[general] Totally Unbelievable Game -- design criteria
Jim Aikin
Someone has recently released a Totally Unbelievable Game (text-based,
of course). Word on the street has reached fever pitch, and the servers
are chugging trying to keep up with the download requests.
My question is: What are the features of this game?
Of course it would have a great story, that's essential. But what other
features would it have? I can think of five or six things, but here's
one to start the discussion:
The parser would have to be much more flexible and "intelligent" than
current parsers. Current IF parsers embody some fairly stringent (and
hidden) assumptions about the input. People who know IF understand these
assumptions; others don't.
We could make a long, long list of grammatical constructions novice
players might try: “is david smiling?” “[tell david] grandma fell down
the stairs and broke her ankle.” “I want the ice cream cone.” “I want
david to give sheila the ice cream cone.” “ask sheila if david is
kidding about grandma falling down the stairs.” In a game that achieves
runaway success, I believe the parser would need to be able to handle
all of these structures (and hundreds of others) gracefully.
The full list of needed grammatical input structures would have to be
arrived at through extensive testing. That's a separate issue, and
doesn't concern me at the moment. The question is, what _else_ would
this Totally Unbelievable Game have that currently available games don't?
--Jim Aikin
Andrew Plotkin
>
> The full list of needed grammatical input structures would have to be
> arrived at through extensive testing. That's a separate issue, and
> doesn't concern me at the moment. The question is, what _else_ would
> this Totally Unbelievable Game have that currently available games don't?
Are you interested in a list of wishes, or a list of goals for current
designers to take into account? Because your first entry sounds more
like the former than the latter.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
"Bush has kept America safe from terrorism since 9/11." Too bad his
job was to keep America safe *on* 9/11.
Jim Aikin
>
> Are you interested in a list of wishes, or a list of goals for current
> designers to take into account? Because your first entry sounds more
> like the former than the latter.
The former, I think. What I didn't quite make clear (because this post
was an outgrowth of another thread) was that I'm interested in what
might be needed for an IF game to reach a MUCH larger audience.
Goals for current designers to take into account are of course
interesting too. But what I'm envisioning is a fantasy in which a
hundred thousand people who have never tried IF before are downloading
this game. What would need to be in that download for them to get
excited and recommend it to their friends in breathless terms?
I mentioned a more flexible parser. Here's another item on my wish list
(which would clearly not apply well to folks who are using the current
tools):
The distinction between the interpreter and the game software would have
to go away. Those menu headers at the top of the window? They would have
to refer, only and always, to the game, NOT to some separate layer of
software that doesn't know about the game. A hundred thousand people are
not going to download and install a separate interpreter; nor are they
interested in learning that the Help command at the top of the window
(or, if you're a Mac person, at the top of the screen) applies to
something other than the game itself.
Here's a more radical idea: It's impossible to get stuck. The player who
is a complete dunce and does nothing but hit the Enter/Return key over
and over should be able to read and enjoy the entire story. And yet the
story should reward interaction. Those may seem to be disparate criteria
... but I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it's a design
problem, but not impossible to achieve.
--JA
ChicagoDave
> Goals for current designers to take into account are of course
> interesting too. But what I'm envisioning is a fantasy in which a
> hundred thousand people who have never tried IF before are downloading
> this game. What would need to be in that download for them to get
> excited and recommend it to their friends in breathless terms?
Based on my own assumptions, 100,000+ downloads with a high viral
aspect would probably mean the story itself was based on an existing
and extremely popular story or set of characters. I doubt anything
else, including; parser, the level of writing, the user experience,
even the publisher would have that sort of impact. Well, spending a
hundred thousand dollars or more for public relations and marketing
would go a long way too.
David C.
Jim Aikin
>
> Based on my own assumptions, 100,000+ downloads with a high viral
> aspect would probably mean the story itself was based on an existing
> and extremely popular story or set of characters. I doubt anything
> else, including; parser, the level of writing, the user experience,
> even the publisher would have that sort of impact. Well, spending a
> hundred thousand dollars or more for public relations and marketing
> would go a long way too.
As I indicated, this is a fantasy -- but it's a fantasy with an
underlying agenda, which is to attempt to identify the features that IF
software would need to have in order to appeal to a large market of
people who are entirely unfamiliar with the conventions of the medium.
You can make whatever assumptions you like, and please feel free to pick
a number out of a hat. I could have said a million downloads. The point,
I hope, is not to shoot down any discussion of possible features by
saying, "That's unrealistic," but rather to envision some of the things
that would be needed in order for it to _become_ realistic.
You'll note that I didn't rule out any of the other criteria you
suggested. I didn't say the game wouldn't be a spinoff from a movie or
TV series. I didn't say it wouldn't be published by a multinational
conglomerate that was prepared to invest major bucks in a promotional
blitz. Those things are unlikely, but not impossible.
What I _am_ suggesting is that in order to interest either a major
publisher or the copyright holder of an existing franchise, the software
itself would need to be something that could achieve mass market
momentum. A limited sampling of anecdotal evidence suggests that quite a
lot of people who try IF are baffled by or simply impatient with the
existing paradigm, and quickly lose interest in trying to play the game.
Redesigning the UI in ways that would change that reaction is arguably
achievable. At least, I think it's worth discussing.
--JA
Poster
Jim Aikin <midig...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Here's a blue-sky question that might be worth kicking around.
>
> Someone has recently released a Totally Unbelievable Game (text-based,
> of course). Word on the street has reached fever pitch, and the servers
> are chugging trying to keep up with the download requests.
>
> My question is: What are the features of this game?
>
> Of course it would have a great story, that's essential. But what other
> features would it have? I can think of five or six things, but here's
> one to start the discussion:
>
> The parser would have to be much more flexible and "intelligent" than
> current parsers. Current IF parsers embody some fairly stringent (and
> hidden) assumptions about the input. People who know IF understand these
> assumptions; others don't.
Future Boy! and 1893 didn't have fantastically complex parsers, and they
are two successful recent IF ventures. Based on that evidence, I'm not
at all sure that parser gymnastics are required for success.
-- Poster
www.intaligo.com Building, INFORM, Seasons (10,000 lines and counting)
Ron Newcomb
Juicy question, Jim!
It would have to be something that -only- I-F could do, something that
couldn't be done with books or video games. Maybe... the player/
reader learns something about his/her own personal self, like a new
perspective on their own life or attitudes toward the real world, as a
result of the actions and situations they've put themselves through;
situations with the psychological depth of the novel but also the
personal accountability of the game/sim.
The work "learns" the player, and then uses that knowledge to teach
somehow.
-R
Emily Short
> Here's a blue-sky question that might be worth kicking around.
>
> Someone has recently released a Totally Unbelievable Game (text-based,
> of course). Word on the street has reached fever pitch, and the servers
> are chugging trying to keep up with the download requests.
>
> My question is: What are the features of this game?
>
> Of course it would have a great story, that's essential. But what other
> features would it have? I can think of five or six things, but here's
> one to start the discussion:
>
> The parser would have to be much more flexible and "intelligent" than
> current parsers. Current IF parsers embody some fairly stringent (and
> hidden) assumptions about the input. People who know IF understand these
> assumptions; others don't.
>
> We could make a long, long list of grammatical constructions novice
> players might try: "is david smiling?" "[tell david] grandma fell down
> the stairs and broke her ankle." "I want the ice cream cone." "I want
> david to give sheila the ice cream cone." "ask sheila if david is
> kidding about grandma falling down the stairs." In a game that achieves
> runaway success, I believe the parser would need to be able to handle
> all of these structures (and hundreds of others) gracefully.
