Next Meetup Sunday, March 22, 2020

[Greg Frost]

The next meetup of the Seattle/Tacoma IF group will be Sunday, March 22, from 2:00 - 4:30 p.m. in Room 409 of Thompson Hall at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.

Given the recent interest, the plan is to play Mike's game A Beauty Cold and Austere, read by and with commentary from the author. 

Hope to see you there!

[Paul]

I had a great time last time.  I'll be there.

I wonder if I could spend 15 minutes or so at the start to talk about how I developed The House on Sycamore Lane.  Sound OK?

[Greg Frost]

Sure, that sounds good. We can also dedicate the meeting after this one to play it and discuss more thoroughly if you prefer. I sent you an email about dates if you want to do that option.

[Mike Spivey]

Fine with me, too.  I'd like to hear a more thorough discuss of your game as well, Paul.

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[Paul Malolepsy]

We don’t have to play it through.  It was my first IF attempt and I was under the gun to finish it, so it could have used a lot more testing and polish.  

I was more interested in showing you guys how I developed it, and getting feedback.  I’m a software developer by trade and I find the Inform 7 english parser to be elegant but frustrating.  So I experimented with a meta language over it using Kotlin that outputs Inform 7 text.  (I know, pretty crazy.  But it was fun).

Anyway, we can do that either at the start of March’s meeting or hold off to the next one.  I’m good with either.

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[Lance Campbell]

I updated the download link to Paul's game at IFDB so people can take a look at it:

https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=nanqt26hzkvujlmg

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[Greg Frost]

Hey everyone, in light of the governor's emergency declaration limiting gatherings of all kinds, Mike and I have decided to change the meetup to an online-only event. Details to follow.

https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-statement-statewide-shutdown-restaurants-bars-and-limits-size-gatherings-expanded

[Greg Frost]

Cross-posted from Mike's post on Intfiction.org:

"As promised, we’ll be having the Seattle/Tacoma IF meetup virtually at 2pm PDT on Sunday, March 22. We’ll be playing A Beauty Cold and Austere. PM me [Mike Spivey] for the link to the meeting. Feel free to join in, even if you don’t live anywhere near Seattle."

We're all still figuring out how to do this; I expect in a month or so most people will be experts with video conference software.

[Mike Spivey]

Follow-up: If you don't have an intfiction.org account, you can also just email me for the link to tomorrow's meetup.

Mike

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[Greg Frost]

Here are my notes from the March meeting:

Attendees: Brian, David D, David L, Gene, Greg, Jared, Joshua, Lance, Mike, Paul

Location: Online (Google Hangout)

Program (2 PM - 4:30 PM):

2:00 Introductions and opening discussion.

2:20 Played A Beauty Cold and Austere by Mike Spivey.

 -Discussed writing style; Mike noted that the game is written in his voice.

 -Discussed style influences from Curses!, Zork.

 -Discussed puzzle organization and process of integrating clues.

 -Tutorial was created late in development along with hinting to keep players from getting stuck.

 -Discussed use of number space rooms as basis for Junior Arithmancer.

 -All references in the game to "professor" were changed to "Professor Glasser" for Lynnea Glasser, who won Best Reviewer at IFComp 2017.

 -Noted the several Plato jokes in ancient Athens section of the game.

 -Discussed using items from one area to solve puzzles in other areas, balancing progression.

 -Mike noted that the hint system is ~15% of the total game size.

 -Discussed historical accuracy (or lack thereof) in game design, rule of cool.

4:30 PM Final discussion and wrap-up.

 -Paul will show his Inform 7 creation tool at the next meeting.