coherent IF
Jacek Pudlo
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There is game, I've forgotten it's name, where the player is supposed to
heat up some chinese food in a micro-wave oven and then give it to a hacker.
Being the kind of IF consumer who enjoys experimenting with stuff I promptly
inserted a can of Coke into the oven. Nothing noteworthy happened.
"Allright" I thought "maybe the oven is too important to the plot to be
destroyed . But the chocolate should work fine." When I took the chocolate
out of the oven, after ten minutes of exposing it to micro waves, it wasn't
even lukewarm.
How coherent should IF reality be? Should we accept that a micro-wave oven
only works on chinese food (from a specific province) or is this something
that decreases the enjoyment of the game? Should game makers avoid items
that are too complex for them to handle in a realistic way?
ahop...@yahoo.com
Jacek Pudlo wrote:
> There is game, I've forgotten it's name,
It's Infocom's "Lurking Horror"
Passenger Pigeon
<jacek...@hotmail.com> wrote:
There's an elegant term for this effect which I have forgotten, so I'll
just call it "explosive expansion": when you add one object, you have
to make sure it behaves appropriately with every other object in the
game. It's easy to miss one or two, and then you get in trouble,
because inquisitive people like you and I will try silly things and be
bothered when it doesn't work. Like any work of literature, it takes
very little to make somebody stop believing. And then the fairies die.
There are also, of course, several articles on this exact subject, most
of which use the nifty word "mimesis." qv. the raif archive and all
(http://bang.dhs.org/).
My personal take would be that no, you shouldn't be forced to accept a
magical microwave, but in a large-scale game slips like this are bound
to crop up, especially in a limited memory/code environment like Infocom
was working with in The Lurking Horror (the game you were describing).
It's possible they actually lacked the room to allow the microwave to
explode, melt stuff, give you cancer, etc., and still fit it all into
the Z-machine. This, I think, is one of the main reasons shorter games
are more common than longer ones, to the point of taking over the Comp:
less likelihood of crimes against mimesis.
Perfection is unattainable. BTO!
--
William Burke, passenge...@hotmail.com
Hey! This isn't the way to San Jose!
Visit my web page! Marvel! Marvel! http://come.to/passenger-pigeon/
Kevin Forchione
news:passenger_pigeon-0BA9D2.00022428052000@news-server...
> There's an elegant term for this effect which I have forgotten, so I'll
> just call it "explosive expansion": when you add one object, you have
> to make sure it behaves appropriately with every other object in the
> game.
It's called "exponential explosion".
>It's easy to miss one or two, and then you get in trouble,
> because inquisitive people like you and I will try silly things and be
> bothered when it doesn't work. Like any work of literature, it takes
> very little to make somebody stop believing. And then the fairies die.
> There are also, of course, several articles on this exact subject, most
> of which use the nifty word "mimesis." qv. the raif archive and all
> (http://bang.dhs.org/).
>
> My personal take would be that no, you shouldn't be forced to accept a
> magical microwave, but in a large-scale game slips like this are bound
> to crop up, especially in a limited memory/code environment like Infocom
> was working with in The Lurking Horror (the game you were describing).
> It's possible they actually lacked the room to allow the microwave to
> explode, melt stuff, give you cancer, etc., and still fit it all into
> the Z-machine. This, I think, is one of the main reasons shorter games
> are more common than longer ones, to the point of taking over the Comp:
> less likelihood of crimes against mimesis.
Actually the reasons for the shorter comp games have been revealed in some
recent threads.
The reasons put forth is the threads amount to:
a. To avoid favoritism toward longer games. Longer games were viewed to
be so much richer and more aesthetically satisfying that they were deemed to
pose an unfair advantage (Just as private education was deemed an unfair
advantage over public education, with the consequent dumbing down of overall
test scores.)
b. To provide the opportunity for more Inform source code to infiltrate
the community.
Mimesis wasn't a concept at the time. IMHO mimesis probably owes its
inception to the profusion of smaller games that cropped up and the sudden
drop in psychological richness and aesthetic pleasure that was originally
feared.
Certainly we've seem some very good works come of it, regardless of the
reasons. Short stories are an art form in themselves, and done properly are
capable of quite dramatic impact.
> Perfection is unattainable. BTO!
But are you coding with Quality?
--Kevin
Andrew Plotkin
> Warning, possible spoiler
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> There is game, I've forgotten it's name
Infocom's _The Lurking Horror_.
> where the player is supposed to
> heat up some chinese food in a micro-wave oven and then give it to a hacker.
> Being the kind of IF consumer who enjoys experimenting with stuff I promptly
> inserted a can of Coke into the oven. Nothing noteworthy happened.
