Groundhog Day as Interactive Fiction
Daryl McCullough
If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the movie
"Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray and Andy McDowell. Catch
it on video. I know it would be easy to lump this comedy in with
the usual lame-brained efforts of Saturday Night Live alumni
("Vacation", "Meatballs", "Stripes", "Caddyshack", etc.) but this
would be a big mistake. In spite of its silliness, and Bill Murray's
general unlikeableness, Groundhog Day is, I think, a thoughtful
exploration of what it means to live a good life (or a good day).
Why is this movie recommendation on rec.arts.int-fiction? Well, it
occurred to me the other day that Groundhog Day is very much like
some works of interactive fiction. Think about it (or don't): The
hero never really dies, the worst that ever happens to him is that
he has to start all over at the beginning. (Groundhog Day had no
"save game" feature.) The advantage that this invulnerability gave
Bill Murray is the same advantage that any interactive fiction
player has: you can just keep trying things, until you get it right.
But there is one element that Groundhog Day had that is missing from
most (if not all) interactive fiction: the motive of the "player"
evolves as he "plays the game". Initially, in finding out that he
was living the same day over and over again, Bill Murray was motivated
by the usual things: money, sex, and having a good time. However,
after a while, getting these things began to pale, and he had "higher"
motives: to bed, not just any beautiful woman, but Andie MacDowell,
someone he was in love with. Much later (having failed innumerable times
at this goal) he eventually discovered how to have a perfect day. One
review I read of this movie said that Bill Murray's character is led
to becoming a good person, not out of guilt, but out of boredom: it's
actually more *fun*, in the long run.
This is getting to be long-winded, but my challenge, for some ambitious
game-writer, is to write a game in which the motivations of the players
can change as they play. Perhaps it could start out as an old-fashioned
treasure hunt a la Zork, but as the player progresses towards what he
initially thinks is victory, he finds that maybe doing something completely
different might be more satisfying. I don't know, maybe it would be enough
to discover Zarf's bridge from "A Change in the Weather" while searching
for the magic sword.
Just my rambling thoughts,
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
Andrew Plotkin
Daryl McCullough (da...@cogentex.com) wrote:
> If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the movie
> "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray and Andy McDowell. Catch
> it on video. I know it would be easy to lump this comedy in with
> the usual lame-brained efforts of Saturday Night Live alumni
> ("Vacation", "Meatballs", "Stripes", "Caddyshack", etc.) but this
> would be a big mistake. In spite of its silliness, and Bill Murray's
> general unlikeableness, Groundhog Day is, I think, a thoughtful
> exploration of what it means to live a good life (or a good day).
I also recommend the movie. (It was nominated for a Hugo (SF) award,
interestingly. Lost out to whatever megabudget effects special came out
that year. Jurassic Park, I think.)
> But there is one element that Groundhog Day had that is missing from
> most (if not all) interactive fiction: the motive of the "player"
> evolves as he "plays the game".
Hey, that's actually a pretty old trope. Many games start with a
motivation of "explore a neat place" and then develop a serious plot.
_Trinity_, for example. In _AMFV_ you start out doing a job, and then
discover an important angle that you have to figure out yourself. In
_Wishbringer_ you start out wanting to deliver a letter... you see what I
mean.
(I guess you could distinguish between changing *goals* and changing
*motivation*, but is there really a difference?)
> I don't know, maybe it would be enough
> to discover Zarf's bridge from "A Change in the Weather" while searching
> for the magic sword.
Well, I did try to establish an opening motivation in "Weather" which
radically changes as the game goes on. That's sort of the point.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Daryl McCullough
Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> > But there is one element that Groundhog Day had that is missing from
> > most (if not all) interactive fiction: the motive of the "player"
> > evolves as he "plays the game".
>
> Hey, that's actually a pretty old trope. Many games start with a
> motivation of "explore a neat place" and then develop a serious plot.
> _Trinity_, for example. In _AMFV_ you start out doing a job, and then
> discover an important angle that you have to figure out yourself. In
> _Wishbringer_ you start out wanting to deliver a letter... you see what I
> mean.
>
> (I guess you could distinguish between changing *goals* and changing
> *motivation*, but is there really a difference?)
Well, I would like to make a subtle distinction. In the examples you
give,
the original goal is filler until the player discovers his *true* goal.
What I would like, (but maybe this is slightly harder to pull off) is a
game in which there is a surface-level goal---and the player can, if he
wishes, win the game by pursuing this goal---but there are also subtler
goals that the player can discover for themselves, and choose to pursue
or not. Maybe, even if you *can* win the game, that isn't what you
really
want to do. In real life, not everyone becomes a billionaire, and
(in the words of Stewart Smalley) that's OK.
Mary K. Kuhner
>Well, I would like to make a subtle distinction. In the examples you
>give,
>the original goal is filler until the player discovers his *true* goal.
>What I would like, (but maybe this is slightly harder to pull off) is a
>game in which there is a surface-level goal---and the player can, if he
>wishes, win the game by pursuing this goal---but there are also subtler
>goals that the player can discover for themselves, and choose to pursue
>or not. Maybe, even if you *can* win the game, that isn't what you
>really want to do.
