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Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (Paperback)

~ (Author) "It was strange enough that a reading of "electronic literature" was going on at the Boston Public Library that evening of April 25, 2001..." (more)
Key Phrases: interactive fiction work, other interactive fiction, literal riddles, Marc Blank, Interactive Fiction Competition, Mind Forever Voyaging (more...)
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Twisty Little Passages is, quite simply, one of the best books on hypermedia, period. This book not only made me reconsider the importance of interactive fiction as a genre within hypermedia, it also made me devote a hefty portion of my graduate courses to IF—and Twisty Little Passages. Hell, after reading it, I even went out and bought every Infocom title I could lay my hands on. It's that good."
—J. Yellowlees Douglas, author of The End of Books or Books Without End: Reading Interactive Narratives and I Have Said Nothing

"Anyone interested in the use of technology for artistic and cultural purposes should crack open Twisty Little Passages."
— Book Bytes

"Nick Montfort's excellent book puts interactive fiction into its literary context for the first time. Just as groundbreaking studies of romance and the gothic novel have broadened our idea of literary fiction, so Montfort makes a powerful case for recognition of this extraordinary new form of art: of the poetry that must live within the machine. Newcomers will find all that they need here, while those who are already aficionados will be constantly informed and surprised."
—Graham Nelson, St. Anne's College, Oxford University, author and critic of interactive fiction

"This is a thoroughly researched history of interactive fiction, as well as a brilliant analysis of the genre. Reading it makes me itch to fire up that old DEC-20 and start writing interactive fiction again!"
—Steve Meretzky, Creative Content Director, WorldWinner.com, and interactive fiction pioneer

Product Description

Interactive fiction—the best-known form of which is the text game or text adventure—has not received as much critical attention as have such other forms of electronic literature as hypertext fiction and the conversational programs known as chatterbots. Twisty Little Passages (the title refers to a maze in Adventure, the first interactive fiction) is the first book-length consideration of this form, examining it from gaming and literary perspectives. Nick Montfort, an interactive fiction author himself, offers both aficionados and first-time users a way to approach interactive fiction that will lead to a more pleasurable and meaningful experience of it.

Twisty Little Passages looks at interactive fiction beginning with its most important literary ancestor, the riddle. Montfort then discusses Adventure and its precursors (including the I Ching and Dungeons and Dragons), and follows this with an examination of mainframe text games developed in response, focusing on the most influential work of that era, Zork. He then considers the introduction of commercial interactive fiction for home computers, particularly that produced by Infocom. Commercial works inspired an independent reaction, and Montfort describes the emergence of independent creators and the development of an online interactive fiction community in the 1990s. Finally, he considers the influence of interactive fiction on other literary and gaming forms. With Twisty Little Passages, Nick Montfort places interactive fiction in its computational and literary contexts, opening up this still-developing form to new consideration.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 302 pages
  • Publisher: The MIT Press (April 1, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0262633183
  • ISBN-13: 978-0262633185
  • Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #293,195 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Nick Montfort
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
It was strange enough that a reading of "electronic literature" was going on at the Boston Public Library that evening of April 25, 2001. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
interactive fiction work, other interactive fiction, literal riddles, riddling situation, literary riddle, player character, hypertext fiction, folk riddles, text adventure, computer literature, commercial era, underground empire, natural language input, literary machines, session text, electronic literature, potential literature, science fiction work, simulated world, final reply, potential narratives
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Marc Blank, Interactive Fiction Competition, Mind Forever Voyaging, Dave Lebling, United States, Border Zone, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Perry Simm, Brian Moriarty, Magnetic Scrolls, Steven Meretzky, Stu Galley, The Figured Wheel, The Hobbit, Adam Cadre, Adventure International, Choose Your Own Adventure, Graham Nelson, Great Underground Empire, Interactive Fiction Archive, Michael Berlyn, Scott Adams, Bob Bates, Colossal Cave, Janet Murray
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71 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Serious study of interactive fiction from the inside out, January 11, 2004
By Paul O'Brian (Westminster, CO United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (Hardcover)
Just over ten years ago, I was holed up in the University of Colorado at Boulder's Norlin library, researching interactive fiction. I was a grad student in English, and had a final paper due in my Literary Theory class. Activision had recently released the Lost Treasures of Infocom bundle, reawakening my childhood love of IF, and I felt inspired to write a paper that connected reader-response theory to the actual reader-responsiveness of text adventures. I wanted to cite and to engage with previous academic work on IF, but unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, it had received very little serious critical attention. Sure, I found a few articles here and there, but what I really needed was something substantial, something that offered a critical vocabulary for talking about interactive fiction, that placed it in a literary context, and that presented a basic history of the form.

