On the definition of the adventure game (in no sane order)
HairBrain
Brock Kevin Nambo wrote:
> HairBrain wrote...
[First question snipped]
> >Oh, and it suddenly struck me I'd have to define what an adventure game
> >is. <insert immense feeling of fear here> This definition would have
to
> >embrace Myst, where you can't actually pick anything up as I understand
it
> >-- dang goes any object-oriented definitions, plus it has to separate
the
> >adventure game from the role-playing game. I don't even want to think
> >about The Space under the Window, and whether or not that's an
adventure.
>
> Myst let you pick things up... after a fashion. I define adventure as
> first-hand entertainment--i.e., where you play, as opposed to a
spectator
> sport... sadly, this includes Doom-style... so I define an adventure
GAME as
> entertainment based on the structural unit of a "puzzle" that must be
> solved, as opposed to that other kind, which is based on "levels" of
things
> to kill, speed to accomplish tasks, etc... that's MHO, anyway.
I think we're getting close with the logic part. But many adventure games
have time limits. Even if the adventure game in question is turn-based or
waits for the player to take action, that does not distinguish it from
turn-based RPGs.
> >Could you say that the purpose of the adventure game is to play the
role
> >the game gives you, contrary to RPGs where you create your role? Have
> >there been adventure games where you can actually create your own
> >character with a minimum of restrictions? Come to think of it, there's
> >probably been an RPG where you were simply given a character. (Hero's
> >Quest from Sierra comes to mind) Dang goes any negative definitions
> >comparing adventures to RPGs...
>
> Odd, I thought RPG's gave you a role, and you were to play it. I guess
it
> depends which game you're playing. Anyway, doesn't Beyond Zork assign
you a
> chicken, but you get an amount of attributes along the traditional RPG
line.
> As for RPG's giving you a character, don't Square's Final Fantasy games
set
> you as a person, then let the game run your life, and let the player
(you)
> go around fighting monsters and getting treasure, and the like?
Actually,
> many are like that...
Most RPGs let you construct your role within the confines of the RPG's
character creation system. But character creation is not unique to RPGs
nor excluded from adventure games.
Brainwork is the prevalent factor in resolving the obstacles in the
adventure game? That one smells good. But in some point-and-click
adventures, pure chance can be as much of a factor in winning as anything,
and they would certainly have to be embraced by my definition, as much as
the crowd in r.a.i-f may dislike it... :-)
Text adventures are surely seperatable from RPGs: Even though the early
text adventure contains fighting, the description does not contain
amassing amounts of numbers, in fact none, except the number of opponents
- there's no health counter in Adventure or Zork. Even though they
probably kept track of it internally, the stats were never displayed to
the player other than "You don't feel so good" and "You can't do that in
your current condition".
> >OK, I've got it. Adventure games tell a story! Um, but so do RPGs and
to
> >a lesser degree most other game genres -- even DooM tells a story, even
if
> >it's a damn thin one. And the first adventure games had far less story
> >than modern RPGs do...
>
> Ah but do we have to be judged by the past? "Naughty" used to mean
"good
> for nothing/useless" (fyi, it means "bad" now), and so why does
"adventure
> game" have to be defined by oldest members?
> We can say "adventure game" -used- to mean "text-based, walk around in a
> world, yada yada yada", and now it means <insert whatever we decide it
means
> here>. Nowadays, the story emphasis has grown so much it's Interactive
> Fiction now (with capital letters, even!) ;)
I'm including a sweeping history of the adventure game from the earliest
days till the present, so yes, it would be neat to be able to find a
definition that embraced even the oldest adventures.
> >Adventure games put the story first? The purpose of the adventure game
is
> >to move the story forward? That could, I suppose, hold true for some
RPGs
> >as well. But the player moves the story forward through solving
problems
> >which do not necessarily require large amounts of bloodshed? Heh, I
guess
> >Jigsaw isn't an adventure game by that definition, seeing as you have
to
> >start WWI in order to complete it.
>
> This has something to do with "puzzles" and "levels" I mentioned
before...
> But Elvis wouldn't understand your bloodshed part, because you are right
> with that Jigsaw reference.. ;) You would probably say "non-adventure
games
> are horribly boring without bloodshed" but that would also be
> overgeneralization, no matter how much truer it gets by the day... :(
Elvis? Are you being delusional? Anyway, DooM-style games without
bloodshed have been done. I think one was called H.U.R.L, where the
gameplay reportedly substituted garbage for projectiles, cleanness for
health and soap for health packs.
> [Remember Tetris? *sigh... now we have Duke Nukem 3D. Hm.]
We've still got Tetris, and there was Space Invaders before there was
Tetris. It's just that the mindless games get so much more attention
nowadays when they've got tons of flashy graphics. I have to say, I do
enjoy playing them every now and again, it just that they don't capture my
interest for very long, level making excluded.
> >AARGH my brain hurts. I think I'll just post this and let anyone who
> >wishes to do so dispute on it. After all, 17 million heads think
better
> >than one... Could you mail me as well if you're posting an answer? My
> >news server is behaving erratically and I usually just have time to
check
> >my mail on weekdays.
>
> Wow, you seem to have the same problems as I.. IF in an assignment, and
a
> bad news server. You sure you not my long lost something-or-other? ;)
It's not exactly the assignment that's the problem, it's defining the
adventure game as part of that assignment. I have most of the rest laid
out and ready to go, and I had lots of fun writing it too.
> >>BKNambo, who is surprised msimn hasn't crashed the whole time writing
this
> letter...
[Homepage adress snipped since I could make neither head nor tail of it]
"The crashes you are experiencing is part of our new standard for
programming."
<TEDIOUS RAMBLING>
It would seem RPGs and adventure games have the storytelling part in
common, and thus, no general definition can be grounded in the story
alone. The major difference I would have to emphasise is how the player
is expected to resolve the obstacles in the game.
