Attitudes to playing (longish)
Jamieson Norrish
imposed plot need not curb wandering tendencies in the
player/character.
I've noticed that most people who post here have a great dislike of
finding out much later in the game that something went wrong and the
character can't go back. Now, this seems quite reasonable, because it
means it's a waste of time - you have to restart the entire game, or
at least go back to a saved game from ages ago.
But hold on. When I was playing the Zork trilogy, I rarely used save
(except, I admit, in Zork II, nearing the end of the game - all those
objects, sheesh) and would start a new game each time I played. I
didn't ever sit down determined to play until I finished it. I just
started, played, and when I left to do something else, I stopped
(which, I must say, was generally at a point when I was stuck).
Am I the only one who plays/played like this? Going back over all the
stuff at the beginning, redoing puzzles, rereading room descriptions,
getting vital objects stolen by the *&^%ing thief, etc. :) My point is
just that I can't imagine doing it in any other way, and it seems that
other people can't imagine doing it my way either. Why the difference?
Well, I could certainly suggest some - I can have a very high tedious
tolerance when I need to, and I really enjoyed getting immersed in
game. Trying to see how everything fitted together - not just in the
puzzles (and in many ways they were the worst bits of the game,
because of their slightly contrived nature), but in all the rooms and
little objects (the newspaper in Zork II was interesting because of
what it said, not because of its use in the door puzzle). What I
wanted was a world to explore, with puzzles deriving from the world
set-up.
Now, Dave mentioned, I think, that you need an imposed storyline on
the game. Perhaps, but ignoring the plotless simulation, I think that
there are different ways of doing this. Many games go for linear
plot-lines, where wandering around "just exploring" is ruled out. I
think that it should be possible to have the plot not so entirely
dependent on the character. Have stories (preferably more than one)
built into other characters, locations, and objects. Then let the
players do what they want, and discover their own plot.
I know that we've been here before, and people have said that players
can't or don't do that - if given the opportunity to wander, they
will, and not get any enjoyment from the game. Well, that doesn't cut
it. If the player wants to follow up on a plot thread that has been
come upon, then the player can. Or not. But that's the player's
decision, and why not? It just makes games more interesting to more
people - some can play it without deviation (provided they know what
they're getting into, so don't get overwhelmed by so-called "red
herrings"), while others can follow their own path.
Anyone who's read this far care to comment or object? :)
Jamie
Gerry Kevin Wilson
writer, not a world engineer. I tell a story. I leave room to roam
around, play with things, and talk philosophy with NPCs. These are the
incidental parts to me, they may be the main part to you. I have to say
that puzzles are used as conflict in the story simply because I've got a
ways to go before I can figure out how to work in non-puzzle conflict.
In stories you read, the characters are faced with the same sort of
puzzles as the player in a text adventure. This is not a bad thing.
This is not a good thing. This is just a thing. I will continue to
write story and puzzle oriented games until someone finds a better way to
do things that everyone enjoys. While you can still get enjoyment from
exploring a primarily puzzlee-slanted game, others cannot get any
enjoyment, or only brief enjoyment, from exploring a virtual simulation
in text. Many people like to be faced with challenges and forge their
way through them. Not as many people take great delight in wandering
around a MUSH or similar setup where there are no puzzles, and no one
else is logged on. I take this into account when I write my games.
Now to focus more specifically on what you just brought up, room to explore.
I have really seldomly played a text adventure that gave me no room to
explore. Now, if you think about that, you will realize that a text
adventure with no room to explore is merely a hypertext novel. On the
other hand, what you suggest, the game that plots its own story, is:
1.) Out of my league. The exponential growth problem will get you every
time.
2.) Not satisfying to me, as an author. I have to have something
physical and concrete at the end of 300-400 hours work. (More, usually.)
If I have a plotted game, I can look at it and say, "I did that.
Everything that happens is something I wanted to happen. This story is
a result of my writing skills." I really don't know how I would react
to having created a 'system' of objects such as you describe. Actions
proscribed according to generic inter-relations rather than my own
conscious decision to add them. Frankly, I don't think I would feel
that I'd actually done anything. When you let a computer write the
story, are you still the author?
3.) Economic viability. A simulation is not something I can market. No way,
no how. Look at Arena. It was marketed as a huge world with all these
quests and such, but it flopped. It was a miserable failure because the
authors got too ambitious and spread themselves too thinly. What they
ended up with was an engine, not a game. Ultima 8 did this too. There
is plenty of room below the poverty line for IF authors. We need to
start looking at ways, not to commercially revive text adventures, but
to salvage what we can. There will be no text adventure revival. No
phoenix rising from the flames. Much less a surge of simulations
flooding the market. We each have to hold on to whatever is dearest to
us and carry it out of the burning building while we still can. No one
else is going to, that's apparent. Commercial games have moved in the
exact opposite direction of text adventures. Don't believe me? Load up
Doom and play it for 15 minutes. Story? What story? Explore, sure.
Manipulate objects, no. Interact with other characters? Only to kill
them. Hopefully this is more a sign of the field's infancy than the
final evolution of video games. Well, anyways, what started as an
explanation of why I prefer plotted to non-plotted games has degenerated
into a sermon. I'll shut up now.
--
<~V~E~SOF~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CYBER~CHESS~~~~~~~~~~~~~NO~RELEASE~DATE~~~~~~|~~~~~~~>
< RTI T In the distant future, entire planets are won or lost | ~~\ >
< G O WAR E in a single battle. Vertigo's first strategy game. | /~\ | >
<_____DONT-HOLD-YOUR-BRE...@uclink.berkeley.edu__|_\__/__>
Andrew C. Plotkin
playing (longish) Jamieson Norrish@akeake. (2961)
> Now, Dave mentioned, I think, that you need an imposed storyline on
> the game. Perhaps, but ignoring the plotless simulation, I think that
> there are different ways of doing this. Many games go for linear
> plot-lines, where wandering around "just exploring" is ruled out. I
> think that it should be possible to have the plot not so entirely
> dependent on the character. Have stories (preferably more than one)
> built into other characters, locations, and objects. Then let the
> players do what they want, and discover their own plot.
I would love a game like that, but I'm not capable of writing it. I have
enough trouble coming up with a single plot and making it playable.
Sigh.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
David Baggett
Jamieson Norrish <ja...@akeake.its.vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
>But hold on. When I was playing the Zork trilogy, I rarely used save ...and
>would start a new game each time I played.
>
>Am I the only one who plays/played like this?
I know that if I made a game that didn't allow saving the game, players
would have my head on a platter. I don't know anyone who plays like this;
it seems to me that most people tend to save/restore or use undo liberally.
>Many games go for linear plot-lines, where wandering around "just
>exploring" is ruled out.
As an exercise, I tried coming up with a game concept that involved five
puzzles that could be solved in any order. My only requirement was that
there be a satisfying plot associated with each of the 32 possible solution
orders. I found this nearly impossible! So it is very difficult to
achieve this so-called "nonlinearity" in practice if you disallow "bad"
plots. (If you don't think it's hard, do it. I'd love to see such a
work.)
Furthermore, I think that most players *think* they want to be able to
solve the puzzles in any order, but only because they don't know what this
implies. It implies that you have no idea at any given time what puzzle
you should work on --- that you get no clues from the previous puzzle
you've solved or from your surroundings about which puzzle to solve next.
This is true when you first get underground in UU2, and is one of the
things many people have complained about --- that this circumstance makes
the game too hard. The basic fact is that giving the player more freedom
increases the size of the search space at any given time, which makes the
game correspondingly more different (moment to moment, at least).
>Have stories (preferably more than one) built into other characters,
>locations, and objects. Then let the players do what they want, and
>discover their own plot.
This sounds good at first, but the more I think about it, the more I'm
unsure what it really even means.
By "plot" I mean something you could draw a plot diagram for, like so:
CLIMAX
|
v
-----------
------------ \
----------- \
----------- \
-------- \
<-------------------- RISING ACTION-----------------><- DENOUEMENT ->
For the plot to be "good", it must (generally speaking) have these elements
-- it's got to build up to something; when that something happens, it has
to be compelling; and afterwards you need at least a brief "wrap-up". (Of
course, there are many effective plots that have instantaneous denouements,
but let's ignore that for the moment.)
Don't take this as criticism, but it is far from obvious given only a
comment like "build stories into the characters" how to apply the
traditional coneception of plot to interactive works. I think figuring out
how to do this is *the most important* currently tractable open problem in
interactive fiction.
I can think of a few basic ways, all of which have obvious problems:
1) Local interactivity. Imagine checkpoints on the plot diagram. The work
enforces the constraint that the reader never reaches a checkpoint until he
has reached all the previous checkpoints. Therefore the global integrity
of the plot is maintained while the reader is free to explore at will
between checkpoints. (Most text adventures do this by making puzzles be
the checkpoints.)
2) Plot tree. Instead of a single plot diagram, we have many. One way to
think of this is as a plot tree --- the reader begins at the root, and
encounters forks in the path. There are many different climaxes, and every
leaf (node with no children) in the tree is an "ending". For this to be
satisfying, the author must guarantee that every path from root to leaf is
a good plot (i.e., is of the form given above).
3) Plot graph. Same as a plot tree, except that plot paths may meet after
the beginning. You might imagine a work that has a single climax and
denouement, but has many different plots --- i.e., many different ways to
get to the single climax. E.g., no matter how you get there, you always
end up at the castle, where you have to kill the Bad Guy and save the
planet.
4) Absolute interactivity. Here, the player and program work together to
ensure that the player's path through the game generates a "good" plot
diagram. In other words, the work adapts to what the player's doing and
adjusts events so that "the plot so far" is good. This is AI-complete, and
therefore will not be feasible in the near future.
The problems:
1) Not satisfying to people who want interactive fiction to be *really*
interactive. Somehow seems to avoid interactivity more than it exploits
it.
2 & 3) Author must design an enormous number of plots.
4) AI-complete; probably not solvable within our lifetimes. (Even if you
believe that human-level intelligent machines can be constructed in the
near future, you have to realize that the human language and vision
faculties are suitably complicated and ad hoc as to prevent exact
duplication for a long time.)
Since I've found (and can argue at length!) that 2, 3, and 4 are not doable
in any reasonable amount of time, I advocate 1 while recognizing that it is
far from ideal.
Dave Baggett
__
d...@ai.mit.edu MIT AI Lab He who has the highest Kibo # when he dies wins.
ADVENTIONS: We make Kuul text adventures! Email for a catalog of releases.
David Baggett
wrote:
>The basic fact is that giving the player more freedom increases the size of
>the search space at any given time, which makes the game correspondingly
>more different (moment to moment, at least).
^^^^^^^^^
Oops; I meant "difficult". Sorry.
Felix Lee
>Furthermore, I think that most players *think* they want to be able to
>solve the puzzles in any order, but only because they don't know what this
>implies. It implies that you have no idea at any given time what puzzle
>you should work on --- that you get no clues from the previous puzzle
>you've solved or from your surroundings about which puzzle to solve next.
umm, if you really can solve the puzzles in any order, then it doesn't
matter which puzzle you work on next.
The game becomes hard when:
- you can see puzzles that are currently unsolvable, and
- you can't tell if a puzzle is unsolvable or not, or
- you don't notice a solvable puzzle because it's camouflaged.
I've been wondering about plot-modelling in puzzle-adventures.
Built-in hints, like the game wizard in UU2 or the demon/angel in
Curses, these are pretty limited. If the game had an internal model
of its own plot, then it could guarantee a useful hint. It could
answer the "what do I do now?" question by pointing you at a
particular puzzle you can solve next.
Jamieson Norrish:
>>Have stories (preferably more than one) built into other characters,
>>locations, and objects. Then let the players do what they want, and
>>discover their own plot.
David Baggett:
>This sounds good at first, but the more I think about it, the more I'm
>unsure what it really even means.
I think you have to throw away the traditional conception of plot.
Simulationist IF will probably be quite different from literary IF.
There's no particular reason a player's role in a simulation has to
have a "good" plot in a literary sense. It just has to have the
potential of having a good plot. With luck and careful design, the
player will be able to find his own story in it. Sometimes baseball
games or nethack games or RPG sessions have dramatic stories to them;
other times they just kill time.
[Start random dreaming.] Traditional fantasy setting. Player plays a
character in a castle in a small kingdom over the course of years.
The player starts as a stable-boy or a page or whatever and advances
in status by accomplishing tasks, by accumulating wealth, by knocking
on opportunities, whatever. Give the player a whole character-sheet
of skills and statistics.
The kingdom is modelled as a simulation. There may be a fixed
timeline for some events: a dragon menaces the countryside, the
princess is kidnapped, etc. Other events may depend on the kingdom's
current state: diplomatic relations break down and a war begins, etc.
Whatever the cause, each event has a scenario or three attached to it.
The player can enter a scenario if he meets the requirements for a
particular role, otherwise he just hears about it.
Modelling these scenarios is plenty hard enough, but you don't have to
worry about branching plot complexity.
The goal for the player is to become a knight, or marry the princess,
or assassinate a wizard, or whatever else is provided for.
There may be a coherent overarching story involving the kingdom, like
the return of the king or the breaking of the world. But the player
does not have to be at the center of this, not all the time.
Well, this is something I'd like to see, though I don't think anything
like this will materialize soon. It's a few steps beyond the
RPG-style computer games I've seen. Not just random monster
encounters; random plot encounters as well.
It's certainly not something I'm going to produce; I'm still stuck at
trying to design puzzle-adventures. (If I find the right key, then
I'll be able to move on to writing story-adventures. :)
--
Matthew Amster
David Baggett <d...@case.ai.mit.edu> wrote:
>As an exercise, I tried coming up with a game concept that involved five
>puzzles that could be solved in any order. My only requirement was that
>there be a satisfying plot associated with each of the 32 possible solution
>orders. I found this nearly impossible! So it is very difficult to
>achieve this so-called "nonlinearity" in practice if you disallow "bad"
>plots. (If you don't think it's hard, do it. I'd love to see such a
>work.)
How did you get 32 possible solutions from five puzzles? Last I checked,
5! = 120. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, however.
Matthew
David Baggett
Matthew Amster <mam...@pomona.claremont.edu> wrote:
>How did you get 32 possible solutions from five puzzles? Last I checked,
>5! = 120.
Good point; I deliberately left this unstated because I knew it would only
make an already potentially confusing post more difficult.
Since having a different plot for every possible solve order is clearly
silly (120 is a bit too many for even the most dedicated author) -- I
relaxed my requirements a bit, and decided to only guarantee that every
combination of solved and unsolved puzzles would give you a unique "current
game state". This worked well for my scenario, which was admittedly a bit
unusual. You were to be a time traveller who could instantly appear in any
of three different time periods. Your goal was to get The Artifact by
solving The Puzzles, which all involved doing something in the past that
altered The Artifact's history (or future, depending on which time were
in).
At the beginning of the game, you'd have a book describing The Artifact's
history, and this story would update as you solved puzzles. The key point
is that in all histories but the one where you've solved all the puzzles,
The Artifact is somehow lost or destroyed.
Each time you'd solve a puzzle, the history would adjust itself to explain
why The Artifact was still lost, until you'd solved the final puzzle, at
which point you could go and retrieve The Artifact. This is really quite
simple -- you'd just use the five solved/unsolved bits for the puzzles to
pick history 1 through 32. But this *would* allow you to solve the puzzles
in any order, and the would make sense for each such order. And if you
didn't know better, you'd think, once you'd completed the game, that you'd
solved the puzzles in the only proper order. (Of course, now I've ruined
that for you, haven't I?) :)
It's admittedly a bit different than having every solve order give you a
different plot, but it's certainly no *harder*, and I still found it
amazingly difficult to work out. (I eventually gave up, actually.)
Jamieson Norrish
(Felix Lee) writes:
Jamieson Norrish:
>>Have stories (preferably more than one) built into other
>>characters, locations, and objects. Then let the players do what
>>they want, and discover their own plot.
David Baggett:
>This sounds good at first, but the more I think about it, the more
>I'm unsure what it really even means.
["Random dreaming" deleted, but wonderful example.]
That, basically, sums up what I meant. That the plot isn't imposed on
the player to follow, but there is a plot or plots inherent in the
setting, in the NPCs, in actions, and the players is left to find them
and make of them what they will.
Jamie
Felix Lee
>[...] I relaxed my requirements a bit, and decided to only guarantee
>that every combination of solved and unsolved puzzles would give you a
>unique "current game state". This worked well for my scenario, which
>was admittedly a bit unusual. You were to be a time traveller who
>could instantly appear in any of three different time periods. Your
>goal was to get The Artifact by solving The Puzzles, which all
>involved doing something in the past that altered The Artifact's
>history (or future, depending on which time were in).
Interesting structure, but I can see why it's hard to work with.
Here's an attempt. The Artifact is the Wycott House, designed by the
architect John Dowlin long before he became famous, and now considered
to be one of his best works.
This is history "LCRAF", when everything goes right:
The Wycott House was constructed in 1952 by Delaney and Sons on a
pleasant hill overlooking Wycott College. The location was Louisa
Wycott's second choice; the house was originally intended to be
situated in a wooded area to the west, but Louisa changed her mind
for reasons unknown. Gossip at the time placed the blame on
various implausible plots involving Louisa's first husband,
Malcolm Russell.
In 1965 Louisa's sole heir, Andrew Wycott, abruptly left the
country, just a few steps ahead of angry creditors. The
belongings were auctioned off but the house itself was unsellable.
It remained abandoned until 1978, when the Birch Historical
Society, with a generous donation from Martha Dowlin, raised
enough funds to restore the house and turn the south wing into a
museum devoted to architect John Dowlin.
This is history "lcraf", when everything goes wrong:
The Wycott House was built outside of Belleville in 1953 by the
Colbert Construction Company. A continuous series of minor
problems culminated in winter of 1966, when the roof of the
southern wing collapsed. Before repairs could begin, a fire
finished the job of demolishing the wing. Arson was suspected,
but Andrew Wycott discouraged investigation into the matter. He
gamely remained in the half-ruined house until the Millstone River
flooded the entire valley in spring of 1967. An attempt was made
in 1978 to recover the derelict, but the project foundered from
lack of funds. In 1982, Malcolm Russell Jr razed the property to
build a shopping center.
There are five binary decision points:
Location - on a hill or in a valley
Contractor - good or bad construction
Rivalry - Malcolm Russell Jr will be involved or not
Arson - Andrew Wycott fled early or not
Funding - Martha Dowlin interested or not
I haven't written it all out, but I think there's a coherent history
involved with all 32 possibilities, and the house can end up destroyed
in 31 of them. Some of the differences are trivial, but it was hard
to make major changes to the house's history.
The problem isn't the house exactly; any major change tends to affect
future decision points, making it hard to keep a particular decision
point stable. Maybe it would be easier if there were greater
separation between time of intervention and time of consequence.
Like, five decision points in ancient Mesopotamia that affect today's
stock market. Silly example, but the larger the separation, the
longer the causal chain, the harder it is to make sensible puzzles.
I'm not really sure what sort of puzzles could be attached to the
decision points I chose for Wycott House. It was hard enough trying
to get it to work at all. Fun, though.
