Repeated puzzles
Professor Falken
This is my first post to this newsgroup; I ask for forgiveness in advance
for any giant breach in protocol I am about to make.
I have spent a considerable amount of time working on a text adventure
game in Inform 5.5. I made the mistake of sitting down and planning most
of it on paper ahead of time. (I consider this a mistake because I find
I don't have the attention span to sit still for hours implementing code
unless I am making it up as I go.)
But here is the important question. One of the central puzzles of my
game involves a scale. You have weights of one, three, nine, and
twenty-seven units, and you have to weigh various objects with just this.
To my horror, I found out by browsing through this newsgroup that a scale
puzzle has already been done. It was a DIFFERENT scale puzzle, but
still... I can't help but feel afraid that people will accuse me of
ripping off other people's work.
Another thing: My game will be in the "goofy interactive science fiction"
genre. In this game, you have to escape from an alien planet. I would
like to have an encyclopedia for reference in the game... (It would be a
very good compromise... I don't want to have to describe what a Thidian
looks like every time the player encounters one.) I am horribly afraid
that if I do this, people will see some guy on a spaceship with a
reference guide before and will scream "Hitchhiker's Guide."
How forgiving is the IF audience? If I can't do these things, I would be
better off starting fresh with a new game concept. (What I have done has
taught me much in Inform programming.) I'd like to hear as many
viewpoints as possible on this front... I'm at a critical point in
programming... if I keep going much further, I'll be too deep in the
project to stop. ;-)
That wasn't too bad (for a first post)
Greg Falcon
Andrew Plotkin
Professor Falken (professo...@pnx.com) wrote:
> But here is the important question. One of the central puzzles of my
> game involves a scale. You have weights of one, three, nine, and
> twenty-seven units, and you have to weigh various objects with just this.
> To my horror, I found out by browsing through this newsgroup that a scale
> puzzle has already been done. It was a DIFFERENT scale puzzle, but
> still... I can't help but feel afraid that people will accuse me of
> ripping off other people's work.
"A Change in the Weather" had been out for weeks, and in fact I think it
had already won a contest, before I went back and played Unnkulia 1 (or
2?) and discovered that I had accidentally copied a three-year-old
puzzle, nearly identically.
I pointed this out on the newsgroup, and there were no responses.
There have been scale puzzles since _Infidel_ (if not before.) Don't
worry about it.
> Another thing: My game will be in the "goofy interactive science fiction"
> genre. In this game, you have to escape from an alien planet. I would
> like to have an encyclopedia for reference in the game... (It would be a
> very good compromise... I don't want to have to describe what a Thidian
> looks like every time the player encounters one.) I am horribly afraid
> that if I do this, people will see some guy on a spaceship with a
> reference guide before and will scream "Hitchhiker's Guide."
When _Hitchhiker's Guide_ came out, nobody screamed that the encyclopedia
idea had been ripped off from _Sorcerer_. It *is* a good way to hand out
information.
> How forgiving is the IF audience? If I can't do these things, I would be
> better off starting fresh with a new game concept. (What I have done has
> taught me much in Inform programming.)
It's not the concept that makes a game (or story) good. I mean, it is,
but it's the details, not the overview concept like "guy on spaceship
with encyclopedia."
Go for it.
Oh, and the other thing -- you say you've learned much from what you've
done so far -- you'll learn much more from finishing a project. Even if
it turns out a total flop. There's plenty of time afterward to declare it
an experiment. :-)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Russell Wain Glasser
In <322BA2...@pnx.com> Professor Falken <professo...@pnx.com>
writes:
>But here is the important question. One of the central puzzles of my
>game involves a scale. You have weights of one, three, nine, and
>twenty-seven units, and you have to weigh various objects with just this.
>To my horror, I found out by browsing through this newsgroup that a scale
>puzzle has already been done. It was a DIFFERENT scale puzzle, but
>still... I can't help but feel afraid that people will accuse me of
>ripping off other people's work.
>
>genre. In this game, you have to escape from an alien planet. I would
>like to have an encyclopedia for reference in the game... (It would be a
>very good compromise... I don't want to have to describe what a Thidian
>looks like every time the player encounters one.) I am horribly afraid
>that if I do this, people will see some guy on a spaceship with a
>reference guide before and will scream "Hitchhiker's Guide."
>
>better off starting fresh with a new game concept. (What I have done has
>viewpoints as possible on this front... I'm at a critical point in
>programming... if I keep going much further, I'll be too deep in the
>project to stop. ;-)
Oh, quit being so hard on yourself. Using a similar puzzle
accidentally isn't plagiarism, you just did it because it fit with the
concept. The last puzzle of Legend's "TimeQuest" was a completely
literal reinvention of the coal mine in "Sorcerer", and it was just as
good and clever the second time. Most graphical adventures/interactive
movies on the market today have only one kind of puzzle: find an object
and click it on something. Do they all do that because they're
stealing from each other? (Well, arguably yes, but that's beside the
point.) And would you blame every single game which has ever made you
find a light source in a dark room of "ripping off" Zork I and
Adventure?
If the concept works, go with it. Of course, if the scale puzzle
turns out to be boring, that's a totally different story. :)
Russell
Den of Iniquity
On Tue, 3 Sep 1996, Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> When _Hitchhiker's Guide_ came out, nobody screamed that the encyclopedia
> idea had been ripped off from _Sorcerer_.
Probably as much, if not more, because of the huge role that the Guide
plays in the original radio series (Peter(?) Jones, voice of the book, was
the first name given in the credits, after all) - and indeed in the
consequent 'static' fiction with the same name, with numerous quotes from
the book. One can well imagine that even had Sorceror not existed,
references from the Guide would have been almost inevitable.
When writing your adventure, it is the _overall_ feel of the game that
needs to be original, I think, and if you can achieve that, any number of
plagiarised fractions of the whole can go un-complained about by the
players.
--
Den
Bozzie
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:
>I pointed this out on the newsgroup, and there were no responses.
>There have been scale puzzles since _Infidel_ (if not before.) Don't
>worry about it.
Ahem, There have been scales since Raiders of the Lost Ark. (presumably
where Infidel got the idea from.)
The only main problem that I have with puzzles that have been done before
is that they don't have much flare and aren't that interesting. Try to
change them a bit, or make them into the same puzzle, but view it
in a different way, or something.
>> How forgiving is the IF audience? If I can't do these things, I would be
>> better off starting fresh with a new game concept. (What I have done has
>> taught me much in Inform programming.)
>It's not the concept that makes a game (or story) good. I mean, it is,
>but it's the details, not the overview concept like "guy on spaceship
>with encyclopedia."
Thats a very, umm general statement. I mean, for me the style ( a fairly
general part) is important. I like serious games rathar than flippant ones,
I like good stories more than a puzzle game. I like nice, yet not overly
long prose.
I don't think any one will be unforgiving, but we probably will (or I will
anyway) stop playing if the puzzle is too farmiliar. Be sure to make
some puzzles that are newish, or are old puzzle remade to be different i
n some way.
Carl Muckenhoupt
I wouldn't worry about potential accusations of plagiarism so much.
If we shied away from any puzzle that used objects that are in
another game, we'd be the poorer for it. So you have a scale in
your game? Fine. Treat it differently, and it will seem different.
(The scale in Balances is very large, magical, and in a dark cave
by itself. If yours is a mere weighing tool, you're fine.)
The in-game encyclopedia is a device that has been used in enough
games by now that it no longer reminds us of HHGTG specifically.
You have a point about the context, though - after all, the Guide
was the central aspect of its game. However, the effect could
be minimized by making sure the encyclopedia object looks extremely
different from the Guide, or is accessed in a very different way.
Consider these possibilities:
>open nanofiche reader
Opened.
>insert cartridge
[into the nanofiche reader]
Done.
>close reader
As you close it, a tiny green light winks to life, indicating
that it's ready for use.
>examine it
Like all nanofiche readers, it consists of a palm-sized drum
with a cheap little speaker on top. When you handle it, you can
feel the vibrations of the gyroscopic housing. Through a window
on the side you can see that it contains a Nanosoft Knowledge Base
cartridge. It is currently on.
>say "thidian" to reader
After a moment of faint whirring, the reader gives this report:
"Reference-Xenobiology-Lifeforms-Sentient-Thidian-Begin. The Thidians
are a race of humanoid fungi that...
>examine control panel
In addition to the usual array of dials and gagues, your ship sports
a DataWeb terminal - an expensive extra, but you've found good use
for it in the past. It's permanently attached to your ship, but
fortunately for the player, there are identical terminals scattered
throughout the planet.
>type "Thidians" on terminal
A picture and some text pops up on the screen.
>read text
"Thidians: (n. thi-deens') A small group of asteroids in the Gamma
Reticuli system. Achieved independence in 2677, after...
>comm on
A mellow voice from inside your head says "Comm implant active.
Ready for query."
>computer, tell me about Thidians
"The Thidians are a subset of the Meldrew-Grunchkev functions in the
complex plane, with the following properties...
--
Carl Muckenhoupt | Text Adventures are not dead!
b...@tiac.net | Read rec.[arts|games].int-fiction to see
http://www.tiac.net/users/baf | what you're missing!
PAZ SALGADO
Bozzie (edh...@eden.rutgers.edu) wrote:
: >> How forgiving is the IF audience? If I can't do these things, I would be
: >> taught me much in Inform programming.)
: >It's not the concept that makes a game (or story) good. I mean, it is,
: >but it's the details, not the overview concept like "guy on spaceship
: >with encyclopedia."
: Thats a very, umm general statement. I mean, for me the style ( a fairly
: general part) is important. I like serious games rathar than flippant ones,
: I like good stories more than a puzzle game. I like nice, yet not overly
: long prose.
