The Comeback of Text in Games
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE
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ELLEKE
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UITENDIJK
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ASTER
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NFORMATION
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TUDIES
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AME
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TUDIES
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ACULTY OF
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CIENCE
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NIVERSITY OF
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MSTERDAM
August 14, 2015
1st Supervisor 2nd Supervisor
Dr. Frank Nack Sander Bakkes
The Comeback of Text in Games
Nelleke Buitendijk
Postgraduate student Game Studies University of Amsterdam Nellekebuitendijk@live.nl
ABSTRACT
In the past, text was the main medium for games. However, throughout the decades since games appeared, the role of text in games has decreased, until it only fulfilled certain basic functions. In recent years, this has changes, and text is making a comeback. Text-adventures and other text-rich games are appearing on smartphones and tablets, and on the personal computer there are now a lot of games that include text in innovative ways. This thesis looks that the reasons why text is now returning to games, illustrating how it can provide unique experiences that make it an interesting medium to experiment with, and identifying the factors that may facilitate its current return, including changes in technology and in the game industry and the appearance of new media and of smartphones and tablets as a new platform. It concludes that the presence of text is likely to keep increasing in games, and that it will stimulate the appearance of games with deep, thought provoking experiences.
Keywords
Video Games; Text; Mobile Gaming; New Media; Text-adventures; Text-based games
1. INTRODUCTION
The term ‘videogame’ or ‘computer game’ is for many associated with graphics; a graphically represented character moving through a graphically represented setting. They may think of shooters, like the Call of Duty games (Infinity Ward, 2003-present), action-adventures like many Final Fantasy games (Square Enix, 1987-present), or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), like World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2005-present). Many will also think of simple arcade or puzzle games, like Pacman (Namco, 1980) or Candy Crush Saga (King, 2012). Very few will imagine a completely text-based game, were items and locations are described with text and the player interacts by typing words. Yet text-adventures were very normal in the seventies and eighties, being among the first commercial computer games.
Text-adventures such as Adventure Internationals Adventureland (1978) or Infocom’s Zork trilogy (1980-1982) allowed the exploration of large fictive worlds on the very first home-computers (Montfort, 2005). Players progressed through the world by typing commands. The main gameplay element was solving puzzles involving the use of specific objects in the right way and the right place. Many current game-genres originated from, or were inspired by, text-adventures, including point-and-click-adventures, such as The Secret of Monkey Island (Lucasfilm Games, 1990), and action-adventure games. In the late eighties, text-adventures gave birth to the ancestors of MMORPGs; Multi User Dungeon’s (MUDs), the first multiplayer games, also completely text based (Kirriemuir 2006).
However, as the nineties started, text-adventures lost their popularity and disappeared from the commercial market place, followed several years later by MUDs and their derivatives. Though both text-adventures and MUDs persisted in online communities, they no longer reached or interested a large public. In 1997 Janet Murray pointed out that text in games was used “only instrumentally” (p140). And indeed, in many games of the late nineties and two-thousands, including the examples above, the role of text was limited to only a few essential functions. In recent years, however, it seems that text is making a comeback. Several bloggers and journalists from the gaming community noted the possible comeback of text-adventures (Alexander, 2012; Barton, 2007; Melendez, 2014), encouraged by games such as the recent text-adventure Hadean Lands (Plotkin, 2015). Other types of text-rich games are appearing as well, especially for smartphones and tablets. Some are completely text-based, such as
Device 6 (Simogo, 2013), Blackbar (Mrgan and Moore, 2013)
and Lifeline (3 Minute Games, 2015), while others combine text-based storytelling with graphics text-based gameplay, for example in
80 Days (Inkle, 2014), Matchstick Memories (Heavy Handed
Holdings ltd., 2014) and Survivor Z (Mongadillo Studios Inc, 2012-2015).
Furthermore, producers are experimenting again with including textual elements in a graphics based world, sometimes meeting great commercial success. The Stanley Parable (Wreden, 2011) has a narrator who gives continues commentary on the actions of the player and was met with great acclaim (stanleyparable.com).
The Secret World (Funcom, 2012) and Gone Home (Fullbright,
2013) require the player to read bits of text and solve puzzles with it. Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer, 2013) and Pillars
of Eternity (Obsidian Entertainment, 2015) have entire text-based
scenes, traversed in a choose-your-own-adventure style. Kentucky was very well received and has won several prices (kentuckyroutezero.com). Pillars of Eternity was created with the support of 73,986 backers pledging almost 4 million dollar on Kickstarter, and shortly after its release became one of 2015’s best sellers (Papadopoulos, 2015; Haulica, 2015).
All these examples are recent games, experimenting with the use of text. This leads to the question; why is text currently making a
come-back as a possible medium in games? This is the question
this thesis wishes to address, looking at both text-based games and at graphics-based games that use text in interesting ways. There are two important aspects to the research question. First of all, the unique qualities that text possesses compared to graphics, and the subsequent unique experiences it can offer. Second, the developments that have facilitated changes in the popularity of text as a medium for games. Based on these topics several sub-questions can be formulated:
1. What inherent qualities does text have, especially compared to graphics?
2. How and why has the role of text changed in the past? 3. What factors may facilitate the current return of text? 4. What unique experiences can text add to games?
There is not a lot of literature related to these questions. As text did not play a large role in games in the past, little has been written regarding its functions in games. The game related literature that does touch on text generally has a different emphasis, such as the literary worth of games (t’Hooft, 2015; Kükclich, 2003; Montfort, 2005), interactive storytelling (Mateas & Stern, 2004; Murray, 1997), or interactive fiction in general (Montfort, 2005). On occasion the experience of text in games has come up in interviews with producers of text-based games (Scott Adams in Caoili, Hawkins, Cowan & Langley, 2006; Bartle in Edge Staff, 2009).
This thesis brings together the limited literature regarding the role of text in games, and combines it with examples from many text-rich games, in order to understand how the role of text is changing and why this is possible. The thesis draws on both academic papers and popular literature, such as online articles and blogs. The games looked at were mainly narrative driven, and were played on the personal computer or smartphone and tablet, as these appear to be the dominant form and platforms for text-rich games.
