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Interactive Fiction. Narrative and immersive experience in text-based games

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568 CONFIA . International Conference on Ilustration & Animation
Esposende . Portugal . July 2018 . ISBN: 978-989-99861-6-9

Interactive Fiction. Narrative

and immersive experience in text-based games

Sónia Rafael1
s.rafael@belasartes.ulisboa.pt
[Jogos Digitais / Digital Games]

Abstract
Keywords
Digital Game, Interactive Computer systems and digital media enabled a merge of traditional
Fiction, Narrative, narratives and interactive technologies. Digital games have been and
Immersion, Interactivity. continue to be a reference in contemporary culture. They have the
ability to create imaginary worlds and to explore new realities which
transpose physical dimensions. With the advancement of technology,
contemporary digital games have come to provide visual and interacti-
ve experiences increasingly differentiated from the textual interfaces
the first digital games provided. The analysis of gameplay in text-ba-
sed games is subject of interest, as is the way these textual based inte-
ractive fictions can provide an immersive experience that is relevant
and significant to the interactor.

1. Interactive Fiction and canonical definitions:

Plan for the quest
Interactive fiction (IF) is a genre that can either be defined as an inte-
ractive narrative or as a game in the form of an adventure. Each genre’s
formal and structural characteristics allow the differentiation between an
interactive narrative and a digital game.
Interactive narratives are hypertext narratives2 that propose the non-
linear reading of a story (whether it be a fiction or not) through intercon-
nected fragments that allow for a multiplicity of options in which the
interactor3 engages in choices that affect the course of the very story. The
narrative has more relevance than the gameplay and victory or defeat is
not determined by gameplay goals.
Meadows [1] describes interactive narrative as the most ambitious
art form that exists today, since it combines traditional storytelling with
visual art and interactivity.
Other more general expressions, as computer literature, electronic
literature4, cybertext, or digital art [2], have also been used.

1 University of Lisbon, Faculty of Fine Arts, Communication Design, Lisbon.

2 Espen J. Aarseth proposes the Neologism Cybertext derived from the book Cybernetics (1948) of
Norbert Wiener.
3 The interactor is regarded as an agent that interacts with the narrative and alters its course of action. In
order to emphasize the importance of actions like reading, writing, game playing and exploration, is used
the concept of interactor to refer to the individual in the tasks. This term was used by Janet H. Murray to
describe the ideal player in her Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (1997) book.
4 The use of the expression “electronic literature” emerged in the mid 1980s, a particularly enthusiastic
time for studies in hypertext, and subsequently fallen into disuse.
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When the text abandons the exclusive domain of narrative, it crosses

in to the realm of game. In the definition of the Huizinga, “play is a volun-
tary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and
place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having
its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy and the con-
sciousness that is ‘different’ from ‘ordinary life’ ” [3].
In an adventure game, the interactor has specific goals, aside from
participating in the construction of the story. He explores environ-
ments and faces challenges and puzzles that he must solve in order to
advance the storyline.
Text-based adventures are formally considered to be an IF when the
interface is exclusively textual. Montfort and Short [4] consider them to
be a genre of computer program that involves a fictional world, objects,
and characters. The action is defined by the interactor through natural
language text introduction and the software generated response is also
presented in the form of text.
In a broader perspective, graphic text based adventure games with
a text interface accompanied by graphics (static images, animations,
immersive graphics with pre-rendered or real time 3D scenes), can be
included in the genre.
According to Douglass [5], IF encompasses a whole universe of
games that include IF per se (e.g. Zork, 1981), hypertext fiction (e.g.
Afternoon, 1990), a.k.a. hyperfiction, puzzle adventures (e.g. Myst, 1993),
games incorporating interactive movies (e.g. Dragon’s Lair, 1983), book
games (e.g. Choose Your Own Adventure, 1979), amongst others.
The above-mentioned genres have gradually gathered under the
Interactive Fiction neologism, which has become somehow consensual
amongst academics, either it is in new media criticism, in hypertext stud-
ies, in ludology analysis, or in narratology, owing to its transversal nature.
Contributions from authors such as Dennis Jerz (2007), Espen
Aarseth (1997), Janet Murray (1998), Jimmy Maher (2006), Nick
Montfort (1995), and Sarah Sloane (1991), made it possible to evolve
from a prior reductionist view that considered it to be a media genre
(non-linear text) characterized by a command line interface (CLI) with
a parser and world model.
The idea that function follows form in IF, and not the opposite as
one would expect, emerged from both technological limitations – the
computers were still at an early stage of development and textual
interfaces presented the best solution to circumvent the constraints of
limited processing capacity – and absence of academic research that
could frame it as an autonomous genre – with a robust and sustained
theoretical body of knowledge that could allow the establishment of an
independent area of academic research –, instead of framing it as a mere
medium or genre of adventure game’s category.
In criticism, the use of the IF concept has reflected a disparate set of
dissident positions based on different ideologies, with almost every new
study leading to a new critical approach, recurrently focusing excessively
on terminological issues and with little to add to more seminal issues.
570 CONFIA . International Conference on Ilustration & Animation
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2. An IF formula: On the road

