Random competition thoughts
Gareth Rees
1. Why the fad for including responses like this?
>score
Life doesn't work like that.
I don't know about you, but my life has a score (currently 10 out of
100).
2. Lots of games hadn't been playtested enough ("Delusions" ought to be
the winner of the "most unfortunate bugs" award). If this was
anything to do with the silly rules about "official betatesters",
then those rules ought to be scrapped next year.
3. Lots of experimentation with form and content, which is really
encouraging. Don't worry if you experiment and the result isn't very
satisfactory; that's the whole point of experiments. The genre will
learn from its mistakes (I hope).
4. Some games had too much text ("Tapestry" is the worst offender among
those I've played). Interactive fiction needs to show, not tell.
5. The scoring system is too complex. Go back to nominating your best
three.
6. No women (no surprise there).
--
Gareth Rees
Andrew Plotkin
> >score
> Life doesn't work like that.
> I don't know about you, but my life has a score (currently 10 out of
> 100).
<Long penetrating look> I'm not sure what you mean.
I believe I was the initiator of this offense (in "Weather"). I did it
because the game *didn't* have anything resembling a meaningful score, and
I wanted to tell players to concentrate on the story rather than
accumulation of "successful subtasks". Furthermore, part of the point of
the game was to figure out what the point of the game was, and I wanted to
convey that through the prose rather than the upper right-hand corner of
the screen.
People who have imitated me, I assume, had similar reasons.
I was very surprised when I started getting complaints that the wording
was "smug"; I just don't see it. Fortunately, I'm the author and I don't
have to change it. :)
(See? When I'm smug, you'll know it.)
> 6. No women (no surprise there).
*I* was surprised, since Bonni Mierzejewska had been plugging "Night at
the Computer Center" in her sig. (It did get released, independent of the
competition -- "night.z5" in the archive.)
In general, though, the relative infrequency of female hackers is bound to
be reflected in the IF, as it were, oeuvre.
(Infrequency! Infrequency! Not absence!)
Hm. Are there a lot of women out there, reading this, who play IF and
want to design games, but aren't programming types? (As many as there are
men of that description, I mean. I'd guess that even playing IF is enough
of a geekish activity that women are underrepresented in it. Don't know
how much though.)
I'd suggest collaboration between writers who can't hack and hackers who
can't write, but there's a basic problem: *everyone* thinks they can
write. :-) Note that the only such collaboration, _Path to Fortune_, was
programmed by C.E.Forman, who has also written two competition entries on
his own in the same period -- which puts him among the most productive
IF programmers, if you think about it. Anyone who can program is pretty
much working on their own ideas.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
null...@aol.com
> 6. No women (no surprise there).
Actually, it did surprise (and disappoint) me. I guess Bonni just missed
the deadline, but surely there are other women (either among r.a.i-f
posters or lurkers) with the coding and writing ability to submit an
entry?
I mean, plenty of AGT games were authored by women. Wha' happened?
Neil
---------------------------------------------------------
Neil deMause ne...@echonyc.com
http://www.echonyc.com/~wham/neild.html
---------------------------------------------------------
Roger Carbol
Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> I believe I was the initiator of this offense (in "Weather"). I did it
> because the game *didn't* have anything resembling a meaningful score, and
> I wanted to tell players to concentrate on the story rather than
> accumulation of "successful subtasks". Furthermore, part of the point of
> the game was to figure out what the point of the game was, and I wanted to
> convey that through the prose rather than the upper right-hand corner of
> the screen.
>SCORE
What do want to score?
>PIECE OF WOOD
What would you like to score the piece of wood with?
>KNIFE
You gouge a groove into the piece of wood with the knife. It doesn't
seem especially exciting.
>INV
You have a scored piece of wood, a knife, and no sense of humour.
Roger Carbol .. r...@col.ca .. Who would you like to score with?
Dave Gatewood
In article <yxslob6...@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk> Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> writes:
>1. Why the fad for including responses like this?
>
> Life doesn't work like that.
>
> 100).
Wow, I only have 6 (out of 100), giving me the rank of You Have Missed
the Point Entirely. To my credit, though, my interpreter doesn't
support "undo."
>2. Lots of games hadn't been playtested enough ("Delusions" ought to be
> the winner of the "most unfortunate bugs" award). If this was
> anything to do with the silly rules about "official betatesters",
> then those rules ought to be scrapped next year.
I agree. And I hereby renew my suggestion that there be no rule
against beta-testers voting in the general competition. (I'd even
want authors to vote in the general competition - a MC contest with
only 8 votes doesn't give a very meaningful result.)
>3. Lots of experimentation with form and content, which is really
> encouraging. Don't worry if you experiment and the result isn't very
> satisfactory; that's the whole point of experiments. The genre will
> learn from its mistakes (I hope).
>
>4. Some games had too much text ("Tapestry" is the worst offender among
> those I've played). Interactive fiction needs to show, not tell.
Hm, I thought that was one of the more successful "experiments."
Especially in the context of playing and judging over 20 games -
anything that came across as "different" was a welcome change.
>5. The scoring system is too complex. Go back to nominating your best
> three.
I think I'd have felt limited voting on only 3 out of so many.
>6. No women (no surprise there).
> WOMEN, ENTER CONTEST
Life doesn't work that way.
Dave
Aaron Mandel
So, Andrew Plotkin (erky...@netcom.com) is like:
: I was very surprised when I started getting complaints that the wording
: have to change it. :)
I hate to cross-breed this with the 'preachiness' discussion, but it
sounds smug to me in that it's purporting to tell the player an abiding
truth about life while in fact they were just wondering whether they're
making any progress in this game and should they play Hexen instead. Now,
the first time I saw it, I thought it was great... I tend to enjoy having
my expectations subverted, for one thing. Now that it's on its way to
becoming a stock response, though, it's acquired one of the key elements
of *irritating* smugness: it's not an original thought.
However, I've found no correlation between the absence of a scoring system
and how much I like the rest of the game, so it's nearly irrelevant.
Aaron
"He will deliver farm animals to your room if you don't vote for him. You
think that dorm life is hard now, try it with a 900 pound dairy cow in
your room."
- (official) campaign pitch for William Pyonteck O-
Admiral Jota
Roger Carbol <r...@col.ca> writes:
>> Gareth Rees (gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
>> > >score
>> > Life doesn't work like that.
>>SCORE
>What do want to score?
>>PIECE OF WOOD
[snip]
Is this a good time to bring up LGoP?
--
/<-= -=-=- -= Admiral Jota =- -=-=- =->\
__/><-=- http://www.tiac.net/users/jota/ =-><\__
\><-= jo...@mv.mv.com -- Finger for PGP =-></
\<-=- -= -=- -= -==- =- -=- =- -=->/
Matthew Daly
In article <yxslob6...@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk> Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> writes:
>1. Why the fad for including responses like this?
>
> Life doesn't work like that.
>
> 100).
Uh oh. Sounds like you didn't get the Fullbright scholarship back
in act 2. You'd better restore the game and bribe the college
president. :-)
>2. Lots of games hadn't been playtested enough ("Delusions" ought to be
> the winner of the "most unfortunate bugs" award). If this was
> anything to do with the silly rules about "official betatesters",
> then those rules ought to be scrapped next year.
Unless I missed an awful lot, about half the games weren't submitted
for betatesting. Plus there were some web snafus at the time. I
do hope that no one shied away from betatesting because they wanted
to judge instead.
>4. Some games had too much text ("Tapestry" is the worst offender among
> those I've played). Interactive fiction needs to show, not tell.
I think that it certainly needs to tell you when you're in an
interactive spot and when you need to just read and type WAIT.
One of the disturbing trends in graphic I-F is making the story
a glorified movie with highly limited interactivity, and it would
be a shame if text I-F went too far down that road.