This would neatly exclude 3D shoot-em-ups and bring Jigsaw back into the
warmth, seeing as you have to understand the shooting bit is the
triggering event of WWI before you decide to shoot the prince. Oops
sorry, here I go spilling spoilers all over rec.arts.i-f... Bah.
Jigsaw's so much of a nut players could use any help they can get.
I mean, you can't imagine an adventure game going like this:
You are in a clammy, dark corridor textured with BGBROWN bitmaps. There
are several shotgun sarges in the room with you. You can hear muted demon
growls further to the north.
You are carrying:
A sawed-off, pump-action handgrip Itchaca shotgun
25 shells
>Shoot sarge
A sarge falls dead.
>Again
A sarge falls dead.
A sarge gets in a hit with you. You now have 86% health and 92% armor.
>Again
A sarge falls dead.
>Again
There is no one left to shoot, so you shoot up the walls for a bit.
>Get all
You salvage 15 shotgun shells from the dead sarges.
>Go north
You are in a clammy, dark corridor textured with BGGREEN bitmaps. There
are several demons in the room with you.
You are carrying:
A sawed-off, pump-action handgrip Itchaca shotgun
36 shells
And so on... it might be interesting as a brief parodic sequence in an
adventure game, (The last part of Mimesis from the 97 IFcompo batch comes
to mind) but it couldn't hold through an entire adventure game. So, there
go the 3D shoot'em-ups out of my definition. Ahh. Now, for RPGs...
Obstacles in an RPG may be solved by might alone, cunning or a combination
of the two. Since Zork, (where you had to pick the right weapon plus
several other brainiac variables) adventure games have relied mostly on
cunning.
Even in the "interactive motorcycle cartoon" Full Throttle (LucasArts
1995, now out on budget) which contains action-like sequences, doing some
thinking and choosing the right weapon is fundamental - for instance, you
get a chainsaw which makes the fights a lot easier if you pick up some
fertilizer dust and throw it in the eyes of the biker which uses the saw.
Oops, there I go again.
Or, combat in RPGs relies more heavily on numbers? Hmmm. Obstacles in
adventure games are solved by logical thinking, and even if the solution
does involve violence, it's grounded in thinking rather than habit? In
RPGs, you typically know what monsters are dangerous and which aren't, and
the relationship stays that way throughout the game -- in any case, the
"rules" are well defined, where the premises of the adventure game may
change swiftly.
Also, RPGs are much more involved with details of the fight, such as
parries, weapon damages etc. Could this be part of the definition?
But am I just scratching the surface here? Are there more fundamental
issues which should be adressed? The structure of the game, for instance?
OK, how about this... The turning of the story is based mainly on the
decisions of the player, and these are decisions available indepently of
the "stats" of the player's character. That would include Hero's Quest,
or at least the adventure bits of it.
Maybe I could make a general, fussy definition, and refine it for the
subtypes, such as text adventure, graphic adventure with typing á là
King's Quest, point-and-click adventure and Interactive Fiction / modern
text adventure.
Now that was a suitably random collection of thoughts, and I'm not one bit
closer to a definition. Might as well pester r.a.i-f some more and hope
for the best.
HairBrain
o...@bu.telia.no
The site with the URL to fear
http://w1.2327.telia.com/~u232700165/
Now with added sucky NoiZemods!
Darn, I'm out of metal quotes. Time to buy some new CDs...
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <#OTKAO58...@upnetnews02.moswest.msn.net> "Brock Kevin Nambo" <newsm...@earthling.net> writes:
>
>To shake your foundations a bit, may I ask: Do you really think there *is* a
>difference between an RPG and an adventure?
>If you are sure, then you should be able to tell the difference, right?
>What about the experience of playing would tell you, "this is an RPG" or
>"this is an adventure"?
Here's mine:
An adventure presents singular challenges, such as puzzles. It's
considered an esthetic flaw if it forces
the same puzzle to be solved repeatedly.
A CRPG presents a lot of repeating challenges, such as "fight a group of
orcs". One is mainly trying to optimize the results (in terms of
casualties taken, spell components used, and so forth): there is no way
to "solve" the groups-of-orcs situation. (In fact, avoiding the umpteenth
group of orcs is a losing proposition in most of these games, because you
need the EXP, loot and spell components they represent.)
One consequence is that adventures are generally much smaller than
CRPGs, since each bit has to be individually designed: you can't just
make a combat system and a batch of monsters and rely on random number
generation for a significant part of gameplay.
Under these definitions, hybrids like "Martian Memorandum" or "Rise of
the Dragon" are more like text adventures: each situation occurs
only once. Ones like "Bloodnet" are more like CRPGs, with repeated
struggles with the same exact problem.
This is the difference that really jumps out at me in game play.
Except for simply moving around, there is nothing automatic to do in a
good text adventure: you've got a pile of unique problems to solve or
things to do, and there's not much to be done but to tackle them. On
the other hand, it is generally easy to play parts of a CRPG on
automatic, just making tactical choices--there are puzzles, but the
amount of time spent puzzle-solving is proportionally much less.
I leave "puzzleless IF" as an exercise for the reader, though.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Brock Kevin Nambo
HairBrain wrote in message <01bcf384$d5384a80$98d8ccc3@bertha>...
>Brock Kevin Nambo wrote:
>> HairBrain wrote...
>have time limits. Even if the adventure game in question is turn-based or
>waits for the player to take action, that does not distinguish it from
>turn-based RPGs.
Right.
>Most RPGs let you construct your role within the confines of the RPG's
>character creation system. But character creation is not unique to RPGs
>nor excluded from adventure games.
