A report on the interactive-fiction system Curveship, which was designed to provide users a means of generating narrative variation.
This [the term 'narrative variation'] is shorthand for narrating the same underlying content--the same events happening in a world with the same existents--in different ways.
What happens as interactive fiction progresses will certainly be informed by past and current developments in narrative theory; it is hoped that experiments in interactive fiction will also, at times, outpace them.
The interactive fiction (IF) community has for decades been involved with the authorship, sharing, reading, and discussion of one type of electronic literature and computer game. Creating interactive fiction is a game-making and world-building activity, one that involves programming as well as writing. Playing interactive fiction typically involves typing input and receiving a textual response explaining the current situation. From the first canonical interactive fiction, the minicomputer game Adventure, the form has lived through a very successful commercial phase and is now being actively developed by individuals, worldwide, who usually share their work for free online.
Although it is typical to speak of "the IF community," there have actually been several communities representing different interests, different types of authoring systems, and various natural languages. Until around 2005, online archives, discussions, newsletters, and competitions focused the energies of IF community members. But since the middle of the 21st century's first decade, interest in IF has broadened beyond its earlier boundaries and academics, students, and players of indie games who are not IF community members have become active as IF players. Groups have met in person in different cities to play games and discuss work in progress. We consider the IF community's early formation and the way it, along with concept of interactive fiction, has evolved in recent years.
The Form and Conventions of Interactive Fiction From Minicomputers to the Marketplace The Early IF Communities Expanding Communities and Beyond the Community Changes in Game Distribution IF for Other Players Changes in Resources and the Community Playing and Writing Together Expanding Concepts of Interactive Fiction IF in the Browser High-Tech and Low-Tech Advances Conclusion Works Cited
(Source: Authors' abstract from Dichtung Digital 41)