Jon Ingold - Interactive Fiction Works

Interactive Fiction Works

Jon Ingold's interactive fiction is notable for its interrogation of the relationship between the player-character and the player, and most of his games explore this notion in one way or another. The best examples are Fail-Safe (in which the player is talking to the player-character over a radio, hampered by constant interference), Insight (in which the player-character knows a lot more about his world than the player) and All Roads (in which it's not at all clear who - or what - the player-character is).

His game Dead Cities (2007) won Best in Show in the Lovecraft Commonplace Book Exhibition, and will be displayed along four other games at the Museum of Science-Fiction and Utopia, Switzerland.

Other works are more fun: the Mulldoon sequence (two games) is puzzle-based. The first game, The Mulldoon Legacy (1999), is reputedly the longest text-game ever written; the follow-up, The Mulldoon Murders (2002) is much shorter and darker in tone. Till Death Makes a Monk-Fish out of Me (2002, 2nd place in the Interactive Fiction Competition, and nominated for four XYZZY Awards) is a black comic science fiction story.

  • Break-In (1999; Z-code). Finalist at XYZZY Awards 1999 for Best Individual Puzzle.
  • The Mulldoon Legacy (1999; Z-code). Winner at XYZZY Awards 1999 for Best Puzzles; also, a finalist for Best Individual Puzzle, Best NPCs, Best Setting, Best Story, and Best Game.
  • Fail-Safe (2000; Z-code). Finalist at XYZZY Awards 2000 for Best Individual NPC.
  • My Angel (2000; Z-code). IF Comp 2000: 6th place. Winner at XYZZY Awards 2000 for Best Story; also a finalist for Best Writing and Best Individual NPC.
  • Large Machine (2001; Z-code).
  • All Roads (2001; Z-code). IF Comp 2001: 1st place. Winner at XYZZY Awards 2001 for Best Setting, Best Story, and Best Game; also a finalist for Best Individual Puzzle and Best Writing.
  • The Mulldoon Murders (2002; Z-code).
  • Till Death Makes a Monk-Fish Out of Me! (with Mike Sousa; 2002; TADS 2). IF Comp 2002: 2nd place. Finalist at XYZZY Awards 2002 for Best Individual Puzzle, Best Story, Best Writing, and Best Game.
  • Insight (2003; Z-code).
  • Dead Cities (19-Jun-2007; Glulx). HP Lovecraft: The Commonplace Book Project 2007: Awarded Best in Show. XYZZY Awards 2007: Finalist for Best Story.
  • Make It Good (13-Apr-2009; Z-code 8), nominated for 5 XYZZY Awards including Best Game.
  • Klockwerk: The Shadow in the Cathedral (with Ian Finley; Glulx), published by Textfyre.inc. Nominated for 5 XYZZY Awards including Best Game.

Read more about this topic:  Jon Ingold

Famous quotes containing the words fiction and/or works:

    “We ignore thriller writers at our peril. Their genre is the political condition. They massage our dreams and magnify our nightmares. If it is true that we always need enemies, then we will always need writers of fiction to encode our fears and fantasies.”
    —Daniel Easterman (b. 1949)

    “They commonly celebrate those beaches only which have a hotel on them, not those which have a humane house alone. But I wished to see that seashore where man’s works are wrecks; to put up at the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is land-lord as well as sea-lord, and comes ashore without a wharf for the landing; where the crumbling land is the only invalid, or at best is but dry land, and that is all you can say of it.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)