I thought _Jigsaw_ was fairly successful at this--and illustrated, in
the process, one of the hazards. I found myself impatient with the
episode right before the epilogue, because I'd figured out what my
real goals were, but the game stubbornly wanted me to save the world
first.
If you don't want to hit the player over the head with "This is your
goal", you're going to have to write a very flexible game with a lot
of options and endings. If you want the player/character to really
experience the kind of thing that happens in _Groundhog Day_ you need
not to put the player in the position of "Do it this way or you can't
progress". (This is a common failing of RPG scenarios that try to
deal with personal growth.)
I've never tried this in IF, but in RPGs dealing with such issues I've
found it fundamentally important not to cut the game off when it goes
down a "wrong" path. Whether the message is positive or not, having
the game end early tells the player "That wasn't what you were supposed
to do." (How many people found the instant-win solutions to "A Change
in the Weather" or "I-0" satisfactory?) The player needs to have time
to explore the consequences of her choices, or they aren't meaningful
ones. This makes for a nasty decision tree. In RPGs I cope by only
planning one session ahead, and by using various tricks to keep the
decision space managable--in particular, setting the game in a carefully
restricted locale can help. If you know *all* the people the PC can
meet, you can't be surprised by who he decides to shack up with.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Kenneth Albanowski
>Daryl McCullough (da...@cogentex.com) wrote:
>> If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the movie
>> "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray and Andy McDowell. Catch
>> it on video. I know it would be easy to lump this comedy in with
>> the usual lame-brained efforts of Saturday Night Live alumni
>> ("Vacation", "Meatballs", "Stripes", "Caddyshack", etc.) but this
>> would be a big mistake. In spite of its silliness, and Bill Murray's
>> general unlikeableness, Groundhog Day is, I think, a thoughtful
>> exploration of what it means to live a good life (or a good day).
Actually, this gives me a chance to bring up an idea I've had floating
around for some time: what would results be if the game (or the characters
in the story, rather) were actually aware of the results of the ability to
save and restore the game?
I don't mean something like Sierra's "Codename: Iceman" (I think that was
the title) where saving and restoring inside a tedious poker game was
noticed by the card player. I'm thinking more alongs the lines of simply
noticing that _nothing really bad_ ever happens to the character.
By saving and restoring (or undoing) you can effectively shift probability
in your favour (except of course for well-designed Balancing-type puzzles.
:-) Shouldn't the NPC's eventually notice that there is something odd about
the PC, and that no matter what their evil plans are, the PC somehow manages
to escape.
I've no idea what to do with this idea, though. It seems to perhaps be more
relevant to an atmospheric game (like Christminster), but even then I'm not
sure what it would be worth.
--
Kenneth Albanowski (kja...@kjahds.com)
Daryl McCullough
mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary Kuhner) says...
>I thought _Jigsaw_ was fairly successful at this--and illustrated, in
>the process, one of the hazards. I found myself impatient with the
>episode right before the epilogue, because I'd figured out what my
>real goals were, but the game stubbornly wanted me to save the world
>first.
I haven't played that game (I'm embarrassed to admit), but maybe it's
because you came up with a notion of "winning" that the author didn't
anticipate?
>If you don't want to hit the player over the head with "This is your
>goal", you're going to have to write a very flexible game with a lot
>of options and endings. If you want the player/character to really
>experience the kind of thing that happens in _Groundhog Day_ you need
>not to put the player in the position of "Do it this way or you can't
>progress". (This is a common failing of RPG scenarios that try to
>deal with personal growth.)
Yes. I think for it not to seem like something was forced down the
player's throat, the author would have to design a game that "feels"
complete and satisfying even if the player doesn't take the high road.
>(How many people found the instant-win solutions to "A Change
>in the Weather" or "I-0" satisfactory?)
Umm..."instant-win"? I only found instant-lose solutions to "Weather".
Don't tell me! I guess I'll have to play it again.
Adam J. Thornton
In article <erkyrathE...@netcom.com>,
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Daryl McCullough (da...@cogentex.com) wrote:
>> But there is one element that Groundhog Day had that is missing from
>> most (if not all) interactive fiction: the motive of the "player"
>> evolves as he "plays the game".
>*motivation*, but is there really a difference?)
>> to discover Zarf's bridge from "A Change in the Weather" while searching
>> for the magic sword.
>Well, I did try to establish an opening motivation in "Weather" which
>radically changes as the game goes on. That's sort of the point.
Take a look at _The Legend Lives!_ The character of the character changes
radically throughout the game. And that *is* the point. Goals and
motivations of course change too, but because they are ancillary to the
character's change.
Adam
--
"I'd buy me a used car lot, and | ad...@princeton.edu | As B/4 | Save the choad!