Section 2-5 correspond to the 4 sub-questions stated above. Section 2 will discuss the qualities of text, drawing on semiotics to conceptualize the inherent differences between images and graphics as signs in communication. It will also briefly address spoken versus written text, and text and imagination. Section 3 will look at how and why the role of text changed in the past, while section 4 discusses factors that may currently facilitate its return. Throughout these sections different functions for text will become apparent, which allow unique experiences. These functions and resulting experiences will be summarized in section 5. Finally, the paper will end by summarizing the answers to each of the sub-questions, which will lead to a conclusion on why text is making a comeback. As this thesis will illustrate, text is a very interesting medium to use in games, and game-makers should continue to explore the unique experiences it can provide.
2. QUALITIES OF TEXT
This section draws on semiotics to identify the qualities of text, especially compared to graphics. It will start with a few comments regarding sound and spoken text, in order to clarify the meaning of ‘text’ in this thesis. It will then move to text and graphics. Since text and graphics can represent the same objects or concepts, though in very different ways, they can be argued to occupy the same paradigmatic class. Section 2.2 will look at what can be represented by words or images, how different words or images can be combined into a syntagm that has a certain meaning, and what choices are involved in creating such a syntagm. It will then address the way in which text can stimulate the imagination in games.
2.1 Text and Sound
It can be argued that sound can occupy the same paradigmatic class as text and graphics in games. In some games, such as
Zombies, Run! (Six to Start, 2012), were the user listens to music
and the sound of approaching zombies while jogging, sound can
be considered equal or maybe even more important than text or graphics. However, in general, sound is limited to a supportive function, subordinate to graphics and text. This thesis will therefore focus on text and graphics, not addressing sound as a rival medium.
Sound can also function as text, in the form of spoken words. There are not a lot of differences in the basic qualities of written or spoken words, except that written words are static while spoken text is not. Static text can be read at the pace of the reader, and re-read if needed. Most audio does not offer this option. At the same time, spoken words allow the speaker to add meaning and emotion through tone of voice and intonation. This can increase the realism of a game, as it is directly sensed by the player. It is possible to indicate intonation or tone of voice in writing, but this increases the amount of text and delivers the experience indirectly.
In early games there were technological limitations on the use of spoken text. However, even as the quality of sound improved, written and spoken text were usually combined. In most current games subtitles are available for all spoken text, allowing the user the realism of spoken words, while at the same time offering the static ability of writing. This leads to a better understanding of conversations, and limits the chance that certain information is misheard or missed entirely.
In this thesis, the word ‘text’ refers to the use of words, and its inherent qualities whether written or spoken, although in most cases the text in question will be written. If the specific qualities of either written or spoken text are important in the example discussed, it will be indicated how the text is present, and why this is relevant.
2.2 Text and Graphics
According to Saussure, a sign exists out of two parts: The
signifier, that which represents, and the signified, that which is
represented (Chandler, 2014). The signified can be divided into the denotative and connotative, also called the first and second level of signification. The denotative is that which is directly represented, like an apple in an image. The connotative are the associations a viewer has with this image, for example the possible taste or smell of the apple. The connotative grants freedom of interpretation within the own sign system. Depending on their interpretation and experience, some may imagine a sweet, juicy apple, while others think of a sour, dry apple.
With text, the denotation of the signifier is less specific than with an image. The denotation of the word ‘apple’ for example, will likely involve a round object with a little brown stalk for most people. However, the size, color or pattern of the apple all depend on what the reader is familiar with, and are denotative in this example. In this way text allows the user more freedom of interpretation, letting them imagine an image that is preferable and familiar to them, with details they find important. At the same time images can represent more detail, and thus communicate more information with a single sign.
Because images represent all visual details of the signified, graphics can be called concrete. Text on the other hand can represent abstract concepts which do not involve any senses, such as ‘freedom’ or ‘history’. Even when representing concrete objects, like an apple, most of the details are left for the reader to fill in. This is what makes text abstract.
Signs can be combined in order to signify a specific meaning within a text. This is called a syntagm (Chandler, 2014). In the case of graphics, a combination of images can represent an abstract concept such as ‘winter’. By combining ice, snow, barren trees and clouds, a viewer may understand that winter is represented. Thus the attributes represent the concept. The opposite is the case with a syntagm of words. Attributes are added to the concept, to clarify exactly what is meant. A winter can involve snow and ice, or it could be rainy and windy, depending on the location.
An important limitation for both a text and a graphics syntagm, is the need to share part of the sign system. A viewer will only understand that an image with ice and snow signifies winter, if those signs are familiar. Similarly, a landscape described as covered in ice and snow will hold little meaning if the reader has no associations with those words. In both these cases, some meaning is still communicated, namely the involvement of a landscape. Also, in both cases more details can be added to further explain the meaning. The image off a shivering person can indicate low temperatures, while words can add that snow is wet and cold. However, while an image will almost always include something recognizable, there will be no understanding between author and reader if they do not share a language. This is an important limiting factor for the use of text in games.
Assuming that some part of the sign system overlaps, the writer or artist still has to make certain choices when creating a syntagm. In the case of text, it is the choice on which attributes to include. If a writer where to attempt to write down all attributes of a wintery landscape, the description would become very long and boring. A careful consideration needs to be made to determine which attributes are most relevant, and will lead to the best understanding of the situation. In images, not only what is present, but also what is not present, as well as the mise-en-scene of the image are relevant. By changing little details, a very different message can be communicated. A wintery landscape with patches of grass indicates the coming of spring, while thick layers of snow and the absence of creatures or tracks indicate a desolate mid-winter time.
Another important difference between graphics and text is related to space and time. A syntagm of images is spatial (Chandler, 2014); all signs are presented simultaneous. This has both positive and negative aspects. An image provides overview, allowing the viewer to quickly make connections between different signs and to understand the spatial layout. However, the amount of sings in a syntagm of images makes it easy to miss certain details. These can be brought to the user’s attention through choice in mise-en-scene, for example by letting light shine on it, but it is difficult to do this subtly. Furthermore, it can be very difficult to represent a certain order or temporal changes in an image.
In contrast to graphics, text is sequential. The details are provided in a specific order, making sure that what is most important is described first. The reader will come across all the details provided. However, though providing a good overview, it takes longer to read a description then to view an image. In addition, trying to understand spatial relationships from a textual description instead of an image incurs a much higher cognitive load (Cook & Thomas, 2005). Nevertheless, the sequential order allows a much better understanding of the passage of time, sequence or order of the information.