I agree that the parser would ideally be more polished; I disagree
that it would need to be better *in this way*. (In fact, I think if it
*were* better in this way, it would no longer be IF as we know it; it
would be something else, probably something with diffuse and unfocused
interaction, more like a chat with a mediocre AI than like a game.)
Yes, it's worth doing some work to catch novice input that is patently
not of the verb-noun form, and it's also worth offering a bit of help.
But in my experience people seem to catch on pretty quickly about what
sort of grammar the game is going to be able to understand, and don't
keep typing random questions, etc., unless they are bored and
deliberately fooling around.
What I do think is that players get frustrated when they type a lot of
things that don't produce any interesting output, so that the effort-
to-fun ratio drops.
There are several ways to address this.
(a) Use typo detection to weed out failure through user typing error.
(b) Implement rigorously to avoid "you don't see that here" sorts of
responses.
(c) Make sure that it's always, always clear in the game what the
player's goals are and what kinds of interaction will produce
interesting outcomes.
(d) See that all command words are hinted, and failed uses of valid
commands always make it clear why the command failed.
(e) Permit multi-step actions to be expressed through macro commands
(like GO TO KITCHEN instead of N. N. W., but perhaps extending to
other aspects of the game as well).
(f) Eliminate default messages as much as humanly possible, replacing
them with extensive *game-appropriate* feedback. This one is
unfortunately very laborious and impossible to pass from game to game
by library, but my observation is that it makes a huge difference to
the way relatively-novice players experience a game. If they're stuck
and trying to think of something to do, they may well run around
trying to eat everything, taste everything, smell everything, etc.;
and having the game *continue to entertain them* while they do this is
what keeps them around long enough to think of a more productive
action.
This is of course a tricky line to tread because you don't want to
reward them *so* much for unproductive actions that they spend the
whole time licking scenery instead of having a gripping time with your
plot and puzzles.
Jim Aikin
>
> Future Boy! and 1893 didn't have fantastically complex parsers, and they
> are two successful recent IF ventures. Based on that evidence, I'm not
> at all sure that parser gymnastics are required for success.
Fair enough. But let me respond with two questions:
First, might they have been _more_ successful if they had had more
flexible parsers? I don't think we can rule it out.
Second, what features _would_ you see as essential for a fantastically
successful text game? I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of
downloads. And I'm not really thinking about external factors, such as
huge promotional budgets. I'm talking about features that are intrinsic
to the game experience itself.
One possible answer is, "Nothing needs to change. The current game
engines are fine just the way they are." But that answer may be too
complacent. At the very least, I think contemplating some refinements
might have real value.
Just to clarify, I'm not out to criticize the talented folks who have
developed the current implementations! If you look at either Inform or
TADS, you'll find an implementation that is miles beyond Zork. There are
lots of slick features in today's IF that work extremely well. I'm just
wondering if a redesigned UI might have the potential to win over a
bunch of converts.
Part of the reason I'm asking is because a few days ago someone on this
group mentioned Roguelike games. I was all but oblivious to the genre,
so I looked it up. My reaction to reading about how NetHack is played
was in two parts: (1) Wow, this is amazing! I'm sure it would be fun.
(2) It's much, much too complicated for me to bother trying to learn it.
And that's a game where all of the commands are explicitly listed in the
rules! In text-based IF, it's quite normal for some commands to be
hidden from the player. That may not be a good thing. Maybe one of the
features of mass-market IF in the 21st Century ought to be, "All of the
possible commands are listed." Either in a help file, or perhaps in a
separate window that changes dynamically depending on what objects are
in scope. I'm not saying this is a good idea, necessarily. It's just an
example of the kind of thing I'm mulling over.
--JA
Nikos Chantziaras
> Poster wrote:
>>
>> Future Boy! and 1893 didn't have fantastically complex parsers, and
>> they are two successful recent IF ventures. Based on that evidence,
>> I'm not at all sure that parser gymnastics are required for success.
>
> Fair enough. But let me respond with two questions:
>
> First, might they have been _more_ successful if they had had more
> flexible parsers? I don't think we can rule it out.
Well, considering that "more flexible" probably means more "guess the
verb," I'd say no; they wouldn't have been more successful. Unless the
parser is really that good to the extend that it appears to be human.
> Second, what features _would_ you see as essential for a fantastically
> successful text game? I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of
> downloads. And I'm not really thinking about external factors, such as
> huge promotional budgets. I'm talking about features that are intrinsic
> to the game experience itself.
One thing I really, really, really liked back in the days was that the
games were full screen. I can't play Quake 4 in a window really. Same
goes for text adventures. They also came with cute graphics and music
(see "Eric The Unready"), and some with character portraits during
conversations and even with 3D videos (see "Frederik Pohl's Gateway" and
"Gateway 2"). The parser was an evolved version of Infocom's one;
nothing too fancy. Note that these were *not* "point&click" games.
Playing IF while the OS or interpreter interface is visible makes me
feel like I'm reading a PDF rather than playing a *game*.
Jim Aikin
>
> I agree that the parser would ideally be more polished; I disagree
> that it would need to be better *in this way*. (In fact, I think if it
> *were* better in this way, it would no longer be IF as we know it; it
> would be something else, probably something with diffuse and unfocused
> interaction, more like a chat with a mediocre AI than like a game.)
Fair enough. Perhaps if the newcomer starts by typing questions that the
parser isn't equipped to handle, it could at least diagnose that that's
the nature of the problem and respond, "It looks as if you're trying to
move through the story by giving complex instructions. Most of the time,
a simple command of the form 'verb the noun' (that is, 'action -> thing
acted on') will do the job nicely." That's ever so much friendlier than,
"The word 'intimidate' is not needed in this story."
> (a) Use typo detection to weed out failure through user typing error.
And the first time this happens, the software can say, "It looks as if
you typed 'tkae' when you meant 'take'. Would you like the story to
automatically correct typing mistakes for you? (You can answer yes or no.)"
> (b) Implement rigorously to avoid "you don't see that here" sorts of
> responses.
> (c) Make sure that it's always, always clear in the game what the
> player's goals are and what kinds of interaction will produce
> interesting outcomes.
> (d) See that all command words are hinted, and failed uses of valid
> commands always make it clear why the command failed.
> (e) Permit multi-step actions to be expressed through macro commands
> (like GO TO KITCHEN instead of N. N. W., but perhaps extending to
> other aspects of the game as well).
> (f) Eliminate default messages as much as humanly possible, replacing
> them with extensive *game-appropriate* feedback.
Yes on all points. That's a very good list! And these are things that
can easily be done with existing development systems. Are there things
you'd like to see, or think novices could benefit from, that are not as
easily accomplished with I7 or T3?
For instance, auto-completion of the command line? For instance, a
built-in auto-mapper that would show the player exactly where she has
been and what she has discovered there?
A random idea from last week: a 'solve' command. Whenever you're faced
with a puzzle and are getting irritated by it, just type 'solve' and the
puzzle will go away. Like hints, this is something the experienced gamer
should be able to turn off....
--JA
Jim Aikin
>>
>> First, might they have been _more_ successful if they had had more
>> flexible parsers? I don't think we can rule it out.
>
> Well, considering that "more flexible" probably means more "guess the
> verb," I'd say no; they wouldn't have been more successful. Unless the
> parser is really that good to the extend that it appears to be human.