> "Allright" I thought "maybe the oven is too important to the plot to be
> destroyed . But the chocolate should work fine." When I took the chocolate
> out of the oven, after ten minutes of exposing it to micro waves, it wasn't
> even lukewarm.
> How coherent should IF reality be? Should we accept that a micro-wave oven
> only works on chinese food (from a specific province) or is this something
> that decreases the enjoyment of the game? Should game makers avoid items
> that are too complex for them to handle in a realistic way?
Well, everyone's opinion varies, but -- yes, I think this decreases the
enjoyment of the game. And game makers should be try to account for those
realistic effects wherever possible.
It is equally true that "wherever possible" does not mean "absolutely
everywhere" -- otherwise no game would ever be released.
(Each of my games has a bug list. At the bottom of each bug list are some
unresolved cases -- many of them of this sort. I may never get around to
releasing new versions of those games. But even though I may never fix the
bugs, they're still bugs.)
One must also note that Infocom had resource limitations that modern IF
pretty much doesn't. They had to be compatible with 140K floppies, and
even in a multi-disk game, .z5 was their biggest format. I believe LH was
.z3.
I think the community standards have gone up since then, just *because* we
have more room for details.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Ashley Price
While your point is a valid one and I am all for "coherent IF" (as you put
it), there has to be a limit.
In your microwave oven example, if the player puts anything other than the
correct food in it I would probably have a message saying "after <x> minutes
the contents of the oven turns to a googy mess." This doesn't really work
for a can of coke (again as in your example) as obviously the can would
probably explode doing damage to the oven.
But, obviously, putting a relevant message for every conceivable item that
the player could put in the oven would be far too time consuming.
However, the author of the game shouldn't be afraid of letting the player
destroy an essential item before it's using it correctly as they will just
have to play from their last save. After all, why write a game that protects
a player from performing a negative action (i.e destroying, throwing away,
etc.) before the positive action has been performed? If that was the case
you wouldn't have a "death" scenario at any point in the game because you
don't want the player to kill themselves before the end of the game.
Ashley
Jacek Pudlo <jacek...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:xtYX4.5894$wYl.22...@newsb.telia.net...
> Warning, possible spoiler
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> There is game, I've forgotten it's name, where the player is supposed to
Jacek Pudlo
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:8grglp$7eg$1...@neptunium.btinternet.com...
> Hi Jacek
>
> While your point is a valid one and I am all for "coherent IF" (as you put
> it), there has to be a limit.
>
> In your microwave oven example, if the player puts anything other than the
> correct food in it I would probably have a message saying "after <x>
minutes
> the contents of the oven turns to a googy mess." This doesn't really work
> for a can of coke (again as in your example) as obviously the can would
> probably explode doing damage to the oven.
> But, obviously, putting a relevant message for every conceivable item that
> the player could put in the oven would be far too time consuming.
Instead of writing a relevant message for every conceivable item one could
categorize the items depending on the "material" they are made of. A can of
Coke would be made of "metal" while a cat would be made of "living tissue".
Any item made out of "metal" would cause the oven to explode while items
made out of "living tissue" would "decease" after a longer sojourn in the
oven. A suitable message for the can of Coke, or any other "metal" item,
would be "The oven is going berserk! Putting a(n) <name of item> wasn't the
smartest thing to do." The sad demise of the cat, or any other "living
tissue" item, could be laconically commented "The <name of item> is dead." A
special message relating to the death of a cat could be created "You have
empirically proven that cats have only one life.". In order to placate
sensitive players one could add "No fictional animals were hurt during the
execution of the game."
> However, the author of the game shouldn't be afraid of letting the player
> destroy an essential item before it's using it correctly as they will just
> have to play from their last save. After all, why write a game that
protects
> a player from performing a negative action (i.e destroying, throwing away,
> etc.) before the positive action has been performed? If that was the case
> you wouldn't have a "death" scenario at any point in the game because you
> don't want the player to kill themselves before the end of the game.
Would the be informed that the game has become unwinnable?
> Ashley
Jacek Pudlo
> There's an elegant term for this effect which I have forgotten, so I'll
> just call it "explosive expansion": when you add one object, you have
> to make sure it behaves appropriately with every other object in the
> because inquisitive people like you and I will try silly things and be
> bothered when it doesn't work. Like any work of literature, it takes
> very little to make somebody stop believing. And then the fairies die.
> There are also, of course, several articles on this exact subject, most
> of which use the nifty word "mimesis." qv. the raif archive and all
> (http://bang.dhs.org/)
>
> magical microwave, but in a large-scale game slips like this are bound
> to crop up, especially in a limited memory/code environment like Infocom
> was working with in The Lurking Horror (the game you were describing).