A syntagm of images can be made sequential when it is animated (Chandler, 2014). By showing images in a certain sequence, change over time can be indicated. By zooming in on certain aspects of an image, or moving across a landscape, attention is drawn to certain details in a certain order. However, the images themselves remain spatial, and viewers may still fail to notice certain details or changes. Furthermore, text and graphics have the advantage of being static; the user can go back and re-read a word or can look again at the image for missed details. Animated images lack this advantage.
Several qualities of text have now been discussed. Through its abstract nature, text can represent any concept and allows a lot of freedom in the interpretation of its signs. It can be specific by adding attributes to concepts, although choices have to be made about what to include. Text is also sequential, presenting information in a certain order, indicating the passage of time, and ensuring all important details are noted. Nevertheless, it provides less visual detail than concrete, spatial images, and connection between signs are harder to make. Images provide a better overview of spatial relations. Furthermore, a writer and reader may have trouble understanding each other if few signs are shared, a problem less likely to occur with images.
2.3 Stimulating Imagination
“In reality the text games are far more deep, as folks paint a better picture in their mind then what the computer can show.”
(Scott Adams, creator of the first commercial text-adventure, in Caoili et al., 2006)
Comparing graphics-based and text-based games is similar to comparing films and books. A big argument in favor of books over movies, is “the pleasure one receives from imagining what things look like without having them presented to you.” (Shelton, 2009, pp139). While reading, you create images in your mind of the places, objects or characters described (Sadoski, Goetz, Olivarez, Lee, & Roberts, 1990). Brett Shelton (2009) also remarks on the ability of graphics to destroy the images you have imagined, for example when watching a movie based on a book you read. The way you imagined the characters and places will be overruled by the concrete images of the movie, even though you might prefer the images you created yourself.
This is the same in games, as the opening quote from Scott Adams also points out. Anita Sinclair, founder of Magnetic Scrolls, also preferred to leave everything to her imagination, often playing the games of her own company with the graphics turned off (Maher, 2015a). Not only text-based games, but any textual description can stimulate the imagination. Games may include background stories in text form, in which characters or places may be described that are not visually present. Items may include textual descriptions describing smells or tastes, stimulating the player to imagine those. As mentioned above, it is also possible for graphics to create certain associations, for example the taste accompanying the image of an apple. However, text can be more direct, describing the taste and thus stimulating the reader to imagine it right away. Throughout this thesis there will be many examples of games in which text stimulates the imagination of players. This ability is part of the reason why books have never disappeared, despite the advent of movies, and it is likely a factor that keeps text-rich games alive as well.
3. THE CHANGING ROLE OF TEXT IN
GAMES
As described in the introduction, a lot has changed over time with regards to the popularity and functions of text in games. This section gives an overview of the relevant developments within videogames, focussing on the changing role of text. The term ‘videogame’ is used here within its broadest meaning, including games for PC, consoles, handhelds and mobile devices, and also including text-based games, even if those do not actually include ‘video’. ‘Computer game’, on the other hand, refers just to games played on either mainframe or home computers, excluding consoles and other platforms.
In the fifties until the eighties, the period when games first appeared and became commercial, text was a very normal medium. Section 3.1 will look at how text was used in these early years, and why. An important question is whether it was used solely because of technical limitations, or if other considerations played a role as well. The second part covers the nineties and two-thousands, looking at the technological and societal factors that may have contributed to the declined use of text.
3.1 Text in the First Four Decades
Already before the fifties, people were experimenting with games and machines. In 1912 Leonardo Torres Quevedo created an automaton that could play a simple version of chess (Montfort, 2005). It was not until the fifties however, that games resembling current videogames appeared. This section covers the fifties until the eighties, the period in which text was still considered a normal medium for videogames. The first part looks at games from before the commercial era, followed by the first commercial console and arcade games, and ending with the text-rich games that developed on mainframe and personal computers.
3.1.1 The very first games
In the fifties and sixties, computer technology was not quite ready for use by the general public. Computers were large, bulky and difficult to use, in addition to being incredibly expensive (Kirriemuir 2006; Poole 2000). They were found mainly in universities and military compounds, where they aided research by crunching numbers. Already at this very early stage computers were used for games, such as Nim (Ferranti, 1951), OXO (Douglas, 1952), Tennis for Two (Higginbottom, 1958) and
Spacewar! (Massachusetts institute of technology, 1962)
(Kirriemuir 2006; Montfort, 2005). They were created to test the limits and possibilities of the system, to illustrate new developments, and as an attraction to visiting public. Soon employees and students spend many nights behind the research computers, creating their own games, and playing and improving those made by others.
In the early years many computers did not have screens, instead depending on a telewriter to print output as lines of text (Lipinski, 2013). On those computers that did use screens the computing and display power was limited to presenting text, simple wireframe graphs or dots of light. These limitations made it difficult to create images, and in order to create any experience beyond controlling a dot of light, as in Spacewar! (see figure 1), text was needed. Thus at this time the use of text as the main medium was indeed forced by technology rather than by choice.
Figure 1 Spacewar! on the PDP1 (Lu, 2007)
Nevertheless, the clever use of text lead to immersive and fun experiences. Not all of the textual elements these early games contained could be replaced by graphics without decreasing the value of the game. Examples are the way humor is provided by a sarcastic narrator in Hamurabi (Dyment, 1968), or how familiar terms and ways of talking increase realism and immersion in the game Trek (Mayfield, 1971), by improving the resemblance to the original Star Trek series it was based on. In both these examples text allows written speech, which influences the game experience.
Trek also has a text-based input system that increases realism. The
ship is controlled by giving verbal commands, while shots are fired by inputting correct coordinates, resembling the way the
Enterprise is controlled in the tv-series. Direct control of the ship
through buttons, or a targeting system based on skill with a mouse, arrow buttons or a joystick would not make sense in this context.
3.1.2 Early console and arcade games
In the early seventies both the first home-console and the first arcade games became available to the general public (Kirriemuir 2006). These early games involved little more than points or stripes of light on a screen, controlled with a joystick. Technological limitations did not allow large amounts of text or detailed graphics to be included in these games, and the goal of the game was adapted to this limitation. Gameplay focussed on skill with the joystick, rather than on tactics or exploration. If present at all, the role of text was usually limited to functional purposes, such as presenting score, explaining the game, or providing choices in the menu.
