May I suggest a convention?
aul...@koala.scott.net
[Cross-post warning! Followups are being sent to r.g.i-f.]
Since it seems that some people (myself included, perhaps) want
to discuss the competition games during the judging period, may
I suggest a way to keep people from seeing more than they want?
Something like this:
Title:[Comp96 -- General] Game Title
Title:[Comp96 -- Tech] Game Title
Title:[Comp96 -- Specific] Game Title
Title:[Comp96 -- Spoilers] General
Using the word inside the brackets to indicate the type of comments in
the post and the word outside to indicate the game being commented
on or if it's general comments. (So "[Comp96 -- General] General" is
a possible form.)
[..General] -- Basic comments with no real criticism positive or negative.
[..Tech] -- Technical questions or comments not involving game play or
any real criticism.
[..Specific] -- Comments about specific things in the game, criticism and
opinions, but no spoilers or really strong opinions.
(i.e. flames and/or raves)
[..Spoilers] -- In depth criticism and any level of detail. Anything goes.
I think it's a good idea to help those who want to avoid certain types
of posts over the next month or so.
That is all,
Joe
Matthew Amster-Burton
For a second there, I thought you were going to suggest we all get
together at the Javits Center or something.
But I think this is a good idea. I remain unconvinced that there's
anything wrong with discussing the entries immediately, but of course I
absolutely respect the right of any reader to wait to take part in this
conversation until the competition is over.
Spoilerspace here, after which I will make a general observation that
won't mention any games specifically...
Is anyone else getting sick of traditional sci-fi/fantasy games? I have
nothing against the genre (Spellbreaker and Trinity were my favorite
Infocoms), but its works are becoming stale and indistinguishable. Games
that take a different tack are making a much better impression on me.
Matthew
Andrew Clover
Matthew Amster-Burton <mam...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
[Some probably quite superfluous spoiler space]
.
.
.
> Is anyone else getting sick of traditional sci-fi/fantasy games? I have
> nothing against the genre (Spellbreaker and Trinity were my favorite
> Infocoms), but its works are becoming stale and indistinguishable.
> Games that take a different tack are making a much better impression on
> me.
Yes, absolutely! I was thinking exactly this when playing... you know,
*that* one, and I thought that when I played So Far (which largely got away
with it due to the interesting prologue and the general originality).
I wouldn't generalise as far as saying "sci-fi/fantasy" games - it's more
games where one starts off in a relatively normal situation, and then ends
up on a strange journey through time and relative dimensions in space though
some largely unexplained weirdness. Trinity really started it off, and
spawned Curses, Jigsaw (where the weirdness was more explained, if you got
that far), TIME (ditto), So Far, and several of the competition games.
The genre's become as common as games set in schools, and games where you
play humble apprentice Bob who must defeat the evil Xyzzyqjf the evil one
by force of sheer cunning.
These games aren't *bad* - in fact my favourite of those I've played so far
(no pun etc.) was a bit like that, in some ways - but I would like to see
more variety.
{Authors who have written funny magic-transportation fantasy games: Pah,
you are just saying that because you are jealous of other people
managing to finish their games whilst yours still hasn't got past
the prologue due to you being to lazy and that. I mean, you didn't
even get a little game done for the competition! You arse-head!
Andrew Clover: Fair enough, then. I'll shut up.}
BCNU, AjC
Andrew Plotkin
Andrew Clover (a...@puppy.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> [sick of traditional games]
> I thought that when I played So Far (which largely got away
> with it due to the interesting prologue and the general originality).
> I wouldn't generalise as far as saying "sci-fi/fantasy" games - it's more
> games where one starts off in a relatively normal situation, and then ends
> up on a strange journey through time and relative dimensions in space though
> some largely unexplained weirdness. Trinity really started it off, and
> spawned Curses, Jigsaw (where the weirdness was more explained, if you got
> that far), TIME (ditto), So Far, and several of the competition games.
> The genre's become as common as games set in schools, and games where you
> play humble apprentice Bob who must defeat the evil Xyzzyqjf the evil one
> by force of sheer cunning.
I'll avoid competition spoilers by just talking about _So Far_...
