David Durand and Noah Wardrip-Fruin discuss Cardplay, a framework for "playing" hypertext in a way similar to the way one plays a game:
In Cardplay, we are trying to create a textual instrument whose center of gravity is clearly literary, focused on the creation of a work, a play, that is in some senses conventionally literary, and yet to make the process of playing the work simultaneously be the the process of playing a game in the most literal sense. In Cardplay, players manipulate virtual cards (each associated with text that is not fully visible to the players), in an attempt to win the card game (Solitaire is also possible). However, a successful play wins points when the card played interacts with other cards played to advance the creation of the script of a play, whose transcript accumulates and may be saved. Copyright in the result may be automatically granted to the winner of the game, by the program, on the successful completion of the game. Players of the game are thus in competition with each other to advance the story. Unlike many interactive fictions, however, neither player is identified with a character in the ongoing story, nor is the plot of the story necessarily determinative of victory in the game.
[via Mark Bernstein]
Posted by johndan at June 20, 2005 07:06 PM | TrackBack