Games as Conversational Interfaces

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GAMES AS  CONVERSATIONAL INTERFACES YOU ARE STANDING AT THE END OF A ROAD BEFORE A SMALL BRICK BUILDING. AROUND YOU IS A FOREST. A SMALL STREAM FLOWS OUT OF THE BUILDING AND DOWN A GULLY.  > enter building KEVIN ZURAWEL (@KZURAWEL)

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WILL CROWTHER By Nancyscrowther - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/ index.php?curid=25991397

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M.I.T. (1958)

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“CAMBRIDGE’S THIRD UNIVERSITY”

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By Basil D Souﬁ - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15465435 1949

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LA TIMES, SEPT. 23, 1975

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[ARPA] WOULD HAVE BEEN CONTENT WITH AN INNER LOOP OF 1,500 INSTRUCTIONS; CROWTHER AND WALDEN USED 150. Hafner & Lyon  pp.99-100 CROWTHER AT BBN

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http://www.bytecollector.com/asr_33.htm

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CAVE CITY, Ky. - Subterranean explorers announced today their discovery of a long-sought link between two of the world's major cave systems, which stretch for 150 miles underground. The discovery was made three months ago by a party of ﬁve men and a woman that spent 16 hours, often in water up to their necks, worming seven miles underground to locate the long-suspected connection between the Mammoth Cave and the Flint Ridge Cave systems. “LINK FOUND BETWEEN 2 MAJOR CAVE SYSTEMS”, NYT, DEC. 2, 1972

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Mrs. Patricia Crowther of Arlington, Mass., a 29-year-old computer programmer who is the mother of two daughters, told in an interview of being soaked to the skin, caked with mud "like chocolate frosting" and almost exhausted, when the party inched through Hanson's Lost River and into the Mammoth Cave complex last Sept. 9. During a 21-hour trip on August 30, the 115-pound Mrs. Crowther was able to squeeze through a narrow canyon[.] “LINK FOUND BETWEEN 2 MAJOR CAVE SYSTEMS”, NYT, DEC. 2, 1972

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SUDDENLY, I GOT INVOLVED IN A DIVORCE, AND THAT LEFT ME A BIT PULLED APART IN VARIOUS WAYS. Will Crowther (2001 interview) 1975

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“The game stretched on for the better part of a year… One of the regulars was Will Crowther. Where the other dozen players chose names like ‘Zandar’…, Crowther’s was simply ‘Willie’, a stealthy thief.” Hafner & Lyon, p.206 1975

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1975

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You are in a small chamber beneath a 3x3 steel grate to the surface. A low crawl over cobbles leads inward to the West. The grate is open. > go west You are crawling over cobbles in a low passage. There is a dim light at the east end of the passage. There is a small wicker cage discarded nearby. > take cage Ok. > It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will likely fall into a pit. go west

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ADVENTURE It’s a program that sort of reacts to people. … here was a thing that gave you the illusion, anyway, that you’d typed in English commands and it did what you said. And of course, behind it all was just a machine doing little things. But it really worked surprisingly well for a mechanical thing. - Will Crowther (1994 interview)

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YOU KNOW, I’VE DONE ALL SORTS OF WONDERFUL THINGS IN MY CAREER; IT’S FUNNY THAT THE ONE THING I’M REMEMBERED FOR IS ‘ADVENTURE’. Will Crowther  (from an interview with his daughter, Sandy) AN UNEXPECTED CLASSIC

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DON WOODS Photo by Ben Collins-Sussman, CC-BY 2.0 (2010)

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IT’S ESTIMATED THAT ‘ADVENTURE’ SET THE ENTIRE COMPUTER INDUSTRY BACK TWO WEEKS. Tim Anderson  “The New Zork Times”, Winter 1985 ‘ADVENTURE’ TAKES OVER THE ARPANET

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CONVERSATIONAL INTERFACES 1. Humans; 2. Talking to computers; 3. In natural language  (e.g. English)

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ADVENTURE -  THE FIRST CONVERSATIONAL INTERFACE?

