It was day one of my Electronic Literature course. I sat at a table with three complete strangers, and scrolling on our shared monitor screen was Nick Montfort’s landscape poetry generator “Takaro Gorge”. It was morning, for me 9:30 AM is early morning. Sitting there, I was sluggish, and on top of that I had no idea what to learn or expect from Electronic Literature, let alone what…
Author: Emily Pilat
Cinderella and the Magic Conversation
Glass, by Emily Short is an adaptation of Cinderella, which plays out as a conversation-oriented work of Interactive Fiction. Created in Inform 7 in 2006, Short focuses on the all important conversation between the Prince, searching for his bride, and Cinderella’s Stepmother, working to block the Prince from her step-daughter. The entire narrative takes place in one room, and Short assigns her readers a very small, but equally impactful, role…
“Out of Touch”: The Internet Isn’t Your Valentine
Christine Wilks’ e-poem “Out of Touch” (OOT) begins with the raising and lowering of a typographical font that mimics the appearance keys from a keyboard. Maybe it was my slow internet, but the first time I viewed Wilks’ work the keys lowered and raised so slowly I began to think I too needed to join in typing my own keyboard to get things…
Get Meta: Can a Game Give Consent?
Creatures Such as We by Lynnea Glasser is a narrative driven work of interactive fiction. Published on October of 2014, the game placed second in the 20th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition of the same year, and it’s easy to see the appeal within Glasser’s engaging narrative which has won such acclaim. Creatures presents itself as a meta-narrative, you as the player take on the persona of…