[Theory] The Meta-Puzzle of Interactive Fiction
Marnie Parker
thankfully, only a few quotes.) Original, ground-breaking, common sensical,
obvious, humdrum, boring.
You decide.
The Meta-Puzzle of Interactive Fiction: Why We Like What We Like
(Version 2.20)
This theory, although the basis of the IF Art Show, only mentions it once.
Because the focus of this "paper" is computer interactivity, specifically, IF's
interactivity.
It is too long, approx. 40 "pages", to publish here, so I have put it on my web
page. I certainly don't expect anyone who reads it to agree with all of it, or
even with just parts, but I think almost every IF author/player can get
SOMETHING out of it. So I now offer it for your perusal.
Reader comments:
"I think it should be required reading for nearly everyone writing IF."
Stephen Granade
"A very thoughtful and thought-provoking study."
Den of Iniquity (Dennis Scott)
"Congratulations, Doe; this is a fine piece of theory -- even if I don't agree
with all of it, it's still thought-provoking and worth
discussing/debating/otherwise chewing over."
Michael Gentry
"Read Doe's essay and think about it. Agree with her or not, this essay gives
us all a common theoretical footing and a vocabulary with which to begin
discussion of IF as theory."
Adam J. Thornton
If you have any reactions to this theory, please don't email me but post your
comments to this thread so we can keep any discussion in the newsgroup.
Thank you, Doe
http://members.aol.com/doepage/theory.html
doea...@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------
Inform Tips - http://members.aol.com/doepage/infotips.htm
IF Art Gallery - http://members.aol.com/iffyart/
IF Review Conspiracy - http://www.textfire.com/conspiracy/
David Cornelson
news:20000315072930...@ng-cd1.aol.com...
> Over a year in development! Thousands of words and tons of quotes! (Well,
> thankfully, only a few quotes.) Original, ground-breaking, common
sensical,
> obvious, humdrum, boring.
>
> You decide.
>
> The Meta-Puzzle of Interactive Fiction: Why We Like What We Like
> (Version 2.20)
>
[Gulp]
I'm still digesting this 'paper'. I'd say it's stunning
Hey Doe - you also have to add another 'type'. People who tend write games
and tools, hang around for conversations, but only rarely play any games at
all. Babel was the last game that I truly liked. Most others have lightly
tickled me or in some cases, I just didn't get it.
Anyway - required reading for sure. If you're going to even think about
writing IF, this should be a place to start - for several reasons. For the
enlightened, it gives some direction. For the dabbler, it may give you an
honest feel for just how difficult it is to create a widely liked game.
Marnie - I nominate you IF Person of the Month. (Swimsuit calendars will be
available later.)
Jarb
Andrew Plotkin
> "Read Doe's essay and think about it. Agree with her or not, this essay gives
> us all a common theoretical footing and a vocabulary with which to begin
> discussion of IF as theory."
Nooo! Not a sound theoretical footinnnnnng!
--Z
(I look forward to reading it -- after work, though)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Marnie Parker
>From: "David Cornelson" dcorn...@placet.com
>Date: 3/15/00 6:49 AM Pacific Standard Time
>[Gulp]
>
>I'm still digesting this 'paper'. I'd say it's stunning
Thanks.
>Hey Doe - you also have to add another 'type'. People who tend write games
>and tools, hang around for conversations, but only rarely play any games at
>all. Babel was the last game that I truly liked. Most others have lightly
>tickled me or in some cases, I just didn't get it.
Hehehe. I admit, except for yearly comp games -- the more I write WIPs, plain
coding stuff, etc. -- the less I have played.
>Anyway - required reading for sure. If you're going to even think about
>writing IF, this should be a place to start - for several reasons. For the
>enlightened, it gives some direction. For the dabbler, it may give you an
>honest feel for just how difficult it is to create a widely liked game.
>
>Marnie - I nominate you IF Person of the Month. (Swimsuit calendars will be
>available later.)
I like soft furry animals, walks on moonlight beaches, and men with a sense of
humor. I also dislike intolerant people. And I am working on my college degree
and when I finish I plan to...
Oops. Sorry, was dazed there for a minute, don't know what came over me.
Doe :-)
Dennis Smith
>"A very thoughtful and thought-provoking study."
> Den of Iniquity (Dennis Scott)
Hoo. You spelled Iniquity right!
Rodman. Dennis Rodman.
--
Den
The Solar Echo
I'd have to say that this is a masterpiece. I felt enlightened, especially
reading it as a new writer of I-F.
Interactive Fiction is barely classified. Matching an I-F game to a players
likes and dislikes is difficult, either involving random downloads and trial
and error, or reviews written by people who may or may not share your I-F
personality type.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified according
to their I-F structure? Anyone visiting the site could take a test to
determine their I-F personality type, and linked to games that fit.
Not only would this take a lot of the guesswork out of finding games that
appeal to you, it would make it easier for I-F authors to match their games
with their target audience.
Just a few ideas. Thanks for the The Meta-Puzzle of Interactive Fiction,
Doe....it certainly was food for thought.
Solar
((((((:. The Solar Echo .:))))))
J.D. Berry
thesol...@aol.com (The Solar Echo) wrote:
> Interactive Fiction is barely classified. Matching an I-F game to a
> players likes and dislikes is difficult, either involving random
> downloads and trial and error, or reviews written by people who may
> or may not share your I-F personality type.
