hyperfiction

[Jorn Barger]

> excuse my ignorance, but could someone please explain to me what 
> hyperfiction is? also, what is TADS?
> is this some sort of interactive literature. It sounds great

Picture a continuum sort of like this:
literature --> hyperfiction --> adventure games --> interactive fiction

Hyperfiction is fiction written in hypertext form, with branching.
TADS is the Text Adventure Development System, a shareware adventure-
game programming language, that understands the basic conventions
of adventure-gaming, like moving from room to room, looking at and 
taking things found there.  Interactive fiction includes adventure
games, but dreams of virtual reality with automated characters that
seem to show 'artificial personality'.

Artificial intelligence has been pretty 'stalled' for a while, and
some people are looking at interactive fiction (IF) as a domain where
useful thinking can be done. (For example, the Oz project at Carnegie-
Mellon).

jorn