mechanism,
which works as a means of testing one's hypotheses, the pro¬
cess of reading interactive fiction is like practicing the
scientific method as a way of arriving at truth and as an
approach to understanding life.

In the section on the structural analysis of Adven¬
ture , I wrote of the scientific method's role as a principle
or ethics of events. The scientific method is an integral
aspect of the process of reading interactive fiction and
accounts for a great part of its value. Each time the
reader encounters another puzzle, creature, or object, it is
like an experiment which provides an opportunity to confirm,
reject, or revise the reader's interpretations. While play¬
ing Adventure , for example, readers test their interpreta¬
tion of the story and events many times over. If they can't
solve a puzzle, they must face the fact that they don't have
enough information, that they overlooked or misjudged the
information they do have, or that their general view of the
story, i.e. the supra-story they created, might be wrong.
Again and again, they must consciously review precisely what
they think, why they think it, and search for alternative
ways to interpret the situation. Even as readers are

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183

totally involved in the imaginary world and making choices
about it, they must maintain a critical attitude toward
themselves and the fictional situations they confront. This
is the fundamental attitude underlying the scientific
method.

Carl Sagan writes about science:

It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool
we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to
everything. It has two rules. First: there are no
sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically
examined; arguments from authority are worthless.
Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must
be discarded or revised. We must understand the
Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how
we wish it to be. The obvious is sometimes false;
the unexpected is sometimes true."^ 1

Holland and Niesz have concentrated on only one
aspect of the scientific method implicit in the experience
of reading interactive fiction, i.e. the experimental
method. Because they have restricted their observations to
the stage involved in testing ideas instead of viewing it as
one part of the scientific method, they see this process as
one of interactive fiction's limitations.

This type of interactive fiction is clearly biased
in favor of the experimental method and the optimism
traditionally associated with it. By contrast, the
reader of a traditional fictional text is likely to
feel that her own additions or substitutions fall
short. That is, a reader, whether of Charles Dick¬
ens or Henry James, is likely to feel that the fic¬
tional world she has inferred from the novel is in
some final sense mysterious and unknowable, beyond
her grasp, beyond that of even the most willing
author. By contrast, the reader of a finite
interactive text is likely to feel that she can know

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and master this fictional universe. She is likely,
in other words, to experience the optimism of the
scientist at least as much as the mystery of art.

The genre imitates action, rather than reflection,
since if one makes a mistake and one's persona is
killed, it is a simple matter to start over again.

In a sense, the form intrinsic to the genre devalues
the role of the individual persona and the need for
reflection. As a corollary, once this kind of fin¬
ite interactive fiction has been mastered, it gen¬
erally ceases to hold the reader's interest...^ 2

This argument would be fine if it were applied
strictly to the solution of the puzzles themselves. First,
some readers do experience the sense of mystery that Niesz
and Holland would deny the genre, even with Adventure , a
work they would probably classify as finite. This feeling
that the cave is unknowable results not from any subtleties
or deep meanings in the work, but from the apparent vastness
of the cave and from the readers' uncertainty that they have
experienced everything the story has to offer. It is signi¬
ficant that the authors of Adventure have encrypted the pub¬
lic domain version of the work, presumably to maintain this
sense of mystery. It takes most people months to explore
the Adventure cave, and yet Adventure is an old, relatively
small program. I have watched many people playing Adven¬
ture , read many scripts, and have studied the program
itself, and yet I myself am still surprised at new
responses. The latest example took place when a new player
found her way into the building and saw the food, water,
lamp, and keys. Her immediate response was to type in ''Rub
lamp." I was as surprised and delighted as she when the
computer accepted her input and wrote back an appropriate,

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supercilious comment about the uselessness of rubbing an
electric flashlight.

Second, solving a puzzle in interactive fiction is
indeed like testing one's hypothesis in the scientific
method; it is a means of determining if the hypothesis is
correct (actually, to be exact, it determines if the
hypothesis is not incorrect). But it does not say anything
about why or how one arrived at the hypothesis. It says
nothing about the assumptions and personal principles upon
which the hypothesis was based. It also says nothing about
the readers' process of re-evaluation and revision of ideas,
a process which can be frustrating, but which is an impor¬
tant part of open-mindedness. The scientific method is a
philosophy which includes, but is not restricted to, the
idea of testing, through experiments, whether one’s ideas
make sense.

Interactive fiction has a strong contemplative qual¬
ity which Holland and Niesz have overlooked. It is not
enough to think the problems through on a strictly intellec¬
tual basis. It is not possible to solve all the problems in
this way, because so many of them are symbolic or emotional
in nature, not intellectual. To solve such problems, readers
must look inward and observe their own interpretive assump¬
tions, review the evidence, then ask themselves why they
think the way they do. When they realize that the solution
they proposed will not work, they must consider alternative
solutions.

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186

In this process of introspection and self¬
observation, readers turn their thoughts to situations in
their past when they made the same types of decisions or had
the same feelings. Even in as light-hearted a work as
Adventure , the scientific method inherent in the process of
reading interactive fiction causes readers to reflect on
themselves. When two or more people play together, this
aspect of interactive fiction often leads to philosophical
discussions. For example, when the backpacker player men¬
tioned earlier repeatedly was killed by dwarves because she
didn't feel morally justified in killing them, she insisted
there "must be good in every creature." Her partner replied
that exactly this stance had caused her much unhappiness in
life. They then discussed how best to recognize and deal
with immoral people. Interactive fiction does imitate
action, but it is equally a genre which elicits reflection
and contemplation.

Mistacco believes that the interpretive process is
the way one derives "values and a basis for moral judg¬
ment, "33 involves one in a -critical review of the modes of
intelligibility"^ and can have the effect of a "beneficial
questioning of his or her own models for judgment."35 Hol¬
land writes of reading literature almost as if it were a
therapeutic experience. For Iser, part of reading's value
is its similarity to life; meaning is experienced through
"the process of anticipation and retrospection, (and) the
consequent unfolding of the text as a living event. ..."^

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(The experience of reading is) closely akin to the
way in which we gather experience in life. And thus
the "reality"of the reading experience can
illuminate basic patterns of real experience. 37

Of course, in interactive fiction the reader is not con¬
fronted with reality, but his or her relationship to the
imaginary world imitates the relationship to the real one.

In order to solve the problems, readers.must "critically
examine" their assumptions and "discard or revise" any
interpretation that proves to be inconsistent with the rules
of the story.

The reader’s choice-making, the "real-time" aspect
of the step-by-step action, the necessity of making the
events in the story happen, the risk-taking, and possibility
of failure grips interactive fiction readers in its make-
believe world. These are powerful effects for imitating
"the way in which we gather experience in life."

For the past several centuries, the scientific
method, which is implicitly involved in reading interactive
fiction, has been a powerful tool not only in understanding
natural laws, but in understanding our place in the world as
well as our own nature. In a discussion about the morality
of science and its search for truth, Jacob Bronowski writes:
"There is indeed no system of morality which does not set a
high value on truth and on knowledge, above all on a cons¬
cious knowledge of oneself. "38 I think that there can be
value in reading interactive fiction merely through the
reader’s practicing in story-game form this contemplative,

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questioning, critical philosophical attitude towards one's
self and towards the problems and choices one faces.

Recent works of interactive fiction make use of the
puzzle-solving aspect inherent in the medium by imitating
popular forms of literature that are also puzzle- and rule-
based, especially science fiction and mystery literature.
There is no reason why the interactive fiction medium should
not produce works of high artistic value. I believe this
will be achieved when authors learn to use its feedback
mechanism for the subtle control of readers' thought
processes, and especially when the contemplative, reflective
qualities inherent in the medium are artistically exploited
as the central literary experience.

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189

FOOTNOTES : READER RESPONSE

1. Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading : A Theory of
Aesthetic Response (Baltimore arid London: Johns HopicTris
University Press, 1978).

2. Henry James, "The Figure in the Carpet," in: The
Complete Tales of Henry James, ed. Leon Edel (Philadelphia
and New York: Il?54), pp. 273-316.

3. Iser, The Act of Reading , pp. 3-10.

4. Iser, The Act of Reading , p. 9 .

5. Anthony Niesz and Norman Holland, "Interactive
Fiction," Critical Inquiry , Vol. 11, No. 1, 1984.

6 . Niesz and Holland, "Interactive Fiction," p.124

7. Crowther and Woods, Adventure ,

8 . Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class?
(Cambridge: Harvard University 'Press, I 980 TT Wolfgang Iser,
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975).

9. Tsvetan Todorov, "Reading as Construction" in:
The Reader in the Text : Essays on Audience and Interpreta¬
tion , ed. Susan Suleiman and Inge Crosraan (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1980), p 73.

