User:Thijshijsijsjss/Human Parser/About Text-Adventures

Necessary. This annotation is about talking about text-adventures, accompanying another entry talking about interactive fiction. The latter makes a thematic connection to dissociation. This entry should be more explanatory of what TAs are, and the friction their mode of address brings about. Can be shorter, and should annotate an 'early' part of the manual. Main references Get Lamp and Twisty Little Passages.

There are many ways adventure can be evoked through text. Through an exciting novel, maybe even one in which the reader participates in how the story is being told, like the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book series. Through text even more participatory, like a conversation on an instant text messaging service. The text of a manual to new equipment might contain the adventure of your special hobby, a text-adventure might present itself as a series of distance signs on a road trip, or be incited through the lyrics of a song that played in a memory. Adventure comes in many forms, and meets text in many places.

However, historically the term 'text-adventure' has been reserved for one specific tradition: a "computer-mediated narrative [...] in which the reader helps to determine the outcome of the story" (Jerz, 2000). More specifically: "those computer programs that display text, accept textual responses, and then display additional text in reaction to what has been typed" (Montfort, 2003).

The exchange of textual responses is made possible using a parser. For example, I might have the following exchange:

PROGRAM > You are in a supermarket. You see a variety of fruits (banana, apple, pear). It is a quiet day, no other people. There's some music playing in the background.
THIJS   > take banana
PROGRAM > You take a banana. You hold it for a few seconds before putting it in your basket.

This is a typical (though arguably mundane) example. Even here, one might sense the peculiarity of the language that is common for text-adventures. As it is a textual medium, it is susceptible to the friction of language. Montfort notes:

Text-adventures were inaccessible, however, to those not adept at puzzle solving and not fluent in the dialect of English their parsers understood."^[1]^[2]

Next to the ability to engage with this language, there seems to be another friction at display: 'you take a banana' seems to suggest 'I' take the banana. But of course, I don't. Some fragmented version of me might, the puppet I control in this virtual world. But this puppet is distinct from the I puppeteering. It is this curious human friction of assuming a subtly different version of ourselves without batting an eye, without thinking it's not real. In fact, text-adventures are build on our suspension our disbelief, our willingness to imagine us as someone different and our (in)ability to actually be them. In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga poses this willingness as one of the fundamentals of play.

He found his four-year-old son sitting at the front of a row of chairs, playing "trains". As he hugged him the boy said: "Don't kiss the engine, Daddy, or the carriages won't think it's real. (Huizinga, 1949)

Sometimes, my adventure is visiting my parents. My mother gives me a hug and tells me: "you seem to be doing well today". In my head, I'm thinking: don't say this aloud, mama, or Thijs won't think it's real.

Notes

↑ About the Virtue of Esoteric Reimagination: Montfort continues: "This marginalized the form, but it also may have helped it elude strict parental control. By being esoteric, interactive fiction was less likely to be noticed by those who would suppress". Similarly, obsolete media can expose the seams of society. (to be continued, some examples of the use of the obsolete to give a voice to marginalia and against some hegemonic structures) Not necessary to add I suppose, but could be a nice bite sized entry to connect the obsolete media theme which is a little disconnected currently.
↑ Personally, I don't think puzzles are a necessity for TAs. Like Emily Short states, (citation tbd), a lack of puzzles creates 'temporal gaps' that allow for alternative means of pacing, that I deem very poetically potent. She notes: "Temporal cutting has a cost: the player is ripped away from direct identification with the player character, because the PC experiences things that the player never sees". But this, too, I see as a potent friction -- it is the friction holding this thesis together.

Refereces

Jerz, D.G. (2000) Interactive Fiction: What is it?. Available at: https://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/intro.htm (Accessed 15 April 2025)
Montfort, N. (2003) Twisty Little Passages. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
Huizinga, J. (1949) Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element in Culture. London: Routledge / Thoemms Press.

I think I like this section. There's quite some overlap with the about IF section in addressing the friction of 'you'. However, that text is more pulling from literary references, while this one is gentler and more personal. Atm the difference / relation between TA and IF, which could be a little fuzzy to the diligent reader, but for now I don't think I have any points to make on that, and don't think it matters all that much for the points I do have to make.

[1] About the Virtue of Esoteric Reimagination: Montfort continues: "This marginalized the form, but it also may have helped it elude strict parental control. By being esoteric, interactive fiction was less likely to be noticed by those who would suppress". Similarly, obsolete media can expose the seams of society. (to be continued, some examples of the use of the obsolete to give a voice to marginalia and against some hegemonic structures) Not necessary to add I suppose, but could be a nice bite sized entry to connect the obsolete media theme which is a little disconnected currently.

[2] Personally, I don't think puzzles are a necessity for TAs. Like Emily Short states, (citation tbd), a lack of puzzles creates 'temporal gaps' that allow for alternative means of pacing, that I deem very poetically potent. She notes: "Temporal cutting has a cost: the player is ripped away from direct identification with the player character, because the PC experiences things that the player never sees". But this, too, I see as a potent friction -- it is the friction holding this thesis together.

[1]

[2]