Aarseth [6] proposes what he considers to be a simple IF game develop-
ment formula: choose a genre of fiction that is popular; design a back-
ground narrative; build a world map for the interactor to move in; create
objects that he can manipulate; develop characters with whom he can
interact; draw a storyline’s infographic with the various possible results, in
accordance to all previous course of action options; and add descriptions,
dialogs, error messages, and a vocabulary the interactor can use.
The literary data base is accessed through a parser, which intervenes in
natural language sentences recognition by converting them into a set of ele-
ments (symbols), in accordance with a formal grammar. The interactor’s text
entries/input commands (e.g. attack the dragon, go North, open the door) are
decomposed into structural data units and syntactic trees are generated for post
processing and symbol meaning or truth condition ascription. Once an action is
identified, the program changes the database and displays a result message.
Commonly, a typical IF exploration goes through a text generation
recurring cycle, alternating back and forth between software and interac-
tor until the latter wins, restarts or quits the game.
After the creation of the parser and of the database, each can be
reused and IF game’s development starts to look like planning and writing
for a fiction tale, with the exception that multiple results must be planned
and designed, and that all interactor’s actions (no matter how unlikely
they might seem) must be anticipated.
Aarseth [6] also proposes a
model for the description of the
functional conceptualization in a
standard adventure game (Fig.1).
The model depicts four
component groups (data, pro-
cessing systems, front-end inter-
face, and users), as well as the
information flow path between
them. This dialogic model
Fig. 1. Generic com- integrates an interface that fulfills analysis and synthesis functions between
ponents of a standard the bits’ realm and the screen’s displayed textual construction. Additionally,
adventure game communication is mediated through a simulation engine and a representation
(Aarseth, 1997) engine that allows the game to locate the narrator and the code parts that
can be manipulated, directly or indirectly, by the interactor.

3. Ludology and narratology: Descend into the cave

Game studies mostly revolve around a two standpoints clash: ludology and
narratology. This debate has been subject of academic analysis by many au-
thors, such as Espen Aarseth (1997), Janet Murray (1997), Jesper Juul (1998),
Gonzalo Frasca (1999), and Eric Zimmerman (2004), amongst others.
Ludology5 studies the game by it itself, focusing on the fun it offers

5 Johan Huizinga, who published the first version of his book Homo Ludens in 1938, is one of the precur-
sor authors in ludology. He sees game as a cultural phenomenon, establishes a parallelism between
games and society, and envisions life as a metaphor for game.
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and its gameplay. Gameplay manifests a set of rules’ defined pattern [8],
the connection between the interactor and the game, the challenges the
former faces and how he could overcome them, the storyline, and the
storyline’s connection with the interactor.
IF is characterized by a certain kind of gameplay, whereby the interac-
tor leads a character throughout the story, exploring scenarios, interacting
with other characters, and collecting objects that allow him to decipher rid-
dles and puzzles, amongst other possible actions. IF’s focus is the narrative.
Narratives are naturally embedded in humanity’s history and are
a fundamental part of its evolution. Barthes [9] states that narrative “is
present at all times, in all places, in all societies; indeed, narrative starts
with the very history of mankind”.
In modernism, the study of the narratives is called narratology6, spe-
cifically trough the study of fiction and non-fiction narratives supported
in the analysis of their structures and elements, in the likeness of a sort of
semiotic theory of narratives.
According to Prince [10], narratology focus on form and function of
narratives. Although a relatively new term in western tradition, the disci-
pline dates surely back to Plato and Aristotle, namely to Aristotle’s Poetics
(the first known study on narrative structures). His book presents itself
as a fundamental reference for the understanding and systematization of
form and aesthetics in Greek literary genres.
Juul [7] believes that it is fiction, and not narrative, that has the fun-
damental role in game studies, coupling it with gameplay as analysis fun-
damentals. He understands games as a construction of real and fictional
worlds rules, and considers the interplay between fiction and rules to be
one of the most important issues of games.
The term “fiction” comes from the Latin word fictione7, which means
pretend, imagine, invent. Thus, literary fiction encompasses the very
essence of literature – literature is fiction –, plays with reality and paradoxi-
cally creates another reality.
Fiction is the term used to label a narrative of fiction, an imagined
human creation, that is unreal and fantastic, and belongs to the realm of
simulation and invention. It is the opposite of a non-fiction, which is ac-
cepted as a factual narrative about reality.
Juul explains that the term fiction is used to denote all kinds of fictional
worlds and that a story is a fixed sequence of events that is portrayed. For
example, he presents the book Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, as a story
and a fiction; and the painting La Grande Jatte, by Georges Seurat, as a fic-
tion but not as a story, since it portrays a single moment in time [7].
Thus, in a fictional narrative the author creates a story (which may partly
be based on real facts) and an imaginary world, reported by a narrator and

