Interactive Stories Come Back

I just started re-reading the entire Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy last night, the famous work of parody/satire/humor that first tweaked my interest with the Infocom video game.

What struck me back then was the branching storylines in the game, which let me run off and try whatever I wanted to – most times with not so great results. (The same company put out the Zork series, which prided itself on basic, non-linear storytelling both in the game, and in the Choose Your Own Adventure books that followed). Multi-User Dungeon games in the late 70s and early 80s sought the same kind of game play.

That dream – creating interactive, player-driven drama – has been the Golden Fleece in the game industry. Over the years, there have been a wide variety of attempts to nail this genre down. The most popular, maybe, was Myst, although when you start talking about the differences between interactive stories and video games, you're entering an unwinnable debate about the nature of games & stories.

That aside, there are two new game/book hybrids hitting the American shores that attempt to meld the best of both worlds.

Hirameki will release two products – Tea Society of a Witch and Hourglass of Summer. The disks are interactive stories that play out as games.