History

This page links to articles and other resources about the history of interactive fiction.

The Digital Antiquarian - Jimmy Maher's blog with many very detailed articles about the history of interactive fiction (and some other game genres). Posts are from 2011-present.
50 Years of Text Games by Aaron Reed. Series of articles published in 2021, examining one text game per year from 1971-2020. 50 Years of Text Games was later released as a book.
Mathbrush's page on IFWiki links to many essays, including a 2017 series of essays about the history of IFComp.
The Past, Present and Future of Interactive Fiction - Video of a talk by Emily Short at AdventureX 2016. Goes through IF history describing various games that experimented with the form, what people at those points in time thought the future of IF might look like, and what actually happened.
Brief Bibliography about IF History - by Emily Short. April 2, 2016.
Interactive Fiction Communities: From Preservation through Promotion and Beyond by Nick Montfort and Emily Short in Dichtung Digital. 2012.
Get Lamp: The Text Adventure Documentary - 2010 documentary by Jason Scott.
Interactive fiction, from birth through precocious adolescence: a conversation with Jimmy Maher by Harry Kaplan and Jimmy Maher for Adventure Classic Gaming, 16 July 2009.
Articles about the history of IF on the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup. Linked discussions are from 1991-2007.
A Brief History of Interactive Fiction by Misty and Stephen Granade. Timeline created in 2002, with events from 1945-2000.
About Interactive Fiction (1996, 2001), by Liza Daly. Very short.
A short history of interactive fiction by Graham Nelson. This section of the The Inform Designer's Manual describes IF history up to the year 2000.

Theory, Craft, and History Resources
Theory	General Theory • Comparisons • Design • Taxonomy • Terminology
Craft	Game • Making-Of Articles • NPCs • PCs • Promotion • Puzzles • Setting • Story • Use of Medium • Writing
History	History of Interactive Fiction

History

See also