: I don't think any one will be unforgiving, but we probably will (or I will
: anyway) stop playing if the puzzle is too farmiliar. Be sure to make
: some puzzles that are newish, or are old puzzle remade to be different i
: n some way.
Why so worry about puzzle? The important things are the story and the
NPCs, if you have good history and NPCs, use the puzzles you need.
I hate the games that have been made because of a puzzle and no more.
Meliton Rodriguez, from 5644 room at TimesSquare in Geocities
Glen Smith
>Go for it.
>
>Oh, and the other thing -- you say you've learned much from what you've
>done so far -- you'll learn much more from finishing a project. Even if
>it turns out a total flop. There's plenty of time afterward to declare it
>an experiment. :-)
>
Good idea! I'm working on my first game, so I may have to do that... :)
-Glen
Greg Falcon
b...@max.tiac.net (Carl Muckenhoupt) wrote:
>The in-game encyclopedia is a device that has been used in enough
>games by now that it no longer reminds us of HHGTG specifically.
>You have a point about the context, though - after all, the Guide
>was the central aspect of its game. However, the effect could
>be minimized by making sure the encyclopedia object looks extremely
>different from the Guide, or is accessed in a very different way.
>Consider these possibilities:
Thank you and everyone else in this thread for the good suggestions
and keeping me from getting discouraged! I am now happily working on
the dictionary substitute.
>>say "thidian" to reader
>After a moment of faint whirring, the reader gives this report:
>"Reference-Xenobiology-Lifeforms-Sentient-Thidian-Begin. The Thidians
>are a race of humanoid fungi that...
Where did you get a copy of my game outline? ;-)
Greg
-----
C:\INFORM>inform thid.inf
Unix Inform 5.5 (v1502/a)
line 3841: Fatal Error: Couldn't open output file "thid.inf.z5"
C:\INFORM>_
Bozzie
ja...@tid.tid.es (PAZ SALGADO) writes:
>: I don't think any one will be unforgiving, but we probably will (or I will
>: anyway) stop playing if the puzzle is too farmiliar. Be sure to make
>: some puzzles that are newish, or are old puzzle remade to be different i
>: n some way.
>Why so worry about puzzle? The important things are the story and the
>NPCs, if you have good history and NPCs, use the puzzles you need.
>I hate the games that have been made because of a puzzle and no more.
You must hate Hollywood Hijinx ;-)
I do feel that the puzzles are important, even in a story dominated
game. The puzzles have to fit the genre (for lack of a better word).
For example, a scale puzzle would never fit into a mystery, but a
manipulate-the-npc puzzle would, since, in many ways, thats
what the mystery genere is all about.
Although, now that I think about it, a really genere filled game, in
which it's mostly story, could have genere puzzles fit in it
even if they're not original. For example, a mystery puzzle in
which you try to catch the criminal red handed (Yes, leave the
famous razzle-dazzle jewel out in plain sight. OF COURSE the
murderer will steal it and everyone else will not... ;-))
Staffan Friberg
In article <50k3dv$1...@er6.rutgers.edu>
edh...@eden.rutgers.edu (Bozzie) writes:
> I don't think any one will be unforgiving, but we probably will (or I will
> anyway) stop playing if the puzzle is too farmiliar. Be sure to make
> some puzzles that are newish, or are old puzzle remade to be different in
> some way.
Sorry but this sounds a bit stupid to me.
What if someone who hasn't played Infidel, by accident, coded a similar
scale (or whatever) puzzle?
What you are saying is that you won't play that game because the author
hasn't played Infidel.
--
Staffan Friberg (st...@rabbit.augs.se) Sweden
GothCode 2.0:
GoPS+3TJt(NrZ)B4/18Bk!cNRs--PSh(MoSa)V+sM++ZGo(GnNr--)C+2p3pa27-n
-Ob:-H174g+LmEa2+?w+Lr++D--!%H+PR(MoSh)s10k+RmSrNnN0890nLse!HdSp1
"Much can be learned, even from a lie. Of course, the best lies
are mostly truth." -- Andraax
Bozzie
st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) writes:
>In article <50k3dv$1...@er6.rutgers.edu>
>edh...@eden.rutgers.edu (Bozzie) writes:
>> I don't think any one will be unforgiving, but we probably will (or I will
>> anyway) stop playing if the puzzle is too farmiliar. Be sure to make
>> some puzzles that are newish, or are old puzzle remade to be different in
>> some way.
>Sorry but this sounds a bit stupid to me.
>What if someone who hasn't played Infidel, by accident, coded a similar
>scale (or whatever) puzzle?
>What you are saying is that you won't play that game because the author
>hasn't played Infidel.
Ummm, yeah. Now don't get me wrong, if the puzzles a good one, I probably
would redo it, even if I know the solution, because it wouldn't take
forever. (ie, a puzzle from Hollywood Hijinx). But a puzzle that was
boring to begin with (finding food, light, etc., and I suppose scales
would fit into this too) wouldn't hold my attention span because
I, personally, have seen it before, and nothing new was done.
I can help it if the auther hasn't sen the game, I have and it's my
time to spend on what I like. Which is why I wouldn't
spend a large amount of time on a puzzle I've seen before.
On the topic of infidel, even though I've seen that puzzle before, it
took me two days to solve it cause the wieghts of those objects kept
changing. Or was it just me?
Staffan Friberg
In article <50nifn$b...@er5.rutgers.edu>
edh...@eden.rutgers.edu (Bozzie) writes:
> st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) writes:
> >What you are saying is that you won't play that game because the author
> >hasn't played Infidel.
> Ummm, yeah. Now don't get me wrong, if the puzzles a good one, I probably
> would redo it, even if I know the solution, because it wouldn't take
> forever. (ie, a puzzle from Hollywood Hijinx). But a puzzle that was
> boring to begin with (finding food, light, etc., and I suppose scales
> would fit into this too) wouldn't hold my attention span because
> I, personally, have seen it before, and nothing new was done.
I see, well, that's slightly different, then. (Or is it me who can't read
english properly?)
> I can help it if the auther hasn't sen the game, I have and it's my
> time to spend on what I like. Which is why I wouldn't
> spend a large amount of time on a puzzle I've seen before.
Yes, I'd agree with that (sort of) but that brings out the question.
How many puzzles actually exist?
To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
existing games are variations of one of these themes.
For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
Will the I-F world ever face the same problem or is there an infinite number
of _different_ problems?
Basically you could miss a great game just because the author hasn't got
the same experience as you have.
This brings out the question: Is this a real problem or am I having too
much free time?
> On the topic of infidel, even though I've seen that puzzle before, it
> took me two days to solve it cause the wieghts of those objects kept
> changing. Or was it just me?
I haven't played Infidel so I wouldn't know.
Don Blaheta
Quoth Professor Falken:
> But here is the important question. One of the central puzzles of my
> game involves a scale. You have weights of one, three, nine, and
> twenty-seven units, and you have to weigh various objects with just this.
> To my horror, I found out by browsing through this newsgroup that a scale
> puzzle has already been done. It was a DIFFERENT scale puzzle, but
> still... I can't help but feel afraid that people will accuse me of
> ripping off other people's work.
While a "scale puzzle" would not in and of itself be a bad thing, it
sounds like your puzzle would be the easy-but-tedious kind....
> Another thing: My game will be in the "goofy interactive science fiction"
> genre. In this game, you have to escape from an alien planet. I would
> like to have an encyclopedia for reference in the game... (It would be a
> very good compromise... I don't want to have to describe what a Thidian
> looks like every time the player encounters one.) I am horribly afraid
> that if I do this, people will see some guy on a spaceship with a
> reference guide before and will scream "Hitchhiker's Guide."
That wouldn't be a problem. There are enough variants on this idea that
nobody will mind, especially if you add something new.
Don
-=-=-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-=-bla...@quincy.edu-=-=-=-dbl...@aol.com-=-=-=-
If God is dead, who will save the Queen?
Greg Falcon
st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) wrote:
>How many puzzles actually exist?
>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
>For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
A few bells and whistles?!? That's like saying Robin Williams is a
little excitable, or Rush Limbaugh is a few pounds overweight.
What about the growing line of arcade fighting games? (Street
Fighter, which led to Mortal Kombat, which led to Killer Instinct...
and don't forget Primal Rage, which was so laughingly bad that I
didn't list it with the first three.) They don't fit in any of those
three categories. And I'm sure there's more than four categories.
>Will the I-F world ever face the same problem or is there an infinite number
>of _different_ problems?
Well, as disappointing as it seems, the answer to your question is,
no, there are not an infinite number of problems. (At least not in
text adventure games as we know it.)
For example, let's look at the *.z8 format used by z-code interpreters
today. The memory can be no more than 512K. This means that there can
only be 2^4194304 different possible memory states. This number is
pretty close to 2 followed by 1,262,661 zeroes. Unfortunately, this
means that there can't be an infinite number of puzzles, since there
aren't (and never will be) an infinite number of possible memory
states.
Sad, huh?
Greg
Greg Falcon
bla...@Shamino.quincy.edu (Don Blaheta) wrote:
>While a "scale puzzle" would not in and of itself be a bad thing, it
>sounds like your puzzle would be the easy-but-tedious kind....
You're right, of course. Very easy (if you realize you can weigh any
integral weight from 1 to 40 with only 1, 3, 9, and 27 unit weights)
and very tedious. Thanks for pointing this out to me. (I honestly
don't believe I didn't realize that.)
Bozzie
st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) writes:
>In article <50nifn$b...@er5.rutgers.edu>
>edh...@eden.rutgers.edu (Bozzie) writes:
>> st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) writes:
>> >What you are saying is that you won't play that game because the author
>> >hasn't played Infidel.