I found this part of Doe's oeuvre (if you will ;-) the most
intriguing.
>
> Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified
> according to their I-F structure? Anyone visiting the site could take
> a test to determine their I-F personality type, and linked to games
> that fit.
The problem is that there aren't enough ratings in the first place, let
alone a break down by personality types.
I think a detailed review of a game can provide enough clues, though,
to how a given player will enjoy the game. Terms like "puzzle
fest" "puzzleless" "off the wall" "straightforward" "highly
interactive" say a lot. And, yes, that won't work every time, but
neither will personality type classification.
...
All in all, nice work, Doe. :-)
Jim
Also an INFP
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Adam Cadre
Good. This is something that's come up before, albeit in another
context -- the last time around I believe it was all about Genre:
dividing games up into categories like Mystery, Sci-Fi, College,
Everyday-World, Tragical-Comical-Historical-Pastoral, Scene
Individable, Poem Unlimited or what have you. And then someone
says, "But I prefer works that don't fit into a particular category"
and the taxonomists cry, "Great! We'll put those works in a category
called Uncategorizable!" and then there are tears.
> Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified
> according to their I-F structure?
Not so much, no. I mean, the temptation when someone comes along and
makes some new and interesting points is to want to build a System
out of it. Observations are often packed with truth and meaning;
systems rarely are. If this essay causes people start talking more
about the way that a particular game engages their minds, the way it
causes them to construct or reconstruct sensory experience, then that's
certainly all to the good and a huge contribution to our understanding
of this still quite embryonic medium. But when people start to try to
fit their experiences into a pre-existing framework -- to "classify
games according to their IF structure" -- that seems more likely to
limit understanding than enhance it. To borrow from a buzzphrase of
the day, it encourages us to Think Inside The Box.
> Anyone visiting the site could take a test to determine their I-F
> personality type, and linked to games that fit.
See, this I really don't like. What shape would this test take? It
seems to me that it'd end up devolving either into tautologies ("5. Do
you like games with big maps to explore? Then you might want to try
games with big maps to explore") or an exercise in dubious connections
("11. How many dots end up on the inside of the cube when folded up?
Your spatial relations are strong enough that you'd like these puzzle-
oriented games...")
> Not only would this take a lot of the guesswork out of finding games
> that appeal to you, it would make it easier for I-F authors to match
> their games with their target audience.
Hmmm.
I was going to say that a more likely way to match up players with
games would be to simply have a web-like database where you pick a
game you've liked, and it says, "If you liked game X, you might
also like W, Y and Z," and then traveling on to W reveals that "you
might also like X, Z and Q" and so forth. But now that I think about
it, I'm not sure that even this would work.
After all -- if people started constructing lists of games they liked,
would it be likely that games would cluster up? That if someone does
like game A, that they pretty much always also like B and C, and that
if they dislike A, chances are they won't like B or C? My suspicion
is that that would *not* be the case. Just from my own experience: I
write games that I as a player would enjoy playing -- that's how I
decide whether a project is going well as I'm working on it. If
someone were to ask what category of game I most enjoy, I'd round up
the games on my web site and say, "The category to which these belong."
But few people tend to think of my games as belonging in the same
category at all -- one reviewer once asked how many games I could write
that bore no resemblance to previous ones -- and very few people tend
to like (or, more hearteningly, dislike) all of them. Just to take my
main releases of each of the last four years: do you group I-0 with
Varicella for offering a lot of freedom of action, and Photopia with
Shrapnel for offering not much freedom at all? Or do you group
Varicella with Shrapnel for covering much of the same thematic
territory, and I-0 with Photopia for not straying into such dark
territory? Or do you group Photopia with Varicella for being fairly
complete works, and I-0 with Shrapnel as being more experiments than
full games? And this is even *before* you branch out into works by
other authors. Is someone who likes Photopia likely to enjoy Babel?
You'd get a vehement yes from some people and an equally vehement no
from others. Zarf has a sizeable body of work out there -- do people
either enjoy or not enjoy "Zarfian" works? If so, why is it that I
really enjoyed Spider and Web and (in retrospect) Hunter, in Darkness,
but didn't much care for So Far or A Change in the Weather?
Again, I think it'd be worth it to do some empirical research rather
than relying on hunches. But until that research is done, my hunch
is that people are no more likely to like a random game chosen from
their designated "personality category" than they are to like a random
game chosen from the archive as a whole.
-----
Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
http://adamcadre.ac
Joe Mason
>I was going to say that a more likely way to match up players with
>games would be to simply have a web-like database where you pick a
>game you've liked, and it says, "If you liked game X, you might
>also like W, Y and Z," and then traveling on to W reveals that "you
>might also like X, Z and Q" and so forth. But now that I think about
>it, I'm not sure that even this would work.
www.alexlit.com does this for science fiction and fantasy. The IMDB does it
for movies. The IMDB recommendations have been pretty useless, I've found,
probably because it's just one of the many things IMDB does (and not an
important one) so it's not done very well. I've never used alexlit, but the
observation on rec.arts.sf.written is something like, "You give it a highly
personalized list of books which you've liked in the past, and it goes through
a sophisticated matching process, correlates your taste with those of other
users, and tells you to read Lois McMaster Bujold."
