Trinity: Explanation Please. (HEAVY SPOILERS)
Daniel Giaimo
and I am somewhat puzzled by the ending, so I was wondering if anyone
here has any thoughts on what it is supposed to mean. As far as I can
tell, you haven't changed anything by your actions: World War III is
still about to destroy the Earth, and you and the roadrunner are still
off to prevent Oppenheimer from making a huge calculational error. It
seems like the only thing you have accomplished is delaying the
destruction of New Mexico from 1945 to whenever the story is supposed to
take place, and even that you have to keep doing over and over again in
some sort of time-loop paradox. I'm very confused.
--Daniel Giaimo
Matthew Russotto
Daniel Giaimo <dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote:
> I just finished Trinity after leaving it alone for several years,
>and I am somewhat puzzled by the ending, so I was wondering if anyone
>here has any thoughts on what it is supposed to mean. As far as I can
>tell, you haven't changed anything by your actions: World War III is
Exactly. Your actions were already accounted for in the original
timeline.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Fred M. Sloniker
Russotto) wrote:
>Exactly. Your actions were already accounted for in the original
>timeline.
I want to comment on this, I really do, but I've never actually played
Trinity, largely because of knowing ahead of time that the ending was
*that* kind of ending. (It's more or less the same reason I never
played 'Infidel', avoid watching 'The Outer Limits', and was rather
ticked off when I finished 'Half-Life'. Oddly enough, it didn't stop
me from playing 'Failsafe'.) Keeping that in mind...
What's the exact text of the alternate ending, the one you get if you
fail to keep the Trinity test from vaporizing New Mexico?
(I have further comments to make, but I want to make sure what I've
heard about this ending is true before I embarrass myself in public.)
Daniel Giaimo
news:cv7vktk8rulohcp2d...@4ax.com...
It depends on how you die. If you haven't made it through the alpha
door then it isn't even clear that your dying has changed history. You
just appear at The River and hand your silver coin to the oarsman before
getting the usual RESTART, RESTORE, or QUIT prompt. If you have made it
through the alpha door then there are several ways to die.
One such way is to get caught at one of the various bases in which
case the game says something depending on how you are caught and then
says:
"Within moments you're surrounded by a dozen MPs, armed and
trigger-happy. They answer your polite explanations with curt
accusations, punctuated by a few well-placed kicks.
"Eventually you're dragged off to meet somebody they call the
Lieutenant, who'll deal with you, you're promised, right after a very
important test is concluded. But the Lieutenant never appears. Minutes
later, he's obliterated by a multigigaton atomic blast, along with much
of the state of New Mexico."
Another way to die is to get bitten by the rattlesnake in the
Assembly Room of the Mcdonald Ranch. If this happens you have one move
before you fall to the ground in unbearable pain whereupon the game
says:
"The throbbing fire in your ankle overcomes you. Moaning with despair,
you sink helplessly to the floor.
"Minutes later, the windows are filled with light of startling
intensity! You jam your hands over your eyes in the awful glare; never
see the fireball closing in at many times the speed of sound; and never
feel the stellar heat that annihilates much of the state of New Mexico."
The only other way, (at least as far as I can tell), to die after
going through the alpha door is to wait until 5:30 am at which time the
test is activated and the game says:
"All at once the ??? in a flash of startling brilliance! You jam your
hands over your eyes in the awful glare; never see the fireball closing
in at many times the speed of sound; and never feel the stellar heat
that annihilates much of the state of New Mexico."
Depending on where you are the ??? will be filled with different
phrases. After dying in any of these ways you then reappear at The
River and hand your silver coin to the oarsman before getting the
RESTART, RESTORE, or QUIT prompt.
HTH.
--Daniel Giaimo
Daniel Giaimo
news:T_o37.266$jB4....@news.pacbell.net...
I just wanted to add another question/observation to my statements
above. Why would sabotaging the Trinity test have any effect on the
other atomic bombs? As far as I can tell from the ending, the bomb at
Trinity still does explode, albeit in a much weaker fashion, so that the
timeline is not altered and the test is considered a success. So why
doesn't the bomb that is dropped on Hiroshima or the one that is dropped
on Nagasaki, which are identical to the Trinity bomb and which you
haven't sabotaged, explode with the force that the Trinity test would
have if you hadn't sabotaged it?
--Daniel Giaimo
Fred M. Sloniker
<dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote:
[text of alternate endings snipped]
Ah good. That at least doesn't contradict my hypothesis that the
message of the game isn't simply anti-nuclear. Indeed, it's more of
an 'Outer Limits' ending; humanity is wiped out *because* of your
actions. Which is only fair, considering the ends-justify-the-means,
good-of-the-many-greater-than-the-good-of-the-few attitude your
character has (as evidenced by things like his handling of the skink).
When good comes of that sort of attitude, it's generally by accident.
(I was curious if the alternate endings made any mention of people
going ahead with the super-sized atomic bombs anyway, or trying to
make them smaller rather than give up on them altogether. It didn't
say this didn't happen, but it didn't say this did either, so.)
Like "Infidel"'s ending, it's a reasonable extrapolation from the
characteristics of the protagonist. Of course, I prefer to play games
where it's clear folks *wouldn't* be better off if my character had
spent the day in bed instead (stupid Half-Life ending grr), so I'm not
likely to play either any time soon.
Daniel Giaimo
> On Fri, 13 Jul 2001 20:26:59 -0700, "Daniel Giaimo"
> <dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote:
>
> [text of alternate endings snipped]
>
> Ah good. That at least doesn't contradict my hypothesis that the
> message of the game isn't simply anti-nuclear. Indeed, it's more of
> an 'Outer Limits' ending; humanity is wiped out *because* of your
If it was just this I wouldn't mind so much. (I actually enjoy the
Outer Limits and often find it quite comical in an exceedingly dark
fashion.) But it wasn't at all clear to me how your actions have had
any effect on the timeline, good or bad, and the explanation that the
voice, which I assume is that of the roadrunner, gives at the end makes
no sense.
--Daniel Giaimo
Joe Mason
In article <8eivktoqvvascnlei...@4ax.com>,
Fred M. Sloniker <sf...@qwest.net> wrote:
>Like "Infidel"'s ending, it's a reasonable extrapolation from the
>characteristics of the protagonist. Of course, I prefer to play games
>where it's clear folks *wouldn't* be better off if my character had
>spent the day in bed instead (stupid Half-Life ending grr), so I'm not
>likely to play either any time soon.
You didn't *have* to take the job offer at the end of Half-Life, you know...
(And it's not at all clear that we'd be better off if you sat back and let the
aliens win, instead of helping the evil humans win.)
Joe
Daniel Giaimo
news:9ioq8h$msa$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca...
Excuse my ignorance, but what is Half-Life?
--Daniel Giaimo
Fred M. Sloniker
Mason) wrote:
>*** SPOILERS: Half-Life ***
Yes, sorry, I should have put spoiler space in. Here's some now.
>You didn't *have* to take the job offer at the end of Half-Life, you
>know...
That's true. I could have chosen, instead, to have the Administrator
effortlessly banish me to a room with a dozen Alien Slaves,
understandably peeved at me, and me without any weapons. Which just
demonstrates that whatever entities he represents didn't *need* me to
deal with the alien incursion in the first place; they just used me,
like a pawn, to reduce the surplus population. And here I thought I
was saving the world; how naive.
>(And it's not at all clear that we'd be better off if you sat back
>and let the aliens win, instead of helping the evil humans win.)
I don't think the Administrator is human. For that matter, I don't
think the aliens *or* the humans are evil; he provoked that conflict
between the two worlds. The aliens reacted with fear and violence,
the same way the humans did. Yes, you encounter some SOB soldiers,
but you also overhear some who're only shooting at *you* because
you've killed about a thousand of their buddies; as for the aliens,
they think the humans *started* the fight. In the end, thanks to
Freeman, it was the aliens that lost the battle, but both sides lose
the war; the Administrator and his 'association' have gained a new
world to conquer without expending valuable resources, just useless
humans. If they're lucky, they can even intimidate Freeman into
working for them too.
So, basically, at least Freeman would have been better off if he'd
never went to work for Black Mesa... the Administrator would have
caused the breach anyway, people still would have died, and some other
poor schnook would have wound up having to deal with the problem. Or
not, and the aliens would have conquered the earth, but in that case
the Administrator'd probably be making an offer to one of *them*
instead. In any event, you haven't a hope of 'winning', because the
*real* threat... the Administrator... is too powerful to fight.
As I've already discussed at length in email, I prefer to be exposed
to materials (books, movies, games) which have happy endings... not in
the Disney sense necessarily, but where the protagonist has made a
difference for the better. I don't watch 'The Outer Limits' because
the protagonists always fail to stop the Terror of the Week, for
instance. That goes double for interactive fiction games, though, to
pull things back on topic; if you're going to give me the freedom to
go home on the first turn, then have the nerve to tell me (via score)
that I would have been better off dying sealed in a pyramid (Infidel)
or permitting the nuclear annihilation of the planet (Trinity), you
can expect me to be cranky. I'm sure they're well-written endings,
and the protagonist in Infidel is a jerk whose ultimate fate is
appropriate, but I just choose not to PLAY that jerk. If I want
futility, I know where to find it.
