Interactive Fiction: The Computer Storygame 'Adventure'

 In a New Critical approach rarely seen in academic discussions of IF, Buckles de-emphasizes the role of the programmer/author, taking "Colossal Cave Adventure" (Crowther, c.1975; Crowther and Woods, 1976) as a "given," and examining instead the reader/player's efforts to make meaning out of the experience. As an immature medium, IF has not yet produced great literature: "I do not believe that the literary limitations of Adventure means that computer story games are of necessity a sub-literary genre, or that there is something about the computer medium itself which pre-destines interactive fiction always to be frivolous in nature. The development of film can be taken as an analogy."

(Source: Dennis G. Jerz, Interactive Fiction Annotated Bibliography http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/bibliography/all.htm#Buckles_1985)