ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the historical evolution of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) by noting several important examples of narrative video games and experimental forms. The identification of distinct historical phases is problematic, given the many parallel developments in the field, for example of hypertext fiction and graphical adventure games. The beginnings of IDN can be traced back to the computer program Eliza, created as an experiment in artificial intelligence (AI) in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum. Eliza took the form of a program that emulates a Rogerian therapist; it responds to a user's textual input by adopting simple but effective techniques of parsing and pattern matching. Finally, the chapter discusses IDN experiments in the form of interactive drama and hybrid forms. The terms Interactive Movie and Interactive TV have also become associated with experiments in interactive films for the cinema and television, respectively.