>
>Brainwork is the prevalent factor in resolving the obstacles in the
>adventure game? That one smells good. But in some point-and-click
>adventures, pure chance can be as much of a factor in winning as anything,
>and they would certainly have to be embraced by my definition, as much as
>the crowd in r.a.i-f may dislike it... :-)
Sometimes there is a real-life element to an adventure puzzle, namely
"finding the walkthrough so I can beat the *&%# game" ;)
>Text adventures are surely seperatable from RPGs: Even though the early
>text adventure contains fighting, the description does not contain
>amassing amounts of numbers, in fact none, except the number of opponents
>- there's no health counter in Adventure or Zork. Even though they
>probably kept track of it internally, the stats were never displayed to
>the player other than "You don't feel so good" and "You can't do that in
>your current condition".
Uh... I think I will write something about this later in this message, stay
tuned...
>> [Remember Tetris? *sigh... now we have Duke Nukem 3D. Hm.]
>
>We've still got Tetris, and there was Space Invaders before there was
>Tetris. It's just that the mindless games get so much more attention
>nowadays when they've got tons of flashy graphics. I have to say, I do
>enjoy playing them every now and again, it just that they don't capture my
>interest for very long, level making excluded.
Space Invaders is a Tetris-style game. (IMHO, anyway.)
>[Homepage adress snipped since I could make neither head nor tail of it]
http://come.to/brocks.place (I should add the http:// for people? --it's
not that special anyway--it's just been updated, and all the old stuph is
not up yet. Not that it was spectacular to begin with...)
>I mean, you can't imagine an adventure game going like this:
>
>You are in a clammy, dark corridor textured with BGBROWN bitmaps. There
>are several shotgun sarges in the room with you. You can hear muted demon
>growls further to the north.
>
>You are carrying:
> A sawed-off, pump-action handgrip Itchaca shotgun
> 25 shells
>
>>Shoot sarge
>A sarge falls dead.
>>Again
>A sarge falls dead.
>A sarge gets in a hit with you. You now have 86% health and 92% armor.
>>Again
>A sarge falls dead.
>>Again
>There is no one left to shoot, so you shoot up the walls for a bit.
>>Get all
>You salvage 15 shotgun shells from the dead sarges.
>>Go north
>
>You are in a clammy, dark corridor textured with BGGREEN bitmaps. There
>are several demons in the room with you.
>
>You are carrying:
> A sawed-off, pump-action handgrip Itchaca shotgun
> 36 shells
It's called a MUD, and they are all over. ;)
The only difference I can tell between your imaginary transcript and a
generic MUD is that sarges would probably not be so easy to beat...
>Also, RPGs are much more involved with details of the fight, such as
>parries, weapon damages etc. Could this be part of the definition?
As far as difference between RPG and adventure, you are right, RPG's are
more of
>KILL IT
IT's hp goes down by 7.
IT is attacking!
IT casts XXXX.
IT's ap goes down by 5.
Your hp goes down by 9999.
*** You are dead ***
and adventure would be more along the line of
>KILL IT
You swing at IT, and nick IT's shoulder!
IT is attacking you!
IT mumbles a word or two, and you can feel your head exploding!
...and then it does!
*** You are dead ***
... hmm. Am I too far off? I think so. :\
>But am I just scratching the surface here? Are there more fundamental
>issues which should be adressed? The structure of the game, for instance?
>OK, how about this... The turning of the story is based mainly on the
>decisions of the player, and these are decisions available indepently of
>the "stats" of the player's character. That would include Hero's Quest,
>or at least the adventure bits of it.
>Maybe I could make a general, fussy definition, and refine it for the
>subtypes, such as text adventure, graphic adventure with typing á là
>King's Quest, point-and-click adventure and Interactive Fiction / modern
>text adventure.
To shake your foundations a bit, may I ask: Do you really think there *is* a
difference between an RPG and an adventure?
If you are sure, then you should be able to tell the difference, right?
What about the experience of playing would tell you, "this is an RPG" or
"this is an adventure"?
Don't go by what the game tells you it is-- it may be lying.
If you come up with something insightful (or more of the same, even!) post
it here!
>>BKNambo
--
Visit my homepage, [now under major reconstruction,] <blink
seriousness=none>HTTP://</blink>come.to/brocks.place
World Domination Through Trivia!
Andrew Murie
:
: I mean, you can't imagine an adventure game going like this:
:
: You are in a clammy, dark corridor textured with BGBROWN bitmaps. There
: are several shotgun sarges in the room with you. You can hear muted demon
: growls further to the north.
:
: You are carrying:
: A sawed-off, pump-action handgrip Itchaca shotgun
: 25 shells
:
: >Shoot sarge
: A sarge falls dead.
: >Again
actually, I can easily imagine that. There's a tads game, called foom,
which is the first level of doom, and it plays a lot like your example.
not sure who wrote it, though. and it was probably written as a joke :)
I would hate to see a serious text game like that, though..
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <64r0bm$odp$1...@news1.atlantic.net> har...@iu.net.idiotic.com.skip.idiotic.com (HarryH) writes:
>An RPG IS an adventure. True, RPG feature a lot of repetitive battles. So
>what? RPG players do not have to "undo" their action so many times, either.
>Some RPG (good ones) feature one-shot riddles that you must solve in order to
>progress. Keys and sometimes special weapons must be found. What difference
>is there between this and "FIND X USE X" in text adventures?
I think you're mistaking my desire to classify for a desire to praise
or disparage. I'm not trying to say there is anything wrong with
CRPGs. I'm trying to describe why I call one game a CRPG and another
game a (text or semi-text) adventure: a flavor difference. This is
useful if, for example, one wants to say "That writing technique is
better suited to CRPG than to IF" or vice versa.