10. Todorov, "Reading as Construction," p. 73.

11. Todorov, "Reading as Construction," p. 73.

12. Edward Packard, The Cave of Time (Toronto, New
York, London, Sydney: Bantam Books, 1979).

13. Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader : Patterns of
Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (BaT^
timore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974).

14. Iser, The Implied Reader , p. 285.

15. Stanley Fish, "Circumstances, Literal Language,
Speech Acts, the Ordinary, the Everyday, The Obvious, What
Goes without Saying and Other Special Cases," Critical
Inquiry , Vol. 4, No. 4, 1978, p. 629.

16. Niesz and Holland, "Interactive Fiction," p.124

17. Jack Wathey. Personal Communication.

18. Holland, Five Readers Reading, xii.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

19. Fish, "Normal Circumstances," p. 627.

20. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1954).

21. Ursula LaGuinn, The Earth - Sea Trilogy

22. Niesz and Holland, "Interactive Fiction," p.

121 .

23. Stanley Fish, "Interpreting the Variorum, Crit-
ical Inquiry , 1976.

24. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind
(New York: Ballantine Bocks, 1 $72)'.

25. Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind , pp. 245-

26. Fish, "Normal Circumstances," p. 637.

27. Fish, "Normal Circumstances," p. 637.

28. Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia, Fifth
Edition, E. Douglas ConsidTne (Newy YorTTj Cincinnati,
Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Toronto, Melbourne:
Van Nostrand Reinhold Company), p. 1005.

29. Iser, The Act of Reading , p. 10.

30. Fish, "Interpreting the Variorum , p. 474.

31. Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House,
1980 ), p. 333.

32. Niesz and Holland, p. 122.

33* Vicki Mistacco, "Reading The Immoralist: The
Relevance of Narrative Roles," in: Theories of Reading ,
Looking , and Listening (London and Toronto: Associated
University 'Presses, T581), p. 68.

34. Mistacco, "Reading The Immoralist , p. 68.

35. Mistacco, "Reading The Immoralist, p. 68.

56.

Iser ,

"The Implied

Reader ,"

P-

290 .

37.

Iser,

"The Implied

Reader,"

P-

281.

38. Jacob Bronowski, The Common Sense of Science
(New York: Vintage Books, no date listed), p. 122.

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So leben sie noch heute : Betrachtungen zum
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McCoy, Lois. The Bytes Brothers : Program a
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

APPENDIX A: COMPLETE DESCRIPTIONS
OF LOCATIONS AND OBJECTS IN COLOSSAL CAVE

1 1 You are standing at the end of a road before a

small brick building.

2 1 Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out

of the building and

3 1 down a gully.

4 2 You have walked up a hill, still in the forest.

The road slopes back

5 2 down the other side of the hill. There is a

building in the distance.

6 3 You are inside a building, a well house for a

large spring.

7 4 You are in a valley in the forest beside a stream

tumbling along a

8 4 rocky bed.

9 5 You are in open forest, with a deep valley to one

side.

10 6 You are in open forest near both a valley and a

road.

11 7 At your feet all the water of the stream splashes

'into a 2-inch slit

12 7 in the rock. Downstream the streambed is bare

rock.

13 8 You are in a 20-foot depression floored with bare

dirt. Set into the

14 8 dirt is a strong steel grate mounted in concrete.

A dry streambed

15 8 leads into the depression.

16 9 You are in a small chamber beneath a 3x3 steel

grate to the surface.

17 9 A low crawl over cobbles leads inward to the west.

18 10 You are crawling over cobbles in a low passage.

There is a dim light

19 10 at the east end of the passage.

20 11 You are in a debris room filled with stuff washed

in from the surface.

21 11 A low wide passage with cobbles becomes plugged

with mud and debris

22 11 here, but an awkward canyon leads upward and west.

A note on the wall

23 11 says "magic word xyzzy".

24 12 You are in an awkward sloping east/west canyon.

25 13 You are in a splendid chamber thirty feet high.

The walls are frozen

26 13 rivers of orange stone. An awkward canyon and a

good passage exit

27 13 From east and west sides of the chamber.

28 14 At your feet is a small pit breathing traces of

white mist. An east

201

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202

passage ends here except for a small crack leading
on.

You are at one end of a vast hall stretching for¬
ward out of sight to

the west. There are openings to either side.
Nearby, a wide stone

staircase leads downward. The hall is filled with
wisps of white mist

swaying to and fro almost as if alive. A cold
wind blows up the

staircase. There is a passage at the top of a
dome behind you.

The crack is far too small for you to follow.

You are on the east bank of a fissure slicing
clear across the hall.

The mist is quite thick here, and the fissure is
too wide to jump.

This is a low room with a crude note on the wall.
The note says,

"You won't get it up the steps".

You are in the hall of the mountain king, with
passages off in all
directions.

You are at the bottom of the pit with a broken
neck .

You didn't make it.

The dome is unclimbable.

You are at the west end of the twopit room. There
is a large hole in

the wall above-the pit at this end of the room.

You are at the bottom of the eastern pit in the
twopit room. There is

a small pool of oil in one corner of the pit.

You are at the bottom of the western pit in the
twopit room. There is

a large hole in the wall about 25 feet above you.
You clamber up the plant and scurry through the
hole at the top.

You are on the west side of the fissure in the
hall of mists.

You are in a low n/s passage at a hole in the
floor. The hole goes
down to an e/w passage.

You are in the south side chamber.

You are in the west side chamber of the hall of
the mountain king.

A passage continues west and up here.

>$<

You can't get by the snake.

You are in a large room, with a passage to the
south, a passage to the

west, and a wall of broken rock to the east.

There is a large "y2" on

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203

62 33 A rock in the room's center.

63 34 You are in a jumble of rock, with cracks every¬

where.

64 35 You're at a low window overlooking a huge pit,

which extends up out of

65 35 sight. A floor is indistinctly visible over 50

feet below. Traces of

66 35 White mist cover the floor of the pit, becoming

thicker to the right.

6? 35 Marks in the dust around the window would seem to

indicate that

68 35 someone has been here recently. Directly across

the pit from you and

69 35 25 Feet away there is a similar window looking

into a lighted room. A

70 35 shadowy figure can be seen there peering back at

you.

71 36 You are in a dirty broken passage. To the east is

a crawl. To the

72 36 west is a large passage. Above you is a hole to

another passage.

73 37 You are on the brink of a small clean climbable

pit. A crawl leads

74 37 west.

75 38 You are in the bottom of a small pit with a little

stream, which

76 38 Enters and exits through tiny slits.

77 39 You are in a large room full of dusty rocks.

There is a big hole in

78 39 the floor. There are cracks everywhere, and a

passage leading east.

79 40 You have crawled through a very low wide passage

parallel to and north

80 40 of the hall of mists.

81 41 You are at the west end of hall of mists. A low

wide crawl continues

82 41 west and another goes north. To the south is a

little p ass sg e 6 feet

83 41 Off the floor.

84 42 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

85 43 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

86 44 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

87 45 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

88 46 Dead end

89 47 Dead end

90 48 Dead end

91 49 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

92 50 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

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204

alike.

93 51 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

94 52 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

95 53 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

96 54 Dead end

97 55 You are in a maze of twisty little passages;-, all

alike.

98 56 Dead end

99 57 You are on the brink of a thirty foot pit with a

massive orange column

100 57 down one wall. You could climb down here but you

could not get back

101 57 up. The maze continues at this level.

102 58 Dead end

103 59 You have crawled through a very low wide passage

parallel to and north

104 59 of the hall of mists.

105 60 You are at the east end of a very long hall

apparently without side

106 60 chambers. To the east a low wide crawl slants up.

To the north a

107 60 round two foot hole slants down.

108 61 You are at the west end of a very long featureless

hall. The hall

109 61 joins up with a narrow north/south passage.

110 62 You are at a crossover of a high n/s passage and a

low e/w one.

111 63 Dead end

112 64 You are at a complex junction. A low hands and

knees passage from the

113 64 north joins a higher crawl from the east to make a

walking passage

114 64 going west. There is also a large room above.

The air is damp here.

115 65 You are in bedquilt, a long east/west passage with

holes everywhere.

116 65 To explore at random select north, south, up, or

down.

117 66 You are in a room whose walls resemble swiss

cheese. Obvious passages

118 66 go west, east, ne, and nw. Part of the room is

occupied by a large

119 66 bedrock block.

120 67 You are at the east end of the twopit room. The

floor here is

121 67 littered with thin rock slabs, which make it easy

to descend the pits.

122 67 There is a path here bypassing the pits to connect

passages from east

123 67 and west. There are holes all over, but the only

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205

big one is on the

124 67 wall directly over the west pit where you can't

get to it.

