Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative

Preface

This book is designed for anyone interested in narrative art forms, specifically those that are interactive. Narratives (also called stories) are everywhere. Movies, newspapers, books, television, conversation, and, with computing technologies, the Internet.

My first experience with the Internet was in 1982—a year or two before I would have a computer of my own. The Internet was approximately 14 years old and the infrastructure was still so thin it was invisible. Someone at my high school in Colorado Springs had given me a piece of paper with a seven-digit number scrawled on it. Next to it were the words “Satan’s Phone Number.” It was a local number, which didn’t surprise me. Satan, as my friends and I well knew, lived somewhere near ...