互动小说及其开源简史
小说

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> 了解开源如何促进互动小说的成长和发展。
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![](/data/attachment/album/201908/27/142657ryf4pa2lym6fe6f1.jpg)


<ruby> <a href="http://iftechfoundation.org/">  互动小说技术基金会 </a> <rt>  Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation </rt></ruby>（IFTF） 是一个非营利组织，致力于保护和改进那些用来生成我们称之为<ruby> 互动小说 <rt>  interactive fiction </rt></ruby>的数字艺术形式的技术。当 Opensource.com 的一位社区版主提出一篇关于 IFTF、它支持的技术与服务，以及它如何与开源相交织的文章时，我发现这对于我讲了数几十年的开源故事来说是个新颖的视角。互动小说的历史比<ruby> 自由及开源软件 <rt>  Free and Open Source Software </rt></ruby>（FOSS）运动的历史还要长，但同时也与之密切相关。希望你们能喜欢我在这里的分享。


### 定义和历史


对于我来说，互动小说这个术语涵盖了读者主要通过文本与之交互的任何视频游戏或数字化艺术作品。这个术语起源于 20 世纪 80 年代，当时由语法解析器驱动的文本冒险游戏确立了什么是家用电脑娱乐，在美国主要以 [魔域](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork)、[银河系漫游指南](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(video_game)) 和 [Infocom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infocom) 公司的其它佳作为代表。在 20 世纪 90 年代，它的主流商业价值被挖掘殆尽，但在线爱好者社区接过了该传统，继续发布这类游戏和游戏创建工具。


在四分之一个世纪之后的今天，互动小说包括了品种繁多并且妙趣橫生的作品，如从充满谜题的文字冒险游戏到衍生改良的超文本类型。定期举办的在线竞赛和节日为品鉴和试玩新作品提供了个好地方—英语互动小说世界每年都会举办一些活动，包括 [Spring Thing](http://www.springthing.net/) 和 [IFComp](http://ifcomp.org/)。后者是自 1995 年以来现代互动小说的核心活动，这也使它成为在同类型活动中持续举办时间最长的游戏展示活动。[IFComp 从 2017 年开始的评选和排名记录](https://ifcomp.org/comp/2017) 显示了如今基于文本的游戏在形式、风格和主题方面的惊人多样性。


（作者注：以上我特指英语，因为可能出于写作方面的技术原因，互动小说社区倾向于按语言进行区分。例如也有 [法语](http://www.fiction-interactive.fr/) 或 [意大利语](http://www.oldgamesitalia.net/content/marmellata-davventura-2018) 的互动小说年度活动，我就听说过至少一届的中文互动小说节。幸运的是，这些边界易于打破。在我管理 IFComp 的四年中，我们很欢迎来自国际社区的所有英语翻译工作。）


![“假冒的猴子”游戏截图](/data/attachment/album/201908/27/143200dmhffy912cflgfql.jpg)


*在解释器 Lectrote 上启动 Emily Short 的“假冒的猴子”新游戏（二者皆为开源软件）。*


此外由于互动小说专注于文本，它为玩家和作者都提供了最方便的平台。几乎所有能阅读数字化文本的人（包括能通过文字转语音软件等辅助技术阅读的用户）都能玩大部分的互动小说作品。同样，互动小说的创作对所有愿意学习和使用其工具和技术的作家开放。


这使我们了解了互动小说与开源的长期关系，以及从它的全盛时期以来，对于艺术形式可用性的积极影响。接下来我将概述当代开源互动小说创建工具，并讨论共享源代码的互动小说作品古老且有点稀奇的传统。


### 开源互动小说工具的世界


一些开发平台（其中大部分是开源的）可用于创建传统的语法解析器驱动互动小说，其中用户可通过输入命令（如 `向北走`、`拾取提灯`、`收养小猫` 或 `向 Zoe 询问量子机械学`）来与游戏世界交互。20 世纪 90 年代初期出现了几个<ruby> 适于魔改 <rt>  hacker-friendly </rt></ruby>的语法解析器游戏开发工具，其中目前还在使用的有 [TADS](http://tads.org/)、[Alan](https://www.alanif.se/) 和 [Quest](http://textadventures.co.uk/quest/)，它们都是开源的，并且后两者兼容 FOSS 许可证。