There were a few exceptions to these functional uses. The presentation of text, especially on the outside of arcade boxes, was created to improve the game experience and immersion. Space
Invaders (Taito, 1978) for example, has the title of the game both
on the sides and above the screen. The letters are large and green, and seem to be oriented downwards. Like the enemy in the game descending on the on-screen avatar, the title seems to be descending on the player in front of the screen, making the game experience more immersive.
A second exception is again the use of written speech, although limited to exclamations, which could add character to the machine, increase the excitement of winning and stimulate the player to keep playing. Examples include the witty “Got me” in the early arcade game ‘Western Gun’ (Taito, 1975; known as
‘Gun Fight’ in the US), indicating a character got shot. Another example is the taunts in console games, such as ‘You lose turkey!’ or ‘Game?’ on several games of the Fairchild Channel F. Overall text did not play an important role in early console gaming, and over the decades this has changed little. Throughout the eighties it became easier to add text in games, and the existing functions in menu, explanations and speech were expanded, though never further than needed. Though many console games started to include conversations and descriptions of items, these are generally short, giving just enough information to advance the narrative and play the game. An important reason for this may be the situation in which the console is used, either sitting on a couch or on the ground at some distance. This is very suitable when playing active games, but it is not a comfortable way to read text, especially compared to being situated behind a computer screen at a much smaller distance.
3.1.3 Computer gaming
In the late seventies, computers were making tremendous advances and it was not long until the first home computers appeared (Kirriemuir 2006). This lead to a commercializing of computer games. College students who had been programming games during their studies, started companies to produce and sell games. The games from consoles and arcades, such as Space
invaders, were ported to home computers after some time, but two
genres were exclusively available on computers from the start. Already popular in the mainframe era, text-adventures and dungeon crawlers were the first computer games to be produced commercially.
Text as choice
As the name indicates, text-adventures are completely text-based, though in the second half of the eighties many did include static images. Again, the use of text was partially forced by technology. Text took up less memory space and was cheaper and easier to work with then graphics. But text was also a choice, driven by a yearning for the kind of detail graphics could not provide (Baton 2008). Already in 1984 did Siera Online produce Kings Quest, a game with animated images, including a playing character that could be controlled by a joystick or keyboard, while Infocom and other companies continued to produce text-adventures. With text, an extensive world could be created for the player to imagine and discover, including puzzles to solve, items to interact with and events to experience. Words as input method allowed varying and complex ways of interacting with the game, giving the player the illusion of freedom. Text-adventures utilized these possibilities to create interactive game worlds, with deductive thinking and exploration as the main elements of gameplay.
Despite the technical limitations, there were also computer games that relied on graphics. Inspired by the pen-and-paper game
Dungeons and Dragons (Gygax and Arneson, 1974), college
students created the first computer role playing games (cRPGs) (Barton, 2008), known as dungeon crawlers. These games used wireframe graphics to represent dungeons, enemies and items. Examples include dnd (Wisenhunt and Wood, 1975) and Moria (Battin and Duncombe, 1978) and Alakabeth: World of Doom (1979, Garriot). They were focussed on fighting monsters and acquiring the best ‘stats’ through levelling and good equipment. Quests, story and exploration were all subordinate to these purposes. There are even those who believe that any details other than statistics, such as story, images or descriptions, detract from a dungeon crawler (Barton, 2008).
Nevertheless, text did play a role in many dungeon crawlers. It gave descriptions of rooms, items and enemies and added narrative and immersion through a separate backstory and through speech. In Alakabeth: World of Doom conversations played an important role in explaining the story of the game, while in
Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai (Automated Simulations, 1979)
the player needed to haggle with the shopkeeper about prices, making the shop more realistic and increasing immersion. Later games even added descriptions to conversation, including facial expressions, tone of voice or actions of the characters. This choice to add text, even though it is not strictly needed for the basic game play, again illustrates that the use of text was not stimulated only by technological limitations, but also by the experience the game designer wanted to convey.
A trend towards graphics
Despite this influence of choice as well as technology, there was a steady trend towards graphics in text-adventures throughout the eighties. By the second half of the eighties, most companies at the very least added static illustrations to text-adventures. A number of reasons for this trend can be identified. First of all, computer hardware improved, and made more complex graphics possible. Text became a simple, boring medium in comparison to the exiting new abilities of these computers. Both the companies that produced them and the gamers that bought them, wanted games that made full use of the new hardware. Siera Online’s innovative
Kings Quest was originally produced at the request of IBM for
their new home-computer, the PCjr (Wiswell 1984). The company paid for a large part of the production costs of the game (Maher, 2013). Magnetic Scrolls added detailed static images to their text-adventures in order to make use of the capabilities of the new Atari ST (Maher, 2015a). However, they also added these images because there seemed to be a general wish for graphics in games. Anita Sinclair, managing director of Magnetic Scrolls, agreed to adding images to The Pawn (1985) because this greatly increased the chance of success, despite preferring games without graphics herself.
Though Magnetic Scrolls managed to create high quality text-adventures with images, in many other cases the focus on graphics came at the cost of the storyline and puzzles, and fans complained it limited the imagination (Goetz, 1999). Nevertheless, the trend towards graphics continued. Siera Online continued to produce a whole series of Kings Quest games, as well as several other series in the same style. In 1985 ICOM simulations developed the game
Déjà vu: A Nightmare Come True where the text-parser had been
replaced by word commands and objects that could be clicked (see figure 2). Games with a similar new interface soon followed, but with even less descriptive text. In the 1990 production The
Secret of Monkey Island (Lucasfilm Games) text is used almost
exclusively for conversation and as input method. By the early nineties the point-and-click adventure games had been born and were thriving, while text-adventures disappeared from the market.
Figure 2 Screenshot from Déjà vu on DOSBox emulator
3.2 Decreasing Text Use in the nineties and
two-thousands
In the early nineties, the commercial production of text adventures came to a halt, and as the decade processed, text-rich games in general became sparse. As discussed, text-use in console games was limited from the start, however, on computers as well the use of text became minimal. In the late nineties and early two-thousands, there still were some cRPGs with a lot of text, such as the first and second Baldur’s Gate (Bioware 1998 and 2000), which included extensive conversations, well written introductions for each chapter and descriptions of the thoughts of the playing character. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick
Obscura (Trojka Games, 2001) and Planescape: Torment (Black
Isle Studio, 1999) describe actions, facial expressions and intonation of non-playing characters (NPCs) during extensive conversations. Nevertheless, these were exceptions in a time when most games focussed on graphics, often leading to bland dialogue and poorly written background information.