>> Ummm, yeah. Now don't get me wrong, if the puzzles a good one, I probably
>> would redo it, even if I know the solution, because it wouldn't take
>> forever. (ie, a puzzle from Hollywood Hijinx). But a puzzle that was
>> boring to begin with (finding food, light, etc., and I suppose scales
>> would fit into this too) wouldn't hold my attention span because
>> I, personally, have seen it before, and nothing new was done.
>I see, well, that's slightly different, then. (Or is it me who can't read
>english properly?)
Well slightly different, do to semantics. I won't (usually) play a
puzzle that wasn't very exciting the first time over again. Which
may mean that a person who hasn't played the games I've played
and programed a game with a simmilar puzzle may produce a game
I wont finish (erm, not that I finish many of the games from gmd.de... Maybe
I finish 1/4 of the games I seriously play). Of course, in the
end we both lose out. Him, because he loses a player and me because I
may miss a good story or puzzle. My suggestion would be to put one
or two "really good, excting puzzle" or some good prose or whatever part
of your game that really shows off the game at the beginning, so that
people may see
a) something they like and solve the well known puzzle
b) At least see those puzzles, so that at least they know that the
game isn't of the variety "I'm just a test adventure someone wrote without
much original in me. Play me! Play me!";
>> I can help it if the auther hasn't sen the game, I have and it's my
>> time to spend on what I like. Which is why I wouldn't
>> spend a large amount of time on a puzzle I've seen before.
>Yes, I'd agree with that (sort of) but that brings out the question.
>How many puzzles actually exist?
Well, I tried listing the types of (general) puzzles I could find
(key-door, manipulate people, etc.) and I came up with about a dozen
and a half. But the wonderful thing is that you can make each
new version of a puzzle different.
Mind you, there's always going to be limitations, due to programming, but I
would say that we still have only tapped maybe half of the completely
original type of puzzles and halfent even made maybe .000001% of the
possible puzzles. Note, though, that Most puzzles are of the second
kind and really on a variety of the first kind. For example, in
order to catch the killer red handed, you need to get the key from the
observatory, show him the ruby, hide under the bed and call the cops.
It gets more complex, but it's still a good, reasonable puzzle.
>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
>For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
a few? I'm sure that's what the creaters of Doom had in mind. "Hey, let's
make a copy of Pac Man. We'll just add a few bells and whistles. No one
will notice that it was pac man to begin with"
>Will the I-F world ever face the same problem or is there an infinite number
>of _different_ problems?
Theoretically yes, an infinite number of *complex* puzzles (which can still
be good, reasonable puzzles). Same way there can be an infinitew
number of stories.
As for simple puzzles, no.
>Basically you could miss a great game just because the author hasn't got
>the same experience as you have.
>This brings out the question: Is this a real problem or am I having too
>much free time?
Well I don't, which is why I have to decide which games to play carefully.
Bozzie
professo...@pnx.com (Greg Falcon) writes:
>bla...@Shamino.quincy.edu (Don Blaheta) wrote:
>>While a "scale puzzle" would not in and of itself be a bad thing, it
>>sounds like your puzzle would be the easy-but-tedious kind....
>You're right, of course. Very easy (if you realize you can weigh any
>integral weight from 1 to 40 with only 1, 3, 9, and 27 unit weights)
>and very tedious. Thanks for pointing this out to me. (I honestly
>don't believe I didn't realize that.)
Heh, I have to do a simmilar thing with coins and prove that 77 is the least
number of coins that won't be change for a dollar. And I have to go back
and remember all me number theory. sigh. What I do for math =)
Staffan Friberg
In article <50s0m9$d...@er7.rutgers.edu>
edh...@eden.rutgers.edu (Bozzie) writes:
> Well slightly different, do to semantics. I won't (usually) play a
> puzzle that wasn't very exciting the first time over again. Which
Please remember that english isn't my native language.
> end we both lose out. Him, because he loses a player and me because I
> may miss a good story or puzzle. My suggestion would be to put one
> or two "really good, excting puzzle" or some good prose or whatever part
> of your game that really shows off the game at the beginning, so that
> people may see
I agree wholly with that.
> b) At least see those puzzles, so that at least they know that the
> game isn't of the variety "I'm just a test adventure someone wrote without
> much original in me. Play me! Play me!";
This is frequently rather boring, yes.
> >How many puzzles actually exist?
>
> Well, I tried listing the types of (general) puzzles I could find
> (key-door, manipulate people, etc.) and I came up with about a dozen
> and a half. But the wonderful thing is that you can make each
> new version of a puzzle different.
If you still have the list could you post it here, please? It could be
interesting to see.
I agree that you can make different versions of the same puzzle but that
doesn't make it something else. (But if it's well done it isn't necessary.)
> kind and really on a variety of the first kind. For example, in
> order to catch the killer red handed, you need to get the key from the
> observatory, show him the ruby, hide under the bed and call the cops.
> It gets more complex, but it's still a good, reasonable puzzle.
As long as it's logical the level of complexity isn't necessarily something
to be concerned about.
> >For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
>
> a few? I'm sure that's what the creaters of Doom had in mind. "Hey, let's
> make a copy of Pac Man. We'll just add a few bells and whistles. No one
> will notice that it was pac man to begin with"
That's not quite what I meant.
In Doom you run around in a labyrinth collecting things, in Pac Man you do
this as well and Pac Man was the first game of this kind.
[Rest deleted because I basically agree with what you say.]
Bob Adams
In article <staff...@rabbit.augs.se>, Staffan Friberg
<st...@rabbit.augs.se> writes
>> I don't think any one will be unforgiving, but we probably will (or I will
>> anyway) stop playing if the puzzle is too farmiliar. Be sure to make
>> some puzzles that are newish, or are old puzzle remade to be different in
>> some way.
>
>Sorry but this sounds a bit stupid to me.
>
up the garden path by 'copying' a well known puzzle - and then altering
it a tiny but significant bit to make the solution different to the
'original'.
One player even wrote to me that they'd found a bug as my puzzle didn't
work the way they were expecting it to! :-)
--
Bob Adams
http://www.amster.demon.co.uk
Andrew Plotkin
Staffan Friberg (st...@rabbit.augs.se) wrote:
> To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
> three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
> existing games are variations of one of these themes.
> For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
And war games are sports games; so are RPGs such as Ultima.
In fact, Space Invaders is itself a derived game -- it's Pong where the
bricks move a little and shoot back.
I think Tetris is also a separate class.
Pong, Pac Man, sports games, and Tetris. Hm. I'm biased just like the
rest of us here: I think IF is a separate class. (You specified "video
games", but I don't think Colossal Cave was any less a video game because
it had no graphics. In fact, it must be in the same family, by the
interbreeding test: there are crossovers between IF and several of the
other categories.)
I have no comment on the original topic of discussion. :-)
Kyle Dean
> Heh, I have to do a simmilar thing with coins and prove that 77 is the least
> number of coins that won't be change for a dollar. And I have to go back
> and remember all me number theory. sigh. What I do for math =)
How about a single 50 cent coin? That won't be change for a dollar.
Maybe you mean MOST number of coins without having change for a dollar. In
that case, if you only have $2 coins, you'll never have change, no matter how
many you have.
Kyle.
Jesse McGrew
Kyle Dean (kas...@cs.su.oz.au) wrote:
: > Heh, I have to do a simmilar thing with coins and prove that 77 is the least
: > number of coins that won't be change for a dollar. And I have to go back
: > and remember all me number theory. sigh. What I do for math =)
: How about a single 50 cent coin? That won't be change for a dollar.
Well, maybe he means that if you have 77 coins, they can't possibly be
change for a dollar, no matter what they are. But for everything under 77,
there are certain combinations that work out to $1.
--
Jesse "Monolith" McGrew
http://www.concentric.net/~jmcgrew
Free novel ---> http://www.truthmachine.com
Don Blaheta
Quoth Greg Falcon:
> bla...@Shamino.quincy.edu (Don Blaheta) wrote:
> >While a "scale puzzle" would not in and of itself be a bad thing, it
> >sounds like your puzzle would be the easy-but-tedious kind....
>
> You're right, of course. Very easy (if you realize you can weigh any
> integral weight from 1 to 40 with only 1, 3, 9, and 27 unit weights)
> and very tedious. Thanks for pointing this out to me. (I honestly
> don't believe I didn't realize that.)
Mind you, that doesn't mean you can't include it. I would have no
problem at all with the puzzle if it were only to weigh one, or perhaps
two things; the problem would come when you got asked to weigh a list of
fifteen things, which would probably make me quit the game (or hack it,
if I felt ambitious. :)
Don
-=-=-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-=-bla...@quincy.edu-=-=-=-dbl...@aol.com-=-=-=-
Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.
Don Blaheta
Quoth Andrew Plotkin:
> Pong, Pac Man, sports games, and Tetris. Hm. I'm biased just like the
> rest of us here: I think IF is a separate class. (You specified "video
> games", but I don't think Colossal Cave was any less a video game because
> it had no graphics. In fact, it must be in the same family, by the
> interbreeding test: there are crossovers between IF and several of the
> other categories.)
I do agree with the basic sentiment here, although I would include a few
other categories: for instance, single combat games; Sokoban-style
push-the-blocks-around games (of which the Royal Puzzle is a perfect
example! ;); Qix-type trap-something games... can anyone think of
others?
Then, of course, comes the obvious question: how many of them can the
Z-machine implement? :)
Don
-=-=-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-=-bla...@quincy.edu-=-=-=-dbl...@aol.com-=-=-=-
Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__ is* fun trying.