Which is always a good recommendation, but it doesn't really need a web rating
system to tell you that. In an IF context, 80% or so of users are going to
be told 'You'll like stuff by Zarf,' no matter what they put in. The reason,
or at least the reason that seems reasonable to me, is that these games are
liked by people with a wide variety of tastes and are therefore going to show
up for a wide variety of input lists. (Now for a philosophical question: is a
recommendation service which always says "Zarf" more useless for people who
*like* Zarf's work, or who *hate* Zarf's work?)
Of course, it can't HURT to do a recommendation service like this, and there's
always the chance that it'll benefit people. alexlit still gets recommended
on rec.arts.sf.written fairly often, so the fact that Bujold and _Bridge of
Birds_ show up on every recommendation list doesn't seem to be much of a
problem. The big thing about a recommendation service is that it doesn't try
to slot things into categories, so there isn't a danger of starting to focus
on the wrong thing.
(BTW, I haven't read Doe's essay yet - midterms and assignments and stuff this
week. Which is also why I haven't yet typed up the IF Conspiracy review I was
supposed to have done for Friday. I'll probably get a chance this weekend.)
Joe
Second April
> In article <20000315152530...@ng-de1.aol.com>,
> thesol...@aol.com (The Solar Echo) wrote:
>
> > Interactive Fiction is barely classified. Matching an I-F game to a
> > players likes and dislikes is difficult, either involving random
> > downloads and trial and error, or reviews written by people who may
> > or may not share your I-F personality type.
>
> I found this part of Doe's oeuvre (if you will ;-) the most
> intriguing.
>
> >
> > Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified
> > according to their I-F structure? Anyone visiting the site could take
> > a test to determine their I-F personality type, and linked to games
> > that fit.
>
> The problem is that there aren't enough ratings in the first place, let
> alone a break down by personality types.
And it's not clear that personality types dictate enjoyment all that much
anyway.
If you ask me for a short list of IF that I enjoyed most, I'd probably
mention Babel, Sunset Over Savannah, Varicella, Little Blue Men, Change in
the Weather, Worlds Apart, Spellbreaker, and Trinity. Oh, and Losing Your
Grip.
So what category am I in? Sunset and Worlds Apart could probably be called
"emotive," if that means anything, but it's hard to see how Varicella or
Spellbreaker or Little Blue Men could qualify. Change in the Weather was
highly visual, but I don't think you could say that of Little Blue Men or
Trinity--and if "enjoying words" is in opposition to visual, than I'm in
the "linguistic" category because it's the quality of the writing in
Varicella and Trinity that really appealed to me. Do I require movement to
process information? There's movement in all of the above, but varying
amounts of it, and I liked Enlightenment too. And I'll venture to say that
I liked Grip--and others too--because it rewarded analysis and thought,
which isn't really related to information processing at all.
I don't mean to bash Doe, really. There are probably lessons here for
potential authors, along the lines of "use all the senses." But
personality and information-processing types only dictate a narrow range
of reactions, namely to unusual works of IF that tend to favor one type of
processing approach over another. Photopia may be one example, but I'm
hard pressed to think of another.
Duncan Stevens
dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu
But buy me a singer to sing one song--
Song about nothing--song about sheep--
Over and over, all day long;
Patch me again my thread-bare sleep.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
mathew
> I thought of that too, but I don't think it would work either. Amazon.com has
> something like this for books and music, and it's never seemed to work very
> well at all for me.
Well, on the other hand, www.moviecritic.com has been stunningly good at
predicting movies I'll like -- to the extent that I'm planning to watch
something I was sure I'd hate, simply because moviecritic is convinced
I'll like it...
However, that accuracy comes after having rated over 300 movies. I'm
not sure I've played more than thirty pieces of IF.
mathew
dcorn...@my-deja.com
And I'd add to Adam's statement that on any given day I may like a game
like Photopia and then on other days, ach, give me a crobar and let me
do some damage. Yet on other days I just wanna find stuff and fix
things and not 'talk' to anyone (NPC's).
This is the piece that's likely missing from Doe's theory (even though
it's a great start). That we all evolve and change and that includes our
tastes in game-playing.
Categorization is a bad idea. As I've mentioned before, the best way to
weed out games is that the author should write something catchy that
describes the content and feel of their game and then potential gamers
can decide from the 'trailer' whether to play it or not. Reviews help a
lot too, but we're (RAIF) just not very good at reviews overall.
I know Doe mentioned categorization in her theory, but I think the value
lies in writing new games, not in categorizing already written games.
Her theories are more of a 'guideline', not a 'rule'.
I just thought of something else. I think real books and book stores are
moving in the non-categorization direction as well. Sci-Fi/Fantasy book
racks used to be huge and the general fiction section was the same or
smaller. Sci-Fi/Fantasy shelves are nothing compared to the general
fiction sections of today and you can certainly find overlap in both
directions.
Nothing concrete should come of this - it's just a "Hey, think about
this when you write a game" kind of thing.
IMHO
Jarb
ct
Joe Mason <jcm...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>important one) so it's not done very well. I've never used alexlit, but the
>observation on rec.arts.sf.written is something like, "You give it a highly
>personalized list of books which you've liked in the past, and it goes through
>a sophisticated matching process, correlates your taste with those of other
>users, and tells you to read Lois McMaster Bujold."
And, indeed, it did! Oh, ok, it recommended a variety of other books
too, a number of which I'd read and loved - it must be doing something
right. (Though I'm less convinced about Dorothy Sayer...)