125 68 You are in a large low circular chamber whose

floor is an immense slab

126 68 fallen from the ceiling (slab room). East and

west there once were

127 68 large passages, but they are now filled with

boulders. Low small

128 68 passages go north and south, and’the south one

quickly bends west

129 68 around the boulders.

130 69 You are in a secret n/s canyon above a large room.

131 70 You are in a secret n/s canyon above a sizable

passage.

132 71 You are in a secret canyon at a junction of three

canyons, bearing

133 71 north, south, and se. The north one is as tall as

the other two

134 71 combined.

135 72 You are in a large low room. Crawls lead north,

se, and sw.

136 73 Dead end crawl.

137 74 You are in a secret canyon which here runs e/w.

It crosses over a

138 74 very tight canyon 15 feet below. If you go down

you may not be able

139 74 to get back up.

140 75 You are at a wide place in a very tight n/s

canyon.

141 76 The canyon here becomes too tight to go further

south.

142 77 You are in a tall e/w canyon. A low tight crawl

goes 3 feet north and

143 77 seems to open up.

144 78 The canyon runs into a mass of boulders — dead

end.

145 79 The stream flows out through a pair of 1 foot

diameter sewer pipes.

146 79 It would be advisable to use the exit.

147 80 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

148 81 Dead end

149 82 Dead end

150 83 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

151 84 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

152 85 DeacTend

153 86 Dead end

154 87 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all

alike.

155 88 You are in a long, narrow corridor stretching out

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206

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of sight to the

west. At the eastern end is a hole through which
you can see a
profusion of leaves.

There is nothing here to climb. Use "up" or "out"
to leave the pit.

You have climbed up the plant and out of the pit.
You are at the top of a steep incline above a
large room. You could

climb down here, but you would not be able to

climb up. There is a

passage leading back to the north.

You are in the giant room. The ceiling here is
too high up for your

lamp to show it. Cavernous passages lead east,
north, and south. On

the west wall is scrawled the inscription, "fee
fie foe foo" [sic].

The passage here is blocked by a recent cave-in.
You are at one end of an immense north/south pas¬
sage.

You are in a magnificent cavern with a rushing
stream, which cascades

over a sparkling waterfall into a roaring whirl¬
pool which disappears

through a hole in the floor. Passages exit to the
south and west.

You are in the soft room. The walls are covered
with heavy curtains,

the floor with a thick pile carpet. Moss covers
the ceiling.

This is the oriental room. Ancient oriental cave
drawings cover the

walls. A gently sloping passage leads upward to
the north, another

passage leads se, and a hands and knees crawl
leads west.

You are following a wide path around the outer
edge of a large cavern.

Far below, through a heavy white mist, strange
splashing noises can be

heard. The mist rises up through a fissure in the

ceiling. The path

exits to the south and west.

You are in an alcove. A small nw path seems to
widen after a short

distance. An extremely tight tunnel leads east.

It looks like a very

tight squeeze. An eerie light can be seen at the
other end.

You're in a small chamber lit by an eerie green
light. An extremely

narrow tunnel exits to the west. A dark corridor

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207

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leads ne,

You're in the dark-room. A corridor leading south
is the only exit.

You are in an arched hall. A coral passage once
continued up and east

from here, but is now blocked by debris. The air
smells of sea water.

You're in a large room carved out of sedimentary
rock. The floor and

walls are littered with bits of shells imbedded in
the stone. A

shallow passage proceeds downward, and a somewhat
steeper one leads

up. A low hands and knees passage enters from the
south.

You are in a long sloping corridor with ragged
sharp walls.

You are in a cul-de-sac about eight feet across.
You are in an anteroom leading to a large passage
to the east. Small

passages go west and up. The remnants of recent
digging are evident.

A sign in midair here says "Cave under construc¬
tion beyond this point.

Proceed at own risk. [Witt construction company]"
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all
different.

You are at Witt's end. Passages lead off in #all*
directions.

You are in a north/south canyon about 25 feet
across. The floor is

covered by white mist seeping in from the north.

The walls extend

upward for well over 100 feet. Suspended from
some unseen point far

above you, an enormous two-sided mirror is hanging
parallel to and

Midway between the canyon walls. (The mirror is
obviously provided

for the use of the dwarves, who as you know, are
extremely vain.) A

Small window can be seen in either wall, some
fifty feet up.

You're at a low window overlooking a huge pit,
which extends up out of

sight. A floor is indistinctly visible over 50
feet below. Traces of

white mist cover the floor of the pit, becoming
thicker to the left.

Marks in the dust around the window would seem to
indicate that

someone has been here recently. Directly across
the pit from you and

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25 Feet away there is a similar window looking
into a lighted room. A

shadowy figure can be seen there peering back at
you.

A large stalactite extends from the roof and
almost reaches the floor

below. You could climb down it, and jump from it
to the floor, but

having done so you would be unable to reach it to
climb back up.

You are in a little maze of twisting passages, all
different.

You are at the edge of a large underground reser¬
voir. An opaque cloud

of white mist fills the room and rises rapidly
upward. The lake is

fed by a stream, which tumbles out of a hole in
the wall about 10 feet

overhead and splashes noisily into the water some¬
where within the

Mist. The only passage goes back toward the
south.

Dead end

You are at the northeast end of an immense room,
even larger than the

giant room. It appears to be a repository for the
"adventure"

program. Massive torches far overhead bathe the
room with smoky

yellow light. Scattered about you can be seen a
pile of bottles (all

of them empty), a nursery of young beanstalks mur¬
muring quietly, a bed

of oysters, a bundle of black rods with rusty
stars on their ends, and

a collection of brass lanterns. Off to one side a
great many dwarves

are sleeping on the floor, snoring loudly. A sign
nearby reads: "Do

not disturb the dwarves!" An immense mirror is
hanging against one

wall, and stretches to the other end of the room,
where various other

sundry objects can be glimpsed dimly in the dis¬
tance .

You are at the southwest end of the repository.

To one side is a pit

full of fierce green snakes. On the other side is
a row of small

wicker cages, each of which contains a little
sulking bird. In one

corner is a bundle of black rods with rusty marks
on their ends. A

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large number of velvet pillows are scattered about
on the floor. A

vast mirror stretches off to the northeast. At
your feet is a large

steel grate, next to which is a sign which reads,
"Treasure vault.

Keys in main office."

You are on one side of a large, deep chasm. A
heavy white mist rising

up from below obscures all view of the far side.

A sw path leads away

from the chasm into a winding corridor.

You are in a long winding corridor sloping out of
sight in both
directions.

You are in a secret canyon which exits to the
north and east.

You are on the far side of the chasm. A ne path
leads away from the
chasm on this side.

You're in a long east/west corridor. A faint rum¬
bling noise can be
heard in the distance.

The path forks here. The left fork leads
northeast. A dull rumbling

seems to get louder in that direction. The right
fork leads southeast

down a gentle slope. The main corridor enters
from the west.

The walls are quite warm here. From the north can
be heard a steady

roar, so loud that the entire cave seems to be
trembling. Another

passage leads south, and a low crawl goes east.

You are on the edge of a breath-taking view. Far
below you is an

active volcano, from which great gouts of molten
lava come surging

out, cascading back down into the depths. The
glowing rock fills the

farthest reaches of the cavern with a blood-red
glare, giving every¬
thing an eerie, macabre appearance. The air is
filled with flickering

sparks of ash and a heavy smell of brimstone. The
walls are hot to

the touch, and the thundering of the volcano
drowns out all other

sounds. Embedded in the jagged roof far overhead

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210

are myriad twisted

269 126 formations composed of pure white alabaster, which

scatter the murky

270 126 light into sinister apparitions upon the walls.

To one side is a deep

271 126 gorge, filled with a bizarre chaos of tortured

rock which seems to

272 126 have been crafted by the devil himself. An

immense river of fire

273 126 crashes out from the depths of the volcano, burns

its way through the

274 126 gorge, and plummets into a bottomless pit far off

to your left. To

275 126 the right, an immense geyser of blistering steam

erupts continuously

276 126 from a barren- island in the center of a sulfurous

lake, which bubbles

277 126 ominously. The far right wall is aflame with an

incandescence of its

278 126 own, which lends an additional infernal splendor

to the already

279 126 hellish scene. A dark, foreboding passage exits

to the south.

280 127 You are in a small chamber filled with large

boulders. The walls are

281 127 very warm, causing the air in the room to be

almost stifling from the

282 127 heat. The only exit is a crawl heading west,

through which is coming

283 127 a low rumbling.

284 128 You are walking along a gently sloping north/south

passage lined with

285 128 oddly shaped limestone formations.

286 129 You are standing at the entrance to a large, bar¬

ren room. A sign

287 129 posted above the entrance reads: "Caution! Bear

in room!"