You're right. My biggest embarrassment about _So Far_ is that it's so
unoriginal in genre. I was sick of lots-of-little-dimensions games when I
*wrote* it, but it was a lots-of-little-dimensions idea from the
beginning and I couldn't separate what I wanted to say from that
construction.
You're only the second person to complain, though. Ok, third, counting
me. This doesn't mean I forgive myself, of course.
(Although "largely unexplained" is kind of rude; I thought the ending of
_So Far_ was very well explained. And long long ago, when I wrote a
letter to Infocom asking about the ending of _Trinity_, I got a nice note
back saying that the ending was very well explained but they preferred to
let it speak for itself, rather than explaining further. All authors
claim they know what they're doing.)
(And yes, that note probably explains a lot about my own attitude towards
explaining my work. :-)
My only redeeming note is that I was able to set things up so that you
moved back and forth through the little dimensions a few times, and their
stuff interacted. (I was *especially* tired of games where there are lots
of little dimensions, and you visit each one exactly once, and they're
all entirely independent.)
Be assured that I'll avoid this model like miserable death in any future
efforts.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Roger Carbol
Well, to broaden the scope of this discussion a little bit,
I think that the use of very traditional conventions in I-F
is symptomatic of a larger condition.
I compare it to the early days of science fiction. Everyone's
hero either started off as being in the same milieu as the
audience and transporting somehow to the future (eg Buck Rogers)
or the future came to them (eg War of the Worlds) or, on the
off-hand that the whole thing happened in the future, then
at some point one of the characters would explain the whole
universe to another character, who for some reason completely
blanked on where he was ("As you know, Dr. Phlegg, the temporal
infibulator works by compressing the tachyonic aether...")
Eventually, though, SF writers got to the point where they
trusted the readers enough to take them into far-flung realities
without much in the way of explanation. The underlying universe
was exposed and explained, of course, but only within the context
of the ongoing story.
I think a similar process is occurring with IF. Of course, if you
look at the very early I-F, there was often no attempt to explain
the game-universe whatsoever. As the concept of story within I-F
evolved, writers started to worry that the audience might not understand
it, so more exposition was introduced. It is worthwhile to point
out, though, that games like "Enchanter" placed a fairly large burden
of abeyance on the audience -- things like the magic system were
never rationalized, for example.
Hopefully, as writers in I-F improve as a group, we'll start trusting
the audience more and taking them farther away from reality with
fewer safety-nets. This will take some risk-taking and probably
involve some failure -- which is not always well-supported by our
community at r.a.i-f, I'm sad to say. This is one of the reasons that
I think a category like "Most Innovative" would be worthwhile to the
Competition -- it acknowledges someone's attempt to broaden the
field, without judging their game as a game, as such.
On the other hand, I could be way out to lunch, or worse, repeating
a thread which comes up in r.a.i-f every three months like clockwork.
Roger Carbol .. r...@col.ca .. what would you like to score?
Laurel Halbany
Matthew Amster-Burton <mam...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>Spoilerspace here, after which I will make a general observation that
>won't mention any games specifically...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Is anyone else getting sick of traditional sci-fi/fantasy games?
Yes. Unless their theme is an exceedingly clever and interestingly new
one, I'm bored.
----------------------------------------------------------
Laurel Halbany
myt...@agora.rdrop.com
http://www.rdrop.com/users/mythago/
Andrew Clover
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) wrote:
> You're right. My biggest embarrassment about _So Far_ is that it's so
> unoriginal in genre. I was sick of lots-of-little-dimensions games when
> I *wrote* it, but it was a lots-of-little-dimensions idea from the
> beginning and I couldn't separate what I wanted to say from that
> construction.
We'll let you get away with one game like this, I think.
> You're only the second person to complain, though. Ok, third, counting
> me. This doesn't mean I forgive myself, of course.
It'll be fine unless the next half a dozen Inform games released are also
weird-travel games too: this is what we wanted to avoid, I think.
> (Although "largely unexplained" is kind of rude; I thought the ending of
> _So Far_ was very well explained.
