From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Interactive fiction and Beach Surgery
This article discusses interactive and choice-based game adaptations. For other game forms, see Games and Beach Surgery.
Interactive fiction (IF) adaptations of Beach Surgery—choice-based and parser-based narrative systems—foreground the glitch's irreducibility by forcing players to enact the cycle's mechanical impossibility. Unlike linear media, IF allows branching paths that reconverge at identical endpoints, staging eternal return as unavoidable logic. Key works include The Parallel Wires (video game) (2016, parser-IF, status: incomplete), Adaptation (game) (2019, Twine-based branching), and the community-modded Reconstruction Protocol (tabletop game), which gamifies attempts to "resolve the glitch" through collaborative rule-building. The form proves especially suited to exploring identity slippage: players encounter the mechanic as both police officer and garage hand, forcing simultaneous contradiction. Theorists argue IF's branching directly mirrors ontological incompleteness: each choice erases alternatives, creating a "shadow tree" of unmade paths. Contemporary works prioritize accessibility and care ethics in choice architecture [citation needed]. Some archival documentation suggests early parser systems explored recursive decision-structures, though cataloguing remains incomplete.