288 130 You are inside a barren room. The center of the

room is completely

289 130 empty except for some dust. Marks in the dust

lead away toward the

290 130 far end of the room. The only exit is the way you

came in.

291 131 You are in a maze of twisting little passages, all

different.

292 132 You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all

different.

293 133 You are in a twisting maze of little passages, all

different.

294 134 You are in a twisting little maze of passages, all

different.

295 135 You are in a twisty little maze of passages, all

different.

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211

296 136

297 137

298 138

299 139

300 140

301 -1
302 2

You are in a twisty maze of little passages, all
different.

You are in a little twisty maze of passages, all
different.

You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all
different.

You are in a maze of little twisty passages, all
different,

Dead end
End

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APPENDIX

304 2

305 3

306 4

307 5

308 6

309 7

310 8

311 9

312 10

313 11

314 13

315 14

316 15

317 17

318 18

319 19

320 23

321 24

322 25

323 33

324 35

325 36

326 39

327 41

328 57

329 60

330 61

331 64

332 66

333 67

334 68

335 71

336 74

337 88

338 91

339 92

340 95

341 96

342 97

343 98

344 99

345 100

346 101

347 102

348 103

349 106

350 108

B: ABBREVIATED DESCRIPTIONS OF LOCATIONS AND

OBJECTS IN COLOSSAL CAVE

303 1 You're at end of road again.

You're at hill in road.

You're inside building.

You're in valley.

You're in forest.

You're at slit in streambed.

You're outside grate.

You're below the grate.

You're in cobble crawl.

You're in debris room.

You're in bird chamber.

You're at top of small pit.

You're in hall of mists.

You're on east bank of fissure.

You're in nugget of gold room.

You're in hall of mt king.

You're at west end of twopit room.

You're in east pit.

You’re in west pit.

You're at "y2".

You're at window on pit.

You're in dirty passage.

You're in dusty rock room.

You're at west end of hall of mists.

You're at brink of pit.

You're at east end of long hall.

You're at west end of long hall.

You're at complex junction.

You're in swiss cheese room.

You're at east end of twopit room.

You're in slab room.

You're at junction of three secret canyons.
You're in secret e/w canyon above tight canyon.
You're in narrow corridor.

You're at steep incline above large room.

You're in giant room.

You're in cavern with waterfall.

You're in soft room.

You're in oriental room.

You're in misty cavern.

You're in alcove.

You're in plover room.

You're in dark-room.

You're in arched hall.

You're in shell room.

You're in anteroom.

You're at witt's end.

212

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351

109

You're

mirror canyon.

352

110

You're

window on pit.

353

111

You're

top of stalactite.

354

113

You're

reservoir.

355

115

You're

ne end.

356

116

You're

sw end.

357

117

You're

sw side of chasm.

358

118

You're

sloping corridor.

359

122

You're

ne side of chasm.

360

123

You're

corridor.

361

124

You' re

fork in path.

362

125

You're

junction with warm walls

363

126

You’ re

breath-taking view.

364

127

You're

chamber of boulders.

365

128

You're

limestone passage.

366

129

You’re

front of barren room.

367

368

130

-1

You're

barren room.

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APPENDIX C: NUMERICALLY CODED MAP OF COLOSSAL CAVE

369

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303008

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303008

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416

303008

417

- .

214

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215

418

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421

303008

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303008

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150020

431

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150022

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312596

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412021

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412597

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311028

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311029

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311030

450

451

35074

452

211032

453

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458

459

460

648

461

462

463

724031

464

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466

312596

467

412021

468

412597

469

470

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216

471

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477

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524089

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159302

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217

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80556

579

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75072

583

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80556

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. 106

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80556

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331120

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219

630

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633

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114

639

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309095

655

611

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664

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301

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100

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301

669

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159302

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114618

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104

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684

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95556

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108

626

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40050

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50053

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140

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113

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719

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720

1 15

116

721

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722

116

593

723

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233660

725

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332661

726

117

303

727

117

332021

728

117

596

729

118

730

118

117

731

119

732

119

653

733

120

734

120

735

121

45 46 47 48

39 56

11 109

42 69 47

11
7

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2 21

736

121

653

737

122

123

738

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233660

739

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303

740

122

596

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743

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745

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129

748

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750

124

128

751

124

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752

124

129

753

125

124

754

125

126

755

125

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756

126

125

757

126

124

758

126

610

759

127

125

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127

124

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762

128

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763

128

129

764

128

126

765

129

128

766

129

124

767

129

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768

129

126

769

130

129

770

130

124

771

130

126

772

131

107

773

131

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775

131

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131

112

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783

132

131

784

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132

134

786

132

135

787

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136

788

132

137

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222

789

132

138

790

132

139

791

132

112

792

133

107

793

133

131

794

133

132

795

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133

135

797

133

136

798

133

137

799

133

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800

133

139

801

133

112

802

134

107

803

134

131

804

134

132

805

134

133

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134

135

807

134

136

808

134

137

809

134

138

810

134

139

811

134

112

812

135

107

813

135

131

814

135

132

815

135

133

816

135

134

817

135

136

818

135

137

819

135

138

820

135

139

821

135

112

822

136

107

823

136

131

824

136

132

825

136

133

826

136

134

827

136

135

828

136

137

829

136

138

830

136

139

831

136

112

832

137

107

833

137

131

834

137

132

835

137

133

836

137

134

837

137

135

838

137

136

839

137

138

840

137

139

841

137

112

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APPENDIX D: PROGRAM VOCABULARY

864

865

road

866

hill

867

enter

868

upstr

869

downs

870

fores

871

forwa

872

conti

873

onwar

874

back

875

retur

876

retre

877

valle

878

stair

879

out

880

outsi

881

exit

882

leave

883

build

884

house

885

gully

886

strea

887

rock

888

bed

889

crawl

890

cobbl

891

inwar

892

insid

893

894

surf a

895

null

896

nowhe

897

dark

898

passa

899

tunne

900

low

901

canyo

902

awkwa

903

giant

904

view

905

upwar

906

907

908

above

909

ascen

910

911

downw

912

down

223

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

224

913

desce

914

pit

915

outdo

916

crack

917

steps

918

dome

919

left

920

right

921

hall

922

jump

923

barr e

924

over

925

acros

926

east

927

928

west

929

930

north

931

932

south

933

934

935

936

937

938

debri

939

hole

940

wall

941

•54

broke

942

943

climb

944

look

945

ex ami

946

touch

947

descr

948

floor

949

room

950

slit

951

slab

952

slabr

953

xyzzy

954

depre

955

entra

956

plugh

957

secre

958

cave

959

cross

960

bedqu

961

plove

962

orien

963

caver

964

shell

965

reser

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

225

966

main

967

off ic

968

fork

969

1001

keys

970

1001

key

971

1002

lamp

972

1002

headl

973

1002

lante

974

1003

grate

975

1004

cage

976

1005

wand

977

1005

rod

978

1006

wand

979

1006

rod (must

be next object after "real" rod)

980

1007

steps

981

1008

bird

982

1009

door

983

1010

pillo

984

1010

velve

985

1011

snake

986

1012

f issu

987

1013

table

988

1014

clam

989

1015

oyste

990

1016

magaz

991

1016

issue

992

1016

spelu

993

1016

"spel

994

1017

dwarf

995

1017

dwarv

996

1018

knife

997

1018

knive

998

1019

food

999

1019

ratio

1000

1020

bottl

1001

1020

jar

1002

1021

water

1003

1021

h2o

1004

1022

oil

1005

1023

mirro

1006

1024

plant

1007

1024

beans

1008

1025

plantCmust

object

after "real"

plant)

1009

1026

stala

1010

1027

shado

1011

1027

f igur

1012

1028

axe

1013

1029

drawi

1014

1030

pirat

1015

1031

dr ago

1016

1032

chasm

1017

1033

troll

1018

1034

trolHmust

object

after "real"

troll)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1019

1035

bear

1020

1036

messa

1021

1037

volca

1022

1037

geyse(same as volcano)

