[Comp 01] Eric Mayer's Comp Journal (3/4)
Eric Mayer
Eric Mayer continues on at tedious length about Comp 2001
(Part 3 of 4)
Note: This material can be found online at the Trotting Krips web
site:
http://joltcountry.dreamhost.com/trottingkrips/ik2k1-
ericm.html
Jason Love sounds like a pseudonym and if I'd entered NEWCOMER
I'd be in hiding too. I don't mean the game is exactly disgraceful
but, so far as I can see it is a joke, and a real groaner. Or maybe a
comment on lack of interactivity? What can I say without giving the
game away? Well, if you've "played" Beal Street there's one form of
utterly minimal interactivity. Newcomer offers a somewhat different
form. Mind you, it appears to be much more. There are some nicely
drawn locations. I'm not sure what to make of it, to be honest. It is
one solution to what to do with that practice file, with all the
locations, that you decide you don't feel like turning into an actual
game because how many moves does it take to make a bunch of static
locations into a game. Oops. I'd better shut up now.
Personally I enjoy seeing what can be done with systems
outside the "Big Three" (or is it the "Big Two" or the "Big 2 and one
half"? since everyone on RAIF appears to consider Hugo on a par with
TADS and INFORM but there seem to be more games written in Adrift and
Alan than in Hugo) so I appreciated that LOVESONG by Mihalis
Georgostathis gave me an opportunity to play a game in the much
maligned Quest system. As with Adrift, Quest allows you to perform
many common operations by clicking on menus rather than typing
commands. Not a bad feature. I get tired of repeatedly typing "talk
to" so and so in the increasing number of games that feature that sort
of conversation. It is quite pleasant to just highlight the character
to be addressed and click on "talk to" instead.
As for the game, I enjoyed it. Yes, it is a very short and
simple game, and there are a few errors in English, the author not
being a native speaker, (and who I am to complain, since I speak only
one language?) however, Lovesong contained important elements that
many authors of more complicated and polished games miss out on -- an
actual story, a clear goal and some motivation to reach the goal.
While I enjoy sampling new interpreters there is also DOS. OK.
I thought Mike Snyder's home brewed Lunatix was just fine but, for
whatever reason, DOS games free up a lot of Comp playing time for me.
Here, for example is DOOMED FROM THE START by noob. Doesn't that name
ring a bell? And, wait, isn't this the same interface I couldn't
stand earlier? So I began with trepidation and right off what do I
read - "You are in a cold dark cave, however you have no clue why."
(uh oh!) "To figure out where you are you will start to map each
room." (Hmmmm I wouldn't bet on it) "This will be called room 1" (whoa
- I'm outta here!)
Talk about games designed to drive me away. Norman Perlmuter's
THE CRUISE has just about everything I hate in a game. Totally
tongue-in-cheek tone, you're given no idea of what to do initially,
ridiculous puzzles (finding jewels of power on a cruise ship -c'mon);
inventory limits, the need to endlessly retrace your steps, hunger -
hunger, for cryin' out loud. You have to stop in the middle of what
you're doing to go to the dining room and eat! I don't even stop to
eat in real life!
Needless to say I loved this game.
Search me.( -- You find nothing of interest - especially in
the braincase)
I guess Norman just writes engagingly or some damn thing. This
hooked me. I worked feverishly. Heck, there was a hint book lying
around rather than hints, and how can you hate a game where the author
hangs around as an NPC to answer questions? Not to mention there being
an explanation of how you can have north south directions on a moving
ship.
So much for rules. Guess that's why they call writing an art.
Aside to the author: Hope that intro didn't jar you too bad -
payback for that onboard comic - talk about bad jokes.
JUMP, by Chris Mudd, is more of a game I might be inclined to
like but didn't. It is brief and has no puzzles. It is story oriented.
However, it is very short, even by my impatient standards.(When I'd
finished I checked the walkthrough to be certain I hadn't just reached
an abrupt, alternate ending.) And the interaction is very limited. You
mostly talk to a few characters and get a couple objects.