All right, then, I admit it: I didn't finish "So Far". (Shock!) It was
weird and unexplained up to the point I got up to. :-(
(Also, I thought I saw something that looked like a weird ending that
didn't explain what these funny black shadows and odd people were and stuff,
whilst I was disassembling away like a right cheat looking for how the cage
things were supposed to work. Feel free to go "Tsk!" at me.)
Anyway, I had already exempted "So Far" for the "unusual prologue and
general originality". :-)
> Be assured that I'll avoid this model like miserable death in any future
> efforts.
Aww... don't stop cornish curmudgeons like me stop you from writing games,
our Andrew. :-)
BCNU, AjC, who last finished writing a complete adventure game in 1986, and
even that didn't really count
PS. May I license the Zarfian Interaction Fiction Rating System for the games
list on the new Inform pages?
Andrew Plotkin
Andrew Clover (a...@puppy.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> PS. May I license the Zarfian Interaction Fiction Rating System for the games
> list on the new Inform pages?
Sure. Sixteen thousand dollars a year.
Are you sure you don't want to just *use* it?
Bill Hoggett
On 27-Oct-96, Laurel Halbany <myt...@agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>Matthew Amster-Burton <mam...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
... Unnecessary spoiler space removed ...
>>Is anyone else getting sick of traditional sci-fi/fantasy games?
>Yes. Unless their theme is an exceedingly clever and interestingly new
>one, I'm bored.
OK, and we can also eliminate Detective/Murder Mysteries, Horror and
Time Travel games as they have all been done to death in the last few
years.
Put aside the puzzle-less i-f and the programming genre as they are
too gimmicky to appeal to the average gamer and, errr... have I left
anything out ?
Now, where's my copy of Doom...
Bill Hoggett (aka BeeJay) <mas.su...@easynet.co.uk>
Who thinks genre is in no way indicative of a game's quality.
Andrew Plotkin
Bill Hoggett (mas.su...@easynet.co.uk) wrote:
> On 27-Oct-96, Laurel Halbany <myt...@agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> >Matthew Amster-Burton <mam...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >>Is anyone else getting sick of traditional sci-fi/fantasy games?
> >Yes. Unless their theme is an exceedingly clever and interestingly new
> >one, I'm bored.
> OK, and we can also eliminate Detective/Murder Mysteries, Horror and
> Time Travel games as they have all been done to death in the last few
> years.
> Put aside the puzzle-less i-f and the programming genre as they are
> too gimmicky to appeal to the average gamer and, errr... have I left
> anything out ?
> Now, where's my copy of Doom...
One of the goals of "A Change in the Weather" was to have a non-genre
story, and it certainly wasn't puzzle-free. (A fantasy element crept in,
eventually -- one fantasy element -- but it's hardly high fantasy.)
Is puzzle-less a genre? Couldn't a non-puzzle-based IF story be written
in an SF setting, or a fantasy setting? (Maybe not a mystery setting,
since a mystery is a puzzle by definition.)
Anyway, there's also situation comedy, historical fiction, romance, spy
thrillers, political satire, ancient Norse eddas, teenage coming-of-age
stories, road movies....
Show some imagination here, people. And don't limit what we're doing with
categories. For two years we've had one category, "Great Stuff." I like
the results.
Admiral Jota
mas.su...@easynet.co.uk (Bill Hoggett) writes:
>OK, and we can also eliminate Detective/Murder Mysteries, Horror and
>Time Travel games as they have all been done to death in the last few
>years.
Did I miss something? I don't think I've seen a decent Detective/Murder
Mystery in a while.
--
/<-= -=-=- -= Admiral Jota =- -=-=- =->\
__/><-=- http://www.tiac.net/users/jota/ =-><\__
\><-= jo...@mv.mv.com -- Finger for PGP =-></
\<-=- -= -=- -= -==- =- -=- =- -=->/
Carl Muckenhoupt
John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> writes:
>The best stuff transcends genres. Take Christminster. What's the genre?
>Dunno. It starts one way, turns into pulp horror later on, but it's
>always original and absorbing.
Well, in my Guide I've classified it as Collegiate and Mystery.
>Likewise Curses. Can't categorise it.
That was a hard one. I put it in Horror (because that's where most
stories about ancient family curses would go) and Travel (because of
the premise), but it doesn't really fit either. If I make a genre
for time travel, it would definitely go in there as well, but fit
just as poorly.