--
Paul Munn
[...]
: I've been wondering about plot-modelling in puzzle-adventures.
: Built-in hints, like the game wizard in UU2 or the demon/angel in
: Curses, these are pretty limited. If the game had an internal model
: of its own plot, then it could guarantee a useful hint. It could
: answer the "what do I do now?" question by pointing you at a
: particular puzzle you can solve next.
For my Senior Project as an undergraduate, I wrote an add-on module for
TADS that allows plot modeling much the same way as the adaptive hint
module on ftp.gmd.de does: by using plot diagrams in the form of
Directed Acyclic Graphs or DAGs.
I haven't uploaded the package yet because whenever I look at it, there
are always little improvements I can make. It's not the best code
around, and it could be written more compactly (but then it wouldn't be
as clear as it is now). If and when I do upload it to gmd, my paper will
accompany it so you can know exactly what it's all about.
The system is run by a daemon that keeps track of a "frontier" of nodes.
Each node has a number of child nodes, and the path to each child node
can only be traveled if the user-defined function returns a TRUE. A node
can only be traveled to if ALL of its predecessor nodes are satisfied.
The inspiration for this design, and plot modelling in general, came from
a paper from Carnegie Mellon's OZ Project researchers.
The plot diagramming method I used (I later found out) is being used by
others in TADS games already. This format makes adding hints that change
with the game state not too hard to do. I think Mr. Baggett is using a
plot-dag like system.
I can say that just in writing the simple nonsense adventure that I used
to test it, the DAG plot modelling method forces you to be more
systematic in your plot layout. You have to know what your game is going
to do and when before you code it. In this way, perhaps plot modelling
is a bigger boon to game development than it seems.
Yours,
Paul Munn
pm...@westnet.com
--
--------------------------
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
pm...@westnet.com // Paul Munn
modem 914-967-7802 = low cost Lower Westchester, NY net access = Westnet.Com
David Baggett
Paul Munn <pm...@westnet.westnet.com> wrote:
>I haven't uploaded the package yet because whenever I look at it, there
>are always little improvements I can make. It's not the best code
>around, and it could be written more compactly (but then it wouldn't be
>as clear as it is now).
Phooey! Upload it anyway! :)
No code is as good as it could be. Anything complicated is going to come
out messy the first time you write it...
>The inspiration for this design, and plot modelling in general, came from
>a paper from Carnegie Mellon's OZ Project researchers.
What does the plot modelling module you descibe actually *do* for you? I
(re-?)invented the plot-DAG model just for the task Felix descibed -- an
adaptive hint system. It sounds like what you've done is more complex.
Could you describe it in a bit more detail, or upload your paper to
ftp.gmd.de?
>The plot diagramming method I used (I later found out) is being used by
>others in TADS games already.
It's an obvious enough idea, but I think that _Legend_ is the first game to
implement it. Does anyone know of any other games that do this? (I know
about David Allen's code on ftp.gmd.de; that was derived from my initial
description of how the hint system in _Legend_ works, and I don't think
anyone's yet used it in a new game. I was sort of hoping to "debut" this
techique -- for hints, at least -- in _Legend_, actually...)
As an aside, the hint system caused most of _Legend_'s well-known delays.
The way I wrote it originally was simple and elegant, and used TADS objects
for the nodes in the DAG (like David's code does). Unfortunately, this
gave me a game with zillions of objects, and the DOS run-time was simply
unable to handle it. With the advent of TADS 2.2 this problem may go away,
because 2.2 under DOS makes better use of memory in 286+ machines.
In any case, the sort of interesting thing is that I lost the original code
to a drive crash long ago, and am left with only the hideous (and I do mean
HIDEOUS) work-around code that is based on having humongous, unreadable
lists of gunk.
Fortunately, David's code (adhint.zip) is much closer to my original code
than the code that I'm actually using now. Anyone interested in this idea
(using a DAG to represent puzzles or plots) should grab Allen's
if-archive/programming/tads/examples/adhint.zip file from ftp.gmd.de and
read adhint.doc. It clearly explains the theory and practice.
David Baggett
Felix Lee <fl...@cse.psu.edu> wrote:
>I haven't written it all out, but I think there's a coherent history
>involved with all 32 possibilities, and the house can end up destroyed
>in 31 of them.
Nicely done! I was locked into thinking of said artifact as a jeweled
scabbard or some such thing.
>Some of the differences are trivial, but it was hard to make major changes
>to the house's history.
The problem you're describing seems similar (perhaps identical) to one I
had with the whole idea --- that it's hard to make a game where you can do
a few things that affect the future so dramatically, but that none of the
other things you can do have dramatic effects.
For example, you can go back in time and convince the builder to build the
house in another place by doing something-or-other. This changes the
future, as we'd expect. However, what happens if you go back in time and
shoot the guy? Shouldn't that affect the future? It's seems harder to
weasel out of these things in a game where you're *supposed* to do things
that affect the future than it is in a traditional game, where your actions
won't generally have such drastic effects.
More to the point, in the time travel game, a *trivial* action may have an
incredible impact on the future. One puzzle idea I thought of was that
you'd plant a tree in a particular place to divert the course of a river
away from one town and towards another. Hence some boat accident wouldn't
occur (ship crashing into dock), and the boat wouldn't sink, and the
artifact wouldn't be lost. (Or perhaps the accident crucially depended on
something about the "bad" town that was absent from the "good" town.)
But what happens if you plant the tree somewhere else? Gee, it seems like
a lot of stuff might happen --- that we've magnified the job of making "all
reasonable things work" a thousand-fold, and that we've rendered ourselves
unable to get out of it just by saying "Now why would you want to waste
your time doing *that*?" everywhere.
Jamieson Norrish
Baggett) writes:
Furthermore, I think that most players *think* they want to be able
to solve the puzzles in any order, but only because they don't know
what this implies. It implies that you have no idea at any given
time what puzzle you should work on --- that you get no clues from
the previous puzzle you've solved or from your surroundings about
which puzzle to solve next.
No. Just because you are able to solve some puzzles in any order (it
is easy to add "checkpoints" by having external circumstances change
depending on what the character has done), does not mean that the
player will do them in any order, nor that there are no hints, if you
like, as to what can be done next. For example, a character might
wander around, find some "puzzles", ignore them, find another, do it,
be informed about another "puzzle" which continues from the one just
completed, but instead choose to go back and do one of the ones
ignored earlier. Plots are present, they may interact to some
extent (solving one of the earlier puzzles might have changed the
outcome of the later puzzle), and the player can choose to follow
one 'line of enquiry' or go off on another.
And the beginning of UU2 that you mentioned sounds slightly
interesting - I like the idea of wandering around, coming across a few
odds and ends, and then finding something which intrigues me enough to
follow it up.
I write:
>Have stories (preferably more than one) built into other
>characters, locations, and objects. Then let the players do what
>they want, and discover their own plot.
This sounds good at first, but the more I think about it, the more
I'm unsure what it really even means.
Okay, what I mean is that there are stories in the game. Like, this
NPC wants to buy a horse and travel to see her uncle in a far-off
town, while that old shack is haunted by the ghost of the dog who used
to live in it. These are, if you like, "puzzles" (although they can
involve numerous "puzzles" themselves), but are not necessary for
"solving" the game. They have an existence independent of the
character, and some stories may well 'sort themselves out' without the
character ever finding out about them. Or the character could ignore
them.
Does that make it clearer what I mean? The character can wander
around, doing something here, something there, and getting their own
story built out of what is done.
For the plot to be "good", it must (generally speaking) have these
elements -- it's got to build up to something; when that something
happens, it has to be compelling; and afterwards you need at least
a brief "wrap-up".
This is quite possible both for the little stories in a game, and also
the overall story that is created by what the character does and
experiences.
2) Plot tree. Instead of a single plot diagram, we have many. One
way to think of this is as a plot tree --- the reader begins at the
root, and encounters forks in the path. There are many different
climaxes, and every leaf (node with no children) in the tree is an
"ending". For this to be satisfying, the author must guarantee that
every path from root to leaf is a good plot (i.e., is of the form
given above).
I think that it should be possible to do something along these lines
without having to sit down and generate an exlicit plot for each path.
Nor do I think doing this would automatically mean that some outcomes
might be unsatisfying. Also, since there might be many plot trees in a
given game (rather like your option 3, perhaps), a leaf may be an
ending, but not *the* ending.
Say, for example, there was a situation rather like in Zork II, where
there was a object (the brick) which can be used basically anywhere,
but is particularly designed for one puzzle (getting the card and
crown). Now, if we change it so that the puzzle does not have only
this one solution, or that the completion of the puzzle is not vital
to the enjoyment of the game, the object can be used elsewhere without
ruining the game. This opens up the possibility of using it in other
contexts to useful purpose - I was convinced that I could solve the
dragon puzzle by exploding the brick behind the dragon so that it
couldn't retrace its steps, and that I could therefore sneak around
and rescue the princess that way. Alas, it can't be done, but it would
have been easy enough to add that in.
That's a very simply example of course, but I hope it serves to
illustrate both that stories might spring from events (I imagine
someone might be pissed off at a lunatic blowing up their gazebo, for
example), and also that plots don't need to be totally designed
beforehand.
4) Absolute interactivity.
Well, of course this is the goal. :)
Jamie
Jason Noble
>As an exercise, I tried coming up with a game concept that involved five
^^^^
>puzzles that could be solved in any order. My only requirement was that
^^^^^^^
>there be a satisfying plot associated with each of the 32 possible solution
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>orders. I found this nearly impossible! So it is very difficult to
^^^^^^
>achieve this so-called "nonlinearity" in practice if you disallow "bad"
>plots.
I hate to be a pedantic bastard, Dave, but shouldn't that be 5! = 120
possible solution orders? (Which only makes the problem more intractable, I
know).
Having said that, I will confess that I *want* to disagree with Dave. I
want to write and play wonderful interactive fiction with boundless plot
possibilities. However, I fear he may be right. When you get down to
actually coding your ideas, it's pretty hard to make something that's 100%
interactive and 100% interesting at the same time.
Yours pessimistically,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Noble | jno...@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au
National Centre for HIV Social Research | jno...@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia | ph. (61 2) 850 8667
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Amster
Jason Noble <jno...@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au> wrote:
>I hate to be a pedantic bastard, Dave, but shouldn't that be 5! = 120
>possible solution orders? (Which only makes the problem more intractable, I
>know).
I brought this up as well, and David explained on this group what I should
have realized immediately: that the order of puzzles only mattered in
terms of *which* puzzles have already been done. That is, it's not P(5,5),
but a five-bit field, or 2^5, which is 32.
Matthew
Felix Lee
>Nicely done! I was locked into thinking of said artifact as a jeweled
>scabbard or some such thing.
yah, I spent a little while on that track too, but I couldn't see how
a future puzzle would remain the same if the object kept moving
around. Though now that I've looked at why the Wycott House scenario
works, I think I might be able to make those work too.
>The problem you're describing seems similar (perhaps identical) to one I
>had with the whole idea --- that it's hard to make a game where you can do
>a few things that affect the future so dramatically, but that none of the
>other things you can do have dramatic effects.
I'm not sure this is really a problem. If you're intervening at a
particular time-travel point, it's because you've traced a causal
chain and identified a particular critical change you can make. Why
does it matter if it's trivial or not?
If you make other trivial changes, then you might affect the history
of other objects and other people, but that's not relevant to this
story, and it can be waved away in the same way that you can wave away
questions about how all this cheez got there, and what happens to it
after you finish the game.
For major changes: if they're not in the scope of the planned puzzles,
then they don't have to result in one of the 32 histories. There can
be a few dead-end offshoots: the house was never built, it was torn
down soon after, etc. Not much different from other types of
dead-ends in games.
It only gets tricky if you're allowed to intersect your own timeline,
and that's easy enough to disallow.
--
Felix Lee
>One puzzle idea I thought of was that
>you'd plant a tree in a particular place to divert the course of a river
>away from one town and towards another. Hence some boat accident wouldn't
>occur (ship crashing into dock), and the boat wouldn't sink, and the
>artifact wouldn't be lost. (Or perhaps the accident crucially depended on
>something about the "bad" town that was absent from the "good" town.)
>But what happens if you plant the tree somewhere else?
Stuff like this can be handled if you design it so that there are just
two critical states: In the bad history, the tree was planted at X-
and caused event P-. In the good history, the tree gets planted at X+
and causes event P+. If you plant the tree anywhere else, the result
is a neutral event P0 which doesn't accomplish your goal.
It's a three-way decision, not just a two-way one. But it shouldn't
be much harder to create.
--
S.P.Harvey
: Does that make it clearer what I mean? The character can wander
: around, doing something here, something there, and getting their own
: story built out of what is done.
True, and an excellent point made and well-taken. However, we cannot (as
designers) allow so much openness in our games that the player is able to
form their own conclusions as to what is going on. The players must be
kept on-course, as unobtrusively as possible, in order to fully "play the
plot", if you would.
To me, part of the enjoyment of playing IF are the games that have the
following question and answer set as an integral part of the design:
Q: What am I supposed to do in this game?
A: You're supposed to discover what you're supposed to do.
This seems a good method of immersing the player in the world you're
creating. The player will find bits and pieces of the plot scattered
about in different places - solving puzzles, talking to NPC's, examining
objects - and slowly but surely, all the bits will fall into place and
the jigsaw puzzle finally shows a complete picture.
At least that's what I'm striving for in the game I'm working on. I'm
thrusting the player into a mildly interesting situation which will
rapidly unravel itself, leaving the player to weave it back together. I
already have the plot worked out, now I'm placing puzzles to slowly
release that information to the player. Player solves an easy puzzle,
they get a tiny tidbit of the plot. Solve a more challenging puzzle, get
a whole additional chapter.
Am I still making sense?
Scott
--
----------------------| S.P. Harvey |--------------------------
"True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am;
but why _will_ you say that I am mad?" - Poe, 'The Tell-Tale Heart'
----------------------| sha...@interaccess.com |--------------------------
Mark B Sachs
>To me, part of the enjoyment of playing IF are the games that have the
>following question and answer set as an integral part of the design:
>
>Q: What am I supposed to do in this game?
>A: You're supposed to discover what you're supposed to do.
>
>This seems a good method of immersing the player in the world you're
>creating. The player will find bits and pieces of the plot scattered
>about in different places - solving puzzles, talking to NPC's, examining
>objects - and slowly but surely, all the bits will fall into place and
>the jigsaw puzzle finally shows a complete picture.
In theory, I highly approve of this design. However...
Here's the reason why I haven't been able to get into Curses, despite its
excellence of design. I play the game and find myself wandering an
attic, looking for a tourist map. But as I wander along, all these
strange and bizarre things intrude -- interesting things, certainly,
but I have no idea what they have to do with any larger context, and
once I'm done with them I'm back in the attic no wiser than when I
started. I had no clue what I was really supposed to do, and so just
eventually gave up.
Hmm, how to put this more concretely?
Okay: _I have a problem with a game where I'm faced with puzzles to solve
and no particular reason in the game why one should bother solving
them._ For example, in Lurking Horror, you are a student trying to
complete a term paper. Sure, all kinds of weird and freaky things
are happening to you, C'thulhoid monsters are everywhere, but -- so what?
Why is it _my_ problem? Why should I risk my life over it? One puzzle involves
bashing open a brick wall using an elevator and a rope. I'm sorry, but if in
real life I'm wandering through a campus building and see a brick
wall, my first thought is not "Ooh, how am I going to smash that
wall open so I can see what's behind it?" I never finished Lurking
Horror either, needless to say.
The reason to go around and solve puzzles doesn't have to be an
elaborate or literary one; just a self-evident one, a reason that,
if you were _really_ in this situation, you would personally find
convincing. For example, in Planetfall, you're stranded in a complex
on an unknown planet. Naturally, in _this_ context, finding out how
the place works and then getting it running again would be foremost
on your mind. In Enchanter, you're supposed to break into a castle
and defeat a bad guy, so again, solving puzzles is natural. In
Unnkulia II, you're a professional adventurer whose easy life on the
talk-show circuit is going to dry up if you don't get off your duff
and have another adventure. Given the motivation, I perservered
at _these_ games until I completed them.
So IMHO: that's what a game needs -- _motive_. Not necessarily
a big or a fancy one, just enough of one to get the player off
his or her duff and get moving.
(Am I the only person who thinks this way -- who needs direction to
this degree?)
-Mark
russell wallace
Agreement.
One of the problems that I have with a lot of adventure games is the
character they require you to play. In particular, very many adventure
games seem to start off with 'You are Mr. Nobody who knows nothing and
has no skills applicable to the weird environment in which you are going
to find yourself'. (The Unnkulia games as far as I can remember started
off the introduction with actual insults.) Apart from being both
irritating and disheartening, this tends to create the above problem: if
I'm Mr. Nobody, why am *I* expected to solve all these problems? (Not
to say this approach doesn't sometimes work well - 'The Hitch-Hiker's
Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Trinity' being examples - but a lot of the
time it doesn't.)
I preferred, as you mentioned, the 'Enchanter' approach, in which there
is a valid reason why your character should be attempting to solve the
problems (and prefer still more the RPG approach in which you are
allowed to start off by creating your own character).
--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwal...@vax1.tcd.ie
Phil Goetz
S.P.Harvey <sha...@interaccess.com> wrote:
>To me, part of the enjoyment of playing IF are the games that have the
>following question and answer set as an integral part of the design:
>
>Q: What am I supposed to do in this game?
>A: You're supposed to discover what you're supposed to do.
>
>This seems a good method of immersing the player in the world you're
>creating. The player will find bits and pieces of the plot scattered
>about in different places - solving puzzles, talking to NPC's, examining
>objects - and slowly but surely, all the bits will fall into place and
>the jigsaw puzzle finally shows a complete picture.
I will never, ever try to do this again. That was what was supposed
to happen in _Inmate_ -- the player has all sorts of gradual revelations
of increasing horror before he can figure out who he is, why he's there,
and what is going on (all things he had known before, but forgotten).
The result was that everyone who ever played the game lost interest
and gave up before they figured out what was going on.
Phil
Felix Lee
>I will never, ever try to do this again. That was what was supposed
>to happen in _Inmate_ -- the player has all sorts of gradual revelations
>of increasing horror before he can figure out who he is, why he's there,
>and what is going on (all things he had known before, but forgotten).
>The result was that everyone who ever played the game lost interest
>and gave up before they figured out what was going on.
I think I agree. It's hard to control the pace of this type of slow
revelation. Unless the player has other factors to keep him playing,
then it's likely to be just frustrating.
--
Felix Lee
>I haven't uploaded the package yet because whenever I look at it, there
>are always little improvements I can make. It's not the best code
>around, and it could be written more compactly (but then it wouldn't be
>as clear as it is now).
David Baggett:
>Phooey! Upload it anyway! :)
ditto. Perfection's overrated.
more thoughts on plot-modelling. Structured design and an adaptive
hint system are just two applications of plot-modelling. I've also
been wondering about using it in narrating the story to the player.
at the moment, narrative is often written into location descriptions.