I'm not sure why it would mean "guess the verb". To me, "guess the verb"
is what happens when the parser is poorly implemented and lacks basic
synonyms. If the parser understands both more synonyms and more variety
of syntax, how is that a bad thing?
For instance, how about allowing 'I want the sword' as a synonym for
'take the sword'? Easily implemented, and it will help someone somewhere
along the line.
> One thing I really, really, really liked back in the days was that the
> games were full screen. I can't play Quake 4 in a window really. Same
> goes for text adventures. They also came with cute graphics and music
> (see "Eric The Unready"), and some with character portraits during
> conversations and even with 3D videos (see "Frederik Pohl's Gateway" and
> "Gateway 2"). The parser was an evolved version of Infocom's one;
> nothing too fancy. Note that these were *not* "point&click" games.
>
> Playing IF while the OS or interpreter interface is visible makes me
> feel like I'm reading a PDF rather than playing a *game*.
This is an interesting point. I had never considered it. I think you're
probably right that it would contribute to a sense of immersion.
Of course, these days many of us have large monitors. Normal-sized text
on a large monitor would be difficult to read, because the lines would
be too long. (Some research has been done on this, I believe. The point
is, if your eye has to jump back too far at the end of each line, it's
hard to find the correct spot to jump to. There's a maximum tolerable
character-height-to-line-length ratio, though I don't know what it is.)
And large text might look dumb. But if the game takes over the whole
monitor and arranges the text in a nice-sized central pane that's
surrounded by other useful panes (an inventory list, a clickable compass
rose, illustrations of NPCs' faces or whatever), I think it could work
very well.
And speaking of music, I would love to be able to do music within a
game. My problem with audio in T3 is that it can't be faded out smoothly
when the player does something that would render the music superfluous
or weird, such as leaving the beautiful garden and entering the grisly
slaughterhouse. Unless HTML TADS has been updated and I missed it, the
audio can only be chopped off abruptly in that type of situation. For
me, that's a deal-breaker.
So yeah, I think the ability to display graphics (moderately well
supported at present ... sort of) and play music (not well supported)
would be very strong additions to a consumer-friendly IF delivery system.
--JA
S. John Ross
> One thing I really, really, really liked back in the days was that the
> games were full screen.
While the choices certainly vary by operating system and game
language, z-code games running in Frotz for Windows go full-screen
with a simple ALT-E ... the OS vanishes, the interpreter vanishes.
Just you and the game, like in days of old (but with vector fonts and
color choices) :)
S. John Ross
(ALT-ENTER), I meant. D'oh!
Nikos Chantziaras
> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> Well, considering that "more flexible" probably means more "guess the
>> verb," I'd say no; they wouldn't have been more successful. Unless
>> the parser is really that good to the extend that it appears to be human.
>
> I'm not sure why it would mean "guess the verb". To me, "guess the verb"
> is what happens when the parser is poorly implemented and lacks basic
> synonyms. If the parser understands both more synonyms and more variety
> of syntax, how is that a bad thing?
Allowing more variety is different then implementing more variety :P
Unless you mean just synonyms.
>> One thing I really, really, really liked back in the days was that the
>> games were full screen. I can't play Quake 4 in a window really.
>> Same goes for text adventures. They also came with cute graphics and
>> music (see "Eric The Unready"), and some with character portraits
>> during conversations and even with 3D videos (see "Frederik Pohl's
>> Gateway" and "Gateway 2"). The parser was an evolved version of
>> Infocom's one; nothing too fancy. Note that these were *not*
>> "point&click" games.
>>
>> Playing IF while the OS or interpreter interface is visible makes me
>> feel like I'm reading a PDF rather than playing a *game*.
>
> This is an interesting point. I had never considered it. I think you're
> probably right that it would contribute to a sense of immersion.
>
> Of course, these days many of us have large monitors. Normal-sized text
> on a large monitor would be difficult to read, because the lines would
> be too long. (Some research has been done on this, I believe. The point
> is, if your eye has to jump back too far at the end of each line, it's
> hard to find the correct spot to jump to. There's a maximum tolerable
> character-height-to-line-length ratio, though I don't know what it is.)
> And large text might look dumb. But if the game takes over the whole
> monitor and arranges the text in a nice-sized central pane that's
> surrounded by other useful panes (an inventory list, a clickable compass
> rose, illustrations of NPCs' faces or whatever), I think it could work
> very well.
I should have linked to this page in my previous post, but what you just
described is indeed exactly how it was done:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/gateway-2-homeworld/screenshots
These are screenshots from Gateway 2. The interface was configurable
(verb list and inventory were optional). Also note that it implemented
both "ask/tell about" conversation as well as menu-based conversation
(along with portraits).
I think it's obvious by now that this is my favorite text adventure ;)
Aaron A. Reed
An axiom from traditional writing which I don't think is carried over
to IF as often as it should be is the old notion that you have to hook
the reader in the first paragraph to get their attention.
Unfortunately, the first paragraph of IF is clicking to a directory
listing of obscure filenames that, even if you can figure out you need
the one called "Flaxo" with "precompiled Windows binary" in the
description, downloads at 1K per second on a good day.
However, the fact that there are now several Flash-based IF players on
the web indicates this is probably not the real problem.
Issues of writing quality aside, at the end of the first paragraph you
are given a blank prompt with no instructions as to what to do with
it.
If you and the author are both astute, you may have noticed a message
for new players to type "about." That may give you some ideas of what
to type next.
Past evidence suggests, however, that even in this case, within the
next two or three moves the player will type something that the game
does not understand. With the Internet's attention span, this is
roughly equivalent to getting a message about a missing video codec or
a 404 error, and it means "No soup for you. Move along." And the vast
majority will.
So perhaps authors should spend their time desperately attempting to
get their games to recognize as many possible inputs in the first few
moves. Implement the hell out of every scenery object; add every typo-
correction and input-comprehension extension you can find; go through
the thesaurus and pile on the verb synonyms; add a tutorial mode. If a
player can get past the first few moves, long enough to start seeing
how their actions are having an impact on or are somehow important to
the story, then they get interested.
I think more ways to recognize broader ranges of input is a key place
where IF is lacking here. I remember one comment I read from a college
student briefly exposed to IF that went along the lines of: "I saw the
first prompt and typed 'I don't know what to do.' The game said back
'I only understood you as far as wanting to inventory.' So I gave up."
And I don't really blame him.
The collegiate hackers of the '70s and aging geeks who like to fiddle
with things will put up with a response as clueless as that; the
millions necessary to make something the massive hit that Jim wishes
for will not.
--Aaron
Nikos Chantziaras
I usually run them in a console with a large font and the monitor a bit
further away than usual.
Though for me, the "perfect game" *has* to offer graphics and sound.
Don't take me wrong; I enjoy pure text-based games. But we're talking
about "perfect" here ;)
S. John Ross
> Though for me, the "perfect game" *has* to offer graphics and sound.
> Don't take me wrong; I enjoy pure text-based games. But we're talking
> about "perfect" here ;)
I heard that. One of the challenges, I guess, is how to daydream
sexifying a text adventure while keeping it (I presume) a text
adventure. Tricky to suss out the boundaries (reminds me of when I was
working for Steve Jackson, and he'd give a company pep-talk that
amounted to "let's think outside the box ... well, not actually
OUTSIDE the BOX ... but ... inside the box ... at the edges ... but
RIGHT up to the edge, without actually leaving the box ... and if you
come up with something outside the box, we can all brainstorm and
maybe think of a way to cram it back inside the box ...) :)
I mean, if James Earl Jones or Ian McKellan is narrating the adventure
with audio and I'm responding to a voice-recognition "parser" without
typing anything [so I can play while I wash the dishes or fold clothes
or something], would that qualify as a dream feature appropriate to
the thread? 'Cause those guys have groovy voices, is all I'm saying :)
Heck, I'd download a hundred thousand copies all by myself if I could
simulate having a conversation/storytelling jam while folding
clothes ...