Fred M. Sloniker
<dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote:
> Excuse my ignorance, but what is Half-Life?
A first-person shooter game published by Sierra and produced by Valve.
Visit http://www.sierrastudios.com/games/half-life/ for the usual
gushing praise. It's actually quite a good game, at least for the
first 90% of it; my gripes are with the ending, both story-wise
(already covered in previous posts) and gameplay-wise (you spend most
of the game having to be smart about fights, conserve ammo and health,
use your brain as much as your trigger finger... but the final boss is
yet another ridiculously huge thing you have to pump lead into until
it falls over. But that seems to be a common failing in games of this
nature.)
Duncan Stevens
"Daniel Giaimo" <dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote in message
news:6DP37.145$Yf3.2...@news.pacbell.net...
The game takes a shot at explaining this in the little narrative episode
after you sabotage the Trinity bomb, in the name of trying to explain why
the future that created you still occurred despite the sabotage. I don't
have the text in front of me, but it's something to the effect that, lest a
temporal paradox get created, every future atomic detonation will produce a
big "bang" and nothing else. Why that would lead to the same future, of
course, is beyond me, but maybe the theory is that they keep thinking that
next time they'll get it right.
I wouldn't say it's airtight logic, but it's something, I guess. (It
doesn't, however, solve the problem of where the umbrella came from.)
--Duncan
Joe Mason
In article <spR37.156$Yf3.2...@news.pacbell.net>,
Daniel Giaimo <dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote:
>
> If it was just this I wouldn't mind so much. (I actually enjoy the
>Outer Limits and often find it quite comical in an exceedingly dark
>fashion.) But it wasn't at all clear to me how your actions have had
>any effect on the timeline, good or bad, and the explanation that the
>voice, which I assume is that of the roadrunner, gives at the end makes
You mean, "All Prams Lead to Kensington Gardens"?
(I assume you remember that this was written on the Japanese woman's shopping
bag at the beginning.)
My favourite explanation is the the pram (baby carriage) represents birth,
and Kensington Gardens (where the missile hits at the beginning) represents
death. So it means, "All births lead to death." (This was posted to a
thread a few years ago, but I can't remember by who.)
Another explanation (can't recall if I read this or just came up with it) is
that it's pointing out or making fun of the games circular structure. At the
beginning you used a pram to get *out* of Kensington Gardens - but all prams
*lead* to Kensington Gardens.
*twitch*
Sorry, something's coming out here.
*twitch*
I'm trying to contain it...
*twitch*
AAARRGH!
ALL YOUR PRAMS ARE LEAD TO KENSINGTON GARDENS!
So sorry,
Joe
Joe Mason
It's a very good first-person shooter, several years old now. It makes heavy
use of scripted events - for instance, you'll walk into a room and see a
squad of marines fighting a space creature, and unless you interrupt them
you can watch the battle play out with tactics and surprising turn-arounds,
rather than just watching them hurl fireballs at each other. Because of this
the game feels a lot more like a story than a standard action game.
The ending is notable for making both GameSpot's Top Ten Best Endings and Top
Ten Worst Endings list. (One of them by editor's choice, the other by reader
vote.)
Joe
Jonathan Penton
Ouch. We're going to start seeing this in-joke in new IF.
--
Jonathan Penton
http://www.unlikelystories.org
Daniel Giaimo
news:9iq2r0$d44$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
I did read that, but I was wondering why they think a paradox would
be creatd if the bombs exploded for real. Also, speaking of the
umbrella, how in the world does the little girl survive the blast? From
what I can tell, the white doors always appear almost exactly at the
point where the atomic blasts occur, so the school must be somewhere
near ground zero. I don't think I need to explain the unlikeliness of
surviving an atomic blast at ground zero.
--Daniel Giaimo
Joe Mason
><dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote:
>
>> Excuse my ignorance, but what is Half-Life?
>
>A first-person shooter game published by Sierra and produced by Valve.
>Visit http://www.sierrastudios.com/games/half-life/ for the usual
>gushing praise. It's actually quite a good game, at least for the
>first 90% of it; my gripes are with the ending, both story-wise
>(already covered in previous posts) and gameplay-wise (you spend most
YMMV: I loved the ending. Thought it was the best thing about the game, and
I loved the rest of the game too.
>of the game having to be smart about fights, conserve ammo and health,
>use your brain as much as your trigger finger... but the final boss is
>yet another ridiculously huge thing you have to pump lead into until
>it falls over. But that seems to be a common failing in games of this
>nature.)
I kind of liked this, actually - because it was so different than the rest of
the game, it made it seem more climactic.
Joe
Jaz
> > Excuse my ignorance, but what is Half-Life?
>
> It's a very good first-person shooter, several years old now.
Half-Life was good but for me way too easy. Soldier of Fortune was better. I
liked the way you could use the sniper rifle to shoot someone in the back of
the head from afar.
A even more interesting first person shooter with adventure elements abound
is The Undying. Great graphics, sound and storyline.
Jaz
Jaz
"Fred M. Sloniker" <sf...@qwest.net> wrote in message
news:v231ltkr5opq1cggt...@4ax.com...
>you spend most of the game having to be smart about fights, conserve ammo
and health.
That's true, as the game goes on the ammo gets very rare and I found I spent
the entire game using smaller weapons and ended the game with 100% ammo
which spoilt the use of the most powerful weapons.
There's nothing better when you not worried about ammo and can just blast
away. For me Star Wars was the best for that. Can't recall the title...
Troopers or something... Dark forces!
Jaz
Duncan Stevens
> "Duncan Stevens" <dn...@starpower.net> wrote in message
> news:9iq2r0$d44$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
> > Spoiler space...
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> > after you sabotage the Trinity bomb, in the name of trying to explain
> why
> > the future that created you still occurred despite the sabotage. I
> don't
> > have the text in front of me, but it's something to the effect that,
> lest a
> > temporal paradox get created, every future atomic detonation will
> produce a
> > big "bang" and nothing else. Why that would lead to the same future,
> of
> > course, is beyond me, but maybe the theory is that they keep thinking
> that
> > next time they'll get it right.
> >
> > I wouldn't say it's airtight logic, but it's something, I guess. (It
> > doesn't, however, solve the problem of where the umbrella came from.)
>
> I did read that, but I was wondering why they think a paradox would
> be creatd if the bombs exploded for real.
Well, a paradox would be created if Truman and the rest of the world gave up
on the whole atomic-bomb idea after the Trinity test failed. There'd be no
paradox if all the bombs after Trinity exploded for real, but then you
wouldn't have had much impact on history. Also...
Also, speaking of the
> umbrella, how in the world does the little girl survive the blast? From
> what I can tell, the white doors always appear almost exactly at the
> point where the atomic blasts occur, so the school must be somewhere
> near ground zero. I don't think I need to explain the unlikeliness of
> surviving an atomic blast at ground zero.
...perhaps the little girl doesn't survive the blast unless you create the
alternate timeline in which the blast is either entirely negated or greatly
diminished. As was noted elsewhere in the thread, the bomb you sabotage at
Trinity is way bigger than the one that was actually detonated in 1945. (Of
course, that the Trinity bomb was bigger than IRL doesn't mean that the
Nagasaki bomb would be the same, necessarily.)
But there's actually no need for that. The white door in that scene is way
up in the air somewhere, remember (accurately, since the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombs were rigged to detonate in the air). I don't think the game
said or implied that the door was directly over the school.
Rereading the text in question, namely "Nature doesn't know the word
'paradox.' Gotta bleed off that quantum steam somehow. Why, I wouldn't be
surprised to see a good-sized 'bang' every time they shoot off one of these
gizmos. Just enough fireworks to keep the historians happy" (hooray for TXD
the time-saver), I think there's a good case to be made that the timeline
you create when you sabotage the test is this one (the one we're currently
inhabiting), rather than one with a lot of "bangs" but no actual
destruction. (Sabotaging the Trinity test, in that theory, needn't have any
direct causal effect on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and progeny--the Trinity bomb
was bigger than it was expected to be because of some sort of error that
wouldn't have been repeated.)
In that the light, the whole thing's kind of a nasty bait-and-switch--the
initial premise of the game seems to be oh no, WWIII is starting, let's go
back in time and change history so that atomic warfare never happens. When
we get back to 1945, for some reason, we've gotten into an alternate
timeline where the Trinity test becomes "multigigaton," and sabotaging it
seems to be necessary to create the timeline you started with in the first
place. (Unless, of course, you're in the Trinity-was-multigigaton-explosion
timeline at the beginning--it's hard to tell.) Plus, of course, you're stuck
in a time loop trying to maintain that timeline. So London's toast despite
your best efforts. You do end up avoiding the destruction of most of New
Mexico, which is fine, but it's not what you set out to do, exactly.