>5. The scoring system is too complex. Go back to nominating your best
> three.
I don't know that that's true, it would certainly help the mid-range
contestants to know if they're grade-3 authors or grade-7. It certainly
does seem like overkill to go to 1-100 style judging, though.
>6. No women (no surprise there).
One track mind.... ;-) Although I did beta "Night in the Computing
Center" for the contest and was surprised that it didn't turn up,
since it didn't have any bugs that I could uncover. Don't know the
story behind that one....
-Matthew
--
Matthew Daly I don't buy everything I read ... I haven't
da...@ppd.kodak.com even read everything I've bought.
My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer, of course.
Magnus Olsson
In article <yxslob6...@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>,
Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>1. Why the fad for including responses like this?
>
> >score
> Life doesn't work like that.
Are you referring to the specific response, or to the fact that
non-scoring games are becoming more common?
>2. Lots of games hadn't been playtested enough ("Delusions" ought to be
> the winner of the "most unfortunate bugs" award). If this was
> anything to do with the silly rules about "official betatesters",
> then those rules ought to be scrapped next year.
I think it may have something to do with those rules. As I understood
it, the official beta testers got rather overworked, and there was
some hardware trouble that delayed the distribution of games to them. Plus
the fact that just knowing that there was some red tape involved in getting
a game beta tested may have deterred people from submitting games to test.
It is *much* easier if one is allowed to let a friend have a quick look
at one's game.
I can understand the reasons for the rule, but I, too, think it should
go away.
>3. Lots of experimentation with form and content, which is really
> encouraging. Don't worry if you experiment and the result isn't very
> satisfactory; that's the whole point of experiments. The genre will
> learn from its mistakes (I hope).
Agreed! What I found a bit distrubing, though, was the tendency of
certain reviewers to summarily discard anything that wasn't
sufficiently inventive. I hope their views aren't representative; not
that there's anythin wrong with being inventive, but I see a risk of
next year's competition becoming a "freak show" of novelties, with
authors trying to out-invent each other - at the expense of content,
of course.
But there's probably not much cause for worry in either direction: the
winner was, after all, quite traditional, while the inventive entries
show a lot of promise.
>4. Some games had too much text ("Tapestry" is the worst offender among
> those I've played). Interactive fiction needs to show, not tell.
Define "too much". I think I know what you mean (and that it's perhaps
also what some people mean when they complain about "preachiness"),
but it would be interesting to see your views on the subject in more
detail.
>5. The scoring system is too complex.
Too complex? Give me a break - if rating each game between 1 and 10 is
too complex, then what isn't? IMHO, the problem with the scoring system
is not that it's too complex, but that people have been reading too much
into it, and especially that people have been worrying a lot about not
everyone applying the same standards. SInce I was one of the proponents of
the present scoring system, let me state that the intention was simply
that everybody should apply their own standards, and that any variation
would be evened out in the averaging process.
> Go back to nominating your best three.
As has been pointed out repeatedly, that would bias the vote against
any games that aren't portable to all the judges' computers. To have
any chance of winning, an author would have to write in Inform or
(possibly, now that the source is free) TADS.
>6. No women (no surprise there).
I'm at least slightly surprised. Bonni "Lone Quilter" "Cyber-Babushka"
Mierzejewska had stated that she would enter, pity she didn't. And I
know for a fact that there are quite a few female IF devotees out
there; I had hoped that at least a few of them would enter.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se)
Robert Fisher
> 1. Why the fad for including responses like this?
>
> >score
> Life doesn't work like that.
>
> 100).
What rank does that give you?
Also, putting in a scoring system is a bit of a pain. And, everybody's a bloody comedian.
Rob
Bob Adams
In article <19961210173...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
null...@aol.com writes
>> 6. No women (no surprise there).
>
As it happens, amongst my adventure playing friends the split between
sexes is almost 50/50. I say almost because there may actually be more
women than men. As to adventure authors though, the women are decidedly
in the minority. Yet those self same women do mostly have at least one
adventure title to their name but have rarely continued on from there.
Another aspect of this is that some of them have later written very good
stories that they've then had programmed by one of the men. Hmm, perhaps
they're not so daft after all. :-)
>
>I mean, plenty of AGT games were authored by women. Wha' happened?
Do you honestly expect anybody to bother entering an AGT adventure into
_this_ newsgroup's competition? ROTFL!
<Sorry Gil :-)>
--
Bob Adams
http://www.amster.demon.co.uk
Jason Compton
Bob Adams (ams...@amster.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <19961210173...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
: null...@aol.com writes
: >I mean, plenty of AGT games were authored by women. Wha' happened?
:
: Do you honestly expect anybody to bother entering an AGT adventure into
: _this_ newsgroup's competition? ROTFL!
Well, I think his point was that at one point, female IF authorship was
higher, at least numerically, than it is now.
--
Jason Compton jcom...@xnet.com
Editor-in-Chief, Amiga Report Magazine (847) 741-0689 FAX
AR on Aminet - docs/mags/ar???.lha WWW - http://www.cucug.org/ar/
'I said, "You wouldn't understand." Take what's yours, be damned.'
Cardinal Teulbachs
Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> made so bold as to state:
> I don't know about you, but my life has a score (currently 10 out of
> 100).
Well, at least you can continue playing. I've gone and got mine into
an unsolvable state :)
>4. Some games had too much text ("Tapestry" is the worst offender among
> those I've played). Interactive fiction needs to show, not tell.
I don't understand this, Gareth. What does it mean?
--Cardinal T
I mean, what the hell kind of villain thwarts the hero's
progress with soup cans in the kitchen pantry?
--Russ Bryan
Are there any text games prominently featuring dinosaurs?
If not, does anyone besides me think it would be cool?
--Matthew Amster-Burton
"The axe bounces off Geoffrey's neck. Doh!"
--Graham Manson
"Bathroom? Yeah. Go through that door, on the end
of the hall, on your left." "Pardon?" "South twice,
than east." "Ah."
--Clyde "Fred" Sloniker
Gareth Rees
I wrote:
> Why the fad for including responses like this?
>
> >score
> Life doesn't work like that.
Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
> Are you referring to the specific response, or to the fact that
> non-scoring games are becoming more common?
The latter.
Score is useful because it is a shorthand way of providing motivation
for the protagonist. No game can allow the player to take part; there's
a fictional character, the protagonist, standing between the player and
the action. The player's motivation is (usually) to win the game and
enjoy the playing of it; the protagonist's motivation comes out of his
character and the situation in which he finds himself. In a traditional
game like "Adventure", the distinction between these motivations is not
very important: both the protagonist and the player know that the object
is to collect treasures.
But today we have lots of "hidden motivation" games in which the
protagonist is a distinctive character with his own motivations, but in
which these motivations are not revealed to the player! Some, or much,
of the player's effort goes into finding out what the point of the game
is. These games *increase* the distance between the player and the
protagonist because the player is not aware of what the protagonist is
thinking or feeling.
For example, in "Sherbet" a player who didn't read very carefully could
get quite close to the end without realising what their mission is, and
spend some time attempting (say) to kill Clotspinner. What keeps the
player and the protagonist on the same track is the awarding of points
to actions that correctly reflect the protagonist's motivations (and of
course the absence of alternative plotlines).
This is not to say that I think scoreless games are bad, just that
authors should think about the effect of failing to provide any
motivation that the player can understand. For example, I'm playing "So
Far" at the moment, and I find that despite the quality of the writing
and implemenation I have to force myself to sit down and play, because I
don't have any idea of what I'm supposed to do.
--
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
I wrote:
> Interactive fiction needs to show, not tell.
Cardinal Teulbachs <card...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I don't understand this, Gareth. What does it mean?