But what I mainly didn't like was that at the very end, it
appears you are about to face a simple decision which lies at the very
heart of the game - except that the author whips the decision out from
under your nose and pushes you to the end of his own choosing.
Writing non-IF fiction, I understand the authorial urge to
control the end of the story. Much of a story's message, not to
mention the author's worldview, is at least implicit in the chosen
ending. That's the storyteller's prerogative. In real life things come
out any old way, but when we write they come out how we want them too.
Unless we offer an IF player alternatives.
In my game The HeBGB Horror I cheated. There is a yes/no
choice at the end there too and I couldn't resist -if you make the
"wrong" choice, I give you the outcome, then insist you see my choice
anyhow.
At any rate, since the player at the end of Jump has to choose
one of only two actions I would have thought the author could have
allowed for alternatives. Could I, as author, have forced myself to do
so? Hey, I'm asking the questions here, not answering them.
THE APPLE FROM NOWHERE, by Steven Carbonne, struck me as the
sort of thing you see in pretentious lit mags -- trying to be
provocative, a dollop of unpalatable sex, violence, wrapped up in
enough incoherence that it has got to have some deeper meaning, but
maybe I'm just stupid. But this is just my personal taste, understand.
I did try to interact with the thing, which was hard seeing as how I
had no inkling of what was going on. Finally I just kept pushing "z"
and that seemed to keep things going just as well.
So maybe I never did have anything accepted by my college's
literary magazine and I still have a chip on my shoulder. But I've had
stuff published professionally since then and how about the lit mag
editor who rejected my writing? What's he had published? Except for
that story in Atlantic Monthly and - well, I guess this doesn't have a
moral I like. So forget I ever mentioned it.
I know what you're probably saying anyway. What does this guy
like, if not literature? Comic books? Well, yeah. I have gone on
several comic book crazes over the years. My last ended some time back
when the family budget couldn't support the escalating price of indie
comics and graphic novels. (Ah yes, Watchmen, Morty the Dog, Flaming
Carrot. . .fond memories all) So anyhow in EARTH AND SKY by (Stan?)
Lee (Jack?) Kirby , you get to be a superhero. AWRIIIIGGHHHTT! BAM!
POW! and UT! I mean is this game cool or what? You get to assume the
tights of power. You fly. You blast. This is what IF's all about. I
especially liked the climactic battle with the giant mutant creature.
It is a puzzle, but so well designed that I solved it almost
instinctively, without even really thinking in puzzle terms but just
kind of maneuvering and blasting away as comes naturally to us of the
superpowerful persuasion.
I need a whiff of krptonite. Arghh. No not the red. . . Too
late. Akbarr's SHATTERED MEMORY is kind of a warped experience, an
intriguing idea, though the setting is cliched and the game itself is
hampered by unlikely and unclued commands. There is something
interesting going on, beyond the apparently static setting you find
yourself trapped in, if you can break out. It may be that the
particular phrasings that must be used won't stump other players, or
that others will think to examine something that has to be present
but, so far as I recall, is never mentioned.
Is it fair to players to expect them to realize that an object
which is not actually described is present, even when it must be
present? I'm not sure. I lean toward answering "no" because the
written world is an artificial one, an approximation, an abstraction
of reality. There is no way the writer can do more than skim lightly
over the incredible complexity of the real world, picking out a few
details from which the reader can imagine all that complexity. I think
that generally the reader should be able to assume that if the writer
has chosen not to describe a thing it is not important. Tomorrow I
might think differently.
Despite what I saw as shortcomings, Shattered Memory will
reward you with a most interesting and philosophical story, with some
surprising twists. An original bit of work.