This section explores the reasons why text disappeared from games, focusing on computer games. Unfortunately, very little literature exits regarding the genres that were and were not popular in the past. It is therefore hard to determine the specific reasons why text-adventures and wordy-RPGs disappeared from the commercial market. However, a number of possible contributors can still be identified by looking at the circumstances under which production stopped. Thus this section starts by looking at the demise of Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls, followed by a study of why popular text-rich games like Baldurs Gate and
Arcanum did not get more sequels. The second part of this section
looks at the apparent societal trends towards graphics which was already hinted at in the previous section.
3.2.1 Producing companies disappear
In the late eighties the number of companies producing text-adventures started to dwindle (Maher, 2013). It was the disappearance of the big companies however, that really affected the market (Montfort, 2005). In the US, Infocom was taken over by Activision in 1986, after an attempt to go into business software failed. By the late eighties the production of text-adventures under the name Infocom stopped entirely, as the new parent company focussed on point-and-click graphical adventures. Phil Goetz (1999) pointed out that Infocom thus did not go out of business due to a lack of interesting in its games. However, with
this giant of text-adventures gone, the number of commercially available, high-quality text-based games also decreased, which may have affect the general interest in text-adventures.
Nevertheless, several other companies, including Magnetic Scrolls and Level 9 in the UK, did close due to decreased sales (Montfort, 2005; Schmidt & Schulz, 1999). Magnetic Scrolls made an attempt to increase sales by investing in new technology; the software program Magnetic Windows. This provided an easier interface and simplified interaction. Unfortunately it was not enough to rekindle interest in text-adventures, and combined with the decreased sales it led to the demise of the company.
Some smaller initiatives tried to keep commercial text-adventures alive, but these attempts failed as well. This may have been partially due to a general lower quality of text-adventures, since the big producers had disappeared, but it is likely that other factors, such as an increased interest in graphics based games, played a role as well. By the mid-nineties, there were no companies left that commercially produced text-adventures (Montfort, 2005).
Wordy cRPGs seem to have disappeared for a different reason.
Baldur’s Gate, Arcanum and other games in the same style were
met with great acclaim and enthusiasm. However, for both
Baldur’s Gate and Arcanum sequels were planned but never
completed (Desolla, n.d.; Terra Arcanum, 2006). The reason for this was not a lack of popularity of the games, but rather financial problems of the companies producing them. Black Isle Studios, publisher of Baldur’s Gate and several other games in the same style, was shut down by its parent company Interplay, after Interplay got into financial trouble following a number of lawsuits (Desolla, n.d.; Thorsen, 2003). The developer of Arcanum, Troika Games, had to close in 2005 because it could not secure funding for future projects (Thorsen, 2005). Sierra Entertainment had been the producer on the earlier game, but ran into problems with Valve, which led to the sequel to Arcanum being cancelled. Both these examples illustrate a general problem pc-game developers faced in the early- to mid-two-thousands, namely the shrinking market for PC games (Desolla, n.d; Godinez, 2005).
While the market for pc games was shrinking, the production costs of big titles kept increasing (Boyer, 2008; Edwards, 2006; Parker, 2011). With the high production costs involved in creating a game, there was little room for experimentation and risk taking. Ever increasing numbers of copies needed to be sold in order to earn back production and marketing costs, which meant that an ever larger public needed to be reached. Thus games incorporated things they knew would work, and did not experiment with things that might fail, such as the use of text. As the next section will explain, there seemed to be a general trend towards graphics, while reading decreased. Game companies, afraid that gamers may not be interested in reading long conversations or descriptions, carefully avoided lengthy sections of text. The exception were logs, diaries, books or other ways in which the player might read background information that was not essential to the game. These texts were often poorly written and irrelevant however, giving the impression of a dumping ground for the things that could not be included in the game itself.
To conclude this section, it can be stated that financial concerns were important both in the disappearance of text-adventures as well as other text-rich games. At the same time there was also little demand for text adventures, and although this may have been partially due to a lack of high-quality productions, a general trend towards graphics, and a disinterest in reading may also have been
an important factor. The combination of high production costs and an apparent dis-interest in reading also discouraged experimenting with text in game by big companies. The next section will now further explore the apparent trend towards graphics and away from reading.
3.2.2 Trends in Society
People were reading less in the two-thousands compared to the nineties and eighties (Gioia, 2008). This may be related to a seeming general trend towards making life easier, since graphics require less cognitive involvement then text to process, as already discussed in section 2 (Cook & Thomas, 2005). Society was already moving away from reading and text, towards graphics. In the past the radio challenged the newspaper and television challenged books. Carey Jewit (2005) also pointed out the increased use of graphics: “Until recently the dominance of image
over word was a feature of texts designed for young children. Now, image overshadows word in a variety of texts, on screen and off screen: there are more images on screen and images are increasingly given a designed prominence over written elements
(p317)”. Games simply followed the general trend towards easy to process images.
The trend towards easier to consume entertainment may have extended beyond the use of text, to the overall difficulty level of games. It seems that many gamers now-a-days believe that games have gotten easier, though not necessarily due to decreased text use. A simple google search leads to a large number of discussions and articles where gamers debate whether the general difficulty of games has decreased1. Some point out that games
simply seem easier because of better design. Bad design is not likely to have been a factor in the decreased popularity of text-adventures however; the games produced by Infocom and Magnetics scrolls were usually well designed and properly tested before entering the market (Maher, 2015b). Magnetic scrolls even invested in software to create a more intuitive interface and way of interacting, but this did not stop the decrease in sales.
The general difficulty of the games could have been a factor though. Text-adventures, as well as graphical-adventure games, were notoriously hard to play, requiring the player to safe often as they would also die often. These games were most interesting to hard-core gamers, who could spend hours on a single game or puzzle. While some hard-core gamers may have enjoyed text-adventures for their written nature, other moved to graphics based games as those graphics became better. This might explain to some extent why the market for text-adventures became smaller in the early nineties. Furthermore, companies interested in reaching as large an audience as possible, would not be interested in a genre that is perceived as difficult.