I also have some heretical thoughts that perhaps Moriarty didn't think this
through as thoroughly as he might have. It looks like the
alternative-timeline really-huge-Trinity-bomb idea was deliberate, since
it's repeated several times, but I'm not sure Moriarty sat down and thought
about problems like "where'd the umbrella come from?" and "why is the 1945
of the game an alternative version?"
--Duncan
Andrew Plotkin
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Duncan Stevens <dn...@starpower.net> wrote:
> Rereading the text in question, namely "Nature doesn't know the word
> 'paradox.' Gotta bleed off that quantum steam somehow. Why, I wouldn't be
> surprised to see a good-sized 'bang' every time they shoot off one of these
> gizmos. Just enough fireworks to keep the historians happy" (hooray for TXD
> the time-saver), I think there's a good case to be made that the timeline
> you create when you sabotage the test is this one (the one we're currently
> inhabiting), rather than one with a lot of "bangs" but no actual
> destruction.
That is the way I've always read it.
> So London's toast despite
> your best efforts. You do end up avoiding the destruction of most of New
> Mexico, which is fine, but it's not what you set out to do, exactly.
Yes.
> I also have some heretical thoughts that perhaps Moriarty didn't think this
> through as thoroughly as he might have.
Yes. :) Not that this spoils my memory of the game -- I've *always*
been uncertain about how well it hangs together.
But just uncertain enough that I think it might be cooler than I am
capable of grasping. Heh.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Votes count. Count votes.
Sean T Barrett
Duncan Stevens <dn...@starpower.net> wrote:
>Rereading the text in question, namely "Nature doesn't know the word
>'paradox.' Gotta bleed off that quantum steam somehow. Why, I wouldn't be
>surprised to see a good-sized 'bang' every time they shoot off one of these
>gizmos. Just enough fireworks to keep the historians happy" (hooray for TXD
>the time-saver), I think there's a good case to be made that the timeline
>you create when you sabotage the test is this one (the one we're currently
>inhabiting), rather than one with a lot of "bangs" but no actual
>destruction. (Sabotaging the Trinity test, in that theory, needn't have any
>direct causal effect on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and progeny--the Trinity bomb
>was bigger than it was expected to be because of some sort of error that
>wouldn't have been repeated.)
Ok, unfortunately I was playing Trinity with several other people
when I came home on breaks from school, and they finished it without
me so I never saw the ending, but the way it was explained to me
was that you had reduced the effects of all atomic bombs, that is,
you had created the timeline we currently inhabit; and although
you don't prevent WWIII, you presumably prevent it from destroying
the world.
I'm not sure how from the quote provided you draw the conclusion
you "needn't have any direct causal effect on Hiroshima": the
whole bit about "see a good-sized 'bang' every time they shoot
off one of these" sure sounds to me (without more context) like
this is supposed to be *different* from how it was, and "every
time" sure would apply to Hiroshima etc., especially given the
"historians" clause.
>When we get back to 1945, for some reason, we've gotten into an alternate
>timeline where the Trinity test becomes "multigigaton," and sabotaging it
>seems to be necessary to create the timeline you started with in the first
>place. (Unless, of course, you're in the Trinity-was-multigigaton-explosion
>timeline at the beginning--it's hard to tell.)
The last was the operating assumption for how I understood it,
except this doesn't make much sense either--if the explosions were
so much bigger and they made nuclear weapons anyway, wouldn't they
have scaled them down?
SeanB
mattF
website ( http://spatch.ne.mediaone.net/ifaminute ) will clear things
up a little. Or just annoy a whole bunch of people. Either way, I'm
good with it.
-------------------------------------
TRINITY
by Brian Moriarty
Condensed version by Zimriel
(Setting: Kensington Gardens)
ROADRUNNER
Beep-Beep!
(The setting fades to an enormous forest of mushrooms, as a
disembodied voice hums the thundering, psychedelic strains of "White
Rabbit")
PLAYER
(woozily)
Duuuuude...
(The visions change with growing intensity and sanity)
MAGPIE
Squawk! Go kill a giant bee and helpless lizard! Squawk!
(setting changes again)
PLAYER
(now babbling incoherently in a New Mexico desert)
Nukes are, like, eco-cide... we're a bunch of... little lemmings...
River Styx... walking dead... mush... room... clouds...
THE END
-------------------------------------
Ha ha ha! Well, I think we've all learned something here today.
Kinda. Well, not at all really. Damn.
-maFtt
L. Ross Raszewski
>[Trinity spoilers]
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>The last was the operating assumption for how I understood it,
>except this doesn't make much sense either--if the explosions were
>so much bigger and they made nuclear weapons anyway, wouldn't they
>have scaled them down?
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>SeanB
game is not what it seems to be. Perhaps *every* nuclear explosion is
multi-gigaton; that there is some physical law we don't have quite
right, (I recall readign that during the Manhattan Project, some
scientists believed that a nuclear bomb would cause a self-sustainign
reaction, with the explosion growing continuously larger untill it
engulfed the whole planet. Maybe Trinity supposes that somethign like
this is what nuclear weapons "really" do), and every nuclear bomb has
the potential to destroy a sizable chunk of the world.
The protagonist thinks he's trying to change history to *avert* the
nuclear war, but in actuality, he's tryign to *preserve* a history in
which nuclear weapons are, essentially, just really big bombs, not the
end of existence.
THe protagonist goes back to Trinity, in the hopes of making nuclear
warfare seem a failure, and finds that -- hey, waitaminute! -- the
nuclear bomb is, for some reason, way, way more devastating than he
had previously thought. So what he does is to tone down the
devastation. It's more than implied that the protagonist is trapped in
a time-loop by the end of the game, but perhaps this isn't quite what
we think. Maybe he does not continuously try to sabotage Trinity, but,
rather, each time through the loop, he sabotages *another bomb*. He
does not, in the end, prevent WWIII, but, by continuosuly minimizing
the effecto f ever single nuclear weapon ever used, he ensures that
the nuclear was is not planet-smashing.
Ryan Franklin
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 05:19:10 GMT, Sean T Barrett <buz...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>[Trinity spoilers]
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>>so much bigger and they made nuclear weapons anyway, wouldn't they
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> game is not what it seems to be. Perhaps *every* nuclear explosion is
> multi-gigaton; that there is some physical law we don't have quite
> right, (I recall readign that during the Manhattan Project, some
...and maybe it's the job of other people stuck in other timeloops to make
sure that all the other bombs manufactured are similarly sabotaged.
Hundreds of thousands of people following a roadrunner or peacock or
African grey parrot through white door after white door, collecting items
and performing tasks required to keep the planet from being cracked in
half.
Well, it's nice to think about, anyway. ;-)
--
peace in our time
ry...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net
Sean T Barrett
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>>The last was the operating assumption for how I understood it,
>>except this doesn't make much sense either--if the explosions were
>>so much bigger and they made nuclear weapons anyway, wouldn't they
>>have scaled them down?
>
>which nuclear weapons are, essentially, just really big bombs, not the
>end of existence.
I'd have said "create" not "preserve".
>It's more than implied that the protagonist is trapped in
>a time-loop by the end of the game, but perhaps this isn't quite what
>we think. Maybe he does not continuously try to sabotage Trinity, but,
Is it really implied that he's in a loop? As I said, I didn't get
to see the ending of the game, but the impression I got was that
he gets back to Kensington Gardens, and a missile descends--but
there's no mention of a white door and etc. If that's true, then one
could infer that a white door would appear, which would imply a loop;
but if he's really changed history or is in a different timeline
or whatever, why not assume that there's no more white door, and
no loop at all?
SeanB
Ross Presser
> I liked the way you could use the sniper rifle to shoot someone in
> the back of the head from afar.
There's something really scary about this statement... oh well, it's
only a game.
--
Ross Presser * ross_p...@imtek.com
"Back stabbing is a sport best played by those that can't stand face
to face with their opponent." - Danny Taddei
Duncan Stevens
"Sean T Barrett" <buz...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:GGJw3...@world.std.com...
Merely in the sense that it can just as easily be inferred that the smaller
size of Hiroshima and company was due to the avoidance of some bizarre
miscalculation which, for some reason, hadn't been avoided at Trinity
(except due to your efforts). It's no less logically coherent than the idea
that nature cosmically reined in all future nuclear explosions to avoid a
paradox.
