Somewhere

I'm not sure precisely what I was thinking of when I wrote this short experiment, but the point is that I think interactive fiction can be very poetic, and I would like to read more interactive poetry in the future. I wrote this during a break from "Buried In Shoes".

The work tries a curiously traditional IF take on poetry (rather than e.g. a hypertext one like Arid and Pale): There is a PC, who moves around in a two-room world, there are three objects and an NPC, and the basic standard commands are implemented (X, GET, ASK ABOUT, PUT IN). The poem is written from a 1st person perspective, though.

In spite of that mostly traditional IF setting, there is nearly no interactivity: You (i.e. the ”I” of the poem) can examine the few things in the world, but apart from that there is only a single course of action open at any point in the poem. Twice the PC asks himself a yes or no question, but even then the choice doesn’t change the course of events or the point of the poem.

Interactive Fiction can certainly be very poetic. Indeed, Mishima himself has written such works. But I don’t think this particular poem presents an experience or an idea, a truth or a mood, a pun or whim, an image or an approach to language &c. &c. in any poetically compelling way.

It only took be about 5 minutes to play, but it was a very interesting 5 minutes. Most (if not all) of the text was in rhyme, even the command prompt. This was someone I personally haven't seen before. It's more than an experiment than a game, but I think the results of the experiment are positive, and I'd like to see a larger project like this.