Interactive Fiction is a mode of storytelling where creators use online tools and lightweight game engines to parse text on screen in a creative way. They also contain an element of player choice. Thus, they straddle the divide between contemporary fiction and video games in a way that will open readers’ minds and lead to a new way to enjoy stories from independent authors and creators. It’s an honor to cover such unique touchstones of modern storytelling culture here.
Browsing interactive fiction games on itch.io for this article felt beautiful for a few reasons. The first is that I realized I was spending time in one of the last places on the internet that feels truly homemade. Itch.io i a website where people upload their home-crafted stuff, mostly for free, and hope someone might stumble upon it, click through, and smile at their screen. It’s one of my favorite places online.
The second reason I loved researching this topic was because of just how varied the scope of human creativity can be, even when it concerns simple tools like Twine and Ren’Py, the places where most of the kinds of games included on the list below are made. They’re sketched, scribbled, and tweedled around with at the margins of the internet. Bedraggled, sewn together awkwardly, and hefted out in unruly portions. I love their unfinishedness. It implies an intimacy that is all too often lost these days.
The third and final reason I adored clicking around many different interactive fiction games is simple: it brought my nerdiness full circle.
The game my father's long, long legs — an experience we’ll get to soon — was made over 10 years ago by Michael Lutz. Lutz works on an exceptional podcast called Just King Things, where he and fellow creator Cameron Kunzelman have set out to read the entirety of Stephen King’s published work and discuss it from “a critical but accessible perspective,” according to Lutz’ website. I’ve never listened to the show myself, but it gets referenced often on another podcast I know called Triple Click. Triple Click is a wildly popular gaming podcast that I sometimes fade in and out on as my interest in certain topics fluctuates. When I’m not listening to Triple Click, I’m mainlining Talking Scared, my absolute favorite podcast where host Neil McRobert interviews authors who write speculative fiction and horror. And Neil’s favorite author is none other than Stephen King. Since we’re here for spooky interactive fiction, this all kind of just made sense to me in a way that felt as satisfying as it did folksy. It made the creative communities I like to run in feel small, and that’s always a special feeling.
The point I’m trying to make is that I had a blast writing this, and I think you’re going to have one reading and interacting with these games. This is for all the folks out there who just want to have a cozy click through some spooky stories someone sketched out on their own computer on a rainy afternoon. They’re far more impactful than most things you’ll find on Netflix, I guarantee it.
I've ranked the following interactive experiences by the quality of their narrative design. While some are graphically flashier than others, each tells their own story through a unique lens. The farther you get down this list, the closer you get to the core of what — in my mind — a spooky interactive fiction story should be.
10) When Twilight Strikes
You’re a bounty hunter who hunts supernatural creatures. One day your boss goes missing. In attempting to solve the mystery of their disappearance, you strike at the heart of why you do what you do.
Discovering this one takes time, and its narrative can drag. However, it’s one of the most professional-looking games on this list. It offers a lot of dialogue choices and is a compelling read if you’re ready to sit down and be in a bookish kind of mood.
The narrative is nothing super special, but it’s a great entree into the long-form version of what interactive fiction can look like. Beware that chapters are still coming out, so it’s the kind of thing you’ll have to stick with if you’d like to see it through to its end. This is charming to me because it reminds me of serialized novels that came out chapter by chapter in old magazines.
9) The Shadows Are Watching
This is a simple yet unsettling game with beautiful background animations that accompany your read. It’s got an elegant interface and tells a self-contained story about what happens when your sister doesn’t return from her job at the lab. New portions of the game are still being added, but many endings are available right now.
It opens with snow falling in the background of a blue screen of text. You scroll and change small details as you learn about your lot in life and the sister you’re going to look for when the game starts to heat up.
Sit by the fire, cozy yourself in a blanket, and get ready to enter another world...or die trying.
8) Who Wants to Be a Murderer?
One of the most recently released and technologically advanced games on this list, Who Wants to Be a Murderer? is a psychological horror game based within the confines of a deranged nineties game show. You’ll be able to get different endings while progressing through a narrative that does a very good job of balancing player choice and making sure they're on a set path.
