"We followed our dreams, for
dreams were all we had. In the process our lives became magical." -
Siegfried and Roy
Interactive
Fiction Frequently Asked Questions
Updated February 1, 2012
What, exactly, is Interactive Fiction?
Think of an interactive fiction title as an
eBook that's totally interactive. That is to say that you, the reader,
respond to everything you read as though you are the main character in the novel
using your keyboard to interact with the story in plain English.
This takes
fiction eBooks to the next level because
you, the reader, are empowered to take action. When you begin any of our
interactive fiction books you're not just reading a novel, you are stepping
inside a story and becoming an integral part of it.
You assume the role of the main character. You step into his shoes, live
in his world and
take on that persona in every way.
That's the best description of what
interactive fiction is. The New York Times coined the term
"participatory novel" which also describes it nicely.
Interactive Fiction has a
rich history. In the late 1970s the genre of the text adventure game was
created with Crowther and Wood's Adventure which
takes place in The Colossal Caves. This ignited the creativity and ingenuity
of a group of students at MIT to create a new gaming platform that evolved the
text adventure game into the art of crafting interactive fiction. This new
platform became the foundation upon which the late Infocom, Corp. was built.
Infocom was famous for such interactive fiction titles as the Zork series that sold over a million
copies at a time when computers were not nearly as popular or prevalent as
they are today. The original Implementers of Infocom propelled the text
adventure game into a new art form - Interactive Fiction. Malinche has picked
up where Infocom left off.
I've noticed that the terms
"interactive fiction" and "text adventure games" are used interchangeably all
over this website. Why? Are you guys selling games or books or what?
"Both" is the simple answer. The more accurate
answer is interactive fiction eBooks We publish and sell fiction books
that you play or computer games that you read. In our case they are two
sides of the same coin. Many fans of text adventure games and interactive
fiction from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s will use the terms with equal weight and
meaning.
We'd like to make one small but important
distinction. While any work of interactive fiction falls under the general
category of "text adventure game" not every text adventure game has the literary
merit to be considered a work of interactive fiction.
Interactive Fiction is awesome! I want
Malinche to publish my interactive fiction! Where do I send my writing?
Sorry but our lawyers have instructed us to
dispose of any and all submissions we receive unopened. And that's exactly
what we do. Please don't bother to send us your work because we will have
no choice but to throw it out without even looking at it. Save your time and the
postage.
Forgive the harsh tone but in our lawsuit-happy
world we need to take a very hard line with regard to unsolicited submissions.
Our policy on unsolicited submissions is not
meant to be cruel or cold-hearted; it's a business decision made in the best
interests of Malinche LLC.
If you'd like to submit a proposal then please
follow all of the usual channels and we'll consider it.
Can you give me some writing tips and/or
advice on how to write interactive fiction?
Sorry, but no. I'll borrow a
policy from some of the true giants in the fiction book world.
Stephen King and JK Rowling don't give out writing tips and I can't
either. I'm not as successful as they are yet so allow me
to explain. There are several reasons behind this but I'll go with
the most practical one; there are just so many hours in the day. It
would be impossible for me to crunch through my daily workload of
writing fiction and
running a global technology company if I had to
stop for one-on-one dialog with every single person who asked me for
interactive fiction writing tips. I can already imagine a couple
of dozen emails a day that would start with "Howard, just one question
about plot development..."
That's time I need to devote to my own
writing on top of my commitment to making sure
everyone is totally satisfied with their Malinche Entertainment experience.
What can I
expect from a Malinche interactive fiction title that I won't find in a traditional
fiction book?
The power of possibility. In a an
ordinary fiction book or eBook, the author has set out the story, the characters, the plot and the
ending.
You, as the reader, can only turn the pages and absorb the story as it has been
written.
When you begin a Malinche title and become
the main character, you have the power of choice at every turn. From the
beginning through to the middle and right to the very end the story goes nowhere
without you; you are in
control. Character dialog, plot development, and even the behavior of some of
the other characters in one of my novels will change
in response to your own behavior in the story. As for the
ending? There can't be an end to one of my interactive fiction
books without you direct and personal involvement to make it
happen.
How far does my
participation go in one
of your interactive fiction books?
You can ask the other characters in the story
any question you want. Go wherever you please. You can pick up an interesting
item and study it. It might be useful to you later on in the story or it might
be useless. Only you can make that determination. You can smell a nearby
flower, rub a statue, see your reflection in a lake, load a shotgun, cast a
magic spell , try and smash a valuable treasure, question a murder suspect,
navigate a US Navy cruiser or assemble a complex piece of machinery.