VOLCANO by Paul DeWitt is another game that isn't really for
me. The first thing I do when I play a game is type "X me". I want to
know who I am! Seems fundamental. Yet I am amazed at how many games
don't implement a description for the protagonist. Well, maybe not
amazed. I didn't do it in my first game. I didn't know you could. (No,
don't ask how I could be so dense. . .) Still, when I discover, right
off, that the game author wasn't even interested in what his main
character looks like, that gives me pause. I begin to suspect that the
author and I are not on the same page when it comes to what we look
for in interactive fiction. In case you haven't figured it out, I
prefer stories to puzzles (Oh. Really? And also -- the Big Momma, you
say?) especially the same tired old puzzles I haven't been able to
solve in a hundred variations already. So when a game has no not
implemented "X me" but does leave a flashlight lying around in the
first location it is almost by definition a game I'm not going to
enjoy. Which says more about my prejudices than Volcano I'm sure. (And
someone will probably also point out that Earl Stanley Gardener never
described Perry Mason in any of the books, but, why should he since
everyone knows he looked like Raymond Burr)
ELEMENTS by John Evans,is yet another puzzle game I can't say
much about, except that I can't conceive how anybody could even begin
to finish this in the Comp's two hour time limit. The walkthrough
takes longer. Again, though, likely a great experience for many
players.
In STRANDED by Rich Cummings, you are, as you might guess,
stranded on an island. The game features some attractive photo scenes
and puzzles that, for me, were almost too naturalistic. I don't want
to ruin the game for anyone so I will just pose a general question,
kind of an extension of the one I asked in regards to Shattered Memory
-- to what extent can the IF author expect the player to attribute to
objects mentioned in the game environment all the usable properties
those objects would have in real life, including properties that
aren't mentioned? I realize that I am straying a bit afield from what
actually occurs in Stranded, but the puzzles here did bring the
question to mind.
Since I'm even confusing myself, let me find an example. Say
you've been tied securely to a stake and can't move anything but your
head. You're slowly working your hands free -- wriggle g g g -that
sort of thing. But the evil genius responsible has set a cartoon bomb
at your bound feet and the flame is racing along the fuse. Now, is
"spit on fuse" a fair solution? Or, to be fair, would you have to also
include some comment like - "Escaping these bonds takes more than a
single bound. Your mouth is practically dry from the exertion."?
Which has only marginal bearing on Stranded. I was pretty
confounded but, as mentioned, the puzzles are "real world" type
puzzles and should be solvable if you approach them correctly.
STIFFY MAKANE: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY by One of the Bruces.
I confess, I enjoyed this game. I know, I know. . .I hear the cries of
outrage from all the wronged artists. We've labored to create
brilliant intellectual edifices of scintillating puzzles, wrung
sparkling, magical blood from the hard stone of If Programming
languages, explored the far shores of philosophy, pulled our very
souls, shrieking and squirming into the harsh and unforgiving light
for your edification, and you have scoffed and laughed and yawned and
now you say you prefer playing a horny space cadet with an execrably
drawn alien moose stuck in his airlock.
Forgive me for I have sinned.
This is a pretty repulsive mishmash. It's got the lot. Photos,
sounds and animations. Enough to make Blorb a dirty word. Hell, it
might even get your local Fundamentalists-R-Us senator interested in
IF. But all in good fun.
Besides, now that you know what awful taste I have you can
ignore anything nasty I've said.
So, for purposes of the two hour time limit, is Sean Barrett's
HEROES one game or five? There's a magical gem to be stolen. Nothing
unusual there, but in this game you get to play as five different
characters, ranging from adventurer to dragon. Since each has
different abilities, although the setting and props remain the same,
the stories play out very differently.
Playing the contrasting scenarios offers a good lesson for IF
authors. I suspect I'm like many IF writers in that when I'm
formulating a story I've tended to first think of locations, and what
objects might be in the locations and what might be done with those
objects. But in IF, as in non-IF, the way you design your protagonist
can affect the story more than the setting and physical objects.
Heroes manages to be both traditional and experimental. A real
highlight.
As to BANE OF THE BUILDERS by Bogdan Baliuc, Mea culpa. I
wandered around this game for a good 45 minutes not understanding why
I couldn't accomplish anything. When I checked the walkthrough I
realized I'd left the most important item in the game back at the
first location. I'd "x me" but hadn't "x"ed my surroundings. Too much
introversion. The game seemed fairly standard science fiction. Not
bad. The sort of thing you'll like if you like that sort of thing.