This tends to be annoyingly repetitive and often obscures features of
the location. If you're just moving around or trying to solve a
puzzle, it gets in the way.
What I'd like to do is separate the narration from the description,
probably by sticking them in different windows. The narrative should
never repeat, and it's better if it resembles linear story text.
Probably better. I'll have to see, if I get that far..
--
S.P.Harvey
: I will never, ever try to do this again. That was what was supposed
: to happen in _Inmate_ -- the player has all sorts of gradual revelations
: of increasing horror before he can figure out who he is, why he's there,
: and what is going on (all things he had known before, but forgotten).
: The result was that everyone who ever played the game lost interest
: and gave up before they figured out what was going on.
Well, to defend my point a bit, I wasn't planning to drop a player in the
middle of nowhere and make them figure out everything. Well, maybe
someday I'll do an IF-port of Kafka's "The Trial" to take this to an extreme.
My game sets up the player as a very specific "person", with a very vague
"goal". The goal will become more and more concrete and precise as the
game progresses, while the player tries to reach that goal. This is
rather hard to explain without an example.
The game begins. You've been assigned to find out what happened on the
secret space base. At this point, we don't know what happened or how to
fix it. We've got to find out. You arrive at the eerily-silent base and
begin to explore. Your first order of business will be finding your way
around, then figuring out what happened. After several incidents which
lead you closer to the truth (which has been becoming slowly clearer),
you manage to track down the evil aliens which have popped in from a
nearby dimension no one even knew about and decided the space station
will make a nice doorstop.
The trick is to make the goal far-removed yet still intimately linked
with the opening of the game. This way, the goal gets discovered as the
game goes on. The real trick is to make sure none of the puzzles are
gratutious, they must all add small fragments to the storyline, or the
entire effect is ruined. Tricky, but done well, could be great.
David Baggett
>umm, if you really can solve the puzzles in any order, then it doesn't
>matter which puzzle you work on next.
Yeah, yeah; I knew someone would say that. :)
If you can solve the puzzles *absolutely* in any order, yes, you're right.
In general, I don't think it's possible to write a nontrivial game like
this, so we're left with a situation where many of the puzzles can be
solved in any order. Since some still have to be solved in a particular
order, you get the problem.
>The game becomes hard when:
>- you can see puzzles that are currently unsolvable, and
> - you can't tell if a puzzle is unsolvable or not, or
> - you don't notice a solvable puzzle because it's camouflaged.
Right on.
>If the game had an internal model of its own plot, then it could guarantee
>a useful hint.
Right again; I think it works out well in practice. You'll be able to try
it out for yourself soon, when the _Legend_ demo is out. Or you could try
it *right now* by grabbing David Allen's hintified Ditch Day Drifter from
ftp.gmd.de. (Look for if-archive/programming/tads/examples/adhint.zip)
>I think you have to throw away the traditional conception of plot.
Milan Kundera touches on this with regard to music in _The Book of Laughter
and Forgetting_. In essence, he expresses utter amazement at the fact that
one generation of composers could be so arrogant as to assume that the
whole of music before them was worthless, and that to do anything new and
interesting they had to start over from scratch. (In fact the motivations
of the serialists were not so plain, but he makes the point well.)
If you are going to throw out thousands of years of literary tradition, you
had better offer something damn good to replace it. Simulationist IF shows
absolutely no signs of having the potential to come within a stone's throw
of even _The Wizard of Oz_ in artistic merit.
This may change; I'd be a fool to say it couldn't. But I'd argue that the
technology required is well beyond our reach, so worrying about it now is
kind of silly.
>Simulationist IF will probably be quite different from literary IF.
Yes, it will suck. :) (Hey, you baited me!)
>There's no particular reason a player's role in a simulation has to
>have a "good" plot in a literary sense. It just has to have the
>potential of having a good plot.
I doubt I'll ever agree with this. I don't think story- or novel-length
fiction can have any real merit without plotting. But that's just me...
>There may be a coherent overarching story involving the kingdom, like
>the return of the king or the breaking of the world. But the player
>does not have to be at the center of this, not all the time.
In my view, it comes down to this: either humans design the plot, and the
plot must be followed by the player, or a machine designs the plot and the
plot is lousy (I predict this will be true for our lifetimes at least), or
the player "finds his own plot" -- i.e., there is no predetermined plot,
and the player does whatever he darn well feels like -- killing his evil
uncle who murdered his father, or, hell, just blowing it off and eating
lots of fully-simulated donuts. Again, lousy plot -- most people are
simply incapable of inventing an exciting plot on the fly, and those who
*could* do it probably wouldn't enjoy it like they'd enjoy going along with
another author's carefully-crafted plot. (It's hard work!). It's much like
the difference between writing a text adventure and playing the same text
adventure. I don't like playing my own games -- why bother? I already
know all there is to know about them. (Like Hindemith once said: "Did you
think you could play it better than I imagined it in my head?!")
I'm not saying a simulation wouldn't be "fun". That's another argument.
I'm saying a simulation can't support real plot (sort of by definition,
actually), and hence that it can't be "good literature".
There may be something that simulationist IF can be that is not "good
literature" but is nonetheless interesting from an artistic standpoint.
But I've seen no evidence of it, and can't personally imagine it.
>It's certainly not something I'm going to produce; I'm still stuck at
>trying to design puzzle-adventures.
My advice: don't worry about making something fun; worry about making
something that says something that you care about. If you care about it,
chances are someone else will too, and you will make a connection. That is
what art is all about. Art is communication so effective it's a thing of
wonder.
(IMHO, as always.)
David Baggett
Felix Lee <fl...@cse.psu.edu> wrote:
>But that's not really the point. Simcity isn't a work of literary/artistic
>merit, and it can't be evaluated on those terms.
What terms can I evaluate it on, then? It's fun ... for a while. But does
it offer anything but fleeting gratification? Plenty of things are like
Simcity -- they're enjoyed and forgotten. It sounds like you're taking the
"I'm not talking about art" way out. OK. But I don't see why anyone
should take simulationist IF seriously if it's just going to produce fadish
diversions.
As much as I like video games, I can't think of a single one that people
will be talking about in a hundred years. Is this a problem with the
medium? Is the video game form one that cannot sustain really
thought-provoking works?
Think about Rubik's Cube. It's certainly a challenging puzzle, and fun,
and it was a fabulously successful product in its day. But does it
communicate anything to future generations?
Of course things do not have to be "art" to be worthwhile. But it is
important to get straight what has artistic potential and what doesn't,
because in the long run works of art are much more important to the society
than things like Rubik's Cube.
Felix Lee
>What terms can I evaluate it on, then? It's fun ... for a while. But does
>it offer anything but fleeting gratification? Plenty of things are like
>Simcity -- they're enjoyed and forgotten. It sounds like you're taking the
>"I'm not talking about art" way out. OK. But I don't see why anyone
>should take simulationist IF seriously if it's just going to produce fadish
>diversions.
Not every novel is a work of art either. Most books are faddish
diversions. :)
I don't really know if it's possible to consider a simulation a work
of art. It seems to me more like a medium for doing art than art
itself. Perhaps it's just too soon to tell; the technology is just a
couple decades old, and not particularly easy to work with.
>As much as I like video games, I can't think of a single one that people
>will be talking about in a hundred years. Is this a problem with the
>medium? Is the video game form one that cannot sustain really
>thought-provoking works?
Probably. Anything that has a substantial realtime component that
involves hand-eye coordination becomes sport, not art. People don't
worry much about the deep meaning of tennis or football.
>Think about Rubik's Cube. It's certainly a challenging puzzle, and fun,
>and it was a fabulously successful product in its day. But does it
>communicate anything to future generations?
How about group theory? Rubik's Cube is a standard example of a
simple but interesting group. It's also an elegant physical design.
It's science and technology, and art in the sense of design.
actually, design is a good point. I'm an occasional fan of design in
general, and I think you can argue that Rubik's Cube occupies a place
in design similar to, say, one of Bach's two-part inventions in music.
>Of course things do not have to be "art" to be worthwhile. But it is
>important to get straight what has artistic potential and what doesn't,
>because in the long run works of art are much more important to the society
>than things like Rubik's Cube.
heh. this could become a long argument. but I'm not the one to argue
this, because I'm basically agnostic about the role and importance of
art. I know what I like when I see it. :)
(but offhand, much as I admire James Joyce, I'd say that television is
more important to society in the long run.)
--
Felix Lee
>I mean, consider the paradigm
>here -- how many times do you want to type
> >Shovel the horse manure
well, heroic fantasy doesn't dwell much on mucking out stalls either.
clearly that's not what the game is going to be about, any more than
you spend all your time typing:
>lift left leg
Okay.
>move left leg forward
Okay.
>drop left leg
You take a step. You need to breathe soon.
>breathe
The cool air is refreshing.
What the game *will* be about, well, I don't know. Maybe it'll be a
little like nethack. Maybe it'll be based on interaction with NPCs.
Maybe in a few years I'll take a stab at it.
--
S.P.Harvey
: Think about Rubik's Cube. It's certainly a challenging puzzle, and fun,
: and it was a fabulously successful product in its day. But does it
: communicate anything to future generations?
Here's a spin:
Think about the original mainframe Adventure. It's certainly full of
challenging puzzles and it was a fabulously successful product in its
day. But does it communicate anything to future generations?
I think it does. And I think Rubik's Cube communicates many things.
Rubik's Cube has evolved into a sort of 20th-century mythologic puzzle.
We all know the story of the twisted mathematicin Erno Rubik and his
brain-wrenching creations which have allowed untold millions to exercise
their minds.
Put simply, folks, IF is an entertainment form, not something you're
going to win a Nobel prize in literature for. I agree strongly with the
concept of making games with a definite plot, theme, and setting, just
like any other work of fiction. However, there must be some
entertainment value inherent in the product; in this case, it's
brain-teasers and puzzles. In "serious" literature, the entertainment
value is experiencing the story and interpreting the author's
intentions. IF can combine both. If we lean too far to one side, it'll
get tedious.
If I was interested in writing the Great American Novel, I'd do so. But
I'm not. I'm interested in writing a game of exploration and puzzle
solving with a really good plot stringing it all together in coherent
fashion.
Scott
--
----------------------| S.P. Harvey |--------------------------
"Most of the world was mad. And the part that wasn't mad was angry.
And the part that wasn't mad or angry was just stupid.
I had no chance. I had no choice." - Charles Bukowski, 'Pulp'
----------------------| sha...@interaccess.com |--------------------------
S.P.Harvey
: Maybe simulation-IF will necessarily be literary, but I don't see any
: particular reason for this to be true. (other than the way it relies
: on words, that is. :)
: --
Okay, but here's a point. All works of fiction (save the truly
experimental) involve some nature of conflict. We all remember these
from sixth-grade English lessons:
Man vs. man
Man vs. environment
Man vs. self
In IF, the player is dropped into the body of "man" who has to then
overcome the conflict brought on by the story. In straight fiction, the
author manipulates the character in order to overcome the obstacles.
Extrapolating this concept: Simulation-IF cannot work; There's no place
for real interaction. Or if there is, it's no longer a straight
simulation. It's a typical "Adventure" game with all the puzzles taken
out and nothing but locations and non-functional objects.
May as well connect to an E-Text gopher server and read online fiction,
simply hitting "return for next page".
Personally, I'm not too keen on the concept of spending my time with the
electronic equivalent of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" paperback, no
matter how good the story is.
Scott
--
----------------------| S.P. Harvey |--------------------------
"I do not know which to prefer, / The beauty of inflections /
Or the beauty of innuendoes / The blackbird whistling /
Or just after." - Wallace Stevens
----------------------| sha...@interaccess.com |--------------------------
Felix Lee
> Since some still have to be solved in a particular
>order, you get the problem.
but if it's blatently obvious which puzzles are unsolvable, then you
don't have that problem.
>If you are going to throw out thousands of years of literary tradition, you
>had better offer something damn good to replace it. Simulationist IF shows
>absolutely no signs of having the potential to come within a stone's throw
>of even _The Wizard of Oz_ in artistic merit.
heh. right. But that's not really the point. Simcity isn't a work
of literary/artistic merit, and it can't be evaluated on those terms.
There seems to be three different modes of IF gameplay: puzzle-IF,
story-IF, and simulation-IF. If you want to push the boundaries of
IF, pick one direction and run with it. I think the directions have
to diverge. No one game is likely to be the ultimate everything.
(I'm interested in all three directions, so my point-of-view is
sometimes a little schizophrenic. :)
Maybe you can argue that simulation-IF shouldn't be called interactive
*fiction*, but by that argument I don't think I'd call Zork IF either.
--
Felix Lee
>Extrapolating this concept: Simulation-IF cannot work; There's no place
>for real interaction. Or if there is, it's no longer a straight
>simulation. It's a typical "Adventure" game with all the puzzles taken
>out and nothing but locations and non-functional objects.
umm, you've lost me. I don't see how you reached this conclusion.
Doesn't nethack work? doesn't it have conflict and functional
objects?
I've just started playing Enhanced, and so far I'd categorize it as
puzzle/simulation/story, in that order. The Multidimensional Thief is
also puzzle/simulation/story. With a little work, I think it wouldn't
be too hard to make a text game that's simulation/puzzle/story.
simulation/story/puzzle or story/simulation/puzzle is something else
though. I don't know what these would look like.
hmm.. this a/b/c categorization doesn't really work; it's not very
accurate. oh well. I think it illustrates a point.
I've probably exhausted my soapbox on this topic...
--
S.P.Harvey
: <pained look> All right. I give up. For over a week I've followed this
: thread, dropped comments supporting plot, etc. Now, I fear that someone
: is going to have to explain to me, as if to a little child, what the
: difference between simulation and current IF is. The lack of puzzles?
: Doesn't sound like it. The lack of traditional puzzles, maybe, but all
: puzzles? The laack of any non-obvious interaction in the world setting,
: is that what you mean? Please, help a senile old teenager out here.
Gerry:
I won't explain it to you as if you were a little child, because you
aren't. I'll explain it to you like a rational adult, which you are! :)
Anyway, this isn't the definitive explanation, just my
interpretation. <disclaimer mode:OFF>
What I understood as the debate between Sims and IF was more an analogy
to the earlier comparison: "Schindler's List" as SIF (Simulation
Interactive Fiction, tm).
To me the term "simulation" implies doing everything involved in keeping
a complex system functioning: fly an airplane, build a city, etc. The
challenges in this type of setting are strictly functional challenges,
there are not artificial "puzzle" constructs in the system.
Thinking more about this now, after phrasing the above paragraph the way
I did... (sound FX of neurons firing, light bulb going on)
We may actually be on to something here. Gerry, sorry if I'm going to
blur the lines yet again.
I suppose you could call a work of IF a simulation if all the puzzles in
the game are >strictly< out-growths of the world the game is set in.
That would mean discovering the use of objects, finding keys, etc. If
the game is not magical, no mystical puzzles. No "abstract" puzzles.
If we want to extrapolate (why not?), I suppose we could fail the
original Zork triology (in places) on this rule. Zork was essential a
string of non-related puzzles in a common setting. Don't misunderstand
me, Zork was (and is) a true milestone and I love and respect it.
Again, the line blurs whenever we cross the road into a "speculative"
environment, when there is no definitive set of rules on how things behave.
I admit I'm floundering, but I'm still trying!
Gerry Kevin Wilson
S.P.Harvey <sha...@interaccess.com> wrote:
>Gerry:
>I won't explain it to you as if you were a little child, because you
>aren't. I'll explain it to you like a rational adult, which you are! :)
Nice that someones thinks so, anyways.
>Anyway, this isn't the definitive explanation, just my
>interpretation. <disclaimer mode:OFF>
#insert "disclaim.h"
>What I understood as the debate between Sims and IF was more an analogy
>to the earlier comparison: "Schindler's List" as SIF (Simulation
>Interactive Fiction, tm).
A Schindler's List Sim? I'd have to say it can't be done without
stripping away the good bits of the movie. The true gemstone in the
movie was Schindler, and the changes he undergoes. "Why did I keep the
car? I could've saved 10 lives!" You could set up a simulation to let
someone just watch what goes on and take no part, but then you've created
a book with a moveable camera, so to speak. Interesting the first time.
>To me the term "simulation" implies doing everything involved in keeping
>a complex system functioning: fly an airplane, build a city, etc. The
>challenges in this type of setting are strictly functional challenges,
>there are not artificial "puzzle" constructs in the system.
Hmm, this describes an ordinary old well-written piece of IF to me. I'm
not saying that there have been many, but they exist, all the same.
>Thinking more about this now, after phrasing the above paragraph the way
>I did... (sound FX of neurons firing, light bulb going on)
>
>We may actually be on to something here. Gerry, sorry if I'm going to
>blur the lines yet again.
That's ok. I must confess that my post was more an attempt to get folks
thinking "What exactly are we arguing about here?" This argument has
cropped up 3 or 4 times since I've been reading r.a.i-f, and it never
reaches a satisfactory conclusion. I think a lot of it is that we are
sitting in the dark, shouting at one another, without bothering to wait
for the neurons to fire. So a simulation is IF w/o artificial puzzles.
This does not disallow puzzles that are a side effect of the
environment. So, is Starcross a simulation? How about Suspended? If
not, why not? I could argue that everything in both these games that is
a 'puzzle', logically follows from the setting.
>I suppose you could call a work of IF a simulation if all the puzzles in
>the game are >strictly< out-growths of the world the game is set in.
>That would mean discovering the use of objects, finding keys, etc. If
>the game is not magical, no mystical puzzles. No "abstract" puzzles.
:) Just what I thought you said.
>If we want to extrapolate (why not?), I suppose we could fail the
>original Zork triology (in places) on this rule. Zork was essential a
>string of non-related puzzles in a common setting. Don't misunderstand
>me, Zork was (and is) a true milestone and I love and respect it.
Ah yes, but maybe Zork simulates perfectly the Great Underground Empire.
Maaybe GUE is a world filled with puzzles and traps for the unwary
adventurer....
>Again, the line blurs whenever we cross the road into a "speculative"
>environment, when there is no definitive set of rules on how things behave.
>I admit I'm floundering, but I'm still trying!
Don't worry, Scott. The whole concept is slippery, and kind of sidles
away when you look directly at it. We have yet to seperate what really
differentiates a simulation puzzle from a normal puzzle. No odd items
that bewilder you with their meaning? No tower of hanoi logic puzzles?
No spellcasting puzzles? Again, very slippery. Once I have a clear
definition, I'll argue, but for now, I'll pass.
--
<~~~~~E~~~G~~~SIGHT~UNSEEN~~~LOST~IN~THE~FOG~~~CYBER~CHESS~~~SPAG~~~|~~~~~~~>
< V R I O Software. We bring words to life! | ~~\ >
< T "We at Vertigo apologize for the delay. Sorry." | /~\ | >
<_WATCH for Avalon in early AUGUST!___wh...@uclink.berkeley.edu__|_\__/__>
David Baggett
Jamieson Norrish <ja...@akeake.its.vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
>Does that make it clearer what I mean? The character can wander
>around, doing something here, something there, and getting their own
>story built out of what is done.
