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Nick Montfort
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Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction

by Nick Montfort (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 47 ratings
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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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  1. ISBN-10
    0262134365
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0262134361
  3. Publisher
    Mit Pr
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2003
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 1 x 9.25 inches
  7. Print length
    328 pages
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mit Pr (January 1, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 328 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262134365
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262134361
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.28 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 47 ratings

About the author

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Nick Montfort

Nick Montfort

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Nick Montfort’s writing is a product of, and is about, creative computing. In addition to his books, Montfort has developed digital writing projects including collaborations Sea and Spar Between (with Stephanie Strickland) and The Deletionist (with Amaranth Borsuk and Jesper Juul). He directs The Trope Tank, a lab/studio. He’s professor of digital media at MIT and principal investigator at Center for Digital Narrative the University of Bergen, Norway. He lives in New York.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
47 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book well worth reading and interesting. They also describe it as a great pick-up and read. Readers appreciate the good summary, thorough tools, and complete information.

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8 customers mention "Value for money"8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well worth the read. They describe it as an interesting, fun, and beach read.

"...A very complete and enjoyable book." Read more

"...Having said that, I still found this book to be an interesting read...." Read more

"Fun book!" Read more

"...like to discover some of these bygone classics, this book is well worth the read as a reference guide to the founding of interactive fiction...." Read more

6 customers mention "Information quality"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative, thorough, and complete. They also say it's an impressive take on interactive fiction.

"...It is an in depth study of the history of interactive fiction. A very complete and enjoyable book." Read more

"This is certainly an informative book, no question...." Read more

"...Spacing is inconsistent. Tables aren’t tables.An impressive take on IF; also makes for a good introductory history of riddles, and..." Read more

"...adventures and open-source authoring tools was very extensive and very thorough...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

R&M Wagner
5.0 out of 5 stars In Depth Study
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2013
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If you ever "played" an Infocom "game" and want to know more about how they came to be, this book is for you. It is an in depth study of the history of interactive fiction. A very complete and enjoyable book.
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K. R.
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Dated - but still an interesting read.
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2024
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This book was published in 2004, which is twenty years ago (at the time of this review). To give you some idea of how far back that is technology wise - the iPhone was first introduced in 2007, the iPad in 2010. A lot of new technology and software has come and gone over the course of those twenty years. Add to that, most of the software/game development that is covered in this book is from the 1980/1990's.

Having said that, I still found this book to be an interesting read. Mainly because I bought and played a lot of these sort of game back in those days. There is some value I think in learning about the early history of the industry, and the development environment of those times.
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Slave
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice book
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2018
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Super
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Sean Huxter
3.0 out of 5 stars Sucking the love out of Interactive Fiction
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2008
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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 you're into, and you truly love interactive fiction, this is the book for you.

But there's nothing can suck the love out of a subject as much as dry, academic writing with bracketed source notations every few sentences.

Spending a goodly portion of the beginning of the book defining just what the heck Interactive Fiction is is unnecessary and esoteric. A few paragraphs of real English would have covered what Montfort took chapters to do in dry, academic speak.

Still, his individual delvings into some of the classics were detailed and appreciated, even if those chapters themselves were somewhat dryly- and dully-written, the subject matter itself kept me interested, as I love those classic games.

It's clear he knows his IF history, and it's clear he's played many of the best games in the genre. If you're interested in an academic study of Interactive Fiction, as I said, this is it.

I was just wishing he had written about the subject with as much love and passion as he appears to have for the subject. Alas, this was written as if to please a committee of thesis adjudicators.

Steve Meretzky's review is right on. This book surely makes you want to fire up a computer and start writing IF. It sure made me want to dive into a good INFOCOM game again, as I still do quite often.

Another great in the field, Graham Nelson, author of INFORM and some of the best games out there, is also right in what this book can achieve, but I just wish it did so in text as elloquent as either of these writers has produced. Two of my heroes. I've played just about everything Meretzky's produced in the genre, and I'm currently using INFORM and reading through Nelson's excellent Inform Designers' Manual 4.

I hope my review doesn't discourage you from a discovery of some of the most inventive and fun games in existence, long before there were anything like realistic graphics on computers, as these games are well worth discovering. I just wish someone would convince Montfort to rewrite it with an audience in mind who prefers reading to grading stuffy term papers. Perhaps if he had a good ghost writer...

Sean Huxter.
Long-time IF fan.
17 people found this helpful
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A reader
5.0 out of 5 stars A must have about Interactive Fiction
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2018
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A must have about Interactive Fiction
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Giant Fish
4.0 out of 5 stars book is good, just not on Kindle
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2024
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This is largely a review of the Kindle experience. Lacks functioning table of contents; layout is broken. Spacing is inconsistent. Tables aren’t tables.

An impressive take on IF; also makes for a good introductory history of riddles, and relates them to IF. Recommended, just not on Kindle.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2015
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Fun book!
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Paul O'Brian
5.0 out of 5 stars Serious study of interactive fiction from the inside out
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2004
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.
82 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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El Informador
3.0 out of 5 stars Un buen ensayo
Reviewed in Spain on January 22, 2020
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Cualquier buen texto sobre aventuras conversacionales se agradece, aunque es un tanto pesado y muy teórico. Se asemeja más a una tesis doctoral que a un libro divulgativo.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Un grande libro per chi è interessato all'interactive ficition
Reviewed in Italy on December 14, 2016
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Uno dei testi didattici più interessanti relativi al mondo dell'interactive ficition.

Solo in inglese.
E di elevata complessita, sia per lessico che per gli argomenti trattati, che per la profondità delle tesi.
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Will Humphreys
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 15, 2016
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Used this as a source for my EPQ. Very useful in describing the underlying design and technical elements in a text game. What it lacks is illustration, as the words alone can feel somewhat lacklustre at times.
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Glinbog
1.0 out of 5 stars and boring, though the subject matter was its self was ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2014
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Poorly written, and boring, though the subject matter was its self was interesting.
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