In the seventies and early eighties, computers were very expensive machines, and those who owned them or had access to them were likely not just gamers, but programmers as well. Furthermore, in this time the computer mouse had not been widely spread yet 1 http://www.gamespot.com/forums/games-discussion-1000000/are-games-getting-easier-25813810/ http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.362633-Why-are-games-so-easy-these-days http://www.statesman.com/news/business/are-video-games-easier-nowadays-yes-and-heres-why/nRpXq/ http://venturebeat.com/community/2013/06/13/difficulty-vs-design-are-games-now-easier-or-simply-designed-better/
(Myers, 1998), and interaction with the computer came through the command line. So even those who were not programmers, still interacted with the computer by typing commands. Thus the gamers of that time were used to interact with text on the computer, and this likely influenced their attitude towards text-based games. By the late eighties, computers had changed to include a mouse and separate windows between which the user could navigate. This changed the general way of interacting with the computer, and likely influenced the attitude towards text in games as well.
To summarize, there was a general trend towards easier to consume graphics based games, as well as towards simpler games that appeal to a large audience. Furthermore, the gamers of the nineties and two-thousands did not associate computers or games directly with text, as was the case in the seventies and early eighties, thus the concept of text-based games may have seemed strange to them. It is not surprising then, that big companies, investing a lot of money, would not be interested in experimenting with the use of text in games. A lot of this has changed however, creating an environment in which text can make a comeback, as will be discussed in section 4.
4. FACILITATING THE COME-BACK OF
TEXT IN GAMES
Three major reasons for the decreased use of text can be taken away from the previous sections. First of all, as hardware and graphics improved, companies and gamers wanted innovative games that made use of this new hardware, specifically by improving graphics and sound. Text was rather boring in comparison. Second, financial concerns decreased risk taking and experimentation by game developers, as they needed to reach a large audience to earn development costs back. Finally, there may have been a general disinterest in text and reading in the nineties and two-thousands, as the focus was on easy to consume graphics. This section discusses the developments in the mid- to late two-thousands that changed all of this. Section 4.1 will discuss how new media and smartphones and tablets have changed the attitude towards reading, and the way smartphones and tablets facilitate text-rich games as a new gaming platform. 4.2 will then consider how changes in the game industry are once again creating an environment for experimentation in general, and how this facilitates the return of text-rich games.
4.1 New Media, New Platform
An increasing amount of time is spend on the internet (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010) or on smartphones and tablets (Galarneau, 2014; Krinsky, 2012), and an increasing amount of this time seems to be spend engaging with digital text. The internet is used to look up information, read interesting articles and blogs, discuss on forums or communicate through social media. Articles are suggested by friends or by the system, and are linked to other interesting articles, leading to a stream of texts that can keep users reading for quite a while. On smartphones and tablets apps such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are increasingly popular (Krinsky, 2012), and instant messaging is as important a function as calling (Smith, 2015). All these activities involve reading and writing messages, engaging with text. The number of downloads of social media apps on smartphones comes second only to gaming (Hill, 2014) and time spend on smartphones and tablets is increasingly spend gaming (Galarneau, 2014). A total of 48 million people were playing games on smart
phones and tablets in 2014 (Galarneau, 2014). Games produce 74% the App Stores revenue and 90% of the revenue of the Google Play Store (Hill, 2014). Mobile games generate 27% of global gaming revenue, and this will likely be 30% within a year. Revenue from mobile gaming is expected to catch up with that of console gaming before long, even though most mobile games cost less than 5 euro’s to play (Lofgren, 2015). Add to this the large and diverse public that can be reach through mobile phones, and it is clear why many companies are interested in publishing games for the mobile market.
There are quite a few text-based or text-rich games available in app stores. For these games, smartphones and tablets offered a new platform, one on which games with a strong text-component may become successful once again. The following sub-sections look at the reasons why this new platform facilitates the appearance of text rich games, as well as at the type of games they foster.
4.1.1 A new public
A first facilitating factor is the possibility to reach a new and diverse audience. As pointed out above, a large number of people are playing games on smartphones and tablets, while many more own these devices but have not started gaming yet. Games in the App Store or Google Play Store are not very expensive, most costing less than 5 euro’s (Lofgren, 2015), or being completely free of charge, using in-game purchases or ads to support the game. This lowers the threshold for non-gamers who would like to try something new (Lockley, 2013) and broadens the public for text-based games. Specifically users who enjoy reading, whether gamers or non-gamers, would be interested in text-based games. Now they have the opportunity to try these games on the device they already own, for only a few euros or even for free. Furthermore, the low pricing may entice gamers who are not particularly interested in reading to try something new, and play a text-rich game. From both these groups there will be players who enjoy the games they try, and whose interest will be now be drawn by text-rich computer or console games as well, creating a public not just on mobile phones, but on other platforms too.
Another type of public can be reached through mobile devices as well, namely people who used to be hard-core gamers in the seventies or eighties, but who either do not have time to game anymore, or who do not like the current types of games. For these people the casual gaming offered by mobile devices is very interesting, as it allows them to play in any quiet moment they can find. Text-based or rich games, and especially text-adventures, appeal to this group of older gamers out of nostalgia, resembling the games they played as children or students. This nostalgia is also illustrated by the re-appearance of several old games as enhanced editions, including for example The Secret of
Monkey Island Special Edition (LucasArts, 2009) and the first and
second Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced edition (Overhaul Games, 2012 and 2013).
4.1.2 Reading on mobile devices
A second facilitating factor is the fact that smartphones and tablets are already used to engage with text. As pointed out above, an important use of smartphones is instant messaging and social media (Krinsky, 2012), which are both based for a large part on reading and writing short messages, engaging with text in a particular way. Thus smartphone and tablet users are primed to read on their devices, and this makes the step to text-based games much smaller. Many new text-based games are also playing in to
the particular way of reading that instant messaging and social media encourage. They offer the player a few sentences or short message to read, after which some interaction is needed. In 80
Days (Inkle, 2014) a large part of the game involves reading a few
sentences, than advancing the story by choosing the next sentence; in Godville (Godville Games Limited, 2011) the player reads a continuous stream of hilarious status updates from their own personal hero, whom they can punish or encourage with buttons or give commands by typing; Blackbar (Mrgan and Moore, 2013) requires the player to fill in censored words in short letters and messages; in A Dark Room (Townsend and Rajan, 2013) all information is provided as short messages of one or two sentences; and Lifeline (3 Minute Games, 2015) consists of text-messages send to the player, which can be responded to by choosing one of two options.