A NIGHT GUEST by Dr. Inkalot is a very brief game in the form
of a poem (or what modern poets would probably call doggerel). As a
game it is limited. Five or six commands, most almost impossible to
guess, for me, scroll up new batches of verse. The verse, about a
proverbial drunken lord and his infernal nocturnal visitor is amusing,
however.
Morton Rasmussen's INVASION OF THE ANGORA FETISH TRANSVESTITES
FROM THE GRAVEYARDS OF JUPITER, with its references to Ed Wood
reminded me of the first (and last) time I watched Wood's classic
"Orgy of the Dead." When the first stripper showed up in the graveyard
and gyrated through her act it was pretty funny. Then the next
stripper appeared, and the next and, well you get the idea. As I sat
there watching, jiggled into numbness, the incredible truth only
gradually dawned on me -- this is all there is. This so-called movie
is not going to be anything but an endless, tedious, succession of
strippers in a graveyard. But, worse yet, even knowing this, I had no
choice but to endure to the end because - hey -- strippers in a
graveyard. Mr. Wood had plumbed depths of sheer awfulness my poor
limited mind had not even imagined could exist. The aforementioned
game did not deliver the same sort of lead pipe epiphany. I couldn't
do much with it. Couldn't get used to the interface. Perhaps it
emulates Ed Wood a little too well.
THE COAST HOUSE by Stephen Newton and Dan Newton is a gem. It
uses some standard IF elements -- a search for identity, the deserted
house - but in a different and naturalistic way. Rather than searching
for your own identity, as often happens, you are searching for an old
family secret at the house which was left abandoned after your
grandmother died and your grandfather moved to a nursing home. The
evocation of stepping back into places that were once familiar, of
rummaging though the remnants of vanished lives, is quite moving. When
loved ones have gone aren't there always questions we wished we had
asked? Years ago, there hung at the top of my grandmother's stairs, an
old brown photograph of her and her sisters, posed in front of the
long vanished family farmhouse. As a child I always wondered about
that farmhouse. The photo revealed nothing beyond the windows, the
door could never again be opened. Yet on the day the photograph was
taken the house must have been filled with evidence of the lives being
led there. In playing The Coast House I got some sense of what it
might have been like had it been possible for me to explore that old
farmhouse years later.
(cont. in part 4)
--
Eric Mayer
Web Site: <http://home.epix.net/~maywrite>
"The map is not the territory." -- Alfred Korzybski
Branko Collin
GMT:
> Talk about games designed to drive me away. Norman Perlmuter's
>THE CRUISE has just about everything I hate in a game. Totally
>tongue-in-cheek tone, you're given no idea of what to do initially,
>ridiculous puzzles (finding jewels of power on a cruise ship -c'mon);
>inventory limits, the need to endlessly retrace your steps, hunger -
>hunger, for cryin' out loud. You have to stop in the middle of what
>you're doing to go to the dining room and eat! I don't even stop to
>eat in real life!
> Needless to say I loved this game.
[...]
> Morton Rasmussen's INVASION OF THE ANGORA FETISH TRANSVESTITES
>FROM THE GRAVEYARDS OF JUPITER, with its references to Ed Wood
>reminded me of the first (and last) time I watched Wood's classic
>"Orgy of the Dead." When the first stripper showed up in the graveyard
>and gyrated through her act it was pretty funny. Then the next
>stripper appeared, and the next and, well you get the idea. As I sat
>there watching, jiggled into numbness, the incredible truth only
>gradually dawned on me -- this is all there is. This so-called movie
>is not going to be anything but an endless, tedious, succession of
>strippers in a graveyard. But, worse yet, even knowing this, I had no
>choice but to endure to the end because - hey -- strippers in a
>graveyard. Mr. Wood had plumbed depths of sheer awfulness my poor
>limited mind had not even imagined could exist.
May I recommend you read The Loser Living Upstairs
(<http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Lights/5427/loser.html>)? You'll
love to hate it. At least it is one of my favorite books of the
nineties.
--
branko collin
col...@xs4all.nl