Empowered as you are, the world responds and
the story unfolds with every decision you make. Sometimes your actions
will create a powerful ripple effect in the story while at other times a
particular choice you exercise will make no difference at all.
Sometimes doing nothing at all is the wrong choice while at other times
there are several different actions you can take in response to a single event
each leading to a different outcome in the story.
Every such action has an impact on the story in some way with the potential of
moving the plot forward in a different direction.
That's the inherent beauty of Malinche
interactive fiction - it's very non-linear giving you a wide range of motion
where your involvement in the novel is concerned.
Books are obviously linear. First you
read page 1. Then turn to page 2 and so on until
you reach the end. That's as linear as as it gets. When you reach the end
of the novel you can put it on your
shelf so it can gather dust or sell it at your next garage sale for $1 in the
bargain box. That's not likely to happen with one of my works of fiction.
That's because you can run through any of
my interactive fiction titles over and over again and still be surprised by some new plot twist, character revelation or
unexpected event that may come to light during the course of your involvement in
the story.
Your interactive fiction titles seem to be a bit expensive. Why?
As far as pricing goes, our interactive fiction eBooks are a bargain for several
reasons. Explore each of the following examples with me:
Relative to books:
At $49.95
apiece, our titles are not much more expensive than most
hardcover books. You can finish off a book in two
or three days in most cases or even one day if you can't put that novel down.
Our fiction titles cannot be finished that quickly
no matter how motivated you are to finish the title and reach
the end.
Why?
That's
because you're not just reading pages as fast as you can; you're
solving mysteries, experiencing strange phenomena and
exploring the entire
novel - room by room and person by person- on your own. Now consider the fact that due to the
non-linear nature of interactive fiction, you can enjoy the same Malinche title over and over and still
be surprised at the twists the story can take. No book can ever do that.
Dollar for dollar, you'll get much more enjoyment from one of
our fiction titles than you would from most books. Guaranteed. Seriously. "Your
satisfaction guaranteed or your money back." No, really. I mean it. We'll give you a
refund if you don't absolutely love any of my titles. Review our
super-customer-friendly refund policy
here.
Relative to computer games (a
somewhat fair comparison):
You can download any of our interactive fiction titles for $49.95
apiece which is roughly the same price as most video games
or computer games..
What's more; you gain access to all the software you need to
enjoy your adventure on absolutely any and every computing platform and nearly
every smartphone as well as any iPod Touch or iPad. With another company's titles
available for purchase, you'd need to buy a Windows version, an iPad version, a Macintosh version, a Blackberry version, etc. if you wanted to enjoy
your game on all the different systems you may own.
Just
recently I was forced to purchase three different copies of the
Angry Birds game so me and my daughter could play the game on my
iPhone, my PC or my Kindle Fire. I understand the reasons
behind this but I don't agree with them.
Here's my favorite
example from a few
years back: I bought a couple
of games for one of my Apple iMacs. I was a little miffed when I realized
that if I wanted to play that same game on one of my Windows computers instead, I'd
have no choice but to go back to the store and buy a second copy of the same
game for Windows thus forcing me to pay for the same game twice. That
never happens when you buy any Malinche fiction title; you pay just one price
and can enjoy your interactive fiction ebook on any and every computer, gadget
or gizmo you own.
Relative to Infocom
- the Inventors of
Interactive Fiction:
Back in their day, Infocom
games sold for $50 apiece. Stop and consider this was nearly
twenty-five years ago. Then
consider that Malinche's titles are roughly three times larger than the
interactive fiction titles Infocom were able to produce back then.
Here's a neat formula to contemplate:
$50 (Infocom Price) x 3 (Malinche
game size increase, over the original Infocom titles) = $150.
Compared to the interactive fiction titles Infocom published
when adjusting for inflation and factoring in the free story hints and maps we give you (which
Infocom charged extra for), Malinche's interactive fiction
novels should
be priced somewhere near $249.95 each.
But they aren't.
All of the Malinche interactive fiction books
can be acquired for the same price they were 25 years ago --
$49.95.
Now that's a bargain, isn't it?
A closing thought:
The
average amount of time you'll need to complete a Malinche title
is about 50 hours.
That means you're paying about a dollar per hour for incredible,
engaging entertainment.