Show vs tell is a basic idea from literary criticism. "Telling" is the
presentation of information directly in the authorial voice.
>examine kathy
She looks like she gets easily irritated.
"Showing" is the presentation of information indirectly, as the result
of some event or action.
>say hello to kathy
"Who rattled your chain, dumbo?" she snaps.
It's not a case of "show good, tell bad": Jane Austen is an author who
uses "telling" with consummate effect. But interactive fiction's sole
strength is that it is interactive. "Showing" suits the form much
better than "telling": if you want to tell a story, why not use a
conventional form?
--
Gareth Rees
Julian Arnold
In article <58nqbf$n...@venezuela.earthlink.net>, Cardinal Teulbachs
<URL:mailto:card...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> made so bold as to state:
>
> > I don't know about you, but my life has a score (currently 10 out of
> > 100).
>
> Well, at least you can continue playing. I've gone and got mine into
> an unsolvable state :)
I quit mine a long time ago, saving first of course. I recently tried
to restore, but the file was corrupt.
Jools
--
"For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand
ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me
from ever completing anything." -- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"
Erskin Cherry
Andrew Plotkin (erky...@netcom.com) wrote:
: I'd suggest collaboration between writers who can't hack and hackers who
: write. :-)
Sorry to burst the blanket statement, but I don't think I can write, though
I know I can code. Although I must also admit that this doens't stop me
from writing...
Well, if anyone is interested in this sort of collaboration we certainly
have a forum. (And I'll even admit that this is a half-hearted invitation
like is appears to be, though personally, I have very little time due to the
impending gradutaion.)
--
Erskin -=- ech...@warren-wilson.edu
http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~echerry
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G+(++) e>++ h-(*) r-- y+
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George Caswell
On Tue, 10 Dec 1996, Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> Gareth Rees (gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
> > 1. Why the fad for including responses like this?
>
> > >score
> > Life doesn't work like that.
>
> > I don't know about you, but my life has a score (currently 10 out of
> > 100).
>
> <Long penetrating look> I'm not sure what you mean.
>
> I believe I was the initiator of this offense (in "Weather"). I did it
> because the game *didn't* have anything resembling a meaningful score, and
> I wanted to tell players to concentrate on the story rather than
> accumulation of "successful subtasks". Furthermore, part of the point of
I tend to think even in games where this isn't entirely the case not having
a score system can be sensible. For example, if a game were to only include
'win conditions' (or even not, "In the end", or so I've heard, is an example)
but include many, many ways to get there, defining scores and maximum scores
could be very impractical- and could lead the player to try to get points
they really don't need. What's the point of them picking up 20 points for
defeating the guardian if they already picked up 20 for finding a way past it?
Such a game still focuses on goals, not story, but it does so in such a way
that -problem solving- is the issue (ideally), less than checking progress or
'what goes where'.
> I'd suggest collaboration between writers who can't hack and hackers who
> can't write, but there's a basic problem: *everyone* thinks they can
> write. :-) Note that the only such collaboration, _Path to Fortune_, was
Ah, one of the little truths I hate so much. Anyone know of a way to tell,
one way or the other?
________________________________________________
______________ _/> ____ | George Caswell, WPI CS 1999. Member L+L and |
<___ _________// _/<_ / | SOMA. Projectionist-in-training. MSTie #69762. |
// <> ___ < > / _/ | Linux + computer hobbyist. Admin of ADAMANT, a |
// /> / / _/ / / <____ | medium-powered Linux PC. Death to Microsoft! |
// </ <<</ < _/ <______/ |_For more info see http://www.wpi.edu/~timbuktu_|
</ </
Andrew Plotkin
George Caswell (timb...@adamant.res.wpi.edu) wrote:
> > I'd suggest collaboration between writers who can't hack and hackers who
> > can't write, but there's a basic problem: *everyone* thinks they can
> > write. :-)
> Ah, one of the little truths I hate so much. Anyone know of a way to tell,
> one way or the other?
Enter a competition. See how well you do.
It's not a guaranteed measure, though.
--Z
(It also doesn't take into account the ability to learn from experience.
To test that, you have to write and release more games even if you get
trashed in the competition.)
C.E. Forman
>Well, I think his point was that at one point, female IF authorship was
>higher, at least numerically, than it is now.
I tried my best to coax female authors into entering, with the 5 free
"Circle" registrations.
(Then again, maybe that's what scared them off.)
--
C.E. Forman cefo...@worldnet.att.net
Author of "Delusions", the 3rd place winner in the 1996 I-F Competition!!
Now @ ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition96/delusns/delusion.z5
Read "XYZZYnews" @ http://www.interport.net/~eileen/design/xyzzynews.html
Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe http://netnow.micron.net/~jgoemmer/infoshop.html
Cardinal Teulbachs
Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> made so bold as to state:
>It's not a case of "show good, tell bad": Jane Austen is an author who
>uses "telling" with consummate effect. But interactive fiction's sole
>strength is that it is interactive. "Showing" suits the form much
>better than "telling": if you want to tell a story, why not use a
>conventional form?
Right. Now that I see what you meant, I'd have to say I agree with
you.
I'm curious, though, whether anyone else thinks *part* (I said "part",
not "all" or even "nearly all") of the pleasure in i-f comes simply
from the fact that the story is revealed in chunks, instead of being
all laid out at once as in static fiction? Leaving aside the showing
vs. telling question, isn't there something about the nature of
discovery in interactive fiction that is enticing in itself? If so,
that would be another reason why a person might choose to write
something as i-f instead of using a conventional form.
Be that as it may, there's no question (in my mind, anyway) that
you're right; that "showing" in i-f is superior to "telling".
Jason Compton
C.E. Forman (cefo...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net) wrote:
: I tried my best to coax female authors into entering, with the 5 free
: "Circle" registrations.
:
: (Then again, maybe that's what scared them off.)
Yeah, I noticed that way back. It was a noble effort.
I've never really played the two most commercial IF games I can think of
from women, Plundered Hearts and Hollywood Hijinx (although if I remember
right, Cyr-Jones wrote and O'Neill implemented Hijinx-right?)
I've heard good things about Hearts and middling things about Hijinx.
Jason B Dyer
Andrew Plotkin (erky...@netcom.com) wrote:
: Enter a competition. See how well you do.
: It's not a guaranteed measure, though.
You certainly don't need a competition for people to evaluate
your work.
Jason Dyer
jd...@u.arizona.edu
Stephen Granade
In article <58s340$14...@news.ccit.arizona.edu> jd...@nevis.u.arizona.edu
> Andrew Plotkin (erky...@netcom.com) wrote:
> : Enter a competition. See how well you do.
>
> : It's not a guaranteed measure, though.
>
> You certainly don't need a competition for people to evaluate
> your work.
No, but I would expect that most people get more feedback from a
competition entry than from a "regularly released" entry.
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade | "It takes character to withstand the
sgra...@phy.duke.edu | rigors of indolence."
Duke University, Physics Dept | -- from _The Madness of King George_
Bob Adams
In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.961212180549.1750F-
100...@adamant.res.wpi.edu>, George Caswell
<timb...@adamant.res.wpi.edu> writes
> I tend to think even in games where this isn't entirely the case not having
>a score system can be sensible. For example, if a game were to only include
>'win conditions' (or even not, "In the end", or so I've heard, is an example)
>but include many, many ways to get there, defining scores and maximum scores
>could be very impractical- and could lead the player to try to get points
>they really don't need. What's the point of them picking up 20 points for
>defeating the guardian if they already picked up 20 for finding a way past it?
>Such a game still focuses on goals, not story, but it does so in such a way
>that -problem solving- is the issue (ideally), less than checking progress or
>'what goes where'.
I agree that a score system must be well thought out and logical, unlike
the example you quote above, but I must admit that as a player I do like
a score system. Even if it is just as a simple guide as to how far you
are (or not) from reaching the end.