The problem, for me, is that a world where nuclear explosions were all
"multigigaton" probably wouldn't have created the same future as a world
where they, er, weren't. If the London that you inhabit at the beginning of
the game was in some other alternate timeline where Trinity, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, Bikini and everything else were that big, I don't see how changing
history so that they were their actual size would avoid a paradox. So either
(a) the London of the beginning of the game is in this timeline and you
touched off something somewhere that kicked you into an alternate timeline
of lots of multigigaton nuclear explosions by the time you get to 1945 (and
sabotaging the test kicks you back into this timeline), or (b) the London of
the beginning of the game is in an alternate timeline where the Trinity test
was multigigaton (due to, er, something controllable) but subsequent
explosions were smaller because the error was corrected (and sabotaging the
test changes history to save New Mexico but doesn't otherwise affect the
course of history). The second strikes me as inferior, since the little
soliloquy about paradoxes seems to imply that you've done something, but I'm
bothered by the first because there's no point in the game where you appear
to be changing history (other than sabotaging the test). Show up in the
shack in 1945, wait a lot, and you'll be killed by a multigigaton blast.
> >When we get back to 1945, for some reason, we've gotten into an alternate
> >timeline where the Trinity test becomes "multigigaton," and sabotaging it
> >seems to be necessary to create the timeline you started with in the
first
> >place. (Unless, of course, you're in the
Trinity-was-multigigaton-explosion
> >timeline at the beginning--it's hard to tell.)
>
> The last was the operating assumption for how I understood it,
> except this doesn't make much sense either--if the explosions were
> so much bigger and they made nuclear weapons anyway, wouldn't they
> have scaled them down?
Maybe, though perhaps, as LRR suggests elsewhere in the thread, they
couldn't (in the game's world). But it seems pretty obvious that in both the
London of the beginning and the London of the end, there are nuclear
explosions that are much less than multigigaton--the woman wouldn't be there
otherwise. So one way or another things do get scaled down.
--Duncan
Duncan Stevens
news:GGL0...@world.std.com...
> L. Ross Raszewski <lrasz...@loyola.edu> wrote:
> >On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 05:19:10 GMT, Sean T Barrett <buz...@world.std.com>
wrote:
> >>[Trinity spoilers]
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> to see the ending of the game, but the impression I got was that
> he gets back to Kensington Gardens, and a missile descends--but
> there's no mention of a white door and etc. If that's true, then one
> could infer that a white door would appear, which would imply a loop;
> but if he's really changed history or is in a different timeline
> or whatever, why not assume that there's no more white door, and
> no loop at all?
For one thing, at the end, you're running around finding soccer balls,
perambulators, and such. (The final text happens after the encounter with
the woman--you stand there staring at the umbrella in the tree before the
roadrunner comes along and a voice whispers "It's time" in your ear, at
which point the game tells you that you hurry off to find a perambulator or
soccer ball, or both or neither, depending on what you've already done
before you encounter the woman.) For another, the corpse in the crypt
appears to be you, since the name on the crypt is "Wabewalker"--and if you
die in the out-of-time world, it seems like you don't make it out of the
loop.
--Duncan
Adam Myrow
I always assumed that the player dies at the end of Trinity. My
reasoning? It talks about how you just stand their as the crowds gather,
don't move as the sirens go off, and are staring at the umbrella.
Finally, after the sirens go off and the crowds are in a panic do you go
looking for a way to get the soccer ball or whatever you missed. Also,
you end the game with 100 points and a rank of tourist. You start the
game with the rank of tourist. I don't recall, but how much time do you
have once the air raid siren goes off before you die if you hang around
in London?
The ending is my main gripe with Trinity. You go through, solving some
nasty puzzles, dying countless times because they are so unforgiving, and
get an unsatisfactory ending that doesn't make clear that you did any
good or harm. Those puzzles are just too hard for that. How are you
supposed to know what is beyond a door until you step through and find
yourself in orbit and your blood boiling because you don't have a space
suit? It's the worst example of using knowledge from previous lives to
solve puzzles. That's why I got such a kick out of Pick up the Phone
Booth and Aisle. It pokes fun at this, and just about every other
convention of IF. Yet, that particular thing is something that I fully
identify with. Bottom line is that for all my efforts, I would have
liked to know that *something* changed for the better or worse. It
almost was if to say "you did all this for nothing. Thanks for your
purchase of Trinity." I'm surprised that more people don't gripe about
the ending of Trinity given that almost everybody has something to say
about Infidel. To me they are both very similar games, but in Trinity,
you don't initially start out playing a bad person. So, the ending seems
unjust, where at least in Infidel, you sort of feel that your character
deserves his fate.
Jake Wildstrom
Adam Myrow <my...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>Spoiler Space:
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>good or harm. Those puzzles are just too hard for that. How are you
>supposed to know what is beyond a door until you step through and find
>yourself in orbit and your blood boiling because you don't have a space
>suit? It's the worst example of using knowledge from previous lives to
>solve puzzles.
Actually, there's a fairly clear hint in the Illustrated History of
the Atom Bomb. Each of the symbols on the sundial appears somewhere in
the History, giving you a good idea of where that mushroom would take you.
+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
| A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into |
| theorems. -Paul Erdos |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jake Wildstrom |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Daniel Giaimo
"Sean T Barrett" <buz...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:GGL0...@world.std.com...
> L. Ross Raszewski <lrasz...@loyola.edu> wrote:
> >On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 05:19:10 GMT, Sean T Barrett
<buz...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >>[Trinity spoilers]
> >>
> >>
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> >>The last was the operating assumption for how I understood it,
> >>except this doesn't make much sense either--if the explosions were
> >>so much bigger and they made nuclear weapons anyway, wouldn't they
> >>have scaled them down?
> >
> >nuclear war, but in actuality, he's tryign to *preserve* a history in
> >which nuclear weapons are, essentially, just really big bombs, not
the
> >end of existence.
>
> I'd have said "create" not "preserve".
>
> >It's more than implied that the protagonist is trapped in
> >a time-loop by the end of the game, but perhaps this isn't quite what
> >we think. Maybe he does not continuously try to sabotage Trinity,
but,
>
> Is it really implied that he's in a loop?
Yes. Since you haven't seen the epilogue here is what happens:
After you sabotage the bomb you suddenly appear back at the Palace Gate
of Kensington Gardens carrying a wristwatch, a seven-sided coin, and a
credit card, (Exactly what you started the game with). You can then
move about and do whatever you feel like until you return to Lancaster
Gate where you first met the old woman with the umbrella. After you
enter this location you have one turn before the wind blows the umbrella
out of the woman's hands and into the tree just as in the beginning of
the game, however, this time, the game says:
"The woman circles the tree a few times, gazing helplessly upward. That
umbrella obviously means a lot to her, for a wistful tear is running
down her cheek. But nobody except you seems to notice her loss.
"After a few moments, the old woman dries her eyes, gives the tree a
vicious little kick and shuffles away down the Lancaster Walk.
"You stare up at the umbrella.
"Passersby begin to gather, craning to see what everyone else is looking
at. You hardly notice them. Even when the sirens begin to howl, and the
crowd scatters like leaves in the east wind, you can't take your eyes
off the umbrella swaying in the branches, back and forth.
"A gentle voice whispers in your ear. "It's time."
"You bend to pet the roadrunner waiting impatiently at your feet???. But
that slogan keeps echoing over and over in your mind..."
and, depending on what you have done in the epilogue, a different phrase
will appear in place of the ???, and then the "All prams lead to
Kensington Gardens" screen appears before the game ends for good and you
get the usual RESTART, RESTORE, or QUIT prompt.
If you'd like to know, the following phrases can appear in place of
the ???:
", then hurry off to find a soccer ball"
". Then you retrieve the umbrella with the soccer ball and hurry off to
find a perambulator"
". Then you retrieve the umbrella with the soccer ball and hurry off,
pushing the perambulator before you"
The first occurs if you haven't yet gotten the soccer ball from
Flower Walk; the second occurs if you have gotten the soccer ball, but
haven't gotten the pram from Black Lion Gate; and the third occurs if
you have both the soccer ball and the pram. As far as I can tell, the
bird, bag of crumbs, and gnomon have no effect on the ending.
--Daniel Giaimo
Sean T Barrett
>> >>[Trinity spoilers]
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>
>"You bend to pet the roadrunner waiting impatiently at your feet???. But
>that slogan keeps echoing over and over in your mind..."
>
>and, depending on what you have done in the epilogue, a different phrase
>will appear in place of the ???, and then the "All prams lead to
>Kensington Gardens" screen appears before the game ends for good and you
>get the usual RESTART, RESTORE, or QUIT prompt.
Ah, ok. I stand corrected. That does cast the whole ending
in a more negative light.
SeanB
Andrew Plotkin
> Those puzzles are just too hard for that. How are you
> supposed to know what is beyond a door until you step through and find
> yourself in orbit and your blood boiling because you don't have a space
> suit? It's the worst example of using knowledge from previous lives to
> solve puzzles.
Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
categorized as a bad thing?
I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
arrived, either.
When I first played Trinity, not only did I not categorize that as a
bad thing, I didn't even categorize it as a thing that makes the game
harder. You walk through a door and are teleported into space? That's
not a *difficulty* -- or rather, it is a difficulty, but so is a
locked door. It's an area that I don't know how to enter yet. Restore
the game and start keeping an eye out for space suits.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Call him "George the Third". (Hint: the First never told a lie.)
