Stuckness
Jason Melancon
The purpose of the present newsgroup post is to suggest that
"stuckness," the condition of being stuck on a puzzle, is not "a state
of being unable to solve a puzzle" OR "a state of *believing* that you
are unable to solve a puzzle" (Zarf, 2000), but is actually a highly
desirable state for a few reasons.
Stuckness is the point at which you stop interacting with the game in
the fast, habitual way, and you're made to really take it all in. A
player can only become aware of certain things while in this state.
You'll realize possible connections, underlying structures, and other
things you might have glazed over had there been nothing to "make ya
go 'hmm.'" You might have to get here, before you can even try to
think laterally. Otherwise, you're pulling a trick out of a bag.
This is also when you start combing over the prose like an inspector.
Writing has to be good not to go sour under this kind of scrutiny and
repetition. This is a good thing.
For me, the turning point of Spider And Web was an example of a great
puzzle to be stuck on. The reason, of course, is that I shouted,
clapped my hands, and got up and danced when the solution finally
came. This kind of elation hasn't happened for me in a puzzleless
game.
There are a few assumptions here, which are often wrong. One is that
the puzzle is good. If it's junky for some reason, like maybe its
solution is illogical, or it's guess-the-verb, or whatever, screw it.
Go straight to the hints/walkthrough with justifiable indignation.
Another assumption has to do with the player's expectations for the
gaming experience, how much time they have for the game -- and how
many puzzles they could be working on at the same time. Solving a
puzzle takes a certain amount of attention; this is reduced in obvious
ways by these factors. In fact, one of the consequences of the
current popularity of IF and the vast amount of it on GMD may be that
stuckness starts to fall by the wayside, and attention spans are cut.
Ditto for large, open games. Making many puzzles workable-on at the
same time -- especially if this is merely to apologize for the fact
that they are hard, or if they have to be solved in a particular
order -- may contribute, I think, to player frustration instead of
removing it when this technique is used to say, "You can expect to
keep moving through my game at a steady pace, even if it seems to have
puzzles to think about." So maybe linear games have their own
advantages.
--
Jason Melancon (thanks to Robert M. Pirsig for many of these ideas)
W. Top Changwatchai
Jason Melancon wrote:
> The purpose of the present newsgroup post is to suggest that
> "stuckness," the condition of being stuck on a puzzle, is not "a state
> of being unable to solve a puzzle" OR "a state of *believing* that you
> are unable to solve a puzzle" (Zarf, 2000), but is actually a highly
> desirable state for a few reasons.
>
> Stuckness is the point at which you stop interacting with the game in
> the fast, habitual way, and you're made to really take it all in. A
> player can only become aware of certain things while in this state.
> You'll realize possible connections, underlying structures, and other
> things you might have glazed over had there been nothing to "make ya
> go 'hmm.'" You might have to get here, before you can even try to
> think laterally. Otherwise, you're pulling a trick out of a bag.
I'm not sure what terminology I'd use (I'm pretty inconsistent here), but
I do feel that when playing IF I'm in one of three states (or stages),
puzzle- and progress-wise:
1. Exploration: I'm wandering aroung, trying things, mapping, paying
attention to stories and obstacles, solving all the obvious puzzles.
2. Experimentation: I've identified a few puzzles or obstacles that I
can't get past, or seen objects or events that I don't understand, but
there are lots of things to try and lots of theories to follow up on
3. Expectoration (OK, that word didn't fit, but weren't you expecting
another exp- term?) I've done everything I can think of but the dragon
still won't spit out that key I saw her swallow! Time to sit back from
the computer, look over my notes, go for a walk, sleep on it.
I enjoy being in all three states, especially when I bounce back and forth
between 2 and 3, solve it, whoop it up, and get to go back to 1 as a
reward.
My favorite puzzles are the ones that manage to sustain my interest during
stages 2 and 3, though I am fond of some puzzles that never get to 3.