Example: You've been playing all day, solved hundreds of puzzles and are
really confident that you must be getting near the end. <Type Score>
"You have scored 10 points out of a possible 100. In the Great
Adventurer's Hall Of Fame - you are at the level of a toilet roll!"
Julian Arnold
In article <58qf7a$l...@nicaragua.earthlink.net>, Cardinal Teulbachs
<URL:mailto:card...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> [...snipped for Christmas...]
> I'm curious, though, whether anyone else thinks *part* (I said "part",
> not "all" or even "nearly all") of the pleasure in i-f comes simply
> from the fact that the story is revealed in chunks, instead of being
> all laid out at once as in static fiction? Leaving aside the showing
> vs. telling question, isn't there something about the nature of
> discovery in interactive fiction that is enticing in itself? If so,
> that would be another reason why a person might choose to write
> something as i-f instead of using a conventional form.
Yes. Except I'll add to what you suggest:
Part of the pleasure in IF comes from the fact that the story is
revealed in chunks, each chunk being a response to the player's
answer to a question posed by the game.
The question is (nearly?) always "what do you (the character, not the
player) want to do now?" (or variations thereof, depending on tense,
person, etc.), and the answer is a command.
This is all my complicated way of saying that merely pressing SPACE or
some other random key does not turn an F into an IF-- the answer must be
related to the specific question asked.
Newsflash, huh?
Matthew Russotto
In article <58pqjd$j...@inxs.ncren.net> ech...@warren-wilson.edu (Erskin Cherry) writes:
}Andrew Plotkin (erky...@netcom.com) wrote:
}: write. :-)
}
}Sorry to burst the blanket statement, but I don't think I can write, though
}I know I can code. Although I must also admit that this doens't stop me
}from writing...
Put me in the "can't write" column as well. This is a good excuse for me
not to write comments.
Mary K. Kuhner
Playing Sherbet last night, I found the scoring to be definitely
a hint, sometimes a strong one. Would it be possible under the
parsers used to make it optional within a given game? Sometimes
one wants hints, sometimes one doesn't....
Having the game chide the player for asking for a score, or any
other standard exploratory behavior, would start to annoy me
very quickly. I'm with the people who'd prefer a neutral response
"This game is not scored" or "I don't know that verb".
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Jason B Dyer
Stephen Granade (sgra...@snowy.phy.duke.edu) wrote:
: > : It's not a guaranteed measure, though.
: > You certainly don't need a competition for people to evaluate
: > your work.
: No, but I would expect that most people get more feedback from a
: competition entry than from a "regularly released" entry.
More feedback? Yes. Useful feedback? No. I have read only one (1)
review that has been useful to me, mainly because there were so
many entries.
Jason Dyer
jd...@u.arizona.edu
C.E. Forman
>I've never really played the two most commercial IF games I can think of
>from women, Plundered Hearts and Hollywood Hijinx (although if I remember
>right, Cyr-Jones wrote and O'Neill implemented Hijinx-right?)
Cyr-Jones helped write Hijinx, but "Hollywood" Dave Anderson, not Jeff
O'Neil, implemented it.
Trevor Barrie
Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>1. Why the fad for including responses like this?
>
> >score
> Life doesn't work like that.
I don't know, but I have a very special place in Hell reserved for authours
who even think of using it as a response for anything (not just score). If
you want to get across the idea that your IF is a work of fiction and not a
"game", you have my support... but either way, it ain't life.
Andrew Plotkin
Trevor Barrie (tba...@cycor.ca) wrote:
> Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > >score
> > Life doesn't work like that.
> I don't know, but I have a very special place in Hell reserved for authours
> who even think of using it as a response for anything (not just score). If
> you want to get across the idea that your IF is a work of fiction and not a
> "game", you have my support... but either way, it ain't life.
What if I argued that what I *meant* was, the work is *about* life?
"Life doesn't work that way, and therefore this piece of fiction doesn't
either. Figure it out or take a nap, cluebag."
"take diamond"
"(drop dead.)"
--Z
Vivienne S Dunstan
Dave Gatewood <DGAT...@MUSIC.CC.UGA.EDU> wrote:
>>6. No women (no surprise there).
>
> > WOMEN, ENTER CONTEST
> Life doesn't work that way.
I couldn't resist following this one up as a woman IF player
who intends to enter next year's competition. I had hoped to
enter this year but continuing serious health problems got
in the way. Fingers crossed next year things will be better.
I'm sure there are others out there but, yes, we do appear to
be in a significant minority.
Vivienne S Dunstan
vd...@post.almac.co.uk
Gerry Kevin Wilson
In article <58m1k8$2...@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>In article <yxslob6...@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>,
>Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>I think it may have something to do with those rules. As I understood
>it, the official beta testers got rather overworked, and there was
>some hardware trouble that delayed the distribution of games to them. Plus
>the fact that just knowing that there was some red tape involved in getting
>a game beta tested may have deterred people from submitting games to test.
>It is *much* easier if one is allowed to let a friend have a quick look
>at one's game.
Actually, Magnus, there was nothing preventing that. The rule was
explicit in that the official testers were a voluntary thing, that you
could use your own testers, and the only restriction was that they had to
vote in the MC competition instead of in the normal one.
--
"Shh...<looks around worriedly> The wires have ears, you know..."
Nulldogma
Matthew Daly wrote:
> I do hope that no one shied away from betatesting
> because they wanted to judge instead.
Well, I certainly shied away for that reason. Anyone else?
Neil
---------------------------------------------------------
Neil deMause ne...@echonyc.com
http://www.echonyc.com/~wham/neild.html
---------------------------------------------------------
Laurel Halbany
>C.E. Forman (cefo...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net) wrote:
>
>: I tried my best to coax female authors into entering, with the 5 free
>: "Circle" registrations.
I really wanted to enter this time, but, well, I have this toddler.
Kind of hard to do serious coding in between pretending to feed the
stuffed animals and changing diapers...
Next year, though. Really!
----------------------------------------------------------
Laurel Halbany
myt...@agora.rdrop.com
http://www.rdrop.com/users/mythago/
Magnus Olsson
In article <58vrdn$4...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Sorry, I stand corrected. Seems I typed faster than I was thinking.
But the restriction about voting in the MC competition rather than the
ordinary one was actually quite restrictive. I certainly didn't want to
ask anybody who was going to vote to disenfranchise themselves by beta-
testing my game.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se)
aul...@koala.scott.net
In article <58v049$h...@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
C.E. Forman <cefo...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>I've never really played the two most commercial IF games I can think of
>>from women, Plundered Hearts and Hollywood Hijinx (although if I remember
>>right, Cyr-Jones wrote and O'Neill implemented Hijinx-right?)
>
>Cyr-Jones helped write Hijinx, but "Hollywood" Dave Anderson, not Jeff
>O'Neil, implemented it.
>
_Hollywood_Hijinx_ was designed, written, and implemented by "Hollywood"
Dave Anderson with enormous help of his fellow imps. The initial concept
for this game was from an idea by "Hollywood" Dave Anderson and Liz
Cyr-Jones.
As far as I can tell, Amy Briggs is the only author mentioned for PH.
That is all,
Joe
Trevor Barrie
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) wrote:
>> > Life doesn't work like that.
>
>> I don't know, but I have a very special place in Hell reserved for authours
>> who even think of using it as a response for anything (not just score). If
>> you want to get across the idea that your IF is a work of fiction and not a
>> "game", you have my support... but either way, it ain't life.
>
>What if I argued that what I *meant* was, the work is *about* life?
