Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction

Words: Matt Epler

From old riddles to Dungeons and Dragons, Nick Montfort's new book Twisty Little Passages (MIT Press) critically explores a world of textual adventures both on and off the computer screen. Using the recently archaic projects Adventure and Zork as the beginning of his historical treatment, Montfort assesses the literary qualities of interactive fiction with the dedication of any English professor and the excitement of a 12-year-old with his first command-line role playing game.

Of interest to Montfort is the role of the user, or reader, of interactive fiction and how, in the unfolding of a sort of poetic journey of pleasure, he or she is invited to a level of mastery or understanding -- "one that comes from overcoming mental challenges formed as the verbal equivalent of jigsaw puzzles." To be sure, these are not stories designed to be absorbed on the couch with your favorite carbonated drink.

Using Barthes, Baudrillard and a host of others, Twisty Little Passages weaves a most functional and enticing analysis of how we use stories -- and why the way they are told is so important. Certainly, we've seen delivery mechanims for stories change ad infinitum in the last decade. For that reason alone, Twisty Little Passages is an aptly timed release and one worth picking up for anyone who uses storytelling as a means of communication -- and we would be hard pressed to exclude anyone from that habit.