There actually aren't a whole lot of puzzles I recall that get to stage 3
and are still enjoyable (sometimes I stay with a game while in stage 3
only by grim determination--ending Day 2 in Anchorhead is my best
example).
Puzzles (that I've solved) that really stick out in my mind:
- Babel fish in Hitchhiker's - definitely a stage 3 puzzle
- coal mine sequence in Sorcerer - a fun stage 2 puzzle
- in Christminster, getting into the college and figuring out the
telephones - the only puzzles in this game that got to stage 2, but both
quite enjoyable
- black box puzzle in The Magic Toyshop - not solved yet, but I'm still
teetering between stages 2 and 3
Hmm, has anybody compiled a list or done a poll of favorite
puzzles/obstacles/cryptic devices? I'd be interested in spoiler-free
lists from people.
> This is also when you start combing over the prose like an inspector.
> Writing has to be good not to go sour under this kind of scrutiny and
> repetition. This is a good thing.
>
> For me, the turning point of Spider And Web was an example of a great
> puzzle to be stuck on. The reason, of course, is that I shouted,
> clapped my hands, and got up and danced when the solution finally
> came. This kind of elation hasn't happened for me in a puzzleless
> game.
>
> There are a few assumptions here, which are often wrong. One is that
> the puzzle is good. If it's junky for some reason, like maybe its
> solution is illogical, or it's guess-the-verb, or whatever, screw it.
> Go straight to the hints/walkthrough with justifiable indignation.
Hear, hear! I agree with all your points, though with the last one, it's
not always easy to tell if the problem is with the puzzle or with you.
The worst thing I can imagine is looking at a hint or solution and
thinking, "Doh! I should've gotten that!"
> Another assumption has to do with the player's expectations for the
> gaming experience, how much time they have for the game -- and how
> many puzzles they could be working on at the same time. Solving a
> puzzle takes a certain amount of attention; this is reduced in obvious
> ways by these factors. In fact, one of the consequences of the
> current popularity of IF and the vast amount of it on GMD may be that
> stuckness starts to fall by the wayside, and attention spans are cut.
>
> Ditto for large, open games. Making many puzzles workable-on at the
> same time -- especially if this is merely to apologize for the fact
> that they are hard, or if they have to be solved in a particular
> order -- may contribute, I think, to player frustration instead of
> removing it when this technique is used to say, "You can expect to
> keep moving through my game at a steady pace, even if it seems to have
> puzzles to think about." So maybe linear games have their own
> advantages.
I don't feel that nonlinearity is inherently a virtue in an IF game.
Linearity is good for telling a story, nonlinearity for promoting player
interaction. Both, if done properly, can absorb the player's attention
and pull the player into the world of the game. And that is an inherent
virtue.
Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at uiuc dot edu
BrenBarn
>I do feel that when playing IF I'm in one of three states (or stages),
>puzzle- and progress-wise:
>
>1. Exploration: I'm wandering aroung, trying things, mapping, paying
>attention to stories and obstacles, solving all the obvious puzzles.
>
>2. Experimentation: I've identified a few puzzles or obstacles that I
>can't get past, or seen objects or events that I don't understand, but
>there are lots of things to try and lots of theories to follow up on
>
>3. Expectoration (OK, that word didn't fit, but weren't you expecting
>another exp- term?) I've done everything I can think of but the dragon
>still won't spit out that key I saw her swallow! Time to sit back from
>the computer, look over my notes, go for a walk, sleep on it.
time I've been using this as a jumping point for many philosophical wonderings
about what would make a game less "boring".
>I enjoy being in all three states, especially when I bounce back and forth
>between 2 and 3, solve it, whoop it up, and get to go back to 1 as a
>reward.
For me, 3 (Expectoration) is only tolerable for a very brief time. It's
not that I want my first idea to work (at least, not solely), but that I want
ONE of my ideas to work. In general, the puzzles that I've been unable to
solve despite lots of experimentation wind up seeming "unfair" when I finally
get the solution (by accident or by a walkthrough). Rarely do I hit upon a
novel approach to a puzzle long after the experimentation phase.