>(Now for a philosophical question: is a recommendation service which
>always says "Zarf" more useless for people who *like* Zarf's work, or
>who *hate* Zarf's work?)
As a recommendation service, it'd be crap - it shouldn't be suggesting
things you've already 'rated'.
regards, ct
The Solar Echo
It's not that I really think that it would work, it's just that it would be
nice if there was a way it could work.
>I was going to say that a more likely way to match up players with
>games would be to simply have a web-like database where you pick a
>game you've liked, and it says, "If you liked game X, you might
>also like W, Y and Z," and then traveling on to W reveals that "you
>might also like X, Z and Q" and so forth. But now that I think about
>it, I'm not sure that even this would work.
I thought of that too, but I don't think it would work either. Amazon.com has
something like this for books and music, and it's never seemed to work very
well at all for me.
RudeJohn
thesol...@aol.com (The Solar Echo) didst proclaim:
...snip...
=> Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified
according
=> to their I-F structure? Anyone visiting the site could take a test
to
=> determine their I-F personality type, and linked to games that fit.
...snip...
Howdy,
Is it just me, or is this whole concept of "IF personality typing" a
tad spooky? I mean, what if I change my mind? What if my taste in
entertainment changes from week to week. Am I going to have to pay a
fine? Will I have to take the test over and over and over again? Are
the IF Police going to drag me out of my bed and rush me off to a
Reeducation Facility? Will the lobotomy hurt? Will someone use this
bit of speculation as a theme for a short piece of IF?
Be afraid. Be very afraid. ];-)
C'ya,
RJ
"I'm rude. It's a job."
Plant Kingdom
wrote:
>> Interactive Fiction is barely classified.
>
>Good. This is something that's come up before, albeit in another
>context -- the last time around I believe it was all about Genre:
>dividing games up into categories like Mystery, Sci-Fi, College,
>Everyday-World, Tragical-Comical-Historical-Pastoral, Scene
>Individable, Poem Unlimited or what have you. And then someone
>says, "But I prefer works that don't fit into a particular category"
>and the taxonomists cry, "Great! We'll put those works in a category
>called Uncategorizable!" and then there are tears.
I propose three categories: "Bad IF", "Good IF", and "Mediocre IF To
Be Played When You've Played All the Good IF." Uncategorize that!
>> Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified
>> according to their I-F structure?
>
>Not so much, no. I mean, the temptation when someone comes along and
>makes some new and interesting points is to want to build a System
>out of it. Observations are often packed with truth and meaning;
>systems rarely are. If this essay causes people start talking more
>about the way that a particular game engages their minds, the way it
>causes them to construct or reconstruct sensory experience, then that's
>certainly all to the good and a huge contribution to our understanding
>of this still quite embryonic medium. But when people start to try to
>fit their experiences into a pre-existing framework -- to "classify
>games according to their IF structure" -- that seems more likely to
>limit understanding than enhance it. To borrow from a buzzphrase of
>the day, it encourages us to Think Inside The Box.
With so much of an IF game being tied up in its structure, the simple
act of publishing classifications might act as a spoiler. The body of
available IF works is becoming large enough that there might be
interesting generalizations to be drawn, but I prefer not to know too
much in advance.
Novelty is the main draw in many works, and something is only novel
once (except perhaps viewed through the filter of nostalgia). Trying
to classify the level of novelty in a game is clearly a fraught
enterprise.
The things I would be most interested to know in advance are:
a) Has the author done something nasty and ill-advised to the parser?
(Lobotomized it, that is.)
b) Does the author know how to use Mr. Apostrophe in a non-heinous
manner?
c) Is the scatological humor at least mildly redeemed by ANYTHING else
in the work?
And so on.
[major snippage]
>Just to take my
>main releases of each of the last four years: do you group I-0 with
>Varicella for offering a lot of freedom of action, and Photopia with
>Shrapnel for offering not much freedom at all? Or do you group
>Varicella with Shrapnel for covering much of the same thematic
>territory, and I-0 with Photopia for not straying into such dark
>territory? Or do you group Photopia with Varicella for being fairly
>complete works, and I-0 with Shrapnel as being more experiments than
>full games? And this is even *before* you branch out into works by
>other authors.
Clearly, one would want to use a system like WordNet - one can choose
which morphological threads to follow through the labyrinth of
ftp.gmd.de. (Assuming one were to undertake this venture, of course.)
Remember, some of us may actually _like_ the waters largely uncharted.
Is the frontier as interesting once it has been tamed?
[snip]
>Again, I think it'd be worth it to do some empirical research rather
>than relying on hunches. But until that research is done, my hunch
>is that people are no more likely to like a random game chosen from
>their designated "personality category" than they are to like a random
>game chosen from the archive as a whole.
I prefer is the recommendations of individuals to distillations of
mass knowledge. With the individual, I can form opinions about their
tastes, and determine whether their ideas of what constitutes
enjoyable IF are likely to jibe with mine. Aphoristically: when
dipping one's spoon into the porridge of agglomerated opinion, the
chances of fetching out a raisin of enlightenment are heavily
dependent on the number of raisins.
Er. Somebody slap me now.
> Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
> http://adamcadre.ac
Plant Kingdom
p...@littleraven.com
"You, Sir, talk like a Rosicrucian who will love nothing but a sylph, who
does not believe in a sylph, and who yet quarrels with the universe for
not containing a sylph."
