I am sure that a lot of us are aware of the fact that Markiplier’s interactive fiction video, ‘A Heist with Markiplier‘, has been out on Youtube for about a week already. Using ‘Markiplier‘ in the title of my post, I imagine that I should garner quite a bit of attention. But deceptive thumbnails, eye catching titles, or Mulvey’s view on spectators is not the subject of this post. The subject of this post is A Heist with Markiplier. More specifically, the concept of interaction fictions.
“Interactive fictions are software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment,” according to Wikipedia which I am sure is more reliable than my rambling. Anyway, that pretty much is the basis of an Interactive Fiction. They are works of fiction that a person can interact with be it clicking a choice, typing a command, or doing anything.
A common example of an interactive fiction are video games. Think of it: eating a cherry, jumping up, going left or right, communicating with a villager; all are examples of playing an interactive fiction video game. But there is more to that than just playing a video game. What sets your average video game and interactive fictions apart is the results of your actions. When playing a video game, you aim for a completion or ending which is either a win or lose. Either way, you will end up on the same ending. With interactive fictions, you can experience multiple stories, routes, adventures, and endings. In short, the main difference is the amount of freedom allowed for the audience or spectators.
If any reader recalls a previous blog post on emergence and progression-
“Progression games have walkthroughs: lists of actions to perform to complete the game. Emergence games have strategy guides: rules of thumb, general tricks.”
Jesper Juul
This fact is one of the differences discussed about the two game categories of emergence and progression. Emergent games are games that have no goals or set of rules to be bound to like Minecraft, GTAV, or Sims. Progression games are games that do have an ultimate goal to be reached by the players like Mario, Sonic, or Sunset Overdrive.
With the introduction of concepts such as these, it is obvious to point out that Interactive Fictions fall into the category of Emergent games. A Heist with Markiplier acheives such a goal. At first it appears to be a short video with two links to other videos, but it is Markiplier talking to the audience from a first person bystander that we spectate. The two links to other videos are actually choices that are presented to us so that we may see the consequences of our actions. There are a whopping 31 endings with almost as many adventures ranging from a zombie apocalypse to a pirate adventure. The adventures and endings are so varied and all are due from just presenting the audience with two choices to make.
For solid examples of an Interactive fiction try any game you could find on Twine like my failure of a video game Five Nights at Freddy’s Janitorial. You could also go for the more popular ones that are more successful in terms of definition such as A Date with Markiplier, A Heist with Markiplier, or my class recommended ones like Depression Quest, The Temple of No, Her Story, Unmanned, Playfic, Stranger Things Survival Alpha, or The Limbo Distortion. In any case, enjoy.
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