Dustin Stevens-Baier

Assignment #13&14

11-16-05

 1. Define and explain the main components of an interactive fiction system.

The main components of an interactive fiction system are interactivity, user, computer game/text.  The interactivity is the way in which the user interacts with the fiction.  Whether it is selecting from a couple of preexisting choices or entering in text that the computer looks at and decides how to proceed based off of the information.  The user or interactor is the person who is doing the interacting, these vary in age, sex and size, as well as motive for playing.  Depending on each person they can view what they are doing as a computer game or interactive fiction.  The computer game or text is what the user is interacting with.  This can be a choose your own adventure novel or a computer game that uses text and user input to determine the next action.

 2. Compare the differences between reading a book, going to a movie and playing a computer game.

Reading a book is a generally a solitary thing that can depending on the individual be interactive or just informative.  Some individuals get more engrossed in reading than others.  They imagine more vividly the world that is being described whether it is fictional or non-fictional.  Going to a movie is more of a social experience, you can go on a date or with friends, some people go by themselves but this is much more rare than reading a book by themselves.  A movie is not usually interactive, it doesn't change based on the audience's mood or what they say.  The movie is similar to reading a book that has a beginning middle and end and everything is going to stay constant no matter what you do.  A computer game is probably somewhere in between.  You can play with friends or with out depending on the game you choose.  It is always interactive because in order for things to happen the user has to participate, however, some are more interactive than others.  Games can be straight forward that is there is only one way to go and one way to do things, although it does take the user to accomplish this task.  Some are very interactive they require the user to determine what spells are cast and what armor they wear.

   
 3. What was the author's main point in this article?

The author main point was to discuss deliberate choice and how it relates to iterative fiction.  He also wanted to discuss how the future of interactive fiction seems to lie in the very opposite direction from where it has been headed since Adventure.  He also pointed out that a larger number of people in an effort to theorize the phenomenon have walked down a crooked path that leads nowhere.  Later on he narrows the focus of his paper and says that he attempt to prove that there is no logical contradiction between interactivity and engaging narrative experience.