> It's possible they actually lacked the room to allow the microwave to
> explode, melt stuff, give you cancer, etc., and still fit it all into
> the Z-machine. This, I think, is one of the main reasons shorter games
> are more common than longer ones, to the point of taking over the Comp:
> less likelihood of crimes against mimesis.
>
The problem is that I've seen similar, or even worse, slips in many of the
newer games.
-> ENTER TAVERN
As you enter the tavern you notice that all eyes turn on you. In the
unberable silence you can hear the wooden floor boards squeek under your
feet.
-> EXAMINE FLOOR BOARDS
You see no such thing here.
This is a much more blatant example of incoherence than the micro-wave oven.
It's obvious that some items are used merely as props; they are supposed to
enhance the atmosphere. But when it turns out that these items do not exist,
not even in the world of fiction, the atmosphere is hardly enhanced.
Another example is Photopia. When you try to EXAMINE CAR at the very start
of the game, speeding along some boulevard, you get the message "That is
either not in the area or does not need to be referred to." Deciding which
items are important and which are not is one of the things a player has to
do in order to solve the game. And would it really be that time consuming to
include a description of the car?
BrenBarn
>destroy an essential item before it's using it correctly as they will just
>have to play from their last save. After all, why write a game that protects
>a player from performing a negative action (i.e destroying, throwing away,
>etc.) before the positive action has been performed? If that was the case
>you wouldn't have a "death" scenario at any point in the game because you
>don't want the player to kill themselves before the end of the game.
player to die before the end of the game. Although this is a different issue
than "coherent IF", mimesis/world-modeling still plays a part.
The point of not allowing the player to lock himself out of victory is
two-fold: A) to not aggravate the player so that he won't play your game; B) to
emulate the "intelligence" of the player's character.
For example, a real person, reasonably intelligent, would probably not
deliberately microwave a can of Coke just to see what would happen. Doing this
is a "meta"-experiment, an experiment with the game as a game, not an
experiment that makes sense within the game world.
So you prevent the player from doing that (or you make it a harmless
action). Although you may decrease the realism of the world in one sense
(i.e., microwaving a Coke doesn't cause damage to either the Coke or the
microwave), you preserve it another sense (i.e., in reality, there are many
reasons NOT to put the Coke in the microwave -- reasons which you have not
implemented in your game).
--BrenBarn (Bren...@aol.com)
(Name in header has spam-blocker, use the address above instead.)
"Do not follow where the path may lead;
go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail."
--Author Unknown
Weird Beard
"Ashley Price" <ashle...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:8grglp$7eg$1...@neptunium.btinternet.com...
> Hi Jacek
> However, the author of the game shouldn't be afraid of letting the player
> destroy an essential item before it's using it correctly as they will just
> have to play from their last save. After all, why write a game that
protects
> a player from performing a negative action (i.e destroying, throwing away,
> etc.) before the positive action has been performed? If that was the case
> you wouldn't have a "death" scenario at any point in the game because you
> don't want the player to kill themselves before the end of the game.
>
Hey, it worked for LucasArts.
Ashley Price
> The problem is that I've seen similar, or even worse, slips in many of the
> newer games.
>
> -> ENTER TAVERN
>
> As you enter the tavern you notice that all eyes turn on you. In the
> unberable silence you can hear the wooden floor boards squeek under your
> feet.
>
> -> EXAMINE FLOOR BOARDS
>
> You see no such thing here.
>
> This is a much more blatant example of incoherence than the micro-wave
oven.
> It's obvious that some items are used merely as props; they are supposed
to
> enhance the atmosphere. But when it turns out that these items do not
exist,
> not even in the world of fiction, the atmosphere is hardly enhanced.
>
> Another example is Photopia. When you try to EXAMINE CAR at the very start
> of the game, speeding along some boulevard, you get the message "That is
> either not in the area or does not need to be referred to." Deciding which
> items are important and which are not is one of the things a player has to
> do in order to solve the game. And would it really be that time consuming
to
> include a description of the car?
>
You have hit on my biggest bug-bear with any IF - mentioning something in
the main description and then not letting the player interact with it (even
if it is just examining it). This takes so little extra time to add but adds
immensely to the joy of the game.
I am currently starting to write a game and am trying to be careful to add
at least a mini description for every item that I mention in a room, even if
it doesn't have any significance. For instance my first room has a window.
It has one extra line (using Hugo) to add a description ("The window is
really a small opening in the castle wall, in fact it's little more than a
crack. It looks out over the moat and to the fields and woods beyond."). If
you try getting out of the window the game will display: "The window is far
too small even for your puny body." Rather than just simply saying "You
can't."