其中最出名的是 [Inform](http://inform7.com/)，1993 年 Graham Nelson 发布了第一个版本，目前由 Nelson 领导的一个团队进行维护。Inform 的源代码是不太寻常的半开源：Inform 6 是前一个主要版本，[它通过 Artistic 许可证开放源码](https://github.com/DavidKinder/Inform6)。这其中蕴涵着比我们所看到的更直接的相关性，因为它专有的 Inform 7 将 Inform 6 作为其核心，可以让它在将作品编译为机器码之前，将其 [杰出的自然语言语法](http://inform7.com/learn/man/RB_4_1.html#e307) （LCTT 译注：此链接已遗失）翻译为其前一代的那种更类似 C 的代码。


![inform 7 集成式开发环境截图](/data/attachment/album/201908/27/143225f3s8s28ptotxl8n3.jpg)


*Inform 7 集成式开发环境，打开了文档以及一个示例项目*


Inform 游戏运行在虚拟机上，这是 Infocom 时代的遗留产物。当时的发行者为了让同一个游戏可以运行在 Apple II、Commodore 4、Atari 800 以及其它种类的“[家用计算机](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu55q_3YtOY)”上，将虚拟机作为解决方案。这些原本流行的操作系统中只有少数至今仍存在，但 Inform 的虚拟机使得它创建的作品能够通过 Inform 解释器运行在任何的计算机上。这些虚拟机包括相对现代的 [Glulx](http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Glulx)，或者通过对 Infocom 过去的虚拟机进行逆向工程克隆得到的可爱的古董 [Z-machine](http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Z-machine)。现在，流行的跨平台解释器包括如 [lectrote](https://github.com/erkyrath/lectrote) 和 [Gargoyle](https://github.com/garglk/garglk/) 等桌面程序，以及如 [Quixe](http://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/quixe/) 和 [Parchment](https://github.com/curiousdannii/parchment) 等基于浏览器的程序。以上所有均为开源软件。


如其它的流行开源项目一样，如果 Inform 的发展进程随着它的成熟而逐渐变缓，它为我们留下的最重要的财富就是其活跃透明的生态环境。对于 Inform 来说，（这些财富）包括前面提到的解释器、[一套语言扩展](https://github.com/i7/extensions)（通常混合使用 Inform 6 和 Inform 7 写成），当然也包括所有用它们写成并分享于全世界的作品，有的时候也包括那些源代码。（在这篇文章的后半部分我会回到这个话题）


互动小说创建工具发明于 21 世纪，力求在传统的语法解析器之外探索一种新的玩家交互方式，即创建任何现代 Web 浏览器都能加载的超文本驱动作品。其中的领头羊是 [Twine](http://twinery.org/)，原本由 Klimas 在 2009 年开发，目前是 [GNU 许可证开源项目](https://github.com/klembot/twinejs)，有许多贡献者正在积极开发。（事实上，[Twine](https://opensource.com/article/18/7/twine-vs-renpy-interactive-fiction) 的开源软件血统可追溯到 [TiddlyWiki](https://tiddlywiki.com/)，Klimas 的项目最初是从该项目衍生而来的）


对于互动小说开发来说，Twine 代表着一系列最开放及最可用的方法。由于它天生的 FOSS 属性，它将其输出渲染为一个自包含的网站，不依赖于需要进一步特殊解析的机器码，而是使用开放并且成熟的 HTML、CSS 和 JavaScript 标准。作为一个创建工具，Twine 能够根据创建者的技能等级，展示出与之相匹配的复杂度。拥有很少或没有编程知识的用户能够创建简单但是可玩的互动小说作品，但那些拥有更多编码和设计技能（包括通过开发 Twine 游戏获得的技能提升）的用户能够创建更复杂的项目。这也难怪近几年 Twine 在教育领域的曝光率和流行度有不小的提升。


另一些值得注意的开源互动小说开发项目包括由 Ian Millington 开发的以 MIT 许可证发布的 [Undum](https://github.com/idmillington/undum)，以及由 Dan Fabulich 和 [Choice of Games](https://www.choiceofgames.com/) 团队开发的 [ChoiceScript](https://github.com/dfabulich/choicescript)，两者也专注于将 Web 浏览器作为游戏平台。除了以上专用的开发系统以外，基于 Web 的互动小说也呈现给我们以开源作品的丰富、变幻的生态。比如 Furkle 的 [Twine 扩展工具集](https://github.com/furkle)，以及 Liza Daly 为自己的互动小说游戏创建的名为 [Windrift](https://github.com/lizadaly/windrift) 的 JavaScript 框架。