This is freeware, right? As long as I'm wishing, I wish it is :)
Anyway, fun thread, even if I don't really understand the question.
Damien Neil
> Someone has recently released a Totally Unbelievable Game (text-based,
> of course). Word on the street has reached fever pitch, and the servers
> are chugging trying to keep up with the download requests.
>
> My question is: What are the features of this game?
It has one hell of a hook. The first sentence of the game demands that
you read the first paragraph. The first paragraph makes it nearly
impossible to not type in your first command. The result of your first
command leaves you burning to find out what happens if you try THIS
next...
It's easy to get into--easy enough that people who haven't played a text
adventure in decades can start playing with little pain.
It's deep--deep enough that people who write articles on IF theory for
fun find it interesting.
It has network effects. There are many forms that this could take:
Maybe everyone is talking about the plot, and their interpretation of
it. Maybe everyone is trying to figure out how to get the Babel fish,
or wondering what will happen in the next episode.
Everything else is negotiable.
For example, from the graphical side of things, Portal. The opening
scene hooks you right off the bat, the game is very deliberately
designed to train people to develop the skills needed to solve each
puzzle as they reach it, the puzzles are nonetheless complex enough to
be interesting, and everyone who finishes just HAS to find someone and
do GLaDOS impersonations at them.
Or Pokemon, which is childishly simple on the surface and filled with
unexpected depths for anyone who really does want to "catch 'em all".
Or outside of gaming, Harry Potter, where the increasingly complex story
fed fuel to an inferno of speculation about each next book, which then
pulled yet more people into the series.
- Damien
Victor Gijsbers
The player should never become stuck. No, I mean something even
stronger... Let me try to explain.
_The_ psychological barrier that interactive fiction has and which
almost no other type of game has, is that in all those other games,
there is always something you can do which you know will probably move
the game forwards to a good conclusion, and at least will move the game
forwards.
In Monopoly, all you have to do is pick up the dice and roll.
In Quake, all you need to do is walk to that part of the level where you
haven't and other first-person shooters yet been and shoot everything.
(There used to be some FPS-games with "puzzles"; where you had to press
the right combination of buttons, or find the hidden keys, in order to
proceed. I don't think that's popular anymore.)
In Baldur's Gate and other CRPGs, you can either go to some location you
haven't visited yet, slay some monsters in a location you have visited,
or read your Quest Log to see where you should be going.
In Sudoku, you can always just apply the standard methods of solving and
(unless the Sudoku is fiendishly difficult) this will allow you to make
steady progress.
In a Jigsaw puzzle, you can always start picking up the pieces one by
one a _trying_ if they fit. Progress will be slow, but it will be
assured. The same with the moves in a chess puzzle. Progress might be
incredibly slow, but it is assured.
... and so on.
In all these games, there is always this utterly clear way of
progressing--which doesn't mean they are linear, or stupid, or anything
like that. It just means that there always are clear paths of progress.
(In a sense, the same holds for reading a book--all you have to do is
read on.)
This is not the case in IF. In IF, there are many, many times when you
just sit staring at your screen and thinking: "I don't know what to do
right now. I'm out of ideas."
People aren't used to that, and they don't like it. That's not because
they are lazy--these might be the same people who solve hard chess
puzzles and 2000-piece Jigsaws, beat their friends in 7-hour games of
Axis & Allies and complete Baldur's Gate 2 with a single character
instead of the usual party of six. It's not that they want to be
spoon-fed all the answers. (In fact, they may even be too stubborn to
check the hints or the walkthrough!) It's just that they don't like the
feeling that there is currently no way for them to proceed, nothing to
do, nothing to try. That feeling of "stuckness" (which is more
ubiquitous than our usual "I'm totally stuck") is something people don't
like and aren't willing to put up with. And thus they quit the game.
I think this thing is the biggest barrier for interactive fiction today.
People don't want the feeling for stuckness, and yet, almost all pieces
of IF will at one point or another make people feel stuck.
This is the problem that the Totally Unbelievable Game would have solved.
Regards,
Victor
Jason Stokes
"Nikos Chantziaras" <rea...@arcor.de> wrote in message news:ftpmi6
> I should have linked to this page in my previous post, but what you just
> described is indeed exactly how it was done:
> http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/gateway-2-homeworld/screenshots
>
> These are screenshots from Gateway 2. The interface was configurable
> (verb list and inventory were optional). Also note that it implemented
> both "ask/tell about" conversation as well as menu-based conversation
> (along with portraits).
>
> I think it's obvious by now that this is my favorite text adventure ;)
Yeah, all those legend entertainment games were fun. I really liked
"Timequest", and "Eric the Unready" was pretty funny (although hopeless
unstructured and disorganised as a game, and not all that challenging.) I'm
working through "Gateway" at the moment.
Something like the legend interface would have to be a given in this day and
age, for a wider audience, who demand their pretty pictures... and even then
I doubt it would be enough. I feel that a new media or platform might
rekindle some interest, like IF on cellphones or ebook readers.
Doug Egan
My first thought, after reflecting on your description of the "ideal
parser", is the story of Automon Chess Player (also called the
"Mechanical Turk"), a chess-playing machine exhibited from 1770-1854.
Although the inside of the machine was decorated with elaborate
clockworks to fool observers, the machine was actually operated by a
human chess master, hidden inside.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk
Interactive Fiction, played on-line and facilitated by a human story
teller (or multiple story tellers) is a goal easily achieved within
the limitations of existing software. Examples and variations of this
form of story telling are undoubtably already being used, though the
fact that I can't cite any of them without additional research tells
me something about their popularity.
How far from the current model of IF are you willing to stray to make
it more popular? The following are examples of interactive fiction
(defined more broadly) which have reached viral popularity:
Gigapets, and Tomagatchi
Sim City, Baldur's Gate, Grand Theft Auto.
What do these games have, that conventional IF games do not? They
don't have any more elaborate parser. I think the common feature of
these games is graphics and sound.
Dave
Jimmy Maher
> The parser would have to be much more flexible and "intelligent" than
> current parsers. Current IF parsers embody some fairly stringent (and
> hidden) assumptions about the input. People who know IF understand these
> assumptions; others don't.
>
> We could make a long, long list of grammatical constructions novice
> players might try: “is david smiling?” “[tell david] grandma fell down
> the stairs and broke her ankle.” “I want the ice cream cone.” “I want
> david to give sheila the ice cream cone.” “ask sheila if david is
> kidding about grandma falling down the stairs.” In a game that achieves
> runaway success, I believe the parser would need to be able to handle
> all of these structures (and hundreds of others) gracefully.
I don't really accept this at all. Some anecdotal evidence: a few years
ago I had to sit down with my girlfriend (now fiancee) and have the
dreaded "IF conversation," where I explain just what this crazy, geeky
hobby I devote so much time to is really all about. We fired up a game
-- Paul O'Brian's first Earth and Sky, I believe -- and I showed her the
ropes -- navigation, the handful of meta-verbs, other common verbs like
examine and inventory, etc. -- and within an hour or so she could play
quite comfortably on her own.
