Summary

The issue took longer than expected due to a comprehensive approach combining personal reflection, detailed retrospective accounts, and critical perspectives across multiple IF titles. While the initial process was lengthy, the depth of experience gained from a full IFComp experience in 2017 proved transformative for the author. The content also explores game poetry and experimental techniques that have long existed as precursors to these immersive worlds. A lengthy interview with Nathalie Lawhead highlights the unique value of text-based games in generating personal, awkward, and raw experiences amidst an industry that often prioritizes polished spectacles, demonstrating that the power of text is more than just a literary device—it creates specific, often unsettling emotional states. Similarly, the study of the game *Horse Master* serves as a reminder that mastery comes from doing it repeatedly until the brain learns to anticipate and replicate the journey. The book is also divided by its core literary devices, specifically retro interfaces that function as distinct ways of storytelling, drawing heavily on the works of Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln regarding ancient mysteries like the Holy Grail.

Sources include a range of critical analyses and historical accounts:
* *Horse Master*: Made me go, fine, yes, of course I will play Horse Master for the 12th time.
* *Holy Blood, Holy Grail*: By Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; *The Holy Grail*: The History of a Legend by Richard Barber; *Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions* by Ronald H. Fritze; and *The Tomb of God: The Body of Jesus and the Solution to a 2,000-Year-Old Mystery* by Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger.
* *Le Trésor Maudit de Rennes-le-Chteau* by Gérard de Sède and *Les Mérovingiens à Rennes-le-Chteau* by Gérard de Sède.

Title

Planet Interactive Fiction

Description

Planet Interactive Fiction

Keywords

game, have, lincoln, there, more, time, will, fiction, games, like, character, over, even, first, years, might, last

NS Lookup

A 172.67.177.185, A 104.21.17.173

Dates

Created 2026-03-08

Updated 2026-04-07

Summarized 2026-04-06