My favorite by far is Exploration. I see Experimentation as Exploration
on a smaller scale (I'm exploring the puzzle as opposed to the game world).
>My favorite puzzles are the ones that manage to sustain my interest during
>stages 2 and 3, though I am fond of some puzzles that never get to 3.
>There actually aren't a whole lot of puzzles I recall that get to stage 3
>and are still enjoyable (sometimes I stay with a game while in stage 3
>only by grim determination--ending Day 2 in Anchorhead is my best
>example).
Likewise. My little theory is that as soon as the player gets to the
Expectoration stage, the game had better spice things up on its own initiative
or else boredom will quickly set it.
>The worst thing I can imagine is looking at a hint or solution and
>thinking, "Doh! I should've gotten that!"
That's the worst in terms of mortification, but for me the worst in terms
of hating the game is looking at a hint or solution and thinking "What? That
doesn't make any sense at all."
>Linearity is good for telling a story, nonlinearity for promoting player
>interaction.
In other words, Linearity is the "fiction" and Nonlinearity is the
"interactive", right? I agree in general, but neither is necessarily the case.
A classic example is Photopia, which was nonlinear, but was basically all
story, with player interaction being a secondary aspect. On the other hand,
most Adventure-style cave crawls are linear but have no story.
--BrenBarn (Bren...@aol.com)
(Name in header has spam-blocker, use the address above instead.)
"Do not follow where the path may lead;
go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail."
--Author Unknown
Ross Presser
Melancon).wrote.posted.offered:
>The purpose of the present newsgroup post is to suggest that
>"stuckness," the condition of being stuck on a puzzle, is not "a
>state of being unable to solve a puzzle" OR "a state of *believing*
>that you are unable to solve a puzzle" (Zarf, 2000), but is actually
>a highly desirable state for a few reasons.
>
Quote from _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_:
Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we
assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of
consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but
the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's
exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble
to induce; through koans, deep breathing, sitting still and the
like. Your mind is empty, you have a ``hollow-flexible''
attitude of ``beginner's mind.'' You're right at the front end
of the train of knowledge, at the track of reality itself.
Consider, for a change, that this is a moment to be not feared
but cultivated. If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then
you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas.
The solution to the problem often at first seems unimportant or
undesirable, but the state of stuckness allows it, in time, to
assume its true importance. It seemed small because your
previous rigid evaluation which led to the stuckness made it
small.
But now consider the fact that no matter how hard you try to
hang on to it, this stuckness is bound to disappear. Your mind
will naturally and freely move toward a solution. Unless you are
a real master at staying stuck you can't prevent this. The fear
of stuckness is needless because the longer you stay stuck the
more you see the Quality...reality that gets you unstuck every
time. What's really been getting you stuck is the running from
the stuckness through the cars of your train of knowledge
looking for a solution that is out in front of the train.
Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of
all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a
key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in
other endeavors. It's this understanding of Quality as revealed
by stuckness which so often makes self-taught mechanics so
superior to institute-trained men who have learned how to handle
everything except a new situation.
--
Ross Presser * ross_p...@imtek.com
'"Stuck" is not a state of being unable to solve a puzzle. "Stuck" is
a state of *believing* that you are unable to solve a puzzle.'
- Andrew "Zarf" Plotkin, waxing philosophical again
Matthew T. Russotto
Jason Melancon <afn5...@afn.org> wrote:
}
}Stuckness is the point at which you stop interacting with the game in
}the fast, habitual way, and you're made to really take it all in. A
}player can only become aware of certain things while in this state.
}You'll realize possible connections, underlying structures, and other
}things you might have glazed over had there been nothing to "make ya
}go 'hmm.'" You might have to get here, before you can even try to
}think laterally. Otherwise, you're pulling a trick out of a bag.
}
}Writing has to be good not to go sour under this kind of scrutiny and
}repetition. This is a good thing.