There are common elements: some adventures have combat, some CRPGs have
puzzles. None the less, they seem to me like different types of games,
because in an adventure the majority of one's time is spent on singular
problems, and in a CRPG the majority is spent on repeated problems.
>I leave "combatless RPG" as an exercise for the reader. :)
I'm not aware of any combatless CRPGs. (I'd be interested to see
one, certainly.) Lots of combatless text adventures and combatless
roleplaying games (non-computer), but nothing I'd call a CRPG.
Can you name any?
Incidentally, my siblings and I were fans of Ultima 1-4, which we
played collaboratively and enlivened with side dialog. (I particularly
remember Katrina the Innocent Shepherdess, who was so innocent that
she was prone to say things like "Well, why *can't* we just use the
skull of Mondain?") We found 5 to run unbearably slowly on our
Commodore, and never went further. It was just too big and too
repetitious. I think the series as a whole displays the entire
complexity curve from a bit overly simple and small to *way* too
complex and big.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
HarryH
In article <64qbav$73u$1...@nntp5.u.washington.edu>,
mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu says...
>
>In article <#OTKAO58...@upnetnews02.moswest.msn.net> "Brock Kevin Nambo"
<newsm...@earthling.net> writes:
>>
a
>>difference between an RPG and an adventure?
>>If you are sure, then you should be able to tell the difference, right?
>>What about the experience of playing would tell you, "this is an RPG" or
>>"this is an adventure"?
>
>
>An adventure presents singular challenges, such as puzzles. It's
>considered an esthetic flaw if it forces
>the same puzzle to be solved repeatedly.
>
>A CRPG presents a lot of repeating challenges, such as "fight a group of
>orcs". One is mainly trying to optimize the results (in terms of
>casualties taken, spell components used, and so forth): there is no way
>to "solve" the groups-of-orcs situation. (In fact, avoiding the umpteenth
>group of orcs is a losing proposition in most of these games, because you
>need the EXP, loot and spell components they represent.)
>
>I leave "puzzleless IF" as an exercise for the reader, though.
>
>Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
IMHO,
An RPG IS an adventure. True, RPG feature a lot of repetitive battles. So
what? RPG players do not have to "undo" their action so many times, either.
Some RPG (good ones) feature one-shot riddles that you must solve in order to
progress. Keys and sometimes special weapons must be found. What difference
is there between this and "FIND X USE X" in text adventures?
Final Fantasy III, for example, has a very fine story (and an opera), yet has
some puzzles to solve also. Zork, has puzzles, yet has randomized combat.
Both let the player pretend to be somebody they're not.
I should stop now, but to answer Mary:
I leave "combatless RPG" as an exercise for the reader. :)
-------------------------------------------------------
Of course I'll work on weekends without pay!
- successful applicant
Den of Iniquity
My definition of the 'adventure game':
A work in which one advances a narrative by issuing instructions which may
affect the behaviour (or give the illusion of affecting the behaviour) of
an actor or actors within the work.
Anyone care to elaborate on this or question it?
--
Den
Den of Iniquity
Oops, hang on, must add to it:
>A work in which one advances a narrative by issuing instructions which may
>affect the behaviour (or give the illusion of affecting the behaviour) of
>an actor or actors within the work.
In currently form, input is one-dimensional (that is, sequential
instructions from effectively only one source).
--
Are we there yet?
Brock Kevin Nambo
HarryH wrote in message <64r0bm$odp$1...@news1.atlantic.net>...
>Final Fantasy III, for example, has a very fine story (and an opera), yet
has
I was awed by that game, and when I heard Draco start singing, I was
actually expecting a voice from him! (rofl, but he and the script both start
with that "O"...)
>I leave "combatless RPG" as an exercise for the reader. :)
ACK. I *know* i've seen this.. where have I seen this? Wait, that sounds
like IF!
>>BKNambo, who is -sure- he has played a real combatless rpg somewhere, and
can't remember...
--
Visit my homepage, [now under major reconstruction,] come.to/brocks.place
World Domination Through Trivia!
Trevor Barrie
In article <01bcf45d$765d67a0$LocalHost@bertha>,
HairBrain <o...@bu.telia.no> wrote:
>[2] &| is the symbol for "and/or" in C, or at least I think so. It's
>been a long time since I wrote any C so I may be wrong.
Well, "&&" is the symbol for "and" and "||" is the symbol for or. I can't
imagine what use a programming language would ever have for a symbol for
"and/or" (heck, just "or" means the same thing as "and/or" in logic), but
I expect anyone familiar with C (as all right-thinking folks are:)) would
understand what you meant by "&|".
Trevor Barrie
In article <#OTKAO58...@upnetnews02.moswest.msn.net>,
Brock Kevin Nambo <newsm...@earthling.net> wrote:
>To shake your foundations a bit, may I ask: Do you really think there *is* a
>difference between an RPG and an adventure?
No. And just to muddle terms a bit more, I'll reiterate that in my experience
actual RPGs are much closer to text adventures than CRPGs. (Which is why it
would be nice if people would stick the "C" in there... it's bad enough that
they have "RPG" in there, but seeing those games referred to as just "RPG"s
gives me the willies.:))
>If you are sure, then you should be able to tell the difference, right?
>What about the experience of playing would tell you, "this is an RPG" or
>"this is an adventure"?
I think Mary Kuhner's idea of the difference is a good one, but I don't think
the difference is enough to warrant calling them different types of games.
Lucian Paul Smith
Just today, I found a web site, "I Have No Words & I Must Design", at:
http://www.crossover.com/~costik/nowords.html
which addresses some of the issues brought up here. It talks about it
from the perspective of a game designer, but there are many relevant
aspects which could be appliedto IF, too. (actually, it even makes
mention of 'Zork' in its discussion about puzzles.)