6 The term was coined by Tzvetan Todorov (Grammaire du Décaméron, 1969).

Its fundamentals were consolidated by the French structuralism – in the 1920s and 1930s, with the con-
tributions from authors such as Roland Barthes, Gérard Genette, Tzvetan Todorov, Claude Brémond –,
and by the Research in Literary Theory of the Russian formalists A. J. Greimas, Vladimir Propp, amongst
others. Another notable specialist in narratology is the Italian Umberto Eco.
7 A declination of Fictio, which in turn has been derived into fingere.
572 CONFIA . International Conference on Ilustration & Animation
Esposende . Portugal . July 2018 . ISBN: 978-989-99861-6-9

lived by fictional characters. In a non-fictional narrative, the story is reliable

and believable, vivid and reported by an individual in the real world.
In a novel, a short story or a tale, the story is narrated in such a way
that the reader is somehow able to identify himself, to some extent, with
the plot. In fiction, it is possible to transport the reader to another world,
another reality far more extensive, where anything can happen and where
certain absurd situations can be accepted as true. In literature theory,
narratology, and other more specific contexts, the reality of the fictional
world is designated diegesis8. The internal reality – i.e. that diegetic space
and time –, is stronger than the external reality (the so-called real-world
or real-life) and, thus, is eventually accepted as true.
It is a world that only exists in the individual’s mind, like a
dream one dreams awake. In this context, the construction of a
fictional space derives from the dreamlike experience, and the hu-
man capacity to make fiction stems from its ability to dream. Such
a willingness to accept the propositions of a fiction (no matter how
fantastic, impossible or contradictory they might be) is frequently
labeled “suspension of disbelief ” (a term introduced in 1817 by the
English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge).
Computer games have raised several questions and challenges to
the study of narratives and it is with difficulty that some authors are able
to frame it to literary theory. This is clearly stated by Anthony Niesz and
Norman Holand in the first humanist article about computer games9.
Texts with a dominant ergodic component10, such as IF and cybertext,
disregard many of the commonly recognized narrative characteristics like,
just to name an obvious one, the compliance to a single temporal sequence.
Thus, ergodic literature is not easily framed within the current range
of text and literary genres. And in this respect, they find themselves
easily associated with another relatively well-known group of texts: the
non-narratives. Eskelinen [11] considers them to be often regarded as
experimental texts or, as in IF, “anti-narratives.”
In this perspective, the adventure game forces the interactor’s atten-
tion to an elusive plot. Instead of a narrated one, this game genre produces a
sequence of oscillatory actions, performed by the interactor, and disinte-