>Paperchase, Library, Busted. Etc.
All of those are pure Collegiate. This isn't considered a genre in
traditional fiction, but it's one of the standards in IF.
--
Carl Muckenhoupt | Text Adventures are not dead!
b...@tiac.net | Read rec.[arts|games].int-fiction to see
http://www.tiac.net/users/baf | what you're missing!
John Hartnup
Bill Hoggett (mas.su...@easynet.co.uk) wrote:
: OK, and we can also eliminate Detective/Murder Mysteries, Horror and
: Time Travel games as they have all been done to death in the last few
: years.
The best stuff transcends genres. Take Christminster. What's the genre?
Dunno. It starts one way, turns into pulp horror later on, but it's
always original and absorbing.
Likewise Curses. Can't categorise it.
Paperchase, Library, Busted. Etc.
IF is exactly like books in this respect. Work that can easily be
categorised into genre, it usually dull and cliche ridden.
"Fantasy" isn't dull, but your bog standard Tolkien-clone paperback
trilogy is.
John
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
John Hartnup | You can drink your weak lemon drink
sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk| now, or you can save it 'til later.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <baf.84...@max.tiac.net>,
Carl Muckenhoupt <b...@max.tiac.net> wrote:
}John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> writes:
}
}>The best stuff transcends genres. Take Christminster. What's the genre?
}>Dunno. It starts one way, turns into pulp horror later on, but it's
}>always original and absorbing.
}
Definitely Mystery. The premise -- a girl more or less accidentally
runs into a mystery involving the disappearance of a relative -- might
sound a bit familiar to readers of a certain mass-produced fiction series.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Bill Hoggett
OK, I knew I hadn't expressed myself correctly!
What I was trying to say (and failing miserably) was that we shouldn't
pidgeon-hole games into categories depending on genre. No matter what
the genre you can have good games and bad games, good stories and bad
ones.
John Hartnup wrote:
>The best stuff transcends genres. Take Christminster. What's the genre?
>Dunno. It starts one way, turns into pulp horror later on, but it's
>always original and absorbing.
>Likewise Curses. Can't categorise it.
>Paperchase, Library, Busted. Etc.
Without making any special reference to any of the above games, you
could say some games transcend genre by incorporating a mix of genres,
just like a time-travel adventure incorporates a mix of settings. If
you really want to, you could categorise *anything*.
>IF is exactly like books in this respect. Work that can easily be
>categorised into genre, it usually dull and cliche ridden.
That's a dangerous assumption as it implies that those works which
can't easily be categorised are always interesting. Not so.
>"Fantasy" isn't dull, but your bog standard Tolkien-clone paperback
>trilogy is.
If you mean the age old quest where the hero has to beat all the odds
and defeat the evil lord in his own lair, then sure, that's probably
true. But not all "fantasy" stories have to be like that. Take a
political thriller in a Middle-Earth-like setting for example.
Genres don't matter, only the stories do.
Bill Hoggett (aka BeeJay) <mas.su...@easynet.co.uk>
IF GOD IS LIFE'S SERVICE PROVIDER WHY HAVEN'T I GOT HIS I.P. NUMBER ?
John Hartnup
Carl Muckenhoupt (b...@max.tiac.net) wrote:
<Christminster>
: Well, in my Guide I've classified it as Collegiate and Mystery.
<Curses>
: That was a hard one. I put it in Horror (because that's where most
: stories about ancient family curses would go) and Travel (because of
: the premise), but it doesn't really fit either. If I make a genre
: for time travel, it would definitely go in there as well, but fit
: just as poorly.
<Paperchase, Library, Busted>
: All of those are pure Collegiate. This isn't considered a genre in
: traditional fiction, but it's one of the standards in IF.
OK. All accepted - I was trying to respond to accusations that so much
IF is "genre" work - where "genre" is used as a derogatory term for
unoriginal, cliched hack work (or at least has overtones).
In your guide, if you choose to pigeonhole works, then you're forced
to assign genres, however difficult - in the same way as record shops
are forced to classify music into rap / rock / dance / classical, and
have trouble with cross-over styles.
