Nick Montfort

Nick Montfort, 2006. From GET LAMP.

Nick Montfort is an IF author and theorist. Nick's nickname on ifMUD is nm.

Author Credits

• Winchester's Nightmare (1999). Finalist for Best Individual PC. Issued in a "hardback" edition of 10 , each copy of which included an old laptop.
• Ad Verbum (2000). IF Comp 2000: 4th place and Miss Congeniality winner. Also, XYZZY Awards 2000 winner for Best Puzzles. Plus, finalist for Best Individual Puzzles and Best Use of Medium.
  • Venenarius Verborum (translator: Jarel; 2008; Glulx; Spanish). Spanish translation.
• Potsticker (2000). Speed-IF 13.
• Armario De Auga (2001; Z-code 5). Speed-IF O.
• Mystery House Kracked by the Flippy Disk (2005). Mystery House Taken Over participant.
• Book and Volume (17-Nov-2005; Z-code). XYZZY Awards 2005: Finalist for Best Use of Medium. Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition 2007: Finalist. See game's homepage.
• I Palindrome I (26-Mar-2012; Javascript; Web browser). Apollo 18+20: The IF Tribute Album.
• Wastes (2017; Python 3).
• Amazing Quest (01-Oct-2020; Javascript; Web browser). IF Comp 2020.

Porting Credits

• Dead Reckoning (translator; 2003). From the Spanish Olvido Mortal (Andrés Viedma Peláez).

Publications about IF

• "Interfacing with Computer Narratives: Literary Possibilities for Interactive Fiction." Thesis for B.A. in liberal arts, Plan II Honors Program, University of Texas at Austin, May 1995.
• "Interactor's Nightmare." Column about interactive fiction in Suck.com, 27 Jan 1997.
• "Cybertext Killed the Hypertext Star." A review of Espen Aarseth's Cybertext in ebr (Electronic Book Review) 11, Winter 2000/2001. Includes an implementation of Eliza and an interactive excerpt from Deadline.
• Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. A book on the history of IF for academic and general readers. MIT Press. 2003.
• "Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction." Article on understanding IF as a simulation and through narratology. 2003; published in the IF Theory Reader (2011).
• "ifMap: A Mapping System for Cooperatively Playing Interactive Fiction Online." By Jessica Rubart and Nick Montfort. In Proceedings of the Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment (TIDSE) Conference, Darmstadt, Germany, March 24-26, pp. 364-369, Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, 2003.
• "Face It, Tiger, You Just Hit the Jackpot: Reading and Playing Cadre's Varicella." By Nick Montfort and Stuart Moulthrop. Fineart Forum 17:8, Aug 2003.
• "Interactive Fiction as 'Story,' 'Game,' 'Storygame,' 'Novel,' 'World,' 'Literature,' 'Puzzle,' 'Problem,' 'Riddle,' and 'Machine.'" In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, pp. 310-317, MIT Press, 2004.
• "A Bad Machine Made of Words." Review of Dan Shiovitz's Bad Machine on the trAce site. 17 Aug 2004. Review award winner, New Media Article Writing Competition, trAce/Writers for the Future.
• "Output, An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023" (with Lillian-Yvonne Bertram). Quotes a few IF works: Adventure, Zork, Galatea, AI Dungeon. MIT Press, 05-Nov-2024. ISBN 9780262549813.

Technical Credits

• Curveship is an authoring system released (as of 2011) by Nick Montfort.

Review and Article Credits

• Reviews (dead link 🔍) of PrologueComp.
• Reviews for SPAG.
• Review of Violet.

Organizational Credits

• Judge for PrologueComp (2001).
• On the advisory board for the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation.

Other Credits

• Host, IFNYC. A reading and discussion group that met monthly in New York from November 1999 - June 2000.
• Co-organizer, The Boston T1 Party: Electronic Literature in Performance. A reading that took place at the Boston Public Library on 25 April 2001.
• Organizer, Digital Intercourse. A reading of interactive fiction and hypertext fiction at the New School on 19 November 2001.
• Contributed a dream sequence to Narcolepsy (2003) by Adam Cadre, along with Stephen Bond, Liza Daly, Jennifer Earl, Stephen Granade, Jon Ingold, Paul O'Brian, Andrew Plotkin, Dan Shiovitz, Emily Short, Bridget Sweeney, and J. Robinson Wheeler.
• Organizer, Interactive Fiction Walkthroughs. A reading of IF with Star C. Foster, Nick Montfort, Daniel Ravipinto, and Emily Short. Hosted by Scott Rettberg. Kelly Writers House, 27 October 2004.
• Vice President, Electronic Literature Organization. A nonprofit organization to facilitate and promote the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media, including IF.

Links

• Nick Montfort's interactive fiction page.
• Post Position is Nick Montfort's blog (new as of May 2009).
• Grand Text Auto, Nick Montfort's group blog on IF and other topics.
• Nick Montfort (archived) - at Baf's Guide.

Interviews

• ifMUD interview - June 22, 2003.
• Interview with Nick Montfort, Author of Twisty Little Passages - Interview in E-boredom by Mathew Tschirgi, June 2004. (Now only available at the Internet Archive.)
• Pequeños Pasadizos Retorcidos - English translation of interview in SPAC, January 2004. Original Spanish version of the interview.
• Workplace is Mediaspace is Cityscape: Nick Montfort on Book and Volume, conducted by Jeremy Douglass, July 2006.
• Interview: Nick Montfort - Jason Rohrer interviews Nick Montfort for Arthouse Games, December 2006. Spanish translation of the interview appeared in SPAC #48.
• History of Zork Now Available on Gamasutra: Read Full Interviews Here! - Interviews with Dave Lebling, Marc Blank, Steve Meretzky, Howard Sherman, David Cornelson, and Nick Montfort. Interviewed by Matt Barton, June 2007.
• FWR Episode 007 Special Guest: Nick Montfort - October 4, 2008.
• Nick on His IF and E-Lit - Interview by Rachel Miller of Virginia Commonwealth University. Reposted to Post Position on November 19, 2009.
• The Literary and the Computational: A Conversation with Nick Montfort - Fall 2011.
• The Death of the Novel: How E-Lit Revolutionizes Fiction - November 8, 2012.