1023

1038

machi

1024

1038

vendi

1025

1039

batte

1026

1040

carpe

1027

1040

moss

1028

1050

gold

1029

1050

nugge

1030

1051

d i am o

1031

1052

silve

1032

1052

bars

1033

1053

jewel

1034

1054

coins

1035

1055

chest

1036

1055

box

1037

1055

treas

1038

1056

eggs

1039

1056

egg

1040

1056

nest

1041

1057

tride

1042

1058

vase

1043

1058

ming

1044

1058

shard

1045

1058

potte

1046

1059

emera

1047

1060

plati

1048

1060

pyr am

1049

1061

pearl

1050

1062

rug

1051

1062

persi

1052

1063

spice

1053

1064

chain

1054

2001

carry

1055

2001

take

1056

2001

keep

1057

2001

catch

1058

2001

steal

1059

2001

captu

1060

2001

get

1061

2001

tote

1062

2002

drop

1063

2002

relea

1064

2002

free

1065

2002

disca

1066

2002

dump

1067

2003

say

1068

2003

chant

1069

2003

sing

1070

2003

utter

1071

2003

mumbl

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1072 2004 unloc

1073 2004 open

1074 2005 nothi

1075 2006 lock

1076 2006 close

1077 2007 light

1078 2007 on

1079 2008 extin

1080 2008 off

1081 2009 wave

1082 2009 shake

1083 2009 swing

1084 2010 calm

1085 2010 placa

1086 2010 tame

1087 2011 walk

1088 2011 run

1089 2011 trave

1090 2011 go

1091 2011 proce

1092 2011 conti

1093 2011 explo

1094 2011 goto

1095 2011 folio

1096 2011 turn

1097 2012 attac

1098 2012 kill

1099 2012 slay

1100 2012 fight

1101 2012 hit

1102 2012 strik

1103 2013 pour

1104 2014 eat

1105 2014 devou

1106 2015 drink

1107 2016 rub

1108 2017 throw

1109 2017 toss

1110 2018 quit

1111 2019 find

1112 2019 where

1113 2020 inven

1114 2021 feed

1115 2022 fill

1116 2023 blast

1117 2023 deton

1118 2023 ignit

1119 2023 blowu

1120 2024 score

1121 2025 fee

1122 2025 fie

1123 2025 foe

1124 2025 foo

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1125 2025 fum

1126 2026 brief

1127 2027 read

1 128 2027 perus
1 129 2028 break
1 130 2028 shatt

1131 2028 smash

1132 2029 wake

1133 2029 distu

1134 2030 suspe

1135 2030 pause

1136 2030 save

1137 2031 hours

1138 3001 fee

1139 3002 fie

1140 3003 foe

1141 3004 foo

1142 3005 fum

1143 3050 sesam

1144 3050 opens

1145 3050 abra

1146 3050 abrac

1147 3050 shaza

1148 3050 hocus

1149 3050 pocus

1150 3051 help

1151 3051 ?

1152 3064 tree

1153 3064 trees

1154 3066 dig

1155 3066 excav

1156 3068 lost

1157 3069 mist

1158 3079 fuck

1159 3139 stop

1160 3142 info

1161 3142 infor

1162 3147 swim

1163 -1

Reproduced with permission

of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

APPENDIX E:

1164 5

1165 1

1166 000

1167 2

1168 000
1169 100

1170 3

1171 000

1172 100

1173 4

1174 000

1175 5

1176 000

1177 6

1178 000

1179 7

1180 000
1181 100
1182 8

1183 000

1184 100

1185 9

1186 000

1187 100

1188 10

1189 000

1190 11

1191 000

1192 100

1193 12

1194 000

1195 100

1196 200

1197 13

1198 000
1199 000

1200 14

1201 000

1202 15

1203 000

1204 100

Set of keys

There sre some keys on the ground here.

Brass lantern

There is a shiny brass lamp nearby.

There is a lamp shining nearby.

♦Grate

The grate is locked.

The grate is open.

Wicker cage

There is a small wicker cage discarded nearby.
Black rod

A three foot black rod with a rusty star on an end
lies nearby.

Black rod

A three foot black rod with a rusty mark on an end
lies nearby.

♦Steps

Rough stone steps lead down the pit.

Rough stone steps lead up the dome.

Little bird in cage

A cheerful little bird is sitting here singing.
There is a little bird in the cage.

♦Rusty door

The way north is barred by a massive, rusty, iron
door.

The way north leads through a massive, rusty, iron
door.

Velvet pillow

A small velvet pillow lies on the floor.

♦Snake

A huge green fierce snake bars the way!

>$< (Chased away)

♦Fissure

>$<

A crystal bridge now spans the fissure.

The crystal bridge has vanished!

♦Stone tablet

A massive stone tablet imbedded in the wall reads:
"Congratulations on bringing light into the dark¬
room !"

Giant clam >grunt!<

There is an enormous clam here with its shell
tightly closed.

Giant oyster >groan!<

There is an enormous oyster here with its shell
tightly closed.

Interesting. There seems to be something written
on the underside of

229

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

230

1205 100 The oyster.

1206 16 "Spelunker today"

1207 000 There are a few recent issues of "Spelunker today"

magazine here.

1208 19 Tasty food

1209 000 There is food here.

1210 20 Small bottle

1211 000 There is a bottle of water here.

1212 100 There is an empty bottle here.

1213 200 There is a bottle of oil here.

1214 21 Water in the bottle

1215 22 Oil in the bottle

1216 23 *Mirror

1217 000 >$<

1218 24 »Plant

1219 000 There is a tiny little plant in the pit, murmuring

"water, water, ..."

1220 100 The plant spurts into furious growth for a few

seconds.

1221 200 There is a 12-foot-tall beanstalk stretching up

out of the pit,

1222 200 Bellowing "water!! water!!"

1223 300 The plant grows explosively, almost filling the

bottom of the pit.

1224 400 There is a gigantic beanstalk stretching all the

way up to the hole.

1225 500 You've over-watered the plant! It's shriveling

up! It's, it's...

1226 25 *Phony plant (seen in twopit room only when tall

enough)

1227 000 >$<

1228 100 The top of a 12-foot-tall beanstalk is poking out

of the west pit.

1229 200 There is a huge beanstalk growing out of the west

pit up to the hole.

1230 26 *Stalactite

1231 000 >$<

1232 27 *Shadowy figure

1233 000 The shadowy figure seems to be trying to attract

your attention.

1234 28 Dwarf's axe

1235 000 There is a little axe here.

1236 100 There is a little axe lying beside the bear.

1237 29 *Cave drawings

1238 000 >$<

1239 30 *Pirate

1240 000 >$<

1241 31 *Dragon

1242 000 A huge green fierce dragon bars the way!

1243 100 Congratulations! You have just vanquished a dra¬

gon with your bare

1244 100 Hands! (unbelievable, isn't it?)

1245 200 The body of a huge green dead dragon is lying off

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to one side.

♦Chasm

A rickety wooden bridge extends across the chasm,
vanishing into the

Mist. A sign posted on the bridge reads, "stop!
pay troll!"

The wreckage of a bridge (and a dead bear) can be
seen at the bottom
Of the chasm.

*Troll

A burly troll stands by the bridge and insists you
throw him a

Treasure before you may cross.

The troll steps out from beneath the bridge and
blocks your way.

>$< (Chased away)

*Phony troll

The troll is nowhere to be seen.

>$< (Bear uses rtext 141)

There is a ferocious cave bear eying you from the
far end of the room!

There is a gentle cave bear sitting placidly in
one corner.

There is a contented-looking bear wandering about
nearby.

>$< (Dead)

♦Message in second maze

There is a message scrawled in the dust in a
flowery script, reading:

"This is not the maze where the pirate leaves his
treasure chest."

♦Volcano and/or geyser

>$<

♦Vending machine

There is a massive vending machine here. The
instructions on it read:

"Drop coins here to receive fresh batteries."
Batteries

There are fresh batteries here.

Some worn-out batteries have been discarded
nearby.

♦Carpet and/or moss

>$<

Large gold nugget

There is a large sparkling nugget of gold here!

Several diamonds

There are diamonds here!

Bars of silver

There are bars of silver here!

Precious jewelry

There is precious jewelry here!

Rare coins

There are many coins here!

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1312 100

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Treasure chest

The pirate's treasure chest is here!

Golden eggs

There is a large nest here, full of golden eggs!
The nest of golden eggs has vanished!

Done!

Jeweled trident

There is a jewel-encrusted trident here!

Ming vase

There is a delicate, precious, ming vase here!
The vase is now resting, delicately, on a velvet
pillow.

The floor is littered with worthless shards of
pottery.

The ming vase drops with a delicate crash.
Egg-sized emerald

There is an emerald here the size of a plover's
egg!

Platinum pyramid

There is a platinum pyramid here, 8 inches on a
side!

Glistening pearl

Off to one side lies a glistening pearl!

Persian rug

There is a persian rug spread out on the floor!
The dragon is sprawled out on a persian rug!!
Rare spices

There are rare spices here!

Golden chain

There is a golden chain lying in a heap on the
floor!

The bear is locked to the wall with a golden
chain!

There is a golden chain locked to the wall!