Now, my fiancee is of a course a very smart person :), but she's not
remotely geeky, at least computer geeky. She's a medical student, has
no particular interest in computers as anything more than tools for
email and so on, has never used a command line in her life, etc. Yet
she picked up on IF quite quickly and easily.
I think most reasonably intelligent people can be perfectly competent
IFers with just an hour or so of "training." Compare this to other
sorts of computer entertainment. How long does it take to really
understand the Warcraft interface, or to get comfortable with all the
shortcuts and options in the average FPS? (Let's not even go near
NetHack.) I just don't accept that the IF learning curve is all that
steep. Instead of twisting ourselves into knots trying to accept
constructions like "I want david to give sheila the ice cream cone," I
think we would be better off producing materials -- online videos,
interactive Flash demonstrations, perhaps even online person-to-person
training -- to teach the basics of interaction with IF as it currently
works. This would allow our hypothetical newbie to not only play our
new super-awesome game, but everything that has come before as well.
I'm not saying for a moment that IF doesn't still bring occasional
guess-the-verb problems and other parser frustrations, just that those
are really authorial oversights rather than indicative of a more
systemic problem with the form itself.
Even the oft-cited "problem" of having to download a separate
interpreter is hardly mind-boggling to most people in the modern world.
Everyone understands that they need a separate player to, say, play an
MP3 file, and judging by the amount of legal and illegal music
downloading going on I think we can assume this hasn't been much of a
barrier to anyone. People also understand that the same player cannot
always play MP3 and Ogg Vorbis files. We simply need to explain how IF
works in these terms. Going with a stand-alone executable might be a
good option for our hypothetical unbelievable game since it would give
us more interface options, but it seems to me hardly a requirement for
IF as a whole.
If you target the game market, I think a breakout IF game would look a
bit like the Legend games, with music, graphics, menus for those who
don't feel like typing, auto-mapping, and even possibly occasional
cut-scenes. I think it most of all, though, would need to be something
very epic and high-concept, with many hours of play-time and a sweeping
story to offer. Even with all this I'm not sure you could create more
than a modest success fueled at least partially by nostalgia ("Remember
text adventures?? Aikin Productions updates them for the new millenium!").
A better choice would be to go after a different market entirely:
readers who are left flat by conventional computer games. I haven't
figured out how to reach this market, though. Even with all the great
outreach that has been done by Emily and others, their efforts have
largely been through gaming websites -- Jay is Games, Play This Thing,
etc. I think only a small minority of these folks are ever going to
appreciate IF, not because they're stupid or somehow less than us but
just because they aren't looking for the same thing we are. The trick
is to reach readers rather than videogame players.
In short, I don't think the problem is the learning curve. The problem
is making people aware of IF and willing to give it a shot, willing to
invest that hour or so to learn how it works. That's where we fail to
some extent. Paradoxically, I think the fact that virtually all modern
IF is free actually hurts us in a way, because it causes the mainstream
to dismiss it and not value it. 1893 and Future Boy! both got reviews
on adventure gaming sites because they were commercial. It's one reason
I would like to see more commercial IF, which I would more than happily
pay for.
--
Jimmy Maher
Editor, SPAG Magazine -- http://www.sparkynet.com/spag
Thank you for helping to keep text adventures alive!
Conrad
> this Totally Unbelievable Game have that currently available games don't?
Well... since you're asking for _totally unbelievable_...
How about a game which has a sufficiently advance simulator and
narrative tracker built-in that there is no set scenario, no set
characters, no set plot line; you tell it what kind of genre you want
to play in (sci-fi, wild west, contemporary) and what kind of
character you'd like to play, and it generates a game on the fly.
IOW, how about something that passes the Turing Test for being a
passably good DM?
Conrad.
Andrew Plotkin
> If they're stuck
> and trying to think of something to do, they may well run around
> trying to eat everything, taste everything, smell everything, etc.;
> and having the game *continue to entertain them* while they do this is
> what keeps them around long enough to think of a more productive
> action.
>
> This is of course a tricky line to tread because you don't want to
> reward them *so* much for unproductive actions that they spend the
> whole time licking scenery instead of having a gripping time with your
> plot and puzzles.
Or maybe that's not a big concern.
I have long thought that _Myst_ became a multiple-zillion-seller
mostly because it was great at entertaining people who were failing to
get anywhere in it. If you had no grasp of the interaction model, no
notion of how the initial island was laid out, no spatial sense, no
idea of how to solve the first puzzles... you could still click
randomly on things and feel sucked into a gorgeous and varied world.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't shipped you to Syria for interrogation, it's
for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're innocent.
Jimmy Maher
> Past evidence suggests, however, that even in this case, within the
> next two or three moves the player will type something that the game
> does not understand. With the Internet's attention span, this is
> roughly equivalent to getting a message about a missing video codec or
> a 404 error, and it means "No soup for you. Move along." And the vast
> majority will.
I think the thing to realize here, though, is that probably somebody who
quits at that point was not all that interested anyway. If we manage to
find a way to keep them from quitting in the first minute, they will
just quit in the tenth, when they run into the first puzzle. At some
point we have to be willing to respect our audience's intelligence a
little more. Nothing rewarding comes completely without a learning curve.
Maybe we should make more of an effort to tell people WHY IF is worth
taking an hour to figure out.
> So perhaps authors should spend their time desperately attempting to
> get their games to recognize as many possible inputs in the first few
> moves. Implement the hell out of every scenery object; add every typo-
> correction and input-comprehension extension you can find; go through
> the thesaurus and pile on the verb synonyms; add a tutorial mode. If a
> player can get past the first few moves, long enough to start seeing
> how their actions are having an impact on or are somehow important to
> the story, then they get interested.
>
> I think more ways to recognize broader ranges of input is a key place
> where IF is lacking here. I remember one comment I read from a college
> student briefly exposed to IF that went along the lines of: "I saw the
> first prompt and typed 'I don't know what to do.' The game said back
> 'I only understood you as far as wanting to inventory.' So I gave up."
> And I don't really blame him.
Sorry, but I do. :) Honestly, this just sounds to me like someone who
wasn't really all that interested to begin with. What do you do with
any other computer program when you first encounter it? You fiddle
around until you figure out how it works, or you don't. If IF was
really that difficult, I would be more sympathetic, but it's just not.
There are steps we could take to help people out, of course. Maybe if
the player types something nonsensical a couple of times in a row, we
say, "If you haven't played IF before, type HELP for some instructions
on how to interact." But if we start trying to understand complicated
sentence like those Jim suggested, I can tell what will happen already:
we will just start to MISunderstand said sentences, and that will lead
to even more player confusion.
Aaron A. Reed
> Aaron A. Reed wrote:
> > Past evidence suggests, however, that even in this case, within the
> > next two or three moves the player will type something that the game
> > does not understand. With the Internet's attention span, this is
> > roughly equivalent to getting a message about a missing video codec or
> > a 404 error, and it means "No soup for you. Move along." And the vast
> > majority will.
>
> I think the thing to realize here, though, is that probably somebody who
> quits at that point was not all that interested anyway. If we manage to
> find a way to keep them from quitting in the first minute, they will
> just quit in the tenth, when they run into the first puzzle.
Right, but I expect that more people, possibly an order of magnitude
more, are willing to try something for 1 minute than for 10 minutes.
Once they start to get interested and like it, they'll play for
longer.
Look at everything in the last few years that attains success on the
level that Jim wants. Youtube videos, for example. It takes 0 effort
or intelligence and about 2 seconds of time to start playing a Youtube
video. But if the first 30 seconds interest you, you might watch the
whole thing, even if it's half an hour long. I think IF needs to be
more front-loaded towards making those first few moments more
enjoyable.
