Photopia

From Free net encyclopedia

Photopia is a piece of literature by Adam Cadre rendered in the form of interactive fiction, and written in Inform. It is regarded as a pioneer in narrative-driven, rather than puzzle- or challenge-driven, interactive fiction, and is perhaps the most successful example of this genre to date. It won first place in the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition.

Photopia has few puzzles and a linear structure, allowing the player no way to alter the eventual conclusion but maintaining the illusion of non-linearity. This gives horrendous and deeply felt weight to some of the story's motifs -- questions of free will and determinism. Photopia is thus effective in part because it subverts the expectation that one has upon encountering a piece of interactive fiction: that one's actions will have consequences.

Trivia

• Adam Cadre has stated that Photopia was heavily influenced by The Sweet Hereafter, a film about babysitters and bus crashes.
• Adam Cadre borrowed, with permission, elements from Opal O’Donnell’s chicken-comp game when making Photopia and asked to submit Photopia to the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition using her name so that he could do so semi-anonymously. He felt that his previous game I-0 would inspire certain expectations in players, since in that game the player character is a young college student who could be instructed to undress and run around naked. [1]

External links

• Adam Cadre's website. Adam is the author of Photopia.
• Interactive Fiction Competition '98 in which Photopia took first place.
• Photopia's entry in Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive notes awards that the game has won, links to reviews, and provides links to the game itself.
• Template:Moby game
• Template:Dlw