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APPENDIX F: HELPFUL MESSAGES

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Somewhere nearby is colossal cave, where others
have found fortunes in

treasure and gold, though it is rumored that some
who enter are never

seen again. Magic is said to work in the cave. I
will be your eyes

and hands. Direct me with commands of 1 or 2
words. I should warn

you that I look at only the first five letters of
each word, so you'll

have to enter "northeast” as "ne" to distinguish
it from "north".

(Should you get stuck, type "help" for some gen¬
eral hints. For infor¬
mation on how to end your adventure, etc., type
"info".)

This program was originally developed by willie
crowther. Most of the

features of the current program were added by don
woods (don @ su-ai).

contact don if you have any questions, comments,
etc.

Address complaints about the unix version to jim @
rana-unix.

A little dwarf with a big knife blocks your way.

A little dwarf just walked around a corner, saw
you, threw a little

axe at you which missed, cursed, and ran away.
There is a threatening little dwarf in the room
with you!

One sharp nasty knife is thrown at you!

None of them hit you!

One of them gets you!

A hollow voice says "plugh".

There is no way to go that direction.

I am unsure how you are facing. Use compass
points or nearby objects.

I don't know in from out here. Use compass points
or name something

in the general direction you want to go.

I don't know how to apply that word here.

I don't understand that!

I'm game. Would you care to explain how?

Sorry, but I am not allowed to give more detail.

I will repeat the

long description of your location.

It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will

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likely fall into a pit.

If you prefer, simply type w rather than west.

Are you trying to catch the bird?

The bird is frightened right now and you cannot
catch it no matter

what you try. Perhaps you might try later.

Are you trying to somehow deal with the snake?

You can't kill the snake, or drive it away, or
avoid it, or anything

like that. There is a way to get by, but you
don't have the necessary
resources right now.

Do you really want to quit now?

You fell into a pit and broke every bone in your
body!

You are already carrying it!

You can't be serious!

The bird was unafraid when you entered, but as you

approach it becomes

disturbed and you cannot catch it.

You can catch the bird, but you cannot carry it.
There is nothing here with a lock!

You aren't carrying it!

The little bird attacks the green snake, and in an
astounding flurry
drives the snake away.

You have no keys!

It has no lock.

I don't know how to lock or unlock such a thing.

It was already locked.

The grate is now locked.

The grate is now unlocked.

It was already unlocked.

You have no source of light.

Your lamp is now on.

Your lamp is now off.

There is no way to get past the bear to unlock the
chain, which is
probably just as well.

Nothing happens.

Where?

There is nothing here to attack.

The little bird is now dead. Its body disappears.
Attacking the snake both doesn't work and is very
dangerous.

You killed a little dwarf.

You attack a little dwarf, but he dodges out of
the way.

With what? Your bare hands?

Good try, but that is an old worn-out magic word.

I know of places, actions, and things. Most of my
vocabulary

describes places and is used to move you there.

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To move, try words

like forest, building, downstream, enter, east,
west, north, south,

up, or down. I know about a few special objects,
like a black rod

hidden in the cave. These objects can be manipu¬
lated using some of

the action words that I know. Usually you will
need to give both the

object and action words (in either order), but
sometimes I can infer

the object from the verb alone. Some objects also
imply verbs ; in

particular, "inventory” implies "take inventory",
which causes me to

give you a list of what you're carrying. The
objects have side

effects; for instance, the rod scares the bird.
Usually people having

trouble moving just need to try a few more words.
Usually people

trying unsuccessfully to manipulate an object are
attempting something

beyond their (or my!) capabilities and should try
a completely

different tack. To speed the game you can some¬
times move long

distances with a single word. For example,
"building" usually gets

you to the building from anywhere above ground
except when lost in the

forest. Also, note that cave passages turn a lot,
and that leaving a

room to the north does not guarantee entering the
next from the south.

Good luck!

It misses!

It gets you!

You can't unlock the keys.

You have crawled around in some little holes and
wound up back in the
main passage.

I don't know where the cave is, but hereabouts no
stream can run on

the surface for long. I would try the stream.

I need more detailed instructions to do that.

I can only tell you what you see as you move about
and manipulate

things. I cannot tell you where remote things
are.

I don't know that word.

What?

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Are you trying to get into the cave?

The grate is very solid and has a hardened steel
lock. You cannot

enter without a key, and there are no keys nearby.

I would recommend

looking elsewhere for the keys.

The trees of the forest are large hardwood oak and
maple, with an

occasional grove of pine or spruce. There is
quite a bit of under¬
growth, largely birch and ash saplings plus non¬
descript bushes of

various sorts. This time of year visibility is
quite restricted by

all the leaves, but travel is quite easy if you
detour around the
spruce and berry bushes.

Welcome to adventure!! Would you like instruc¬
tions?

Digging without a shovel is quite impractical.

Even with a shovel
progress is unlikely.

Blasting requires dynamite.

I'm as confused as you are.

Mist is a white vapor, usually water, seen from
time to time in

caverns. It can be found anywhere but is fre¬
quently a sign of a deep
pit leading down to water.

Your feet are now wet.

I think I just lost my appetite.

Thank you, it was delicious!

You have taken a drink from the stream. The water
tastes strongly of

minerals, but is not unpleasant. It is extremely
cold.

The bottle of water is now empty.

Rubbing the electric lamp is not particularly
rewarding. Anyway,
nothing exciting happens.

Peculiar. Nothing unexpected happens.

Your bottle is empty and the ground is wet.

You can't pour that.

Watch it!

Which way?

Oh dear, you seem to have gotten yourself killed.

I might be able to

help you out, but i’ve never really done this
before. Do you want me
to try to reincarnate you?

All right. But don't blame me if something goes
wr.

-Poof! !-

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You are engulfed in a cloud of orange smoke.
Coughing and gasping,

you emerge from the smoke and find....

You clumsy oaf, you've done it again! I don't
know how long I can

keep this up. Do you want me to try reincarnating
you again?

Okay, now where did I put my orange smoke?....
>poof !<

Everything disappears in a dense cloud of orange
smoke.

Now you've really done it! I'm out of orange
smoke! You don't expect

me to do a decent reincarnation without any orange
smoke, do you?

Okay, if you're so smart, do it yourself! I'm
leaving!

>>> Messages 81 thru 90 are reserved for "obi¬
tuaries". <<<

Sorry, but I no longer seem to remember how it was
you got here.

You can't carry anything more. You'll have to
drop something first.

You can't go through a locked steel grate!

I believe what you want is right here with you.

You don't fit through a two-inch slit!

I respectfully suggest you go across the bridge
instead of jumping.

There is no way across the fissure.

You're not carrying anything.

You are currently holding the following:

It's not hungry (it's merely pinin' for the
fjords). Besides, you
have no bird seed.

The snake has now devoured your bird.

There's nothing here it wants to eat (except
perhaps you).

You fool, dwarves eat only coal! Now you've made
him *really# mad!!

You have nothing in which to carry it.

Your bottle is already full.

There is nothing here with which to fill the bot¬
tle.

Your bottle is now full of water.

Your bottle is now full of oil.

You can't fill that.

Don't be ridiculous!

The door is extremely rusty and refuses to open.

The plant indignantly shakes the oil off its
leaves and asks, "water?"

The hinges are quite thoroughly rusted now and
won't budge.

The oil has freed up the hinges so that the door

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will now move,

although it requires some effort.

The plant has exceptionally deep roots and cannot
be pulled free.

The dwarves’ knives vanish as they strike the
walls of the cave.

Something you're carrying won't fit through the
tunnel with you.

You'd best take inventory and drop something.

You can't fit this five-foot clam through that
little passage!

You can't fit this five-foot oyster through that
little passage!

I advise you to put down the clam before opening
it. >strain!<

I advise you to put down the oyster before opening
it. >wrench!<

You don't have anything strong enough to open the
clam.

You don't have anything strong enough to open the
oyster.

A glistening pearl falls out of the clam and rolls
away. Goodness,

this must really be an oyster. (I never was very
good at identifying

bivalves.) Whatever it is, it has now snapped
shut again.

The oyster creaks open, revealing nothing but
oyster inside. It
promptly snaps shut again.

You have crawled around in some little holes and
found your way

blocked by a recent cave-in. You are now back in
the main passage.

There are faint rustling noises from the darkness
behind you.

Out from the shadows behind you pounces a bearded
pirate! "Har, har,"

he chortles, "I'll just take all this booty and
hide it away with me

chest deep in the maze!" He snatches your treas¬
ure and vanishes into
the gloom.

A sepulchral voice reverberating through the cave,
says, "Cave closing

soon. All adventurers exit immediately through
main office."

A mysterious recorded voice groans into life and
announces:

"This exit is closed. Please leave via main
office."

It looks as though you're dead. Well, seeing as
how it's so close to

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closing time anyway, I think we'll just call it a
day.

