by Krish Raghav When Adam Cadre’s Photopia won first place at the 1998 Interactive Fiction competition, it started an (intense) debate about what really draws the line between an interactive video game and a work of fiction. Photopia unceremoniously dumped the idea of a ‘puzzle-based’ narrative. Instead, it chose a ’story-based’ narrative, a linear progression (linear in terms of interactivity, not time) from beginning to end that throws seemingly random fragments of a story at the player, wh
I first got to know of Sarah Polley through Photopia, an interactive fiction piece (also known as a “text adventure”) by Adam Cadre. It’s easily one of the most influential pieces of fiction for my own writing. I’ve described it here before. Photopia is written with a “Priest plot,” which Adam describes this way: [Christopher Priest] used to be known for his brilliant and hilarious dialogue, his nuanced characters, his offbeat endings, and he’s still known for all these things, but he’s even
I first got to know of Sarah Polley through Photopia, an interactive fiction piece (also known as a “text adventure”) by Adam Cadre. It’s easily one of the most influential pieces of fiction for my own writing. I’ve described it here before. Photopia is written with a “Priest plot,” which Adam describes this way: [Christopher Priest] used to be known for his brilliant and hilarious dialogue, his nuanced characters, his offbeat endings, and he’s still known for all these things, but he’s even
I took this photo while doing an excellent photography course when I was living in Osaka a few years ago. If you happen to live in Osaka and can speak some Japanese (there are no lessons in English), I can’t recommend Photopia Shashin Kyoshitsu too much. It only cost about 12,000 yen for a 3-month class, and they had free camera rentals for the practice sessions.
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 weight to some of the story's motifs -- questions of free will and determinism.
Trivia
Adam Cadre has stated that Photopia was heavily influenced by The Sweet Hereafter, a film that prominently features a babysitter and a bus crash.
Adam Cadre submitted Photopia to the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition pseudonymously. 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 who could be instructed to undress.
External links
Adam Cadre's website. Adam is the author of Photopia.
Interactive Fiction Competition '98 in which Photopia took first place.
Photopia's entry in Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive notes awards that the game has won, links to reviews, and provides links to the game itself.
