“What We Will” (2004) is an interesting piece of electronic literature for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s hard to figure out, which makes it a fun challenge. Secondly, think of the movie “Inception”. You may have to play it a few times before you actually figure it out, and even then it still blows your mind. Not only is this…
Tag: electronic literature
Lets sing about politics
Radikal Karaoke This week I discovered Radikal Karaoke. This program has nothing to do with singing, but is in fact a program designed to help you deliver political speeches. This game is created as a commentary on the proliferation and pattern in political speeches. It was created in 2011 by writer and poet Belen Gache, of Madrid. It is available…
Interactive Storytelling: The Walking Dead
We are currently in an age where interactive stories are becoming increasingly popular. Every year new mainstream media TV shows, movies, and comics are becoming part of the interactive storytelling world. A good starting point in entering this world and learning about interactive storytelling (in my opinion) is the first season of TellTale’s The Walking Dead game. The Walking Dead (which…
Pieces of a Wunderkammer
I found Juliet Davis’s Pieces of Herself through the Electronic Literature Collection (volume 3) I selected it because it reminded me of Shelly Jackson’s My Body a Wunderkammer (MBW). Pieces of herself was made in 2003-2005, so I think it is certainly possible it was inspired by the work of Shelly Jackson. Both have similarities in that they are…
Floppy Disk Full Of Secrets
Beginning the story is easier than others of the same genre. A simple button starts the game and fully immerses readers into the world. A folder opens on the screen and contains several text and image files. There is no order in which to open the files but the reader gets a sense of order after cycling through…
Prisoner, Pirate, or Pariah? Linearity and The Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck
The galactic expanse beyond our planet is seemingly limitless, and so the human imagination considers anything beyond our solar system to be utterly fantastic and almost beyond comprehension in its expansiveness. This is where the inherent linearity of interactive fiction intersects with reality; within the scope of The Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck by Christopher Brendel (hosted on Choice of Games), the…
Lemons, Sugar, and Water
Ingrid Ankerson along with Megan Sapnar Ankerson co-founded the digital arts and poetry journal Poems that Go. “Today is Lemonade” by Ingrid Ankerson is a piece of digital poetry from 2000. This digital poem is a silent video that has simple animation that goes along with the lines of the poem. “Today is Lemonade” overall could be seen as a…
All Fun and Games: How Interactive Electronic Literature has Influenced the Video Gaming World, by Jake Black
Games such as The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead have been used as discussions and examples as the genre of Interactive Fiction and Literary Games bridging into the mass market of video games. Both games (published by Telltale Games) are interactive games, both stories revolving completely around the decisions made by the player, with several different outcomes and…
I’m Null: The Character You Aren’t
“Define yourself [Integers Only]” the game says, white text displayed on a black screen. This is how I’m Null begins, and already the significance of the title is emphasized. Uploaded to Game Jolt in November of 2014, designed by Zak Ayles and coded by Devin Horsman, this browser-based Unity game is an open world, which contains many bizarre objects and…
Fun Video Game, or Creative Imitatio?
Monolith Production’s Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a game that directly relates to J. R. R. Tolkien’s works of, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and even Lord of The Rings. The question when playing the game however is, is this video game true to form? Meaning, does everything mentioned or imagined fit into the world Tolkien created, or does it have continuity errors that make this game inconsistent with the lore of Middle-earth? I set out to figure out that very question.