Sean T Barrett
>Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
>possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
>categorized as a bad thing?
DikuMUD is a mud system which doesn't really allow programming
by its "wizards", only some kind of fill-in-the-blanks scripting
(or at least that's how it was when I played it).
One of the things it allowed creating was instant-death-rooms--
rooms where when you walked in, you died.
This was fairly obviously to me bad game design when I played
them, which would have been sometime between 1989 and 1992.
It's obviously not literally the same thing as you're describing
(especially given the huge difference between single-player
gaming and multi-player gaming--[the latter does not allow
save/restore, but then again doesn't end the game when you
die]), but it's similar enough that I suspect I would have
said learn-by-dying was bad design in 1990.
>When I first played Trinity, not only did I not categorize that as a
>bad thing, I didn't even categorize it as a thing that makes the game
>harder. You walk through a door and are teleported into space? That's
>not a *difficulty* -- or rather, it is a difficulty, but so is a
>locked door. It's an area that I don't know how to enter yet. Restore
>the game and start keeping an eye out for space suits.
There was always a big difference between Lucasarts and Sierra
adventures--Sierra adventures would kill you, and Lucasarts ones
wouldn't--you didn't need to paranoiacally save in the LA oes.
So if we focus on "it's ok to need to restore" that puts us
back to whenever Lucasarts adventures started being that way (which
might even have been from the start, I think Maniac Mansion was
pretty forgiving); it was fairly obvious to me when I played them
that this was a more user-friendly game design--which Sierra
eventually addressed by adding an 'undo' option when you died.
Obviously a matter of opinion about whether this is really
the same thing as what you're asking.
SeanB
Billy Harris
You are definately in a time loop of some kind. My interpretation on
"true history":
The original nuke project was all set to destroy new mexico, except
that an undetected sabateur bolluxed the test. Likewise, a test on an
island and the bomb at Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
So the "paradoxes don't exist" means that we are the "true history",
where physically bombs should cause a chain reaction effect, except
that time-travel intervention took place, leaving the "alternate
history" being one untampered with time travel. A loop with no cause in
other words.
I'm on very tenuous ground with this next bit, but I like to believe
that our intervention does have some effect: instead of WWIII wiping
out all of Britain with a single bomb, we merely have London going up
in smoke. However, it is quite possible taht the nuke coming down on
London was untampered and hence a true multigigaton reaction.
Billy Harris
Daniel Giaimo
news:9j0dbn$njh$1...@news.panix.com...
> Adam Myrow <my...@eskimo.com> wrote:
> > Those puzzles are just too hard for that. How are you
> > supposed to know what is beyond a door until you step through and
find
> > yourself in orbit and your blood boiling because you don't have a
space
> > suit? It's the worst example of using knowledge from previous lives
to
> > solve puzzles.
>
> Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
> possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
> categorized as a bad thing?
>
> I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
> hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
> arrived, either.
I'm not certain about this, but it got me thinking about the other
major reason for the old adage "Save early, save often," and that is the
possibility of locking yourself out of victory. I've noticed recently
that there seems to be a trend, (not necessarily on r*if, just in
adventure games in general), towards games in which it is impossible to
lock one's self out of victory. Has anyone else noticed this?
--Daniel Giaimo
L. Ross Raszewski
>Adam Myrow <my...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>> Those puzzles are just too hard for that. How are you
>> supposed to know what is beyond a door until you step through and find
>> yourself in orbit and your blood boiling because you don't have a space
>> suit? It's the worst example of using knowledge from previous lives to
>> solve puzzles.
>
>Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
>possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
>categorized as a bad thing?
>
>I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
>hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
>arrived, either.
>
>When I first played Trinity, not only did I not categorize that as a
>bad thing, I didn't even categorize it as a thing that makes the game
>harder. You walk through a door and are teleported into space? That's
>not a *difficulty* -- or rather, it is a difficulty, but so is a
>locked door. It's an area that I don't know how to enter yet. Restore
>the game and start keeping an eye out for space suits.
>
Well, when I started in IF, i considered puzzles you couldn't solve
the first time a Bad Thing, but only because restarting was a bitch in
the c64 days.
Nowadays, I tend to have a sort of "meta" objection to it; it seems
that if the puzzle can only be solved by knowledge gained from having
alreayd played and restarted/restored back, then the puzzle is
unsolvable for *the protagonist*; it can only be solved *because* this
is a game, wherein the player can learn things by stepping out of the
protagonist's shoes. If I approach the door in Trinity and *I* know I
can't go through, since I died last time, the *protagonist* doesn't
know that, because *he* didn't die; he only gets to die the once, see.
Now, this is a different thing from "*I* solved the puzzle by
foreknowledge, but I could have solved it without." A puzzle like,
say, the Babelfish puzzle, is borderline; If I really "was" the
protagonist, I could be expected to deduce the solution, but since you
only get the description of the various impediments as you encounter
them, and, as I recall, if you actually encounter all of the
impediments in a single playing, you render the puzzle insoluble by
making too many attempts, you "need" to use past-life experience.
David Picton
> > Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
> > possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
> > categorized as a bad thing?
> >
> > I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
> > hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
> > arrived, either.
> I'm not certain about this, but it got me thinking about the other
> major reason for the old adage "Save early, save often," and that is the
> possibility of locking yourself out of victory. I've noticed recently
> that there seems to be a trend, (not necessarily on r*if, just in
> adventure games in general), towards games in which it is impossible to
> lock one's self out of victory. Has anyone else noticed this?
Yes - many recently-released games show this trend, particularly larger games
like Once and Future, Anchorhead and Mulldoon. Unless you do obviously
silly things like throwing objects into a river, the game design makes it
difficult to lock yourself out without it becoming obvious within a few turns.
Saving at regular intervals is still a good idea (particularly if the
interpreter doesn't allow multiple UNDO), but it is unusual to find that you
can't solve a puzzle in turn 4000 because you failed to do something in turn
250!
Dylan O'Donnell
> Adam Myrow <my...@eskimo.com> wrote:
> > Those puzzles are just too hard for that. How are you
> > supposed to know what is beyond a door until you step through and find
> > yourself in orbit and your blood boiling because you don't have a space
> > suit? It's the worst example of using knowledge from previous lives to
> > solve puzzles.
>
> Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
> possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
> categorized as a bad thing?
Graham's Bill of Player's Rights sets a lower bound on its age:
1. Not to be killed without warning
3. To be able to win without experience of past lives
4. To be able to win without knowledge of future events
> I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
> hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
> arrived, either.
Second edition of the Craft of Adventure is dated 1995-01-19; does
anyone have a date for the BoPR's original posting?
--
: Dylan O'Donnell http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/ :
: "And woe betide the olivador whose olive is revoltosa." :
: -- Michael Flanders, "At the Drop of Another Hat" :
Stephen Granade
> "Andrew Plotkin" <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
> news:9j0dbn$njh$1...@news.panix.com...
> > Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
> > possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
> > categorized as a bad thing?
> >
> > I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
> > hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
> > arrived, either.
>
> I'm not certain about this, but it got me thinking about the other
> major reason for the old adage "Save early, save often," and that is the
> possibility of locking yourself out of victory. I've noticed recently
> that there seems to be a trend, (not necessarily on r*if, just in
> adventure games in general), towards games in which it is impossible to
> lock one's self out of victory. Has anyone else noticed this?
This was a big selling point of the LucasArts (well, LucasFilm)
graphic adventure games back in the 1980s. At a time when amusing,
wacky, and random deaths were the norm, their games wouldn't kill you.
The convention Andrew mentions was certainly categorized by Graham
Nelson's Bill of Player's Rights, and that was first released in May
of '93.
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade | Interested in adventure games?
sgra...@phy.duke.edu | Visit About Interactive Fiction
Duke University, Physics Dept | http://interactfiction.about.com
Stephen Granade
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> writes:
> >
> > Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
> > possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
> > categorized as a bad thing?
>
> Graham's Bill of Player's Rights sets a lower bound on its age:
>
> 1. Not to be killed without warning
> 3. To be able to win without experience of past lives
> 4. To be able to win without knowledge of future events
>
> > I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
> > hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
> > arrived, either.
>
> Second edition of the Craft of Adventure is dated 1995-01-19; does
> anyone have a date for the BoPR's original posting?
18 May 1993.
Lucian P. Smith
: As the title says, SPOILERS!!
: I'm on very tenuous ground with this next bit, but I like to believe
: that our intervention does have some effect: instead of WWIII wiping
: out all of Britain with a single bomb, we merely have London going up
: in smoke. However, it is quite possible taht the nuke coming down on
: London was untampered and hence a true multigigaton reaction.