### 程序、游戏，以及游戏程序


Twine 受益于 [一个致力于提供支持的长期 IFTF 计划](http://iftechfoundation.org/committees/twine/)，公众可以为其维护和发展提供资助。IFTF 还直接支持两个长期公共服务：IFComp 和<ruby> 互动小说归档 <rt>  IF Archive </rt></ruby>，这两个服务都依赖并回馈开源软件和技术。


![Harmonia 开场截图](/data/attachment/album/201908/27/143254u7gt1mhqoeexa9ba.jpg)


*由 Liza Daly 开发的“Harmonia”的开场画面，该游戏使用 Windrift 开源互动小说创建框架创建。*


自 2014 年以来，用于运行 IFComp 网站的基于 Perl 和 JavaScript 的应用程序一直是 [一个共享源代码项目](https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifcomp)，它反映了 [互动小说特有子组件使用的 FOSS 许可证是个大杂烩](https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifcomp/blob/master/LICENSE.md)，其中包括那些可以让以语法解析器驱动的竞争项目在 Web 浏览器中运行的各式各样的代码库。在 1992 年上线并 [在 2017 年成为一个 IFTF 项目](http://blog.iftechfoundation.org/2017-06-30-iftf-is-adopting-the-if-archive.html) 的 <ruby> <a href="https://www.ifarchive.org/">  互动小说归档 </a> <rt>  IF Archive </rt></ruby>，是一套完全基于古老且稳定的互联网标准的镜像仓库，只使用了 [一点开源 Pyhon 脚本](https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifarchive-ifmap-py) 用来处理索引。


### 最后，也是最有趣的部分，让我们聊聊开源文字游戏


互动小说归档的主体 [由游戏组成](https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgames)，当然，是那些历经岁月的游戏。它们反映了数十年来不断发展的游戏设计趋势和互动小说工具发展。


许多互动小说作品都共享其源代码，要快速找到它们的快速很简单 —— [在 IFDB 中搜索标签 “source available”](http://ifdb.tads.org/search?sortby=ratu&searchfor=%22source+available%22)。IFDB 是另一个长期运行的互动小说社区服务，由 TADS 的创立者 Mike Roberts 私人运营。对更加简单的界面感到舒适的用户，也可以浏览互动小说归档的 [games/source 目录](https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgamesXsource.html)，该目录按开发平台和编写语言对内容运行分组（也有很多作品，由于太繁杂或太古老而无法分类，只能浮于顶级目录）。


对这些代码共享游戏随机抽取的几个样本，揭示了一个有趣的窘境：与更广阔的开源软件世界不同，互动小说社区缺少一种普遍认同的方式来授权它生成的所有代码。与软件工具（包括我们用来创建互动小说的所有工具）不同的是，从字面意思上讲，交互式小说游戏是一件艺术作品。这意味着，将面向软件的开源许可证用于交互式小说游戏，并不会比将其用于其它像散文或诗歌作品更适合。但同样，互动小说游戏也是一个软件，它展示了创建者希望合法地与世界分享的源代码模式和技术。一个拥有开源意识的互动小说创建者会怎么做呢？


有些游戏通过将其代码放到公共领域来解决这一问题，或者通过明确的许可证，亦或者如 [42 年前由 Crowther 和 Woods 开发的“<ruby> 冒险之旅 <rt>  Adventure </rt></ruby>”](http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=fft6pu91j85y4acv) 一样通过社区发布。一些人试图将其中的不同部分分开，应用他们自己的许可证，允许免费复用游戏公开的业务逻辑，但禁止针对其散文内容的再创作。这是我在开源自己的游戏 <ruby> <a href="https://github.com/jmacdotorg/warblers-nest/">  莺巢 </a> <rt>  The Warbler’s Nest </rt></ruby> 时采取的策略。天知道这是否能在法律上站得住脚，但我当时没有更好的主意。


当然，你会发现一些作品对所有部分使用单一的许可证，而不介意反对者。一个突出的例子就是 [Emily Short 的史诗作品“<ruby> 假冒的猴子 <rt>  Counterfeit Monkey </rt></ruby>”](https://github.com/i7/counterfeit-monkey)，其全部采用 Creative Commons 4.0 许可证发布。[CC 对其应用于代码感到不满](https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software)，但你可以认为 [Inform 7 源码这种不寻常的散文风格特性](https://github.com/i7/counterfeit-monkey/blob/master/Counterfeit%20Monkey.materials/Extensions/Counterfeit%20Monkey/Liquids.i7x) 至少比传统的软件项目更适合 CC 许可证。