I'd never sell any of 'em, just | "Skippy, you little fool, you are off on an-
drive me a different car every day | other of your senseless and retrograde
depending on how I feel.":Tom Waits| little journeys.": Thomas Pynchon | 64,928
FReDRiK RaMSBeRG (WILdcARD)
erky...@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:
>Daryl McCullough (da...@cogentex.com) wrote:
>> If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the movie
>> "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray and Andy McDowell.
>I also recommend the movie.
Please add me to your list.
>> But there is one element that Groundhog Day had that is missing from
>> most (if not all) interactive fiction: the motive of the "player"
>> evolves as he "plays the game".
>Hey, that's actually a pretty old trope. Many games start with a
>motivation of "explore a neat place" and then develop a serious plot.
>_Trinity_, for example. In _AMFV_ you start out doing a job, and then
>discover an important angle that you have to figure out yourself. In
>_Wishbringer_ you start out wanting to deliver a letter... you see what I
>mean.
>(I guess you could distinguish between changing *goals* and changing
>*motivation*, but is there really a difference?)
I think the main difference is in that the poor guy in GD had essentially
both all problems _and_ everything needed to solve them on hand right from
the start. He just didn't understand what the problem was. To me, that's
pretty far away from going out to buy milk and ending up slaying a dragon.
Another interesting thing about the movie is that he, similar to IF, has a
restart feature. That definitely affects his method of problem solving...
/Fredrik
-
--
Fredrik Ramsberg, Spect...@earthling.net
http://www-und.ida.liu.se/~d91frera
Macintosh - 0.4% Actual Users!
Carl Muckenhoupt
Daryl McCullough wrote:
>
> mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary Kuhner) says...
>
> >(How many people found the instant-win solutions to "A Change
> >in the Weather" or "I-0" satisfactory?)
>
> Umm..."instant-win"? I only found instant-lose solutions to "Weather".
> Don't tell me! I guess I'll have to play it again.
>
> Daryl McCullough
> CoGenTex, Inc.
> Ithaca, NY
FWIW, both Monkey Island games have a similar instant-win option. I
think it's ctrl-W. It's listed in the command summary card for MI1, but
in MI2 I believe it's completely undocumented.
--
Carl Muckenhoupt ca...@earthweb.com
EarthWeb http://www.earthweb.com/
Matthew Crosby
In article <5jmkim$7...@kjahds.com>,
Kenneth Albanowski <kja...@kjahds.com> wrote:
>>Daryl McCullough
>Actually, this gives me a chance to bring up an idea I've had floating
>around for some time: what would results be if the game (or the characters
>in the story, rather) were actually aware of the results of the ability to
>save and restore the game?
>
>I don't mean something like Sierra's "Codename: Iceman" (I think that was
>the title) where saving and restoring inside a tedious poker game was
>noticed by the card player. I'm thinking more alongs the lines of simply
>noticing that _nothing really bad_ ever happens to the character.
>
>By saving and restoring (or undoing) you can effectively shift probability
>in your favour (except of course for well-designed Balancing-type puzzles.
>:-) Shouldn't the NPC's eventually notice that there is something odd about
>the PC, and that no matter what their evil plans are, the PC somehow manages
>to escape.
>
>I've no idea what to do with this idea, though. It seems to perhaps be more
>relevant to an atmospheric game (like Christminster), but even then I'm not
>sure what it would be worth.
Floyd used to comment when you saved, as well as when you quit. But
that was tounge in cheek and nothing ever came out of it.
("Giving up, huh?" for quitting and "Oh Boy! Are we going to do something
dangerour now?" for saving)
--
Matthew Crosby cro...@cs.colorado.edu
Disclaimer: It was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.
Jake Roberts
Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> I also recommend the movie. (It was nominated for a Hugo (SF) award,
> interestingly. Lost out to whatever megabudget effects special came out
> that year. Jurassic Park, I think.)
Wow, that's interesting. Now that I think of it, the movie was a far
better example of speculative sci-fi than one normally sees in the
movies. Not just because the concept was clever, but because the movie
wrung the possibilities out of it so thoroughly. There wasn't much I
would think of doing, if I had the same day over and over again, that
Bill Murray didn't try in the film. It was funny, too.
>
> > But there is one element that Groundhog Day had that is missing from
> > most (if not all) interactive fiction: the motive of the "player"
> > evolves as he "plays the game".
>
> Hey, that's actually a pretty old trope. Many games start with a
> motivation of "explore a neat place" and then develop a serious plot.
> _Trinity_, for example. In _AMFV_ you start out doing a job, and then
> discover an important angle that you have to figure out yourself. In
> _Wishbringer_ you start out wanting to deliver a letter... you see what I
> mean.
My impression was that the original poster meant something different
than what you're describing here. Rather than the PC's motivations
changing between the beginning of the game (or story, if you like) and
the end, what if they changed between one complete playing of the game
and the next. So
you could play through from beginning to end, achieving an experience
that was complete in sense (you got all the treasures stuffed in a
glass-topped case), but apon playing through again (which in itself is
an unusual activity, at least for me) you would discover new dimensions
to the game world, people places and things that were only in your
peripheral vision when you were working through the first time, gain new
signifigance, and in the process of investigating them more closely, you
develop new and hopefully more compelling objectives. It's like having
one (or more) games hidden inside another.