Using Greg's definitions, some otherwise hard-to-classify systems fall
into place. For example, I'd probably classify 'Space Under the Window'
as a toy (like SimCity, or a ball) instead of as a game or puzzle.
Anyway, the article has some interesting points (though I don't agree with
all of them) and it'd definitely be worth checking out.
-Lucian
HairBrain
Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
>"Brock Kevin Nambo" writes:
> >To shake your foundations a bit, may I ask: Do you really think there *is* a
> >difference between an RPG and an adventure?
> >If you are sure, then you should be able to tell the difference, right?
> >What about the experience of playing would tell you, "this is an RPG" or
> >"this is an adventure"?
>
> An adventure presents singular challenges, such as puzzles. It's
> considered an esthetic flaw if it forces
> the same puzzle to be solved repeatedly.
>
> CRPGs, since each bit has to be individually designed: you can't just
> make a combat system and a batch of monsters and rely on random number
> generation for a significant part of gameplay.
>
> Under these definitions, hybrids like "Martian Memorandum" or "Rise of
> the Dragon" are more like text adventures: each situation occurs
> only once. Ones like "Bloodnet" are more like CRPGs, with repeated
> struggles with the same exact problem.
Martian Memorandum, isn't that the game where the protagonist of "Under A
Killing Moon" (Tex Murphy) is first introduced? You wouldn't happen to
know if it's been re-released as freeware and is up for grabs on the net,
as sometimes happens to games of old? Or is it too fresh for that and too
old (or too unaccessible) to be released on budget?
> I leave "puzzleless IF" as an exercise for the reader, though.
> Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
"Puzzleless IF"? Wouldn't that be like one of the very earliest versions
of Adventure, which I understand Will(Willie/William?) Crowther made
simply as a rendition of the nearby Bedquilt Cave? By the same source,
the Collosal Cave page methinks, I learned it was Don Woods who put most
of the puzzle / fighting / RPG stuff into it, turning it into the
Adventure we know.
In addition, one entry into this years competition, My Aunt's House, says
it doesen't have any puzzles, just exploration and interaction bits, and I
couldn't find any while I played it. The closest I came was sticking a
videotape in a VCR, but it wasn't a solution to anything. Except watching
Star Wars.
The interaction without puzzles was somewhat fascinating, but the
interactive bits were too far between - didn't hold my interest. Guess
I'm still spoiled by action games and graphic adventures... <-- is this
sort of thing considered reviewing and not allowed by the compo rules?
I finally forced myself to crank out a definition. My teach is a complete
techno-peasant [1] so it shouldn't matter _too_ much what I write in the
essay. We might find a more fitting description during this debate for
use among our IF-fanatic brethren, of course.
I used the argument about adventure games having puzzles that are usually
unique, must be solved by logic &| association [2] and can't be solved
mechanically or by rules, and that adventures limit the storyline more
than RPGs -- for instance, very few modern adventures allow you to kill
everything in sight without restrictions, in fact, most adventures imply
"No, you can't kill him because it would screw up the plot".
Later on in the paper I mention the exception to this, "Zero Sum Game"
from this year's compo, but that one's excused because it is a parody of
the mindless slaughtering and treasure hunt of early text adventures - and
a fine one at that. And it does warn you if something will screw up the
plot.
Also, I said that RPGs let you create your character more freely - of
course there has to be restrictions or else everyone would play as a
superhero, but adventure games force one or a limited set of characters in
order to make sure the story doesen't become completely absurd, with an
evil chaotic elf armed with a crossbow arriving at a university to
investigate the murder of a professor for instance.
But both RPGs and adventures share the limited sets of possible stories
because the computer can't improvise new story elements like a DM can, but
adventures limit the story even more in order to ensure the quality of
each possible storyline.
All good adventures work around this limitation of freedom by including
lots of actions not pertinent to the story, and by including stories that
turn or curl differently after the decisions of the player. And this is
the forte of IF, because including another action merely takes a wee bit
of code and the text describing the action and consequences thereof,
contrary to "interactive movies" where they would have to shoot another 30
secs of footage, rapidly eating up CD space and eating up the casting
budget...
Of course, in both types of adventures, unlinear stories are hell to
playtest and debug, and the less linear, the more hellish...
Thanks to you all for getting my hairy brain into gear,
HairBrain
o...@bu.telia.no
The site with the URL to fear:
http://w1.2327.telia.com/~u232700165/
[1] I think I first saw the word "techno-peasant" on this group not long
ago but I can't for the life of mine find the post again - might have gone
out of my cache. In any case it's a really cool and descriptive kind of
word and my thanks go to whoever invented it.
[2] &| is the symbol for "and/or" in C, or at least I think so. It's
been a long time since I wrote any C so I may be wrong.
<Digs out bag of metal CDs>
Today's verse:
"It was love
said the father
It was pride
said the wife
It was beauty
said the girl-child
For I know
who held the knife"
-Motorpsycho
"Demon Box"
Demon Box
Voices of Wonder records
[Transcribed by ear]
Joe Mason
In article <01bcf384$d5384a80$98d8ccc3@bertha>,
HairBrain <o...@bu.telia.no> wrote:
>
>I mean, you can't imagine an adventure game going like this:
>
>You are in a clammy, dark corridor textured with BGBROWN bitmaps. There
>are several shotgun sarges in the room with you. You can hear muted demon
>growls further to the north.
>
You haven't played FooM, then? It's a TADS game you can get on GMD. Enjoy!
(Or, more likely, don't - you don't sound like a Doom fan to me!)
Joe
HairBrain
Joe Mason <jcm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> In article <01bcf384$d5384a80$98d8ccc3@bertha>,
> HairBrain <o...@bu.telia.no> wrote:
> >
> >
> >You are in a clammy, dark corridor textured with BGBROWN bitmaps. There
> >are several shotgun sarges in the room with you. You can hear muted demon
> >growls further to the north.