As Adam Thornton pointed out in a thread I still remember lo these ages
past (http://bang.dhs.org/if/raif/mol/msg00418.html), it's *very* hard to
say that setting things up so they work the way they worked is good,
becuase it's not just London that gets nuked, but everywhere. To re-quote
what Adam quoted, from the original area you enter in through the first
white door:
"As your eyes sweep the landscape, you notice more of the giant
toadstools. There must be hundreds of them. Some sprout in clusters,
others grow in solitude among the trees. Their numbers increase
dramatically as your gaze moves westward, until the forest is choked with
pale domes."
This can hardly be said to be 'good'. This is the nuclear holocaust.
Maybe if New Mexico *had* been destroyed lo these ages past, they wouldn't
have tried it again, and it'd be better. But maybe not. In any event,
you're required to set up (again) the actions that bring about WWIII and
nuke the earth.
There's an interesting answer to the 'knowledge required from past lives'
thing, too: If it's a time loop, maybe you saving and restoring is, in
the Trinity world, what Wabewalker is actually doing.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
-Lucian
Andrew Plotkin
>> "Andrew Plotkin" <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
>> news:9j0dbn$njh$1...@news.panix.com...
>> > Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
>> > possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
>> > categorized as a bad thing?
>> >
>> > I'm certain I didn't even encounter that attitude until I started
>> > hanging out on RAIF, and it might not have been here yet when I
>> > arrived, either.
>>
>> I'm not certain about this, but it got me thinking about the other
>> major reason for the old adage "Save early, save often," and that is the
>> possibility of locking yourself out of victory. I've noticed recently
>> that there seems to be a trend, (not necessarily on r*if, just in
>> adventure games in general), towards games in which it is impossible to
>> lock one's self out of victory. Has anyone else noticed this?
> This was a big selling point of the LucasArts (well, LucasFilm)
> graphic adventure games back in the 1980s. At a time when amusing,
> wacky, and random deaths were the norm, their games wouldn't kill you.
> The convention Andrew mentions was certainly categorized by Graham
> Nelson's Bill of Player's Rights, and that was first released in May
> of '93.
I bet that was it, then. (I don't think I was reading the newsgroup
when Graham posted that -- I came across it a bit later, via gmd.de
and Inform documentation.)
Now I take for granted that adventure games have been moving towards
that as an ideal. (I would have said it if I thought anyone hadn't
already noticed. :-) Graphical adventure games vastly accelerated the
trend; this has been a thesis of mine for years. (Backing up and
replaying a graphical game from an earlier save point is *much* more
tedious than in a text adventure.)
However, my point is, you have to use a certain amount of split
judgement when considering Infocom games against that standard. Yes,
it's worth noting, because the modern IF audience has adopted the
idea. But Infocom's designers *and players* had not.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Bush doesn't count.
Sean T Barrett
>However, my point is, you have to use a certain amount of split
>judgement when considering Infocom games against that standard. Yes,
>it's worth noting, because the modern IF audience has adopted the
>idea. But Infocom's designers *and players* had not.
Definitely. I thought about bringing this point up a few threads
back when people were complaining about the unfairness of some of
the Infocom mystery games. Clearly, from the authors' points
of view, they were making a hard puzzle for the player, not
for the protagonist.
SeanB
Chip Hayes
"Lucian P. Smith" wrote:
>
> : As the title says, SPOILERS!!
Having playtested TRINITY for Infocom way back when, I remember
distinctly that the time-loop ending was my biggest disappointment in
the game, and was a prominent criticism in my playtesters report (I've
got all of those bug reports filed away somewhere... got to find them
some day.)
I remember wishing there had been >some< glimmer of hope in the game's
ending that made all of one's efforts worthwhile, as it really made me
feel much less enthusiastic about what was, I thought, one of Infocom's
best efforts to date.
A few months ago, I found a number of the beta versions of those Infocom
games I play-tested, and uploaded the files to the gmd. Trinity was
among them; and for those of you interested in how the game evolved in
its last few months of development, it might be worthwhile to examine
the version I uploaded. There are many subtle differences to be
discovered right off the bat (in the opening paragraph, the BBC is
instead referred to colloquially as "the Beeb," for example) and
possibly a txd dump might reveal some other nuances in the prose used
toward the ending.
Chip Hayes
Matthew Russotto
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Adam Myrow <my...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>> Those puzzles are just too hard for that. How are you
>> supposed to know what is beyond a door until you step through and find
>> yourself in orbit and your blood boiling because you don't have a space
>> suit? It's the worst example of using knowledge from previous lives to
>> solve puzzles.
>
>Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
>possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
>categorized as a bad thing?
It's been complained about as long as I've been here, which is about
from the release of Curses v9.
I subscribe to the Indiana Jones theory. You SHOULD be able to go
straight through and win the first time, but perhaps only if you're Indiana
Jones -- that is, you have encyclopedic knowledge, total recall of anything
important, and enough good hunches (or luck) that you don't try a
puzzle before you've seen the solution.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Dan Schmidt
| psmit...@spod-central.org (Dylan O'Donnell) writes:
|
| > Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> writes:
| > >
| > > Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
| > > possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
| > > categorized as a bad thing?
| >
| > Graham's Bill of Player's Rights sets a lower bound on its age:
| >
| > Second edition of the Craft of Adventure is dated 1995-01-19; does
| > anyone have a date for the BoPR's original posting?
|
| 18 May 1993.
I remember a big deal being made about the design of Loom, in which
the player could not cause the game to be unwinnable (I'm pretty
sure). That's not exactly the same thing, but obviously implies that
all puzzles are solvable in one session. Looks like it came out in
1990.
Jason Melancon
> > news:9j0dbn$njh$1...@news.panix.com...
> > > Does anyone know when this IF convention -- a puzzle which you cannot
> > > possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
> > > categorized as a bad thing?
Don't you still think it is? (I'd rather not delve into the spoiler
thread.)
Now that I think about it, I really wouldn't mind this kind of puzzle,
provided two things: One, that the puzzle wasn't plot-critical; two,
that it wouldn't act as a red herring. I think little puzzles like
that could be great easter eggs for people replaying later. If the
puzzle was designed not to be noticeable the first time through -- if
recognition of the puzzle's existence depended on later exposition,
for example -- it could add a lot to replay value.
--
Jason Melancon
Duncan Stevens
news:3B54651D...@attglobal.net...
> A few months ago, I found a number of the beta versions of those Infocom
> games I play-tested, and uploaded the files to the gmd. Trinity was
> among them; and for those of you interested in how the game evolved in
> its last few months of development, it might be worthwhile to examine
> the version I uploaded. There are many subtle differences to be
> discovered right off the bat (in the opening paragraph, the BBC is
> instead referred to colloquially as "the Beeb," for example) and
> possibly a txd dump might reveal some other nuances in the prose used
> toward the ending.
Interesting. The post-sabotage text is just about identical, but the other
references to the bomb being something other than the size we know about
don't appear to be there--at least, most of the bits of text about "much of
the state of New Mexico" being destroyed don't come up in my search, nor
does "multigigaton." The statement in the ending text to the effect that
"that gadget would've blown New Mexico right off the map" is the only such
reference I can find. Apparently the notion that the bomb was much bigger
than IRL was supposed to be sprung on the player after the sabotage (perhaps
as compensation for the disappointment of the ending).
--Duncan
Chip Hayes
Duncan Stevens wrote:
> Interesting. The post-sabotage text is just about identical, but the other
> references to the bomb being something other than the size we know about
> don't appear to be there--at least, most of the bits of text about "much of
> the state of New Mexico" being destroyed don't come up in my search, nor
> does "multigigaton." The statement in the ending text to the effect that
> "that gadget would've blown New Mexico right off the map" is the only such
> reference I can find. Apparently the notion that the bomb was much bigger
> than IRL was supposed to be sprung on the player after the sabotage (perhaps
> as compensation for the disappointment of the ending).
>
> --Duncan
That is interesting... and possibly explains why, when I played the game
again all the way to the end a few years after beta testing it, I wasn't
quite as bothered by the ending (knowing it was coming probably had a
lot to do with it, of course.)
You will notice that a great deal of exposition in the New Mexico
segment of the game was written at the last minute, and that may explain
the lack of info as you describe. There are a lot of place holders
promising text to come in those areas.
And for those of you out there who care to add a minute particle of
Infocom trivia to their baskets... the file on the playtesting disk I
received was not named Trinity, but rather "ZippityDooDah." I always
scratched my head at this, as all the previous games of theirs I'd
tested were properly labeled.
I can only assume that the programmer's drugs hadn't quite kicked in yet
the morning the disks were burned...;-}
Chip
David Thornley
Dan Schmidt <df...@harmonixmusic.com> wrote:
>
>I remember a big deal being made about the design of Loom, in which
>the player could not cause the game to be unwinnable (I'm pretty
>sure). That's not exactly the same thing, but obviously implies that
>all puzzles are solvable in one session. Looks like it came out in
>1990.
>
down the "drafts" you played on the musical instrument. It was
possible to learn one and then advance to where you could not
go back to it, but have to use it. Playing random notes was
probably not an option except early on.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Sean T Barrett
>I remember a big deal being made about the design of Loom, in which
>the player could not cause the game to be unwinnable (I'm pretty
>sure). That's not exactly the same thing, but obviously implies that
>all puzzles are solvable in one session. Looks like it came out in
>1990.