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(not really…) ELIZA (1966)

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ADVENTURE -  THE FIRST  INTERACTIVE  FICTION

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INTERACTIVE FICTION  = CONVERSATIONAL INTERFACE  +  A SIMULATED ENVIRONMENT

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M.I.T., 1977-  1979

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Z-MACHINE / ZIL

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WHEN THE PC AND MAC EMERGED AS THE DOMINANT HARDWARE PLATFORMS IN THE LATE 80’S, THE ADVANTAGES OF TEXT ADVENTURES EVAPORATED. Dennis G. Jerz

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1985

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1986

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FAST-FORWARD THIRTY YEARS…

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Init.ai Siri Facebook M

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THE GUARDIAN, JUNE 28, 2016

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HOW DID WE GET TO HERE? > go back

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NEW TOOLS

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TADS (TEXT ADVENTURE DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM), 1987-

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INFORM, 1993-

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“NATURAL INFORM” / INFORM7, 2006-

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INFORM’S “TESTING” PANEL

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COMMUNITY

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SPAG, 1994- WWW.SPAGMAG.ORG

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IFCOMP (THE INTERACTIVE FICTION COMPETITION), 1995- IFCOMP.ORG

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XYZZY AWARDS, 2000- XYZZYAWARDS.ORG

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CONVERSATIONAL INTERFACES? WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH

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VIDEO GAMES ARE CAREFULLY STRIP-MINING OUR CONVENTIONAL NOTIONS OF NARRATIVE AND STORYTELLING FOR WHAT CAN BE USEFULLY SIMULATED IN THEIR OWN, UTTERLY DIFFERENT, MEDIUM. Steven Poole  “Trigger Happy” (2000), p198

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LET’S STRIP-MINE  INTERACTIVE FICTION.

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1. WHY CHAT?  IT’S PORTABLE  & DEBUGGABLE

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http://qz.com/266280/why-most-people-arent-downloading-apps-anymore/

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http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/

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Text is the most socially useful communication technology. It can be indexed and searched efficiently, even by hand. It can be translated. It can be compared, diffed, clustered, corrected, summarized and filtered algorithmically. It permits branching conversations, lurking, annotation, quoting, reviewing, summarizing, structured responses, exegesis, even fan fic. The breadth, scale and depth of ways people use text is unmatched by anything. Graydon Hoare  http://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html

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EVERY TIME A USER INTERACTS WITH YOUR APP, YOU HAVE A NEW LOG FILE FOR DEBUGGING. Lark (www.web.lark.com)

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2. YOUR USERS BUILD  MENTAL MODELS.

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THE USER DEVELOPS A MENTAL MODEL OF HOW HE/SHE THINKS THE SYSTEM WORKS THROUGH INTERACTION OF THE SYSTEM [WHICH] IS USED TO ANTICIPATE SYSTEM BEHAVIOR AND TO EXPLAIN WHY THE SYSTEM REACTS AS IT DOES.

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SAN DIEGO, CA 1980

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MARY ANN BUCKLES GET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary

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1985

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YOU EITHER HAD A SOUL, OR YOU WORKED ON COMPUTERS. Mary Ann Buckles  (2006 interview) “IT WAS A VERY DIFFERENT ATTITUDE TOWARD COMPUTERS AT THE TIME.”

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WHERE MENTAL MODELS COME FROM When a reader starts playing Adventure (s)he must make sense out of the surroundings. Part of this is ﬁguring out his or her own relationship to the entities and objects (s)he encounters. Each time (s)he encounters a new puzzle, it is like an experiment providing another opportunity to conﬁrm, reject, or revise the interpretation. Mary Ann Buckles

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http://www.spitenet.com/cave/images/AdventureMap.jpg

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http://www.spitenet.com/cave/images/AdventureMap.jpg

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http://www.spitenet.com/cave/images/AdventureMap.jpg

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http://www.spitenet.com/cave/images/AdventureMap.jpg

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WHO, THEN, TALKS TO THE READER IN “ADVENTURE?” WHOEVER THE READER BELIEVES IT TO BE. Mary Ann Buckles YOUR APP IS WHATEVER THE USER THINKS IT IS.

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WHO DOES YOUR USER BELIEVE YOUR APP TO BE?

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HUMANS REACH FOR ANTHROPOMORPHIC IMAGES WHEN CONFRONTED WITH COMPUTER BEHAVIOR THAT THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND. Dennis G. Jerz THE "ELIZA EFFECT"

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“DAEMON” (DANIEL SUAREZ, 2006) You just lost your job. I can give you a big news story. Are you interested? … What was this, some sort of telemarketing scam? Was it another stalker? I didn’t hear you say anything. Do you want the information? Just say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ … “Okay. I’m listening.” ‘Okay’ is not ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ You must understand before we continue that this is not a person. This is an interactive voice system. It can only understand certain things you say.