I'm quite taken with the idea of explicitly encorporating into the
game's story, or logic, or broad concept, the fact that the player will
be entering and exiting the game world and different points in time,
replaying the same scenarios over and over again.
I see games (notably "A Change In the Weather") criticized because there
is (practically speaking) no way to win without replaying parts of the
game more than once. Why? Well I suppose because when using
meta-commands, one is retracting oneself from the level of the story and
operating at a higher, fundamentally distinct level. Meta commands
should be transparent at the story level, because conceptually there is
only one story, only one timeline, no matter how many times we save and
restore. If saving and restoring is required for the player/character
to finish the game (and thus complete the story) then this abstraction
is violated, and the illusion is ruined.
But why shouldn't an IF game exploit the peculiarities of its medium,
trancend the level distinction between interpreter commands and acts
taken within the story world. A Groundhog Day-like time loop would be a
very direct way of doing this, making explicit and reasonable the need
to die-and-restart in order to win. (The puzzle from Fool's Errand
mentioned in another thread (although I don't remember it myself)
embodies this same kind of trancendance, IMO.)
> (I guess you could distinguish between changing *goals* and changing
> *motivation*, but is there really a difference?)
The difference I'm trying to highlight is whether the change happens
within a plotline, or across multiple plotlines.
- Jake
Erik Max Francis
Matthew Crosby wrote:
> Floyd used to comment when you saved, as well as when you quit. But
> that was tounge in cheek and nothing ever came out of it.
He'd also say something amusing like, "Oh boy, I've never seen my name in
print before!" when you type SCRIPT, and something like, "Be sure to give
me a copy of the output!" when you typed UNSCRIPT.
I enjoyed Planetfall as it was the first Infocom game I solved without any
outside help whatsoever.
--
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE / email / m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems / web / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, California, United States / icbm / 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
\
"The future / is right there."
/ Bill Moyers
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <5jlu6f$b...@lori.zippo.com> da...@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary Kuhner) says...
>>I thought _Jigsaw_ was fairly successful at this--and illustrated, in
>>the process, one of the hazards. I found myself impatient with the
>>episode right before the epilogue, because I'd figured out what my
>>real goals were, but the game stubbornly wanted me to save the world
>>first.
>I haven't played that game (I'm embarrassed to admit), but maybe it's
>because you came up with a notion of "winning" that the author didn't
>anticipate?
Jigsaw seems intrinsically to have several goals, and the one I fixed on
was certainly part of the author's intent, but we disagreed on relative
importance. I latched onto the little personal goal by preference to
the Big Thing, which made my last few encounters with the Big Thing
rather frustrating (in a very in-character way; I had a distinct sense
of the character saying "But what about ....?")
I was pleased, on the whole, with how Jigsaw handled this; I fixed on
my little personal goal well before it was clear to me that the game
really supported it, and I was happy not to find it intractable. There
were just some problems with pacing and emphasis.
A looser plot structure would help. Not really possible for Jigsaw, but
something to remember in general. If the PC has to go through certain
key scenes in a certain order, there's a lot less room for player-
determined goals.
For me, avoiding tightly timed puzzles and highly lethal situations
helps if you want me to think about character motivations. If the game
is not too lethal, I can fool around with various character-driven
goals and even indulge in characterization activities (like a second
"LOOK" at something that really surprised the character, or "PRAY"
when confronted with something scary, or trying to tie up the mouth of
the corpse in Trinity). If I know I'll get clobbered for this, I'll
stop trying.
Room to move about, both physically and logically, provides more scope
for character decisions.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Admiral Jota
>> Floyd used to comment when you saved, as well as when you quit. But
>> that was tounge in cheek and nothing ever came out of it.
>He'd also say something amusing like, "Oh boy, I've never seen my name in
>print before!" when you type SCRIPT, and something like, "Be sure to give
>me a copy of the output!" when you typed UNSCRIPT.
And you can't forget about when you type VERSION: "Last version was
better. More bugs. Bugs make game fun."
--
/<-= Admiral Jota =->\
-< <-= jo...@tiac.net =-> >-
\<-=- -= -=- -= -=->/
Graham Nelson
In article <5joll0$g...@nntp5.u.washington.edu>, Mary K. Kuhner
<URL:mailto:mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> Jigsaw seems intrinsically to have several goals, and the one I fixed on
> was certainly part of the author's intent, but we disagreed on relative
> importance. I latched onto the little personal goal by preference to
> the Big Thing, which made my last few encounters with the Big Thing
> rather frustrating (in a very in-character way; I had a distinct sense
> of the character saying "But what about ....?")
>
> I was pleased, on the whole, with how Jigsaw handled this; I fixed on
> my little personal goal well before it was clear to me that the game
> really supported it, and I was happy not to find it intractable. There
> were just some problems with pacing and emphasis.
