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About the Story1st place, 1998 compGame Details
Language: English (en)
First Publication Date: October 1, 1998 Current Version: 2.01 License: Freeware Development System: Inform 6 Baf's Guide ID: 255
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Awards
Nominee, Best Game; Winner, Best Writing; Winner, Best Story; Nominee, Best NPCs; Nominee, Best Individual Puzzle; Nominee, Best Individual NPC; Nominee, Best Use of Medium - 1998 XYZZY Awards
1st Place overall; 1st Place, Miss Congeniality Awards - 4th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (1998)
Editorial Reviews
Baf's Guide

The author intended this game to be played with colored text. Although I normally dislike such things, I agree that it works in this case. A monochrome version is also provided for those who feel differently.
(NB: The first release of this game credits Opal O'Donnell as the author. This was a deliberate deception on the part of the real author, carried out with the permission of the real Opal O'Donnell.)
-- Carl Muckenhoupt
Play This Thing
Photopia made me cry.
That's not something I say often. I don't think any other work of art has ever affected me to the extent that Photopia has.
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>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page
The colors, like everything else in Photopia, worked beautifully, adding artfully to the overall impact of the story. The work is interactive in other important ways as well. In fact, in many aspects Photopia is a metanarrative about the medium of interactive fiction itself. Again, it wasn't until the end of the story that I understood why it had to be told as interactive fiction. And again, to explain the reason would be too much of a spoiler. I have so much more I want to talk about with Photopia, but I can't talk about it until you've played it. Go and play it, and then we'll talk. I promise, you'll understand why everyone has been so impatient. You'll understand why I loved it, and why I think it's one of the best pieces of interactive fiction ever to be submitted to the competition.
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Necessary Games
Photopia: Not a Mediocre Short Story
Does Photopia deserve to be so hallowed as it is? Quantitatively, that question may be hard to tackle. In my mind, though, the game does, without a doubt, deserve to be hallowed to some degree. It is historically important both as a work of interactive fiction and as a game, for its numerous technical innovations, and for its minimalist interactive component that makes it such a great example of a “limiting case game.” Whether Photopia succeeds on the affective level is open for debate, but my opinion and your opinion notwithstanding, the fact that it clearly does succeed with so many people is a strong testament to Adam Cadre’s ability to innovate and impact all in the same breath.
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating: ![]() Number of Reviews: 8 Write a review |
Most Helpful Member Reviews
Canonical, October 21, 2007How well does it work, beyond that? Opinions vary. Some people consider it the most moving piece of IF they've ever tried. I personally found it wavered between effective and manipulative, with the main character too saintly to be true. While it was worth playing, it is by no means my favorite piece of character-oriented IF story-telling.
Not quite the masterpiece it's often touted as, but still well worth playing, April 11, 2008Well, it still plays reasonably well, although it's by no means without problems. Most of the complaints one can level at the game have been discussed ad nauseum by this point: it is minimally interactive (often little more than a short story with occasional > prompts), absolutely linear, and offers its player no plot agency whatsoever. Just the idea of a puzzleless work was quite bold in 1998; in 2008, it's old hat, and thus Photopia must completely live or die on the strength of its story.
That story is a pretty good one, but doesn't move me to the extent it does some others. From a purely literary perspective, it's a bit heavy-handed and emotionally manipulative. Alley, the teenage girl at its emotional core, is more of a sentimentalized geek wish-fufillment fantasy ("She's beautiful and charming and she likes science!") than a believable character. Still, and even if Cadre's literary reach exceeds his grasp a bit, the story is head and shoulders above the sort of fantasy or sci-fi pastiche that still marks most IF even today. And there is one moment when the story and gameplay come together beautifully, a moment that still stands for me as one of the most magical in all IF: that perfect guess the verb puzzle in the crystal maze.
"Momento" as Interactive fiction, January 13, 2008Serious spoilage (really, don't click if you haven't played yet)
(Spoiler - click to show) The really Wow! part for me? In the crystal labyrinth, when you discover you can fly - amazing. That was great.
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If you enjoyed Photopia...
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Recommended Lists
Photopia appears in the following Recommended Lists:No whimsy here by lobespear
Too many games use lazy high fantasy and sci-fi settings. Escapism? What are you escaping from? Here are some games that instead use interactive fiction to comment on the real world. No whimsy here.
Stuff I like by markm
Really, just some stuff I like
Polls
The following polls include votes for Photopia:Games with an abrupt and unexpected ending twist by dutchmule
I'm looking for games which, as in a lot of short stories, feature a sudden and unexpected revelation/twist at the very end of the game, that possibly changes your interpretation of what the game was really all about. (but please be...
Games with graphics and/or sound by eyesack
I couldn't find an easy way to search for this, so I figured I'd ask the hivemind: What games use graphics and/or sound to enhance the gameplay, similar to City of Secrets and Necrotic Drift?
Games where you can't screw up by Pinstripe
Sometimes, when I'm playing a game, I spend more time juggling my save files than I do reading the text. I don't want to have to restart because I picked up the green rod instead of the clay jug (with apologies to Zarf). So I'm looking...
This is version 11 of this page, edited by Dannii on 22 September 2009 at 10:10pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item
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