8 The term diegesis is of Greek origin and was used by the French structuralists to designate the
space-temporal universe presented by a story (Genette, 1972, p. 280).
It is, thus, the space and time that exists within the plot, with its peculiarities and boundaries. The term
appears in Plato (Republic, Book III) as a simple narration of a story by the narrator’s own words, as
opposed to mimesis or imitation of this story through the narration of characters.
Not to be confused with the account or report of a narrator, nor with the narration per se, since the latter
constitutes the narrative act that produces the report.
Several designations can be used to label the narrator, in accordance to his role in the story: homodie-
getic, if he is directly involved in the story; heterodiegetic, if he is not a participant in the narrated story;
and autodiegetic, a declination of the homodiegetic narrator, when he is the protagonist and is telling his
own story. (E-dictionary of literary terms, Carlos Supper). Consulted on 11 September 2017, available at:
http://edtl.fcsh.unl.pt/business-directory/6734/diegese/
9 The article Interactive Fiction was published in Critical Inquiry journal, No. 11, in 1984. (Critical Inquiry
11: 110-129. 1984).
10 Espen Aarseth defines ergodic as the path through a text. During the process, the interactor builds
a particular sequence of events through the options that are here available but are absent from classical
conceptions of “reading”. This phenomenon is called ergodic, a term taken from physics which derives
from the Greek words ergon and hodos, which mean “work” and “path”. (Aarseth, 2006, Intersemiose,
Digital Journal, year II, paragraph 04, Nov/Dec 2013, translation by Thiago Corrêa Ramos).
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grates the traditional notion of story and the very sense of the concept [6].
Nonetheless, there is an underlying structure in these texts that con-
trol, or at least motivate, the sequence of events, building a storyline.
For Meadows [1], this form of narrative permits an influence, a
choice, or change to the plot of the story. Beyond the author, this in fact
conveys the transformation of interactor into author, or at least into a
co-author, since he is given the possibility to create his own story while
interacting with the computer.
Therefore, IFs allows the creation of dialogic spaces, where the inter-
actor becomes co-author of the narrative, and it could even be argued that
the interactor is the story (or at least is part of it).

4. The first text-based game: See the map,

explore routes, search for exits
At the beginning of the 1970’s, the programmer and speleologist William
Crowther developed the text-based adventure game Adventures, which has
given rise to the IF genre. The program simulated a realistic exploration of
the caves at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and integrated some elements of
fantasy, such as treasures, hostile dwarves, a magical bridge, amongst oth-
ers. The narrator presented the story through complete orations to which
the interactor reacted by entering simple two-word commands.
Some of the aspects of this adventure game were similar to those of
the popular RPG Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)11, which by its nature could
be considered an oral version of cybertext – i.e., as the predecessor of
adventure text-based games [6].
Adventures12 was written in Fortran programming language, on a DEC Fig. 2. Screenshot of
PDP-10 computer and released on the ArpaNet. Don Woods discovered Adventure (Crowther
Adventures while working at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory & Woods)
and, with the Crowther’s permission,
expanded the game and called it Adven-
ture (Fig. 2). Due to program limitations
(maximum number of characters and
capitalization issues) the final file was
called ADVENT and, as such, the game
got to be known by this name.
Released in 1976, Woods’ version
was very successful and over the years
was adapted into dozens of both free and
commercial versions. One of the most
popular ones is Colossal Cave.
It inaugurated a canon genre and,
furthermore, inspired individual authors.

11 Board game developed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, in which the adventures narrated by a
master are published in the form of a book that usually includes a history, illustrations, maps and goals
for the characters to achieve.
12 Woods’ version had 3.000 lines of code, 1.800 rows of data, a map with 140 locations and a vocabu-
lary of 293 words.
Crowther’s original game was composed of approximately 700 lines of code, 700 rows of data, a map
with 79 locations and a vocabulary of 193 words.
574 CONFIA . International Conference on Ilustration & Animation
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In the last years, IF’s online community developed many new original ver-
sions, remakes and spin-offs of classic games.
The game conveys the feeling of being an explorer inside the mag-
nificent caves of Mammoth Cave, and as one goes deeper unexpected
passages are discovered.
Through the options he takes, the interactor can actively participate
in the construction of the narrative, interfere with the storyline, expand,
and rearrange the story. For example, the interactor moves the character
with cardinal direction’s orders (go north, go south, go east and go west),
interacts with objects with the command “grab (object’s name)”, and
interacts with other characters with the command “talk to (character’s
name)”. Each of these objects and characters can have multiple levels of
interaction, and the interactor can examine them more closely with the
command “examine (object or character’s name)”, which allows him to
retrieve detailed descriptions that expand interaction possibilities. De-
duction based on descriptions is an active part of the interactor’s problem
solving processes within an IF, fostering imagination in an intense way.
The game requires both an exploratory, communicative (be-
tween interactor, narrator or entities), constructive, and predomi-
nantly interpretative action.
It’s up to the interactor to produce causality from a sequence of
events. He must envision the numerous dynamic representations and
arrangements that every game stage provides, so that he can relate them
to its own actions.