These games share a basic format, but are very different in the exact interaction, gameplay or their topic. The commercial aspect and the success of these games differs a lot as well. Godville was not made with a profit plan in mind, but utilizes in-game purchases in order to support the maintenance of the game. It is very popular with over 500 000 installs and 31 000 ratings on Google Play since and more than 5800 ratings in the App Store since 2011 (number of installs is not available from the App Store). A Dark Room was made for fun by a total of two people, and unexpectedly became a best seller several months after its release (Thomson, 2014). It is available on iOS for $ 0,99 and has gotten almost 27 000 ratings since 2013. 80 Days was created as a commercial production by the company Inkle. It is available for $ 5 in both stores, with 10 000+ installs and 4100 ratings on Google Play and 1200 ratings in the App Store since 2014. This does not indicate the commercial success of these games however, since for example production costs of A Dark Room was practically non-existent compared to what 80-Days must have cost.
The style of reading described above also fits with text-adventures, and these are making an appearance in the mobile market as well. Activision has made all the old Infocom games available on iOS with the app Lost Treasures of Inofocom (2012). While the app itself is free, it requires in-game purchases to actually play the old games. However, as indicated by the 32 ratings it has gotten in the App store since 2012, it is not doing so well. This is not surprising, for a number of reasons. First of all, many of the old text-adventures required the player to draw a physical map in order not to get lost. Furthermore, they remain as notoriously difficult as they ever where, making them less appealing to casual gamers. But maybe most importantly, most Infocom productions can be found online for free, and can be played on computers and mobile devices through emulators and Z-code interpreters.
A different way in which text-adventures enter the mobile market is through Z-code interpreters, such as Text Fiction (Onyxbits, n.d.), Twisty (Twisty team, n.d.) and J-Frotz (Smith, 2008-2014). These apps are available for free, and come with a large, free library of text-adventures produced by the Interactive Fiction community over the years, which can be expanded by downloading other games. Many of these games come with advances such as digital maps or suggested words, to make gameplay on a mobile device easier. These apps seem to be doing reasonably well. For Android phones Text Fiction has over 10 000 installs on Google Play and over 1300 ratings, while Twisty has over 50 000 installs with 1000 ratings. No release date can be found for these, but they have likely been around as long as
J-Frotz (2008) on iOS. This app has over 6700 ratings in the App Store since 2008.
Andrew Plotkin has been producing indie-text-adventures for iOS for a while, including Shade (2013) and Hoist Sail for the
Heliopause and Home (2013), both available for $ 0,99.
However, Shade has had 6 ratings up till now, and Heliopause even less than that, indicating that these particular attempts are not that successful. Nevertheless, in a recent Kickstarter campaign Plotkin did achieve a success story, earning $31,337 from 713 backers, in order to create Hadean Lands (2014). This game has now been released on iOS and will soon come to Steam as well. It is still too early to say whether it will become a commercial success on either platform.
In addition to the interaction with text through social media, smartphones and tablets are also used for reading other types of text, including online articles and e-books. Especially this last type of reading has facilitated the appearance of another type of text-based games on smartphones and tablets, namely interactive novels or adventure books. A number of companies are dedicated to producing these stories, including Tin Man games, Choice of Games LLC, Delight Games LLC and Hosted Games LLC. The games range in price from $ 0.99 to $ 9.99, sometimes offering a free, add supported version as well.
It can be debated whether or not these are actually games, since in some of them the gameplay is limited to making a choice every few pages. However, others, such as Choice of Broadsides (Choice of Games, 2010) and Wizards Choice (Delight Games, 2010-2013), include statistics that need to be taken into account and a high score that can be improved. Again others, including the
Fighting Fantasy series from Tin Man Games (based on the
roleplaying books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone), include dice rolls to determine the outcome of events, bookmarks to allow going back if a choice ends in disaster, an inventory of items and clues, and in some stories a map to guide decisions. Thus there seems to be a gradient from games with very little gameplay, to those that are clearly games.
4.1.3 New ways of gaming
In addition to reaching a wide public and being used already for reading, smartphones and tablets are also used under circumstances that fit well with text based games. They are used often for short moments of play, when the user takes a little break from work or studying, while commuting, when waiting for someone or even when siting on the toilet. In these moments, games are needed that can be played for a short while and can then immediately be paused, for example because the boss came back or the train arrived. Many text-based games have adapted to this situation, making use of the static and sequential nature of written text to allow the user to look away from the game without losing points or part of the story, and to easily read back if they were distracted for a moment. Short bursts of play are offered for example by Lifeline, where the player is in contact with a stranded astronaut, Taylor. Whenever the player has a bit of time, he can chat with Taylor for a few moments until Taylor has to do something or goes to sleep and turns of the com. Godville has been mentioned above as existing mainly out of status updates from the player’s hero. The player can read these and laugh whenever there is a spare moment, and when there is a little more time, they can try to influence their hero’s behaviour, send him to the arena or take on a boss monster. Very different is Matchstick
Memories which gives the player fragments of memories, just one
or two sentences, after which a graphics-based puzzle needs to be
solved. Games reminding of Bejeweld (Popcap games, 2001) or
Candy Crush Saga (King, 2012) represent the connecting of
memories, while a variation of Minesweeper leads to ‘broken fragments’. Each puzzle is quite small, allowing for quick moments of play.
A second situation in which smartphones or tablets are used, is during peaceful moments when the player is curled up on the couch or lying in bed just before going to sleep. As with the short bursts of play, the static nature of written text makes it suitable for these moments. While relaxing, players may prefer a game where they can take their time, going for slow paced, turn based games. Leigh Alexander (2012) describes this as a ‘lean-back’ experience, the moment when you curl up with a phone or tablet to relax. Several text-based games are very suited for these moments, such as the interactive novels mentioned in the previous section, which provide an experience close to reading a book, but with a little more involvement in the story. Quite a few of the other games mentioned also give the ‘slow’ experience, including
Matchstick Memories which uses very minimalistic graphics in its
simple and short puzzles, and which confusing slivers of memories give the player pause to think about memory. Another example of a slow game is 80 Days. Short, well written stories are controlled by the player, who regularly chooses how to finish a sentence or continue the story from one of several options. In between the stories minimalistic graphics-based screens are used, where the user can plan the next part of the journey and start new stories. All movement is player controlled, and takes place in a smooth, slow manner. All in all the game provides a relaxing, slow paced experience, limiting the amount of information presented to the player at any one time.