I don't know about the other IF systems but Hugo makes this sort of thing so
easy to add, that it is no bother whatsoever.
So, I would implore other authors to seriously consider this when writing.
It will add so much more to people's enjoyment of the game.
Ashley
Ashley Price
> Instead of writing a relevant message for every conceivable item one could
> categorize the items depending on the "material" they are made of. A can
of
> Coke would be made of "metal" while a cat would be made of "living
tissue".
> Any item made out of "metal" would cause the oven to explode while items
> made out of "living tissue" would "decease" after a longer sojourn in the
> oven. A suitable message for the can of Coke, or any other "metal" item,
> would be "The oven is going berserk! Putting a(n) <name of item> wasn't
the
> smartest thing to do." The sad demise of the cat, or any other "living
> tissue" item, could be laconically commented "The <name of item> is dead."
A
> special message relating to the death of a cat could be created "You have
> empirically proven that cats have only one life.". In order to placate
> sensitive players one could add "No fictional animals were hurt during the
> execution of the game."
There are still problems here - would a metal key in a microwave cause the
same problems as a full can of coke? Most metals inside a microwave just
make the odd sparks and cracks, they don't actually explode. I think you
could be forever catagorising and keep finding something that doesn't
completely fit in each of the categories.
> > However, the author of the game shouldn't be afraid of letting the
player
> > destroy an essential item before it's using it correctly as they will
just
> > have to play from their last save. After all, why write a game that
> protects
> > a player from performing a negative action (i.e destroying, throwing
away,
> > etc.) before the positive action has been performed? If that was the
case
> > you wouldn't have a "death" scenario at any point in the game because
you
> > don't want the player to kill themselves before the end of the game.
>
> Would the be informed that the game has become unwinnable?
This is a difficult one, and depends on whether you are a realist or an
escapist in adventure games:
A realist would say "no, you shouldn't be directly informed". An escapist
would say "but it's fantasy, why not be informed?"
I would say that you can possibly get round it. I would assume that it
wouldn't take long for someone to realise that they have gone wrong if they
blew up the microwave before using the correct item in it especially if this
is an essential to the completion of a task or to move the story or
whatever. If someone is going to put a metal key in a microwave surely they
must realise what the obvious (and correct) thing to put in there is, and
once they realise they can no longer do that, they will play from their last
save (and it is usually a good idea to save just before doing something
"unusual" in a game).
It's a difficult one to judge and at the end of the day it's each person's
own preference. I wonder what others think?
Ashley
Jacek Pudlo
Barbara Robson <robson...@cwr.uwa.edu.aus> skrev i
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:8gtccq$b91$1...@cyllene.uwa.edu.au...
> "Ashley Price" <ashle...@btinternet.com> writes:
>
> >I am currently starting to write a game and am trying to be careful to
add
> >at least a mini description for every item that I mention in a room, even
if
> >it doesn't have any significance. For instance my first room has a
window.
> >It has one extra line (using Hugo) to add a description ("The window is
> >really a small opening in the castle wall, in fact it's little more than
a
> >crack. It looks out over the moat and to the fields and woods beyond.").
>
>
> "Murky water fills the moat far below."
> "Corn fields stretch eastwards for several miles, interrupted
> only by the occasional homestead and a few herds of cows."
> "The woods are dark and disturbing, a forest of towering oaks and
> inpenetrable undergrowth."
>
> "> X WATER. X CORN. X HOMESTEAD. X TREES. X COWS. X UNDERGROWTH."
>
> The author has to decide to stop somewhere (or else constrain descriptions
> mercilessly so they don't refer to anything not in the game).
>
> It is great if the author can include as scenery at least everything in
> the top level of description, but if the description is rich and detailed,
> even this can add up to a lot of work. In the end, I'd prefer good
> descriptions to exhaustive inventories, if a choice has to be made.
I see your point but I think this could be solved by introducing an "atomic"
level of description. On this level no new items would be introduced.
-> EXAMINE WATER
The water is murky.
-> EXAMINE CORN
It's ordinary corn.
The "atomic" level descriptions might seem dull and corny (no pun intended)
but they fulfill their purpose of ending the regression and providing the
player with a sence of coherence.
Jacek Pudlo
> the main description and then not letting the player interact with it
(even
> if it is just examining it). This takes so little extra time to add but
adds
> immensely to the joy of the game.
>
Let me know when you're finished. I'm writing a game myself and wouldn't
mind some inspiration.
>and am trying to be careful to add
> at least a mini description for every item that I mention in a room, even
if
> it doesn't have any significance. For instance my first room has a window.
> It has one extra line (using Hugo) to add a description ("The window is
> really a small opening in the castle wall, in fact it's little more than a
> crack. It looks out over the moat and to the fields and woods beyond.").