Is it different from "plot graph" IF I described? In my mind, "doing
something here and there" would correspond to choosing an arbitary path in
the plot graph. So long as the author has ensured that every path will be
a good plot, this works. Otherwise, the player may do things here and
there and end up having followed a lousy plot -- one that does not work out
at all, or one that has no real climax; a plot that seems pointless
overall.
>[Having good plots] both for the little stories in a game, and also
>the overall story that is created by what the character does and
>experiences.
I'm not sure a sequence of good plots sums to a good overall plot. I don't
think that's likely. But you could always impose some grand plot, in which
the hand-crafted subplots are simply local changes. (This is a more
sophisticated form of checkpointing, I guess.)
>I think that it should be possible to do something along these lines
>without having to sit down and generate an exlicit plot for each path.
I'm skeptical that plots that are in any way generated (using near-future
technology) can be high-quality. But it remains to be seen.
>Also, since there might be many plot trees in a given game (rather like
>your option 3, perhaps), a leaf may be an ending, but not *the* ending.
Right.
>That's a very simply example of course, but I hope it serves to illustrate
>both that stories might spring from events ... and also that plots don't
>need to be totally designed beforehand.
I would never argue that good plots could not *arise*; just that the
arising plots won't *usually* be good.
Jamieson Norrish
whiz...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:
<pained look> All right. I give up. For over a week I've followed
this thread, dropped comments supporting plot, etc. Now, I fear
that someone is going to have to explain to me, as if to a little
child, what the difference between simulation and current IF is.
The lack of puzzles? Doesn't sound like it. The lack of
traditional puzzles, maybe, but all puzzles? The laack of any
non-obvious interaction in the world setting, is that what you
mean? Please, help a senile old teenager out here.
Okay, I'll have a go, although I think I'm as confused as you are. I
don't quite know where the sudden discussion of simulation came from.
But anyway...
I don't see simulation as being a lack of puzzles, although it rather
sounds as though other people do. The difference between simulation
and what IF is now is roughly this: simulation does not limit the
world on the basis of an enforced (author written) plot. Once the
extent of the world is defined, then the only limitations on player
movement/freedom are those introduced by the limits of the parser,
mechanics, and world. This is in contrast to IF as now where the
author's plot limits what can be done.
Does that help? I don't actually see where simulation fits into any of
the current discussions, but maybe when more posts come through (I
tend to get them in the wrong order), I'll understand.
Jamie
Molley the Mage
> In article <yeehaw> fl...@cse.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes:
> That, basically, sums up what I meant. That the plot isn't imposed on
> the player to follow, but there is a plot or plots inherent in the
> setting, in the NPCs, in actions, and the players is left to find them
> and make of them what they will.
I didn't want to get in on this thread, but I can't hold myself back
any longer. Please remember that everything which follows is IMHO.
:)
I can think of a million reasons *not* to write a game in this way.
And, when you think about it, what is the real difference between a
game such as you describe (where the plots are "hidden") and a regular
game (where the plot is stated or implied). The end result of the
game still involves the player following the plotline written and
directed by the author. The only difference is that in your game, the
player has to flounder around until he finds one or more of the plots,
while in the traditional IF mode he already has some idea what he's
supposed to be doing.
Additionally, have you simulationist people ever considered the fact
that this type of thing is *boring*? Take the example of a game where
you start out as as stable boy and rise to become the saviour of the
world (or whatever) based on incumbent plots that you either discover
or which appear at timed intervals. What's your character going to be
doing in the meantime? Mucking out stalls? Exercising horses?
Knitting a warm blanket for his Auntie? I mean, consider the paradigm
here -- how many times do you want to type
>Shovel the horse manure
Or perform the point-n-click equivalent -- before you get tired of it?
The simple fact is that "real life" is tedious, in that we repeat
tasks over and over again in the course of a day. Sure, real life
isn't "boring" as such, because each day is a little different. But
try sitting in front of your computer screen playing a game where you
go through a regular day in the life of a medieval peasant. Get up
with the sun, work the fields, bow and scrape whenever a Lord or
Knight happens by, give up 90% of your bounty to the Baron, come home
for a crust of bread, and go to sleep. Repeat 364 times. Is this
really the makings of an epic game?
And think about the author. If I am going to write a game, I want
to write a *story*. Is there any value in my writing a story and
then concealing it so that the player might never discover it? Of
course not! I'm investing my time and energy into this game; I want
it to be played in its entirety. I might make some things more
difficult than others, through the use of puzzles, but eventually I
want every player of my game to get out of it the entire story that I
put into it. Otherwise, it's just an exercise in typing (or mousing,
or whatever). Imagine a novel that was nothing more than the
descriptions of everyday activities of a typical American family.
Nothing out of the ordinary happens; they just get up in the morning,
eat breakfast, go to work or school, come home, etc. There is
absolutely no conflict or story whatsoever, and the characters don't
mature in any way. Now extend the idea to a computer game. See what
I mean? The novel wouldn't be any more fun to write than it would be
to read. You notice that there are no titles in the biography section
called "Joe Average: Just Another Ordinary Guy."
Simulationist IF is a bad idea. Plain and simple. Simulations are
great, in their own way -- I love SimCity and Railroad Tycoon more
than almost any other games. But directionless simulation of
"reality" (or someone's imaginary world, or whatever) is not only
impossible with today's technology, but also fairly pointless. Out of
conflict rises plot; out of plot rises story; out of story rises
enjoyment. Without enjoyment, there is no game. QED. And, you'll
note, the "simulation" games have "plots" as well -- in SimCity,
events happen. Disasters occur. Crises crop up. You have to deal
with these things. What's that except for plot? Sure, the events are
quasi-random. But the author of the game decided under which set of
circumstances each event would be possible. Isn't that analagous to
plot in an IF game?
Sure, games like the Ultima series have lots of sub-plots and quests
which are hidden and which the player must discover. Some of them
aren't even required to finish the game. I have no problem with this.
I can even see something like that working in IF. But try playing an
Ultima game WITHOUT going on any of the quests. Fun for a while, but
it gets old quick. Even a game like Ultima 6, where almost everything
"works" like it should, and where you can get a job to earn a few gold
coins, is boring unless you follow the story.
I realize that I've actually strayed from the original article I was
responding to; I've sort of degenerated into an attack on
simluationist IF. Sorry about that; this post is sort of the
combination of several other posts I've been meaning to make but never
did. But I hope my points remain coherent. This isn't really an
attack on simluations at all -- but I remain firm in the belief that
IF games without an author-driven plot would be directionless and no
fun to play or write. Therefore, they would be pointless. Show me a
game that proves me wrong, and I'll gladly eat this post. :)
> Jamie
Sean
--
M. Sean Molley, CS Department, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY
Internet: mol...@wkuvx1.wku.edu | That is not dead which can eternal lie....
--
"Yes, Ytalk -- the next best thing to the next best thing to being there."
-- David Hammett
Jamieson Norrish
first. Mistake! However, I'm not going to take the time to change all
my responses. Just try to ignore the slightly exasperated tone, and
look at the content. Sorry Sean.
In article <1994Oct11...@wkuvx2.wku.edu> mol...@wkuvx2.wku.edu
(Molley the Mage) writes:
And, when you think about it, what is the real difference between a
game such as you describe (where the plots are "hidden") and a
regular game (where the plot is stated or implied). The end result
of the game still involves the player following the plotline
written and directed by the author. The only difference is that in
your game, the player has to flounder around until he finds one or
more of the plots, while in the traditional IF mode he already has
some idea what he's supposed to be doing.
There are certainly large differences. In character-based IF, the plot
is forced onto the player. There is a plot, and it will be followed,
or the game does not work. If the stories come from the world, then
the player is not forced to follow them, and the game can still
succeed.
Additionally, have you simulationist people ever considered the fact
that this type of thing is *boring*?
Whoah. Where did this "simulationist" thing come from? I am not
talking about simulation. I am talking about having author crafted
stories imbedded in the objects, NPCs, and events of the world, rather
than being intrinsically connected to the character.
But if we were talking about simulation, then it comes down to a
question of degree. Many novels or films are termed realistic, yet
don't show hum-drum boring existence. Why should this be the case in
simulation IF? Of course you can't model everything, and you almost
certainly wouldn't want to.
Is this really the makings of an epic game?
Are we all trying to create epic games?
And think about the author. If I am going to write a game, I want
to write a *story*. Is there any value in my writing a story and
then concealing it so that the player might never discover it?
Misconception alert! Misconception alert! Who said anything about
"concealing" it? Sure, some stories might be harder to find than
others. But how about coming across someone who's car has broken down.
The potential stories in that are hardly concealed, yet the story is
not intimately linked with the character, who can walk off without
doing anything, or not even come across the person - without the game
failing as it would in traditional IF where it is necessary to solve
all the puzzles to "win".
I'm investing my time and energy into this game; I want it to be
played in its entirety. I might make some things more difficult
than others, through the use of puzzles, but eventually I want
every player of my game to get out of it the entire story that I
put into it.
And why does it matter that the player might require several games to
explore the entire story? Or is a one-shot game better?
There is absolutely no conflict or story whatsoever, and the
characters don't mature in any way. Now extend the idea to a
computer game. See what I mean?
Why do you assume that there is no conflict and no story? I think you
are talking about something quite different to what I was advocating.
But to keep on this "simulation" tack - is there no conflict in real
life? No character development? I think not. As an interesting side
note, there is a soap of sorts in Britain which simply follows the
lives of some people living in a flat. No script, just these people
being filmed in various parts of their everyday lives. It's a really
popular program, and it has conflict and character development.
And, you'll note, the "simulation" games have "plots" as well -- in
SimCity, events happen. Disasters occur. Crises crop up. You
have to deal with these things. What's that except for plot?
So what's your problem?! If you've just said you can have events,
crises, and plots in a simulation game, then why is that not possible
in IF?
Sure, games like the Ultima series have lots of sub-plots and
quests which are hidden and which the player must discover. Some
of them aren't even required to finish the game. I have no problem
with this. I can even see something like that working in IF. But
try playing an Ultima game WITHOUT going on any of the quests.
Now, at last, we get onto something which replies to what I said. It
is not necessary to remove all plot which requires the character,
although I don't think the player should be forced into it to the
extent that he or she is now.
Even a game like Ultima 6, where almost everything "works" like it
should, and where you can get a job to earn a few gold coins, is
boring unless you follow the story.
Which is, I think, why I said I'd like to see stories in the objects,
characters, and events in the world.
I realize that I've actually strayed from the original article I
was responding to; I've sort of degenerated into an attack on
simluationist IF. Sorry about that; this post is sort of the
combination of several other posts I've been meaning to make but
never did.
Ooops. :)
Show me a game that proves me wrong, and I'll gladly eat this post.
:)
You're on!
Jamie
Felix Lee
the basis of "literary/artistic" merit. "literary" is important. It
may have artistic merit, but it wouldn't be a literary one, any more
than a Brahms concerto would have literary merit.
Gerry Kevin Wilson
>whiz...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:
>
>Okay, I'll have a go, although I think I'm as confused as you are. I
>don't quite know where the sudden discussion of simulation came from.
>But anyway...
>
>I don't see simulation as being a lack of puzzles, although it rather
>sounds as though other people do. The difference between simulation
>and what IF is now is roughly this: simulation does not limit the
>world on the basis of an enforced (author written) plot. Once the
Ok, you're taking the plotless simulation approach. Gotcha. Note, to be
a true simulation, this means you desire a complete lack of any string of
events that forms a coherant story. If a plot forms from your actions,
the author anticipated these actions, and designed a situational
response. Or, the author may have set up a system of rules for all
objects in the simulation and then let them loose to see what happens. I
believe this is what everyone is aiming at. Also note, no coherant plot
will arise from such a system. You cannot create order from chaos
without intervening. Either the rules bash you over the head with a
story, or there is no story, and to be quite frank, no audience. Just to
stay in practice, here's a numbered list.
1. The number of rules involved in such an endeavor are such that no one
person is going to be able to predict the outcome of their interaction.
2. Debugging such a product is a logical nightmare. You've heard of
Hell, well welcome to Hell's big brother.
3. More than 50% of your plots are likely going to be gibberish.
In conclusion, simulation is a toy unless it has a very specific, very
limited scope. Ask any statistics major what happens to a simulation as
you add more and more variables to it, such as you would have to with a
game.
>extent of the world is defined, then the only limitations on player
>movement/freedom are those introduced by the limits of the parser,
>mechanics, and world. This is in contrast to IF as now where the
>author's plot limits what can be done.
>
>Does that help? I don't actually see where simulation fits into any of
>the current discussions, but maybe when more posts come through (I
>tend to get them in the wrong order), I'll understand.
People were arguing in favor of simulation over traditional IF.
Simulation, in my opinion, is going to require a much larger number of
man hours, create a less logical, less satisfying product, and in general
just give you less bang for your buck. I would rather entrust the
creation of a story to a human than a set of rules any day. Humans have
imagination, computers don't. You say, "Ah ha! But a human designed
those rules!" So what? A human mind can only grasp so many logical
connections at once before it flees screaming into the woods. But, I'll
give everyone arguing for sim-IF the benefit of the doubt. Produce a
better product than Avalon, in less or equal amount of time, and show me
how to repeat your feat, and I will embrace sim-IF. $5 will get you $10
that I get a lot of theoretical rebuttals, but not one person takes up
the challenge. I'm a very down to earth kind of guy. I hear, "Hey, it's
better to write a set of rules than a story." I think, "Funny, then why
don't writers do that to write books? There are certainly enough grammar
programs and such out there to write something coherant, (I never said
logical, mind you.) In fact, there have been several attempts at
sim-FICTION. Odd that I don't see any of them on the bestsellers list.
My my, how peculiar indeed."
Now comes the nugget of the argument, why is a set of rules for a
computer to follow less useful than a human author? Answer: The human
author is a better computer, without realizing the rules he follows.
So, the final bit that remains for me to chew at is this. sim-IF almost
certainly has a use. An entire game based on it is going to be illogical
crap. On the other hand, why don't the simulationists get together and
decide where it is most efficient to use simulation within the context of
a normal IF product? Show me some new and better methods of coding
realistic NPCs. Give me a way to generate a realistic landscape
following rules I create, but don't actually have to run through myself.
Create a better physical model of gravity to use in space games. Make me
a system of magic that is logical, endlessly variable, and bounded by
only a few rules. (Hell, I've done this one myself. I haven't
programmed it into anything, but I don't have a game to use it in yet
either.) Create me a realistic animal simulation, such as a bear. Hell,
make me a good brown bear and I'll put it in Avalon. Don't get caught
into thinking that nearly 4,000 years of human authors taught us diddly
shit about how to create IF. Instead, contribute to the pool of
knowledge rather than endlessly bickering that 'My system's better than
yours.' Hell, that's what I've been meaning to say throughout this
post. Don't argue at us, that doesn't accomplish anything, SHOW, DON'T TELL.
I rest my case, and my fingers.
--
<~~~~T~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~LOST~IN~THE~FOG~~~~~~NO~RELEASE~DATE~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~>
< R I A lonely shipwreck survivor is swallowed by a mysterious | ~~\ >
< E G fog bank in the Bermuda Triangle, and meets his destiny... | /~\ | >
<_V____SOFTWARE___MEET_Y...@uclink.berkeley.edu__|_\__/__>
Gerry Kevin Wilson
Oh great, sure, fine! Just post a new standpoint on the 'simulation'
argument right after I post a big message oon how we can integrate the
two. Suure, be that way. *grumble* Now I've got to respond to this new
explanation in order to avoid looking like a goober. Ok, why force
the player into the plot? Well, why not? That's why the player has
chosen my game to play, on the basis of its advertised plot. Certainly
not on his endless confidence in my yet unseen abilities as a writer. I
just don't see the point of making the plot to my game optional. The
player already gets to wander freely. The things around Avalon almost
never aggressively involve the player. Hell, the player can fart around
for eternity for all I care. It's not going to get them to the end of
the game, mind you. The only way that's gonna happen is through activity
on the part of the player. Many games are like this. The NPCs, in
Avalon, will try to draw the player into the plot, if the player refuses,
and walks away, the NPC mentally shrugs and then ignores the player until
he changes his mind. Certain situations, such as ignoring chivalry's
rules in front of a knight, will miff the NPC, and reduce his opinion of
the player, but usually the NPC won't do anything about it.
On the other hand, I have certain pipe-lines in Avalon. Once you
enter a certain area, you WILL do this certain part of the adventure, or
you will die. Why? Because this is where I deem it appropriate to put a
sink or swim spot. I make some of the basic points of Avalon in these
spots. I want the player to see these thing, because >I< have put two
years of work into Avalon, and >I< have decided the player will visit
these spots. Like it or lump it, it's the author's prerogative to have
prerogatives(sp?). One of my prerog's is that I wish to say something
about the Vietnam war. Since I'm writing the game, no one can stop me.
You can refuse to buy the game, of course, boycotts have been quite
effective in the past. But then, you'll not only miss what I have to
say, you'll also miss the story that I've wrapped the point in.
Basically, what I'm saying here is that enforced plot or not, the author
has a reason for the way he does things. If you write games that are
amusing, with no point, there is no reason to place pipe-lines in your
game. It's quite easy to design around them. On the other hand, if
there is something important that you want to say, the only way to be
sure of it getting said is to maneuver the player into a situation where
the relevant text is bound to show up. You can try sprinkling less
obvious hints here and there about your point, sure, go ahead. I don't
do things like that. If I want to say something, I goddamn say it. That
is why I choose to use the constraints of plot.
Jamieson Norrish
S.P.Harvey) writes:
True, and an excellent point made and well-taken. However, we
cannot (as designers) allow so much openness in our games that the
player is able to form their own conclusions as to what is going
on.
Why? I mean, what are the reasons for restricting things in this
fashion? People have pointed out some already, mostly how
unimplementable it is. However, I don't think it is. I think it's more
a matter of mindset. In fact, believe it or not, it did link in with
the title of the post I made - Attitudes to playing. Like I said
there, I don't play to particularly solve everything, learn all the
things in the game, and put it back on the shelf.
Rather, I want to be able to wander about, without being forced into a
rigid scheme. To make the distinction I made earlier, I want the
stories to be in the objects, the events, and the other characters.
Not *just* in my character. By which I mean (since I haven't been
clear about this yet :) that instead of having the stories all
directly and totally relate to my character, I'd like to be able to
intrude onto a story that doesn't have my character as a *necessary*
component.
This, as far as I can see, is not simulation - merely an extension of
IF in a different plane.
To me, part of the enjoyment of playing IF are the games that have
the following question and answer set as an integral part of the
design:
Q: What am I supposed to do in this game?
A: You're supposed to discover what you're supposed to do.
I think that my approach doesn't so much invalidate this, but extend
it. The answer is not discover what you're supposed to, but discover
what's there. That isn't going to take one game (even with saves and
undos and other bells and whistles :), because by the character's
actions, the world state will change, eliminating various outcomes.
Jamie
Jason Noble
Felix Lee writes:
>|> What I'd like to do is separate the narration from the description,
>|> probably by sticking them in different windows.
