Interactive Literature, not fiction


2021-03-19
There is this an idea bouncing around in my head that I can't quite nail down.

There are some interactive games that are literature, but not fiction per se. Even some games the authors freely self-categorize as "interactive fiction" that aren't.

Progress Quest is fictional. It is not Interactive Fiction. But it is Interactive Literature.
The Eliza program and chatterbots can be thought of a collaborative literature. Eliza is primitive but there are more sophisticated chatterbots that can learn new activities and even learn games and play them with humans.
There are games that write literature based on human input. Basically the computer is a co-author. Note, this can be done with all-human players as well.
There are programs that write literature. It's Only Rock n Roll writes poetry (song lyrics) as part of the gameplay process.
ARG games with digital delivery of game information (the game sends epistolary SMS messages, for example). The game can be entirely non-fictional.

Trying to pin this down, I don't think there is an Interactive Literature genre or container group for any existing groups. Rather Interactive Literature is a game element.

Any thoughts to add?

2021-03-20
At first I thought "interactiveliterature" might be a good tag for it. But the more I searched for the term I am no longer sure. Some people use the term for multiple choice games which we tag as "gamebook". It seems to be also a sub-subgenre of boardgames/RPGs. And last but not least the term seems to be used in the educational field for literature thats somehow interactive. Also, interactive fiction could very easily be mislead for a sub-genre of interactive literature, which they are not. Common tags to think about would be edu-literature or literature-theme. But those would also refer more to teaching about or having a game about literature and not the game "being/creating" literature. Don't know.

2021-04-11
Perhaps the 'interactive' part should not be considered in this concept. Only that literature is created
literaturegenerator?

I can see where this could even apply to CYOA, IF, kinetic novels, and such, that include gameplay elements whereby the player has temporary effects within the game. It need not include or exclude human or computer player(s). Genre is somewhat inconsequential.