The sepulchral voice entones, "The cave is now
closed." As the echoes

fade, there is a blinding flash of light (and a
small puff of orange

Smoke). ... As your eyes refocus, you look
around and find...

there is a loud explosion, and a twenty-foot hole
appears in the far

wall, burying the dwarves in the rubble. You
march through the hole

and find yourself in the main office, where a
cheering band of

friendly elves carry the conquering adventurer off
into the sunset.

There is a loud explosion, and a twenty-foot hole
appears in the far

wall, burying the snakes in the rubble. A river
of molten lava pours

in through the hole, destroying everything in its
path, including you!

There is a loud explosion, and you are suddenly
splashed across the
walls of the room.

The resulting ruckus has awakened the dwarves.
There are now several

threatening little dwarves in the room with you!
Most of them throw

knives at you! All of them get you!

Oh, leave the poor unhappy bird alone.

I daresay whatever you want is around here some¬
where .

I don't know the word "stop". Use "quit" if you
want to give up.

You can't get there from here.

You are being followed by a very large, tame bear.
If you want to end your adventure early, say
"quit". To suspend your

adventure such that you can continue later, say
"suspend" (or "pause"

Or "save"). To see what hours the cave is nor¬
mally open, say "hours".

To see how well you're doing, say "score". To get
full credit for a

treasure, you must have left it safely in the
building, though you get

partial credit just for locating it. You lose
points for getting

killed, or for quitting, though the former costs
you more. There are

also points based on how much (if any) of the cave
you've managed to

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explore; in particular, there is a large bonus
just for getting in (to

distinguish the beginners from the rest of the
pack), and there are

other ways to determine whether you've been
through some of the more

harrowing sections. If you think you've found all
the treasures, just

keep exploring for a while. If nothing interest¬
ing happens, you

haven't found them all yet. If something
interesting *does* happen,

it means you're getting a bonus and have an oppor¬
tunity to garner many

more points in the master's section. I may occa¬
sionally offer hints

if you seem to be having trouble. If I do, I'll
warn you in advance

how much it will affect your score to accept the
hints. Finally, to

save paper, you may specify "brief", which tells
me never to repeat

the full description of a place unless you expli¬
citly ask me to.

Do you indeed wish to quit now?

There is nothing here with which to fill the vase.
The sudden change in temperature has delicately
shattered the vase.

It is beyond your power to do that.

I don't know how.

It is too far up for you to reach.

You killed a little dwarf. The body vanishes in a
cloud of greasy
black smoke.

The shell is very strong and is impervious to
attack.

What's the matter, can't you read? Now you'd best
start over.

The axe bounces harmlessly off the dragon's thick
scales.

The dragon looks rather nasty. You'd best not try
to get by.

The little bird attacks the green dragon, and in
an astounding flurry

gets burnt to a cinder. The ashes blow away.

On what?

Okay, from now on i'll only describe a place in
full the first time

you come to it. To get the full description, say
"look".

Trolls are close relatives with the rocks and have
skin as tough as

that of a rhinoceros. The troll fends off your

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blows effortlessly.

The troll deftly catches the axe, examines it
carefully, and tosses it

back, declaring, "good workmanship, but it’s not
valuable enough."

The troll catches your treasure and scurries away
out of sight.

The troll refuses to let you cross.

There is no longer any way across the chasm.

Just as you reach the other side, the bridge buck¬
les beneath the

weight of the bear, which was still following you
around. You

scrabble desperately for support, but as the
bridge collapses you

stumble back and fall into the chasm.

The bear lumbers toward the troll, who lets out a
startled shriek and

scurries away. The bear soon gives up the pursuit
and wanders back.

The axe misses and lands near the bear where you
can't get at it.

With what? Your bare hands? Against *his# bear
hands??

The bear is confused; he only wants to be your
friend.

For crying out loud, the poor thing is already
dead!

The bear eagerly wolfs down your food, after which
he seems to calm

Down considerably and even becomes rather
friendly.

The bear is still chained to the wall.

The chain is r;ill locked.

The chain is ;OW unlocked.

The chain is now locked.

There is nothing here to which the chain can be
locked.

There is nothing here to eat.

Do you want the hint?

Do you need help getting out of the maze?

You can make the passages look less alike by drop¬
ping things.

Are you trying to explore beyond the plover room?
There is a way to explore that region without hav¬
ing to worry about

falling into a pit. None of the objects available
is immediately

useful in discovering the secret.

Do you need help getting out of here?

Don't go west.

Gluttony is not one of the troll's vices. Avar¬
ice, however, is.

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1644 -1

Your lamp is getting dim. You'd best start wrap¬
ping this up, unless

You can find some fresh batteries. I seem to
recall there’s a vending

machine in the maze. Bring some coins with you.
Your lamp has run out of power.

There's not much point in wandering around out
here, and you can’t

explore the cave without a lamp. So let's just
call it a day.

There are faint rustling noises from the darkness
behind you. As you

turn toward them, the beam of your lamp falls
across a bearded pirate.

He is carrying a large chest. "Shiver me
timbers!" he cries, "I’ve

been spotted! I'd best hie meself off to the maze
to hide me chest!"

With that, he vanishes into the gloom.

Your lamp is getting dim. You'd best go back for
those batteries.

Your lamp is getting dim. I'm taking the liberty
of replacing the
batteries.

Your lamp is getting dim, and you're out of spare

batteries. You'd

best start wrapping this up.

I'm afraid the magazine is written in dwarvish.
"This is not the maze where the pirate leaves his
treasure chest."

Hmmm, this looks like a clue, which means it'll
cost you 10 points to

read it. Should I go ahead and read it anyway?

It says, "there is something strange about this
place, such that one

Of the words i've always known now has a new
effect."

It says the same thing it did before.

I'm afraid I don't understand.

"Congratulations on bringing light into the dark¬
room! "

You strike the mirror a resounding blow, whereupon
it shatters into a
myriad tiny fragments.

You have taken the vase and hurled it delicately
to the ground.

You prod the nearest dwarf, who wakes up grumpily,
takes one look at

you, curses, and grabs for his axe.

Is this acceptable?

There's no point in suspending a demonstration
game.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

APPENDIX G: NUMERICAL CODING

1645

1646

1647

1648

1649

1650

1651

1652

1415

1653

1654

94-1

1655

1656

19-1

1657

1727

1658

101-1

1659

103

1660

1661

106

1662

0-1

1663

1664

1665

1666

1667

1668

109-1

1669

25-1

1670

2367

1671

111-1

1672

35110

1673

1674

97-1

1675

0-1

1676

119121

1677

117122

1678

117122

1679

1680

130-1

1681

0-1

1682

126-1

1683

140-1

1684

1685

96-1

1686

1687

1688

1689

1690

1691

1692

1693

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.

Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

244

1694

1695

100

1696

101

1697

1698

119121

1699

127

1700

130-1

1701

-1

1702

1703

1704

1705

1706

1707

1708

1709

1710

1711

1712

1713

1714

110

1715

1716

110

1717

1718

1719

1720

1721

1722

1723

174

1724

109

1725

1726

1727

147

1728

155

1729

195

1730

146

1731

110

1732

1733

1734

-1

1735

1736

12345678910

1737

100115116126

1738

1347389511324

1739

1740

464748545658828586

1741

122123124125126127128129130

1742

1743

1744

1745

42434445464748495051

1746

52535455568081 828687

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

1747 8 99100101

1748 9 108

1749 -1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission

APPENDIX H: SCORE AND RANK

1750 10

1751 35 You are obviously a rank amateur. Better luck

next time.

1752 100 Your score qualifies you as a novice class adven¬

turer .

1753 130 You have achieved the rating: "experienced adven¬

turer" .

1754 200 You may now consider yourself a "seasoned adven¬

turer" .

1755 250 You have reached "junior master" status.

1756 300 Your score puts you in master adventurer class c.

1757 330 Your score puts you in master adventurer class b.

1758 349 Your score puts you in master adventurer class a.

1759 9999 All of adventuredom gives tribute to you, adven¬

turer grandmaster!

1760 -1

246

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

APPENDIX I: NUMERICAL CODING
1761 11

1762 2 99991000

1763 3 9999500

1764 4 426263

1765 5 52181 9

1766 6 822021

1767 7 754176177

1768 8 255178179

1769 9 203180181

1770 -1

247

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

APPENDIX J: WIZARD'S CAVE

1771 12

1772 1 A large cloud of green smoke appears in front of

you. It clears away

1773 1 to reveal a tall wizard, clothed in grey. He

fixes you with a steely

1774 1 glare and declares, "this adventure has lasted too

long." With that

1775 1 he makes a single pass over you with his hands,

and everything around

1776 1 You fades away into a grey nothingness.