If
> you try getting out of the window the game will display: "The window is
far
> too small even for your puny body." Rather than just simply saying "You
> can't."
> I don't know about the other IF systems but Hugo makes this sort of thing
so
> easy to add, that it is no bother whatsoever.
>
> So, I would implore other authors to seriously consider this when writing.
> It will add so much more to people's enjoyment of the game.
I fully agree with you, Ashley. It's really annoying when something that is
explicitally mentioned in the description turns out to be non-existent. But
what about "implied items"?
-> EXAMINE DOOR
It's an ordinary door.
-> OPEN IT
It's locked.
-> UNLOCK IT
You unlock the door.
-> EXAMINE LOCK ON DOOR
You see no such thing.
In the game you mentioned that you are writing there is a room with a small
window. Presumably there are also four walls, a ceiling and a floor of some
kind. Do you mention them as well? Do you think one should, as an IF author,
mention "implied items"?
Jacek Pudlo
> Well, everyone's opinion varies, but -- yes, I think this decreases the
> enjoyment of the game. And game makers should be try to account for those
> realistic effects wherever possible.
>
> It is equally true that "wherever possible" does not mean "absolutely
> everywhere" -- otherwise no game would ever be released.
>
> (Each of my games has a bug list. At the bottom of each bug list are some
> unresolved cases -- many of them of this sort. I may never get around to
> releasing new versions of those games. But even though I may never fix the
> bugs, they're still bugs.)
Wouldn't it be great if there was an IF creation system that included a
complete physical model where an item defined as "micro-wave oven" would
behave in a realistic way. What games have you written? Where can I get
them? It would be interesting to find out if I can find those bugs that you
are talking about.
> One must also note that Infocom had resource limitations that modern IF
> pretty much doesn't. They had to be compatible with 140K floppies, and
> even in a multi-disk game, .z5 was their biggest format. I believe LH was
> .z3.
>
> I think the community standards have gone up since then, just *because* we
> have more room for details.
This is true in some cases but in many others it seems that many present day
IF writers are content with writing in accordance with the Infocom
tradition.
Joe Mason
>Wouldn't it be great if there was an IF creation system that included a
>complete physical model where an item defined as "micro-wave oven" would
>behave in a realistic way. What games have you written? Where can I get
Oh, be *careful* what you wish for - we don't want to resurrect R**F-P**L.
Life as we know it might not survive this time...
Joe
Jacek Pudlo
Joe Mason <jcm...@uwaterloo.ca> skrev i
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:EsuY4.114178$55.25...@news2.rdc1.on.home.com.
..
What is "R**F-P**L"?
Ashley Price
Barbara Robson <robson...@cwr.uwa.edu.aus> wrote in message
news:8gtccq$b91$1...@cyllene.uwa.edu.au...
> "> X MOAT. X FIELDS. X WOODS."
>
> "Murky water fills the moat far below."
> "Corn fields stretch eastwards for several miles, interrupted
> only by the occasional homestead and a few herds of cows."
> "The woods are dark and disturbing, a forest of towering oaks and
> inpenetrable undergrowth."
>
> "> X WATER. X CORN. X HOMESTEAD. X TREES. X COWS. X UNDERGROWTH."
>
> The author has to decide to stop somewhere (or else constrain descriptions
> mercilessly so they don't refer to anything not in the game).
This is not necessarily a good example - being that you are looking through
a window at "fields and woods beyond" you would not be close enough to them
to examine them, although I understand your point.
Ashley
Ashley Price
Barbara Robson <robson...@cwr.uwa.edu.aus> wrote in message
news:8gtbmd$9gq$1...@cyllene.uwa.edu.au...
> What seems obvious to the author may not be obvious to the player. And
> what seems "unusual" to the author may not seem so to the player. So
> it is quite possible that the player will do something that makes the
> game unwinnable, then continue playing (perhaps spending a lot of time
> going a long way forward through the game before realising their mistake,
> and quite possibly even saving over their last "winnable" saved game,
> so they would have to start from scratch to win the game). I remember
> doing this by, for example, failing to collect the junk mail from the
> doorstep at the start of "Hitchhiker's".
Where I said "obvious" and "unusual" I meant in relation to real life. Food
is put in a microwave, a can of coke isn't. However, I agree that there are
limitations (after all, in the original example, chocolate is a food but was
not part of the solution). Surely the player would try the "obvious" first,
i.e. putting the food in the microwave before unusual things like coke?
(Which leads to the joke that if you put instant coffee in a microwave would
you go back in time?)
