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No Time To Play3 years ago(+2)

Let me try to give some useful answers, beyond "most if not all these questions are simply misguided".

  1. Zero. Tone-deaf marketers have been trying to "reinvent the book" for over a decade now, always in ridiculous ways that had no chance of working even if the idea had anything good about it, and it doesn't. Books are already as close to perfect as any medium can get, after thousands of years of people improving the craft.
  2. Eleven. It has already happened.
  3. The question is wrong. That's not what people are missing when it comes to text adventures.
  4. You mean like virtual tabletops? Or play-by-post? Because people already play together online, they've been doing it as soon as it was possible. It's also not what players of text adventures are looking for. And there's a reason why people want single-player games sometimes. AI Dungeon solves the wrong problem in the wrong way, not to mention how much computing power it uses for minuscule gains.
  5. Bwahahaha. Again, there are reasons why people like text as a medium. It's not a technical limitation.
  6. You mean like Twine? Because it has already happened, it's just not pretentious crap hiding behind pretentious jargon anymore.
  7. That... is exactly what Twine does. Or GrueScript.
  8. Zero. Aesthetics matter. Text matters. People still go to puppet theater, don't they? It has yet to be replaced with robots, even though we can do it just fine now. Not to mention easy of authoring.
  9. Zero. Again. aesthetics matter, and visual novels are infinitely easier to author as well. Besides, it's not a zero-sum game.
  10. No, no, no! Why would that happen? Even if everyone liked VR and could afford it (and VR is inevitably more expensive as any other display tech, all else being equal), why would it replace everything else? Not to mention the inconvenience.
  11. I seriously doubt visual novels are the most popular form, or at the zenith for that matter. And even if they were, things always change.

Seriously, it doesn't work that way. The future of interactive literature is more authors, more works, more and better tools, libraries of reusable assets, and more importantly a sea change in how we perceive copyright and fan fiction.

Tech is not the future. People are. Focus on the people.

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BulletEyeGames3 years ago

Thanks for the answers! However, it seems you have slightly missed my intention with the scenarios and grading. I did not intend them to be considered as black and white, "yes or no" type of thought,  which is why I provided the numbers 1 - 10.

The scenarios are extreme, by design, I was not expecting any 10/10 answers, they are simply so to offer a glimpse into a possible future (like the ones seen in many works of science fiction and fantasy) and to ask one to think how likely and in what part do you think these scenarios will come to pass.

For example, A miniature computer with the access to all human knowledge, will exist in the pockets of nearly every human being. This scenario might've seemed unthinkable once, I mean computers used to take up entire rooms and there's no way to get all human knowledge into one anyway. And even if you could, how would you implement a keyboard and a screen into pocket sized computer, you can't even use one without those... Nowadays, it seems to be more than just a little likely, but how exactly did it happen? What lead to this specific future scenario coming true, while so many others didn't?

Mind you, I'm not saying that the scenarios I introduced are all equally likely (even I don't believe or even want some of them to be), but... they might still come to pass. If and how and why is what I hope to find out with my Master's thesis.


Even if you didn't really grade them as I intended, you still seem to be well versed in the topic and you make some very good points, especially with your focus on people and authors being the ones that matter. I'd like to make the argument, though, that tech is also tools, after all, chisels to carve stone tablets, ink, pen, paper, typewriters, keyboards, hypertext, internet, etc. are all as much tech as they are tools.

If you don't mind, I'd like to ask if you could come up with any possible future scenarios, with people or authors as the main focus (perhaps concerning how we would get more of them). As well as what kind of tools (in addition to what we already have) would you like to see in the future or which ones would you like to see improved. And concerning what ever else you think I didn't take into consideration enough.

I really would appreciate it, especially since the ones I came up with are "misguided". (I do not mean to sound confrontational, or insulting, or anything in case I do, I legitimately would like your help to make my thesis and research better.)

Thanks for answers again, hope you have a good day (or night)! And thanks for the heads up on GrueScript, going to check that out.

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No Time To Play3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

You're welcome. My problem with all those questions is the same triumphalist attitude towards tech that's been holding back games and the entire human civilization for decades while we chased bigger numbers that could be easily marketed, instead of trying to do good work with the tools we already had, or at least improve them based on what people actually wanted (I say wanted because need is in the eye of the beholder). And speaking of numbers, it's hard to reduce nuanced questions like that to one number.

If you'll forgive the shameless plug, back in 2015 I wrote a couple of essays called Games anyone can make and Art anyone can use, respectively, exploring some trends I was hopeful about at the time; but I'm no academic, and predictions are scary if they ever prove remotely correct.

Oh, by the way, sci-fi authors actually predicted something like modern tablet computers long ago, or rather engineers did and sci-fi authors picked up the idea. As far back as 1964 in fact. See the movie 2001.

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BulletEyeGames3 years ago

Sorry for the late reply, itch.io figured it wasn't necessary to inform me about it, so I've just been scrolling past it...

But thanks for those essays, after a quick gloss through, I think I can use them in my thesis, if you don't mind. And I'll definitely check the movie out in the upcoming week or two (I've been going through movies by year starting from 1920, currently in the year 1962). There have indeed been quite a few works in fiction about future that are getting eerily true (Orwell's 1984 becoming truer by the year thanks to IoT, for one). And adding to tablets, the history of compact e-readers goes all the way to 1949, when a Spanish teacher, Ángela Ruiz Robles, build a machine that would display books printed on stools, the Enciclopedie Mecánica (Mechanical Encyclopedia), which she hoped would lessen the burden of her students (unfortunately, it never went into production).

And my reason for focusing on tech is simply the fact the tech has been a major aspect in the evolution of literature, from stone tablets to ink and paper to printing... and as you yourself mentioned Twine, which is an advancement in hyperfiction tech, that has helped revitalize the genre somewhat. So tech is not something that should be completely cast aside either, as you again mentioned "more and better tools" which usually take the form of new tech.

I'm of course not demeaning the need for more authors but from a futuristic point of view it's quite hard to come up with scenarios that would include how we get more authors to the scene other than by introducing tech that summons more interested individuals. Creative writing classes are already being introduced all the way in elementary schools, publishing online is about as easy as it can get, tools and documentation on how to use them for nearly any format of literature exists free and open to anyone and everyone. So at least in my eyes there is not much we can do in regards to getting more authors, other than by hoping that more and more people get interested in trying and writing (maybe there could be an in-depth introduction to all the possible tools and platforms in writing classes so everyone would know to search for them if they are interested, perhaps). And again, as you've said, "Books are already as close to perfect as any medium can get, after thousands of years..." and yet we've still seen how the introduction of new tech outside of books has pulled people into writing. So, essentially, the new and better tools or tech are what get people interested by giving everyone the platform they are most comfortable working with. Which I, personally, think is our best bet in getting more authors: by giving people as many different formats, platforms and tools to write as they can and hope that everyone who wishes to write finds the format, platform and tool that allows them to best express themselves and as comfortably as possible.

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No Time To Play3 years ago(+1)

Of course you can use my essays in your thesis! Good luck!

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