The main choice you’ll have to make is how long you want to play because, friends, this one’s gory. It will leave you just shaken enough to enjoy a fresh cup of cider and some pets with the furry friend(s) in your life. That is, if you can survive the show.
7) Mary’s Hare
Mary’s Hare plucks at my heartstrings with its Victorian setting and Gothic devastation. Told with a fairytale vibe that will have you on the edge of your seat all full of the kind of haunted doll energy that makes winter spooktastic, this thing is pretty freaking creepy.
This game is simple to click through and infests your brain with the horrors of male autonomy over the female body and animalistic birth. It’s based on the story of Mary Toft. If you’ve never heard of Mrs. Toft, you’re in for a hell of a ride. Even just reading what I’ve linked is good for a fun afternoon of sleuthing. But, if you really want the full experience, you’ll have to play the game.
6) Please Answer Carefully
Please Answer Carefully is absolutely brilliant in its brevity and terror. Based within the confines of a classic internet survey, you’re given a series of what seem like normal prompts. That is, until the true intentions of the survey’s designer start to poke through.
By the time you realize what’s going on, it’s too late. And by the time you’re afraid, it’s over. Play this one if you’d like to dip your toe into everything this list is trying to offer without any kind of time commitment. It’s the sort of thing you can finish between sips of coffee. That easy. That chilling.
Lock your windows.
5) Killer Chat
Sharing the prize with Who Wants to Be a Murderer? for the most modern game on the list, Killer Chat sees an unsuspecting author sucked into a chat room for serial killers. Sounds like a pretty horrifying premise, right? But this one’s actually one of the more tame games on the list. In fact, it’s far more funny and horny than it is scary.
I say funny because there are a ton of in-jokes. I say horny because it’s also a dating sim. That’s right, folks. Step right up to the plate. Date a series of cute killers, send them little texts, change your outfit, and maybe even die yourself. Great for a bright morning when the sky is pink, the text is digitized, and everything smells of blood.
4) DOMVS
This interactive fiction experience feels like a cross between The Exorcist and the experimental poetry I saw in college where the words were strewn all around the page in pleasing little chunks. Beautifully designed by the same person who did Please Answer Carefully, DOMVS feels like an evolution in a completely different format and genre.
DOMVS sees creator @litrouke pivot from the pared-down HTML survey aesthetic to atmospheric paintings and esoteric font to tell the story of a possession narrative in three acts. There are different endings enough to spend an hour or two here, but it's compact enough to get the picture in 10 minutes. Also, LATIN!
3) Zorlok
Another long-form experience with the best sound design you’ll find in a free game anywhere, Zorlok tells the story of a nerdy kid and his demon friend. The game has a lot to say about growing up on the fringes, be you memory-less monster or D&D-loving teen.
There’s some dark comedy here as well, and it all coalesces into a kind of X Files-style investigative piece into the macabre and supernatural in a small-town setting. It’s all right up my alley, and I bet you’ll feel the same.
2) my father’s long, long legs
Michael Lutz has a gem here. He’s stretched the simple narrative engine that Twine offers to its limits with a story inspired by the works of creators like E.M. Carroll and Junji Ito. You’ll hear about a family dynamic that just doesn’t seem right, a demented dad digging in the basement, and the disappearance of a brother that haunts the story’s protagonist for the rest of his life.
You’ll even get to use a flashlight (controlled by your mouse) and explore the UI of interactive fiction itself to get through this one. It checks all the boxes and is a quintessential piece of internet creativity. A time capsule that will take you back to when it was originally released in 2013, when we were all still figuring out where we were going.
Now at least we know where we shouldn’t go: down to the basement. Where all you can hear are shovel sounds and the darkness is as thick as your absent mother’s dread.
1) According to Cain
A brilliant oddity, According to Cain puts you in the shoes of a detective who has to go back and solve humanity’s first murder. It prizes observation and forces you to turn your brain on, which is true of all the best interactive fiction. It’s sharp as a slayer’s knife and gorgeously rendered. Go ahead and play it first. Or last if you’re the kind of person who likes to save the best for that one final plunge into the darkness of a long winter’s night.
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