
The Mystery of the Book That Was Read by the Person Who Read It (Console App) - C# Text Adventure
My own example of the "Interactive Fiction" final project in Logic and Programming I (was: Introduction to Programming) course in the Game Development program at NSCC Truro Campus. The idea for the final project to be a game engine, in the interactive fiction genre, originated with Sean Morrow. I loved the idea of having the students code a simple game engine that can load in independent story "level" files, with no hard coding and fully robust error checking of user input, files, and file contents.
Links:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_game
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure (trademarked by Chooseco)
--
Matthew Doucette (Xonatron)
http://matthewdoucette.com/
The "story.txt" file:
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You open a story book. You are on page 1. Why is the story telling you what page it is on? It seems as though the story is trying to debug itself. Strange. Even more strange, this is you in the story. YOU! It is a story about you reading the story you are reading right now. It is weird that you are reading a story about yourself. You are not sure what to do.;You turn to the next page.;You turn to page 3.;2;3
You are now on page 2. That makes sense. You did not skip any pages. But it is also sort of boring. You want to do something differently this time.;You turn to page 4;You turn to page 5;4;5
You are now on page 3. This does not make a lot of sense. Why did you skip page 2? Should you go back? You cannot answer these questions. That functionality does not exist in this universe. Who made this universe? You contemplate the existence of deities. You wonder if you are stuck in here. There should be a way to escape. You consider searching for an exit.;You turn to page 8;You turn to page 9;8;9
You are now on a page much further from where you started. There seems to be no point to the story. Why are you reading it? Did you know you can close books and do a thing called "what you want"?;You turn to page 6.;You turn to page 7.;6;7
You have entered an infinite loop of boringness known as school. It seems to last forever. It seems to give you no choice. Nobody seems to care.;You turn to page 5.;You turn to page 5.;5;5
You finally do what you want which correlates perfectly with the ending of reading this story.
You arrive at the end of the story. It was as boring as you thought it would be. You wonder who wrote this story, in a judgmental way.
You close the book and end the story. Or, did you? You are still reading the story right now. It sounds like a conundrum. Both cannot be true. You think harder. Did you choose to end the story or did the story choose to end itself? You ponder on this for the rest of your life and die unhappy.
You arrived at one of many endings. Does this mean there is a multiverse? You never liked the name "multiverse", but the concept intrigues you. You wonder if you are in control of your thoughts or if the story controls them for you. You continue to ponder the answer. Then, suddenly, the meaning of life appears to you as a secret code: "█▓▒0░=░0▒▓█". Scientists are still working it out.
THE MYSTERY OF THE BOOK THAT WAS READ BY THE PERSON WHO READ IT
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