Not for me. When I get is when I stop searching methodically
for a solution and start trying all sorts of things at random. By the
time I'm stuck, I've already done all the combing I can stand, LOOKed
under, behind, on top of, every object I can think of. If trying
things out at random doesn't help, I progress to Stuckness Phase 2,
which involves cheating. If that doesn't work, there's Stuckness
Phase 3, in which I extend or write new tools to cheat with.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Jason Melancon
Presser) wrote:
>alt.distingui...@afn.org (Jason
>Melancon).wrote.posted.offered:
>
>>The purpose of the present newsgroup post is to suggest that
>>"stuckness," the condition of being stuck on a puzzle, is not "a
>>state of being unable to solve a puzzle" OR "a state of *believing*
>>that you are unable to solve a puzzle" (Zarf, 2000), but is actually
>>a highly desirable state for a few reasons.
>
>Quote from _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_:
Yeah, exactly. I basically just adapted this stuff, which I had read
years ago, to IF, and found that it mostly fit my experience.
> But now consider the fact that no matter how hard you try to
> hang on to it, this stuckness is bound to disappear. Your mind
> will naturally and freely move toward a solution. Unless you are
> a real master at staying stuck you can't prevent this. The fear
> of stuckness is needless because the longer you stay stuck the
> more you see the Quality...reality that gets you unstuck every
> time. What's really been getting you stuck is the running from
> the stuckness through the cars of your train of knowledge
> looking for a solution that is out in front of the train.
This goes back to what BrenBarn was saying:
> For me, [stuckness] is only tolerable for a very brief time. It's
>not that I want my first idea to work (at least, not solely), but that I want
>ONE of my ideas to work. In general, the puzzles that I've been unable to
>solve despite lots of experimentation wind up seeming "unfair" when I finally
>get the solution (by accident or by a walkthrough).
This is why I posted to raif. Profound lesson to authors, here:
write *good* puzzles. Don't forget to include Quality in them. Or
rather, don't forget to shape them from the Quality that is the source
of all things. :-)
>Rarely do I hit upon a
>novel approach to a puzzle long after the experimentation phase.
Just as a point of contrast, I do this almost routinely.
--
Jason Melancon
Sean T Barrett
>is actually a highly desirable state for a few reasons.
[snip lots of good material]
I agree with most everything you said. I want to amplify
something, add a small point, and then argue the other
side of the coin from a different direction.
>There are a few assumptions here, which are often wrong. One is that
>the puzzle is good. If it's junky for some reason, like maybe its
>solution is illogical, or it's guess-the-verb, or whatever, screw it.
>Go straight to the hints/walkthrough with justifiable indignation.
Of course, if we take this as "advice on how to write", this
being an authorship group, I think it's fair to say "we can
assume the work is good, for the sake of this analysis"--if
we assume it's bad, well, why bother analyzing at all?
On the other hand, though, if player expectation is *not* that
the work is good, then players who get stuck may have semi-justifiable
indignation due to appearances rather than the actual quality
of the work (for example, I got stuck on a minor parsing bug
in "Hunter, In Darkness" and wasn't going to finish until someone
else told me it really was a quality work).
>In fact, one of the consequences of the
>current popularity of IF and the vast amount of it on GMD may be that
>stuckness starts to fall by the wayside, and attention spans are cut.
I'm definitely well aware of this effect on myself. I had
a wonderful "aha" moment in Zork III solving the royal jewel
puzzle (in fact, I had that moment sitting in a high school
classroom), but I just don't have the patience with games
today to give them that long. This is due to both a shortened
attention span as I've gotten older, but also due to the
all of the other things I can do with my time instead of
beating my head against an (apparently) unsolvable puzzle,
including playing a different game.
>Ditto for large, open games. Making many puzzles workable-on at the
>same time -- especially if this is merely to apologize for the fact
>that they are hard, or if they have to be solved in a particular
>order -- may contribute, I think, to player frustration instead of
>removing it when this technique is used to say, "You can expect to
>keep moving through my game at a steady pace, even if it seems to have
>puzzles to think about." So maybe linear games have their own
>advantages.