Then perhaps you should have said it more politely. "Life doesn't work like
that" is annoying because it tells the player "Don't you feel silly for
thinking you could do such a thing?". (This didn't bother me at all in A
Change in the Weather, but it became grating with phenomenal speed.) What
really made me go ballistic is when it popped up as a response to "quit" in
In the End. A piece of fiction which berates you for trying to put it down
is obnoxious beyond belief IMO.
(And yes, you could argue that discouraging "quit" makese sense for that
particular work, but this didn't mitigate things to me.)
>"Life doesn't work that way, and therefore this piece of fiction doesn't
>either. Figure it out or take a nap, cluebag."
>
>"take diamond"
>
>"(drop dead.)"
Huh?
bout...@blade.wcc.govt.nz
just say it took me three days to figure out how to put a menu system in my
game - I eventually had to find one in some other source code to see how it was
done (this should obviously have been the first step - 20/20 hindsight and all).
On the third hand, there's proofreading. I can do that like a demon with other
people's work - but seem to go blind when it comes to mine. Ah, well, such is
life.
-Giles
C.E. Forman
>(This didn't bother me at all in A
>Change in the Weather, but it became grating with phenomenal speed.) What
>really made me go ballistic is when it popped up as a response to "quit" in
>In the End. A piece of fiction which berates you for trying to put it down
>is obnoxious beyond belief IMO.
Not to mention that you "win" ITE by "quitting" at real life.
--
C.E. Forman cefo...@worldnet.att.net
Author of "Delusions", the 3rd place winner in the 1996 I-F Competition!!
Now @ ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition96/delusns/DELUSION.Z5
Steven Howard
In <594rfk$d...@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>, "C.E. Forman" <cefo...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:
>>(This didn't bother me at all in A
>>Change in the Weather, but it became grating with phenomenal speed.) What
>>really made me go ballistic is when it popped up as a response to "quit" in
>>In the End. A piece of fiction which berates you for trying to put it down
>>is obnoxious beyond belief IMO.
>
>Not to mention that you "win" ITE by "quitting" at real life.
>
I've commented on the irony of this before, but it just occurred to me that
Inform treats "die" as a synonym for "quit."
========
Steven Howard
bl...@ibm.net
What's a nice word like "euphemism" doing in a sentence like this?
-
Trevor Barrie wrote:
>
[snip]
> really made me go ballistic is when it popped up as a response to "quit" in
> In the End. A piece of fiction which berates you for trying to put it down
> is obnoxious beyond belief IMO.
>
> particular work, but this didn't mitigate things to me.)
I haven't played In The End, but in most games 'die' is a synonym for
quit, does In The End have a suitably different response to this?
Nicholas Daley
<mailto:dal...@ihug.co.nz>
Admiral Jota
Spoilers for "In The End" ahead!
- <-@-.-> writes:
>I haven't played In The End, but in most games 'die' is a synonym for
>quit, does In The End have a suitably different response to this?
>DIE
Life doesn't work that way.
Are you sure you want to quit? y
Fine. If you feel you have to spoil the atmosphere, go ahead.
[Hit any key to exit.]
--
/<-= -=-=- -= Admiral Jota =- -=-=- =->\
__/><-=- http://www.tiac.net/users/jota/ =-><\__
\><-= jo...@mv.mv.com -- Finger for PGP =-></
\<-=- -= -=- -= -==- =- -=- =- -=->/
C.E. Forman
aul...@koala.scott.net wrote:
>From the original packaging... (C.E.'s are probably all shrink-wrapped =)
Not quite, but I'm working on it.
>As far as I can tell, Amy Briggs is the only author mentioned for PH.
She did some of the writing for the InfoComics as well.
James Cole
tba...@cycor.ca (Trevor Barrie) wrote:
>erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) wrote:
>>> > Life doesn't work like that.
>>
>>> I don't know, but I have a very special place in Hell reserved for authours
>>> who even think of using it as a response for anything (not just score). If
>>> you want to get across the idea that your IF is a work of fiction and not a
>>> "game", you have my support... but either way, it ain't life.
I understand why you have you 'special place in Hell..' , but a score is the ONE
thing in IF that life doesn't work like. Sure there may be many things in a
game that could yeild a (annoying) response such as "'Life doesn't work like
that," that you could do in real life, but you can't score in real life... uh,
hang on :-)
.
>>
>>What if I argued that what I *meant* was, the work is *about* life?
>Then perhaps you should have said it more politely. "Life doesn't work like
>that" is annoying because it tells the player "Don't you feel silly for
>thinking you could do such a thing?". (This didn't bother me at all in A
>Change in the Weather, but it became grating with phenomenal speed.)
It's annoying only because you're used to seeing scores in games. If it "became
grating with phenomenal speed," then you must of tried to find out your score
many times, and therefore were looking for and wanting one.
[rest of stuff cut]
---------------
James Cole
jrc...@ozemail.com.au
John Wood
[Spoiler for In The End follows:]
tba...@cycor.ca (Trevor Barrie) writes, concerning "Life's not like that":
> What
> really made me go ballistic is when it popped up as a response to "quit" in
> In the End. A piece of fiction which berates you for trying to put it down
> is obnoxious beyond belief IMO.
>
> (And yes, you could argue that discouraging "quit" makese sense for that
> particular work, but this didn't mitigate things to me.)
Well, to avoid spoilers I didn't put this in my review, but as I wrote to
Joe Mason it's *particularly* annoying when "die" is a synonym of quit. I
typed "die" (as in, kill myself), only to see
Life doesn't work like that.
Do you want to quit?
If this hadn't happened I'd have actually "solved" the game without
referring to the walkthrough...
John
James Cole
Gareth Rees <gd...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>I wrote:
>> Why the fad for including responses like this?
>>
>> >score
>> Life doesn't work like that.
Fad suggests a craze with no real substance. This is not true.
>Magnus Olsson <m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>> Are you referring to the specific response, or to the fact that
>> non-scoring games are becoming more common?
>The latter.
>Score is useful because it is a shorthand way of providing motivation
>for the protagonist.
Yes, but it's not necessary. There are better ways.
> No game can allow the player to take part; there's
>a fictional character, the protagonist, standing between the player and
>the action. The player's motivation is (usually) to win the game and
>enjoy the playing of it; the protagonist's motivation comes out of his
>character and the situation in which he finds himself. In a traditional
>game like "Adventure", the distinction between these motivations is not
>very important: both the protagonist and the player know that the object
>is to collect treasures.
OK. I would be interested in knowing what the other motivations you suggest by
"(usually)" are.
>But today we have lots of "hidden motivation" games in which the
>protagonist is a distinctive character with his own motivations, but in
>which these motivations are not revealed to the player! Some, or much,
>of the player's effort goes into finding out what the point of the game
>is. These games *increase* the distance between the player and the
>protagonist because the player is not aware of what the protagonist is
>thinking or feeling.
Yep.
>For example, in "Sherbet" a player who didn't read very carefully could
>get quite close to the end without realising what their mission is, and
>spend some time attempting (say) to kill Clotspinner. What keeps the
>player and the protagonist on the same track is the awarding of points
>to actions that correctly reflect the protagonist's motivations (and of
>course the absence of alternative plotlines).
Yes, that seems true. Possibly, the game could instead use more sophisticated
techniques: being designed well enough and containing text written in a manner
that suggests a "correct" action. This could possibly be done by, say, giving
an insight into what the character is thinking. But this still leaves a chance
that the player will miss these clues. Which is why the points received 'are
needed': they're an obvious, definite, clue to help you 'work out' the story.
This seems to me very artificial; which I guess is why I don't like it.
The case here seems to be that a score is needed to support a 'flawed' game
style. (when I say flawed I don't mean totally flawed or anything, but more in
the purer sense. I did actually like many aspects of "Sherbet").
