Andrew Whitacre
Nick Montfort, CMS affiliate and Associate Professor of Digital Media in MIT’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, spoke last week with Michael Tresca of Examiner.com about interactive fiction and his 2005 book Twisty Little Passages:
MT: With the notion of fantasy rooted in cooperative play (starting with Lord of the Rings and extending through MUDs and MMORPGs), where does IF fit? Or is it the personal isolation, trapped in one’s imagination so to speak, that makes it more suitable for horror and conspiracy-style settings?
NM: In standard interactive fiction, you don’t have a group of people, each of whom control a character. But that doesn’t mean that people play IF by themselves. They can play together online, sharing the same session; they can play together in person, sitting in front of the same screen; they can play “by themselves” but consult comments on forums and newsgroups and look at walkthroughs that other people have written; and they can play in their own session but communicate with others by email, by phone, in person, or by other means.
Examiner.com—Interview with Nick Montfort, author of Twisty Little Passages
Examiner.com—Book Review of Twisty Little Passages