There are many other text-based games that also fit both these situations. What most of them have in common, and what makes them appealing, is narrative, told in short sequences. Combined with their written nature, which reminds of books or old text-adventures, makes them very appealing to a wide audience, including those already mentioned above, non-gamers who enjoy reading and older gamers who used to play text-based games. While all these factors relate mainly to games on mobile devices, it may stimulate the use of text on other platforms as well, as it re-introduces the concept to a wide audience. Those who enjoy text-rich games on mobile devices, may look for them on other platforms as well.
4.2 Developments in the game-industry
In the early- to mid-two-thousands, large companies spend big sums of money on titles that followed a formula they knew would work. Because of the major development costs, risk taking was not an option. They needed to reach a very large audience in order to make production costs back, thus they needed to know for sure that their game would appeal to many people. However, in the last decade a number of developments have allowed small budget, indie developers to enter the gaming market as well. Since they have a small budget, they do not need to reach a large market, and can thus risk developing a game that may only appeal to a small audience. Three specific developments that facilitated the success of indie-developers can be identified.
First of all new distribution platforms allow small producers to market their games to a large audience, without having to sign a contract. These include for example itch.io and
humblebundle.com, but also mobile app stores. Steam2 also
allows indie-developers to publish their games and access a large public, but they have a stricter selection procedure with regards to which games are published. Recently Steam adopted the ‘Greenlight process’3 that allows the public to vote on games they
would like to buy, rather than relying on a small team to select which games proceed. Early in 2015 the text-adventure Hadean
Lands (Plotkin 2014) got the greenlight, illustrating that there is
still a market for classic text-adventures on the PC.
A second development that is quite important is the decreasing price and increasing ease of use of production tools. A lot of software is available at low prices or for free for small companies. The game engine Unity4 has a free version for small companies
that allows commercial use with no ties, Unreal Engine 45 allows
free use, though requiring 5% royalties if your game has returned a certain amount of money and cryENGINE6 can be used for just
9.90 per month, requiring no royalties. Blender7 is a 3D
application available for free, and Maya LT8 has a cheap package
for modelling, texturing and animation. Though many of the free or cheaper versions of software have less functionality, they can still offer small companies a way to get started on a small budget. There is also a lot of software available that allows the creation of simple games with very little programming knowledge. Unity is very easy to learn and work with, and the large number of online tutorials can help designers with limited programming knowledge to create a functioning game. GameMaker:Studio9 offers novices a
chance to create simple cross-platform games, and GameSalad Creator10 is catered specifically to mobile apps. There is also a lot
of free, easy software for creating text-based games, such as
Twine11, Quest12 or Playfic13. All these programs allow
individuals or small teams to create interesting, experimental games that can be published through the above mentioned platform.
The third development is maybe the most important, and this is the appearance of crowdfunding. The most famous of crowdfunding possibilities is Kickstarter14, which has already
helped fund many games, amount which a number of text-rich or even text-based games. Through websites such as Kickstarter, game developers can bypass producers, instead asking the public to support them. This leads to a much bigger involvement with the community, which in turn leads to games the community actually wants, rather than what large companies think they want.
2 http://store.steampowered.com 3 http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/ 4 https://unity3d.com 5 https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 6 http://cryengine.com/ 7 https://www.blender.org/ 8 http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/overview 9 http://www.yoyogames.com/studio 10 https://gamesalad.com/ 11 http://twinery.org/ 12 http://textadventures.co.uk/quest 13 http://playfic.com/ 14 https://www.kickstarter.com/
This has led, for example, to the resurrection of the old cRPG genre. In 2012 Obsidian entertainment started a campaign to raise $1,100,000 for the game Pillars of Eternity, the spiritual success to games such as Baldurs Gate and Arcanum. By the end of the campaign backers had raised $3,986,929. A year later inXile replicated Obsidians success with Torment: Tides of Numenera (inXile entertainment, still in production); 74,405 backers pledged $4,188,927, while the goal had been 900 000. InXile had already experienced success in the past, as 61,290 backers pledged almost 3 million dollars for their Wastelands 2 (2012), a follow up on the 1988 Wastelands from Interplay.
Text-adventures have also found their way to Kickstarter, although compared to the titles above their success has been much smaller. Nevertheless, the large sums of money that have been donated indicate that people are willing to pay a lot to see certain types of games return. As mentioned in the previous section,
Hadean Lands, which got the greenlight on Steam, was funded by
713 backers who brought together $31,337, the original goal having been $8000. Several backers paid over 100 dollars to see the game become reality, 2 spending as much as 1000 dollars. In addition to Kickstarter, there are also other types of crowdfunding available to small, independent companies. For example on patreon.com, people can pay artists a monthly fee, to support their work. For individuals working on text-adventures and other interactive fiction, these websites are very helpful.
Successful Kickstarter campaigns as well as the greenlight process on Steam, indicate to big companies what future directions may be interesting. Following the success of Eternity and Torment, it is not unlikely that large developers will want to invest in similar projects, and more games in this spirit may appear. Similarly, text-adventures may still make a commercial comeback, though possibly in a different from. In 2012 the Linden Labs, famous for
Second Life (2003-present) bought the company Little Text
People, founded by Emily Short, a long standing advocate for interactive fiction (Alexander, 2012). The purpose of Linden Labs was to go beyond Second Life and work on new projects. Little Text People focusses more on interactive storytelling then on games, but does illustrate the increasing interest in text, specifically interactive text.
Because there now are a lot of opportunities for indie-developers to become successful, there is also a lot of competition. This further stimulates experimentation with games. As these small developers cannot easily match the quality of big AAA companies, they need to come up with new perspectives in order to become successful. Text is an interesting medium to experiment with, since it is cheap and easy to work with and can be used in games in many different ways, as will also be discussed in the next section. Furthermore, after having fulfilled only small roles in games in the past decade, text is generally seen as something new and innovative when it is used in games.
Overall the game industry has changed a lot, especially with regards to pc-gaming, while mobile gaming is an entirely new market. New distribution platforms, cheap and easy to use tools and the possibility of crowdfunding are creating a general climate of experimentation, especially by small budget indie-developers. Text is an interesting medium to experiment with, not just because it is cheap and easy to work with, but also because it is now seen as either something new or something nostalgic. The success of several Kickstarter campaigns illustrates that there is a definite interest in text-based games. Furthermore the increased contact between developers and the gaming community allows for games