--Aaron
David Fisher
news:ftp2hg$c6t$1...@aioe.org...
>
> Someone has recently released a Totally Unbelievable Game (text-based, of
> course). Word on the street has reached fever pitch, and the servers are
> chugging trying to keep up with the download requests.
>
> My question is: What are the features of this game?
As well as a parser that responds to a large range
of inputs (even if the response is to guide the player
towards a more limited range of inputs) -- an underlying
world model that lets the player do everything that
"makes sense" to them (within reason). Combined with
a wonderful plot which is reasonably resistant to
corruption by the player's actions, at the same
time allowing the player to influence the plot in a
logical way.
(Phew! Pauses to take a breath ...)
Well, I'd play it. :-)
I think "simulation" has a bit of a bad name, maybe
because it is seen as an alternative to story based IF
rather than supporting / enhancing it. But a big problem
new players have with IF is getting used to the idea that
there is a very limited range of solutions to most
problems; if you need a small object to throw at
something, no way are you going to be able to pick up
a pebble from the road or take off your shoe and use
that -- you need to use whatever object(s) the author
wants you to.
If the world model includes a detailed simulation of
the world, then a lot more things that the player tries
will work; the "rules" of the world could even allow
the player to come up with solutions the author hadn't
originally intended (see the last Magnetic Scrolls thread).
The main problems with this level of simulation seem
to be:
* Text generation. Not only are some descriptions difficult
to generate in themselves (eg. overlapping tracks through
the snow), but default messages are boring. The ideal would
be for every message to be context sensitive and to include
things like characterisation of the PC, reactions from NPCs
who are observing, subtle guidance about whether the player
is on the right track or not, etc. "Authorial burden" indeed ...
- definitely a problem.
* A detailed simulation of some aspect of the game world
can act as a red herring. If there are no puzzles
involving mixing liquids, but the player discovers that
the game responds impressively when they try to do this,
it gives an unintended message about its importance in
the rest of the game.
- players would need to understand the type of game they
are playing, and not rely some much on implementation as
a clue to something being the "correct" thing to do.
More helpfully, the game might need to give more guidance
than usual about where the plot is going and what kinds
of things would be a useful for the player to focus on
at the moment.
There are some other objections to deep simulation which
I do not think must always apply:
* "If you model reality too closely, it will be boring
(and you'll have to go to the toilet all the time)."
- but only if that's what you want to include in your
model. A detailed simulation does not necessarily have
to follow all of the normal rules of reality (I would
be happy with an unlimited inventory, for example).
Playability trumps realism!
* "Simulation is opposed to good story telling. If there
is lots of simulation in a game, then the game will
inevitably be all about fiddling with objects and the
mechanics of the simulation."
- the aim of all this would be to allow many more of
the things players try to work properly. This the usual
aim of Beta testing -- to catch things players might try,
and add them to the game. A deep simulation has the same
aim. The game could still be just as story oriented as
any other game that contains multiple puzzle solutions.
* "If the player has freedom to do lots of simulationy things,
especially things the author hasn't explicitly thought of,
then it would be too easy for them to wreck the plot
(bypassing puzzles, etc.)"
- I think the best solution would be to have a tool which helps
authors track down alternate solutions. They can then either
forbid those solutions with reasonable excuses to the player,
or modify the plot as necessary to take them into account
(but actions that modify the plot dramatically would still
make a lot more work for the author).
Disclaimer: not saying that all IF should head in this kind
of direction, or that this is actually feasible (though I
have some ideas on an approach), just that I think it would
be a lot of fun to play something like this.
People love it when stuff they try in a game actually works,
and their lateral (but logical) thinking pays off; I think
this kind of approach would make that happen a lot more.
David Fisher
Aaron A. Reed
To tie in Victor's post with what I was saying, I think the command
prompt can be terribly intimidating for people who have never seen one
in DOS or Unix before. Especially with people past 40 or so who didn't
grow up with computers, I've frequently witnessed almost a panic when
that command prompt appears. I think this is mostly psychological:
residual fear of "breaking" the computer, or of typing something
incorrect and looking foolish, maybe.
Which gives me an idea: Maybe the "prologue" part of the game (before
the first few command prompts) should contain a few prompts and
responses, to get new players used to what it is and what it's for
before they're suddenly expected to use one. (Maybe this isn't an idea
so much as something I saw somewhere before; has some game done this
already?)
--Aaron
Aaron A. Reed
> Even the oft-cited "problem" of having to download a separate
> interpreter is hardly mind-boggling to most people in the modern world.
> Everyone understands that they need a separate player to, say, play an
> always play MP3 and Ogg Vorbis files.
Yikes, Jimmy. Based on some of the people I've done tech support for
in the past year, I think these are extraordinarily generous
assumptions. :)
They hold if we're limiting our audience to "computer people who know
the difference between MP3 and OGG." And the popularity of things like
HomeStarRunner suggests that's an audience large enough to garner
popularity on the scale of millions. But in my experience that would
be less than half, possibly far less, of adults with computers.
--Aaron
Jim Aikin
> Aaron A. Reed wrote:
>> So perhaps authors should spend their time desperately attempting to
>> get their games to recognize as many possible inputs in the first few
>> moves. Implement the hell out of every scenery object; add every typo-
>> correction and input-comprehension extension you can find; go through
>> the thesaurus and pile on the verb synonyms; add a tutorial mode. If a
>> player can get past the first few moves, long enough to start seeing
>> how their actions are having an impact on or are somehow important to
>> the story, then they get interested.
>>
>> I think more ways to recognize broader ranges of input is a key place
>> where IF is lacking here. I remember one comment I read from a college
>> student briefly exposed to IF that went along the lines of: "I saw the
>> first prompt and typed 'I don't know what to do.' The game said back
>> 'I only understood you as far as wanting to inventory.' So I gave up."
>> And I don't really blame him.
>
> Sorry, but I do. :) Honestly, this just sounds to me like someone who
> wasn't really all that interested to begin with. What do you do with
> any other computer program when you first encounter it? You fiddle
> around until you figure out how it works, or you don't. If IF was
> really that difficult, I would be more sympathetic, but it's just not.
Sorry, Jimmy, but I think I agree with Aaron here. It seems to me (and I
could be wrong -- feel free to correct me) that what you're saying boils
down to, "We don't need to change anything. If people don't like it,
it's their fault."
IF is not difficult for you or me, because we understand the conventions
of the interface -- but it's NOT a natural interface, and people are not
born with an instinct that tells them how to use it.
People won't read the help file, so you can't put instructions there.
What needs to happen is that during the first few turns the game will
steer the player gracefully in the direction of the type of input the
software can understand. Typing "I don't know what to do" is perfectly
rational, and the game response quoted above would be baffling to anyone
who didn't know what to do.
An easy fix (easy in TADS, at least -- I don't know about Inform) would
be to set up a widget that would look for not-understood inputs during
the first few turns and give one-line instructions in response rather
than spitting out the parser's usual not-understood message.
--JA
Jim Aikin
Built-in hints will do the job -- at least if people know to use the
hints and if the hints are well-written.
In one of the Spring Thing games, the hint system gives you a couple of
vague nudges and then punts without ever telling you what you need to
do. This is infuriating!
In-story clues are even better than hints, but not everyone will notice
them. Eric Eve very cleverly constructed a system (in "Mrs. Pepper's
Nasty Secret", source code available) that can look at the player's
situation, count a few turns, and then say, "You seem to be stuck here.