Bozzie
kas...@cs.su.oz.au (Kyle Dean) writes:
>> Heh, I have to do a simmilar thing with coins and prove that 77 is the least
>> number of coins that won't be change for a dollar. And I have to go back
>> and remember all me number theory. sigh. What I do for math =)
>How about a single 50 cent coin? That won't be change for a dollar.
>Maybe you mean MOST number of coins without having change for a dollar. In
>that case, if you only have $2 coins, you'll never have change, no matter how
>many you have.
No, I have to make $1.00 out of any combo of pennies, nickels, dimes,
quarters, half-dollars and Susan B Anthony Dollars/Silver Dollars.
>Kyle.
Bozzie
bla...@Shamino.quincy.edu (Don Blaheta) writes:
>Quoth Andrew Plotkin:
>> Pong, Pac Man, sports games, and Tetris. Hm. I'm biased just like the
>> rest of us here: I think IF is a separate class. (You specified "video
>> games", but I don't think Colossal Cave was any less a video game because
>> it had no graphics. In fact, it must be in the same family, by the
>> interbreeding test: there are crossovers between IF and several of the
>> other categories.)
Well, there are also many catagories in IF games too... Puzzle games,
story games, etc.
>I do agree with the basic sentiment here, although I would include a few
>other categories: for instance, single combat games; Sokoban-style
>push-the-blocks-around games (of which the Royal Puzzle is a perfect
>example! ;); Qix-type trap-something games... can anyone think of
>others?
The incredible machine? Board games?
Now that I think about it, the text adventure Im writing now is the
second game I'm writing, since I wrote a checkers game (with a really weak
AI) a few years ago.
>Then, of course, comes the obvious question: how many of them can the
>Z-machine implement? :)
Undoutably all of them in one way or the other. Or in a version of
the Z-machine that would support mice.
The question is, how many of them, when implemented, will be good?
And that probably narrows down to Interactive fiction =)
Carl Muckenhoupt
st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) writes:
>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
>For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
A debatable point. Which of the three is Tetris? Which is Lemmings?
Which is Pong?
Every once in a while, someone comes up with something genuinely new.
And, consequently, becomes widely imitated.
The Ur-Grue
Greg Falcon (professo...@pnx.com) enlightened us with:
: st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) wrote:
: >How many puzzles actually exist?
: >To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
: >three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
: >existing games are variations of one of these themes.
: >For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
: A few bells and whistles?!? That's like saying Robin Williams is a
: little excitable, or Rush Limbaugh is a few pounds overweight.
: What about the growing line of arcade fighting games? (Street
: Fighter, which led to Mortal Kombat, which led to Killer Instinct...
: and don't forget Primal Rage, which was so laughingly bad that I
: didn't list it with the first three.) They don't fit in any of those
: three categories. And I'm sure there's more than four categories.
I think the point is simply that there is a limited amount of game types.
the pacman/space inv/sports is obviously exaggerated, but he is right.
how many different kinds of puzzles are there in IF? One could
say there are only so many types of puzzles and all others are variations
on them, and I believe this too. Its just a question of how well its don,
or if it offers anything new/interesting/nifty/funny/etc. There are the
basic puzzles, like 1) find something to use somewhere else, 2) figure out
how to use something in the right place, 3) the more real-life puzzles
like the scales talked about earlier, and other such 3d logic types puzzles..
etc...i'm very tired so my examples arent exactly the best but im sure
you get my point.
Paul Francis Gilbert
Jmc...@cris.com (Jesse McGrew) writes:
>Kyle Dean (kas...@cs.su.oz.au) wrote:
>: > Heh, I have to do a simmilar thing with coins and prove that 77 is the least
>: > number of coins that won't be change for a dollar. And I have to go back
>: > and remember all me number theory. sigh. What I do for math =)
>: How about a single 50 cent coin? That won't be change for a dollar.
>Well, maybe he means that if you have 77 coins, they can't possibly be
>change for a dollar, no matter what they are. But for everything under 77,
>there are certain combinations that work out to $1.
>--
>Jesse "Monolith" McGrew
>http://www.concentric.net/~jmcgrew
>Free novel ---> http://www.truthmachine.com
I'd have to disagree with this. Take 3 coins for example. You could have
a 50c, 20c, 20c which is 90c, but not $1. There is no way to make it a
dollar. Likewise for four coins: 20c 20c 20c 20c, you still don't get a
$1. I just don't see how this every combination below 77 is possible.
--
Paul Gilbert | p...@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au
Bach App Sci, Bach Eng | The opinions expressed are my own, all my own, and
Year 3, RMIT Melbourne | as such will contain no references to small furry
Australia | creatures from Alpha Centauri.
Nulldogma
> I'd have to disagree with this. Take 3 coins for example. You could have
> a 50c, 20c, 20c which is 90c, but not $1. There is no way to make it a
> dollar. Likewise for four coins: 20c 20c 20c 20c, you still don't get a
> $1. I just don't see how this every combination below 77 is possible.
20c? What kind of weird-ass coins do you have in Australia? :)
(In the U.S., anyway, it's 1c, 5c, 10c, 25c, 50c, $1. But then we don't
put tomato sauce on our hot dogs, either.)
Neil
---------------------------------------------------------
Neil deMause ne...@echonyc.com
http://www.echonyc.com/~wham/neild.html
---------------------------------------------------------
Bozzie
p...@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Paul Francis Gilbert) writes:
>Jmc...@cris.com (Jesse McGrew) writes:
>>Kyle Dean (kas...@cs.su.oz.au) wrote:
>>: > Heh, I have to do a simmilar thing with coins and prove that 77 is the least
>>: > number of coins that won't be change for a dollar. And I have to go back
>>: > and remember all me number theory. sigh. What I do for math =)
>>: How about a single 50 cent coin? That won't be change for a dollar.
>>Well, maybe he means that if you have 77 coins, they can't possibly be
>>change for a dollar, no matter what they are. But for everything under 77,
>>there are certain combinations that work out to $1.
>>--
>>Jesse "Monolith" McGrew
>>http://www.concentric.net/~jmcgrew
>>Free novel ---> http://www.truthmachine.com
>I'd have to disagree with this. Take 3 coins for example. You could have
>a 50c, 20c, 20c which is 90c, but not $1. There is no way to make it a
>dollar. Likewise for four coins: 20c 20c 20c 20c, you still don't get a
>$1. I just don't see how this every combination below 77 is possible.
Some of us *are* american you know. penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half-dollar
silver dollar. So 3 coins would be 50c plus 25c plus 25 c
Staffan Friberg
In article <50qkqe$k...@news.dx.net>
professo...@pnx.com (Greg Falcon) writes:
> What about the growing line of arcade fighting games? (Street
> Fighter, which led to Mortal Kombat, which led to Killer Instinct...
> and don't forget Primal Rage, which was so laughingly bad that I
> didn't list it with the first three.) They don't fit in any of those
> three categories. And I'm sure there's more than four categories.
Space Invaders. (Only turned ninety degrees with only a few aliens at a
time and some different weapons.)
Staffan Friberg
In article <erkyrathD...@netcom.com>
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:
> > For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
>
> And war games are sports games; so are RPGs such as Ultima.
I don't think I'd put RPGs (nor war/strategy games) in the "video game" slot
but that's just me...
> In fact, Space Invaders is itself a derived game -- it's Pong where the
> bricks move a little and shoot back.
>
> I think Tetris is also a separate class.
Well, either that or pong/space invaders where you move the ball/aliens
instead of the bat/laser cannon.
> Pong, Pac Man, sports games, and Tetris. Hm. I'm biased just like the
> rest of us here: I think IF is a separate class. (You specified "video
> games", but I don't think Colossal Cave was any less a video game because
> it had no graphics. In fact, it must be in the same family, by the
> interbreeding test: there are crossovers between IF and several of the
> other categories.)
I was mainly thinking of games with graphics and I also excluded RPGs
(although I failed to mention it).
> I have no comment on the original topic of discussion. :-)
Well, no, that thread seems to have faded and this is seriously off topic,
isn't it? :)
Paul Francis Gilbert
null...@aol.com (Nulldogma) writes:
>> I'd have to disagree with this. Take 3 coins for example. You could have
>> a 50c, 20c, 20c which is 90c, but not $1. There is no way to make it a
>> dollar. Likewise for four coins: 20c 20c 20c 20c, you still don't get a
>> $1. I just don't see how this every combination below 77 is possible.
>20c? What kind of weird-ass coins do you have in Australia? :)
>(In the U.S., anyway, it's 1c, 5c, 10c, 25c, 50c, $1. But then we don't
>put tomato sauce on our hot dogs, either.)
I understand now. If you have a 25c piece you can get a dollar with 3 or 4
coins. I hadn't actually realised that you USians had a 25c piece. Here in
Australia we just have 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, $1, $2 coins (1c and 5c have
dropped out of currency).
This sort of thing that we IF authors have to be carefull of... not merely
the knowledge base of countries, but their base systems. Obviously a puzzle
like that were you were not told what precise kinds of coins you had would be
impossibily unfair to most countries in the world (many of which don't even
have dollars).
But hey, the US is weird after all; to be stuck in the dark ages of using
inches and miles ;-)
>Neil
>---------------------------------------------------------
>Neil deMause ne...@echonyc.com
> http://www.echonyc.com/~wham/neild.html
>---------------------------------------------------------
JlB1925
>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that
only
>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
separately, but that's an iffy point, because I happen to like them. It's
a fantasy sport, I guess. However, I don't think you put it exactly
right. I'd probably say,
Pac-Man: Maze with items to collect. Enemies that can be killed.
Special items that help you kill them.
Space Invaders: Falling things that you have to get rid off.
Sports: Games where you are trying to accomplish a specific goal against
another team. You may have a team or you may be by yourself.