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3. TOOLING CAN GROW  A COMMUNITY.

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DESPITE THE LACK OF COMMERCIAL SUPPORT, THE AVAILABILITY OF HIGH QUALITY TOOLS ALLOWED ENTHUSIASTS OF THE GENRE TO DEVELOP NEW HIGH QUALITY GAMES. “Interactive Fiction”, Wikipedia BUILD THE TOOLS, AND DEVELOPERS WILL COME

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4. FAKE THINGS,  WHEN YOU CAN.

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AT END OF ROAD You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. > abracadabra Good try, but that is an old worn-out magic word.

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WHEN THE READER… TYPES IN SOMETHING (S)HE ASSUMES THE COMPUTER WON’T UNDERSTAND, BUT IT RESPONDS AS IF IT DOES, THE EFFECT CAN BE STARTLING AND FUNNY. Mary Ann Buckles THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

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IF THE READER TYPES IN VARIOUS COMMANDS THAT SEEM OBVIOUS TO HUMANS BUT WHICH THE COMPUTER DOES NOT UNDERSTAND, THE NARRATOR SEEMS STUPID. Mary Ann Buckles DON’T LOOK STUPID

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“JACK PRINCIPLES TO MAINTAIN PACING” 1. Give the user only one task to accomplish at a time 2. Limit the number of choices the user has at any one time 3. Give the user only meaningful choices 4. Make sure the user knows what to do at every moment 5. Focus the user’s attention on the task at hand 6. Use the most efﬁcient manner of user input 7. Make the user aware that the program is waiting 8. Pause, quit, or move on without the user’s response if it doesn’t come soon enough.

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5. HAVE FUN.  DELIVER JOY.

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MY IDEA WAS THAT IT WOULD BE A COMPUTER GAME THAT WOULD NOT BE INTIMIDATING TO NON-COMPUTER PEOPLE… MY KIDS THOUGHT IT WAS A LOT OF FUN. Will Crowther “ADVENTURE” REVISITED

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I CAN REMEMBER SEEING PEOPLE GOING CRAZY. JUST SITTING THERE, COMPLETELY INVOLVED, HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME. CHUCKLING. SWEARING. THEY WERE JUST SO HAPPY, IT LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE HAVING A GREAT TIME. Mary Ann Buckles  (2007 interview) THE FIRST TIME SEEING “ADVENTURE”

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Since there were few personal computers, playing a game usually involved a trip to the local university computer room, generally after hours, with a bag lunch in tow. The long trek through dimly-lit windowless corridors to the terminal room was practically an adventure in itself, and since you couldn't just go and play whenever you wanted to, the game had plenty of opportunity to grow larger in the imagination in between sessions. Graeme Cree  SPAG #8 (Feb. 1996)

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6. MAKE YOUR OWN INTERACTIVE FICTION! TADS.ORG INFORM7.COM

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IT’S FUNNY THINKING OF HIM AS THE J. D. SALINGER OF INTERACTIVE FICTION… TO ME, HE’S JUST MY DAD. Sandy Lawrence

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THANKS FOR LISTENING! TWITTER/SLACK: @KZURAWEL

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BIBLIOGRAPHY ‣ “GET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhbcDzbGSU ‣ Dennis G. Jerz, “Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther’s Original ‘Adventure’ in Code and in Kentucky”. Digital Humanities Quarterly, v1n2 (2007) ‣ Mary Ann Buckles, “Interactive Fiction: The Computer Storygame Adventure”. PhD dissertation, UC San Diego (1985) ‣ Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, “Where Wizards Stay Up Late”. Simon & Schuster (1998) ‣ Nick Montfort, “Twisty Little Passages”. MIT Press (2005) ‣ Steven Poole, “Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution”. Arcade Publishing (2000) ‣ http://interconnected.org/home/2015/06/16/conversational_uis ‣ Rick Adams, “The Colossal Cave Adventure Page” http://rickadams.org/adventure/ ‣ Will Crowther Interview (1994) https://archive.org/details/WillCrowtherInterview ‣ Alexa Interactive Adventure Game Tool https://github.com/alexa/interactive-adventure-game-tool