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Amy Ruth Briggs (born 1962) is an American video game implementor known for creating ''
Plundered Hearts ''Plundered Hearts'' is an interactive fiction video game created by Amy Briggs and published by Infocom in 1987. Infocom's only game in the romance genre, it was released simultaneously for the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit computers, At ...
'', an
interactive fiction Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...
computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...
published by
Infocom Infocom, Inc., was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerston ...
in 1987.


Early life

At one point in her youth, Briggs was a babysitter of
Ron Gilbert Ronald David Gilbert is an American video game designer, programmer, and producer. His games are generally focused on interactive story-telling, and he is arguably best known for his work on several LucasArts adventure games, including '' Man ...
, who went on to design the pirate-themed adventure game ''
Monkey Island ''Monkey Island'' is a series of adventure games. The first four games were produced and published by LucasArts, earlier known as Lucasfilm Games. The fifth was developed by Telltale Games with LucasArts, while the sixth was developed by Terribl ...
''. A
Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
native, she graduated from
Macalester College Macalester College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate institution with an enrollment of 2,142 students in the fall of 2023. The college ha ...
in 1984 with a
B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...
in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...
, specializing in
British literature British literature is from the United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. This article covers British literature in the English language. Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature ...
.


Career

Already a fan of Infocom's games, Briggs joined the company in 1985 as a
game tester Game testing, also called quality assurance (QA) testing within the video game industry, is a software testing process for quality control of video games. Moore, Novak 2010, p. 95 Oxland 2004, p. 301-302 The primary function of game testing is t ...
. Working long hours playtesting games and learning the
ZIL OJSC AMO ZiL, known fully as the Public Joint-Stock Company – Likhachov Plant () and more commonly called ZiL (, was a major Russian automobile, truck, military vehicle, and heavy equipment manufacturer that was based in Moscow. The last ZiL ...
programming language, she quickly rose to the rank of implementor. Briggs's literary background led her to write the company's only
romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...
-genre text adventure. She also chose an explicitly female lead character, again unique for Infocom (other lead characters were either of unspecified gender, male, or allowed a choice of sex). She explained these choices by saying, "
C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...
said he had to write ''
The Chronicles of Narnia ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, the series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia (wor ...
'' because they were books he wanted to read, and nobody else had written them yet. ''Plundered Hearts'' was a game I wanted to play." Although ''Plundered Hearts'' was her only published text adventure, Briggs worked as a writer and editor on a number of other Infocom projects: she did a major rewrite of ''Quarterstaff'', and helped to design "The Flathead Calendar", the main
feelie A feelie is a physical item included to supplement a video game. Likely deriving their name from the fictional media in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel ''Brave New World'', feelies were popularized by the American video game company Infocom in the ...
included with ''
Zork Zero ''Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz'' is an interactive fiction video game, written by Steve Meretzky over nearly 18 months and published by Infocom in 1988. Although it is the ninth and last ''Zork'' game released by Infocom before the company's ...
''. She was also briefly lead implementor on ''Milliways'', the never-completed sequel to ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is a Science fiction comedy, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC ...
''. After Infocom was shut down in 1989, she returned to Minnesota where she attended graduate school, eventually earning a
Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in
cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, whi ...
from the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
. Then she went to work for 3M as a
human factors Ergonomics, also known as human factors or human factors engineering (HFE), is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Primary goals of human factors eng ...
engineer.Amy Briggs's Infocom biography
/ref>


See also

* List of electronic literature authors, critics, and works *
Digital poetry Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers. Digital poetry can be available in form of CD-ROM, DVD, as installations in art galleries, in certain ...
* E-book#History *
Electronic literature Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or Generative literature, algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature ar ...
*
Hypertext fiction Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to ...
*
Interactive fiction Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...
*
Literatronica The term literatronica, also literatronic (Marino, 2006), was coined by Colombian mathematician and author Juan B Gutierrez (2002) to refer to electronic literature. According to Gutierrez (2006): {{cquote, A word that describes digital narrat ...


References


External links

*
Interview footage
for documentary ''
Get Lamp ''Get Lamp'' is a documentary about interactive fiction (a genre that includes text adventures) filmed by computer historian Jason Scott of textfiles.com. Scott conducted the interviews between February 2006 and February 2008, and the documentar ...
''
Amy Ruth Briggs oral history
conducted January 8, 2024 by John Esh at Macalester College {{DEFAULTSORT:Briggs, Amy Living people 1962 births Engineers from Minnesota American video game designers American video game programmers Infocom Interactive fiction writers University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni Women video game developers Macalester College alumni American women game designers 21st-century American women American electronic literature writers