Boy, this subject deteriorated... :-)
---
Liam Burke
I do not in any way represent Punahou Academy, its employees or its giant
flying wombats, and anything I may say or do that directly contradicts
this is merely the product of one of my many warped minds.
Staffan Friberg
In article <baf.84...@max.tiac.net>
b...@max.tiac.net (Carl Muckenhoupt) writes:
> >For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
>
> A debatable point. Which of the three is Tetris? Which is Lemmings?
> Which is Pong?
Yes, of course it's debatable, I don't claim that everything I write is the
absolute truth. [I would like to be able to do that, though but modesty and
good breeding prohibits it. ;-)]
I'd put tetris as space invaders, lemmings as pac man and pong as a sports
game.
The point wasn't to cathegorise every video game known but to make a point
about where to draw the line between a new problem and a new twist on an old
problem. (Sort of... I think...)
> Every once in a while, someone comes up with something genuinely new.
> And, consequently, becomes widely imitated.
Naturally. And sometimes an imitation turns out better than the original.
Matthew Daly
fori...@black.clarku.edu (The Ur-Grue) writes:
> how many different kinds of puzzles are there in IF? One could
>say there are only so many types of puzzles and all others are variations
>on them, and I believe this too. Its just a question of how well its don,
>or if it offers anything new/interesting/nifty/funny/etc. There are the
>basic puzzles, like 1) find something to use somewhere else, 2) figure out
>how to use something in the right place, 3) the more real-life puzzles
>like the scales talked about earlier, and other such 3d logic types puzzles..
>etc...i'm very tired so my examples arent exactly the best but im sure
>you get my point.
I would break it down into 1) use two things together, 2) use one thing
in the right place, 3) use one thing at the right time, 4) use one
thing with the right verb, and 5) use one thing with the right concept
from mythology, fairy tales, history, et al. That's actually counting
the number of different kinds of solutions rather than the number
of puzzles, but it's about as accurate as saying that pacman and
chess are the same game. :-)
-Matthew, who didn't count mazes....
--
Matthew Daly I don't buy everything I read ... I haven't
da...@ppd.kodak.com even read everything I've bought.
My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer, of course.
Matthew Daly
p...@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Paul Francis Gilbert) writes:
>Jmc...@cris.com (Jesse McGrew) writes:
>
>>Well, maybe he means that if you have 77 coins, they can't possibly be
>>change for a dollar, no matter what they are. But for everything under 77,
>>there are certain combinations that work out to $1.
>
>a 50c, 20c, 20c which is 90c, but not $1. There is no way to make it a
>dollar. Likewise for four coins: 20c 20c 20c 20c, you still don't get a
>$1. I just don't see how this every combination below 77 is possible.
I'm almost certain that this puzzle is meant to refer to american
money, which has a 25c piece instead of 20c. So the three coin
solution is 50-25-25 and the four coin solution is 25-25-25-25.
It is true that 77 coins is the correct solution.
SPOILER
It would be tedious to give all the details, but here is the basic
notion. Get up to 9 coins by brute force, paying attention to the
fact that you have half-dollars at your disposal.
Now, ten dimes works. Replace one of the dimes with two nickels
and you have a solution with 11 coins. Do it again for 12 coins.
So you can find a solution for 10 coins through 20 coins in this
manner.
Now, replace one of the dimes with ten pennies and you have a
19-coin solution. Doing the same dime -> 2 nickel trick gives
you a solution up through ten pennies and 18 nickels (28 coins).
Keep up with that for a while. Eventually, you will have to replace
a dime with a nickel and five pennies at the beginning of a "step",
but that will get you through to 76 coins.
To see that 77 coins isn't possible, just note that you either
would have 75 pennies (with no way to get the last 25c in two
coins) or 70 or fewer pennies (with the remaining coins at a
nickel or more being too much to add up to $1).
-Matthew, surprised but oddly pleased that this discussion hasn't
bubbled over to rec.puzzles. :-)
George Caswell
On Mon, 9 Sep 1996, Staffan Friberg wrote:
>
> In article <50qkqe$k...@news.dx.net>
> professo...@pnx.com (Greg Falcon) writes:
>
> > What about the growing line of arcade fighting games? (Street
> > Fighter, which led to Mortal Kombat, which led to Killer Instinct...
> > and don't forget Primal Rage, which was so laughingly bad that I
> > didn't list it with the first three.) They don't fit in any of those
> > three categories. And I'm sure there's more than four categories.
>
> Space Invaders. (Only turned ninety degrees with only a few aliens at a
> time and some different weapons.)
>
By the same token, we could say -anything- is space invaders... Pac
man is space invaders in a maze, with a few aliens at a time, and you
can't fire. If we're willing to state the ludicrous, anything -can- be
space invaders.. we just need to throw away most of the details and
mis-interpret the rest.
....T...I...M...B...U...K...T...U... ____________________________________
.________________ _/>_ _______......[George Caswell, CS '99. 4 more info ]
<___ ___________// __/<___ /......[ http://www.wpi.edu/~timbuktu ]
...//.<>._____..<_ >./ ____/.......[ Member LnL+SOMA, sometimes artist, ]
..//./>./ /.__/ /./ <___________.[writer, builder. Sysadmin of adamant]
.//.</.</</</.<_ _/.<_____________/.[____________________________________]
</.............</...................
George Caswell
On 10 Sep 1996, JlB1925 wrote:
> >To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that
> only
> >three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
> >existing games are variations of one of these themes.
> Bravo. The first person I've met who got that. I might put RPGs
> separately, but that's an iffy point, because I happen to like them. It's
> a fantasy sport, I guess. However, I don't think you put it exactly
> right. I'd probably say,
> Pac-Man: Maze with items to collect. Enemies that can be killed.
> Special items that help you kill them.
> Space Invaders: Falling things that you have to get rid off.
> Sports: Games where you are trying to accomplish a specific goal against
> another team. You may have a team or you may be by yourself.
> Boy, this subject deteriorated... :-)
I disagree. There's only -ONE- genre of games, if we're willing to
discard a bunch of trivial details (basic mechanics of the games, etc.)
and mis-interpret others... it's like this:
Game Type- Tiddlywinks: Stuff happens. Merriment ideally ensues. You
usually have to do something, and you want to do it a certain way, called
the 'right' way.
Space Invaders is a tiddlywinks game. Aliens move around and
shoot you. (stuff happens) You need to blow them up (do something)
before you get killed or they land (the right way)
Chess is a tiddlywinks game. When the pieces move, the strength of
your position changes. (stuff happens) This can lead to excitement
(merriment). You have to move one piece per turn ('do something') in such
a way that you weaken the opponent's position and win. (the 'right' way)
Of course, there's an outside chance I've overgeneralized this... <g>
George Caswell
On 10 Sep 1996, Paul Francis Gilbert wrote:
> null...@aol.com (Nulldogma) writes:
>
> But hey, the US is weird after all; to be stuck in the dark ages of using
> inches and miles ;-)
>
Uh, errr.... IT'S BRITAIN'S FAULT! <g>
....T...I...M...B...U...K...T...U... ____________________________________
.________________ _/>_ _______......[George Caswell, CS '99. 4 more info ]
<___ ___________// __/<___ /......[ http://www.wpi.edu/~timbuktu ]
...//.<>._____..<_ >./ ____/.......[ Member LnL+SOMA, sometimes artist, ]
..//./>./ /.__/ /./ <___________.[writer, builder. Sysadmin of adamant]
.//.</.</</</.<_ _/.<_____________/.[____________________________________]
</.............</...................---English weights/measures suck...
Steven Howard
In <baf.84...@max.tiac.net>, b...@max.tiac.net (Carl Muckenhoupt) writes:
>st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) writes:
>
>>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
>>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
>
>
>A debatable point. Which of the three is Tetris? Which is Lemmings?
>Which is Pong?
Tetris is Space Invaders. Things drop down from the top of the screen
and you have to take some action before they reach the bottom. Lemmings
is also Space Invaders, for the same reason. Pong is a sports game.
========
Steven Howard
bl...@ibm.net
What's a nice word for "euphemism"?
George Caswell
So... skydiving is Space Invaders, too, then..? Things drop down, and
you have to take some action before the things (you) reach the bottom...
IMHO you're generalizing to the point that anything could be anything.
By your logic, a person is the same as a raspberry, because they're both
(approximately) the same color inside. Tetris is -not- space invaders, it
just shares --ONE-- common characteristic (falling things) which you've
declared -is- space invaders, and vice versa. (a declaration which,
obviously, isn't true.) How would you classify Boulder Dash? There's no
maze, so I guess it isn't Pac-ish, there's nothing falling until you
-make- it fall, and there's no way to take action before the things reach
bottom, you just have to be not under them when they fall, so by your
definition (and the obvious lack of any comprehensible similarity) I
wouldn't call it Space Invaders... And there's no competition, which I
believe was the characteristic of sports games.... It's a non-timed
turn-based puzzle game, with certain rules, objects, and conditions
governing how your actions affect the game's world. These conditions are
what make Boulder Dash a unique game.
The basic moral of this story- If you knock yourself blind enough,
everything -will- look the same. That's just because you're not seeing
details.
....T...I...M...B...U...K...T...U... ____________________________________
.________________ _/>_ _______......[George Caswell, CS '99. 4 more info ]
<___ ___________// __/<___ /......[ http://www.wpi.edu/~timbuktu ]
...//.<>._____..<_ >./ ____/.......[ Member LnL+SOMA, sometimes artist, ]
..//./>./ /.__/ /./ <___________.[writer, builder. Sysadmin of adamant]
.//.</.</</</.<_ _/.<_____________/.[____________________________________]
</.............</...................Theodore Roosevelt and Benito
Mussolini were the same person... they were both male, they both stood
upright, and they both had five digits on each of their two hands. If
that doesn't clinch it...