Was it 'unwinnable', or 'you never die'? I thought all the graphic
adventures of that period generally strived to avoid unwinnability.
SeanB
Stephen Granade
Not Sierra's graphic adventures. Most of them let you do all kinds of
nasty things to close off your options. I don't recall if they'd
gotten better by the end of the 1980's; I believe they hadn't.
Fred M. Sloniker
wrote:
>ISTM that you could put Loom in an unwinnable state by not noting
>down the "drafts" you played on the musical instrument. It was
>possible to learn one and then advance to where you could not
>go back to it, but have to use it. Playing random notes was
>probably not an option except early on.
It was still theoretically possible to advance; the game didn't put a
limit, in time or number of attempts, on your efforts to cast a spell.
(Note also that at its highest difficulty level-- the only way to see
a particular scene involving a gruesome death of an antagonist-- the
game didn't *show* you the notes involved in producing a spell, merely
played them. If your pitch is less than perfect, you'd have to
experiment a little bit to get some of the later spells right anyway.)
Incidentally, to tie this back into the original subject: Loom was
another game where the ending disappointed me. The protagonist,
directly and indirectly, would up causing a lot of thoughtless
suffering to both individuals and the world, and in the end the best
he could do was to save *half* the universe from the Ultimate Evil.
What started as an innocent fairy tale took a very nasty turn. I
didn't regret playing the game, though, and I'm not sure why; the game
world would have been a lot better off if your character hadn't been
born. Maybe it was because my character was given the chance to *see*
the damage he'd done on his quest and make at least *some* amends,
rather than the ending simply being 'the world has gone boom and it's
your fault'.
Daniel Giaimo
news:wkd76zr...@turangalila.harmonixmusic.com...
Speaking of Loom, does anyone know where I can get it? I seem to
remember really liking it and I also remember that I never actually
finished it.
--Daniel Giaimo
Carl Muckenhoupt
> > "Duncan Stevens" <dn...@starpower.net> wrote in message
> > news:9iq2r0$d44$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
> > > Spoiler space...
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
> I also have some heretical thoughts that perhaps Moriarty didn't think this
> through as thoroughly as he might have. It looks like the
> alternative-timeline really-huge-Trinity-bomb idea was deliberate, since
> it's repeated several times, but I'm not sure Moriarty sat down and
> thought about problems like "where'd the umbrella come from?" and "why is the
> 1945 of the game an alternative version?"
For what it's worth, I always thought that the time-looped umbrella was
a bit of deliberate creepiness. It hints at hidden forces at work, ones
beyond normal causality.
Plus, in a subtle way, it foreshadows the ending. For most of the game,
you play under the assumption that you're going to wind up altering
history. But the umbrella suggests that the timeline you come from is
one that already takes your alterations into account. (Not that the
player notices this at the time, of course.)
Weird Beard
Stephen Granade wrote in message ...
>>
>> Was it 'unwinnable', or 'you never die'? I thought all the graphic
>> adventures of that period generally strived to avoid unwinnability.
>
>Not Sierra's graphic adventures. Most of them let you do all kinds of
>nasty things to close off your options. I don't recall if they'd
>gotten better by the end of the 1980's; I believe they hadn't.
>
>Stephen
>
There were two types of death that they seemed to use more than any other.
One was cliiffs and rivers. In a way these are fair, because if you
purposely make an adventure character jump off a cliff, they *should* die.
However, in the older Sierra games, the character doesn't stop when
travelling from screen to screen until a: you make it stop b: it hits a
solid object or c: it runs off a cliff that some designer thought it would
be fun to place right at the edge of the screen. To add insult to injury, on
today's machines the fast speed rivals the roadrunner (WB's, not Trinity's)
while slow is barely turtle speed.
The second type of death was to force the player to mavouever the character
along a path without straying on pain of death. Space Quest 2 had a place
were half the screen was a maze of roots. Step on the roots at any point and
the roots would strangle you. Leisure Suit Larry 2 had a similar but
thankfully smaller area were the character had to manuever along a very thin
"safe" are in a quicksand pit.
Billy Harris
<%zs57.48598$J91.2...@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, Weird
Beard <weird...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
No longer Trinity spoilers
> There were two types of death that they seemed to use more than any other.
>
> One was cliiffs and rivers. In a way these are fair, because if you
> purposely make an adventure character jump off a cliff, they *should* die.
> However, in the older Sierra games, the character doesn't stop when
The two most annoying instant deaths I ever experienced were both in
Sierra games -- actually the same one.
First, there were cliffs you could fall off of. But the path-finding
algorithm was extremely stupid; if you tried to walk across a screen
which contained cliffs anywhere, it was 50/50 likely that you would
wander up a cliff then jump off instead of walking around. Often your
character would go far out of his way to climb and jump off of a cliff.
The other problems were scorpions in the desert. If you walked onto
certain desert screens, a scorpion would slowly make his way CLEAR
ACROSS THE SCREEN and bite you; all the while the animation cursor
indicated that you could do nothing to avoid your death, not even
reload your game.
Fred M. Sloniker
<wha...@mail.airmail.net> wrote:
>First, there were cliffs you could fall off of. But the path-finding
>algorithm was extremely stupid; if you tried to walk across a screen
>which contained cliffs anywhere, it was 50/50 likely that you would
>wander up a cliff then jump off instead of walking around. Often your
>character would go far out of his way to climb and jump off of a
>cliff.
>
>The other problems were scorpions in the desert. If you walked onto
>certain desert screens, a scorpion would slowly make his way CLEAR
>ACROSS THE SCREEN and bite you; all the while the animation cursor
>indicated that you could do nothing to avoid your death, not even
>reload your game.
"Lemmings: an interactive suicide prevention", anyone?
Georgina Okerson
> There were two types of death that they seemed to use more than any other.
>
> One was cliiffs and rivers. In a way these are fair, because if you
> purposely make an adventure character jump off a cliff, they *should* die.
> However, in the older Sierra games, the character doesn't stop when
> travelling from screen to screen until a: you make it stop b: it hits a
> solid object or c: it runs off a cliff that some designer thought it would
> be fun to place right at the edge of the screen. To add insult to injury, on
> today's machines the fast speed rivals the roadrunner (WB's, not Trinity's)
> while slow is barely turtle speed.
>
> The second type of death was to force the player to mavouever the character
> along a path without straying on pain of death. Space Quest 2 had a place
> were half the screen was a maze of roots. Step on the roots at any point and
> the roots would strangle you. Leisure Suit Larry 2 had a similar but
> thankfully smaller area were the character had to manuever along a very thin
> "safe" are in a quicksand pit.
Things I remember as being particularly hair-tearing at the time:
The mountain in KQ3. You had to do it *repeatedly*, and with a *time
limit*. And you couldn't just teleport to the top! Eyagh. (Istr the
King's Quest Companion book making silly comments about the poor
character trying to crawl up this narrow path while balancing a
thimbleful of dew and all the other spell components he was carrying)
The *other* mountain in KQ3, because just finding the right place to
start climbing the cliff face, after figuring out that you *could* climb
the cliff face, was not easy. Not to mention that the game would take
your items away (feather, fly wings) if you tried to use them to
logically circumvent this 'puzzle'.
The ice lake in Conquests of Camelot. Sure, you have a handy magical warning
heart to tell you that you're going astray, but it was
fairly-nervewracking, I tell ya. This was one of those "compulsively save
every three steps" area for me.
The (*&#&^%$ river ride in one of the LSL games. You and a log and a
stupid nasty arcade sequence. I swear, I saved every other SECOND.
But at the time, I expected this sort of thing in puzzles. And I don't
really mind them that much as long as I have a reasonable amount of
control over the character and the freedom to save as often as i want.
Now, watch-your-step puzzles in games where you're not controlling your
character's every step, but have to rely on incredibly stupid
'pathfinding' AI, are just plain mean. (I'm playing Baldur's Gate 2 at
the moment and being annoyed about many things, but pathfinding is among
them. If your pathfinding is stupid, don't punish me for where my
character treads!)
__________________________________________________________________
Duke University Role-playing And Gaming Organization
http://www.duke.edu/web/DRAGO/
Dave Moderski
"Weird Beard" <weird...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:%zs57.48598$J91.2...@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> be fun to place right at the edge of the screen. To add insult to injury,
on
> today's machines the fast speed rivals the roadrunner (WB's, not
Trinity's)
> while slow is barely turtle speed.
>
I'm a fan of the Ultima series of video games which started about the same
time as the King's Quest series. In order to play the old games I dled a
copy of a program called Mo Slo. Last I checked it ran from a command
prompt. But a GUI interface might be in the works. Its worth checking out
their homepage if you want to play some of those old games again...
Adam Thornton
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>But just uncertain enough that I think it might be cooler than I am
>capable of grasping. Heh.