> >
>
> (Or, more likely, don't - you don't sound like a Doom fan to me!)
>
> Joe
Eh?
That imaginary transcript was only intended to illustrate why large
amounts of violence aren't common in adventure games -- by all means, I've
played 3D shooters since Wolfenstein...
FooM? Seen that one somewhere at gmd, but I didn't get it yet... my
downloading time is restricted by budget and real world obligations(ie,
homework). Sounds like fun though.
Another kilobit of bandwith bites the dust, courtesy of
HairBrain
o...@bu.telia.no
HairBrain
Den of Iniquity <dms...@york.ac.uk>
> My definition of the 'adventure game':
>
This would be a VERY neat definition, since it would include the
hard-to-define work The Space Under The Window where you don't actually
instruct the character, just twist the story the character takes part in
by choosing what to emphasise in further progression.
I don't know about My Aunt's House though... does it tell a story? It has
an introduction about you coming to your aunt's house and finding no one
there, but does it have a conclusion you can reach?
And as for separating IF/adventure from RPGs, maybe they're right, and
that the difference is more in the look-and-feel of the game, what is
expected of the player and our expectations of the game, not to mention
the kind of possibilites encoded in the game, rather than in the basic
premises of the game.
I did play a demo of one interesting RPG called "Albion", which, even
though it definitely was an RPG, had quite a lot of the feel of an
adventure game... Among other things, the story was linear.
I don't know if I've posted this before, but I wrote that an adventure
game "trades in" some freedom for the ensured quality of the story.
"Input only derives from one source"... Why, of course. I take it for
granted only one person controls the character. Now that could be
interesting, a MUD where the players logged on as different parts of a
character's personality. :-)
HairBrain
o...@bu.telia.no
http://w1.2327.telia.com/~u232700165/
PS: "reductio ad absurdam" ~ "Reduced to an absurd degree"? You wouldn't
happen to know what "rectum cauda" means by any chance?
Joe Mason
In article <01bcf50e$34a4e3e0$LocalHost@bertha>,
HairBrain <o...@bu.telia.no> wrote:
>
>That imaginary transcript was only intended to illustrate why large
>amounts of violence aren't common in adventure games -- by all means, I've
>played 3D shooters since Wolfenstein...
Well, then, do enjoy!
(Although you know what FooM's about now, so I wouldn't waste the time to
download it - its a novelty, so if you aren't surprised it loses most of its
appeal.)
Joe
jack
Trevor Barrie wrote:
>
> >[2] &| is the symbol for "and/or" in C, or at least I think so. It's
> >been a long time since I wrote any C so I may be wrong.
>
> imagine what use a programming language would ever have for a symbol for
> "and/or" (heck, just "or" means the same thing as "and/or" in logic), but
> I expect anyone familiar with C (as all right-thinking folks are:)) would
> understand what you meant by "&|".
ok... technically in C && is logical AND, || is AND/OR (just called or)
and ^^ is exclusive or (XOR) "either but not both".
You should check out the huge, dumb thread on rec.games.programmer "the
horrors of windows programming." Among the many topics discussed was why
pascal's arbitrary symbols are better than C's (larger and more concise
set of) arbitrary symbols.
Mark J Musante
jack (jac...@telegram.infi.net) wrote:
> You should check out the huge, dumb thread on rec.games.programmer "the
> horrors of windows programming." Among the many topics discussed was why
> pascal's arbitrary symbols are better than C's (larger and more concise
> set of) arbitrary symbols.
Larger *and* more concise?
<whine>My brain hurts.</whine>
-=- Mark -=-
P.S. Yes, I've programmed both in Pascal & in C. I *think* I know what
you mean.
Den of Iniquity
On 20 Nov 1997, HairBrain wrote:
> Den of Iniquity <dms...@york.ac.uk>
> > >A work in which one advances a narrative by issuing instructions which may
> > >affect the behaviour (or give the illusion of affecting the behaviour) of
> > >an actor or actors within the work.
> >
> > In current form, input is one-dimensional (that is, sequential
> > instructions from effectively only one source).
>
>Or maybe not quite... It struck me as I was translating a version of it into
>Norweagian for my assignment (hope you don't mind me ripping you off) that it
>would possibly be more accurate somewhat like this:
>
>A work where the player controls or influences an actor or actors in the work
>and is given influence or an illusion of influence on the story.
Hmm, I'm not sure where this is particularly different from what I wrote.
I should add that I use 'actor' to mean anything that causes something to
happen, 'act' in the sense of cause-and-effect 'action and reaction'.
>This has to be since all possible storylines in the adventure game are written
>in advance and as such, the player is only given an illusion of influence on
>the story. The strength of that illusion rests on the quality of the game, its
>story and its interactive structure. [...]
>
>For this very reason, no adventure game can have absolute freedom, since
>no one can write and play-test an infinite number of possibilities.
Hmm, you should see the old thread on non-linearity... It's conceivable
(though there are no real examples I'm aware of) that one could write a
piece of i-f which uses logical rules to govern some areas of behaviour,
partially modelling an environment with mathematical rules.
So just as 'Elite' (my favourite example, the classic open-ended game)
allows you something of a freedom to change your small aspect of the world
any way you will, it's possible for a text game to do the same. If one
stretches the term 'narrative' out of all proportions and one claims that
a round of PGA Tour Golf (or some similar game) can be seen as a story
unfolding (albeit a rather boring description of a round on the links)
then one can have a narrative that _isn't_ completely determined
beforehand. The golf and elite analogies are rather weak, having very
little depth of plot, but as I say, examples are hard to think of.
