[Seattle IF: 251] April Meetup Minutes

[Paul J. Furio]

Here are the notes I was taking from the meeting, in case anyone wants
to jog their memory about what was said. They're rather stream-of-
consiousness, so I'm sure there's things I missed, and there's
probably phrasing that is what I heard vs. what was actually spoken.

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If meetup: April 2010

Get conf room for Pax Prime : food + bathroom. One room is important.
 Book talks, etc.
Jason Scott - contact about attendance Deadline for Pax prime panels:
prereg is already open

Cyoa: choices enumerated, all actions advance the story, not a moral
story necessarily, scenes & settings advance.  Hidden options may or
may not mute definition of cyoa.  Blank like makes you think more,
cyoa is just click click click...   But blank parser can be
frustrating, parser tells player that most things they're trying can't
be done.  Puzzles, brings in games: can't solve puzzles in cyoa?

Intellisense for verbs, context sensitive.  Try? A/B testing for
parser error feedback?

navigation discussion.  Compass rose w/ room names instead of
directions.  Eric Temple: maps with overlays- Glimmr

Social interaction systems that are puzzles.  Reward players for
application of hidden knowledge.  Hard to lose, easy to win
differently.  Two character example, jerk and his sister, develop
theory of mind for character.

Good vs Evil choice games, choice is jarring, KOTOR did it well
(James).  Leads to lawnmowering.  Fallout 3 - short if main story is
followed.  Torment had morally ambiguous.  Heavy Rain.

Balance between simulation and story.  Emergent narrative from a
simulation.  Sims 3 homeless people story.  Moments arise out of what
is not necessarily a strong story arc.  Lost Pig, richness of
simulation allows you to explore what the character is.  Choose ways
to attack problem based on understanding of who the character is.

Slice of life, mundane interactions lead to characterization, and a
character study.  How do we enforce characterization.  Spider & Web
mechanics enforce playing as superspy.  "soft rails"

Lawnmowering, completionism, subconsious drive to reduce opportuniy
cost.  Noir Dterctive, can win the first 10 times.  Uses past
information to open other areas, and enhances replayability.

Does lawnmowering kill the emotional engagement?  "I don't want to
want to lawnmower." 

Safety in games.  Standard is, you can do something that kills you
unexpectedly 30 turns later.  Myst had to explicitly call out, "you
are safe."

Nimean Lion. Short games that are broad.  Best of Three.

If you give players something to optimize, they will.  Dialog trees
invoked anxiety in playtest session.

Galatea:  designed to allow lawnmowering.  Players wanted list of full
endings, not Emilys point.  Trying to get player to play along.

Do IF games need tutorials?

Ruben's Goal: approach "the young lady's illustrated primer."

Do games have networking?  CMS vs server-farmed persistant data about
player based on assumptions from input.  Player should know whether
game is stateful or not.

Data gathering for user transcripts, captures ratholes.  Need more
beta testing, playtesting.

Multiple players in same world.  What is agency, who can modify world?

Next time:  playtest games, feedback on Rons document. 

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