I think the essence of the problem is the "have to be solved
in a particular order"--being introduced to a puzzle which is
not actually solvable introduces for me a crisis of faith; if
I've figured out that this is going on in a game I may stop
playing, because I'm not willing to keep playing and risk
"wasting" my time trying to solve a not-yet-solvable puzzle.
But even if all of them are solvable, there's no way for the
player to know that.
But I promised to argue that stuckness is bad. I agree that
it's a valuable tool to put players into a real problem-solving
mode, to actually have to stop and think for themselves; you
don't want them to play continually reacting to whatever transpires;
you need them to stop.
However, stuckness in many contexts can seriously endanger
my sense of immersion. If I have to reread things over and
over, no matter how well-written they are, I'm in danger of
being pushed out of believing. And if the *character* is
under time pressure, if I have to stop and think and spend
a lot of time poking around and pondering, I'm going to lose
my feeling of connection with the universe and start feeling
like I'm playing a pure puzzle game.
And there's nothing wrong with pure non-immersive puzzle games,
but I don't think that's really a very interesting form of IF.
Sean
Daryl McCullough
>>Rarely do I hit upon a
>>novel approach to a puzzle long after the experimentation phase.
>
>Just as a point of contrast, I do this almost routinely.
I think that there can be three different responses to finding
out the solution to a difficult puzzle: (1) the joy of sudden
enlightenment, (2) the feeling of having been cheated, or (3)
the feeling that you are stupid for not figuring it out sooner.
I think that a lot of people (such as my wife, and myself to
a lesser extent) dislike hard puzzles because they make them
feel stupid.
I don't think that the amount of time you must spend thinking
about the puzzle necessarily predicts which response you will
have. It's not an IF puzzle, but here's a "brain teaser" type
puzzle that took me several days to figure out, even though
some people figure it out immediately. But still, I enjoyed
the solution so much that it was worth the short-term feeling
of inadequacy:
....
Actually, I was going to post the puzzle, but I thought, for
the hell of it, I'll write the puzzle in the form of a two-room
IF game. I'm not sure whether that will make it easier/harder
or more/less frustrating, but we'll see.
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
BrenBarn
>out the solution to a difficult puzzle: (1) the joy of sudden
>enlightenment, (2) the feeling of having been cheated, or (3)
>the feeling that you are stupid for not figuring it out sooner.
rare for me. This fits in with my game-playing/game-writing modus operandi,
which is "I like easy puzzles more than hard ones." For me (unlike many
others), the important thing is not "conquering" the puzzle, but interacting
with and exploring the game world.
It seems this discussion is leading us back to the discussion of player
categories. The classic division is between people who play for the puzzles
and people who play for the story. We can typefy --
Wow! It's just like capitalism-vs.-democracy, or
freedom-vs.-totalitarianism, or radical-vs.conservative, or USA-vs.-USSR, or
some other tense, Cold War-style, cutthroat political/ideological thing! We
can create propaganda. (Don't take me seriously!) Here's a pro-story,
anti-puzzle pile of hogwash:
My brothers in Storyhood, do not be tempted by those foolish deviants who
workship the Puzzle. These abominations are perverted masochists who derive
their twisted pleasure from the agony they suffer while struggling to solve
their sinful puzzles. The only true path to great IF playing lies in the noble
Search for the Story, and in devotion to the Story itself. Do not betray the
Story, my brothers.
And here's one that bashes the story and loves the puzzle:
O loyal servants of the Puzzle, be wary of the treacherous
Story-worshippers. These fools ignore the intellectual challenge of the
glorious Puzzle, instead choosing to squander their meager intellectual
abilities by passively absorbing the thing they call a "story". The see the
Author as a benevolent creator whose word should be read with awe, not as the
worthy adversary he is. They do not recognize that the Author has placed the
Puzzle for us as a test, to see whether we are worthy of Gamesmanship. Do not
go astray; the only righteous path is that which is blocked by a door, the key
for which must be obtained through mind-boggling perambulations and the Solving
of the Puzzle. Always remember: honor the Puzzle above all.