--Thomas Love Peacock, _Nightmare Abbey_
Andrew Plotkin
> Adam Cadre <a...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
>>I was going to say that a more likely way to match up players with
>>games would be to simply have a web-like database where you pick a
>>game you've liked, and it says, "If you liked game X, you might
>>also like W, Y and Z," and then traveling on to W reveals that "you
>>might also like X, Z and Q" and so forth. But now that I think about
>>it, I'm not sure that even this would work.
>
> for movies. The IMDB recommendations have been pretty useless, I've found,
> probably because it's just one of the many things IMDB does (and not an
> observation on rec.arts.sf.written is something like, "You give it a highly
> personalized list of books which you've liked in the past, and it goes through
> a sophisticated matching process, correlates your taste with those of other
> users, and tells you to read Lois McMaster Bujold."
And Barry Hughart. (Oh, damn, you mention that farther down. Sorry.)
You're right; it's an interesting tool, but it should be regarded as an
adjunct to Going Out And Getting Some Damn Book Recommendations.
Note that rec.arts.sf.written is an *excellent* mechanism for getting book
recommendations -- because it's a big fat pool of sci-fi fans.
Marnie Parker
>Date: 3/15/00 12:25 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified according
>to their I-F structure? Anyone visiting the site could take a test to
>determine their I-F personality type, and linked to games that fit.
>Not only would this take a lot of the guesswork out of finding games that
>appeal to you, it would make it easier for I-F authors to match their games
>with their target audience.
Well, I had obviously played around with the idea mentally, or it wouldn't have
been mentioned in my paper.
And it wouldn't really matter if people didn't agree with it, because there are
all kinds of rating / recommendation services out there that people don't agree
with. Like Baf's guide, which I think is now defunct, I often disagreed with
that, although it was pretty good and often helpful.
But imagine the work involved! Imagine how many games one would have to play!
Maybe if I am still around in 8-10 years I might. Because I also might have
finally played enough IF games by then.
Glad you enjoyed the paper.
YesuSlave
>Is the frontier as interesting once it has been tamed?
I think that the question no longer comes down to "will we chart these waters"
but "how will it happen?" We either have the choice of working together to
create a good and acceptable system, or we will completely separate on this
issue and the work will be done, but not as well as it could have been.
Josh
Play Deephome, an interactive exorcism and repair job.
Http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/Yesuslave
Iain Merrick
[...]
> And I'd add to Adam's statement that on any given day I may like a game
> like Photopia and then on other days, ach, give me a crobar and let me
> do some damage.
...to some cute, fluffy lion-cubs?
Don't worry, everyone has days like that. I think.
--
Iain Merrick
i...@cs.york.ac.uk
Andrew Plotkin
>>Remember, some of us may actually _like_ the waters largely uncharted.
>>Is the frontier as interesting once it has been tamed?
>
> I think that the question no longer comes down to "will we chart these waters"
> but "how will it happen?" We either have the choice of working together to
> create a good and acceptable system, or we will completely separate on this
> issue and the work will be done, but not as well as it could have been.
I know I'm repeating myself, but I don't think this is a task which
improves with concensus.
Nor is it a matter of "charting a frontier", for heaven's sake. Have you
*noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*, not
for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
Paul O'Brian
> Reviews help a
> lot too, but we're (RAIF) just not very good at reviews overall.
I'm not so sure about that. I've been pretty impressed with the number of
reviews I've received for SPAG. This last issue had 22 reviews in it, from
a variety of sources. Not only that, there's the IF Review Conspiracy,
which seems to be cranking out the reviews at healthy rate. Not only that,
there are the scads and scads of competition reviews that show up every
year. Not only that, there are the occasional one-off reviews that appear
in rgif from time to time. (You say RAIF above, but I assume you're
referring to the community as a whole. Rec.arts.int-fiction isn't the most
appropriate forum for reviews.) From what I can see, I'd say we're pretty
damn good at reviews, especially for a hobbyist community where nobody
gets renumerated for their work.
--
Paul O'Brian obr...@colorado.edu http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
> GET SPAG ISSUE 20 FROM HTTP://WWW.SPARKYNET.COM/SPAG. EXAMINE IT.
This lovingly produced zine features news, reviews, and more, all focusing
on interactive fiction! It's nice and thick, too.
YesuSlave
>improves with concensus.
To clarify, I don't mean that we should all sit down and agree whether Photopia
should be counted in the Sci-fi realm or not because of the sections in it that
may be construed in such a way...but how we see IF as a whole.
Practically tested, a few people would set up a page to catagorize a small
section of randomly chosen IF and classify it. We could then get the responses
from people as to how such a system might be improved and expanded to be most
useful.
Please also understand that this isn't an attempt to Nazize the world of IF,
but simply a way of making the games less enigmatic. The info at the IF
Library on each game is certainly wanting greatly. If I showed up there
looking for a puzzleless game, I would have no idea where to look or how to
find it.
Alan Trewartha
> > important one) so it's not done very well. I've never used alexlit, but the
> > observation on rec.arts.sf.written is something like, "You give it a highly
> > personalized list of books which you've liked in the past, and it goes through
> > a sophisticated matching process, correlates your taste with those of other
> > users, and tells you to read Lois McMaster Bujold."