Greg Ewing writes:
>I'm not sure I like the idea of multiple windows.
[deletia]
>I'm happier when the action and the narrative are
>somehow merged into a single stream of consciousness.
>Perhaps the narrative could be displayed in a
>distinctive font? That might help to signal to
>your brain "here comes a block of narrative, go into
>sit-back-and-listen mode".
It's interesting how people's tastes differ on issues like this. I agree
with Greg; I would hate to see multiple windows in an IF piece.
I strongly agree with Greg's point about it being desirable for action and
narrative to be "merged together into a single stream of consciousness". It
seems to me that this is what's so good about old-fashioned, non-interactive
novels: a single one-directional stream of a limited number of typographical
symbols is capable of inducing an almost transcendent experience in the
reader.
Novels are generally typeset in some unobtrusive font, and generally do not
have pictures and other distractions. IMHO, the idea is for the reader to
*not notice the medium*, and spend their time *absorbing the message*. I
think that a complicated, multi-window IF environment will be a medium
that's difficult to ignore, and will thus reduce the impact of the message.
(By "message" I mean no more than the content of the work: I don't assume
that all IF must have some deathless, deep message).
Certainly it's a problem for IF to have narrative inserted into room
descriptions, so that each time you look at the room again you see the same
long body of text that describes something you should only have seen/
felt/experienced the first time.
However, I feel that liberal use of techniques like the firstseen method in
TADS can get around this problem. If the designer takes the time to write
an initial, rich room description, a shorter room description for repeated
use, plus extra blocks of narrative text that get called when certain
conditions are true (such as when first entering, or when first in the room
at the same time as a certain actor), the player's experience will be richer
and undisturbed by silly repetitive text.
It's my goal to try and do all this *without* multiple windows, and
*without* relatively subtle things like a different font for narrative text.
(Don't take this as an attack, Felix: your recent comments have been
extremely interesting and thought-provoking).
Regards,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Noble | jno...@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au
National Centre for HIV Social Research | jno...@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia | ph. (61 2) 850 8667
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamieson Norrish
sa...@cadetblue.crayola.cse.psu.edu (Mark B Sachs) writes:
So IMHO: that's what a game needs -- _motive_. Not necessarily
a big or a fancy one, just enough of one to get the player off
his or her duff and get moving.
This is an excellent point, and one which also ties in with my
approach to games - only using another solution. Given no particular
motivation at the beginning (but perhaps a desire to explore),
presenting a wide array of events, people, and objects offers the
character a myriad of things to become interested in. And since the
puzzles are not puzzles - to be solved and then left behind) - but
situations, where there is the option of walking away, there hopefully
wouldn't be a lack of potential motivation.
Hmph, one day I'll be able to talk coherently about this. :)
Jamie
Felix Lee
>I'm not sure I like the idea of multiple windows. I've
>played games where there are separate windows for
>narrative, inventory, map, etc. and I didn't really
>like them. I found it too distracting looking between
>different windows all the time to really get involved
>with the story.
yah, I have qualms about that too. But I'll see how it goes. Is
looking at an inventory window really any more distracting than having
your screen filled with your inventory list?
>I'm happier when the action and the narrative are
>somehow merged into a single stream of consciousness.
I don't want action separate from narrative. action is part of the
narrative. but I think description is not. Doesn't anyone find it
annoying when every time you "LOOK" it tells you stuff like, "You
think to yourself, 'So this is what a breathtaking view is like', and
you almost asphyxiate in wonder as a cloud of iridescent butterflies
gently aspirates from the flowers, dances a pattern of joy around your
dizzied head, and disappears into the gentle morning mist that
blankets the valley like the warm woolen sweater your Aunt Martha gave
to you last year on your birthday---ah, what a birthday that was."
Most of this I'd call narrative, not description. Half the time I'm
looking just to find an exit.
--
Felix Lee
><pained look> All right. I give up. For over a week I've followed this
>thread, dropped comments supporting plot, etc. Now, I fear that someone
>is going to have to explain to me, as if to a little child, what the
>difference between simulation and current IF is. The lack of puzzles?
>Doesn't sound like it. The lack of traditional puzzles, maybe, but all
>puzzles? The laack of any non-obvious interaction in the world setting,
>is that what you mean? Please, help a senile old teenager out here.
ah, sorry. I think I brought up "simulation", and I'll admit I only
have a vague idea what I'm talking about. :)
One way of approaching it is, there are three ways of playing an IF
game:
- puzzle-oriented: the game is a series of obstacles to overcome.
- story-oriented: the game is a narrative you read.
- simulation-oriented: the game is a virtual world you run around in.
another way of approaching it is looking at where game design starts:
- puzzle-based: you start with a couple puzzles, build the objects to
support the puzzle, and attach a story to it.
- story-based: you start with a story, build some puzzles to support
the story, and build the objects to support the puzzles and the story.
- simulation-based: you start by building objects that have
interesting behavior. Then you come up with puzzles involving these
objects, and attach a story to it.
(Of course, this isn't how game design really works; design tends to
be a messy process.)
Here's one example of the distinction I make between simulation and
puzzle in IF:
The Multidimensional Thief has a "portable hole" object, and you can
stick it pretty much anywhere to make a hole you can walk through.
There are a few critical places where you need it to solve certain
puzzles, but the portable hole is more versatile than that. This is a
"simulation-level object".
In contrast, many text adventures have a shovel object that doesn't do
anything except in one or two places. Most of the time you get
something like, "The ground's not suitable for digging." The shovel
was added to support a particular puzzle or two, so this is a
"puzzle-level object".
Of course, there are good reasons for restricting the usefulness of
shovels. But if you start out by building a simulation-level shovel,
then you'd probably end up with a game that looks very different.
Maybe something like Lode Runner :). (A shovel is probably a poor
choice for a simulation-level object in a pure-text game.)
lightsources and containers are simulation-level objects that are
commonly used. Offhand, I can't think of anything else commonly used
that I'd consider a simulation-level object. Oh, I forgot keys. Keys
and locks are perfectly simulated :). Many puzzle-level objects are
keys in disguise.
hmm. Maybe this isn't so vague an idea after all. writing things out
is great for clarifying thought..
--
Felix Lee
Gerry Kevin Wilson:
> You cannot create order from chaos without intervening.
Yes you can. Order can arise spontaneously from chaos given the right
framework. It doesn't have to be a complicated framework either.
This is what the whole field of self-organizing systems is all about.
> On the other hand, why don't the simulationists get together and
>decide where it is most efficient to use simulation within the context of
>a normal IF product
Umm, I don't know about anyone else, but yes, that's one of the things
I'm interested in.
Maybe the ideal plotless sim-IF will turn out to be "illogical crap",
but it's a useful concept to play with. It's a dream; I'm a dreamer.
But I do have a reasonable grasp of reality and of what can and can't
be done. It's the boundary that fascinates me.
>Don't get caught
>into thinking that nearly 4,000 years of human authors taught us diddly
>shit about how to create IF
but 4000 years of human authors have taught us nothing about computers
and complexity. It's all new. Noone even had the vaguest idea that
something like the Mandlebrot Set could exist. Very few authors write
anything remotely realistic about computers, even in SF.
>Don't argue at us, that doesn't accomplish anything, SHOW, DON'T TELL.
Working on it. Gotta warn you, my followthrough tends to be pretty
poor. Occupational hazard of being a dreamer :). Too many things
catch my attention..
--
Greg Ewing
In article <FLEE.94Oc...@simula.cse.psu.edu>, fl...@cse.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes:
|>
|> What I'd like to do is separate the narration from the description,
|> probably by sticking them in different windows.
I'm not sure I like the idea of multiple windows. I've
played games where there are separate windows for
narrative, inventory, map, etc. and I didn't really
like them. I found it too distracting looking between
different windows all the time to really get involved
with the story.
I'm happier when the action and the narrative are
somehow merged into a single stream of consciousness.
Perhaps the narrative could be displayed in a
distinctive font? That might help to signal to
your brain "here comes a block of narrative, go into
sit-back-and-listen mode".
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a |
Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan Inc.|
gr...@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+
David Baggett
S.P.Harvey <sha...@interaccess.com> wrote:
>We all know the story of the twisted mathematicin Erno Rubik and his
>brain-wrenching creations which have allowed untold millions to exercise
>their minds.
I'm sure there's quaint story behind the hula hoop, too, but no one
remembers it because it's just not very interesting. There is a colossal
difference between these two kinds of communication. One is trivial
historical footnoting; the other is a tremendous achievement that people
can appreciate deeply even hundreds of years later.
>Put simply, folks, IF is an entertainment form, not something you're going
>to win a Nobel prize in literature for.
Admitting defeat before we're out of the starting gate?!
It remains to be seen what artistic potential interactive fiction has.
I've put in my two cents on the simulation issue already. That's not to
say that other kinds of IF can't be artistic.
>However, there must be some entertainment value inherent in the product; in
>this case, it's brain-teasers and puzzles.
Who ever said that art isn't entertaining? I never said that IF should be
dreary and obtuse; on the contrary, I think IF can offer much more
fulfilling entertainment than brain-teasers.
>In "serious" literature, the entertainment value is experiencing the story
>and interpreting the author's intentions. IF can combine both. If we lean
>too far to one side, it'll get tedious.
Do you mean to imply that serious literature is tedious? I'll admit that
not every book is for everyone, but I can think of few things as enriching
and thought-provoking as reading a top-notch "serious" literary work. I'll
resuse an example from a previous post: _Of Mice and Men_ is short, very
easy to read, is technically virtuosic, and makes a tremendous impact on
the reader. It's serious literature, but it has none of the pomposity or
elitism that I fear you are alluding to. There is plenty of silliness put
between author and reader by people who wish to complicate rather than
simplify; just ignore the criticsm and read the books! (I'm on _Of Mice
and Men_ because I recently re-read it and was re-amazed by it.)
>If I was interested in writing the Great American Novel, I'd do so. But
>I'm not. I'm interested in writing a game of exploration and puzzle
>solving with a really good plot stringing it all together in coherent
>fashion.
Nothing wrong with that, and you may produce the best puzzle game ever
made, and people will love you for it. Personally, I've already written a
puzzle game and a "half & half" game, and doing so has sort of turned me
off to puzzle-centric IF and on to looking to do something more rewarding
(for both author and reader). This is my bias; you do not have to make it
yours for me to be happy! :)
Felix Lee
>IMHO, the idea is for the reader to
>*not notice the medium*, and spend their time *absorbing the message*. I
>think that a complicated, multi-window IF environment will be a medium
>that's difficult to ignore, and will thus reduce the impact of the message.
yup. Keeping the interface uncluttered and unobtrusive will be
tricky. In a story-oriented game, the narrative window should be the
primary focus, except when you're just navigating or browsing.
>However, I feel that liberal use of techniques like the firstseen method in
>TADS can get around this problem.
Oh, probably.
It's a little strange that stuff like this isn't easier to do. Like,
one construct I've been using in my pseudo-code is a "once" clause:
once {
say "You find a cedarwood box"
score 5
move box to player
}
This clause protects itself from being executed more than once during
a game. It's essentially just
if (! didthisthing) {
didthisthing := 1
...
}
but easier to read and write. Syntactic sugar. One side benefit is I
don't have to invent a variable name.
This could probably be generalized to a clause that expresses a
sequence of alternatives. Like, for the action "get fire":
first {
"You start to reach for the fire, but the beauty of the";
" flames moves your spirit, and you decide the fire would";
" be better off living free and undisturbed.";
} then {
"The fire has a happy life on its own, remember? You"
" don't really want to mess with it.";
} then 2 times {
"You can't have it."
} then {
"I give up. You're burned by the flames. Happy now?"
} then forever {
"You're burned by the flames."
}
It's more syntactic sugar. I'm probably going to implement something
like this in my Tcl/Tk prototype, because it'll be easy to do.
>(Don't take this as an attack, Felix: your recent comments have been
>extremely interesting and thought-provoking).
thanks. I'm just having fun, but it's nice to know I'm being useful
too :).
--
Gerry Kevin Wilson
>puzzle/simulation/story, in that order. The Multidimensional Thief is
>also puzzle/simulation/story. With a little work, I think it wouldn't
>be too hard to make a text game that's simulation/puzzle/story.
>
>simulation/story/puzzle or story/simulation/puzzle is something else
>though. I don't know what these would look like.
<pained look> All right. I give up. For over a week I've followed this
thread, dropped comments supporting plot, etc. Now, I fear that someone
is going to have to explain to me, as if to a little child, what the
difference between simulation and current IF is. The lack of puzzles?
Doesn't sound like it. The lack of traditional puzzles, maybe, but all
puzzles? The laack of any non-obvious interaction in the world setting,
is that what you mean? Please, help a senile old teenager out here.
--
<~~~VERTIGO~~~~~~~~~~~~THE~BRASS~LANTERN~~~~~~ISSUE~1~INCL~W/AVALON~~|~~~~~~~>
< In the irreverent tradition of _The New Zork Times_ comes The | ~~\ >
< Brass Lantern, an informative newsletter from Vertigo Software. | /~\ | >
<___SOFTWARE____________...@uclink.berkeley.edu__|_\__/__>
Jamieson Norrish
whiz...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:
I said:
>I don't see simulation as being a lack of puzzles, although it
>rather sounds as though other people do. The difference between
>simulation and what IF is now is roughly this: simulation does not
>limit the world on the basis of an enforced (author written) plot.
Ok, you're taking the plotless simulation approach. Gotcha. Note,
to be a true simulation, this means you desire a complete lack of
any string of events that forms a coherant story.
Except that you can imbed certain things into the characters and
objects. Sure, things may turn out in wierd and wonderfully
unpredicted ways, but that doesn't mean that there is no story.
Also note, no coherant plot will arise from such a system. You
cannot create order from chaos without intervening.
I'm not sure I totally agree with this. I think, as I've said, that
stories can be present which are not forced down the character's
throat, but can in fact lead to coherent and interesting stories.
Now comes the nugget of the argument, why is a set of rules for a
computer to follow less useful than a human author? Answer: The
human author is a better computer, without realizing the rules he
follows.
I think you've moved onto something else again here. The difference is
between having a plot forced onto the character, through which that
character must proceed in order for the player to get any value from
the game at all, and a game in which there are plots/stories, but they
are not individually vital to the game - either on the meta level of
enjoyment, or for the "completion" of the game. IF today is written
with very strict goals in mind - you aim to "win", that is the point,
and that is where the enjoyment comes from. But how about widening the
horizon a bit, and increase the number of options for the character?
Instead, contribute to the pool of knowledge rather than endlessly
bickering that 'My system's better than yours.' Hell, that's what
I've been meaning to say throughout this post. Don't argue at us,
that doesn't accomplish anything, SHOW, DON'T TELL.
Hey, calm down here, Kevin. I haven't seen any post, by myself or
anyone else, doing a comparison of systems. I haven't seen a single
person (except possible myself) arguing that simulation is good in
itself. I admit that I've proposed a different way of doing IF (which
is *not* simulation pure and simple) and have defended this view
against other people's criticisms of it, and tried to explain what I
mean better. But I'm certainly not arguing at anyone, nor do I think
that all other IF is useless or even not as good, even in theory.
Jamie
Mike Threepoint
=> >But what happens if you plant the tree somewhere else?
> In the bad history, the tree was planted at X-
> and caused event P-. In the good history, the tree gets planted at X+
> and causes event P+. If you plant the tree anywhere else, the result
> is a neutral event P0 which doesn't accomplish your goal.
True, and that's how most adventure games would handle it (if they
don't straightjacket you into only being able to plant the tree in
the place the author wants it). But how much richer to add mostly
neutral but potentially useful effects from planting it elsewhere...
For example, planting the tree next to the house itself in the
distant past provides a way to get out the window and escape the
burning house later.
Or if you plant it a little further from the house, the house will still
be destroyed, but the tree will still have an old tree house or a
swing hanging from a branch, a poignant reminder. And perhaps you
could take the rope ladder and use it as another way to get out the
window of the burning house.
Derek S Felton
what simulations mean to me.
I define an IF-context simulation as an environment in
which objects behave consistently when they are used in
different situations. Ex.: a shovel that will dig wherever
the ground is soft enough to dig.
An extension of this regards the multiple use of objects.
I think a story is closer to a simulation if things can be
used in many ways... possibly ways their designer never in-
tended. I like this idea a lot, but I know it is hell on
carefully wrought puzzles. (O' course, I'm not a big puz-
zle fan...)
That's only part of it, though.
I think that characterization enters into it somewhat,
too... but I don't think there's a line where "IF" characters
become "simulated" characters. I'd like to see more character
independence, but again, some people hate that idea.
This isn't much of a definition, but I hope it stirs up
some ideas.
--- Derek
Jon Drukman
: don't writers do that to write books? There are certainly enough grammar
: programs and such out there to write something coherant, (I never said
: logical, mind you.) In fact, there have been several attempts at
: sim-FICTION. Odd that I don't see any of them on the bestsellers list.
: My my, how peculiar indeed."
Wait, you mean that's not how they make all those romance novels!?
/jon
Felix Lee
TADS on a PC will give you some amount of scrollback, but the
scrollback will tend to be filled with redundant descriptions,
especially if you're in verbose mode. This is one argument for
separating description from narration. In principle, you'd want to
save all of the narration for review, but you don't really need to
save the objects and locations and inventories you've looked at.
Most games I've seen are also pretty awkward at handling large chunks
of text: anything more than a screen or two. This is perhaps a little
strange for a medium trying to be a narrative form. Using windows
with scrollback becomes helpful here too.
Also, text objects like pamphlets and leaflets: I think it should be
reasonable to put an entire 8-page leaflet into a game. Except it's
kind of awkward to read that much text with the standard interface.
--
Alexander Williams
S.P.Harvey <sha...@interaccess.com> wrote:
>Extrapolating this concept: Simulation-IF cannot work; There's no place
>for real interaction. Or if there is, it's no longer a straight
>simulation. It's a typical "Adventure" game with all the puzzles taken
>out and nothing but locations and non-functional objects.
I disagree. What if I create the text-equivalent of the Louvre, fill
it with works of didactic poetry and works in text which have artistic
value and meaning, all as arranged in a consensual 3d simulation
environment firmly entrenched in text. It is ``Interactive Fiction''
because it creates a false environment that responds to the will of
the ``reader.'' It is simulation, because it creates this environment
in which these things are set. With care and craft, the things could
even be interactive, you could ``leave your mark'' in various ways,
especially if there are others who'll experience this work, as well as
the first reader. [ This branches out into the role multi-user
Internet MUDs have as IF ethos purveyers, which I won't get into in
/this/ post. ]
Or perhaps I create a Simulationist IF of my small town home, with
chances for real interaction with the localle. If it creates a
feeling, evokes a reaction from the reader, has it not succeeded?
To be honest, to say that ``Simulationist IF cannot work,'' to me
seems akin to saying ``The Mona Lisa can't be art because it doesn't
actively evoke a response, instead it just /sits/ there.''
