Photopia
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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 Hearafter, 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 that could be instructed to undress and run around naked. [1] (http://adamcadre.ac/content/phaq.txt)
External links
- Adam Cadre's website (http://www.adamcadre.ac)
- XYZZY News review (http://www.xyzzynews.com/xyzzy.18e.shtml)
- Interactive Fiction Competition '98 (http://ifcomp.org/comp98/)