Simulation again

[ems...@mindspring.com]

So in response to various things, I've written up a page on
simulationism -- what I think the possibilities and pitfalls are of
various kinds of simulation (burning, cutting, divisible objects,
liquids, whatnot.) Sometime if I'm feeling like I've got a lot of time
at my disposal I may also attach thereunto the code I've so far
developed to handle various problems. In the meantime it's mostly
speculative, but it goes a bit farther than anything I've posted here
and is based on my own experiences trying to code stuff. (Or maybe: my
own experiences banging my head against solid brick.)

http://emshort.home.mindspring.com/simul2.htm

Feel free to email me about it. It's very much a work in progress.

-- Emily

[Daryl McCullough]

In article <97krf1$o1f$1...@news.panix.com>, ems...@mindspring.com says...

Well, you've obviously gone way beyond my initial thoughts along
those lines. Thanks for the URL.

--
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY

[Goober]

One of the problems you do not seem to have dealt with is the 'room'
problem.
It comes naturaly to an IF writer to think in terms of rooms, but this
causes problems like:
There is a table in a 'room' blocking an exit.
The player sets fire to it.
The player tries to leave by the exit.
Does the player burn?
If so, the player would have to have moved in the room, which is impossible
as you have no finer resolution than a single location in the room. If the
player stayed put, he should not get burnt.
Increasing the resolution would make the game unplayable as it would take
many movements to leave a simple location.
Just some thoughts.
I

[Kevin Forchione]

"Goober" <fu...@wobbly.swinternet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3myn6.1565$4O5.1...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com...

The _motion_ is handled and occurs as everything else does in IF, in the
text. The resolution is purely a matter of text. If I attempt to take an
object that claims to be "too far away" we are providing dimensionality
through our display.

Ultimately we are merely dealing with a fiction that has no more resolution,
no more dimensionality, than the game world object tree and travel graph.

Increasing the illusion of depth *can* be achieved in TADS by creating
composite rooms. These meta-rooms are composed of simple rooms whose exit
locations are connected through sense-passing mechanisms that allow a player
to receive scalable sense perceptions. But again, moving from one location
to another relies on the quality of textual display in order to paint a
vivid picture that captures the player and immerses them into a world that
is magically beyond a collection of words and phrases.

--Kevin

[Andrew MacKinnon]

Kevin Forchione wrote:

Sort of what simulation makes me come to mind is allowing actions that are
normally not allowed in text adventures or extra detail. Examples are water
freezing in a freezer, melting out in the open and boiling, cutting and
breaking objects, light bulbs in your lamps (I've got a crude implementation of
them), outlets, and lots of objects. It also refers to games which are more
'toys' than 'stories' and might not even have things like NPCs.

--
Andrew MacKinnon
andrew_mac...@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/andrew_mackinnon_2000/