--
tha...@runic.mind.org (Alexander Williams) | PGP 2.6 key avail
| DF 22 16 CE CA 7F
Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the | 98 47 13 EE 8E EC
Law. Love is the Law, Love Under Will. -oOo- | 9C 2D 9B 9B
Andrew C. Plotkin
they're trying to cover more than one idea.
There is a basic dichotomy, which can be applied to several different
*parts* of an IF scenario, and in different *degrees*. I think of it as
"simulation" versus "exception", although better terms are welcome. (I
am not using the word "simulation" to imply that it is a simulation OF
anything. "Consistency" might be a better word, but most people here are
using "simulation" to mean what I mean, so I will stick with that for
now.)
Abstract definition: A thing (problem, object, aspect of the game) is a
simulation when it attempts to behave the same way all the time. It is
an exception when it behaves in different ways depending on context.
Example: Consider a puzzle in a game where the player has to break a
window to get through it.
The traditional implementation of this is exception-based. The command
"hit window with X" gets the response "X bounces off the window,"
*unless* X is the baseball bat or the brick, in which case the response
is "Smash!" We're used to IF situations that work like this.
A simulation-based implementation of this would be to give everything in
the game a strength and a weight. Hitting X with Y would compare X's
strength with Y's weight, and destroy X if a certain formula was
satisfied.
The important thing to note is that this is a continuum, and when
discussing a particular game (or even game aspect), you can talk about
in what ways it is a simulation and in what ways it uses exceptions.
Also, this is separate from the question of the *detail* of the rules
which are simulated or excepted.
Someone mentioned keys. A system of keys and locks, in which each key
opens its own lock, can be considered a simulation with a fairly simple
set of rules. On the other hand, this could also be considered a large
set of exceptions. It's a matter of interpretation.
A simulation of keys&locks with *detailed* rules, including lots of
physics, would also allow lockpicking or prying the thing open with a
crowbar or wearing it down with sandpaper.
There has also been discussion of *plot* simulation. All plots
heretofore seen in IF games have been strongly exception-based (AFAIK).
Doing one based on simulation is clearly very difficult, and I don't
want to start arguing whether it's impossible or requires AI or
anything. What I want to get clear is *what* such a thing would be, by
these definitions: a set of high-level rules for how situations develop,
such that any change in initial conditions or intervention produces a
different plot.
There has also been discussion of *character* (NPC) simulation. The
application of the terms is left as an exercise to the reader :-)
It seems that doing *a particular thing* with exceptions is much easier,
and much easier for the author to control, than doing it with
simulation. That doesn't mean that simulations are inherently difficult.
The basic rooms/move/get/drop/inventory system, which has been with us
since Colossal Cave, is a simulation system. Usually, exceptions are put
on top of that -- to what extent depends on which game and what aspect
of the game you refer to.
Conclusion: saying "this game is a simulation" or "isn't a simulation"
is silly. Be clear in what way you mean "simulation" when you say it,
and to what extent.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
Felix Lee
>Like I said, if a Rubik's Cube is art, so is an elegant mathematical proof.
>I think it's useful to separate these two notions of "art".
maybe. design and industrial design kind of segues into architecture.
and maybe you can make a distinction in architecture between function
and aesthetics. or maybe not.
>Is that because Joyce is inaccessible to most people? As you said, "as
>much as I admire James Joyce," I can't help but think that he went a bit to
>far; to the point where only people who have taken courses on _Ulysses_ or
>_Finnegan's Wake_ can understand them.
Well, I've never managed to make it very far in Finnegan's Wake. I
haven't tried Ulysses yet. But Portrait and Dubliners are pretty
accessible. But are they read much outside of college literature
classes?
I've lost track of my point. oh well. It probably didn't have much
to do with IF anyway. :)
--
Greg Ewing
In article <FLEE.94Oc...@snobol.cse.psu.edu>, fl...@cse.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes:
|> Most of this I'd call narrative, not description. Half the time I'm
|> looking just to find an exit.
Perhaps instead of a single "look" verb, there should
be different commands for looking in different ways?
e.g.
look Full description of surroundings
objects List movable objects present
exits List obvious exits
Some of these might need to be rigged so that, e.g.
objects would initially not tell you about things
that weren't supposed to be obvious.
Jamieson Norrish
(Felix Lee) writes:
Greg Ewing:
>Perhaps instead of a single "look" verb, there should
>be different commands for looking in different ways?
>e.g.
>look Full description of surroundings
>objects List movable objects present
>exits List obvious exits
sure, that should work, as long as there are abbreviations for
each. Shades of Gray had "list exits", which was handy at times,
but a pain to type.
I don't know about anyone else, but isn't this getting a little
"functional" in its approach? While it could perhaps be argued that
human beings do unconciously divide up what they sense into various
categories, is it wise to make this explicit in the game? Doesn't
doing that run the risk of destroying atmosphere with the gain of
functional ease?
I don't know the answer to this even for myself, because I've never
played a game which has those exact commands. But I do know that
descriptions which have an obvious exits line at the bottom really
grate - it seems so divorced from the world that it makes it hard to
think of the game as anything but a mechanical mass of data.
Jamie
Greg Ewing
In article <37htj5$3...@agate.berkeley.edu>, whiz...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:
|> Make me
|> a system of magic that is logical, endlessly variable, and bounded by
|> only a few rules. (Hell, I've done this one myself. I haven't
|> programmed it into anything, but I don't have a game to use it in yet
|> either.)
This sounds fascinating! Devising such a system is not easy.
Would you be willing to tell us some details of your system?
If you don't want to give away story ideas, could you at least
give us a general idea of the sort of rules your system uses?
|> <_V____SOFTWARE___MEET_Y...@uclink.berkeley.edu__|_\__/__>
Felix Lee
>Perhaps instead of a single "look" verb, there should
>be different commands for looking in different ways?
>e.g.
>look Full description of surroundings
>objects List movable objects present
>exits List obvious exits
sure, that should work, as long as there are abbreviations for each.
Shades of Gray had "list exits", which was handy at times, but a pain
to type.
--
S.P.Harvey
: Pop-up windows could behave in different ways depending
: on the nature of their contents. E.g. an inventory
: window could allow selection of objects by clicking.
: An 8-page-leaflet reading window could have page-turning
: buttons.
: Some graphics could even be included if desired,
: e.g. for "examine map" and the like.
Greg: most of what you reccomend has already been experimented with, with
varying forms of success. Beyond Zork had a graphics-character map that
one could click on to move the player. Zork Zero had a compass rose in
which available directions were highlighted. Multi-Dimensional Thief has
button icons for most common verbs. Trinity has irrelevant windows that
pop up with pithy quotations and the like.
To me, these are all but gimmicks, bells, and whistles that will simply
detract from the game.
However, the second line on the status bar that shows available exits
isn't too bad. Still, though, it detracts from some of the "manual
labor" of playing IF: reading through all the descriptions, which is
rather fun, at least to me.
Scott
--
----------------------| S.P. Harvey |--------------------------
"All men dream, but not equally."
- T.E. Lawrence
----------------------| sha...@interaccess.com |--------------------------
Greg Ewing
In article <37h7dq$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>, whiz...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:
|>
|> Ah yes, but maybe Zork simulates perfectly the Great Underground Empire.
This is a good point. It's meaningless to ask "Is X a simulation?"
You can only ask "Is X a simulation of Y?"
|> <_WATCH for Avalon in early AUGUST!___wh...@uclink.berkeley.edu__|_\__/__>
S.P.Harvey
: In article <FLEE.94Oc...@snobol.cse.psu.edu>, fl...@cse.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes:
: |> Oh, I forgot keys. Keys
: |> and locks are perfectly simulated :).
: Actually, they're not! In real life, any lock can be picked.
: I've never seen a game that supported lock-picking in a way
: that the author hadn't anticipated.
Ah! Very true, but true expert lock picking is not a skill known by the
vast majority of the citizenry. It's true that any lock can be picked if
you have: a) the skills b) the tools c) the time.
Now, if we want to be serious about our simulations, we'd need to educate
the player on the methods of lockpicking. And provide the tools, or at
least the ability to make the tools.
We're getting very close to the ever-changing boundary between IF and RPG
at this point.
As for circumstances that the author/designer hadn't anticipated, well,
that'll be extrememly difficult to implement and yet have a good game.
If we simply code everything strictly as it functions in the real world,
there's always the chance the following exchange can happen:
--- IF simulator: ON ---
Before you stands a massive door with a sign that says "This way to the
end of the adventure". The door is locked with a massive padlock. You
can hear some massive creature breathing from under the door.
>open door
It's locked.
>pick lock
(with the hairpin)
You fiddle with the lock, and against the 1 in RANDOM(1000) chance, the
lock pops open!
>north
Beast Room
A big nasty(TM) stands here, waiting to be killed.
>attack beast
(with the hairpin)
You lunge for the creature and deal it a fatal blow with the hairpin!
(Wow, that was a 1:15000 chance!)
*** You have won! ***
Your score is 400 out of 400, in four moves.
---- simulator: OFF ----
This (extreme) example is why the designers need to have some measure of
control over the situation. If everything is left to chance, well, try
it enough times and you'll get past it. In the end, maybe we're all
secret control freaks? Or maybe it's not that secret! :)
Scott
--
----------------------| S.P. Harvey |--------------------------
"I do not know which to prefer, / The beauty of inflections /
Or the beauty of innuendoes / The blackbird whistling /
Or just after." - Wallace Stevens
----------------------| sha...@interaccess.com |--------------------------
James Wallis
> In article <37f0ms$9...@nntp.interaccess.com>,
> S.P.Harvey <sha...@interaccess.com> wrote:
>
> >We all know the story of the twisted mathematicin Erno Rubik and his
> >brain-wrenching creations which have allowed untold millions to exercise
> >their minds.
>
> I'm sure there's quaint story behind the hula hoop, too, but no one
> remembers it because it's just not very interesting.
You haven't seen "The Hudsucker Proxy", have you? It purports to
tell the story of the invention of the hula hoop. Actually it's
just a good story, but was made with the express permission of
whoever it is who owns the trademark on hula hoops, not least as a
way of mythologizing their product.
Good film, by the way. Helps if you know your Capra and Sturges,
but thoroughly entertaining even if you don't.
> >Put simply, folks, IF is an entertainment form, not something you're going
> >to win a Nobel prize in literature for.
>
> Admitting defeat before we're out of the starting gate?!
>
> It remains to be seen what artistic potential interactive fiction has.
> I've put in my two cents on the simulation issue already. That's not to
> say that other kinds of IF can't be artistic.
I'm going to take this opportunity to plug the magazine I publish,
since it's relevant to this debate. It occurred to me about a year
ago that the reason interactive fiction and other storytelling
systems (particularly face-to-face role-playing games) weren't
moving towards Art or Literature or whatever you want to call it,
was that there wasn't anywhere serious discussion of that side of
the games could be read. People were writing it and self-
publishing it or posting it to the Net, but it was getting lost.
What was needed was a focal point.
Well, the second issue of the magazine is coming out in December.
By a strange coincidence it's called "Interactive Fiction". It'll
be 160 pages long, with articles by games designers such as Greg
Costikyan and Greg Stafford, forty pages of reviews, informed
musings on topics such as virtual reality and MUDs, and various
other articles I don't know about because I'm the publisher, not
the editor. Oh, and lots of stuff about the uses of IF and role-
play in education, re-education and training.
Basically, we're trying to promote intelligent discussion of all
aspects of IF, role-playing and storytelling systems. The end goal
is not just to create better games -- Chris Crawford's
"Interactive Entertainment Design" is far more knowledgeable about
that than we are, and I wouldn't dare tread on his toes -- but to
create more intelligent games. We're not going to convince
academics and critics that what we're doing is art just by
treating it as art, but if we create a climate in which more
intelligent, literary, artistic games can be produced, then
eventually when the games are good enough they will be noticed
and accepted as a respectable form for self-expression. And that,
of course, opens up several more cans of worms . . .
Enough of this talk. Suffice it to say that we always need more
writers for articles, reviews, overviews and even for peer-
reviewing other peoples' articles. If you've got things to say and
have been looking for somewhere to say them, mail me.
We also accept subscriptions. Hint hint.
--
James Wallis <> Boar Books is currently in the
BOAR BOOKS ("Anything's game") <> <> middle of big changes we can't
(boar...@wonder.demon.co.uk) <> talk about. Expect update soon
Felix Lee
|> Oh, I forgot keys. Keys
|> and locks are perfectly simulated :).
Greg Ewing:
>Actually, they're not! In real life, any lock can be picked.
>I've never seen a game that supported lock-picking in a way
>that the author hadn't anticipated.
right, right. keys can also be broken, bent, cut, used for cutting,
thrown as a distraction, used as a temporary replacement for a blown
fuse, and embedded in lucite for posterity. :)
--
Felix Lee
>But I do know that
>descriptions which have an obvious exits line at the bottom really
>grate - it seems so divorced from the world that it makes it hard to
>think of the game as anything but a mechanical mass of data.
Hmm. I find it very annoying if I have to scan a long description for
directions I can go. Objects in the current location are already
listed separately most of the time. Is this different from listing
the exits separately?
The forest here is spackled with sunlight. A clump of birch trees
blocks your view to the north, but the view to the east is clear,
and you think you can see a larch in the distance.
You can see a kumquat, a bat-arang, a Jungian archetype, a restless
cactus, the shadow of a doubt, and a madeleine.
You can go north through the birches, or east towards the larch.
--
Andrew C. Plotkin
terminology. (wa.. S.P.Harvey@interaccess (982)
> : Conclusion: saying "this game is a simulation" or "isn't a simulation"
> : is silly. Be clear in what way you mean "simulation" when you say it,
> : and to what extent.
> How about if we can say "This game contains a very good simulation of a
> college campus" but contains many elements of a magic-using system.
This is exactly the meaning of "simulation" that I'm *not* talking
about. Maybe we really do need a different term.
The Essential Addition
Greg Ewing <gr...@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>Actually, they're not! In real life, any lock can be picked.
>I've never seen a game that supported lock-picking in a way
>that the author hadn't anticipated.
Um.... isn't it a little difficult to do ANYTHING the author hasn't
anticipated? I mean, no matter what your expectations may be, you're not
going to be able to "PICK THE LOCK" unless the author has defined a verb
for "PICK."
--
| In Computer Room, sitting Score: $635/23 years |
| > GET LIFE I don't see any "life" here. rbr...@netcom.com |
| > LOOK UNDER BED The Essential Addittion |
Greg Ewing
Another thought about windows: what about pop-ups?
Consider this: There is one permanent window containing
a transcript of all commands, events and pieces of
narrative in chronological order.
Whenever you issue a command which requests a piece of
ephemeral information (defined as anything you don't
want inserted in the transcript) a pop-up window
appears at eye level.
This would include room descriptions, inventory lists,
"read leaflet", etc.
Pop-ups may be dismissed either permanently or temporarily.
A menu gives access to temporarily-dismissed popups,
so you can go back and look at that room description
again, etc.
Pop-up windows could behave in different ways depending
on the nature of their contents. E.g. an inventory
window could allow selection of objects by clicking.
An 8-page-leaflet reading window could have page-turning
buttons.
Some graphics could even be included if desired,
e.g. for "examine map" and the like.
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
Greg Ewing
|> and locks are perfectly simulated :).
Actually, they're not! In real life, any lock can be picked.
I've never seen a game that supported lock-picking in a way
that the author hadn't anticipated.
I'll concede, however, that in the idealised world which is
the one really being simulated, the simulation is flawless.
(This is a perfectly genuine imitation leather handbag,
Madam...)
S.P.Harvey
Reply-To: sha...@interaccess.com
Distribution: world
Andrew C. Plotkin (ap...@andrew.cmu.edu) wrote:
: > How about if we can say "This game contains a very good simulation of a
: > college campus" but contains many elements of a magic-using system.
: This is exactly the meaning of "simulation" that I'm *not* talking
: about. Maybe we really do need a different term.
Well, what meaning of "simulation" are you talking about? Defiine it for
us and we'll debate it. My above comments are based on what "simulation"
means to me. What's it mean to you?
Felix Lee
>Um.... isn't it a little difficult to do ANYTHING the author hasn't
>anticipated? I mean, no matter what your expectations may be, you're not
>going to be able to "PICK THE LOCK" unless the author has defined a verb
>for "PICK."
right. But for the particular idea of "simulation" that I'm
interested in, the point is to define a set of objects and actions
that can be combined in interesting ways. It's these combinations
that can't always be anticipated by the designer.
Like, Conway's Game of Life has a very simple structure and just a few
simple rules, but it's remarkably productive: it's possible to
simulate logic circuits within the Life world.
--
S.P.Harvey
: The forest here is spackled with sunlight. A clump of birch trees
: blocks your view to the north, but the view to the east is clear,
: and you think you can see a larch in the distance.
: You can see a kumquat, a bat-arang, a Jungian archetype, a restless
: cactus, the shadow of a doubt, and a madeleine.
: You can go north through the birches, or east towards the larch.
: --
> get shadow
You pick up a shadow of a doubt. Or did you? You're not really sure
anymore.
The cactus shifts its spines one way, then the next. Eventually, it
settles back to the way it was before. The cactus sighs resignedly.
> examine Jungian archetype
The archetype reminds you of all the old folklore stories your
grandmother used to tell you, sitting on the wood plank porch of the old
family farmhouse, while biscuits baked in the oven, birds chirped in the
trees, and Grampa distilled gin in the shed.
> eat kumquat
Nobody eats those!
> east
You have come to...
The Larch!
-------
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Scott
--
----------------------| S.P. Harvey |--------------------------
"Abducted by an alien circus company, Professor Doyle is forced to write
calculus equations in center ring." - The Far Side
----------------------| sha...@interaccess.com |--------------------------
Jamieson Norrish
(Felix Lee) writes:
Hmm. I find it very annoying if I have to scan a long description
for directions I can go. Objects in the current location are
already listed separately most of the time. Is this different from
listing the exits separately?
Well, it's not different. However, there is a reason for objects to be
listed at the end which is not mere convenience for noticing them - it
is simply too hard (or was) to incorporate non-permanent features into
a description. Therefore they weren't.
However, I think descriptions would benefit if both exits and objects
were incorporated into the description, since they are a part of what
a description should describe. As it stands, there is a sharp division
between a description and the things you can mess with (objects).
Also, what is wrong with being forced to read a description in order
to find out the exits? It will only happen once or twice for a room,
before you can remember what exits there are. As for missing an exit
in text, that is hardly a big problem - maybe it's one way of making
the player "feel" what the character feels.
Jamie
Felix Lee
>Also, what is wrong with being forced to read a description in order
>to find out the exits? It will only happen once or twice for a room,
>before you can remember what exits there are.
Because my memory's not that good. I have a hard time playing if I'm
not in verbose mode. Sometimes I forget which direction I came from,
so rooms that don't list the way back tend to stymie me unnecessarily.
Eventually, by walking around long enough, I do manage to build an
internal map of the locations. But it takes more than just once or
twice. Is this uncommon?
The Sound of One-Hand Clapping was a game I had problems mapping in my
head. It's a sensible layout, but after the third or fourth time that
I found myself unexpectedly back at the central fountain, I gave up
and drew it out on paper. Of course, now that I've drawn it out, I've
internalized the spatial relationships, and I can now play without the
paper map..