Yes, I think this is a just criticism. In mitigation, the fact that
the middle 15 scenes need to be playable in many different orders makes
it very hard to achieve narrative development -- though there is some,
I hope, and somewhere I have a tree diagram of all possible orders
the game can be played in. And a few lines of dialogue float from
scene to scene in the sense that they only occur after a certain time
has elapsed, and so on.
Of course I might remark that it's not obvious that Black is entering
the time zones in the same order that White is, and if that doesn't
complicate personal relations I'm not sure what does...
--
Graham Nelson | gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk | Oxford, United Kingdom
Paul O'Brian
On Thu, 24 Apr 1997, Jake Roberts wrote:
> So you could play through from beginning to end, achieving an experience
> that was complete in sense (you got all the treasures stuffed in a
> glass-topped case), but apon playing through again (which in itself is
> an unusual activity, at least for me) you would discover new dimensions
> to the game world, people places and things that were only in your
> peripheral vision when you were working through the first time, gain new
> signifigance, and in the process of investigating them more closely, you
> develop new and hopefully more compelling objectives.
One big difference is that the Bill Murray character in "Groundhog Day"
was *forced* to "Restart". To extend the IF analogy, it would be as if
after a predetermined number of moves, the game automatically restarted
whether the player said so or not. In fact, I think the movie makes pretty
clear that the character would not have discovered these deeper dimensions
in life if he had not been forced to live through the same day over and
over, and by the end his real goal is to escape the time loop so that he
can start his new life.
If an IF game were to adopt this strategy, it would avoid the problems of
all data being lost at every restart. The game could enforce a limited day
length at the end of which the player must sleep (a la Planetfall) and
upon waking would find herself back aboard the Feinstein, or whatever the
starting locale for that game was. This loop would continue until a
certain flag gets tripped (the player_in_love flag, for example) which
would allow the player to wake up in the endgame. Perhaps subtle things
could even change in later iterations. In this scenario, if the player
herself commanded "Restart," it would put her at the top of the first
iteration of the time loop.
Hmm. Sounds interesting, eh? If I didn't already have too many ideas and
too little time for the competition, I might be tempted to give it a try
myself. Maybe not, though. I think it would take some exceptionally
skilled writing to create a world that can gradually reveal such depth in
a limited number of moves. I'd love to see it happen, though.
Paul O'Brian obr...@ucsu.colorado.edu
Remember Zork & Planetfall? Explore the Interactive Fiction Renaissance!
WWW: XYZZYnews at www.xyzzynews.com * FTP: The IF Archive at ftp.gmd.de
USENET: rec.arts|games.int-fiction * CD: Masterpieces of Infocom (US $20)
Samuel DAF Barlow
On Thu, 24 Apr 1997, Jake Roberts wrote:
> Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>
> My impression was that the original poster meant something different
> than what you're describing here. Rather than the PC's motivations
> changing between the beginning of the game (or story, if you like) and
> the end, what if they changed between one complete playing of the game
> and the next. So
> you could play through from beginning to end, achieving an experience
> that was complete in sense (you got all the treasures stuffed in a
> glass-topped case), but apon playing through again (which in itself is
> an unusual activity, at least for me) you would discover new dimensions
> to the game world, people places and things that were only in your
> peripheral vision when you were working through the first time, gain new
> signifigance, and in the process of investigating them more closely, you
> develop new and hopefully more compelling objectives. It's like having
> one (or more) games hidden inside another.
>
I'm always trying this when I replay games - especially infocom's
detective games (which I mentioned about a month ago in a post about
"save/restore" as time-travel-esque devices, which is kind of like some
of the ideas in the "groundhog" posts). The fact that there are
characters in the games who change with time and whose motivation you
only understand when you have won the game means that when re-playing
one often thinks "Right now Mr.X is in the Kitchen disposing of the
murder weapon..although to win the game I have to hide and then fish the
weapon out of the bin, couldn't I suprise him and bribe half of the
inheritance out of him?". This kind of attitude arises out of the game
having characters who have
(a) Motivations
(b) Actions which they carry out
So the "ground-hog changing motivation" concept already exists in
these games, it's just that the programmers haven't allowed for it in
their games. The Zork & Enchanter games (even more complex games like
Trinity) never give rise to these thoughts on the behalf of the player
because they don't have the structure to support them. Even something
like Jigsaw with it's supposedly interesting NPC "black" doesn't do this
because Black is so no-interactive and because she never *does* much -
she just sits around being "to busy for your questions", etc. So, what I
am trying to say, is that we don't need to create a radically new
structure for I-F, in order to do a "groundhog day" - the blueprint is
there with the detective games (or M.Scrolls "Corruption"). We just need
programmers/writers to expand on the plots and program what the player
wants to type.
Sam
Russell Glasser
Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
> Matthew Crosby wrote:
>
> > Floyd used to comment when you saved, as well as when you quit. But
> > that was tounge in cheek and nothing ever came out of it.
>
> He'd also say something amusing like, "Oh boy, I've never seen my name in
> print before!" when you type SCRIPT, and something like, "Be sure to give
> me a copy of the output!" when you typed UNSCRIPT.