Flawed in a) that you basically have to "do what the character would do" which
seems like the ultimate in forcing the player to do what the author wants, or
deems "correct". (Especially if there is an "...absence of alternative
plotlines.")
and b) Your argument implies that some trial and error is needed. The player
can get points for doing something that he/she doesn't fully understand the
purpose of.
...But I you like this type of game then I guess it's OK. A point I would like
to make regarding this is that I think this style of game would put some people,
playing it as their first game, off IF. (not that this necessarily means that
it's bad.) Maybe if you are going to make a game of this style it should be
explicitly stated so at the start of the game (or something equivalent).
This is the only style of IF game, that I can see, in which a score is needed.
(Though you might be able to do one of this type without a score)
>This is not to say that I think scoreless games are bad, just that
>authors should think about the effect of failing to provide any
>motivation that the player can understand.
Actually, I think the opposite, I think scoreless games are good, and scores in
games can be adverse (see later on). If a score is NEEDED in a game, then the
game is flawed in concept and design. What's this about 'the effect of failing
to provide any motivation that the player can understand'? You have given an
argument for the why this is needed in 'hidden motivation' games, but where is
the argument for why if is needed in 'normal' games? (needed especially to back
up your 'fad' claim.)
Anyway, if you DO need a score in an 'ordinary' game, then the author
could've/should've written and designed the game better. Blame the
implementation, not the lack of a score.
> For example, I'm playing "So
>Far" at the moment, and I find that despite the quality of the writing
>and implementation I have to force myself to sit down and play, because I
>don't have any idea of what I'm supposed to do.
If you have to force yourself to play it then it's not good as a game. It
doesn’t matter if some aspects of a game, such as quality of writing and
implementation, are excellent, if it's poor in just one vital area, then the
game as a whole will be poor. The whole is more important than the sum of the
parts. Blame the game design and implementation, not the lack of a score.
(I don't want to be too critical of "So Far", because I haven't really played it
much. But the whole IS more important in games.)
----------------------------
To summarise my views on the subject of scoring:
I don't like numerical scores in games, I think there are superior alternatives.
Furthermore, I think that in some situations using scores can be bad, and the
trend towards more non-scoring games is good for IF.
Firstly, why are scores used? Mainly, I'd say, to give the player a sense of
achievement and progress. By some people to give an indication of how far they
are into a game. And probably because Infocom did and everyone else does.
- Giving points to give a sense of achievement and progress.
I believe there are more sophisticated techniques to show progress and
achievement. To me a numerical score seems an awfully clunky way to do this.
Surely a well written and designed game will reward the player by well written
text upon achieving something, and (possibly) opening up new paths and areas.
It almost seems juvenile to give the player these little 'tokens,' with no real
meaning, to show them that they've done well.
- Using a score as a reference as to how far you are into the game.
I personally prefer not to know how far in a game I am. This is because I it
would kind of spoil the game and it doesn't feel right to know how far I am into
a game. As I mentioned in another post, I see the ability to 'hide' how far the
player is into the game as one of the inherent advantages IF, being on a
electronic medium, has over books, being on a physical medium. If you were in
favour of being able to judge your 'distance' into a game, I feel that a textual
representation would be superior to a numerical one.
- An alternative to numbers
If you do want a scoring system, it seems more meaningful, as others have
suggested (Zachery "Tigger" Bir started the thread), to use text to display your
achievements. For example, instead of the game saying "You have achieved a
score of 69 out of 100 which gives you the rank of ....", it could say "You've
managed to find your lost luggage, gotten the document and gotten a train to
Brisbane." Not only is this more meaningful and shows your
achievements/progress much better, but it is less subjective too. A numerical
score is subjective, one person will view one thing as being a greater
achievement than another - yet you will get a definite amount of points, which
might be greater than that for doing another task, which another person might
see as a greater achievement. With text you can interpret what you have done,
applying your own level of achievement.
- Scores can even have negative effects on games.
As mentioned in the previous point, scores can be too subjective an assessment
of your progress. This is especially evident in games that try to represent a
more realistic view of their created environment. This includes ones with
multiple paths, more complex stories, realistic environments where there's no
true right or wrong. In such a game, where the player will have many paths to
take and within which his/her actions could effect future events, a numerical
score is a very subjective and incorrect way of measuring progress. There may
be no true right of wrong in the actions you have to take, but a score will
suggest this, and therefore the author could be being very judgemental. (Though
there could be valid reasons for this). Points are too definite, in real life
you don't fully know how important something is until later, and it could've
been important in a different/other ways that you could never know about. What
is progress anyway? The only thing for certain is that it's in the eye of the
beholder. Scores also tend to make some people more interested in the points
they receive than in the story. (Though this probably more of a symptom of
games using a score to give a sense of ahcievement - which I'll get into later
on)
Life doesn't have a score, why should a piece of IF? Scoring's: too artificial,
this abstract number with no real meaning, too subjective, an inappropriate
means of measuring progress, too precise, and when games work perfectly well
with out one - not needed.
I was "reared" on 'adventure' games that didn't have scores and I've never
really liked scores or their concept. I also think that they are somewhat
representative of the general attitude which exists in, and is somewhat 'holding
back', Interactive Fiction.
My first real introduction to adventure games was "The Secret of Monkey Island"
by LucasArts (then LucasFilm Games). Previously I had played (a bit) Sierra
games, which, like Infocom ones, had scoring systems. Monkey Island didn't. If
you want to play a game without a scoring system which demonstrates that one
isn't needed, I thoroughly recommend Monkey Island (It's still my favourite
game). This leads me onto another point, the majority of games today (in the
general sense of all computer games) don't have scoring systems.
This is mainly because games have become more sophisticated, and as a result
don't need scores. In the 'early days', simple and repetitive games such as
Space Invaders and Pac Man needed scores to gauge achievement. Today, with more
sophisticated games, you can judge your progress by how much of the story you've
unfolded, or how far you've gotten into the game world. For this reason, people
(in the general gaming public), aren't as interested in scoring any more - it
has sort of 'gone out of style'.
In most IF games (that I've played) when you achieve something non minor
(greater than, say, picking up a rock) you aren't given a real sense of
achievement, just an increase in score. Scores are easier ways to implement a
sense of achievement than through the text or other means - and I'd bet that
this is the reason for their original inclusion in games. (think about in games
such as Pac Man, the designers couldn't show some FMV when you did 'good'.
Scores seem logical for their situation.)
It's not easy to put in the effort to write well, and it wouldn't be expected in
all games in a field dominated by enthusiasts/hobbyists. (Some of this has to
do also with the way people write games) It also not to say that it is bad to
do so. But, this seems to be the reason scores were and are still 'needed' in
some games. They're easier to do than write some text to reward the player, and
alot easier than designing the game so that you are rewarded by new
areas/objects/things happening.
As I said, I think that scores are somewhat representative of the general
attitude which exists in, and is somewhat 'holding back,' Interactive Fiction.
If less people would take, what is in most cases, a 'shortcut', we would see
more higher quality games. If Interactive Fiction is going to become anything
more than a tiny group of enthusiasts this is a necessary evolutionary step. If
more games were created/designed with a different attitude, it would help work
towards a wider acceptance of IF.
Infocom used scores in their games, and I think that a lot of people would like
to go back to the 'old days', and make games exactly the same as Infocom's.
This attitude does seem to be changing. If Infocom had stayed around, it would
probably have evolved (after all their IF system was not anywhere near
perfect). I'm sure the only reason that alot of people have scores in their
games (apart from/as well as, the previous point) is because Infocom did, and
everyone else does. (The fact that the two dominant IF languages are geared
towards Infocom style IF doesn't help either - more on this soon) Interactive
Fiction deserves a larger audience than it currently has, and has the capability
to attract one and live on.
---------------
James Cole
jrc...@ozemail.com.au
Jason B Dyer
James Cole (jrc...@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
: This is the only style of IF game, that I can see, in which a score is
: needed.