--
Den
Allen Garvin
In article <34764783...@telegram.infi.net>,
jack <jac...@telegram.infi.net> wrote:
>ok... technically in C && is logical AND, || is AND/OR (just called or)
>and ^^ is exclusive or (XOR) "either but not both".
No one with any technical background would ever say "AND/OR". In fact,
most are quite annoying... you ask us if we want cake or pie, and we
answer "yes".
Oh, and there's no logical XOR in C, only a bitwise one.
--
Allen Garvin kisses are a better fate
--------------------------------------------- than wisdom
eare...@faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu
http://faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu/~earendil e e cummings
Alan Shutko
>>>>> "A" == Allen Garvin <earendil@> writes:
A> No one with any technical background would ever say "AND/OR". In
A> fact, most are quite annoying... you ask us if we want cake or pie,
A> and we answer "yes".
I do, since common usage assumes that "or" is an exclusive or. I
like people to be able to understand me.
--
Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
How kind of you to be willing to live someone's life for them.
Trevor Barrie
>> Well, "&&" is the symbol for "and" and "||" is the symbol for or. I can't
>> imagine what use a programming language would ever have for a symbol for
>> "and/or" (heck, just "or" means the same thing as "and/or" in logic), but
>> I expect anyone familiar with C (as all right-thinking folks are:)) would
>> understand what you meant by "&|".
>
>ok... technically in C && is logical AND, || is AND/OR (just called or)
Well, _technically_ && is logical AND, and || is logical OR. As I said,
though, "and/or" in the common parlance means the same as "or" does to
logicians, mathematicians, programmers, etc. ("Or" in the common parlance
is ambiguous, since it could mean either "or" or "exclusive or".)
>You should check out the huge, dumb thread on rec.games.programmer "the
>horrors of windows programming." Among the many topics discussed was why
>pascal's arbitrary symbols are better than C's (larger and more concise
>set of) arbitrary symbols.
But they're not. (And I'm not sure why anybody even mentions Pascal's
existence anymore now that Modula-2 exists. I suppose as historical
context...)
Den of Iniquity
On 19 Nov 1997, HairBrain wrote:
>PS: "reductio ad absurdam" ~ "Reduced to an absurd degree"? You wouldn't
>happen to know what "rectum cauda" means by any chance?
Reductio ad absurdam - Reduction to absurdity - Normally used as a term
for a mathematical proof whereby one disproves something by showing that
the implications are obviously untrue. I used it as a suitable title for
a description of i-f in four lines. :)
"rectum cauda" - Hmmm, tricky. As two words, they don't look particularly
like they ought to go together. What's the context? 'Rectus', as an
adjective means 'straight' (hence the medical use rectum - the 'straight'
part of the intestine), 'right' 'true'. 'Cauda' means tail. If 'rectus'
was used as the adjective, the case would line up: recta cauda. Are you
sure these words are supposed to go together? If so, then rectum is a
noun, meaning 'virtue', 'right' and cauda, which couldn't then be
nominative, must be ablative - by, with or from 'the tail'.
Hence: 'virtue with tail' 'right by the tail' (the virtue kind of
right). (Weird?)
Possibly just a poor latin version of straight tail?
Anybody else have a clue? Magnus?
--
Den
Rajiv Mote
Trevor Barrie wrote:
> (And I'm not sure why anybody even mentions Pascal's
> existence anymore now that Modula-2 exists. I suppose as historical
> context...)
Because Pascal is the language used by Borland's Delphi, the best 4GL on
the market today.
Giles Boutel
Den of Iniquity <dms...@york.ac.uk> wrote in article
<Pine.SGI.3.95L.97112...@ebor.york.ac.uk>...
> On 19 Nov 1997, HairBrain wrote:
>
> >PS: "reductio ad absurdam" ~ "Reduced to an absurd degree"? You
wouldn't
> >happen to know what "rectum cauda" means by any chance?
>
> Reductio ad absurdam - Reduction to absurdity - Normally used as a term
> for a mathematical proof whereby one disproves something by showing that
> the implications are obviously untrue. I used it as a suitable title for
> a description of i-f in four lines. :)
>
> "rectum cauda" - Hmmm, tricky. As two words, they don't look particularly
> like they ought to go together. What's the context? 'Rectus', as an
> adjective means 'straight' (hence the medical use rectum - the 'straight'
> part of the intestine)
You know, I have a strange feeling that the medical version was the meaning
intended.
>, 'right' 'true'. 'Cauda' means tail. If 'rectus'
> was used as the adjective, the case would line up: recta cauda. Are you
> sure these words are supposed to go together? If so, then rectum is a
> noun, meaning 'virtue', 'right' and cauda, which couldn't then be
> nominative, must be ablative - by, with or from 'the tail'.
Yup - so the literal translation would be "the part of the straight
intestine by the tail." I guessing the tail refers to the vestigial human
tailbone owing to the declension of the second noun.
I'm sure we have a colloquial version in English, but I'm buggered if I can
remember what it is.
-Giles
Den of Iniquity
On 26 Nov 1997, Giles Boutel wrote:
>> "rectum cauda" - Hmmm, tricky. As two words, they don't look particularly
>> like they ought to go together. What's the context? 'Rectus', as an
>> adjective means 'straight' (hence the medical use rectum - the 'straight'
>> part of the intestine)
>
>You know, I have a strange feeling that the medical version was the meaning
>intended.
Of course. There's me thinking in classical Latin. It's easy to forget
more 'recent' developments of the language. (Although maybe even classical
Latin used rectum in that sense, but most schoolbooks wouldn't bother to
mention it...)
>so the literal translation would be "the part of the straight
>intestine by the tail." I guessing the tail refers to the vestigial human
>tailbone owing to the declension of the second noun.
Sounds good to me.
>I'm sure we have a colloquial version in English, but I'm buggered if I can
>remember what it is.
And on that note I'll just dig out this...