### 接下来要做什么呢，冒险者？


如果你希望开始探索互动小说的世界，这里有几个链接可供你参考：


* 如上所述，[IFDB](http://ifdb.tads.org/) 和[互动小说归档](https://ifarchive.org/)都提供了可浏览的界面，用于浏览超过 40 年价值的互动小说作品。其中大部分可以在 Web 浏览器中玩，但有些需要额外的解释器程序。IFDB 能帮助你找到并安装它们。[IFComp 的年度结果页面](https://ifcomp.org/comp/last_comp)展现了另一个视图，帮助你了解最佳的免费和归档可用作品。
* [互动小说技术基金会](http://iftechfoundation.org/)是一个非营利组织，主要帮助并支持 Twine、IFComp 和互动小说归档的发展，以及提升互动小说的无障碍功能、探索互动小说在教育领域中的应用等等。加入其[邮件列表](http://iftechfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/friends)，可以接收 IFTF 的每月资讯，浏览其[博客](http://blog.iftechfoundation.org/)，亦或浏览[一些主题商品](http://blog.iftechfoundation.org/2017-12-20-the-iftf-gift-shop-is-now-open.html)。
* 在今年的早些时候，John Paul Wohlscheid 写了这篇[关于开源互动小说工具](https://itsfoss.com/create-interactive-fiction/)的文章。它涵盖了一些这里没有提及的平台，所以如果你还想了解更多，请看一看这篇文章。




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via: <https://opensource.com/article/18/7/interactive-fiction-tools>


作者：[Jason Mclntosh](https://opensource.com/users/jmac) 选题：[lujun9972](https://github.com/lujun9972) 译者：[cycoe](https://github.com/cycoe) 校对：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)


本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出


OK
The [Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation](http://iftechfoundation.org/) (IFTF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and improvement of technologies enabling the digital art form we call *interactive fiction*. When a Community Moderator for Opensource.com suggested an article about IFTF, the technologies and services it supports, and how it all intersects with open source, I found it a novel angle to the decades-long story I’ve so often told. The history of IF is longer than—but quite enmeshed with—the modern FOSS movement. I hope you’ll enjoy my sharing it here.

## Definitions and history

To me, the term *interactive fiction* includes any video game or digital artwork whose audience interacts with it primarily through text. The term originated in the 1980s when parser-driven text adventure games—epitomized in the United States by [ Zork](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork),

[, and the rest of](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(video_game))

*The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*[Infocom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infocom)’s canon—defined home-computer entertainment. Its mainstream commercial viability had guttered by the 1990s, but online hobbyist communities carried on the tradition, releasing both games and game-creation tools.

After a quarter century, interactive fiction now comprises a broad and sparkling variety of work, from puzzle-laden text adventures to sprawling and introspective hypertexts. Regular online competitions and festivals provide a great place to peruse and play new work: The English-language IF world enjoys annual events including [Spring Thing](http://www.springthing.net/) and [IFComp](http://ifcomp.org/), the latter a centerpiece of modern IF since 1995—which also makes it the longest-lived continually running game showcase event of its kind in any genre. [IFComp’s crop of judged-and-ranked entries from 2017](https://ifcomp.org/comp/2017) shows the amazing diversity in form, style, and subject matter that text-based games boast today.

(I specify "English-language" above because IF communities tend to self-segregate by language, perhaps due to the technology's focus on writing. There are also annual IF events in [French](http://www.fiction-interactive.fr/) and [Italian](http://www.oldgamesitalia.net/content/marmellata-davventura-2018), for example, and I've heard of at least one Chinese IF festival. Happily, these borders are porous; during the four years I managed IFComp, it has welcomed English-translated work from all international communities.)

![counterfeit monkey game screenshot counterfeit monkey game screenshot](https://opensource.com/sites/default/files/uploads/monkey.png)

Starting a new game of Emily Short's "Counterfeit Monkey," running on the interpreter Lectrote (both open source software).

Also due to its focus on text, IF presents some of the most accessible platforms for both play and authorship. Almost anyone who can read digital text—including users of assistive technology such as text-to-speech software—can play most IF works. Likewise, IF creation is open to all writers willing to learn and work with its tools and techniques.

This brings us to IF’s long relationship with open source, which has helped enable the art form’s availability since its commercial heyday. I'll provide an overview of contemporary open-source IF creation tools, and then discuss the ancient and sometimes curious tradition of IF works that share their source code.