What I needed was Nick Montfort's TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES. How strange and funny that ten years later, the paper I wrote for that class finds itself cited in the first book-length academic treatment of interactive fiction. Sure, the citation only occurs in a passing (and correct) dismissal of reader-response theory as anything but a very limited way into talking about IF, but it makes me feel like part of history nonetheless. Montfort's book is just what IF needs to establish its rightful place the scholarly discourse surrounding electronic literature, and indeed literature, full stop. It never fails to be informative, and frequently succeeds at being sharply insightful about the literary elements of IF.

However, TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES is quite suitable for readers outside the ivory tower as well. Though the book is clearly aimed at an academic audience, Montfort's prose is blessedly jargon-free, clear, and effective, with generous doses of humor thrown in for good measure. Even in its most theoretical moments, the book manages to balance impressive rigor with unfailing clarity, a feat all too rare in literary theory. Consequently, it's an entertaining read for general audiences and English professors alike.

Just the bibliography alone is a noteworthy achievement; Montfort has synthesized the already extant body of formal IF scholarship and mainstream coverage with much of the important amateur IF theory produced by people like Graham Nelson and Emily Short, along with a range of other contributions from the IF community and pieces covering the book's other concerns, including riddles and computer science. In addition, there is a formidable collection of IF works cited, a list comprising much of the most influential IF of the past thirty years.

Something else that the bibliography makes clear is the value of Montfort's personal connections. It's peppered with references to emails and personal conversations with some of the leading lights of IF history: Robert Pinsky, Graham Nelson, Steve Meretzky, and others. Montfort's ability to gather such firsthand information highlights one of the most important things about TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES: not only is it the first book-length treatment of interactive fiction, is the first formal treatment I've seen that approaches IF from the inside out, rather than from the position of a quizzical spectator. Montfort's extensive experience in both the academic and IF communities lend him a brand of authority that previous commentators on IF lacked.

If you're an IF aficionado like me, you'll find TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES enlightening and fun, and if there's anyone in your life who genuinely wants to know what interactive fiction is and why they should care, hand them this book.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good summary of Interative Fiction works, January 22, 2008
By M. Roberts (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
"Twisty little passages" does a good job of summarizing and critiquing interactive fiction to date, from early beginnings with systems like Zork all the way through to modern contest based IF works. Historical parallels, such as riddles, are also mentioned and related to the whole.

However, if you're looking for something which looks into boarder textual contexts like MUDs and MOOs, you'll find these only briefly mentioned. Probably essential reading if you're really into interactive fiction, but not something which I regard as being seminal in the larger body of work related to games, interactive media, and the like.
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4.0 out of 5 stars An overlooked part of gaming history, November 26, 2009
By Michael J. Tresca "Talien" (Fairfield, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
Twisty Little Passages, by Nick Montfort, addresses a much needed gap in gaming analysis and history: that of interactive fiction. The precursor to Multi-User Dungeons, interactive fiction was a form of text-based interactive game that sprang to life in tandem with the rise of the personal computer. Single player in scope but capable of taking its players anywhere the programmers could imagine, it relied primarily on the written word to share its world. Although the games initially started with VERB NOUN responses (e.g., "get book", "read book", etc.), they eventually advanced to natural language parsers.

Throughout the book is a history of interactive fiction and its development through the eighties and nineties. It also analyzes the comparisons between hypertext fiction and interactive fiction and the inequalities in how the two or treated. If you can't guess, interactive fiction isn't treated very well.

Montfort seems to have an axe to grind, citing shoddy research that conflates certain interactive fiction as being fantasy adventure games and confuses the origins of Adventure (or ADVENT). Montfort corrects all these misperceptions and more through personal interviews with Will Crowther, creator of Adventure, and Dave Lebling, one of the creators of Zork.

Twisty Little Passages seeks to redress these inconsistencies, positing that interactive fiction is more than just a game but a form of literature in its own right. Montfort makes a convincing argument, but then as an administrator of RetroMUD for over a decade, I'm one of the converted. It's unlikely that literature snobs are reading his book.

Although occasionally defensive in tone, Montfort's retrospect and analysis of interactive fiction is a welcome addition to any game developer's library. It's important to know what went before, and this book addresses an important part of gaming history that has been all but forgotten.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Sucking the love out of Interactive Fiction
This is certainly an informative book, no question. It delves into some of the greats of Interactive Fiction but it reads like a PHD thesis, and if that's the kind of reading... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Terry Sean Huxter

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