> In general, I prefer it to be obvious if a (puzzle-based) game is
> unwinnable - perhaps if you are concerned about the effect this may
> have on realism you could implement a switch (analogous to the
> VERBOSE switch) that lets a player decide whether they want to be
> warned in such cases.
> --
Good idea and something I may nick for my game - hope you don't mind.
Ashley
Ashley Price
> I fully agree with you, Ashley. It's really annoying when something that
is
> explicitally mentioned in the description turns out to be non-existent.
But
> what about "implied items"?
This is, I think a very grey area. Because so much could be implied at what
point do you draw the line? In a standard location you are going to have at
the very least sky and land. Of course, are there clouds in the sky? It the
land completely smooth or full of cracks and what is it made of? If there
are cracks what's in them etc.
I realise this is extreme but the question is that if an object is of any
use at all it would be mentioned at some point rather than simply implied. I
think many players would realise that implied items are simply there and
they do not need to worry about them. I guess there will always be some
players who will try *everything*.
Ashley
Mike Sousa
> In general, I prefer it to be obvious if a (puzzle-based) game is
> unwinnable - perhaps if you are concerned about the effect this may
> have on realism you could implement a switch (analogous to the
> VERBOSE switch) that lets a player decide whether they want to be
> warned in such cases.
I added a system verb called winnable to my game. I keep track of whether or not
the PC put him/herself in that state and display a true/false type of message.
I could have alerted the PC right away, but I wanted to maintain mimesis.
-- Mike
BrenBarn
>point do you draw the line? In a standard location you are going to have at
>the very least sky and land. Of course, are there clouds in the sky? It the
>land completely smooth or full of cracks and what is it made of? If there
>are cracks what's in them etc.
sort of thing is an extremely interesting approach to IF. It would be
interesting to play a game in which the author has carefully modelled the world
down to the smallest detail, even if the game had no "story" as such. (This is
sort of along the lines of IF art show, although the few of those games I've
played seemed more surrealistic than realistic.)
Field Marshall Stack
>"Ashley Price" <ashle...@btinternet.com> writes:
>
>>wouldn't take long for someone to realise that they have gone wrong if they
>>blew up the microwave before using the correct item in it especially if this
>>is an essential to the completion of a task or to move the story or
>>whatever. If someone is going to put a metal key in a microwave surely they
>>must realise what the obvious (and correct) thing to put in there is, and
>>once they realise they can no longer do that, they will play from their last
>>save (and it is usually a good idea to save just before doing something
>>"unusual" in a game).
>
>what seems "unusual" to the author may not seem so to the player. So
>it is quite possible that the player will do something that makes the
>game unwinnable, then continue playing (perhaps spending a lot of time
>going a long way forward through the game before realising their mistake,
>and quite possibly even saving over their last "winnable" saved game,
>so they would have to start from scratch to win the game). I remember
>doing this by, for example, failing to collect the junk mail from the
>doorstep at the start of "Hitchhiker's".
>
>unwinnable - perhaps if you are concerned about the effect this may
>have on realism you could implement a switch (analogous to the
>VERBOSE switch) that lets a player decide whether they want to be
>warned in such cases.
It's a great idea, but I'm somewhat compelled to point out that it would be
an entirely inappropriate solution for Hitchhiker's itself, since the
entire idea of the game was to be as nasty and mean as possible to the
player. I mean, the junk mail is nothing, *nothing* compared to the cheese
sandwich.
--
Field Marshall Stack
uv...@fcrnxrnfl.pbz
rot13, then change com to org to mail...
BrenBarn
>If someone is going to put a metal key in a microwave surely they
>must realise what the obvious (and correct) thing to put in there is, and
>once they realise they can no longer do that, they will play from their last
>save (and it is usually a good idea to save just before doing something
>"unusual" in a game).
threads. In short, I don't think a game should rely on the player's saving
habits; the game should handle "unusual" circumstances on its own, without
counting on the player to know when to save.
>It's a difficult one to judge and at the end of the day it's each person's
>own preference. I wonder what others think?
I agree that it is totally a personal preference thing. Personally (as
I've said in other threads), I think the game should be designed so that it is
impossible not to FINISH. The game can have more than one beginning, more than
one end, and/or more than one middle, but ideally it will always be possible to
proceed to one of the endings. Whether this ending is a "win" or a "loss"
(which depends as much on the player's attitude as on the author's intention)
is not very important, since a game of this sort would lend itself to replay
anyway.
In this sort of game, warning the player of a "stuck"/"locked-out"
situation is a moot point, since there are no such situations.
That's what I think, anyway. I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing this
one-note-samba out of me, especially since I'm not writing any actual code.
BrenBarn
>"Corn fields stretch eastwards for several miles, interrupted
> only by the occasional homestead and a few herds of cows."