## The world of open source IF tools

A number of development platforms, most of which are open source, are available to create traditional parser-driven IF in which the user types commands—for example, `go north,`

`get lamp`

, `pet the cat`

, or `ask Zoe about quantum mechanics`

—to interact with the game’s world. The early 1990s saw the emergence of several hacker-friendly parser-game development kits; those still in use today include [TADS](http://tads.org/), [Alan](https://www.alanif.se/), and [Quest](http://textadventures.co.uk/quest/)—all open, with the latter two bearing FOSS licenses.

But by far the most prominent of these is [Inform](http://inform7.com/), first released by Graham Nelson in 1993 and now maintained by a team Nelson still leads. Inform source is semi-open, in an unusual fashion: Inform 6, the previous major version, [makes its source available through the Artistic License](https://github.com/DavidKinder/Inform6). This has more immediate relevance than may be obvious, since the otherwise proprietary Inform 7 holds Inform 6 at its core, translating its [remarkable natural-language syntax](http://inform7.com/learn/man/RB_4_1.html#e307) into its predecessor’s more C-like code before letting it compile the work down into machine code.

![inform 7 IDE screenshot inform 7 IDE screenshot](https://opensource.com/sites/default/files/uploads/inform.png)

The Inform 7 IDE, loaded up with documentation and a sample project.

Inform games run on a virtual machine, a relic of the Infocom era when that publisher targeted a VM so that it could write a single game that would run on Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 800, and other flavors of the "[home computer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu55q_3YtOY)." Fewer popular operating systems exist today, but Inform’s virtual machines—the relatively modern [Glulx](http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Glulx) or the charmingly antique [Z-machine](http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Z-machine), a reverse-engineered clone of Infocom’s historical VM—let Inform-created work run on any computer with an Inform interpreter. Currently, popular cross-platform interpreters include desktop programs like [Lectrote](https://github.com/erkyrath/lectrote) and [Gargoyle](https://github.com/garglk/garglk/) or browser-based ones like [Quixe](http://eblong.com/zarf/glulx/quixe/) and [Parchment](https://github.com/curiousdannii/parchment). All are open source.

If the pace of Inform’s development has slowed in its maturity, it remains vital through an active and transparent ecosystem—just like any other popular open source project. In Inform’s case, this includes the aforementioned interpreters, [a collection of language extensions](https://github.com/i7/extensions) (usually written in a mix of Inform 6 and 7), and of course, all the work created with it and shared with the world, sometimes with source included (I’ll return to that topic later in this article).

IF creation tools invented in the 21st century tend to explore player interactions outside of the traditional parser, generating hypertext-driven work that any modern web browser can load. Chief among these is [Twine](http://twinery.org/), originally developed by Chris Klimas in 2009 and under active development by many contributors today as [a GNU-licensed open source project](https://github.com/klembot/twinejs). (In fact, [Twine](https://opensource.com/article/18/7/twine-vs-renpy-interactive-fiction) can trace its OSS lineage back to [TiddlyWiki](https://tiddlywiki.com/), the project from which Klimas initially derived it.)

Twine represents a sort of maximally [open and accessible approach](https://opensource.com/article/18/7/twine-vs-renpy-interactive-fiction) to IF development: Beyond its own FOSS nature, it renders its output as self-contained websites, relying not on machine code requiring further specialized interpretation but the open and well-exercised standards of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. As a creative tool, Twine can match its own exposed complexity to the creator’s skill level. Users with little or no programming knowledge can create simple but playable IF work, while those with more coding and design skills—including those developing these skills by making Twine games—can develop more sophisticated projects. Little wonder that Twine’s visibility and popularity in educational contexts has grown quite a bit in recent years.

Other noteworthy open source IF development projects include the MIT-licensed [Undum](https://github.com/idmillington/undum) by Ian Millington, and [ChoiceScript](https://github.com/dfabulich/choicescript) by Dan Fabulich and the [Choice of Games](https://www.choiceofgames.com/) team—both of which also target the web browser as the gameplay platform. Looking beyond strict development systems like these, web-based IF gives us a rich and ever-churning ecosystem of open source work, such as furkle’s [collection of Twine-extending tools](https://github.com/furkle) and Liza Daly’s [Windrift](https://github.com/lizadaly/windrift), a JavaScript framework purpose-built for her own IF games.

## Programs, games, and game-programs

Twine benefits from [a standing IFTF program dedicated to its support](http://iftechfoundation.org/committees/twine/), allowing the public to help fund its maintenance and development. IFTF also directly supports two long-time public services, IFComp and the IF Archive, both of which depend upon and contribute back into open software and technologies.