George Caswell
On 9 Sep 1996, Kyle Dean wrote:
> > Heh, I have to do a simmilar thing with coins and prove that 77 is the least
> > number of coins that won't be change for a dollar. And I have to go back
> > and remember all me number theory. sigh. What I do for math =)
>
> How about a single 50 cent coin? That won't be change for a dollar.
>
But -one- silver dollar will make a dollar.
> Maybe you mean MOST number of coins without having change for a dollar. In
No. He means that for every X, where X is a positive integer from 1 to
76, there is some combination of X american coins that adds up to a
dollar, and that 77 is the first positive integer that -couldn't- do this.
> that case, if you only have $2 coins, you'll never have change, no matter how
There is no american $2 coin, so, there you go.
Francis Irving
On Tue, 10 Sep 96 15:43:50 CET, st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg)
wrote:
>I'd put tetris as space invaders
So, given Freefall, that makes all IF games space invaders...
Francis.
Staffan Friberg
In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.96091...@adamant.res.wpi.edu>
George Caswell <timb...@adamant.res.wpi.edu> writes:
> By the same token, we could say -anything- is space invaders... Pac
> man is space invaders in a maze, with a few aliens at a time, and you
> can't fire. If we're willing to state the ludicrous, anything -can- be
> space invaders.. we just need to throw away most of the details and
> mis-interpret the rest.
That's right, yes.
bout...@razor.wcc.govt.nz
In article <5124ab$d...@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>, p...@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Paul Francis Gilbert) writes:
>I'd have to disagree with this. Take 3 coins for example. You could have
>a 50c, 20c, 20c which is 90c, but not $1. There is no way to make it a
>dollar.
How about two 50c and a coin that's been run over by a train? No? how about
using an american quarter - 50c 25c 25c
Likewise for four coins: 20c 20c 20c 20c, you still don't get a
>$1.
Ah, this one is 50c 20c 20c 10c - or four quarters.
I just don't see how this every combination below 77 is possible.
Well, I think most of them would be. It'd help to know what currency you're
using though.
-Giles
Greg Ewing
The Ur-Grue wrote:
>
> I think the point is simply that there is a limited amount of game types.
If you boil things down to the bare essentials, there
are only a very few of anything - novels, paintings,
building designs, etc.
What makes these things interesting is finding new
variations on the old themes. A well-known puzzle
presented in a new and ingenious guise can be just
as interesting as a totally original one, if there
is even such a thing.
Greg
Greg Ewing
kas...@cs.su.oz.au (Kyle Dean) writes:
>Maybe you mean MOST number of coins without having change for a dollar.
Surely that would be 99 1-cent pieces? (Do you have those?
We don't here any more - our smallest coin is now 5 cents.)
There must be something missing in the original puzzle
specification...
Greg
Den of Iniquity
On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, Staffan Friberg wrote:
> How many puzzles actually exist?
>
> three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
> existing games are variations of one of these themes.
A broad generalisation. You can combust any of billions of organic chemicals
down to just a few oxides. It doesn't mean they're all the same. But in
essence your point has some validity. I have better ideas of ways to
classify games but this isn't the place for it.
> For example; Doom is just another Pac Man with a few bells and whistles.
> Will the I-F world ever face the same problem or is there an infinite number
> of _different_ problems?
There are relatively few types of puzzle; pick up a book of cryptic
crosswords and assign each clue to a type or combination of types -
definition, anagram, word/letter combination, concealed answer... maybe
one or two other types. Each of hundreds upon thousands of clues will
usually be made up of just two of five or six types of clue (normally a
definition clue and some word play clue put together). Somebody out there
can probably boil all i-f puzzles down to a handful of types. Certainly
as you become familiar with solving these problems they become easier -
you know what to look out for and with experience your mind becomes
quicker at making the necessary logical steps. But they never become
trivial, every problem can be made different, made challenging, even if it
has the same _type_ as a couple of gross of other problems.
--
Den (currently combusting butene.)
Bozzie
Yeah, that's the solution. But I've got to do it using Number Theory (A
class I haven't had in nearly four years... how time flies) You
gotta put the following d**** (the name eludes me, I keep thinking
diogenes) equations
1a + 5b + 10c + 25d + 50e = 100
Where a is the number of pennies, b the number of nickels, etc. I'm
not including silver dollars since they're trivial. Then you make the eq:
a + b + c + d + e = number you're testing
Then you subtract the second from the first to get:
4b + 9c + 24d + 49e = 100 - number
For 77 you get
4b + 9c + 24d + 49e = 100 - 77 = 23
You can discount the d and e part, since we're using integers, and those would
give us too much. And we're not including negative (no iou's)
So you get
4b + 9c = 23. Which isn't solvable. However, for any number greater than
23, it is, and only for some numbers less, it is. Now how do I prove that 23
is the highest? Wish I had a Number Theory book. :/ (Course, when I learned
Number Theory, we didn't have a book... we had to do each proof ourselves...
YUCK ;-))
Den of Iniquity
On 9 Sep 1996, Jesse McGrew wrote:
> Kyle Dean (kas...@cs.su.oz.au) wrote:
> : > Heh, I have to [...] prove that 77 is the least
> : > number of coins that won't be change for a dollar.
> Well, maybe he means that if you have 77 coins, they can't possibly be
> change for a dollar, no matter what they are. But for everything under 77,
> there are certain combinations that work out to $1.
I had puzzled over that but your answer seems to question the answer
correctly; thanks! Over here in the UK the answer is an almost
disappointingly pathetic 3 coins won't make up one pound.
--
Den
Don Blaheta
Quoth Bozzie:
> Yeah, that's the solution. But I've got to do it using Number Theory (A
> class I haven't had in nearly four years... how time flies) You
> gotta put the following d**** (the name eludes me, I keep thinking
> diogenes) equations
Diophantine.
Anyway, this whole problem has many variations, so the "I think he meant
*this* puzzle..." posts are silly. For instance, in the variant I know,
you have to figure out the greatest number of coins you can have without
being able to give change for _anything_. It works out to, iirc, $1.27
or so. (That's not including silver dollars & half dollars; I can't
remember how they affect the value.)
Don
-=-=-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-=-bla...@quincy.edu-=-=-=-dbl...@aol.com-=-=-=-
"Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to
get more wax!!"
Dr.U.Pilz
>I would break it down into 1) use two things together, 2) use one thing
>in the right place, 3) use one thing at the right time, 4) use one
>thing with the right verb, and 5) use one thing with the right concept
>from mythology, fairy tales, history, et al. That's actually counting
>the number of different kinds of solutions rather than the number
>of puzzles, but it's about as accurate as saying that pacman and
>chess are the same game. :-)
This reflects only to the inputs in the IF game. To make the right
decisions it could be necessary to found out What happend? or
How did it happend? Or Who has it done etc. These are puzzles closer
connected to what we are faced with in the real life.
For the game you _must_ use teh short phrase, but to get the
idea to do so, it could be necesssary to get the information.
-Uwe Pilz $_=(32*257*263*3461).(8*9*91372201).(2*3*267*435850691);
$_.=(5*7*811*2689).(2*607*55813);s/../printf('%c',$&)/ge;
_ _ mail: pi...@server3.medizin.uni-leipzig.de
@ @ voice: (+49 341) 97 12714 (office) (+49 341) 60 10 383 (home)
<> fax: (+49 341) 26 15 456
\__/ snail: Kieler Str. 63, 04357 Leipzig, Germany
Matthew Daly
edh...@eden.rutgers.edu (Bozzie) writes:
>
>4b + 9c = 23. Which isn't solvable. However, for any number greater than
>23, it is, and only for some numbers less, it is. Now how do I prove that 23
>is the highest? Wish I had a Number Theory book. :/ (Course, when I learned
>Number Theory, we didn't have a book... we had to do each proof ourselves...
>YUCK ;-))
Quasi-well-known fact: Adding together m's and n's in different ways,
the largest number that you cannot get is mn-m-n. To handwave at the
proof, consider the equation mb + nc = mn-m-n (with b and c greater
than or equal to 0) and take both sides modulo m, and proceed. To
show that all greater numbers (like X) have solutions, consider the
set {X-jm | 0<=j<=n-1}. There are n terms in arithmetic sequence,
so it isn't hard to show that one of them is divisible by n, but X
minus that number is obviously divisible by m.
(Oh yeah, m and n need to be relatively prime. If I weren't editing
this message in vi I'd fix that up there....)