: (Though you might be able to do one of this type without a score)
Try Zork 3. (An underrated game, in my opinion.) The score
is very definitely not meaningless.
: Firstly, why are scores used? Mainly, I'd say, to give the player a sense of
: achievement and progress. By some people to give an indication of how far they
: are into a game. And probably because Infocom did and everyone else does.
Actually, it's because they were used in Adventure.
: It almost seems juvenile to give the player these little 'tokens,' with
: no real
: meaning, to show them that they've done well.
No meaning? What about the scoring to Christminster, which basically
gave you one point per task; since there is a fixed number of
tasks, it is far from arbitrary. It also lists the tasks when a
full score is requested, as text.
: This is mainly because games have become more sophisticated, and as a result
: don't need scores. In the 'early days', simple and repetitive games such as
: Space Invaders and Pac Man needed scores to gauge achievement. Today, with more
: sophisticated games, you can judge your progress by how much of the story you've
: unfolded, or how far you've gotten into the game world. For this reason, people
: (in the general gaming public), aren't as interested in scoring any more - it
: has sort of 'gone out of style'.
Pac Man and Space Invaders are far better games than most of the stuff
put out these days. Not like things have changed, though; there
were lousy games out then, there are lousy games out now.
Street Fighter II has been the last truly original coin-op I have
seen in a long time. I'm sure there are some others out there, I
just haven't been to arcades all that much lately.
: this is the reason for their original inclusion in games. (think about in games
: such as Pac Man, the designers couldn't show some FMV when you did 'good'.
: Scores seem logical for their situation.)
FMV (I assume you mean Full Motion Video) has almost destroyed the
gaming industry. The mentality is that if you show the player some sort
of video at points along they way they will be happy.
Jason Dyer
jd...@u.arizona.edu
Katy Mulvey
In article <5a6rrn$j...@news.ccit.arizona.edu>, Jason B Dyer wrote:
>James Cole (jrc...@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
>: This is the only style of IF game, that I can see, in which a score is
>: needed.
>: (Though you might be able to do one of this type without a score)
>
>is very definitely not meaningless.
Yes, but...
<spoilers maybe... and I've found I don't know how to insert a
ctrl-L with jove... grrr>
IIRC, points were given when you *began* a significant puzzle,
not when you completed it correctly. So it's possible to get to
the end game with seven out of seven points, and still not be
able to "win" the game.
It wasn't necessarily clear that you'd gotten the game into an
unwinnable state, either. Take the royal puzzle, for example.
There are (at least) two ways to get out. One involves a hole in
the ceiling, and the other involves paying to get out with
an item from your inventory. You get a point either way, but
only one of the ways gets you closer to solving the game.
In retrospect, this may be why I was never able to complete the
endgame, although I got plenty of hints on BBS's when I was
playing it for the first time (on an Atari 800, if anyone cares).
I remember feeling *very* satisfied when I solved the royal
puzzle, though.
Zork III is the sort of game which people would probably
complain about it being "unfair" if it were released today.
Katy
--
Katy Mulvey
Home: mul...@frontiernet.net http://www.frontiernet.net/~mulveyr/Katy
Work: k...@ormec.com http://www.ormec.com
Jason B Dyer
Katy Mulvey (ka...@katy.aa2ys.ampr.org) wrote:
: >Try Zork 3. (An underrated game, in my opinion.) The score
: >is very definitely not meaningless.
: Yes, but...
: <spoilers maybe... and I've found I don't know how to insert a
: ctrl-L with jove... grrr>
: Zork III is the sort of game which people would probably
: complain about it being "unfair" if it were released today.
You probably didn't like "A Change in the Weather" either, eh? :)
Zork III is difficult. It runs along more than the simple
point-point-point-point-you win! path. I didn't say everyone
would like the point system, just the person I was responding
to.
Jason Dyer
jd...@u.arizona.edu
Matthew Daly
In article <5a6rrn$j...@news.ccit.arizona.edu> jd...@nevis.u.arizona.edu (Jason B Dyer) writes:
>James Cole (jrc...@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
>: This is the only style of IF game, that I can see, in which a score is
>: needed.
>: (Though you might be able to do one of this type without a score)
>
>is very definitely not meaningless.
Yes, but.
The scoring in Zork 3 is anti-intuitive to a level that was personally
frustrating to me. To borrow a cryptic crossword term, I think that
the surface of a game is disturbed when you ask yourself "Why did I get
a point for walking into this corridor?" (I think the I-F term is
mimesis, but I'd rather not misuse the word.) Even after solving
the game, I didn't know what the scoring meant until I read about it
in a hint book. Bad sign.
Two things would have saved it, IMO. First, if you get a point for
seeming inconsequencial acts, then you should have lost points for
inconsequential acts that brought you further from the solution.
(You probably know the sort I mean, and I don't really feel like
spoiling it.) The other, more obvious solution, is not to have
scoring in the game at all.
>: (think about in games
>: such as Pac Man, the designers couldn't show some FMV when you did 'good'.
>: Scores seem logical for their situation.)
Wha? Seems to me that Pac Man was the genesis of mid-level movies to
reward players for passing level X.
-Matthew
--
Matthew Daly I don't buy everything I read ... I haven't
da...@ppd.kodak.com even read everything I've bought.
My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer, of course.
Erik Max Francis
Matthew Daly wrote:
> The scoring in Zork 3 is anti-intuitive to a level that was personally
> frustrating to me. To borrow a cryptic crossword term, I think that
> the surface of a game is disturbed when you ask yourself "Why did I get
> a point for walking into this corridor?" (I think the I-F term is
> mimesis, but I'd rather not misuse the word.) Even after solving
> the game, I didn't know what the scoring meant until I read about it
> in a hint book. Bad sign.
I don't think I ever understood the scoring system in Zork III. What was
it?
--
Erik Max Francis | m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, California | 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
&tSftDotIotE | R^4: the 4th R is respect
"You must surely know if man made heaven | Then man made hell"
James Cole
jd...@nevis.u.arizona.edu (Jason B Dyer) wrote:
>James Cole (jrc...@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
>: This is the only style of IF game, that I can see, in which a score is
>: needed.
>: (Though you might be able to do one of this type without a score)
>Try Zork 3. (An underrated game, in my opinion.) The score
>is very definitely not meaningless.
I haven't played this game. Not meaningless in what way? From what other
people have said in reply to your post, the scoring system and how it 'worked'
with the game was somewhat flawed. This was the whole point of my argument - if
a score is NEEDED in a game then the game is flawed.
>: Firstly, why are scores used? Mainly, I'd say, to give the player a sense of
>: achievement and progress. By some people to give an indication of how far they
>: are into a game. And probably because Infocom did and everyone else does.
>Actually, it's because they were used in Adventure.
No, I think you're wrong. Adventure might have started it, but most people were
exposed to IF, inspiring them to write IF, through Infocom.
>: It almost seems juvenile to give the player these little 'tokens,' with
>: no real
>: meaning, to show them that they've done well.
>No meaning? What about the scoring to Christminster, which basically
>gave you one point per task; since there is a fixed number of
>tasks, it is far from arbitrary. It also lists the tasks when a
>full score is requested, as text.
I haven't played this game either. From you're description of the scoring
system I can hardly see how it can be described as meaningful.
.
>: This is mainly because games have become more sophisticated, and as a result
>: don't need scores. In the 'early days', simple and repetitive games such as
>: Space Invaders and Pac Man needed scores to gauge achievement. Today, with more
>: sophisticated games, you can judge your progress by how much of the story you've
>: unfolded, or how far you've gotten into the game world. For this reason, people
>: (in the general gaming public), aren't as interested in scoring any more - it
>: has sort of 'gone out of style'.