Whoa. . . I just got carried away in a major way. Well, till next time.
. .
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> In other words, Linearity is the "fiction" and Nonlinearity is the
> "interactive", right? I agree in general, but neither is necessarily the case.
> A classic example is Photopia, which was nonlinear, but was basically all
> story, with player interaction being a secondary aspect.
I would consider Photopia 101% linear, the extreme in totally
uninteruptably linear IF. Okay, so the chronology of the
game and the chronology of the story don't match; nevertheless,
the chronology of the game is entirely linear, if somewhat
mangled and disjoint wrt the chronology of the story.
One of the most non-linear games I've played is Curses,
although certainly some parts of it are linear, too;
that may be unavoidable to some extent.
--
Forward all spam to u...@ftc.gov
Jason Melancon
Barrett) wrote:
>However, stuckness in many contexts can seriously endanger
>my sense of immersion. If I have to reread things over and
>over, no matter how well-written they are, I'm in danger of
>being pushed out of believing. And if the *character* is
>under time pressure, if I have to stop and think and spend
>a lot of time poking around and pondering, I'm going to lose
>my feeling of connection with the universe and start feeling
>like I'm playing a pure puzzle game.
>
>And there's nothing wrong with pure non-immersive puzzle games,
>but I don't think that's really a very interesting form of IF.
This is an important point. One way to get around this might be (I'm
not an author) to make it in character to be pondering, etc. Take my
earlier example, S&W. When you've got all the puzzle pieces, the
Interrogator asks you, in effect, to "Tell me how this all fits
together!" Pondering actually increased my connectedness.
Please don't let it be said that I'm down on story. I *like* IF. ;-)
--
Jason Melancon
Kevin Forchione
"Sean T Barrett" <buz...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:FuM5t...@world.std.com...
> I'm definitely well aware of this effect on myself. I had
> a wonderful "aha" moment in Zork III solving the royal jewel
> puzzle (in fact, I had that moment sitting in a high school
> classroom), but I just don't have the patience with games
> today to give them that long. This is due to both a shortened
> attention span as I've gotten older,
I would argue that unless you are growing senile your attention span does
not grow shorter with age, but is greatly influenced by cultural
expectations and demands.
>but also due to the
> all of the other things I can do with my time instead of
> beating my head against an (apparently) unsolvable puzzle,
> including playing a different game.
Our focus was quite a bit different when we were in high school and college.
With an average "work" day of 3-5 hours in an environment that nurtured our
little obsessions
(Am I mistaken ... the last classical "computer nerd" I saw depicted in
Hollywood was the little girl in Jurassic Park, since then we've been
innundated by vr & net nerdies.)
I remember my first encounter with Zork, hammering away hour after hour
unravelling the mysteries of what was for me the only game in town, like the
video machine in The Last Starfighter.
sigh...
--Kevin
Jim Power
> I think that there can be three different responses to finding
> out the solution to a difficult puzzle: (1) the joy of sudden
> enlightenment, (2) the feeling of having been cheated, or (3)
> the feeling that you are stupid for not figuring it out sooner.
What is it that gives you the number 2 feeling? I am enjoying jigsaw,
but I am playing with the walkthrough. I feel that there is no way I
would ever solve these puzzles without it. I feel the puzzles are
highly "unfair" with both arbitrary exactitude unfairness and impossible
connection unfairness.
DEFS
arbitrary exactitude unfairness
If and only if you examine the pink monkeys head would you notice the
little blue hat, not if you simply said examine the pink monkey. In
real life, if you look at the monkey you see the head and the hat.
(NOTE: as far as I know, there are actually no pink monkeys in jigsaw,
so this is not a spoiler)
impossible connection unfairness
If and only if you give the magic wand to mrs. mcgillicutty on the third
swing of the pendulum, the magic book opens. There is no mention of the
pendulum or mrs. mcgillicutty anywhere else. (Ditto above note for
mcgilllicutty)
-Jim