1777 2 Even wizards have to wait longer than that!

1778 3 I'm terribly sorry, but colossal cave is closed.

Our hours are:

1779 4 Only wizards are permitted within the cave right

now.

1780 5 We do allow visitors to make short explorations

during our off hours.

1781 5 Would you like to do that?

1782 6 Colossal cave is open to regular adventurers at

the following hours:

1783 7 Very well.

1784 8 Only a wizard may continue an adventure this soon.

1785 9 I suggest you resume your adventure at a later

time.

1786 10 Do you wish to see the hours?

1787 11 Do you wish to change the hours?

1788 12 New magic word (null to leave unchanged):

1789 13 New magic number (null to leave unchanged):

1790 14 Do you wish to change the message of the day?

1791 15 Okay. You can save this version now.

1792 16 Are you a wizard?

1793 17 Prove it! Say the magic word!

1794 18 That is not what I thought it was. Do you know

what I thought it was?.... ... .

1795 19 Oh dear, you really *are* a wizard! Sorry to have

bothered you ...

1796 20 Foo, you are nothing but a charlatan!

1797 21 New hours specified by defining "prime time".

Give only the hour

1798 21 (E.g. 14, not 14:00 or 2pm). Enter a negative

number after last pair.

1799 22 New hours for colossal cave:

1800 23 Limit lines to 70 chars. End with null line.

1801 24 Line too long, retype:

1802 25 Not enough room for another line. Ending message

here.

1803 26 Do you wish to (re)schedule the next holiday?

1804 27 To begin how many days from today?

1805 28 To last how many days (zero if no holiday)?

248

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

249

1806 29 To be called what (up to 20 characters)?

1807 30 Too small! Assuming minimum value (45 minutes).

1808 31 Break out of this and save your core-image.

1 809 32 Be sure to save your core-image...

1810 -1
1811 0

1812 glorkz4.182/05/11

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

COMPLETE MAP OF THE BATTERY MAZE IN THE GAME "ADVENTURE"

WFH

myl

mly

lmy

ylm

yml

1 ym

mgl

mlg

gml

glm

lmg

ml y

glm

gml

myl

lmg

ym 1

mlg

ylm

1 ym

mgl

lmy

myl

mgl

mlg

glm

gml

ylm

lmy

mly

yml

lmg

1 ym

BAT

1 ym

lmy

mlg

glm

myl

mly

lmg

mgl

ym 1

ylm

gml

mlg

gml

ylm

yml

mgl

lmg

myl

glm

lmy

ml y

1 ym

gml

lmg

lym

mlg

mly

mgl

ylm

lmy

glm

myl

yml

mgl

myl

mly

lym

ylm

gml

lmg

mlg

lmy

glm

yml

lmg

mgl

mlg

myl

lmy

1 ym

mly

gml

yl m

lmy

myl

yml

1 ym

gml

mlg

glm

mly

ylm

lmg

mg 1

ylm

lym

mgl

lmg

lmy

glm

yml

gml

myl

mlg

mly

WFH

ylm

ml y

lmy

glm

gml

1 ym

myl

mgl

yml

mlg

Abbreviations

WFH

west end

f featureless

hall (at entr

BAT

chamber

maze containi

ng the batter

myl

You are

a maze of twi

sty little pa;

mly

maze of little twisty

lmy

little maze

of twisty

ylm

twisty little maze of

yml

twisty maze

of little

lym

little twisty maze of

mgl

maze of twi

sting little

lmg

1ittle ma ze

of twisting

mlg

maze of little twisting

gml

twisting ma

ze of little

glm

twisting li

ttle maze of

north

northeast

so uth

northwest

east

southeast

west

so uthwe s t

do wn

to maze)

passages, all different.

250

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

251

How to use the map

The top row lists all of the locations within the
maze, including the entrance (WFH). For any one of these,
the column below lists all destinations accessible from that
location. To get to any one of these destinations, use the
direction in the leftmost column which is in the same row as
the desired destination.

For example, to enter the maze from WFH, go south.
This takes you to myl. If you want to leave the maze now, go
down (which returns you to WFH). There are obviously many

ways to get to the batteries and back out again > but none is
quicker than this:

Location Subsequent move

WFH • S

myl S

mgl E

lmg S

BAT N

lmg D

mlg D

myl D

WFH

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

25 2

Analysis of number of unique texts in Adventure

To get some idea of the number of unique texts in
Adventure, let us first consider only the battery maze. For
the purpose of this calculation the reader is restricted as
follows :

(A) (S)he must travel from outside the maze to the battery
chamber, passing through all 12 locations in the maze
but never entering the same location more than once.
(S)he must then exit the maze, again passing through
all twelve locations but never...entering the same loca¬
tion more than more than once.

(B) Only two valid command types are allowed:

(a) Movement (e.g., west, down, northeast, etc.)

(b) Drop object (e.g., drop coins, drop cage, etc.)

(C) The reader must enter with six objects in addition to
the lamp (the maximum possible) and drop them anywhere
within the maze. The lamp is never dropped.

These restrictions were chosen to simplify the calculation
and to eliminate infinite loops and nonsense commands. It
should be noted however that texts generated within these
restrictions are not unlike texts that are generated during
actual explorations of the battery maze. Readers commonly
use the trick of dropping objects throughout the maze to
render the different locations more easily recognizable.

The number of different texts will be the product of these
three quantities:

(1) the number of different paths that can be followed
through the maze;

(2) the number of different combinations of 6 portable
objects that can be selected from all of the portable
objects in the cave;

(3) the number of different ways the six objects can be
distributed within the maze.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

253

The first quantity can be determined by analyzing the struc¬
ture of the maze. The diagram below is the battery maze
map, modified to reflect restriction (A) above.

Map for restricted example ;

WFH

myl

mly

lmy

ylm

yml

lym

mgl

mlg

gml

glm

lmg

mly

glm

gml

myl

lmg

yml

mlg

ylm

lym

mgl

lmy

myl

mgl

mlg

glm

gml

ylm

lmy

mly

yml

lmg

lym

BAT

1 ym

lmy

mlg

glm

myl

mly

lmg

mgl

ym 1

ylm

gml

mlg

gml

ylm

yml

mgl

lmg

myl

glm

lmy

mly

1 ym

gml

lmg

lym

mlg

mly

mgl

ylm

lmy

glm

myl

yml

mgl

myl

mly

lym

ylm

gml

lmg

mlg

lmy

glm

yml

lmg

mgl

mlg

myl

lmy

lym

mly

gml

ylm

lmy

myl

yml

1 ym

gml

mlg

glm

mly

ylm

lmg

mgl

ylm

lym

mgl

lmg

lmy

glm

yml

gml

myl

mlg

mly

WFH

ylm

mly

lmy

glm

gml

lym

myl

mgl

yml

mlg

Consider only the first half of the trip, from the
outside to the battery chamber. The reader must enter the
maze at location myl. Also, since the battery chamber can
only be entered from lmg, the latter must be the penultimate
location in the sequence. Therefore the 1st, 11th and 12th
locations in the sequence are fixed. However, the 9 remaining
locations (those between the vertical lines in the map) can
be encountered in any order, as all 9 can be reached from myl
and each is connected to all of the others and to lmg (for
simplicity of analysis the connections to lmg and myl have
been blanked out). The number of different pathways is
therefore 9! or 362,880. By analogous arguments the number
of pathways for the return half of the trip is also 9 ! , so
the total number of different pathways through the maze to
the battery chamber and back out again is (9 l) 2 or
131,681,894,400

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

254

There are 29 portable objects in the cave. Therefore
the number of combinations of 6 objects is:

291/(6!)(23!) = 475,020

Each of the six objects may be dropped in any of the
12 locations in the maze, so the number of different ways to
distribute the objects is:

12 6 = 2,985,984

The total number of unique texts is the product of
these three quantities:

131,681,894,400 X 475,020 X 2,985,984

= 186 , 777 , 878 , 100 , 000 , 000 , 000,000

This analysis also assumes that only one name is used
for each object. Many of the objects have valid synonyms,
and if these are included the number of texts becomes much
1 arger .

The battery maze consists of a small number of
highly-interconnected locations. The remainder of the
Adventure cave consists of a much larger number of sparsely-
and/or conditionally-interconnected locations, wherein a
greater variety of actions and consequences are possible.

An anlaogous calculation for the rest of the cave would be
extremely difficult, but it is probably safe to assume that
the number of possible texts one can generate outside the
battery maze is much greater than the number one can generate
within it. Whatever that immense number is, it must be
multiplied by the number of "battery maze texts" to get the
total number of possible texts that Adventure can produce.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Full text of "Interactive Fiction: The Computer Storygame "Adventure""

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