>"The woods are dark and disturbing, a forest of towering oaks and
>inpenetrable undergrowth."
>
>"> X WATER. X CORN. X HOMESTEAD. X TREES. X COWS. X UNDERGROWTH."
>
>The author has to decide to stop somewhere (or else constrain descriptions
>mercilessly so they don't refer to anything not in the game).
>
of these scenery things. Then, if the player examines any one of them, give a
general description of the whole bundle. Like:
>X CORN (or X HOMESTEAD or X TREES or X COWS or X UNDERGROWTH or X CORRAL or X
FARM)
The small homestead is surrounded on three sides by a field of tall corn. On
the fourth side is a small corral where a few cows graze peacefully. Beyond
the borders of this little farm, the landscape is covered with tall trees
rising from the thick undergrowth.
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> > Perfection is unattainable. BTO!
>
> But are you coding with Quality?
Hey, I happen to know personally the CEO of jentesal 2000 Ltd.,
the (self-proclaimed) world's leading producer of stand-alone
quality.
(Unfortunately, stand-alone quality is difficult to infuse
into products, and it's usually easier to just start with
product quality in the first place... so his sales are
not impressive.)
--
Forward all spam to u...@ftc.gov
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> So you prevent the player from doing that (or you make it a harmless
> action). Although you may decrease the realism of the world in one sense
> (i.e., microwaving a Coke doesn't cause damage to either the Coke or the
> microwave), you preserve it another sense (i.e., in reality, there are many
> reasons NOT to put the Coke in the microwave -- reasons which you have not
> implemented in your game).
IMO, it is less dammaging to have the game say "that would serve no
purpose" when the coke or chocolate is in the microwave and the
player tries to turn on the microwave than to have the microwave
run for a while and nothing unusual happen as a result.
I _prefer_, if the author has the resources to do it, that
the coke destroys the microwave or the chocolate melts
and resolidifies into a hard, dark, inedible disc, in the
shape of the rotating carosel -- or whatever. But if not,
then it's better that the player be told not to nuke those
items than that he be told nothing happens when he does so.
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> What seems obvious to the author may not be obvious to the player. And
> what seems "unusual" to the author may not seem so to the player. So
> it is quite possible that the player will do something that makes the
> game unwinnable, then continue playing (perhaps spending a lot of time
> going a long way forward through the game before realising their mistake,
> and quite possibly even saving over their last "winnable" saved game,
> so they would have to start from scratch to win the game). I remember
> doing this by, for example, failing to collect the junk mail from the
> doorstep at the start of "Hitchhiker's".
Okay, there's a substantial and qualitative difference between
failing to pick up some junk mail and microwaving a can of coke.
The first could be an oversight, and a reasonable game will try
to go out of its way to avoid silently putting the game in an
unwinnable state without warning.
Microwaving a can of coke is entirely another matter. The
game can quite reasonably put the game in an unwinnable
state as a result of THAT kind of action, and I hope most
sensible players will quickly figure it out.
It the difference between penalising the player for failure
to solve the puzzle and rewarding the player in kind for
deliberately attempting something destructive. If the
player puts a fifty-pound bag of unpopped popcorn in a
self-cleaning oven and sets it to clean, lights the kitchen
table on fire, drops his entire inventory down a well, or
jumps off the top of a building, he normally expects
consequences, and he'll certainly be able to figure out
the cause of those consequences. That's very different
from making the game unwinnable in chapter seven without
a particular item having been taken in chapter one.
> In general, I prefer it to be obvious if a (puzzle-based) game is
> unwinnable - perhaps if you are concerned about the effect this may
> have on realism you could implement a switch (analogous to the
> VERBOSE switch) that lets a player decide whether they want to be
> warned in such cases.
I suppose that would be harmless. Unless you miss a case and the
game says it's winnable when it's not. THAT would be even more
maddening than the babel fish dispenser running out.
Ashley Price
BrenBarn <bren...@aol.comRemove> wrote in message
news:20000529113852...@ng-xb1.aol.com...
> I have many comments on this, which I've largley expounded on other
> threads. In short, I don't think a game should rely on the player's
saving
> habits; the game should handle "unusual" circumstances on its own, without
> counting on the player to know when to save.
>
> I agree that it is totally a personal preference thing. Personally
(as
> I've said in other threads), I think the game should be designed so that
it is
> impossible not to FINISH. The game can have more than one beginning, more
than
> one end, and/or more than one middle, but ideally it will always be
possible to
> proceed to one of the endings. Whether this ending is a "win" or a "loss"
> (which depends as much on the player's attitude as on the author's
intention)
> is not very important, since a game of this sort would lend itself to
replay
> anyway.