>Pac Man and Space Invaders are far better games than most of the stuff
>put out these days. Not like things have changed, though; there
>were lousy games out then, there are lousy games out now.
What does this have to do with what I said?
>Street Fighter II has been the last truly original coin-op I have
>seen in a long time. I'm sure there are some others out there, I
>just haven't been to arcades all that much lately.
" "
>: this is the reason for their original inclusion in games. (think about in games
>: such as Pac Man, the designers couldn't show some FMV when you did 'good'.
>: Scores seem logical for their situation.)
>FMV (I assume you mean Full Motion Video) has almost destroyed the
>gaming industry.
No it hasn't. It's the people's mentaility in using it that's caused the
problems.
> The mentality is that if you show the player some sort
>of video at points along they way they will be happy.
Again, what has this got to do with what I wrote?
>Jason Dyer
>jd...@u.arizona.edu
---------------
James Cole
jrc...@ozemail.com.au
James Cole
jd...@mustique.u.arizona.edu (Jason B Dyer) wrote:
>Katy Mulvey (ka...@katy.aa2ys.ampr.org) wrote:
[stuff cut]
>: Zork III is the sort of game which people would probably
>: complain about it being "unfair" if it were released today.
>You probably didn't like "A Change in the Weather" either, eh? :)
>Zork III is difficult. It runs along more than the simple
>point-point-point-point-you win! path. I didn't say everyone
>would like the point system, just the person I was responding
>to.
Huh?
James Cole
da...@PPD.Kodak.COM (Matthew Daly) wrote:
>In article <5a6rrn$j...@news.ccit.arizona.edu> jd...@nevis.u.arizona.edu (Jason B Dyer) writes:
>>James Cole (jrc...@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
[stuff cut]
>>: (think about in games
>>: such as Pac Man, the designers couldn't show some FMV when you did 'good'.
>>: Scores seem logical for their situation.)
>Wha? Seems to me that Pac Man was the genesis of mid-level movies to
>reward players for passing level X.
Maybe that was a bad example. All that point was supposed to show was that in
early games scores were needed to give a sense of acheivement because they did
not have the tools/technology available to do more "sophisticated" things. The
reason I chose FMV instead of something more IF-ish like character/plot
development, etc., was that they don't fit into that style of game.
>-Matthew
>--
>Matthew Daly I don't buy everything I read ... I haven't
>da...@ppd.kodak.com even read everything I've bought.
>My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer, of course.
---------------
James Cole
jrc...@ozemail.com.au
Bill Hoggett
On 02-Jan-96 James Cole <jrc...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>jd...@nevis.u.arizona.edu (Jason B Dyer) wrote:
>>Actually, it's because they were used in Adventure.
>No, I think you're wrong. Adventure might have started it, but most people
>were exposed to IF, inspiring them to write IF, through Infocom.
That depends entirely on location. Whilst you may be right as far as the
US and Aussie-land are concerned, this is only partially true in Europe,
especially the UK, which was a cassette based market in those days. Here,
it's much more likely that people were inspired by the likes of Level 9,
Scott Adams or Melbourne House. Those who could afford the hardware to
run Infocom games were very much in the minority, not to mention the
cost of the games themselves. I think *Sorceror* was 45 UKP when it was
first released!!! Anyway, the truth is that many people here weren't
really exposed to Infocom until the advent of 16-bit computers like the
Atari ST and Amiga in the late eighties, by which time the major part of
the IF "boom" in the UK was over.
>>FMV (I assume you mean Full Motion Video) has almost destroyed the
>>gaming industry.
>No it hasn't. It's the people's mentaility in using it that's caused the
>problems.
I'm not sure I agree with you. The fact is that FMV can only be implemented
by the commercial software houses due to the costs involved. As such,
they will only spend the *minimum* amount of time required to produce
a sellable product. Veteran games programmers readily admit that they
don't spend anywhere near as much time tweaking gameplay as they did in
the old 8-bit days when graphics and music were simply not goos enough
to sell games on their own.
-------
Bill Hoggett (aka BeeJay) <mas.su...@easynet.co.uk>
IF GOD IS LIFE'S SERVICE PROVIDER WHY HAVEN'T I GOT HIS I.P. NUMBER ?
James Cole
>mas.su...@easynet.co.uk (Bill Hoggett) wrote:
>On 02-Jan-96 James Cole <jrc...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>>jd...@nevis.u.arizona.edu (Jason B Dyer) wrote:
>>>Actually, it's because they were used in Adventure.
>>No, I think you're wrong. Adventure might have started it, but most people
>>were exposed to IF, inspiring them to write IF, through Infocom.
>That depends entirely on location. Whilst you may be right as far as the
>US and Aussie-land are concerned, this is only partially true in Europe,
>especially the UK, which was a cassette based market in those days. Here,
>it's much more likely that people were inspired by the likes of Level 9,
>Scott Adams or Melbourne House. Those who could afford the hardware to
>run Infocom games were very much in the minority, not to mention the
>cost of the games themselves. I think *Sorceror* was 45 UKP when it was
>first released!!! Anyway, the truth is that many people here weren't
>really exposed to Infocom until the advent of 16-bit computers like the
>Atari ST and Amiga in the late eighties, by which time the major part of
>the IF "boom" in the UK was over.
True, but I wasn't really talking about any specific location, just in general.
>>>FMV (I assume you mean Full Motion Video) has almost destroyed the
>>>gaming industry.
>>No it hasn't. It's the people's mentaility in using it that's caused the
>>problems.
>I'm not sure I agree with you. The fact is that FMV can only be implemented
>by the commercial software houses due to the costs involved.
Maybe. But anyway, what has 'who can implement FMV' got to do with what I
wrote?
> .As such,
>they will only spend the *minimum* amount of time required to produce
>a sellable product. Veteran games programmers readily admit that they
>don't spend anywhere near as much time tweaking gameplay as they did in
>the old 8-bit days when graphics and music were simply not goos enough
>to sell games on their own.
This is pretty much the same sentiment which I was trying to get across.
>-------
>Bill Hoggett (aka BeeJay) <mas.su...@easynet.co.uk>
>IF GOD IS LIFE'S SERVICE PROVIDER WHY HAVEN'T I GOT HIS I.P. NUMBER ?
---------------
James Cole
jrc...@ozemail.com.au
Graham Nelson
In article <5aoa94$9...@reader1.reader.news.ozemail.net>, James Cole
<URL:mailto:jrc...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> >>No, I think you're wrong. Adventure might have started it, but most people
> >>were exposed to IF, inspiring them to write IF, through Infocom.
>
> >That depends entirely on location. Whilst you may be right as far as the
> >US and Aussie-land are concerned, this is only partially true in Europe,
> >especially the UK, which was a cassette based market in those days. Here,
> >it's much more likely that people were inspired by the likes of Level 9,
> >Scott Adams or Melbourne House. Those who could afford the hardware to
> >run Infocom games were very much in the minority, not to mention the
> >cost of the games themselves. I think *Sorceror* was 45 UKP when it was
> >first released!!! Anyway, the truth is that many people here weren't
> >really exposed to Infocom until the advent of 16-bit computers like the
> >Atari ST and Amiga in the late eighties, by which time the major part of
> >the IF "boom" in the UK was over.
Indeed, Infocom games were practically collector's items. I bought
a few of the current games (such as Spellbreaker just after it was
published) in relabelled CP/M versions for the Amstrad CPC-464.
I actually had to go to Harrod's, in London. (And sometimes the
dubious narrow electronics emporia in Goodge Street.)
Level 9 were far, far more widely circulated. Oddly enough, the
Scott Adams games came along later, after they'd been translated
to machines like the BBC Micro.
--
Graham Nelson | gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk | Oxford, United Kingdom