In the artistic tradition of learning from the experts who came before, this course studies notable works of interactive fiction to understand how they succeed. It is designed for self-study through play, note-taking, and creative exercises.

We take a broad view of interactive fiction, including parser games, choice-based works, and quality-based narrative systems. As a working standard, we focus on games that performed well in IF Comp or other competitions, or that have proven notable over time. Commercial considerations are not a focus.

This course is intended to evolve: to be refined, expanded, and rewritten as needed.