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Nick Montfort

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Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (Mit Press) Paperback – February 11, 2005

by Nick Montfort (Author)

4.2 45 ratings

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A critical approach to interactive fiction, as literature and game.

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.

Print length

286 pages
Language

English
Publisher

MIT Press
Publication date

February 11, 2005
Grade level

12 and up
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

8.78 x 6.18 x 0.69 inches
ISBN-10

0262633183
ISBN-13

978-0262633185
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Editorial Reviews

Review

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

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

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

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

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ MIT Press (February 11, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 286 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262633183
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262633185
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.78 x 6.18 x 0.69 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #309,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #121 in Mystery Writing Reference
- #252 in History of Technology
- #824 in Video & Computer Games

Customer Reviews:
4.2 45 ratings

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About the author

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Nick Montfort

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Nick Montfort develops computational art and poetry, often collaboratively, and studies creative computing of all sorts. He is professor of digital media at MIT, also teaches at the School for Poetic Computation, and lives in New York and Boston.

In addition to his books, Montfort has done digital media writing projects including the ppg256 series of 256-character poetry generators; Sea and Spar Between (with Stephanie Strickland); the interactive fiction system Curveship; Ream, a 500-page poem written on one day; the group blog Grand Text Auto; Implementation, a novel on stickers (with Scott Rettberg); The Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1 (co-edited with three others); and several works of interactive fiction: Book and Volume, Ad Verbum, and Winchester's Nightmare. He directs the lab/studio The Trope Tank.

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4.2 out of 5

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Dan Stormont

A nice review of classic IF

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2023

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This book is a bit dated and makes some distinctions about form that can seem irrelevant in the light of tools for creating interactive fiction that didn't exist when this book was written two decades ago (like Twine). The first part of the book also spent a lot of time in definitions and analysis that frankly felt like reading a PhD dissertation.

However, the extensive history of the early years of interactive fiction, from the start in academia with works on the Arpanet, like ADVENT, through the roughly one decade of commercially successful text adventures in the US and overseas, ending with the rise of indie text adventures and open-source authoring tools was very extensive and very thorough.

If you have fond memories of the glory days of Infocom or would 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. Just don't expect it to reflect the current state-of-the-art. There are resources on the web like ifcomp and itch.io for that.

One person found this helpful

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Sean Huxter

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.

16 people found this helpful

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That's so Daven

A textbook, but a really good textbook.

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2010

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I like this book. I really do, but I'm a nerd. It's very, very dense. it reads like a long research paper on text-adventure games. But that's because it basically is a research paper on text adventures. However if you like a serious approach to the history of gaming then this book is a great pick up and read. If you're looking for some light techno-babble about how awesome video games are, it's not this. This is not so much a beach read, but it's an interesting experience.

6 people found this helpful

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R&M Wagner

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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Default

Good, but not what I was expecting

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

Warning, this is more of a history of interactive fiction than a tutorial of it, though I found it thoroughly interesting all the same. Interesting to hear about how all this got started,as well as how it could still grow given the right growth opportunities.

Helpful

Good summary of Interative Fiction works

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2008

Verified Purchase

"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.

5 people found this helpful

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Milton

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

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2018

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This book is neatly written and informative. However, it is much more of a history lesson than it is a design philosophy on interactive narrative.

3 people found this helpful

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Will Humphreys

Interesting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 15, 2016

Verified Purchase

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.

El Informador

Un buen ensayo

Reviewed in Spain on January 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

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

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.

One person found this helpful

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Glinbog

and boring, though the subject matter was its self was ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

Poorly written, and boring, though the subject matter was its self was interesting.

One person found this helpful

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