Califia

Califia is a multimedia, interactive, hypertext fiction for CD-ROM. Califia allows the reader to wander and play in the landscape of historic/magic California. It is a computer-only creation of interactive stories, photos, graphics, maps, music, and movement. It has Three Narrating Characters, Four Directions of the Compass, Star Charts, Map Case, Archives Files, 500 Megabytes, 800 Screens, 2400 Images, 30 Songs, and 500 Words.

One scholar has written of Califia that it is designed to lead the reader "to discover the lost cache of California through her wanderings within the story space." Another writer calls it "a metaphysical quest rather than a conventional mystery", noting that the central question of the treasure remains unresolved. It has been termed a classic work of hypermedia, and literary critic and hypertext scholar Katherine Hayles has cited it as one of the establishing texts for electronic literature.

Spanning five generations of swashbuckling Californians, Califia is the story of Augusta Summerland's epic search for a lost cache of gold. Join Augusta, and her friends Kaye and Calvin, on their adventures in modern Los Angeles, where they unearth mysteriously incomplete documents in local archives, discover old California myths and legends, and connive to outwit an edgy businessman with his own designs on the elusive Treasure of Califia.

(Source: Wikipedia; Eastgate catalogue copy)