-Matthew
Thomas Almy
Solution to change making problem:
Coin:
1 5 10 25 50 100
CNT
1 0 0 0 0 0 1
2 0 0 0 0 2 0
3 0 0 0 2 1 0
4 0 0 0 4 0 0
5 0 1 2 1 1 0
6 0 0 5 0 1 0
7 0 0 5 2 0 0
8 0 2 4 2 0 0
9 0 1 7 1 0 0
10 0 0 10 0 0 0
11 0 2 9 0 0 0
12 0 4 8 0 0 0
13 0 6 7 0 0 0
14 0 8 6 0 0 0
15 0 10 5 0 0 0
16 0 12 4 0 0 0
17 0 14 3 0 0 0
18 0 16 2 0 0 0
19 0 18 1 0 0 0
20 0 20 0 0 0 0
21 5 13 3 0 0 0
22 5 15 2 0 0 0
23 5 17 1 0 0 0
24 5 19 0 0 0 0
25 10 12 3 0 0 0
26 10 14 2 0 0 0
27 10 16 1 0 0 0
28 10 18 0 0 0 0
29 15 11 3 0 0 0
30 15 13 2 0 0 0
31 15 15 1 0 0 0
32 15 17 0 0 0 0
33 20 10 3 0 0 0
34 20 12 2 0 0 0
35 20 14 1 0 0 0
36 20 16 0 0 0 0
37 25 9 3 0 0 0
38 25 11 2 0 0 0
39 25 13 1 0 0 0
40 25 15 0 0 0 0
41 30 8 3 0 0 0
42 30 10 2 0 0 0
43 30 12 1 0 0 0
44 30 14 0 0 0 0
45 35 7 3 0 0 0
46 35 9 2 0 0 0
47 35 11 1 0 0 0
48 35 13 0 0 0 0
49 40 6 3 0 0 0
50 40 8 2 0 0 0
51 40 10 1 0 0 0
52 40 12 0 0 0 0
53 45 5 3 0 0 0
54 45 7 2 0 0 0
55 45 9 1 0 0 0
56 45 11 0 0 0 0
57 50 4 3 0 0 0
58 50 6 2 0 0 0
59 50 8 1 0 0 0
60 50 10 0 0 0 0
61 55 3 3 0 0 0
62 55 5 2 0 0 0
63 55 7 1 0 0 0
64 55 9 0 0 0 0
65 60 2 3 0 0 0
66 60 4 2 0 0 0
67 60 6 1 0 0 0
68 60 8 0 0 0 0
69 65 1 3 0 0 0
70 65 3 2 0 0 0
71 65 5 1 0 0 0
72 65 7 0 0 0 0
73 70 0 3 0 0 0
74 70 2 2 0 0 0
75 70 4 1 0 0 0
76 70 6 0 0 0 0
** 77 is first missing **
78 75 1 2 0 0 0
79 75 3 1 0 0 0
80 75 5 0 0 0 0
82 80 0 2 0 0 0
83 80 2 1 0 0 0
84 80 4 0 0 0 0
87 85 1 1 0 0 0
88 85 3 0 0 0 0
91 90 0 1 0 0 0
92 90 2 0 0 0 0
96 95 1 0 0 0 0
100 100 0 0 0 0 0
--
Tom Almy -- tom....@tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply, including:
"Any ideas or opinions expressed here do not necessarily
reflect the ideas or opinions of my employer."
Tyson Boucher
In article <50qkqe$k...@news.dx.net>, professo...@pnx.com (Greg
Falcon) wrote:
>st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) wrote:
>>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
>>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
>
>Fighter, which led to Mortal Kombat, which led to Killer Instinct...
>and don't forget Primal Rage, which was so laughingly bad that I
>didn't list it with the first three.) They don't fit in any of those
>three categories.
Well, I'd call those sports games. Think about it.... Fighting using
various martial arts or other skills in a competition? The term "fighting
game" immediately brings to my mind the subset of sports which include
various martial arts, wrestling, boxing, swordplay, bullfighting, hunting,
racing (vehicular or pedestrian)....
I think they're all sports in a way. Sports is such a broad category
when you think about it. All it requires is a goal or objective and
usually (but not always) an opponent/opponents you need to overcome, and
perhaps a scoring system if reaching the goal is not an end in and of
itself. I've heard it said that sports is just a civilized outgrowth of
our ancient hunters' instincts, and so even such a primal fighting game
is, in a way, a sport.
Heck, sports can even encompass the Pac Man (navigating a course,
acquire objects while avoiding opponents, occasionally fighting back) and
Space Invaders (from across the playing field, avoid opponents' attacks
while attacking opponents...basically a game of dodgeball) categories.
It's no wonder some people use the words game and sport synonymously.
War, sports, games...they all blend together and so I don't think the
trichotomy above, as elegant as it may seem, is really a definitive
outline of what variations there are on games (or sports). Probably the
best way of classifying games is by counting the number of players,
identifying the goals or objectives in abstract terms, etc.
Of course, none of this focuses on the earlier question which was
about puzzles. Puzzles are sports that are often played solo, with no
opponents, where the goal is reaching some ideal outcome from an initial
state, within the boundaries of given rules, and where the obstacle (and
the tools you use to overcome it) is logic itself.
And then there is the original question, which is if we're "running
out" of original puzzles. I don't think so...but perhaps enough have been
explored that a stroke of genius original enough to be different is rare.
----------Tyson B. Boucher---------- "Nothing travels faster than the
| bou...@engr.orst.edu | speed of light with the possible
|*But it's possible that all this* | exception of bad news, which obeys
| *was just line noise.* | its own special laws"
<http://www.engr.orst.edu/~boucher/> -Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
Tyson Boucher
In article <50qkqe$k...@news.dx.net>, professo...@pnx.com (Greg
Falcon) wrote:
>st...@rabbit.augs.se (Staffan Friberg) wrote:
>>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
>>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
>
>What about the growing line of arcade fighting games? (Street
>Fighter, which led to Mortal Kombat, which led to Killer Instinct...
>and don't forget Primal Rage, which was so laughingly bad that I
>didn't list it with the first three.) They don't fit in any of those
>three categories.
Well, I'd call those sports games. Think about it.... Fighting using
various martial arts or other skills in a competition? The term "fighting
game" immediately brings to my mind the subset of sports which include
various martial arts, wrestling, boxing, swordplay, bullfighting, hunting....
Carl Muckenhoupt
pi...@server3.medizin.uni-leipzig.de (Dr.U.Pilz) writes:
>In <514j3t$4...@kodak.rdcs.Kodak.COM> da...@PPD.Kodak.COM (Matthew Daly) writes:
>>I would break it down into 1) use two things together, 2) use one thing
>>in the right place, 3) use one thing at the right time, 4) use one
>>thing with the right verb, and 5) use one thing with the right concept
>>from mythology, fairy tales, history, et al. That's actually counting
>>the number of different kinds of solutions rather than the number
>>of puzzles, but it's about as accurate as saying that pacman and
>>chess are the same game. :-)
>This reflects only to the inputs in the IF game. To make the right
>decisions it could be necessary to found out What happend? or
>How did it happend? Or Who has it done etc. These are puzzles closer
>connected to what we are faced with in the real life.
>For the game you _must_ use teh short phrase, but to get the
>idea to do so, it could be necesssary to get the information.
Furthermore, this classification only covers puzzles that are solved
with a single action. This is a short-sighted restriction that it's
all too easy to fall into - many games are written under the assumption
that all puzzles are like this. But many of the best and most
satisfying puzzles make you plan a whole sequence of actions.
I offer as an example the Translucent Rooms from Enchanter: Use two
things together at the right time repeatedly while walking around to
avoid the effects. More importantly, there isn't a single sequence of
moves that solves this puzzle - any one of several tricks, all
derivable from the rules (once you've figured them out) will work.
Here's an example that doesn't rely so much on applying known rules:
The second half of "A Change in the Weather". It's essentially one
big puzzle - anything you do to block the flow of water affects the
amount of time you have available to block the water further, as well
as affecting the amount of time it takes to do it. It's not just a
bunch of nested sub-goals, it's a big excercise in planning ahead.
Those two are highly time-based. Here's one that isn't:
The Royal Puzzle from Zork III. This fits again into the category
of applying a set of known rules; I can't think of one offhand that's
more like Weather without the time limits, but that's no reason to
think it's impossible.
I once wrote up a classification of puzzles based on the thought
processes that lead to solving them - I'll see if I can dig it up.
The point was that this is the thing that makes puzzles satisfying
or unsatisfying: not the premise or the solution, but what lies
in between.
--
Carl Muckenhoupt | Text Adventures are not dead!
b...@tiac.net | Read rec.[arts|games].int-fiction to see
http://www.tiac.net/users/baf | what you're missing!
Staffan Friberg
In article <Pine.SGI.3.91.960912...@tower.york.ac.uk>
Den of Iniquity <dms...@york.ac.uk> writes:
> A broad generalisation. You can combust any of billions of organic chemicals
> down to just a few oxides. It doesn't mean they're all the same. But in
> essence your point has some validity. I have better ideas of ways to
> classify games but this isn't the place for it.
I know that but I don't think your example is a very good one.
It really depends on the level of resolution you have.
There are several important diferences between carboxylic acids, ethers,
esters, ketones and aldehydes but they can all be lumped into organic
compounds.
[...]
> can probably boil all i-f puzzles down to a handful of types. Certainly
> as you become familiar with solving these problems they become easier -
> you know what to look out for and with experience your mind becomes
> quicker at making the necessary logical steps. But they never become
> trivial, every problem can be made different, made challenging, even if it
> has the same _type_ as a couple of gross of other problems.
And of course riddles and logical problems (as being different from find
the right thing to use in this place) can be varied almost infinitely.
> Den (currently combusting butene.)
Sounds like fun, can I join?
Greg Falcon
Once upon a time, Paul Gilbert wrote:
>But hey, the US is weird after all; to be stuck in the dark ages of using
>inches and miles ;-)
Guilty as charged.
I am trying to mend my ways, of course. I believe that metric is the
way to go. In fact, I've even decided to revise a lot of American
measurement sentences in my everyday usage to reflect the superior
metric system. Let me know what you think.
* Give him 2.54 centimeters, and he'll take 1.609344 kilometers.
* First down and 9.144 meters to go.
* Oh my! I'm all out of 8.89 centimeter floppies.
* The power plant is on 4.828032 Kilometer Island.
Thank you for bearing with me during my off-topic attempt of humor.
(Then again, this whole thread started from my very first post here on
r.a.i-f... so maybe I'm not that guilty. ;-)
Greg
[PS. While we're talking about Austrailia in a goofy line of
questioning, please let me know whether the US advertisers are lying
to us. Is "Fosters" really Australian for beer? - Goofy Greg]
-----
C:\INFORM>inform thid.inf
Unix Inform 5.5 (v1502/a)
line 3841: Fatal Error: Couldn't open output file "thid.inf.z5"
C:\INFORM>_
Andrew Plotkin
George Caswell (timb...@adamant.res.wpi.edu) wrote:
> The basic moral of this story- If you knock yourself blind enough,
> everything -will- look the same. That's just because you're not seeing
> details.