This reminds me of the website of the publishers I work for. They had a
"gift suggester" sort of thing where you filled in a little form describing
the person (relation, age, etc), but it always came back with
"Angela's Ashes" no matter what!
dcorn...@my-deja.com
<Pine.GSO.3.96.100031...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>,
Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Mar 2000 dcorn...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Reviews help a
> > lot too, but we're (RAIF) just not very good at reviews overall.
>
> I'm not so sure about that. I've been pretty impressed with the number
of
> reviews I've received for SPAG. This last issue had 22 reviews in it,
>
Well, I guess what I meant was that the overall review process for IF
hasn't been consistent. I also believe that although many of the reviews
are good, they also leave something to be desired in the way of helping
people locate games they would like to play.
There are several types of reviews:
1. Critical - reviewer just didn't like the game
2. Fan - reviewer loved the game or loves the author's work in general
and simply repeats "this is great!"
Then overlapping these types are spoiler/non-spoiler reviews.
I dislike both types of reviews in that they polarize (thumbs up, thumbs
down) review process.
A more accurate review (in my opinion) would talk about the story, plot,
puzzles, npc's, sounding like an innocent bystander and add spoilers at
the end of the review so that a person could stop at a certain point or
read on to get detailed info.
Of course I'm a monority here. I really find critical reviews
distasteful and the 'fan' reviews, well, some people just feel the need
to heap praise on others no matter what.
The review process in IF should be strictly directed at the author so
that he/she may become a better writer.
What is written for the masses should be as non-subjective as possible.
Adam Cadre
> > > Adam Cadre <a...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
> > > [...]
Just a quick reminder to double-check your attributions -- I didn't
write any of that stuff. Not a huge deal this time out, but just for
future reference...
-----
Brian 'Beej' Hall
>Categorization is a bad idea. As I've mentioned before, the best way to
>weed out games is that the author should write something catchy that
>describes the content and feel of their game and then potential gamers
>lot too, but we're (RAIF) just not very good at reviews overall.
I agree with what you said about the best way to weed out games, and
that a "trailer" is a great way to decide if you want to play an
individaul game or not.
That being said, I think categorization is also a good thing. When
I walk into my favorite used bookstore and I feel like reading some
sci-fi, it wouldn't be acceptable at all for the owner to tell me, "I'm
sorry, but we don't believe in categorization. Read all the back covers
and choose the books you like."
Admittedly, there are billions of books, and only several score pieces
of IF...but it's still enough IF that lazy me doesn't feel like reading
all the teasers. :)
And I still think that a loose-fit keyword categorization would work
better than just saying that Babel is sci-fi. Or is it horror? You see
my point.
-Beej
Paul O'Brian
> That being said, I think categorization is also a good thing. When
> I walk into my favorite used bookstore and I feel like reading some
> sci-fi, it wouldn't be acceptable at all for the owner to tell me, "I'm
> sorry, but we don't believe in categorization. Read all the back covers
> and choose the books you like."
Well, of course it wouldn't. The owner of the fabled categoryless
bookstore should instead say something like, "Sci-fi, eh? OK, how about
Asimov? Do you like Heinlein? Have you tried Connie Willis?"
You know, a conversation.
My point is that if you walk into a bookstore asking for something that
falls into the store's preset categories, the staff can just grunt and
point toward the proper shelves. But as soon as your wants get more
specific ("Science fiction about galactic empires", "Alternate histories",
"I liked Doomsday Book. What's like it?"), the store's categories aren't
all that helpful. What would be helpful is reading reviews, trying out a
few pages of some things that look interesting, and talking to people.
These are the sorts of things that the IF community already offers.
Stephen Granade
> A more accurate review (in my opinion) would talk about the story, plot,
> puzzles, npc's, sounding like an innocent bystander and add spoilers at
> the end of the review so that a person could stop at a certain point or
> read on to get detailed info.
I disagree. While you can strive to write a more balanced review, at
some point it all boils down to whether or not you liked the game. You
can talk about the writing, the craft, and all of that; but at some
point you'll have to give your opinions of such things.
> The review process in IF should be strictly directed at the author so
> that he/she may become a better writer.
Good lord, no. In that case, why not just mail your review straight to
the author and never mind posting it? While reviews can help authors,
they can also help other players know whether or not they want to play
a game.
> What is written for the masses should be as non-subjective as possible.
I think this is wrong in many, many ways.
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade | Interested in adventure games?
sgra...@phy.duke.edu | Visit About.com's IF Page
Duke University, Physics Dept | http://interactfiction.about.com
dcorn...@my-deja.com
Stephen Granade <sgra...@login2.phy.duke.edu> wrote:
> dcorn...@my-deja.com writes:
>
<snip me and Stephen disagreeing>
>
> I think this is wrong in many, many ways.
>
Where books and movies are concerned, you need the reviews and
categorization.
Where IF is concerned, and it's such a incestuous little group of
people, well, I think it does more harm than good. The one difference
between our hobby and most other artisitic endeavors is that we're more
or less a closed society.
Our games aren't played by the masses, nor are they generally played by
people that aren't interested in writing games.
Most of the players are also authors too.
So the review process has a different effect. I think we're still too
small of a group to handle public criticism well. I think we need more
encouragement and education, more marketing (to each other and to the
masses), and less "your game sucked and here's why..."