Same thing was done by Bob Bates in "Sherlock". If you typed "SAVE"
Holmes would say, "Excellent, Watson. These are dangerous times." And if
you typed "HINT" Sherlock would get mad at you, or later when Wiggins was
with you he would say "Did you learn anything?" I thought that was funny.
--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-- George Bernard Shaw
Russell can be heckled at
http://sdcc8.ucsd.edu/~rglasser
Russell Glasser
You're talking about gaining free knowledge through some elaborate
sequence of actions, then restoring the game, still keeping a mental image
of what's coming later. By doing this you gain advanced knowledge of what
will happen soon, without making your character go through the motions of
acquiring that knowledge.
This approach makes more sense for some genres than for others. For
example, in a game like "So Far" which is almost self-consciously surreal,
or a game like "Tapestry" where the whole POINT is to explore the various
possibilities of how things could have turned out differently, it's entirely
fitting and proper that replaying the game should add more to the
experience.
On the other hand, in the detective games I find it bothersome,
since it seems like these stories should be more similar to real life. That
whole "I know Mr. X is in the kitchen now because I accidentally barged in
on him before I restored, so now I should hide" syndrome sounds awfully
familiar.
[WARNING: Spoilers for Suspect ahead]
I think "Suspect" was one of the worst offenders of this kind of
thinking. I remember very clearly thinking "Gee, I need to talk to Richard
before he comes in contact with other characters and learns about the
murder, but I don't know where he is when the game begins." So I save the
game, wait for him to appear, restore, go to the place where he came from,
and repeat the process until I find his starting room. It's hard to
reasonably invent a situation where a real detective could have this luxury,
and that is one heck of a mood breaker.
Many other times in Suspect, you absolutely have to "happen to" be
in the right place at the right time. Fail to answer the door and notice
the rain when Alicia rings, and you can't win. In order to understand what
Michael is up to, you have to hide behind the car, THEN race him to the
library and hide behind the chair, THEN catch up to him at the fireplace
before his document burns. How would a reasonable person guess all that,
given that he would only have one chance to get it right in real life? He
wouldn't.
I don't mind dying or getting stuck when I make the wrong moves;
it's part of the game. But when all's said and done and the game is over, I
would like to think "It's at least within the realm of possibility that I
could have won the game on the first try without ever restoring, simply by
virtue of good logical thinking and insights which I eventually had. Maybe
I would have survived if I were actually thrust into this situation." Most
of the later, plot-driven Infocom games were "fair" in this sense; you
didn't really have to die in order to find what you were looking for.
"Border Zone", although tricky, just barely passes the test. ("Okay, I know
that patch of blood is suspicious, and I shouldn't be caught with these
physical documents on me, so logically I should...") I even thought "Change
In The Weather" passed this test successfully, in spite of its apparent
unfairness. Games which failed quite miserably in this regard included
Suspect, Trinity (Who would ever have completed the entire New Mexico
sequence successfully without mapping out a route based on previous life
experience?), Suspended (positioning those robots with perfect timing is
nearly impossible), and Starcross (How many times did you lose those colored
disks too early? How many times did you kill yourself in the endgame when
you were using trial and error on the controls?).
I think "A Mind Forever Voyaging" handled this more gracefully than
any other game in history, one of the many reasons why it's probably my
favorite text adventure. You DO learn more and discover additional nuances
by replaying the game. But "replaying the game" actually makes sense given
the context of running a computer simulation. Sort of like Groundhog Day.
(Glasser makes a heroic effort to get back on topic!!! He fails!!!!!)
Steven Howard
In <Pine.GSO.3.96.970425...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>, Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> writes:
>One big difference is that the Bill Murray character in "Groundhog Day"
>was *forced* to "Restart". To extend the IF analogy, it would be as if
>after a predetermined number of moves, the game automatically restarted
>whether the player said so or not. In fact, I think the movie makes pretty
>clear that the character would not have discovered these deeper dimensions
>in life if he had not been forced to live through the same day over and
>over, and by the end his real goal is to escape the time loop so that he
>can start his new life.
>
>If an IF game were to adopt this strategy, it would avoid the problems of
>all data being lost at every restart. The game could enforce a limited day
>length at the end of which the player must sleep (a la Planetfall) and
>upon waking would find herself back aboard the Feinstein, or whatever the
>starting locale for that game was. This loop would continue until a
>certain flag gets tripped (the player_in_love flag, for example) which
>would allow the player to wake up in the endgame. Perhaps subtle things
>could even change in later iterations. In this scenario, if the player
>herself commanded "Restart," it would put her at the top of the first
>iteration of the time loop.
>
"Delusions" does this at one point, after a fashion.
========
Steven Howard
bl...@ibm.net
What's a nice word like "euphemism" doing in a sentence like this?
Joe Mason
"Re: Groundhog Day as Inte", declared Kenneth Albanowski from the Vogon
ship:
KA>By saving and restoring (or undoing) you can effectively shift
KA>probability in your favour (except of course for well-designed
KA>Balancing-type puzzles. :-) Shouldn't the NPC's eventually notice
KA>that there is something odd about the PC, and that no matter what
KA>their evil plans are, the PC somehow manages to escape.