I believe it to be deliberate.
This is also why I think Jigsaw is very much like Trinity. This *is*
the best of all possible worlds. Don't that suck?
Adam
Carl Muckenhoupt
pon...@earthlink.net says...
>
> I'm a fan of the Ultima series of video games which started about the same
> time as the King's Quest series. In order to play the old games I dled a
> copy of a program called Mo Slo. Last I checked it ran from a command
> prompt. But a GUI interface might be in the works. Its worth checking out
> their homepage if you want to play some of those old games again...
>
> http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/
There's a Windows-based slowdown program that I like called "Turbo". I
don't remember where I downloaded it from, and the documentation doesn't
give a URL, so I've put it on wurb for those who are interested:
http://www.wurb.com/~carl/Turbo.zip
Carl Muckenhoupt
noemai...@nonexistentaddress.org says...
>
> "Carl Muckenhoupt" <ca...@wurb.com> wrote in message
> news:MPG.15ce7560b...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
>
> snip
> > There's a Windows-based slowdown program that I like called "Turbo". I
> > don't remember where I downloaded it from, and the documentation doesn't
> > give a URL, so I've put it on wurb for those who are interested:
> > http://www.wurb.com/~carl/Turbo.zip
>
> do you know if it will work on a Pentium III running Windows 98?
Well, I'm running it on a Pentium III running Windows 98. So that
answers both of your questions.
J. Juls
> possibly expect to solve the first time you play -- was first
> categorized as a bad thing?
>
Well, I'll barge in obnoxiously.
The first time I heard about it was in a magazine, I think (mid-'80s,
maybe Compute's Gazette??) They were upset that you had to die in
the coal mine a few times, because there's no way you could map the thing
and get all the right stuff done before the vilstu potion wore off. And I
suppose they're right, but at least I didn't have to die in RL!
Julie
Mac
news:8eivktoqvvascnlei...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 13 Jul 2001 20:26:59 -0700, "Daniel Giaimo"
> <dgi...@rgiaimo.net> wrote:
>
> Ah good. That at least doesn't contradict my hypothesis that the
> message of the game isn't simply anti-nuclear.
You must be kidding. How could an Anglo-Saxon ever issue an anti-nuclear (or
anti-bomb-of-any-kind, for that matter) message? Has any ever felt guilty
about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I think the only anti-nuclear people are the
Japanese, who have felt the bombs on their own skins, and some Celts, who
are simply sick of all this...
Carl Muckenhoupt
And how do trolls feel about the issue?
Besides, what makes you think a man with a name like "Moriarty" is more
Anglo-Saxon than Celt?
Fred M. Sloniker
>Fred M. Sloniker <sf...@qwest.net> wrote in message
>news:8eivktoqvvascnlei...@4ax.com...
>> Ah good. That at least doesn't contradict my hypothesis that the
>> message of the game isn't simply anti-nuclear.
>You must be kidding. How could an Anglo-Saxon ever issue an
>anti-nuclear (or anti-bomb-of-any-kind, for that matter) message?
On the off chance that your sarcasm was not merely an attempt to troll
but in fact an attempt at a relevant reaction to my post...
Perhaps I should clarify my point. When I said 'simply anti-nuclear',
with the associated implication that this was a bad thing, I wasn't
referring to opposition to nuclear weapons per se. I don't care much
for nuclear weapons either; it's probably due to that whole Cold War
nightmare scenario of one missile getting launched due a short circuit
or a terrorist or something and triggering a cascade reaction that
would scour the earth. That said, I don't believe in Things Man Was
Not Meant to Know or Forces Man Cannot Control; yes, we've messed up a
bit with the whole responsibility-to-the-earth thing, but we've been
doing *that* since we discovered fire, and I for one am not going back
to a cave.
My objection to a message being 'simply anti-nuclear' lies in the
'simply' part. The real world is a complicated place, and easy
answers like 'nukes are bad, mmmkay?' only serve to polarize opinions
and divide people into factions, something that people are already
quite good at and don't really need the help with. I try to live by
(among other things) the philosophy that people make the biggest
messes in life when they're absolutely sure they're doing the right
thing. I'm not always consistent, of course, but the way I figure it
is, if a belief's worth anything, it'll survive some doubt.
ObIF: note that I am not now, nor was I in the original message,
claiming that Trinity is an anti-nuclear game, much less 'simply' an
anti-nuclear game. From the information I've been able to gather, it
reminds me much more of an episode of 'The Outer Limits': the exact
nature of the bogeyman isn't important, as it merely provides
something for the protagonist to strive utmostly against, ultimately
failing. I could be wrong, of course, since all my information is
second-hand; if someone cares to work up a case for "The message of
'Trinity' is 'nukes are bad'", I promise to read it. n_n
Alandeniro
>note that I am not now, nor was I in the original message,
>claiming that Trinity is an anti-nuclear game, much less 'simply' an
>anti-nuclear game. From the information I've been able to gather, it
>reminds me much more of an episode of 'The Outer Limits': the exact
>nature of the bogeyman isn't important, as it merely provides
>something for the protagonist to strive utmostly against, ultimately
>failing. I could be wrong, of course, since all my information is
>second-hand; if someone cares to work up a case for "The message of
'>Trinity' is 'nukes are bad'", I promise to read it. n_n
The comic book that came with Trinity, I would say, is pretty satirical towards
the arms race. Particularly anti-Star Wars/Reagan stuff. After all, in the
speculation of the game, the politics of the arms race and deterrence FAILED.
WWWIII and essentially the end of the human race wouldn't be averted by
geopolitical forces, Washington or the Kremlin, but rather by a tourist.
And without getting too off-topic, the whole nuclear weapons ("nukesRbad!")
issue has more to do with the strategic or military use of the
weapons--production of weaponry or high grade plutonium has done some, well,
unfortunate things. As with testing. When they were testing the bomb on Bikini
Atoll, they had an empty destroyer well within the radiation zone, in order to
see what would happen. After the blast, the US Navy had sailors "scrubbing off"
the radiation with soap and mops, in short sleeves. One sailor found a pellet
on the deck. He put it in his pocket until a commanding officer told him that
it was plutonium. Hanford Nuclear Facility in southeastern Washington, which
produces high grade plutonium, had dumped 450 billion gallons of contaminated
liquid wastes to the soils (these are government estimations). This doesn't
even bring to bear how the Soviets screwed up.
So what does all of this have to do with Trinity? Well, you can play it as a
straight adventure, with the nuclear race only adding color. That's fine, or
better than fine-- anyone can play a game the way they want. But what makes
Trinity, for me, my favorite piece of IF is that it is unflinching towards the
deeper stuff. And in fact, has a very subtle but potent anti-nuclear message.
What makes Trinity of course so brilliant is that it's not JUST about one
thing--it also has great puzzles, scenery, writing, etc. It doesn't come across
as shrill politically. If it was just "an anti-nuke game" without any skill or
talent behind it, it would be useless. But (I think) the larger social point is
there, as a key component of the game.
Daniel Giaimo
news:20010804220306...@ng-fh1.aol.com...
>
> >note that I am not now, nor was I in the original message,
> >claiming that Trinity is an anti-nuclear game, much less 'simply' an
> >anti-nuclear game. From the information I've been able to gather, it
> >reminds me much more of an episode of 'The Outer Limits': the exact
> >nature of the bogeyman isn't important, as it merely provides
> >something for the protagonist to strive utmostly against, ultimately
> >failing. I could be wrong, of course, since all my information is
> >second-hand; if someone cares to work up a case for "The message of
> '>Trinity' is 'nukes are bad'", I promise to read it. n_n
>
> The comic book that came with Trinity, I would say, is pretty
satirical towards
> the arms race. Particularly anti-Star Wars/Reagan stuff. After all, in
the
> speculation of the game, the politics of the arms race and deterrence
FAILED.
> WWWIII and essentially the end of the human race wouldn't be averted
by
> geopolitical forces, Washington or the Kremlin, but rather by a
tourist.
But one of the points that has been made by me and by several other
people is that WWIII is _not_ averted by the tourist. At the end of the
game the bombing raid sirens are still going off in London and you are
still off to go do your part in the history of the atomic bomb.
Also, it seems to me that the comic book is placed in there for the
specific reason of making you _as the protagonist_ feel averse towards
nuclear weapons. It seems to be all part of a well constructed ruse to
get you into believing that your actions in the story will do something
about the horrors of nuclear weaponry and then, just as you feel your
task has been completed, you find out that you have actually helped
bring about the nuclear age and the coming destruction of the world in
world war III.
In my opinion, the final message of Trinity is one of acceptance of
the nuclear world that we live in. The quotation at the end,
especially, seems to me to be saying that nothing could have been done
about where we are now, (and as a corollary to that, nothing can be done
about where we are going).
<snip>
--Daniel Giaimo
BTW, most nuclear protesters that I've heard of are against _all_ forms
of nuclear energy including using it for electricity.