Would you like some help?"
--JA
Aaron A. Reed
> An easy fix (easy in TADS, at least -- I don't know about Inform) would
> be to set up a widget that would look for not-understood inputs during
> the first few turns and give one-line instructions in response rather
> than spitting out the parser's usual not-understood message.
A game with such functionality exists.
--Aaron
Jimmy Maher
Okay, fair enough. But I have to ask, even though it's going to make me
sound like even more of an elitist than this thread already has: can you
really picture those people playing and enjoying IF, even IF with the
various newbie-friendly features you and others have suggested?
IF is always going to be a niche, just because it requires reading and
thinking. It's immensely rewarding, but the rewards are cerebral rather
than immediate, and it's just not going to be a mass-market phenomenon.
For the most part people are looking for effortless, fluffy
entertainment, and IF doesn't do that. It's never going to be World of
Warcraft, nor YouTube. (And every time I read the comments after a
YouTube video, I thank God for that.) By the time we change it enough
to appeal to the average YouTube user, it's no longer going to be IF at
all.
I just think it might be possible to make it a much, much larger niche.
Perhaps, though, I am talking at cross-purposes with Jim's idea for
this thread. :) When I think of IF "success," I think of independent
films and music that appeal to niche audiences but nevertheless earn
enough to give their creators a modest living. I don't think of
Hollywood blockbusters, the Super Bowl, or World of Warcraft.
Jimmy Maher
> Look at everything in the last few years that attains success on the
> level that Jim wants. Youtube videos, for example. It takes 0 effort
> or intelligence and about 2 seconds of time to start playing a Youtube
> video. But if the first 30 seconds interest you, you might watch the
> whole thing, even if it's half an hour long. I think IF needs to be
> more front-loaded towards making those first few moments more
> enjoyable.
Not to beat this thing to death, but just a quick counter-example: World
of Warcraft is enormously successful, and yet getting online with it is
not effortless at all. They've been successful because they've done a
good job of promoting their brand, letting people know WHY it's worth
the effort to purchase and install a big piece of software, set up an
account, etc. And then of course you reach a certain critical mass
where "everyone is playing," and then the thing pretty much promotes
itself.
Maybe we could do a better job of marketing what we already have to offer...
Andrew Plotkin
> Aaron A. Reed wrote:
> > On Apr 12, 8:48 am, Jimmy Maher <mahe...@SPAMgrandecom.net> wrote:
> >
> > They hold if we're limiting our audience to "computer people who know
> > the difference between MP3 and OGG." And the popularity of things like
> > HomeStarRunner suggests that's an audience large enough to garner
> > popularity on the scale of millions. But in my experience that would
> > be less than half, possibly far less, of adults with computers.
>
> Okay, fair enough. But I have to ask, even though it's going to make me
> sound like even more of an elitist than this thread already has: can you
> really picture those people playing and enjoying IF, even IF with the
> various newbie-friendly features you and others have suggested?
Yes.
> IF is always going to be a niche, just because it requires reading and
> thinking. It's immensely rewarding, but the rewards are cerebral rather
> than immediate, and it's just not going to be a mass-market
> phenomenon.
*A* niche is not the same as *the* niche. There are plenty of brainy,
literate people out there whose computer competence (and comfort zone)
is no better than average. I can picture those people enjoying IF.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a warrant,
it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're an American.
Jimmy Maher
> Jimmy Maher wrote:
>> Aaron A. Reed wrote:
>
>>> I think more ways to recognize broader ranges of input is a key place
>>> where IF is lacking here. I remember one comment I read from a college
>>> student briefly exposed to IF that went along the lines of: "I saw the
>>> first prompt and typed 'I don't know what to do.' The game said back
>>> 'I only understood you as far as wanting to inventory.' So I gave up."
>>> And I don't really blame him.
>>
>> Sorry, but I do. :) Honestly, this just sounds to me like someone who
>> wasn't really all that interested to begin with. What do you do with
>> any other computer program when you first encounter it? You fiddle
>> around until you figure out how it works, or you don't. If IF was
>> really that difficult, I would be more sympathetic, but it's just not.
>
> Sorry, Jimmy, but I think I agree with Aaron here. It seems to me (and I
> could be wrong -- feel free to correct me) that what you're saying boils
> down to, "We don't need to change anything. If people don't like it,
> it's their fault."
Well, that's a little more harshly than I would phrase it. :) I
wouldn't say it's anyone's "fault" if they don't like IF. There are
many worthwhile things I don't like, after all. I just think we should
be realistic and understand that just the necessity for reading is going
to make it a niche.
> IF is not difficult for you or me, because we understand the conventions
> of the interface -- but it's NOT a natural interface, and people are not
> born with an instinct that tells them how to use it.
Well, at some point nothing is natural. Reading a novel seems natural
to you only because the form has been so ingrained in you through
cultural exposure. Film is the same. I just think our emphasis should
be on teaching the conventions of IF, which work pretty well, rather
than distort those conventions in the hope of attracting folks who
probably still won't be that interested anyway.
> People won't read the help file, so you can't put instructions there.
> What needs to happen is that during the first few turns the game will
> steer the player gracefully in the direction of the type of input the
> software can understand. Typing "I don't know what to do" is perfectly
> rational, and the game response quoted above would be baffling to anyone
> who didn't know what to do.
>
> An easy fix (easy in TADS, at least -- I don't know about Inform) would
> be to set up a widget that would look for not-understood inputs during
> the first few turns and give one-line instructions in response rather
> than spitting out the parser's usual not-understood message.
Yes, I agree, and actually suggested this somewhere else. I'm not quite
as much of a hard-ass as all that. :) This is good because it works
with the player to teach her to play IF, rather than tries to guess what
she means by "ask sheila if david is kidding about grandma falling down
the stairs."
--
Aaron A. Reed
> When I think of IF "success," I think of independent
> films and music that appeal to niche audiences but nevertheless earn
> enough to give their creators a modest living. I don't think of
> Hollywood blockbusters, the Super Bowl, or World of Warcraft.
What about Harry Potter?
I may be wrong, but in my mind the potential audience for IF is as
large as the audience for fiction novels. Which is dwindling as of
late, but still pretty potent.
--Aaron
Jimmy Maher
> Here, Jimmy Maher <mah...@spamgrandecom.net> wrote:
>> Aaron A. Reed wrote:
>>> On Apr 12, 8:48 am, Jimmy Maher <mahe...@SPAMgrandecom.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> They hold if we're limiting our audience to "computer people who know
>>> the difference between MP3 and OGG." And the popularity of things like
>>> HomeStarRunner suggests that's an audience large enough to garner
>>> popularity on the scale of millions. But in my experience that would
>>> be less than half, possibly far less, of adults with computers.
>> Okay, fair enough. But I have to ask, even though it's going to make me
>> sound like even more of an elitist than this thread already has: can you
>> really picture those people playing and enjoying IF, even IF with the
>> various newbie-friendly features you and others have suggested?
>
> Yes.
You know what? I can too, now that I think about it. I'll concede this
point gladly. :)
Jimmy Maher
> On Apr 12, 10:22 am, Jimmy Maher <mahe...@SPAMgrandecom.net> wrote:
>> When I think of IF "success," I think of independent
>> films and music that appeal to niche audiences but nevertheless earn
>> enough to give their creators a modest living. I don't think of
>> Hollywood blockbusters, the Super Bowl, or World of Warcraft.