From: Joe Mason <jcm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
>Is it just me, or is r.a.i-f getting more anal by the day?
Something like that...
--
Den
Martin Frost
>ok... technically in C && is logical AND, || is AND/OR (just called or)
Correct.
>and ^^ is exclusive or (XOR) "either but not both".
Erm, there was no logical XOR operator in C last time I looked. There is
a *bitwise* XOR, simply ^, which does an XOR operation between each pair
of bits in its two operands.
There is a big difference between logical and bitwise operations. In C,
any nonzero integer is regarded as true, and zero is false. Hence 1 and
2 are both true. However, due to the bitwise nature of the & and | (not
&& and ||) operators, the expression (1 & 2) is equal to zero, and hence
true & true can be false.
I don't know why there was no ^^ logical XOR operator included in C; my
suspicions rest on two points: it was not required for C's main purpose
of implementing UNIX, and it could not have been implemented with short-
circuit evaluation, and hence would behave differently to the && and ||
operators.
If you think about it, how many programs have you written which need a
logical XOR?
It can always be simulated anyway:
(a ^^ b) == ((a && !b) || (!a && b))
Martin
Chris Marriott
In article <347B219C...@compuNOSPAMserve.com>, Rajiv Mote
<Rajiv...@compuNOSPAMserve.com> writes
The only thing that Delphi's language has in common with ISO standard
Pascal is the name; it's basically a completely different language!
Chris
----------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Marriott, Microsoft Certified Solution Developer.
SkyMap Software, U.K. e-mail: ch...@skymap.com
Visit our web site at http://www.skymap.com
David Adrien Tanguay
Martin Frost wrote:
> If you think about it, how many programs have you written which need a
> logical XOR?
>
> It can always be simulated anyway:
>
> (a ^^ b) == ((a && !b) || (!a && b))
Or just !a != !b, or simply a != b if a and b are already booleans.
There's no short circuiting in logical xor, so there's little need for it.
--
David Tanguay d...@Thinkage.on.ca http://www.thinkage.on.ca/~dat/
Thinkage, Ltd. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [43.24N 80.29W]
HairBrain
Giles Boutel <bout...@wcc.govt.nz> wrote...
> Den of Iniquity <dms...@york.ac.uk> wrote in article
> <Pine.SGI.3.95L.97112...@ebor.york.ac.uk>...
> > On 19 Nov 1997, HairBrain wrote:
> > >PS: "reductio ad absurdam" ~ "Reduced to an absurd degree"? You
wouldn't
> > >happen to know what "rectum cauda" means by any chance?
> >
> > Reductio ad absurdam - Reduction to absurdity - Normally used as a term
> > for a mathematical proof whereby one disproves something by showing that
> > the implications are obviously untrue. I used it as a suitable title for
> > a description of i-f in four lines. :)
> >
> > like they ought to go together. What's the context? 'Rectus', as an
> > adjective means 'straight' (hence the medical use rectum - the 'straight'
> > part of the intestine)
>
> You know, I have a strange feeling that the medical version was the meaning
> intended.
Probably true. It's the name of a Norweagian demogroup which specializes in
making completely loopy demos [1] - one demo of theirs pictures all sorts of
food flying into Margaret Thatcher's mouth, accompanied by *the* most laughable
soundtrack and their readme files are usually filled with complete drivel on
camels and assorted insanities. A frequent character in their demos is
"LaTeX", a pedophile nurd whose keyboard is permanently missing. I understand
he's named after a programming language of old or something like that.
They spell it rECTUM cAUDA though. Probably just deliberate mIsZpeLliNg, as is
popular with the uneducated demogroup youth of today...
> >, 'right' 'true'. 'Cauda' means tail. If 'rectus'
> > was used as the adjective, the case would line up: recta cauda. Are you
> > sure these words are supposed to go together? If so, then rectum is a
> > noun, meaning 'virtue', 'right' and cauda, which couldn't then be
> > nominative, must be ablative - by, with or from 'the tail'.
>
> Yup - so the literal translation would be "the part of the straight
> intestine by the tail." I guessing the tail refers to the vestigial human
> tailbone owing to the declension of the second noun.
>
> I'm sure we have a colloquial version in English, but I'm buggered if I can
> remember what it is.
>
> -Giles
>
In other words, it's complicated, slightly misspelled Latin for "asshole"?
Seeing what it describes, that seems the most probable explanation, yes. Well,
thank you and good day.
HairBrain
o...@bu.telia.no
http://w1.2327.telia.com/~u232700165/
[1] "Demo" in the sense of a "showcase" sort of program where young coders,
musicians and computer artists show off what they're worth in the hope that
someone in charge of a software company will like their style and employ them
for similiar tasks - or they just make 'em for the hell of it, which is very
much the case with rECTUM cAUDA. The website for the computer festival where I
first got to look at rC's demos, The Gathering '97, is at
http://www.gathering.org I think you may be able to download the demos
presented at that festival from an FTP site linked to that page.
Bryan Scattergood
On 26 Nov 1997 16:35:08 -0000, Martin Frost wrote:
> If you think about it, how many programs have you written which need a
> logical XOR?
>
> It can always be simulated anyway:
>
> (a ^^ b) == ((a && !b) || (!a && b))
Seems a bit verbose. If you know that 'a' and 'b' are already boolean
(0/1) valued, then a!=b works just fine. Otherwise you need to boolify
them, in which case !a!=!b should do the trick.
As Martin pointed out, you need to evaluate both arguments so ^^ can't
be a shortcut operator like && and ||. You could just use the bitwise
operator and write (!a)^(!b). You then run the risk of getting the
operator precedence wrong, but you get used to that with C.
Bryan
(Those who find this sort of thing fun could do worse than having a look
at http://www.accu.org/ )