It's almost like we're on one side of a glass wall and no one is on the
other side. The reviews are generally meant for the other side - but no
one is there to hear them. So we end up sharing the reviews amongst
ourselves and - well - I just think it's unnecessary.
If we were to weigh the two - I would actually favor categorization over
reviews.
Nick Montfort
it's good for some reviews to have authors (not just the single author
of the particular game) as an intended readership. Additionally, it
makes sense to write reviews to help people decide what they'd like to
play. But that's not why I'm posting...
dcorn...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Our games aren't played by the masses, nor are they generally played
> by people that aren't interested in writing games. [...]
>
> It's almost like we're on one side of a glass wall and no one is on
> the other side. The reviews are generally meant for the other side
> - but no one is there to hear them.
Although the closed-off IF community is quite vibrant, aren't there some
people interested in broadening the appeal of their works so that those
who aren't Zork fans might enjoy their work?
Of course many recent IF works are a far cry from Zork. But even the
most experimental, diverging, non-puzzle-cenetered, and otherwise
un-Zork-like works often assume that the player has been initiated by
Infocom and knows the rules of compass-direction navigation,
object-taking, puzzle-solving, what the letter "i" does, etc.
Are there others who are interested in writing IF for different
audiences? If so, what have you been doing to bring your works outside
the IF community?
-Nick M.
Adam Cadre
> Are there others who are interested in writing IF for different
> audiences?
Yup.
> If so, what have you been doing to bring your works outside the IF
> community?
Plugging them on the book jacket of my novel.
Brian 'Beej' Hall
Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
>bookstore should instead say something like, "Sci-fi, eh? OK, how about
>Asimov? Do you like Heinlein? Have you tried Connie Willis?"
>
>You know, a conversation.
Yes. This is kinda like what happens on rgif when someone wants "a
fantasy game".
>My point is that if you walk into a bookstore asking for something that
>falls into the store's preset categories, the staff can just grunt and
>point toward the proper shelves. But as soon as your wants get more
>specific ("Science fiction about galactic empires", "Alternate histories",
>"I liked Doomsday Book. What's like it?"), the store's categories aren't
>all that helpful. What would be helpful is reading reviews, trying out a
>few pages of some things that look interesting, and talking to people.
Agreed.
One of the reasons this thread is coming to no resolution is because we
have different types of searches here, and they require different tools.
o Searches for a game of a certain good quality, being of no
particular genre or category: try SPAG.
o High quality tailored searches for a particular category of game:
try rgif and have a conversation.
>These are the sorts of things that the IF community already offers.
Yes, but I find there's a void here:
o Low quality searches on a particular type of game: Baf's aging
guide.
(I don't mean to belittle Baf's guide in any way by saying it's good for
low quality searches; it's just more likely to give you games you don't
like than a conversation with actual players on rgif.)
Back to the bookstore, when you walk into ftp.gmd.de, there are no
categories, and there is no knowledgeable bookkeeper. As someone
pointed out, you have to have a protracted conversation on rgif to get
your answer. Sometimes you just want something quick.
-Beej
Stephen Granade
> Where books and movies are concerned, you need the reviews and
> categorization.
>
> Where IF is concerned, and it's such a incestuous little group of
> people, well, I think it does more harm than good. The one difference
> between our hobby and most other artisitic endeavors is that we're more
> or less a closed society.
I'm not sure what "it" refers to in "it does more harm than good," so
forgive me if I guess wrong. I think you're saying that reviews,
especially ones which point out flaws, hurt more than help. That's
only true if you assume that all authors are too thin-skinned to take
any negative criticism, and that such critiques can only degenerate
into flame wars and hurt feelings.
Oh, and I don't think we're a closed society by any means.
Slowly-changing, perhaps, but putting aside the fact that this group
has been growing over the past five years, there has to be an influx
of newcomers to replace the oldtimers who leave.
> Our games aren't played by the masses, nor are they generally played by
> people that aren't interested in writing games.
>
> Most of the players are also authors too.
I'll grant you that they aren't played by the masses, but I do think
they are played by people who aren't interested in writing
games. The Inform competition games got around 100 votes each, and I
don't think that number is an upper bound on either the r*if audience
or the text-adventure-playing audience.
For the sake of argument, let me double that number. (I think that's a
low estimate, by the way.) Adding in the competition authors, do you
think there are 250 current authors of IF who are also players? I
don't.
> So the review process has a different effect. I think we're still too
> small of a group to handle public criticism well. I think we need more
> encouragement and education, more marketing (to each other and to the
> masses), and less "your game sucked and here's why..."
If I take your suggestion that reviews should be for authors in order
for them to improve, how will it do them any good for me to give them
an A for effort? You may not need to rip a game to shreds for an
author to get better, but you do need to point out what didn't work
for you, and why.
People write reviews based on their interests. Authors will write
reviews that appeal to authors more than casual players -- I know
that's true of reviews I write. Players who aren't authors will take a
different view of games in their reviews. Both of these are
needed.
Who are they needed by? By players who want to learn more about a
game. By authors who want to see what other authors think of
games. Especially by the specific author who wants to know that
someone is playing their game. Chris Forman and I once talked about
how much fun it is to release a game that is more-or-less ignored on
the newsgroup and is never reviewed. You don't know how well you've
done, and it's no fun at all. For that purpose alone, reviews are a
good thing.
Dan Schmidt
On the other hand, as a player, I'd much rather have reviews than
categorization.