Refreshingly little of the "freeware-age" IF of the moment is cliched
genre work. Exceptions include, though:
The pulp horror stuff, of which Theatre was so well done, I didn't
mind.
A few "Your quest is to recieve the mystical sword of Eldrackah"
romps, which I tend to pass by.
Collegiate, as you point out - but this is usually a backdrop for
something else. Busted and Paperchase are essentially both
"Quest to find all the items" games. Christminster, as you point
out, is a mystery, and since an Oxbridge style college is so
different to a US style campus, it should be considered
different anyway.
Time travel - just starting to get boring now...
BoZZ
mas.su...@easynet.co.uk (Bill Hoggett) writes:
>On 27-Oct-96, Laurel Halbany <myt...@agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>>Matthew Amster-Burton <mam...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>... Unnecessary spoiler space removed ...
>>>Is anyone else getting sick of traditional sci-fi/fantasy games?
>>Yes. Unless their theme is an exceedingly clever and interestingly new
>>one, I'm bored.
>OK, and we can also eliminate Detective/Murder Mysteries, Horror and
>Time Travel games as they have all been done to death in the last few
>years.
What mysteries have you been playing? Unless you somehow got a copy of my
unfinished IF-contest piece, the only good mysteries I can remember
are Infocom's, Sierra's Laura Bow series (one good one bad), Corruption
and maybe a couple of other graphical games. Few pushed the genere very
far (Deadline, Witness and maybe corruption) and none gave us the best.
And what Horror games have you been playing? Apart from Theatre, I can
only think of a couple of other text games which used horror, and none have
been done in the last few years.
As for time travel, you may have a point. Trinity, Time, Jigsaw, Lost in
New York and I'm sure there are a few others.
>Who thinks genre is in no way indicative of a game's quality.
Well, true, but it gives it a standard to look at and it allows the
game to have an established atmosphere which allows the author to concentrate
more on other things.
John Wood
John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
> Carl Muckenhoupt (b...@max.tiac.net) wrote:
>
> <Christminster>
>
> : Well, in my Guide I've classified it as Collegiate and Mystery.
>
> OK. All accepted - I was trying to respond to accusations that so much
> IF is "genre" work - where "genre" is used as a derogatory term for
> unoriginal, cliched hack work (or at least has overtones).
I agree here - and with your general comments about pigeonholing. The
rest of this post is really trying to find a middle ground, rather than
chucking out categorisation altogether (which you seemed to be
advocating). I haven't seen Carl's guide, so I don't know how it's
organised.
> In your guide, if you choose to pigeonhole works, then you're forced
> to assign genres, however difficult - in the same way as record shops
> are forced to classify music into rap / rock / dance / classical, and
> have trouble with cross-over styles.
This is a problem with pigeonholing (for layout in a shop or library,
say, where the item has to be in a single pigeonhole), but if you are
trying to provide a one-line description of a book/cd/game you can
indicate cross-overs (as Carl does with Christminster, above). There is
more of a problem with unclassifiable works, but you could always label
them "unclassifiable"... ;-)
There is no ideal solution to giving people a two-second indication of
what a work is about; I think it's worth making some effort, though,
particularly with the volume of IF currently being generated. Without
the short descriptions of games in the GMD master-index, I wouldn't have
known where to start.
I don't think the problem is too bad with multiple terms allowed. In
most cases, you can identify a setting (Victorian London), a mood or
style (Comedy) and a primary plot thread (Mystery). With IF, you might
want one or two other things (difficulty, how puzzle-based). Most
things that don't fit this pattern (such as Lists in this years compo)
can be described individually in a similar number of words.
Actually, I think this is the main problem with strict pigeonholing.
The genres people recognise are a mix of setting (Collegiate), mood
(Pulp) and plot thread (Romance), which are more like different
"dimensions".
John
John Hartnup
Bill Hoggett (mas.su...@easynet.co.uk) wrote:
: John Hartnup wrote:
: >"Fantasy" isn't dull, but your bog standard Tolkien-clone paperback
: >trilogy is.