>
> What about Harry Potter?
Well, Harry Potter is not something anyone can really plan for.
Cultural phenomena like that just kind of happen on their own, just the
occasional indie flick breaks into the mainstream in a big way. It'd be
great if something like that would happen with an IF game, but I'm not
holding my breath...
> I may be wrong, but in my mind the potential audience for IF is as
> large as the audience for fiction novels. Which is dwindling as of
> late, but still pretty potent.
Yes, it's pretty potent. I'm not at all convinced that everyone or even
most people who read would enjoy IF, but I think some percentage would
if given the opportunity to experience it. I think this is the best
chance for really growing IF, in fact...
Aaron A. Reed
> Aaron A. Reed wrote:
> > Look at everything in the last few years that attains success on the
> > level that Jim wants. Youtube videos, for example. It takes 0 effort
> > or intelligence and about 2 seconds of time to start playing a Youtube
> > video. But if the first 30 seconds interest you, you might watch the
> > whole thing, even if it's half an hour long. I think IF needs to be
> > more front-loaded towards making those first few moments more
> > enjoyable.
>
> Not to beat this thing to death, but just a quick counter-example: World
> of Warcraft is enormously successful, and yet getting online with it is
> not effortless at all. They've been successful because they've done a
> good job of promoting their brand, letting people know WHY it's worth
> the effort to purchase and install a big piece of software, set up an
> account, etc. And then of course you reach a certain critical mass
> where "everyone is playing," and then the thing pretty much promotes
> itself.
Very good point.
> Maybe we could do a better job of marketing what we already have to offer...
I agree. I think things like Emily Short's Cover Art Drive are good
steps in that direction.
There was a thread a week or so ago about better promotion within the
community, too. I very much liked the idea of authors releasing new
games along with issues of SPAG.
I also think it would be cool if competitions had better "program
notes" that give people a reason to get interested in the games, more
like what film festivals do: see http://tinyurl.com/5x2hjl for an
example from Slamdance. I'd be willing to help set up such a page for
any future competition that wanted one.
--Aaron
Emily Short
> A better choice would be to go after a different market entirely:
> readers who are left flat by conventional computer games. I haven't
> figured out how to reach this market, though. Even with all the great
> outreach that has been done by Emily and others, their efforts have
> largely been through gaming websites -- Jay is Games, Play This Thing,
> etc. I think only a small minority of these folks are ever going to
> appreciate IF, not because they're stupid or somehow less than us but
> just because they aren't looking for the same thing we are. The trick
> is to reach readers rather than videogame players.
I think this doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, and in fact
I think it *shouldn't* be. The smart but not IF-aware audience might
be found in any of several places. It's clear from the feedback and
from the blog posts that crop up in other places saying things like "I
just heard about this game Photopia on Play This Thing! ..." that some
video game players are interested.
Other places where there's already successful if modest outreach going
on include new media studies, secondary education, and people
interested in Chicago history. (Though it's not clear how many of that
last group play on beyond 1893, I think it's pretty cool that they try
it.) There's also moderate room for outreach to video game *authors*
-- that is, those who work on professional games -- through articles
on Gamasutra and presentations at conferences. Historically, there's
also been a little outreach to people interested in puzzles and pen-
and-paper games; I haven't seen anything like this very recently, but
a few years back there were some bits about IF in Games magazine, for
instance. I wonder whether the sorts of people who like to solve one-
minute mystery puzzles might take an interest in An Act of Murder?
Each of these is a niche market, but my suspicion is that we'll get
farther by advertising in a series of niche places than by trying to
find some really wide-circulation venue through which to reach a lot
of people at once. That's only partly because of the competition for
attention; the other part is that even when there has been (say) an
article in a newspaper, it hasn't really led to a flood of new IF
players, and I think that's partly because the investment that readers
have in following up on newspaper articles is pretty low.
In all these cases, the trick about these things seems to be to find
the right conferences, forums, and magazines (or in Peter's case, the
right gift shops); convince a few specific people that IF will be of
interest to their readers/buyers; and work with them to find ways to
reach their audience.
So where do we go to reach conventional readers? In fact, as soon as I
pose the question, I see a problem with it: not all conventional
readers are in the same place! An interactive fantasy novel will be of
interest -- and reviewable -- in a different place from a short
interactive murder mystery. From *our* point of view, those are all
forms of IF, and fundamentally related, but for the reading population
they're different genres with different if overlapping fan bases.
Moreover, commercial publishing already involves spending large
amounts of money to get things into bookstores and keep them there in
locations and displays that will attract attention. So I think without
a substantial marketing budget, the in-store placement approach is not
likely to work unless we have a very specific, highly targeted piece
of IF that is appropriate to a specific specialty store. No big
display rack of the top 50 IF games in Barnes & Noble, is what I'm
saying. (I know Textfyre is likely to take a more aggressive approach
about getting things physically in front of people, and that's great
-- but for promoting freeware IF, it's not such a plausible approach.)
So here's a question: those of you who read reviews of standard
fiction, or magazines of short stories, are there any of these venues
where you think the editors might be possible to interest in reviewing
or mentioning an IF game? And which specific IF game(s) would be most
appropriate there?
I'll go first: I've thought for a while that it would be interesting
if one of us approached the online but paying SF zine Strange Horizons
( http://www.strangehorizons.com/Guidelines.shtml ) either with an IF
review or, more daringly, with an IF story as a submission to the
magazine. The latter would be a much harder sell, of course, and they
might flatly say that they weren't interested; I imagine it would need
to be short, browser-runnable, story- rather than puzzle-oriented, and
of a literary standard they found appealing to their readership. But
they *do* say that they're interested in hypertext stories, which
suggests an openness to the possibility of debuting alternative story-
telling technology, and the online presence means they're unusually
suited to running this kind of thing. (F&SF can hardly publish an IF
work.)
I've meant for some time to work on outreach through Strange Horizons
myself, but the pile of things I mean to work on is higher than I can
see over. Does anyone but me think it would be interesting? Anyone
want to try?
George Oliver
>
> So here's a question: those of you who read reviews of standard
> fiction, or magazines of short stories, are there any of these venues
> where you think the editors might be possible to interest in reviewing
> or mentioning an IF game? And which specific IF game(s) would be most
> appropriate there?
>
> I'll go first: I've thought for a while that it would be interesting
> if one of us approached the online but paying SF zine Strange Horizons
> review or, more daringly, with an IF story as a submission to the
> magazine.
Yeah, I've had the same thought. I'm pretty sure that SH has never
published a hypertext story, but from what I've heard they're still
open to it. Does anyone know the technical requirements for sending a
work of IF to a website, say, bundled with a Flash interpreter? Jay Is
Games just dealt with this for Lost Pig, right?
djmeister
Automapping! If you are really out for the casual player or the non IF
player, you should think about implementing that as an extension or
into the i7 code somehow. During beta testing I realized that all my
players had an instant enormous loss of motivation when confronted
with the necessity of needing pen and paper and drawing complicated
maps offline.
This is maybe not a suggestion for getting millions, but it could be a
way to getting at least a few dozens.
"An easy fix (easy in TADS, at least -- I don't know about Inform)
would
be to set up a widget that would look for not-understood inputs
during
the first few turns and give one-line instructions in response rather
than spitting out the parser's usual not-understood message."
This suggestion of Mr. Aikin I would like to see realized maybe as an
extension too. This could be very helpful for getting players who just
'stumbled' upon IF maybe during searching abandon- or freeware game
sites.
Lg, Stefan