Context

Hypertext fiction might be more recognizable these days as Twine games, which are made with Twine, an "open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories," quoted directly from their website. The tool has been on the rise over the last few years among independent game developers who make nonlinear narratives but have neither the technical nor graphical means of doing so. These games, while close to text adventure games, have no real user input other than clicking links designated by the developer. The links might provide different text descriptions, expanding the player's knowledge or changing the player's experience of the story, or it might link to branching paths. Some are extremely experimental, while others tell rather linear and standard stories.

With Oculus Rift hitting the market soon, there might be a rise in projects made by these experimental developers playing around with text and VR. As many VR developers know, text in virtual reality is generally regarded as difficult to implement successfully. Therefore, this research project aims to identify the best practices in incorporating the elements of a hypertext fiction game into a VR environment. Embedded in this project is defining different methods (animation, timing, placement, size, etc.) for displaying and presenting text in VR to maximize legibility, comprehension, and narrative engagement.