>As for missing an exit
>in text, that is hardly a big problem - maybe it's one way of making
>the player "feel" what the character feels.
In what sense? When was the last time you walked into a room and
forgot where the door was?
In Curses, the description of the patio in the maze says "a missing
flagstone offers an intriguing dark prospect beneath", which was vague
enough that I never thought of going down there.
Overlooking things like this is a real pain, because I don't think
that I've overlooked something until I've spent a long time making no
progress. And revisiting every location to reread the descriptions is
a lot of boring work. At this point, I usually just shelve the game.
>However, I think descriptions would benefit if both exits and objects
>were incorporated into the description, since they are a part of what
>a description should describe.
but from a gameplaying perspective I find this really annoying. One
of the first things I do in a new room is "x all" or "get all" just so
I can see what I can manipulate.
If you really try to integrate the object list into the description,
then from the standpoint of good prose it's probably a good idea to
say something like: "A kumquat and other miscellaneous objects are
scattered on the ground before you." If the player wants to know
what's there, he would "x objects" explicitly.
Maybe this makes sense in that real-life people don't pay careful
attention to all the objects around them, but I don't know if it's a
good design for a game. It would be pretty annoying if your inventory
were split into hands, pockets, belt, knapsack, etc. that all had to
be examined with separate commands.
I think the problem is, there's a fundamental conflict between
narration and description. Narration is linear and concerned with
point-of-view and the focus of attention, while description is
nonlinear and supposed to highlight everything that's significant.
This is another argument for separating narration from description.
They serve different purposes. Litmus test: if it can be replaced
with a picture, it's description; otherwise it's narration.
urg. that's my rant for today. I'll try to keep it down to one rant
every other day. :)
--
Andrew C. Plotkin
terminology. (wa.. S.P.Harvey@interaccess (929)
> Andrew C. Plotkin (ap...@andrew.cmu.edu) wrote:
> : > How about if we can say "This game contains a very good simulation of a
> : > college campus" but contains many elements of a magic-using system.
[...]
> Well, what meaning of "simulation" are you talking about? Defiine it for
> us and we'll debate it. My above comments are based on what "simulation"
> means to me. What's it mean to you?
I can't explain it any more clearly than I did in my original "I want
terminology" post. Simulation meaning a consistent set of rules; the
opposite being exception.
The recent posts about "simulation" have been about simulation meaning
detail and realism; the opposite being ellipsis. One game requires you
to "eat" and "drink" regularly; another skips over that part of your
life. (I've never seen a game where you have to pee :-) You mentioned a
good simulation of a college campus; that's realism. (Or "realism", if
it's a good simulation of a world where magic works; that's not the
issue here.)
I believe that consistency-exception and realism-ellipsis are two
separate axes. But it's hard to display that, because most of the
examples one thinks up involve both axes.
Jamieson Norrish
Essential Addition) writes:
Um.... isn't it a little difficult to do ANYTHING the author hasn't
anticipated? I mean, no matter what your expectations may be,
you're not going to be able to "PICK THE LOCK" unless the author
has defined a verb for "PICK."
Exactly, which is why I say that even using simulation in IF, the
author can exert a great deal of control over the game, without
specifying explicitly all of the possible outcomes.
Jamie
Jamieson Norrish
Jamieson Norrish writes:
>As for missing an exit in text, that is hardly a big problem -
>maybe it's one way of making the player "feel" what the character
>feels.
In what sense? When was the last time you walked into a room and
forgot where the door was?
Not in that sense. :) However, some "rooms" might have exits which
aren't totally obvious, and which can be missed. On the other hand,
you're right that it's a real nuisance to have descriptions which
don't alert you to the presence of an exit which is supposed to be
reasonably obvious - I remember being thrown in Colossal Cave by a
tunnel over a hole. But I think that is a problem with the specific
piece of writing rather than with the method.
>However, I think descriptions would benefit if both exits and
>objects were incorporated into the description, since they are a
>part of what a description should describe.
but from a gameplaying perspective I find this really annoying.
We clearly have different perspectives on this. So perhaps the answer
is to allow obvious exits/objects to be turned on or off.
One of the first things I do in a new room is "x all" or "get all"
just so I can see what I can manipulate.
Eek! *Definitely* different perspectives! Doesn't that make the game
seem so much like a mechanical puzzle?
Jamie
Mark B Sachs
OK, wait a minute, I think I see a way out of the fog -- at least towards
defining this "simulation" game being talked about.
In an ordinary IF game, suppose there was a blown fuse you had to fix.
The author would presumably hide another fuse someplace, which would
be the only thing you could replace it with -- pennies, keys, etc. would
do you no good unless the author explicitly allowed for it. But in
a simulation IF game, it would go something like this:
OBJECT key
IS a_key.
IS metal.
IS sharp.
HAS weight 3.
[...]
END OBJECT.
.
.
.
VERB replace_fuse -- the verb for putting in a new fuse
[...]
IF object IS a_fuse THEN
"You put in the new fuse and the power comes on."
ELSIF object IS metal THEN
"You put the $o across the contacts. A few sparks jump
and the power comes back on."
ELSE
"Putting that in the fusebox doesn't seem to help."
END IF.
END VERB.
This may not seem like much of a difference, and indeed if the author
wrote all this explicitly thinking the player might try to put a key
in the fusebox, it is _not_ actually different. But if instead the
author just notes _as a matter of course_ that the key is made of
metal, and also notes _as a matter of course_ that the fusebox puzzle
could be solved not only by a fuse but in fact by anything metal, then
if the player puts the key in the fusebox, it'll work and be a surprise
to the author, who never thought of that idea. Thus we've taken a
step towards simulationist IF.
Note the other specifications under OBJECT key: that it is sharp, that
it is a key, that it weighs a certain amount, and so forth. Presumably
the author would code stuff appropriately so that anything that can be
cut can be cut by any object that is sharp, you can throw anything on
the scales in a Balances-type puzzle, and so forth.
This is by no means full-simulation IF with object relations and volumes
and so forth, but I really don't think full simulation is practical for
a text game anyway... leave that for the VR folks.
-Mark
Felix Lee
> One of the first things I do in a new room is "x all" or "get all"
> just so I can see what I can manipulate.
Jamieson Norrish:
> Eek! *Definitely* different perspectives! Doesn't that make the game
> seem so much like a mechanical puzzle?
You mean it isn't a mechanical puzzle? :)
Seriously. No, not really. For one thing, it means I don't have to
spend time typing:
> examine statue
That's just scenery.
> examine vines
That's just scenery.
And I don't see how typing all this enhances either the gameplay or
the narrative experience. Stopping to figure out strange puzzles
tends to detract from the story..
--
David Baggett
Felix Lee <fl...@cse.psu.edu> wrote:
>How about group theory? Rubik's Cube is a standard example of a
>simple but interesting group. It's also an elegant physical design.
>It's science and technology, and art in the sense of design.
Like I said, if a Rubik's Cube is art, so is an elegant mathematical proof.
I think it's useful to separate these two notions of "art".
>(but offhand, much as I admire James Joyce, I'd say that television is
>more important to society in the long run.)
Is that because Joyce is inaccessible to most people? As you said, "as
much as I admire James Joyce," I can't help but think that he went a bit to
far; to the point where only people who have taken courses on _Ulysses_ or
_Finnegan's Wake_ can understand them.
Dave Baggett
__
d...@ai.mit.edu MIT AI Lab He who has the highest Kibo # when he dies wins.
ADVENTIONS: We make Kuul text adventures! Email for a catalog of releases.
DBlaheta
As for what's art and what's not, it really is all a matter of
perspective. For example, some books which are commonly deemed to be art
are enjoyable reading to me, but I would *never* classify them as art.
Likewise with visual art. And, likewise with IF. I think there may be
some potential interactive art forms, but I don't think they've been
discovered yet.
The best we've done so far is isolate puzzles, simulation, and story.
This is the same thing as saying that the three parts of an IF program are
1) the plot, which is the driving force through the game (if any), and
encompasses any linearity in the game (you have to do X before you can do
Y). 2) The environment: how "realistic" is it? That is, if I have a
newspaper, can I do every conceivable thing with that newspaper? Can I
not only read it, but also Roll it up and use it as a weapon, Tear off a
piece and eat it, and Use it to pack a box? This aspect encompasses much
of the technical end; the parser and grammar fit in here (can I do X to
Y?) 3) The final aspect is what the user actually does. In some form or
another this can be called puzzles... because the user *has* to figure out
what to do, or he won't end the game. (How do I do X to Y?)
Each is important in its own way. Various works of IF emphasize different
aspects; Zork was almost exclusively a Puzzle game, with just a little
Story and no Simulation to speak of. Trinity was big on Story, and fairly
strong on Puzzles, although the Simulation was not terribly accurate.
Starcross I would call a Puzzle game with some Simulation and a little
Story. How specifically I categorize, say, Zork:
Puzzles: *How* do I get to the Northern half of the dungeon? *How* do I
get the Platinum Bar? *How* do I open the egg?
Simulation: *What* am I doing to get to the Northern half of the dungeon?
(Not very realistic, eh?) *What* am I doing to get the Platinum Bar?
(Solution 1: fairly realistic, Solution 2: utter balderdash) *What* am I
doing to open the egg? (Somewhat reasonable, sort of)
Story: *Why* am I going to the Northern half of the dungeon? (No special
reason) *Why* am I trying to get the Platinum Bar? (No special reason)
*Why* am I trying to open the egg? (No special reason)
Likewise with Starcross:
Puzzles: *How* do I get the rods? *How* do I get to the drive? *How* do
I turn on the lights?
Simulation: *What* am I doing to get the rods? (Various things, mostly
reasonable within a sci-fi context) *What* am I doing to get to the
drive? (Given that you're on a spaceship, this is very realistic) *What*
am I doing to turn on the lights? (Again, makes sense in context)
Story: *Why* am I getting the rods? (To turn on the drive, to go home)
*Why* am I going to the drive? (To use the rods, to activate the drive,
to get home) *Why* am I turning on the lights? (To search the corridor
for other rods)
/*cont'd next post*/
Don Blaheta
dbla...@aol.com
DBlaheta
You can see the big differences between the two games. Other games you
can find in varying degrees of each. Here's my opinions on each type of
game:
Puzzle/Story/Simulation This is standard early IF. The puzzles *are* the
point of the game, and there is usually some rudimentary storyline at
least, however often the puzzles are counterintuitive and violate the laws
of nature as we know them. This kind of game tends to be fun exactly
once, since once the puzzles are done and solved, there is nothing left to
the game.
Puzzle/Simulation/Story This is the type of game seen in the Infocom
detective games, among others. The big problem is that you have to solve
puzzles realistically, but you have almost no guidance to this ultimate
goal. With some work, this could be set up to form a more realistic game;
not all puzzles need be solved to beat the game, so one can go back and
solve others or just explore the simulation. Tends to get boring, though,
without the storyline.
Simulation/Puzzle/Story This is truly pointless. With the simulation
supreme, and the story unimportant, many players would get bored and quit
the game before doing anything.
Simulation/Story/Puzzle This group has potential; in it you have all the
games which demonstrate a simulation engine. In and of itself, it is not
terribly good, because although you do have more of a story to go by you
still are wandering around aimlessly most of the time.
Story/Puzzle/Simulation This is another IF "game" class... You have a
strong storyline with intermediate puzzles. The action tends to bring you
right into the puzzle and the puzzle fits right in. However, there isn't
as much realism as might be wanted, and you often result with puzzles with
ridiculous solutions. (Which therefore lose people in their
non-intuitiveness. I am driven to quote: "How the heck was I supposed to
know to put the hammer in the bucket?!")
Story/Simulation/Puzzle Here we have the potential art form. The author
writes the story (or adapts it) and implements an engine to display it.
The puzzles may exist, or not, but they play purely minor roles and could
actually be skipped altogether. The true beauty is how the player is
reminded of the plot and what he *should* be working towards, with plot
bottlenecks every few branchings or so. If the story is told aggressively
but tantalizingly ("blahblahblah and then she said she knew of a secret
regarding your late father's dearest friend Jack. However, it is kept by
the old man who lives at...") then the user can follow the story and
explore it without staying *too* strictly within bindings set by the
author. Carefully done, this grouping of IF could be a true art form.
Regarding hints: In a work of the final type, hints should not be in the
least bit necessary. If they are, it wasn't done right. In games of the
third and fourth types hints are relatively superfluous; if you like you
can put them in, but they shouldn't be needed, and this class of IF should
be used for demos and practice, mostly, anyway. In the first, second, and
fifth types, hints may be necessary, although the author should make it
work well for each of the three player-types: rabid puzzlers he can
disregard as they won't use them, cruisers he must cater to, for they will
live off the hints in many puzzles, and the weak-willed he must at least
allow to turn off the hints, cuz they *know* they'll feel guilty
afterward. ;) (I'm of the third type...)
I hope I've given enough food for thought now, cuz I'm running up a
heckuva bill :)
Don Blaheta
dbla...@aol.com
Jamieson Norrish
Baggett) writes:
In article <JAMIE.94O...@akeake.its.vuw.ac.nz>,
Jamieson Norrish <ja...@akeake.its.vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
>Does that make it clearer what I mean? The character can wander
>around, doing something here, something there, and getting their
>own story built out of what is done.
Is it different from "plot graph" IF I described?
I think so, but perhaps not necessarily. Because of the constraints of
providing a "good plot" for every path, there are going to be a
limited number of paths. I've been thinking of something less
restricted by the hand of the author. Note, however, that I do not
think that there are only two possibilities for author involvement.
Instead of having a choice between a plot with every detail worked out
by the author, and a simulation with no imposed plot whatsoever,
there's a spectrum. Not only that, but any simulation is going to
involve a great deal of author input, and that input will decide to a
greater or lesser degree the path of any interaction within that
simulation.
In my mind, "doing something here and there" would correspond to
choosing an arbitary path in the plot graph.
I think that you're missing something here though. A player can choose
to do a bit here and a bit there, and perhaps come up with a cruddy
plot. However, that will reflect the player's interests in the game.
However, that does not mean that the player cannot choose to follow
certain plots (which do not need to be obscure at all) if desired. In
any game it will be possible for the player to not go along the
author-designated path - it's just that in most cases around, that
means not really playing the game at all, or at most not getting very
much out of it. What I'm thinking of is a game which allows a greater
ability for the players to do what they want to do, without abandoning
many aspects of the author written plot, and a greater scope if they
choose to ignore all those plots. To go back to the brick in Zork II -
if the game had more of a world operating, there could have been
interesting effects of using the brick in a location other than where
authors intended it to be used. Indeed, these effects may have had
some relation with another story.
The big point, though, is just adding a bit more player choice.
Instead of having one and only one story to follow to the "end"
(whatever the subplots), a more free-form approach might work in some
instances.
I'm not sure a sequence of good plots sums to a good overall plot.
I don't think that's likely. But you could always impose some
grand plot, in which the hand-crafted subplots are simply local
changes. (This is a more sophisticated form of checkpointing, I
guess.)
Yes, you could do this. But that would be worthless if the "subplots"
could not have a significant effect on the "grand plot".
I'm skeptical that plots that are in any way generated (using
near-future technology) can be high-quality. But it remains to be
seen.
Returning to the point above about simulation - the simulative
elements that are added by the author can have an effect on the game;
likewise, the rules used by the author to govern the outcomes of
particular decisions can be slanted in particular directions. In these
ways, the author can maintain a fair degree of control over the
outcomes of various choices, without predicting in detail those
choices.
Also, I think the role of playtesting might take on an even greater
importance with this sort of game than it has already, especially if
you are concerned with having the majority of possible outcomes result
in "good plots".
To take the example of replacing the fuse by using a metal key -
having allowed the simulation to handle this, it's perfectly possible
(and quite reasonable), to not have this work with the key - after
all, lots of fuses require something that can bend in order to work.
Or maybe the key is too short, but some other object isn't. The
possibilities are (I hope) easy to see - that is one of the ways
authors can maintain control over the story, without plotting every
single possibility.
Jamie
Jamieson Norrish
S.P.Harvey) writes:
Ah! Very true, but true expert lock picking is not a skill known
by the vast majority of the citizenry. It's true that any lock can
be picked if you have: a) the skills b) the tools c) the time.
All three of which can be "simulated."
Now, if we want to be serious about our simulations, we'd need to educate
the player on the methods of lockpicking. And provide the tools, or at
least the ability to make the tools.
Why the part about education? Players need not know how lockpicking
works in the details, just as players probably don't know how to fight
trolls or cast spells. The character, on the other hand, might require
some form of skill. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it can be
worked into the game. Perhaps there is someone in the game who can
teach that skill - an obvious opening for a story/plot already,
particularly if the teacher wants payment of some sort. The point to
remember, I think, is that having a story attached to paying the
teacher and learning the skill need not be a vital part of the game.
[IF simulation deleted.]
If everything is left to chance, well, try it enough times and
you'll get past it.
In the light of the discussion about hints, bypasses, and
walkthroughs, this is a particularly ironic statement. Firstly, there
is no real necessity to include much or any random factors into the
game. Secondly, so what if someone finishes the game in 4 moves?
They've missed out on the majority of the game, and will probably go
back and play it again to find those bits. And, in fact, it should be
possible for them in the same game to go back and look at the rest.
Not all games need to have this emphasis on "winning" or "completing".
Jamie
Derek S Felton
: Story/Simulation/Puzzle Here we have the potential art form. The author
: writes the story (or adapts it) and implements an engine to display it.
: The puzzles may exist, or not, but they play purely minor roles and could
: actually be skipped altogether. The true beauty is how the player is
: reminded of the plot and what he *should* be working towards, with plot
: bottlenecks every few branchings or so. If the story is told aggressively
: but tantalizingly ("blahblahblah and then she said she knew of a secret
: regarding your late father's dearest friend Jack. However, it is kept by
: the old man who lives at...") then the user can follow the story and
: explore it without staying *too* strictly within bindings set by the
: author. Carefully done, this grouping of IF could be a true art form.
I agree--in no small part due to the fact that I'd like to see more
simulation in IF. Don brings up one point I think I've been unable to
express in my numerous pro-simulation posts: the simulation of a world is
no substitute for a good, compelling story. All the physical realism in
the world won't keep people as interested as a good plot.
Sure, let characters and objects drive the story more extensively (if
you like this idea)... just make sure there's a story there for them to
drive!
--- Derek S. Felton
de...@esu.edu
S.P.Harvey
: Conclusion: saying "this game is a simulation" or "isn't a simulation"
: is silly. Be clear in what way you mean "simulation" when you say it,
: and to what extent.
How about if we can say "This game contains a very good simulation of a
college campus" but contains many elements of a magic-using system. Is
the entire game to be called a "non-simulation of a college campus" just
because magic is a part of the plot? Or is it an excellent simulation of
a campus with magic added in? We have no realistic way to say "it's a
perfect simulation of how magic works", so we're stuck there.