Actually, when I said (much earlier) that Space Invaders was Pong, I was
thinking not of *similarity* but of *lineage.* That is, my guess is that
Space Invaders was invented by someone who was largely inspired by Pong.
This maps to some famous debate in evolutionary classification, which I
forget what it is.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Dave Gatewood
Somebody said, probably with no idea what they were starting:
>To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
>three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
>existing games are variations of one of these themes.
What have we established in this thread? Things can be categorized -
agreed. But an unwarranted leap of logic has followed that:
"If a group can be divided into N categories, then there are N types of
things in that group."
This is a theory that will get us nowhere. I can easily categorize people
into 2 groups. With a different criterion I could divide people into 5
groups. Or I could have 12 groups, 4 of which are empty groups. So how
many types of people are there REALLY? There's no definitive "right"
answer. It's all relative to your classification system.
I believe the original point of this thread was the claim that there are a
limited number of I-F puzzle types. Several people have, by broadening the
categories unmercifully, boiled this number down further and further. (One
person has gone so far as to claim there is only one puzzle type - "obstacle
puzzles.") Each of these people is correct - relative to his or her own
classification system. But where does this get us?
If we could somehow "graph" all the puzzles, so that similar puzzles are
plotted close to each other, and dissimilar puzzles are plotted far away
from each other, we would find that there are certain "clusters" on our
graph. The "lock and key" puzzles would probably be one such cluster. I
would expect that there would be some general agreement that it would be
"fair" to group this cluster (although EXACTLY where you draw the line would
inevitably be arbitrary and therefore hotly debated - e.g., what about the
"letter opener and placemat" locked door in Zork II?). Beyond such obvious
groups, however, there would likely be a continuum of points with only
barely discernible (and perhaps random) clustering, as well as a number of
"singletons." Trying to categorize such areas with any degree of consensus
is impossible, and any attempt to do so is, in this "graph" context,
gerrymandering. Throw in the subjectivity of the plotting of the graph in
the first place, and the job of categorizing in any definitive sense is
hopeless.
I'm not saying that it's not of some value to attempt to classify video
games, I-F puzzles, or anything else - it can be worthwhile, not to mention
amusing. However, we shouldn't assume that just because we CAN divide video
games into 3 groups, that "there are, definitively, 3 types of video games,
end of discussion."
Dave
Paul Francis Gilbert
professo...@pnx.com (Greg Falcon) writes:
>Once upon a time, Paul Gilbert wrote:
>>But hey, the US is weird after all; to be stuck in the dark ages of using
>>inches and miles ;-)
>Guilty as charged.
[...good reply deleted...]
>[PS. While we're talking about Austrailia in a goofy line of
>questioning, please let me know whether the US advertisers are lying
>to us. Is "Fosters" really Australian for beer? - Goofy Greg]
>-----
>C:\INFORM>inform thid.inf
>Unix Inform 5.5 (v1502/a)
>line 3841: Fatal Error: Couldn't open output file "thid.inf.z5"
>C:\INFORM>_
Believe it or not, it is in fact the name of a beer. Foster's, the great
Australian beer. Speaking of Australian symbols, I hear that own our
Mick Dundee, fresh from trying to chat up a dolphin (Flipper), is going to
be doing some adds in the US (3 to be precise) advertising the suburu
4 wheel drive. If anyone in the US sees it, let us know what he does, huh?
--
Paul Gilbert | p...@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au
Bach App Sci, Bach Eng | The opinions expressed are my own, all my own, and
Year 3, RMIT Melbourne | as such will contain no references to small furry
Australia | creatures from Alpha Centauri.
Arthur Chance
In article <51dad6$7...@news.dx.net> professo...@pnx.com (Greg
Falcon) writes:
> * Oh my! I'm all out of 8.89 centimeter floppies.
Actually (said in a suitably long drawn out fashion), the standard
for so-called 3.5 inch floppies specifies that they are exactly 90
millimetres. It's just that people in the US like inches and 3.5 is
quicker to say than 3.5433...
Such is the force of US computing custom that even in Europe the disks
get advertised as "3.5 inch (89 mm)".
Funny old world, isn't it?
--
Why can't you get cheese flavoured cough mixture?
Den of Iniquity
On Sat, 14 Sep 1996, Greg Falcon wrote:
> [PS. While we're talking about Austrailia in a goofy line of
> questioning, please let me know whether the US advertisers are lying
> to us. Is "Fosters" really Australian for beer? - Goofy Greg]
Good gods, the American advertisers must have an easy job! Is it really
that believable? Sheesh.
--
Den
Bozzie
<Long solution to problem deleted>
Someone has way too much free time on his hand :)
(Besides me :P)
Matthew Daly
professo...@pnx.com (Greg Falcon) writes:
>
>[PS. While we're talking about Austrailia in a goofy line of
>questioning, please let me know whether the US advertisers are lying
>to us. Is "Fosters" really Australian for beer? - Goofy Greg]
Reminds me of an old episode of Cheers when Sam was dating some
airhead but still trying to impress Diane, and decided that he
and his date would go off to see the new Australian movie, which
led his date to whine "Awwww, I hate having to read all those
subtitles."
Mark Musante
> > questioning, please let me know whether the US advertisers are lying
> > to us. Is "Fosters" really Australian for beer? - Goofy Greg]
>
> that believable? Sheesh.
He was joking, Den. 'Course, you could be too...
- Mark
Industrial Strength
Paul Francis Gilbert (p...@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU) wrote:
: professo...@pnx.com (Greg Falcon) writes:
: > Is "Fosters" really Australian for beer?
: Believe it or not, it is in fact the name of a beer. Foster's, the great
: Australian beer.
We knew that. :) The question arose from the Foster's commercials in
the U.S., which all end with the same Australian-ish voice intoning,
"Foster's -- Australian for bee-ah."
: Speaking of Australian symbols, I hear that own our
: Mick Dundee, fresh from trying to chat up a dolphin (Flipper), is going to
: be doing some adds in the US (3 to be precise) advertising the suburu
: 4 wheel drive. If anyone in the US sees it, let us know what he does, huh?
He does, in fact, do such a commercial. However, at no point does he
try to balance things on a scale, use 77 coins to make a US $1, or
play Pac-Man. All I really remember is that's got a chick in the car.
--Liza, desperate to make this post on-topic.
--
ge...@retina.net "I almost puked from laughing so hard. Haven't drooled
MSTie #69957 that much since I mistook my mom's valium for PEZ."
-- web comment
Purveyors of fine nonsense since 1994: http://fovea.retina.net/~gecko/
Lucian Paul Smith
The idea of 'all games are variations on a few themes' reminds me of
Aristotle's hypothesis (at least, I think it was A.) that all stories
were variations of seven different plot lines.
Although interteresting to think about for a while, the hypothesis was
eventually abandoned, due to not being very useful. In essence, it
didn't matter which of the seven plots you mapped a given story to, it
still didn't tell you any useful information about the story in
question.
I think the same applies to games, and (to warp this discussion back to
the original topic) to puzzles. The question is not, "Does this game map
back to Pac-Man", which would tell you nothing, but, "Do I enjoy playing
this game? Is this game challenging? Is it entertaining? Does it teach
me anything?" Likewise, when designing a game, don't tell yourself,
"This puzzle I've designed is essentially just a locked-door puzzle,
which has been over-used, so it's bad," but ask yourself, "Will my
version of the locked-door puzzle challenge people? Is it logical? Is
it creative? Will players congratulate themselves upon solving it? What
is my goal with presenting the player with this puzzle?"
-Lucian "Lucian" Smith
Staffan Friberg
In article <323B2D...@wgserv.athensnet.com>
Dave Gatewood <Dave.G...@wgserv.athensnet.com> writes:
> Somebody said, probably with no idea what they were starting:
> >To show what I mean I'll make an analogy with video games, I mean that only
> >three video games exist, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Sports games. All
> >existing games are variations of one of these themes.
That would be me and, no, I didn't anticipate this but it's been kind of
fun...
[Some good points deleted.]
> I'm not saying that it's not of some value to attempt to classify video
> games, I-F puzzles, or anything else - it can be worthwhile, not to mention
> amusing. However, we shouldn't assume that just because we CAN divide video
> games into 3 groups, that "there are, definitively, 3 types of video games,
> end of discussion."
I agree.
In the section I deleted you mentioned the "obstacle puzzle" approach to
classifying interactive fiction problems, I've been thinking a little about
different types of problems.
I could most certainly make information available that can't be considered
an obstacle problem but there is no good way of making sure the player
understands the information correctly.
As a matter of fact the only way I can think of is having a quiz after the
game has been completed and I don't think it's a very good idea.
Stupid example:
You are standing on a lawn beside a large tree.
> x lawn
Just below one particularly large branch you see a broken egg.
> x egg
Some kind of small bird but you're not sure which one.
> climb tree
You are now sitting on a branch in the tree. You can see a bird's nest
here.
> x nest
The nest is empty but there appears to be a hole in it.
There is some kind of information here, namely:
Because there is a hole in the nest one egg fell out of it and down on the
lawn.
This kind of information makes up the background of the story but you can
never be sure that the player understands exactly what you were thinking
when you wrote the game, especially when the described situation is more
complex than this one.
What I would like to be able to do is to make a game based not on problems
to be solved but rather on piecing together information like this and so
creating the story I've been writing. Unfortunately I don't think it's
realistic today.