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Simple, Beautiful, Thought-Provoking. These are the opening lines of Sam Barlow's Hit 1999 Interaction Fiction title, Aisle. It was ranked at the 22nd best Interaction Fiction Title of All Time and won Best Use of Medium in 1999, by XYZZY Awards. For me personally?
Its One of the Most Thought Provoking Games I've Ever Played
Now in 1999, Interaction Fiction was not a new thing. Interaction Fiction or as the cool kids call it, IF is one of the oldest game genres.
In the 1960's Eliza and SHRDLU were some of the first natural word processing software's that could "converse" with users based on what they said.
It was basic, but there was potenital to do so much more with it. With computers being able to take in string inputs and respond to the player, entire stories could be delivered through this constant back and forth.
This soon evolved into Adventure, then Zork, each with a heavy narrative that it wanted to tell.
I've gone on this huge history about IF titles, but it's important to see where the game came from to understand why Aisle is so extraordinary.
Most IF titles I mentioned have these huge, varied narratives that unfold as the player engages with the little quirks and challenges the games throws at you. There were endings hidden throughout the game, so the challenge always was to get to the ending where you win, or you reach a satisfactory ending point.
You could plot out these endings and ways to go through the world on paper making a map of some sort. You could start to plot out where certain events could always occur, you could plot out the fastest path to get to a place you were stuck yesterday, you could plot out endings you didn't like so you could ignore them. Some games tried to mess with this by creating teleporting rooms. As the name suggests leaving the room the same way you entered it, would teleport you to a brand-new place. However after a point even those could be mapped out.
As you see from giants maps like these, that IF's allowed players a lot of freedom and cchoices to make along the way. They allowed players to interact with it, to tell an entire story at it's own pace.
Aisle is very similar to the games I mentioned above. You can type words and the game responds to you. Aisle has a story to tell and does so with its own pace. The main difference is....
Aisle tells its whole story with one prompt.
Thats right. You get to input one simple prompt and you get a conclusion to the story. Thats it! Congratulations that's the game!
But Wait!
At the bottom of the screen, you see this line.
"One more story over. But there are others..."
This is where the brilliance of Aisle reveals itself. You are now aware that the story you just read isn't the only story present in the game. That means it isn't the only ending in the game as well. You Press Enter again and are brought back to the same starting screen. Your past answer gone lost in the winds of time, with the only memory of that phrase being with you till it's replaced by another.
The game shows the skeleton of what would come with Her Story, Telling Lies, and Immortality. Games where the player must use a word or small phrases to gain more information to construct more detailed and accurate guesses.
What this game does differently however is that it's not just one story, it's a multitude of them each existing and non-existing at the same time. Soon to be brought into existence when you type a phrase and hit enter, only to be deleted the moment you read the story and press Enter. The trajectory of this man's life is on the tip of your fingers, and if you don't like the outcome? Hit Enter to wash it away.
What I love about this is that any of these stories could be true. There is no right answer and where the story ends are primarily up to the player. The blinking cursor stops being a way of getting the player to interact with the story, but now becomes a symbol of never-ending possibilities.
The starting storyline gives just enough information for players to think about and different ways to tackle the story. By adding details such as another woman, sauces, and a trip to Rome gives players several avenues to try out and explore the narrative of this game.
You can "look at woman", "Look at the aisle", "Look at self", each with their own endings, but the same words at the very end.
One more story over. But there are others...
The most addicting part of the game is trying to find a word that the game recognizes. You could type any word into that blinking line and the game will fire back at you, now most often than not you will get "Verb/Word not recognized.".
However, it's those brief moments of joy when you find out a new ending that keeps you coming back for more.
Even when you think you’ve used all the words that you know you will always have that thought eating away in your mind.
“Did I miss an ending?”
Aisle is a game that’s been in my head ever since I played it and I keep thinking of verbs and nouns every once in a while, when reminded of the game. I go back to it and type in words that I’ve done before to see if there’s any clues, thoughts, or phrases I missed when I first got that ending.
That start screen is always waiting for you to input a new action. Even when you may think that you've done every word you know, you start to worry if there are any words you've missed. You rack your brain for more and more words, but you always feel like there's still a word or phrase out there that you're missing.
The blinking space becomes more than just a place holder for you to enter your thoughts. It transforms into this pathway of never ending stories and a multiverse each with their own conclusion to this story.
The moment that really blew me away is when I figured out the phrase "Talk to Woman". "Talk to Woman" was one of the first things I found out in the game because it seemed obvious, but it’s a phrase that’s insanely deceptive. If you type in “Talk to Woman about Pasta” it completely changes the conversation you have with her and brings you to a new ending.
By confirming that I could have conversations about specific items exploded the number of permutations and combinations of things I could ask the woman, but at the same time another question popped into my mind...What were other phrases I was missing? Was I just not specific enough with my prompt to unlock another goldmine of either another universe, or more lore for one of the 100's of multiverses present in the game. It's that prompt of unknowingness and the excitement of finding something new that keeps me coming back to the game.
What's really stuck with me with this game is that I'm immersed within the game without even meaning to be at times. Now sure I don't identify as the man in the story, and I do actions in the game that I personally wouldn't do in my real life, but I'm still caught within the game loop and want to know more about what is happening.
Even while experimenting with the game, it’s easy to be hooked onto certain narrative threads as well. By remembering certain parts of the story, players can find new phrases or words to try out in the game. They might come across a plotline they might enjoy and try to focus on getting passages from that particular “path”. So even while the goal was to experiment with the title, players can find themselves falling into narrative immersion trying to figure out particular story beats.
Things like “Attack woman” or “Attack Self” aren’t things we would do, but because of the way the interaction goes, we can type those things out because we know it might lead to something new. The narrative itself wasn't the hook like in most IF titles at this time, the hook was trying to find new narratives.
Aisle is a game that takes advantage of the infinite possibilities and greater fiction that lies within a person's mind. When we think of a phrase or word that might not be supported, we feel a little bummed out for sure, but why?
Well, I personally think that it's because of what the blinking cursor promises us. An infinite world of possibilities and when we think of a unique word or phrase, it's because we can think of that possibility, and we can start to think of our own storylines with that as well. We may not have details or coherency, but that vague idea is enough to make us feel excited and to want to put it in reality.
I think I've talked a lot about this game, but I do want to keep some secrets for the people reading this. You can play the game for yourself here and remember. One more story over. But there are others...
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