KA>I've no idea what to do with this idea, though. It seems to perhaps
KA>be more relevant to an atmospheric game (like Christminster), but
KA>even then I'm not sure what it would be worth.
Yeah, that's a good idea. But I wouldn't have the NPC's notice the
saving/restoring/undoing directly. Instead, I'd have them keep track of
what happens to the player, and if none of the bad things happen then
they would start to comment on the player's amazing luck and stuff like
that. So if you manage to play through perfectly on the first try, you
get the same reactions as if you'd restored a game everytime something
bad happened to you.
Reactions could range from awe: "He is a wetlander, but he walks through
the sands like a desertborn! Surely, this must be the Kwisatz
Haderach!" to fear: "Stay back! You have the Dark One's own luck! I
won't help you!"
Actually, this could be a good way to make the player choose a branching
path subtly. If he succeeds in all his tasks right away, someone won't
help him later on, which gives some motivation to see the side of the
story that would happen if he failed at a certain task.
Joe
ş CMPQwk 1.42 9550 şMadness takes its toll. Please have exact change
Joe Mason
"Re: Groundhog Day as Inte", declared Russell Glasser from the Vogon
ship:
RG> Same thing was done by Bob Bates in "Sherlock". If you typed "SAVE"
RG>Holmes would say, "Excellent, Watson. These are dangerous times."
RG>And if you typed "HINT" Sherlock would get mad at you, or later when
RG>Wiggins was with you he would say "Did you learn anything?" I
RG>thought that was funny. --
And none of the other characters noticed in, but in Beyond Zork "You
mumble the Spell of Saving." So it would actually be logical if the
characters DID react.
Joe
ş CMPQwk 1.42 9550 şAnd God said: E = «mvı - Zeı/r, and there was light!
Chris Lang
Russell Glasser <rgla...@penning.lanl.gov> wrote:
>
>Erik Max Francis wrote:
>>
>> Matthew Crosby wrote:
>>
>> > Floyd used to comment when you saved, as well as when you quit.
But
>> > that was tounge in cheek and nothing ever came out of it.
>>
>> He'd also say something amusing like, "Oh boy, I've never seen my name
in
>> print before!" when you type SCRIPT, and something like, "Be sure to
give
>> me a copy of the output!" when you typed UNSCRIPT.
>
if
>you typed "HINT" Sherlock would get mad at you, or later when Wiggins
was
>with you he would say "Did you learn anything?" I thought that was
funny.
>--
Ah, examples of 'breaking the fourth wall' in IF. Floyd, of course,
would break the fourth wall with several commands.
Of course, in some ways, Sherlock Holmes and Wiggins 'breaking the
fourth wall' and acknowledging that it is a computer game is even funnier,
as you certainly aren't expecting them to do such a thing.
Incidentally, here are a few things to try in Arthur: The Quest for
Excalibur.
ASK IDIOT ABOUT IDIOT. ASK IDIOT ABOUT KRAKEN. ASK IDIOT ABOUT BATES. ASK
IDIOT ABOUT MERETZKY. ASK IDIOT ABOUT PLANETFALL. ASK IDIOT ABOUT ZORK.
(You can also ask Merlin about Enchanter).
If anyone has any further examples of breaking the fourth wall (i.e.
characters acting as if they KNOW they're in a computer game), feel free
to post them here.
Chris Lang
Admiral Jota
MKS...@prodigy.com (Chris Lang) writes:
> Incidentally, here are a few things to try in Arthur: The Quest for
>Excalibur.
>ASK IDIOT ABOUT IDIOT. ASK IDIOT ABOUT KRAKEN. ASK IDIOT ABOUT BATES. ASK
>IDIOT ABOUT MERETZKY. ASK IDIOT ABOUT PLANETFALL. ASK IDIOT ABOUT ZORK.
>(You can also ask Merlin about Enchanter).
At one point he'll tell you he's not as dumb as he looks, and tell you to
ask him about anything. ASK IDIOT ABOUT ANYTHING.
Matt Ackeret
>> If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend the movie
>> it on video. I know it would be easy to lump this comedy in with
It's hilarious. It's among my favorite movies of all time..
I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
Of course there's "12:01" (the only one really appropriate to this group),
made into a Fox TV movie a few years ago.. and Groundhog Day.
In a previous discussion on this topic, a couple of years ago, I found out
about "Replay" by Ken Grimwood 0-441-71592-3
This one has an Ace Edition date of 1992.. It seems very Groundhog Day-ish
at first, but then changes. I actually remember I didn't like the ending but
it was still cool.
--
mat...@apple.com
John Holder
In a fit of lunacy, Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) escribed:
: I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
: good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
My all time favorite Star Trek:The Next Generation episode is a time
loop episode. It's called "Yesterday's Enterprise"
I'll describe it if you like...
