IF Whispers' Project: "The Corn Identity" now available
markm
finally come together. The first ever IF Whispers Project is now
uploaded to the IFArchive. It's currently sitting in the 'incoming'
directory as 'whispers.z5' but will move soon to its permanent home
(probably under /games/zcode).
The best way to describe what the project was all about is to copy
baf's 'ABOUT' text here:
Confused? I'm not surprised. So were the authors.
The inspiration for this game was a thing called Comic Whispers,
an Exquisite Corpse-like game played by various people on if MUD and
Livejournal. The idea behind Comic Whispers is that each
participant creates one panel of a comic strip, having seen only the
panel immediately before theirs.
It should be obvious that this idea can't be effectively applied
to interactive fiction. So of course we had to give it a try.
Each person was given the previous person's source code, plus a
file containing whatever dummy object definitions were necessary to
get that code to compile. There were no explicit restrictions on
what a person could add in their segment.
We allowed bugfixes in segments after they had
been submitted, but no really substantial changes to game content,
except for the addition, after all the segments were in, of
various objects mentioned in room descriptions but not implemented.
The result is actually better than I feared it would be.
The story may not make a lot of sense, but it's actually winnable,
and even solvable. Hacks were necessary to link up segments;
if we ever try this again, we'll be sure to create a better
framework, probably involving a Room class that has exits defined
for all the standard directions.
The participants in this experiment, identified by their MUD
handles, are (in order of their segments):
baf
serhei
MauiPotiki
Rob
two-star
Jota
schep
Jacqueline and maga
inky
katre and Duchess
markm
J. Robinson Wheeler
> It took many weeks, and much coordination (thanks baf!) but it's
> finally come together. The first ever IF Whispers Project is now
> uploaded to the IFArchive.
>
I think that, for the most part, it is a fun and interesting game to
play. There is a little problem, because of the serialized/blind
nature of the work, where the last act of the game (as it were)
seems to go off on its own tangent, leaving the earlier mysteries
unsolved. However, there is a long middle segment where a coherent
story with interrelated puzzles of exploration and discovery takes
place.
> The participants in this experiment, identified by their MUD
> handles, are (in order of their segments):
I suppose it might register better with the newsgroup to put the
full names of the authors, because some of them are recognizable.
- Carl Muckenhoupt
- Serhei Makarov
- Tama Wise
- J. Robinson Wheeler
- Alexandre Owen Muniz
- Admiral Jota
- Andrew Schepler
- Jacqueline A. Lott and Sam Kabo Ashwell
- Dan Shiovitz
- John Cater and Duchess*
- Mark Musante
I came away from this experiment thinking that collaborative IF
could be done like this and produce something well worthwhile.
The trick would be not having it bog down with everyone arguing
what the premise should be. I think this first experiment worked
because baf was the leader and was guiding things along, handing
out assignments, making sure things compiled. Not guiding the
creativity, but keeping the sense of organization happening.
--
J. Robinson Wheeler Games: http://raddial.com/if/
JRW Digital Media Movie: http://thekroneexperiment.com/
markm
J. Robinson Wheeler wrote:
> There is a little problem, because of the serialized/blind
> nature of the work, where the last act of the game (as it were)
> seems to go off on its own tangent, leaving the earlier mysteries
> unsolved.
Yeah. Hopefully a follow-on project (additionally hopefully there will
be one) will address this, maybe by having authors of previous segments
list unresolved plot points, so the poor guy at the end isn't left to
his own devices.
> However, there is a long middle segment where a coherent
> story with interrelated puzzles of exploration and discovery takes
> place.
Perhaps a good exercise would be to determine what caused the story to
go off the rails and determine ways to encourage greater integration.
When I was playing through the first few segments of the game, I was
struck by how well things worked together. It seemed like I was still
just starting off when I noticed, purely based on fixing the source,
that I was already in segment 3.
I really enjoyed participating in this, both from the authorial and a
bug fixer points of view. As an author, it was thrilling to get the
previous segment and seeing what could be done with it. What hooks did
the previous author provide to kick off my segment? What can I do to
not only make it intereting for the player, but maybe surprise the
previous author? As a bug fixer, it was wonderful to see others
enhance my own segment, and to collaboratively make improvements to
everyone elses'. Part of that was due to the CVS repository that baf
set up.
I could definitely see a fully collaborative work in addition to future
'whisper' type works. Kind of like a Wiki, except for Inform or TADS
code.