![Harmonia opening screen shot Harmonia opening screen shot](https://opensource.com/sites/default/files/uploads/harmonia.png)

The opening of Liza Daly's "Harmonia," created with the Windrift open source IF-creation framework.

The Perl- and JavaScript-based application that runs the IFComp’s website has been [a shared-source project](https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifcomp) since 2014, and it reflects [the stew of FOSS licenses used by its IF-specific sub-components](https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifcomp/blob/master/LICENSE.md), including the various code libraries that allow parser-driven competition entries to run in a web browser. [The IF Archive](https://www.ifarchive.org/)—online since 1992 and [an IFTF project since 2017](http://blog.iftechfoundation.org/2017-06-30-iftf-is-adopting-the-if-archive.html)—is a set of mirrored repositories based entirely on ancient and stable internet standards, with [a little open source Python script](https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifarchive-ifmap-py) to handle indexing.

## At last, the fun part: Let's talk about open source text games

The bulk of the archive [comprises games](https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgames), of course—years and years of games, reflecting decades of evolving game-design trends and IF tool development.

Lots of IF work shares its source code, and the community’s quick-start solution for finding it is simple: [Search the IFDB for the tag "source available"](http://ifdb.tads.org/search?sortby=ratu&searchfor=%22source+available%22). (The IFDB is yet another long-running IF community service, run privately by TADS creator Mike Roberts.) Users who are comfortable with a more bare-bones interface may also wish to browse [the /games/source directory](https://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgamesXsource.html) of the IF Archive, which groups content by development platform and written language (there's also a lot of work either too miscellaneous or too ancient to categorize floating at the top).

A little bit of random sampling of these code-sharing games reveals an interesting dilemma: Unlike the wider world of open source software, the IF community lacks a generally agreed-upon way of licensing all the code that it generates. Unlike a software tool—including all the tools we use to build IF—an interactive fiction game is a work of art in the most literal sense, meaning that an open source license intended for software would fit it no better than it would any other work of prose or poetry. But then again, an IF game is *also* a piece of software, and it exhibits source-code patterns and techniques that its creator may legitimately wish to share with the world. What is an open source-aware IF creator to do?

Some games address this by passing their code into the public domain, either through explicit license or—as in the case of [the original 42-year-old Adventure by Crowther and Woods](http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=fft6pu91j85y4acv)—through community fiat. Some try to split the difference, rolling their own license that allows for free re-use of a game’s exposed business logic but prohibits the creation of work derived specifically from its prose. This is the tack I took when I opened up the source of my own game,

[. Lord knows how well that’d stand up in court, but I didn’t have any better ideas at the time.](https://github.com/jmacdotorg/warblers-nest/)

*The Warbler’s Nest*Naturally, you can find work that simply puts everything under a single common license and never mind the naysayers. A prominent example is [Emily Short’s epic Counterfeit Monkey](https://github.com/i7/counterfeit-monkey), released in its entirety under a Creative Commons 4.0 license.

[CC frowns at its application to code](https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software), but you could argue that

[the strangely prose-like nature of Inform 7 source](https://github.com/i7/counterfeit-monkey/blob/master/Counterfeit%20Monkey.materials/Extensions/Counterfeit%20Monkey/Liquids.i7x)makes it at least a little more compatible with a CC license than a more traditional software project would be.

## What now, adventurer?

If you are eager to start exploring the world of interactive fiction, here are a few links to check out:

-
As mentioned above,

[IFDB](http://ifdb.tads.org/)and[the IF Archive](https://ifarchive.org/)both present browsable interfaces to more than 40 years worth of collected interactive fiction work. Much of this is playable in a web browser, but some require additional interpreter programs. IFDB can help you find and install these.[IFComp’s annual results pages](https://ifcomp.org/comp/last_comp)provide another view into the best of this free and archive-available work. -
[The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation](http://iftechfoundation.org/)is a charitable non-profit organization that helps support Twine, IFComp, and the IF Archive, as well as improve the accessibility of IF, explore IF’s use in education, and more.[Join its mailing list](http://iftechfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/friends)to receive IFTF’s monthly newsletter,[peruse its blog](http://blog.iftechfoundation.org/), and browse[some thematic merchandise](http://blog.iftechfoundation.org/2017-12-20-the-iftf-gift-shop-is-now-open.html). -
John Paul Wohlscheid wrote

[this article about open-source IF tools](https://itsfoss.com/create-interactive-fiction/)earlier this year. It covers some platforms not mentioned here, so if you’re still hungry for more, have a look.

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