Scott
--
----------------------| S.P. Harvey |--------------------------
Mike Threepoint
> (I've never seen a game where you have to pee :-)
Well, there's Leather Goddesses of Phobos, but that's not part of a
simulation.
Alexander Williams
David Baggett <d...@ai.mit.edu> wrote:
>I'm not sure it would really work out to be very compelling, but I can
>definitely see it having some artistic merit. I guess that my requirement
>that there be an imposed plot is too strict. (Though I still think that
>it'll be a *rare* work that can succeed without a plot, and I am still
>suspect of the claim that good plots will arise out of simulations.)
Actually, I've been considering using just this method to publish an
"anthology" of poems collected by a friend of mine, basically framing
them in a nice setting or somesuch and put them out, much like a
digital book. That is, if I can get the Inform 5.4 binaries compiled
for Linux and the docs as strict ASCII. :) Have to learn it first,
you see. ;)
I'm of the camp that feels its possible for /good/ plots to arise
strictly out of simulation, but you have to be nearly brilliant to
design the original simulated items. Most of that is because,
traditionally, the literature revolves around the character
interactions and not character-item interactions. I'd consider
_Planetfall_ to be /almost/ simulationist in approach, ie. you have a
certain situation, you have some given items, and things interact
given certain constraints. The plot, as such, arises from the initial
setup and the items that one encounters and explores.
>But with the phrase "real interaction" you are running afoul. No one knows
>how to implement "real interaction" with characters.
I meam "real interaction" in the sense that ``stuff does stuff.'' I
have items that can be manipulated, I have characters of some
complexity, at least the basic NPC complexity of standard IF... Think
of it as a big animatronic representation of my town that you can
wander through, and which /presents itself as such/. That engages a
willing suspension of disbelief in the setting and makes it almost a
representation of another thing like any sculpture, except its formed
of words, not animatronic metal and silicon.
That could have a plot, but doesn't /need/ one to suceed as art, I'd
think, because the thing itself and your exploration are the dual
media, not simply a passive one. Perhaps in the same sense of ``art''
as a well-crafted hedge maze or _Westworld_ the concept (not the
novel/movie).
>>To be honest, to say that ``Simulationist IF cannot work,'' to me seems
>>akin to saying ``The Mona Lisa can't be art because it doesn't actively
>>evoke a response, instead it just /sits/ there.''
>
>I don't think that's a fair comparison, because the Mona Lisa is not a work
>in a temporally-based medium, whereas a piece of fiction is. A better
>analogy would be a movie that consisted only of a frame of the Mona Lisa
>repeated over and over for an hour. Obviously, such a thing might as well
>just be a painting -- it certainly isn't a good movie.
That was the point, actually, that its not a fair comparison at all,
its mixing apples and silicate breast implants. The question is one
of what defines ``work.'' While simulationist IF might not be the
proper method for an artist to present a narrative or a set story
(though the artist /may/ be able to, as paintings and frescos have
been able to, as well as being static media) it may, in fact, be
perfectly suited to presenting a /different/ kind of art, which
attempts to represent, whether it be realistic or surreal. In fact,
at the latter, when the axioms the simulation follows are /not/ what
are expected, it may excell over some other media, because of the way
it interacts.
>IF is word-based, and in word-based stuff the passage of time is important.
>We've found that most word-based (longer) works need to have plot to get
>the same level of reaction from the reader as the Mona Lisa gets from the
>viewer, because word-based works without plot tend to be boring, and boring
>works tend to lose people.
The question is, does the actual ability for the player to interact
with the simulation evoke a sense of the passage of time? Can we add
it? Is it /really/ necessary to what we are simulating to create an
external sense of the passage of time? I think its a matter of
deciding what we're trying to present, in terms of the art or whatnot,
and then to manifest it, rather than simply saying ``Simulationist IF
cannot work,'' simply because, for some things, it does and does
/well/. Zork I, frankly, does not a good tale make as a simulation
concept, but simulations are not for telling tales, they're for
painting with a much larger brush and letting tales arise
spontaneously, however they do as the artist tries to create a
synergistic effect. This, by definition, is a hard thing to do, but
then again, writing /good/ exception-based IF is a hard thing to
do... /well/.
>The concept of movement (change over time) is important in music too; many
>people don't react well to music that they perceive as unchanging or very
>slowly changing (though I happen to like many such works so I know that
>this is a simplification). People talk about movement in paintings; I
>guess that the canvas does capture the artist's rate of work. But it seems
>different to me; perhaps that's just because I know terribly little about
>the theory behind visual art. (I am stuck in the "well that looks pretty
>cool" stage.)
That may be part of the overall problem as well. What do we really
/know/ about the analysis of simulationist IF, artistically? Not
bloody much, because no one's made a really good run at it yet. I'm
fond of _3:15_ myself, on the odd occasion, just as I've played the IF
version of _Waiting for Godot_ and enjoyed it (which may be a
/hypergood/ choice for someone to do up as simulationist; limited
area, few props, and little action comine to make a simulatable
setting in detail). We have no theory behind simulationist IF, and
darn little for IF in general, whatever you refer to it as.
--
tha...@runic.mind.org (Alexander Williams) | PGP 2.6 key avail
| DF 22 16 CE CA 7F
Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the | 98 47 13 EE 8E EC
Law. Love is the Law, Love Under Will. -oOo- | 9C 2D 9B 9B
Molley the Mage
> Note: I followed up to this without reading it all the way to the end
> first. Mistake! However, I'm not going to take the time to change all
> my responses. Just try to ignore the slightly exasperated tone, and
> look at the content. Sorry Sean.
No problem. We're all friends here, right? ;)
> There are certainly large differences. In character-based IF, the plot
> is forced onto the player. There is a plot, and it will be followed,
> or the game does not work. If the stories come from the world, then
> the player is not forced to follow them, and the game can still
> succeed.
Hmm. Perhaps the problem here is that we have not defined "success"
as it applies to an IF game. "Success" for the player is
traditionally assumed to be "winning" the game; that is, getting to
the end of the story. But just because the player "finished" a game,
does that mean that the game really SUCCEEDED? I submit that it does
not -- the player succeeded in the opinion of the game, but the game
did not succeed in the opinion of the player.
I have finished many games that I did not particularly enjoy,
simply because I hate to leave anything unfinished. The same
principle applies to books. After all, the game (or book, or
whatever) might get better if you just stick it out. It's like
leaving the baseball game in the eighth inning and then hearing on
your car radio that the home team scored 12 runs in the bottom of the
ninth to win.
So I would say that any game which the player enjoys has succeeded,
whether he "wins" it or not. In fact, in a work of "plotless" IF such
as you (and others) describe, it might not even be possible to "win" --
or would it? How do we define the success of the player in a game with no
plot? When does the game "end"?
> Whoah. Where did this "simulationist" thing come from? I am not
> talking about simulation. I am talking about having author crafted
> stories imbedded in the objects, NPCs, and events of the world, rather
> than being intrinsically connected to the character.
Sorry about the "simulationist" bit. Like I said, several posts
blended together. Okay, "author crafted stories embedded in the
objects, NPC's, and events of the world." Now, suppose that a game
such as you describe has been written. What happens if the player
misses the clues to these embedded stories? Or what if he ignores
them all? What happens? Does he "win"? Does he "lose"? Does the
game succeed on any level?
And if the plot is not connected to the character, who *is* it
connected to? By making someone other than the player the protagonist
(or antagonist, as the case may be), haven't you removed some of the
enjoyment of the game? And notice that "protagonist" does not
necessarily mean "the most important or powerful person in the world."
Infocom's "Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels" casts you as Dr.
Watson, Sherlock's sidekick -- but the player is still the
protagonist, as Holmes is rather quickly out of the picture. Now
imagine playing the same game, where you are Dr. Watson, only *this*
time, Holmes (the NPC) runs around the game solving all the puzzles
and doing all the work, while you tag along and watch. I don't think
that would be very much fun. Typing
>SAY "CAPITAL IDEA, HOLMES!"
Holmes beams at the praise. "Elementary, my dear Watson."
(Yes, I *know* he never said it! :) would not be my idea of a good
time.
> Of course you can't model everything, and you almost
> certainly wouldn't want to.
Here we agree. But the original example posted was a game where the
player starts out as a lowly peasant (or whatever) and -- and here's
the key -- IF HE CHOOSES TO FOLLOW THE PLOT -- rises to be king or
whatever. But what if he *doesn't* choose to follow the plot? What
happens then? What will the player see and do?
> Are we all trying to create epic games?
Well, *cough* *hem* not in the sense of "epic poetry" or "epic
fiction". I would call an "epic work of IF" one that was widely
played, discussed, and respected. By this definition, Curses is an
epic; so is Zork I.
Or, to put it another way: If my game is as well-received as Curses,
I'll be more than satisfied. :)
> Misconception alert! Misconception alert! Who said anything about
> "concealing" it? Sure, some stories might be harder to find than
> others. But how about coming across someone who's car has broken down.
> The potential stories in that are hardly concealed, yet the story is
> not intimately linked with the character, who can walk off without
> doing anything, or not even come across the person - without the game
> failing as it would in traditional IF where it is necessary to solve
> all the puzzles to "win".
Yes, I see what you are saying. However, I contend that an episode
such as you describe is not a plot unto itself. It is exactly what I
called it: an "episode". Think of an IF game like a sitcom -- they
might make 500 episodes. Now, just because you miss a week doesn't
mean that the next time you tune in, you'll have no clue about who any
of the characters are or what the heck is going on, because the
overall plot (a family that makes jokes) is consistent. In IF, the
way we link our "epsidoes" together is by making the player the
protagonist and focal point of the action. I agree that an IF game
where some or all PUZZLES are optional would lose nothing -- take
King's Quest VI, for example; fully 25% of the "puzzles" don't have to
be completed. But a game where the STORY is optional; there's where I
have to draw the line.
> And why does it matter that the player might require several games to
> explore the entire story? Or is a one-shot game better?
I never said anything about limiting the player to "one-shot" or
"several-shot" gaming. I must confess I'm not really sure what you're
talking about here. If by "several games" you mean several sessions
with a particular game, that's why we have save and restore. I think
perhaps you are referring to the idea of spreading a particular
storyline out over multiple works of IF; this is a great idea, one
which I am trying myself. I think both types of games have their
merits and demerits; just like novels of both types. Stephen King has
written books that stand alone, and he's written books in a series or
cycle. I like them all. If the story you hvae to tell spans more
than one "game", then break it up into several games.
Which brings up another point. What's a "good" length for an IF game?
We traditionally measure the "size" of games in terms of number of
rooms; but that is not always a good measure. Likewise number of
puzzles is not a good measure, since many people don't want any
puzzles at all. "A Mind Forever Voyaging" has almost NO puzzles, yet
is widely considered a pinnacle of the genre. Should we measure IF
games like novels, in terms of number of words of text? How much is
too much? How much is not enough?
> So what's your problem?! If you've just said you can have events,
> crises, and plots in a simulation game, then why is that not possible
> in IF?
My point is that IF *without* those things would not be a good game.
My understanding of "simulation" games is that instead of having a
plot which is dictated by the author, "I write the songs", the
objects, characters, and locations are embued with the "power" to
create their own plots, which the player can then follow or not
follow, as he or she desires. "The songs write themselves." My
contention is that the second type is not workable as a game.
> Now, at last, we get onto something which replies to what I said. It
> is not necessary to remove all plot which requires the character,
> although I don't think the player should be forced into it to the
> extent that he or she is now.
Okay, I will agree with you here. I have no problem whatsoever with
certain "episodes" being optional or different depending on what
choices the player makes. Again, I cite King's Quest VI as an
example. (Yes, we all slam Sierra, but they're just about the only
people writing IF and they're certainly the most successful!) There
are whole parts of the game that are different or absent depending on
how the player chooses to attack the problem. But the overall plot,
rescuing the island for the machinations of the evil vizier, is
unchanged. And this plot is tied to the player character. I contend
that it MUST be, or there is no game.
> Which is, I think, why I said I'd like to see stories in the objects,
> characters, and events in the world.
But who's going to write these stories, if not the author of the game?
And who are the stories going to be about, if not the player?
Anything that the player does not see or experience personally (ie, it
appears on his monitor) might as well be absent, because if the player
of the game -- the person sitting at the computer -- does not see or
experience something, WHO DID? You see my point? Removing the onus
of the plot from the player character is well and good, but who are
you going to put it on instead? If we had multi-player games, or
virtual reality, or something, maybe. But assuming that there is one
person sitting at one computer playing your game, that person and no
other is the person you should be trying to please, amuse, enthrall,
or whatever. The NPC's can't appreciate their experiences.
> Ooops. :)
As I say, no problem. :) This is not an attempt to insult anyone's
view of IF; it's merely my opinions about what constitutes a good
game. Comments are always welcome, and will be thoughtfully
considered.
> Show me a game that proves me wrong, and I'll gladly eat this post.
> :)
>
> You're on!
:) I look forward to seeing it. And I look forward to releasing my
own game, as well, so that I can put my money where my mouth is!
> Jamie
Sean
--
M. Sean Molley, CS Department, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY
Internet: mol...@wkuvx1.wku.edu | That is not dead which can eternal lie....
--
"Yes, Ytalk -- the next best thing to the next best thing to being there."
-- David Hammett
Phil Goetz
Greg Ewing <gr...@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>
>Perhaps instead of a single "look" verb, there should
>be different commands for looking in different ways?
>e.g.
>
>look Full description of surroundings
>objects List movable objects present
>exits List obvious exits
Yes! Yes! I second the motion.
Phil go...@cs.buffalo.edu
"Lassie! You've killed again." -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
Felix Lee
>By "That's just scenery", do you mean that there might be any text
>there, but the function is only as scenery, or that it provides no
>text (or should I say description?) on the object at all?
"That's just scenery" is what One Hand Clapping tells you when you
examine random scenery objects. Curses tells you "That's not
something you need to refer to in the course of this game."
"You see nothing special about the goop" is also common. And there's
always: "You don't see any goop here" and "I don't understand that."
I suppose you could argue that everything mentioned should have its
own description, but how deep do you want it to go?
>Where, also, do the "strange puzzles" fit in? I think I'm getting a
>bit confused.
Sorry, that was a random tangent. ignore it.
--
Philip Jones
>>will be talking about in a hundred years.
I just read the Inform source for Colossal Cave. That's getting on for thirty
years old now. I think it may last a hundred years or so and achieve status
as a literary classic.
>>Is this a problem with the medium? Is the video game form one that cannot
>>sustain really thought-provoking works?
I think that the format can sustain classic works. Compare it with the early,
silent, cinema. Perhaps Mario is the Chaplin of our times, Id Software the
John Ford etc. We've yet to discover our great "Art" games ... but we will.
philip
Paul Munn
complaints, etc. deleted]
I have found the adventure games which put the listing of exits at the
end of a room description as a rule to be easier to navigate without a
paper map. I usually dislike the games that make a list of exits after
showing a description, preferring the integration of the list into the
description.
-Paul
--
--------------------------
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
pm...@westnet.com // Paul Munn
modem 914-967-7802 = low cost Lower Westchester, NY net access = Westnet.Com
Rob Moser
It seems to me as if there is room for a happy medium between the "lead `em
by the nose" school of step-by-step plots (like several of the later Sierra
games, where there is a nice plot that I feel like I have no effect
whatsoever on) and the "random chaos" school of plots (like the original
Adventure, where you can do what you like when you like and there is no
real plot to speak of...). If we are to craft an adventure for the user,
rather than just build a simulation world for them to play in, then we need
to give them some inkling of a plot to work with. But rather than looking
at plot from a novelists or dramatists' point of view in which we have a
linear buildup of tension, why not build a 3d mountain for them to climb;
we build towards a specific climax (or climaxes. You can allow for several
possible) but allow them to choose their own path to reach that peak.
Initial events, any of which can be pursued at any time, lead to events at
a higher level which can be pursued at any point where all of the necessary
"foundation events" have been completed.
While this all sounds horrible theoretical, there's no reason why we can't
implement it easily enough. I suspect that a graph of events and their
predecessors would come in quite handy. The difficulty arises in
anticipating enough of the user's possible choices without making the thing
completely unbounded (and therefore HUGE), in making the boundaries on the
user's possible actions seem to be natural (instead of just saying "You
can't do that"), and in realizing that a very large part of your code in a
system like this MAY NEVER BE USED. As programmers you have to realize
that if you're not going to lead them about, they might not go everywhere,
so its going to take a lot of work and a large program to deal with a
relatively small event in a non-deterministic fashion. (unless you do
force them to do everything, and just leave the ordering non-determined
which gives them a lesser degree of control without making your overhead so
wicked.)
Comments?
(By the by, i liked the mention earlier about objects/characters in the
story having stories of their own, which might or might not resolve
themselves without the player. I like my players to feel like they are in
a world, not the center of one.)
- Rob.
David Baggett
Alexander Williams <tha...@runic.mind.org> wrote:
>I disagree. What if I create the text-equivalent of the Louvre, fill
>it with works of didactic poetry and works in text which have artistic
>value and meaning, all as arranged in a consensual 3d simulation
>environment firmly entrenched in text.
Wow; dispatched by my own sword. I've thought about doing something like
what you describe for a while now; I've envisioned it more along the lines
of "you're an archaeologist exploring the ruins of a long-dead alien race".
In these ruins, you'd find room after room filled with examples of these
creatures' art, or "stuff", to use a less loaded term. (Perhaps the ruin
is the remains of a tomb.)
I'm not sure it would really work out to be very compelling, but I can
definitely see it having some artistic merit. I guess that my requirement
that there be an imposed plot is too strict. (Though I still think that
it'll be a *rare* work that can succeed without a plot, and I am still
suspect of the claim that good plots will arise out of simulations.)
>Or perhaps I create a Simulationist IF of my small town home, with chances
>for real interaction with the localle. If it creates a feeling, evokes a
>reaction from the reader, has it not succeeded?
But with the phrase "real interaction" you are running afoul. No one knows
how to implement "real interaction" with characters.
>To be honest, to say that ``Simulationist IF cannot work,'' to me seems
>akin to saying ``The Mona Lisa can't be art because it doesn't actively
>evoke a response, instead it just /sits/ there.''
I don't think that's a fair comparison, because the Mona Lisa is not a work
in a temporally-based medium, whereas a piece of fiction is. A better
analogy would be a movie that consisted only of a frame of the Mona Lisa
repeated over and over for an hour. Obviously, such a thing might as well
just be a painting -- it certainly isn't a good movie.
IF is word-based, and in word-based stuff the passage of time is important.
We've found that most word-based (longer) works need to have plot to get
the same level of reaction from the reader as the Mona Lisa gets from the
viewer, because word-based works without plot tend to be boring, and boring
works tend to lose people.
The concept of movement (change over time) is important in music too; many
people don't react well to music that they perceive as unchanging or very
slowly changing (though I happen to like many such works so I know that
this is a simplification). People talk about movement in paintings; I
guess that the canvas does capture the artist's rate of work. But it seems
different to me; perhaps that's just because I know terribly little about
the theory behind visual art. (I am stuck in the "well that looks pretty
cool" stage.)
Dave