With
everything costing more than ever, even something as simple as a
cup of coffee, there is no other form of entertainment that can deliver such
value.
That's why we guarantee every single interactive fiction
title with a 60 day unconditional money back guarantee. We know our
interactive fiction books are some of the best forms of entertainment available
delivering tremendous value
-- period. And we back that up with the best satisfaction guarantee in the
publishing industry.
Not even the legendary Infocom offered a money back guarantee
on any interactive fiction title they ever sold. Not even the legendary,
world-famous Zork.
What DRM (digital rights management) protection does
Malinche employ to protect its interactive fiction titles?
We confess to using a very low-tech form of DRM; the honor
system. All of our interactive fiction titles and fiction
eBooks are 100% DRM free. We encourage readers to do the
right thing instead of forcing them to.
Howard, why do you insist on personally supplying hints to
people who enjoy your titles? Nobody does that.
That's crazy.
Answering all hint requests personally is perfectly sane,
actually. Who better than me, the Implementor of these worlds, to help a
reader out of a tight spot? Moreover, I want to stay in tune with my
readers and find out exactly how they react to my novels. I am always
curious to know which puzzles stump you, which scenarios throw you and which
points in any of my titles are particularly challenging. I write for my fans and
I want to be sure that what I write is not needlessly tiresome and is engaging
up to, but not past, the brink of impossibility. Staying in touch with you directly is
the best way to achieve that.
Interactive Fiction sounds interesting but I just can't
seem to get the hang of it. A lot of the things I try just won't work. Help!
In much the same way there are constraints on what you can or
can't do in your standard video or computer game, there are similar constraints
in Interactive Fiction as dictated by the technology.
For example, fire up
Call of Duty on your Sony Playstation 3 or World of Warcraft on
your PC or Mac. Then try to do whatever you want.
Anything at all. Let loose. Go nuts. Can you?
No, you can't.
Similarly, there
are some necessary limitations in interactive fiction. Our Interactive Fiction
"Player's" Guide (available
here) does an excellent job acquainting
newcomers with Interactive Fiction.
After you're done with the Player's Guide you can enroll in
the
Malinche Training Academy and put your new knowledge to the test in this interactive tutorial.
You'll also get the chance to sample four of our interactive fiction titles with full
explanations of what you can do, how you can do it and even the reasons why.
Once you're through with the player's guide and the Malinche
Training Academy you'll have no problem getting things to happen the way you
want them to in any of my interactive novels.
For people really and truly stuck just
email our support department
and you'll receive an answer to every question
you ask. Customers can always call us
toll-free at (877)-299-7999 and just about anybody can help as well.
If all all else
fails - don't panic! We'll provide free
remote tech support to any customer to help you get started with
Malinche interactive fiction you purchased and show you the
ropes.
Technical Questions
Answered by the Technical Support Dept.
Your stories won't load. I double-click azteca.z8 (or
pfl.z8 or gstone.z8, etc.) and Windows hits me with a window that says:
"Click the program you want to use to open <name of game>". (Users of other
operating systems will be similarly stymied.) Why doesn't the novel just run?
Files such as bofh.z5, azteca.z8, endgame.z8, etc. are story
files. Story files don't run on their own; they need to be loaded with an
interpreter.
Visit our free software section to
download the interpreter you need for your computer. Then install and run
the interpreter. From there, load your story file and you're off.
Why do I need an interpreter to enjoy Malinche's
interactive fiction books?
Think of an interpreter as an eBook reader like a Kindle or
even something as simple as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Howard's interactive
fiction titles are based on the Z-Machine model invented by Infocom (see above).
The interpreter is the eBook reader that loads the story and makes it possible
for you to interact with it.
The Z-Machine
is a virtual standard allowing Howard to
write a single interactive fiction title that can be loaded on any computer,
Blackberry smart phones, the Palm Pre, the iPhone and so on.
Why don't you just make Malinche interactive ebooks for
each platform? That's how the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader work.
The original Infocom Implementers realized that to create a
stand-alone version of an interactive novel for each existing form of technology
(back then Apple, Atari, IBM, Kaypro, TRS-80, Commodore, etc. etc.)would be more than
tedious; it would be a serious drain of resources. Thanks to the
efforts of many volunteers, Interpreters exist for every major computing
platform in use today. Howard only needs to write one version of his interactive
novels and they
will run on all the different computers, cell phones and other handheld gadgets in the world thanks to the
universal compatibility of the Z-Machine/interpreter model.
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