5. Immersive interactivity: Shadows in the cave

Digital game’s dimension opens access to an immersive psychologically
experience, comparable to the one that one would achieve in a dive in to
the ocean or the swimming pool. They provide the feeling of being com-
pletely surrounded by a strange and different reality, claiming attention
from all the of the individual’s sensory systems [12].
Immersion is a metaphorical term derived from the physical
experience of being submerged in water. Janet Murray argues that this
concept implies that one must learn how to swim in the new environ-
ment so that we are able to explore it and interact with it, being able to
do everything that it makes possible.
The immersive experience of a game can be enhanced by various fac-
tors. The narrative, for example, has the ability to metaphorically trans-
port the interactor inside the fictional world, into an area in-between the
internal world and the individual’s external reality: what Winnicott calls
a transitional space13. He claims that there is an immersive environment to
be raised by the interactor, which manifests itself in its active engagement
with the text and in his ability to imagine.
The theoretical and poetic principle of immersion [13] emanates from
the idea of conscience – i.e., from the notion of the interactor’s existence

13 Winnicott, D. W. (1971). O Brincar & a Realidade. Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora Ltda
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and presence within the fictional world. The individual is initially trans-
ported into an unknown world, through a media (such as a computer),
and when he finally adapts to the fictional world’s rules, without making
inferences about the real world, he is immersed.
For a better immersion experience it is necessary to understand the
grammar of the narrative through the elements that compose it – i.e., the
scenario, the plot and the characters.
The first level of involvement with a virtual narrative is done through
the scenario. In the spatial immersion, as stated by Ryan [13], the interac-
tor develops a sense of place and establishes a connection with the sce-
nario as if he really was there, where the event takes place. This relation-
ship can be established through a reference to the present time, a modifier
within an adverbial phrase, or with narration in the second person.
As for the storyline, temporal immersion happens through narra-
tive suspense, whenever the interactor feels compelled to know what
happens next – i.e., the desire for the knowledge that awaits at the end
of the narrative time [13].
Emotional immersion’s phenomena is related to attachment to fic-
tional characters. The addition of an omniscient narrator allows a greater
intimacy with the mental life of the characters, a fact that can intensify
emotional immersion.
The viewpoint presented by Ryan [13] implies that immersive inter-
activity is a process in which the interactor builds his own fictional world
and makes himself a member of it.

6 Conclusion: Restart the game

This article sought out to understand the basis of an interactor’s ef-
fective immersion into a text-based game, framed by a strict defini-
tion of the genre IF.
Immersion is a sustained sensory perception and, as such, it allows
an individual to acquire, interpret, select and arrange the information
obtained by its senses, with the purpose of meaning ascription.
The cognitive processes that promote immersion, whether it be
in reading a book, watching a film at the movies, playing as a child in
the park, or playing a video game, are similar – i. e., the factors that
promote or disrupt it are common.
Bartle [14] considers game immersion to be one of the most impor-
tant facts for the interactor, one that doesn’t dependent on the fictional
world’s degree of realism or on any comparison with real world. Thus, the
fictional world only needs to convoke enough of reality to suspend the
disbelief of an interactor during the duration of the game.
A text-based game, which exclusively delivers a textual interface,
can generate a level of immersion comparable to those generated by
a game that resorts to graphics or 3D rendered scenes, since immer-
sion is promoted by factors such as the narrative, the interface, or the
interactivity, amongst many other.
The reader imagines a vivid representation of the narrative, gath-
ering information from internal cognitive models, inference mecha-
576 CONFIA . International Conference on Ilustration & Animation
Esposende . Portugal . July 2018 . ISBN: 978-989-99861-6-9

nisms, life experiences, and cultural knowledge, that allows him to “fill
in the blanks”. Language’s role in this activity is to select objects from
the textual world, connect them to properties, animate characters,
context and scenario, and conjure its presence into imagination.
Full immersion is likely to be achieved in a text-based game, namely
through ergodic, non-linear and interactive properties.

References
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tion through Promotion and Beyond. Retrieved in September 8th 2017, in http://www.
dichtung-digital.org/2012/41/montfort-short/montfort-short.html
[5] Jeremy Douglass. 2007. Command Lines: Aesthetics and Technique in Interactive Fiction
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[6] Espen J. Aarseth. 1997. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Johns Hopkins
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[7] Jesper Juul. 2005. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. The
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[8] Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The
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[9] Roland Barthes. 2001. Aventura semiológica. Martins Fontes
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[12] Janet Murray. 1998. Hamlet on the Holodeck. Cambridge. The MIT Press
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