> In this sort of game, warning the player of a "stuck"/"locked-out"
> situation is a moot point, since there are no such situations.
> That's what I think, anyway. I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing
this
> one-note-samba out of me, especially since I'm not writing any actual
code.
Thanks for the comments.
I wasn't suggesting that we should expect the player to know when to save,
rarely do we always it's a good time. But we can only do so much to protect
the player against themselves without making the game a "walk in the park".
We could take this to extremes and say we should not expect the player to
move the character. At some point the player has to take responsibility for
their actions. We present our game and how they play it is up to them. If
they want to blow up a microwave with a can of coke, fine, but they can't
then expect to complete the game. However, your second point would clear
this up anyway...
Different endings, what a great idea! More and more games - both IF and
others - tend to do this now. I don't know why I didn't think of it.
Fortunately, my IF is in the **very** early stages (as in, I am only on the
third room), so I will be able to use this.
Well done, and by the way, just because you don't write games doesn't mean
your opinion doesn't count. In fact having an "outsider" coming up with
points is just as vital as those of us who are writing (or struggling to
write in my case) an IF.
Ashley
W. Top Changwatchai
> What is "R**F-P**L"?
RAIF-POOL. It's a raif in-joke about the ultimate IF language. For a good
summary, check out Suzanne Britton's excellent recently-updated IF web page:
Click on "Fun Stuff" and follow the RAIF-POOL links.
Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at uiuc dot edu
Paul E. Bell
your path-type games, I really liked the way that, even though you might
not "get the girl" or even "save the world", you could still end the
game. You could go back and attempt to save the world, with another
approach, and win the girl, too. Though, there were a couple definite
no-win places where you died because of your actions, but, they were
logical, and immediate. If you went back to just before the scenario
where you died, you could redeem yourself, and still win on all
accounts.
I think this is an important mix: fatal mistakes are immediatly obvious,
non-fatal mistakes lead to less than desirable endings, but,
nevertheless do end the game. In the case of Tex Murphy: Overseer (a
rewrite/flashback to the first Tex Murphy game: Mean Streets), the very
end of the game always started from the same scene, only with the
characters having different attitudes, and thus, different reactions to
your choices. Just where you went wrong was not immediately evident,
so, you might play the whole game again, making different choices, just
to attempt to better the outcome. Oh, and, there was no score, so, no
rating as to a good or bad ending, only the value you put on various
ending scenarios yourself.
Anyway, I think you can put the PC into situations, if you plan ahead,
where, if he does something that causes him to lose out on something
great, he may settle for something not so great, up to, and including,
his death, defeat, or going home empty handed. It just takes more work
that way.
If you are not going to go to the trouble of making multiple paths in
your game, then, by all means, give the player the option of being told,
some sufficient time after painting himself into a corner, that he has
done so. I suggest a random number of moves beyond the "mistake", such
that you aren't announcing "That was a dumb move" the moment the PC
makes the losing move. It should be within a reasonable number of moves
after the "losing" move, so the player doesn't go and do too much before
knowing that he should quit and wait.
Anyway, I've babbled enough, on to the next mission...
Paul
BrenBarn wrote:
>
> >> Would the be informed that the game has become unwinnable?
> [snip]
> >If someone is going to put a metal key in a microwave surely they
> >must realise what the obvious (and correct) thing to put in there is, and
> >once they realise they can no longer do that, they will play from their last
> >save (and it is usually a good idea to save just before doing something
> >"unusual" in a game).
> I have many comments on this, which I've largley expounded on other
> threads. In short, I don't think a game should rely on the player's saving
> habits; the game should handle "unusual" circumstances on its own, without
> counting on the player to know when to save.
>
> >It's a difficult one to judge and at the end of the day it's each person's
> >own preference. I wonder what others think?
> I agree that it is totally a personal preference thing. Personally (as
> I've said in other threads), I think the game should be designed so that it is
> impossible not to FINISH. The game can have more than one beginning, more than
> one end, and/or more than one middle, but ideally it will always be possible to
> proceed to one of the endings. Whether this ending is a "win" or a "loss"
> (which depends as much on the player's attitude as on the author's intention)
> is not very important, since a game of this sort would lend itself to replay
> anyway.
> In this sort of game, warning the player of a "stuck"/"locked-out"
> situation is a moot point, since there are no such situations.
> That's what I think, anyway. I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing this
> one-note-samba out of me, especially since I'm not writing any actual code.
--
Paul E. Bell | Email and AIM: wd0...@millcomm.com | ifMUD: Helios
IRC: PKodon, DrWho4, and Helios | webpage: members.xoom.com/wd0gcp/
Member: W.A.R.N., Skywarn, ARES, Phoenix Platform Consortium, ...
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