New academic research on Interactive Fiction...

Hi everyone,

I’m writing to announce my completed Thesis entitled, “The Use of Real-Time Mechanics to Increase Emotional Engagement and Immediacy in Interactive Fiction.” If you’re interested, you can check it out at:

http://thesis.samoff.com

While I’m not looking for any additional playtesting or feedback at this time, I’m always happy to correspond and hear what you think.

Thank you… I love this community and hope it continues (and evolves) on into the future.

Peace,
Tim

Very cool! Did you get a Master’s degree in IF? I will give it a read. thanks much!

Do you have the data on how many players finished (won or lose) the prototypes?

There’s a real metric that hints at the level of engagement: play time. Regardless of what they say on the survey, if a person played one game much longer than the other, a similar one, then she wanted to play that game more, especially if there is no ending state.

Thanks. I hope you do read it!

My degree is an MFA in Interactive Design & Game Development… IF was only my area of concentration for the thesis work.

While the literal time-of-play wasn’t captured, most players (over 60) offered comments relating multiple playthroughs… Prototype 1 garnered attempts because folks wanted to master the mechanics (which is good, because it was a prototype built purely to test the mechanics); Prototype 2 gained the most positive responses around multiple tries, but mostly because it took a few attempts to figure out and beat (most players really liked the concept as well).

I’d love for you to play them and offer your own thoughts here!