: If you mean the age old quest where the hero has to beat all the odds
: and defeat the evil lord in his own lair, then sure, that's probably
: true. But not all "fantasy" stories have to be like that. Take a
: political thriller in a Middle-Earth-like setting for example.
My point... but better made.
Roger Giner-Sorolla
On 3 Nov 1996, C.K. Smith wrote:
> John Hartnup (sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>
> : "Fantasy" isn't dull, but your bog standard Tolkien-clone paperback
> : trilogy is.
I think the best fantasy works are those that take a little slice of the
real world -- history, myth, legend, social satire -- and run with it.
Tolkien was doing this when he drew on Anglo-Norse legend, folk tales,
and medieval chivalrous romance to create his world. Fantasy works that
merely copy Tolkien (or other fantasy works) are missing the point.
On a related note, I have much more respect for fantasy works that show
research into original sources (for one, T. H. White's The Once and
Future King) than those that try to get away with a generic medieval
setting cribbed from the Dungeons and Dragons game master's guide.
Roger Giner-Sorolla University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
rs...@virginia.edu Dept. of Psychology (Social)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Please, your Majesty," said the Knave, "I didn't write it, and they can't
prove I did: there's no name signed at the end."
"If you didn't sign it," said the King, "that only makes the matter worse.
You /must/ have meant some mischief, or else you'd have signed your name
like an honest man." -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
John Hartnup
Roger Giner-Sorolla (gi...@xp.psych.nyu.edu) wrote:
: On a related note, I have much more respect for fantasy works that show
: research into original sources (for one, T. H. White's The Once and
: Future King) than those that try to get away with a generic medieval
: setting cribbed from the Dungeons and Dragons game master's guide.
See also "The Dark is Rising" and its roots in Celtic legend, (the
author's name rather embarrasingly evades my at the moment), or
in comics, Pat Mills' "Slaine".
john
BPD
John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>See also "The Dark is Rising" and its roots in Celtic legend, (the
>author's name rather embarrasingly evades my at the moment), or
>in comics, Pat Mills' "Slaine".
Susan Cooper. I read and reread those books god knows how many
times...
Brian P. Dean
Adam J. Thornton
In article <E0Er...@ladle.demon.co.uk>,
John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>See also "The Dark is Rising" and its roots in Celtic legend, (the
>author's name rather embarrasingly evades my at the moment)
Susan Cooper.
_Over Sea, Under Stone_, _The Dark Is Rising_, _Greenwitch_, _The Grey
King_, _Silver on the Tree_. I last read them more than a decade ago and I
can still recall bits quite vividly.
Adam
--
ad...@phoenix.princeton.edu | Viva HEGGA! | Save the choad! | 64,928 | Fnord
"Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep":Pynchon | Linux
Thanks for letting me rearrange the chemicals in your head. | Team OS/2
You can have my PGP passphrase when you pry it from my cold, dead brain.
John Wood
John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> writes:
> See also "The Dark is Rising" and its roots in Celtic legend, (the
> author's name rather embarrasingly evades my at the moment)
Susan Cooper - good reading! What do you think of Lloyd Alexander's
"Prydain" books?
John
John Hartnup
Adam J. Thornton (ad...@tucson.princeton.edu) wrote:
: In article <E0Er...@ladle.demon.co.uk>,
: John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> wrote:
: >See also "The Dark is Rising" and its roots in Celtic legend, (the
: Susan Cooper.
Andrew Clover
John Hartnup <sl...@ladle.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Likewise Curses. Can't categorise it.
Oh, Curses is definitely in the same lots-of-little-worlds-connected-by-a-
strange-travelling-device mould that started the thread. The 'normal'
starting place is quite large, and the strange travelling device is in
fact many strange travelling devices, but it's the same idea. It worked
well in Trinity, and it worked well in Curses, and the success of the both
started the genre.
BCNU, AjC
Andrew Clover
jo...@laraby.tiac.net (Admiral Jota) wrote:
> Did I miss something? I don't think I've seen a decent Detective/Murder
> Mystery in a while.
But Admiral, you surely cannot have forgotten the sheer brilliance that is
Detective? (*)
BCNU, AjC, who is pleased to note that the game he's been working on for God
knows how long is in none of the above categories
(*) Not really! Ha! Ha!