interviewed by Roberto Grassi

> ASK AARON ABOUT AARON
I’m a recent graduate of the University of Utah Film Studies program, looking forward to many possible careers that have nothing to do with film. In addition to interactive fiction, I also write the old-fashioned linear kind as well–a story of mine about virtual reality appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, and I have a vast catalog of other nonsense that may or may not eventually be massaged into publishable form.

My other interests include astronomy, backpacking, role-playing, and caving, which playing “Adventure” as a kid sparked my interest in. IF fans might be interested in my photos of the little valley outside the cave entrance that the above-ground section of that game was based on — as well as a curiously familiar local house: http://www.aaronareed.net/gallery/album06

> ASK AARON ABOUT HIS IF
I’m just old enough to have experienced the very end of IF as a commercial phenomenon — I remember buying Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with pocket money and being enchanted by all the imaginative Infocom boxes on the shelves at the software store. As I got back into the modern IF scene some years ago, what interested me was its freshness and uniqueness as an art form that hasn’t already been explored and beaten to death. It’s also unique in that a single person can create the entire game, something virtually impossible in a graphic-based computer game.

In my IF, I’m interested in exploring the types of stories that are unique to this medium. Adam Cadre’s 9:05 is a story that really wouldn’t work as a movie, or a play, or a short story: the connection between the player and the protagonist and the conventions of the IF medium helped make that a unique and fascinating experience. I tried to create another such experience with my most recent game, “Whom the Telling Changed,” and though many might say I failed (including, oftentimes, myself) I learned a lot about the possibilities of the medium in the process.

Most of all I’m interested in trying new things and seeing what can and can’t be done with the medium.

> ASK AARON ABOUT OLD IF
Like regular fiction, IF is a collaboration between the words of the author and the imagination of the reader. The best of classic IF understands this in the same way that Jules Verne, J.R.R. Tolkien and all great storytellers did: the magic comes when you feel like you are there, along with or as one of the characters. Exploring tombs or alien ships or old abandoned castles, the early games got away with fragile plots or weak NPCs by capturing the thrill of discovery.

With an older and more critical eye, my favorite classic game is probably Trinity, for breaking the mold of what had been done before in a new and interesting way.

> ASK AARON ABOUT CURRENT IF
I don’t play as much as I should. Recent games I’ve enjoyed: Slouching Towards Bedlam was right up my aesthetic alley in terms of setting, play style, and ideas. 1893: A World’s Fair Mystery almost made me cry from the amount of detail and work that went into it–I still need to get back and finish it. I love Adam Cadre’s games (and his book “Ready, Okay!” is great too).

I think it’s a great time to be a fan of IF–to be there for all the experiments, discoveries, and discussions defining a new genre of storytelling. The smaller, more intimate nature means that the IF community is light-years ahead of most mainstream forms of interactive entertainment like PC games. I believe that the lessons learned in the IF world about what is and isn’t possible to do with this kind of story are forming the foundation of the next hundred years or more of entertainment.

> ASK AARON ABOUT FUTURE IF
How long IF survives as a distinct medium is anybody’s guess. It’s simplicity (text in–text out), and the fact that it uses technology but is not tied to any specific new or flashy technological innovation, suggests to me that it may stick around for quite a while, though perhaps never become popular.

Increasing computational speed and advances in A.I. will open new directions for IF, particularly in the realm of interaction with other characters, the weakest link in the medium as it stands today. I wrote a sample transcript once of an IF session with a sentient parser, as a thought experiment to demonstrate the limitations taken for granted in today’s interfaces. When the player is able to communicate with the game in language as complicated as the game uses to talk to the player, the possibilities this will open up will be enormous.

> ASK AARON ABOUT HIS FUTURE RELEASES
Writing IF for competition deadlines (which is the only motivation that leads me to finish games) is such an exhausting process, it typically takes me a while to build up the motivation to start a new project. I’ve got a number of ideas in the works, but nothing very far along–it will definitely be 2006 before anything else by me comes out.

My dream project–you know, the one that everyone has and that always seems too daunting to actually do–is about Mammoth Cave, its history and its connection to IF. I’ll keep the plot details and game mechanics under wraps, but in a broader sense, it’s about the interrelationships between fiction, exploration, and the drive to satiate curiosity. There are so many fascinating stories connected with the cave system, and the cave itself is so utterly timeless–unchanged today from when any of those stories took place–it seems like a fascinating canvas on which to explore basic themes of human nature.

On a shorter timeframe, I’m collaborating with a programmer friend on a sort of high-tech murder mystery, with a technological device that makes for some cool twists on old conventions. Imagine crime scene photographs that you can move backwards and forwards in time. A recent conversation has been all about conventional time flow in IF. How do you interrupt something that happens in the middle of the text flow between inputs? Can you rephrase text so that your descriptions all end in the middle of an action, instead of at the end?

In the end, though, I just hope to share stories with people that make them think or experience things they wouldn’t have otherwise. Wish me luck!