--
John Holder (jho...@frii.com) /\ http://www.frii.com/~jholder/
UNIX Specialist, Paranet Inc. <--> Raytracing|Fractals|Interactive Fiction
http://www.paranet.com/ \/ Homebrewing|Strange Attractors
Matthew T. Russotto
In article <5kkrof$8di$1...@europa.frii.com>,
John Holder <jho...@deimos.frii.com> wrote:
}In a fit of lunacy, Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) escribed:
}: I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
}: good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
}
}My all time favorite Star Trek:The Next Generation episode is a time
}loop episode. It's called "Yesterday's Enterprise"
}
}I'll describe it if you like...
There's Heinlein's "-All You Zombies-". Wouldn't make much of an IF
game, but it's hard to top as a time loop short story.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Stephen Granade
On 5 May 1997, Matthew T. Russotto wrote:
> There's Heinlein's "-All You Zombies-". Wouldn't make much of an IF
> game, but it's hard to top as a time loop short story.
I'd have to give my vote to "By His Bootstraps."
--
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_
Carl Muckenhoupt
John Holder wrote:
>
> In a fit of lunacy, Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) escribed:
> : I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
> : good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
My former roommate speaks highly of a certain George Alec Effinger novel
involving
someone who travels back in time to an early World's Fair, only to wind
up living
a few hours over and over again. I've forgotten the name of it, but part
of the premise is that the protagonist isn't part of the loop. He needs
to eat and sleep, and that's pretty difficult in the middle of a World's
Fair in full swing without any money. It gets quite nasty, apparently.
This was before Mr. Effinger ran out of ideas and was reduced to writing
things like
"The Zork Chronicles".
Andrew Plotkin
Carl Muckenhoupt (ca...@earthweb.com) wrote:
> John Holder wrote:
> >
> > In a fit of lunacy, Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) escribed:
> > : I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
> > : good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
> My former roommate speaks highly of a certain George Alec Effinger novel
> involving
> someone who travels back in time to an early World's Fair, only to wind
> up living
> a few hours over and over again. I've forgotten the name of it, but part
> of the premise is that the protagonist isn't part of the loop. He needs
> to eat and sleep, and that's pretty difficult in the middle of a World's
> Fair in full swing without any money. It gets quite nasty, apparently.
_The Nick of Time_ and _The Bird of Time_. A two-book series; I'm pretty
sure the World's Fair scene was in the first one.
It's really more comedy than anything else -- well, it's surreal wacko
stuff. I really like these books.
> This was before Mr. Effinger ran out of ideas and was reduced to writing
> things like
> "The Zork Chronicles".
Yeah, pretty much. Although the Zork book has Glorian of the Knowledge, a
character who was first introduced in _Heroics_, which was another early
novel which was very good. I like Glorian of the Knowledge.
Miron Schmidt
Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) inquired (if I'm still on track with quote
levels):
> : I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
> : good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
Alan Moore has written some comics involving time loops. The most clever one,
as far as I'm concerned, is called _Ring Road_ and tells the story of a
young woman who steals a car from an old woman and then drives through time,
reliving the birth of the earth (here's the time loop), and gets very old in
the process. In the end, she arrives at the sma eplace the story started and
has her car stolen by a young woman.
_Time Cops_ is told in a witty way, because the two time cops describe a
typical day in which they constantly encounter themselves. While the story
unfolds, and yet new twists are introduced, the reader can turn back the
pages and check where the cops were hiding in earlier panels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Miron Schmidt "Look, this isn't going to get
s59...@tfh-berlin.de .oOo. any more exciting."
-- Andrew Plotkin, _So Far_
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Rossing
On 5 May 1997 14:44:31 GMT, jho...@deimos.frii.com (John Holder) wrote:
: In a fit of lunacy, Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) escribed:
: : I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
: : good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
:
: My all time favorite Star Trek:The Next Generation episode is a time
: loop episode. It's called "Yesterday's Enterprise"
"YE" isn't really a time loop story. It's a broken history story, but it
doesn't loop through the same period they way _Groundhog_Day_ does.
"Cause and Effect", which I've already mentioned, however, does loop...
Eric Rossing
ros...@iname.com
http://home.msen.com/~rossing
PGP Public key available on my WWW page
John Holder
In a fit of lunacy, Eric Rossing (ros...@iname.com) escribed:
: On 5 May 1997 14:44:31 GMT, jho...@deimos.frii.com (John Holder) wrote:
: : In a fit of lunacy, Matt Ackeret (mat...@area.com) escribed:
: : : I guess this is somewhat off topic for this group.. But does anyone have
: : : good time loop movies/stories/TV to recommend?
: :
: : My all time favorite Star Trek:The Next Generation episode is a time
: : loop episode. It's called "Yesterday's Enterprise"
: "YE" isn't really a time loop story. It's a broken history story, but it
: doesn't loop through the same period they way _Groundhog_Day_ does.
: "Cause and Effect", which I've already mentioned, however, does loop...
Oops! Oh my! That is the one i was thinking of, not YE. Sorry, sorry,
sorry...
(slinks off into the ether...)