Balancing these two wildly disparate desires, I think that overall I'd
much rather have reviews than categorization.
--
Dan Schmidt | http://www.dfan.org
Chris Piuma, etc.
<erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
> Have you
> *noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*, not
> for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
Well, I think Mr. Dewey and his Magic Decimal System gave it the old
college try for books...
--
Chris Piuma, etc.
Editor, flim
http://www.flim.com
Leapin' lizards!
Plant Kingdom
wrote:
>YesuSlave [ys] <yesu...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>[pk] Remember, some of us may actually _like_ the waters largely
>>>uncharted. Is the frontier as interesting once it has been tamed?
>>
>> [ys] I think that the question no longer comes down to "will we chart
>> these waters" but "how will it happen?" We either have the choice of
>> working together to create a good and acceptable system, or we will
>> completely separate on this issue and the work will be done, but not as
>> well as it could have been.
>
>[z] I know I'm repeating myself, but I don't think this is a task which
>improves with concensus.
[pk] I tend to agree with Z's viewpoint on this one. The quest for
perfect systemization is a flawed one. (Which is not to say that
analysis doesn't reveal interesting new ideas and insights. Marnie's
paper gave me a lot to think about.) If one wishes to make a list of
games similar to Baf's, devise some categories that appeal to you,
reveal your biases, and run with it. Perhaps the type of IF one likes
is linked to the categorical systems one finds useful and
acceptable....
>[z] Nor is it a matter of "charting a frontier", for heaven's sake. Have you
>*noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*, not
>for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
[pk] Perhaps an infelicitous metaphor, but I was thinking more of what
Adam Cadre was saying about Systems. Systems that try to slot
everything in neatly can provide talismanic comfort, but IF is
particularly untidy in the slot department. I am very keen on games
like yours, Andrew, that twist themselves about to avoid careless
categorization.
Actually, what I was really thinking was:
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
"They are merely conventional signs!
"Other maps are such shapes with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank"
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best-
A perfect and absolute blank!"
--Snark, "Fit the Second"
Plant Kingdom [pk]
----
Andrew Plotkin
> Nick Montfort wrote:
>> Are there others who are interested in writing IF for different
>> audiences?
>
> Yup.
>
>> If so, what have you been doing to bring your works outside the IF
>> community?
>
> Plugging them on the book jacket of my novel.
That's cool.
Go go go!
Andrew Plotkin
> And it's not clear that personality types dictate enjoyment all that much
> anyway.
I also was fascinated by the personality type / IF technique / reaction
list in the paper.
Now, I certainly wouldn't take it as a guide -- "You are type Q, find
matching column, look up IF techniques that will turn you on, play
appropriate games."
Everybody is all of those "personality types"; but at different times and
to different degrees. It's still worth considering how those different
authorship styles will strike you, and why. That's the important point
here.
> If you ask me for a short list of IF that I enjoyed most [...]
If you ask me what books I've enjoyed recently, I'd mention: Ken McLeod's
sci-fi (he does the best politics I've seen in years -- both human
politics, the life of political factions and movements, and the projected
politics between humanity and evolving artificial intelligence. Sharp,
sharp writer). John M. Ford ("The Illusionist", a mystery in a theater, he
*knows* theater -- absolutely emotionally wringing). The Liaden books, by
Lee and Miller (self-styled space opera, romance and non-stop action, fun
and not at all deep).
Does this mean I'm three different people? No, it means I was into the
books for three different reasons. Realistic political analysis,
emotionally dense prose, and adrenaline rush. You could easily map that
further into the sense-categories that Doe is using.
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <8aqt1j$6iq$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>, Andrew Plotkin
> <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>> *noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*, not
>> for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
>
> college try for books...
Subjects, not genres. Very different.
*Fiction* books are still shelved by author's name.
Marnie Parker
>From: dcorn...@my-deja.com
>Date: 3/16/00 12:08 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id:
>Where IF is concerned, and it's such a incestuous little group of
>people, well, I think it does more harm than good. The one difference
>between our hobby and most other artisitic endeavors is that we're more
>or less a closed society.
>
>Our games aren't played by the masses, nor are they generally played by
>people that aren't interested in writing games.
>
>Most of the players are also authors too.
>
>So the review process has a different effect. I think we're still too
>small of a group to handle public criticism well. I think we need more
>encouragement and education, more marketing (to each other and to the
>masses), and less "your game sucked and here's why..."
>
>It's almost like we're on one side of a glass wall and no one is on the
>other side. The reviews are generally meant for the other side - but no
>one is there to hear them. So we end up sharing the reviews amongst
>ourselves and - well - I just think it's unnecessary.
I think there is a great deal of truth to this.
A great deal. Of course the IF Mud is the smallest group of all, the group of
writers who are also players is larger, and I do think there is a larger group
of people who play, who are not all writers. Reading just raif all the time,
not reading rgif, one may lose touch with this. Not every player is an author
or wanna-be-author.
And, yes, it is possible for reviews to be hurtful, because in a sense, there
is no OUTSIDE PARTY, who is not also a part of the larger group, to do reviews.
However, I helped start the conspiracy for IF authors to get feedback, which is
an very important part of any review process. Movie, book, IF, whatever.
>If we were to weigh the two - I would actually favor categorization over
>reviews.
Not sure I agree with this. But I don't think categorizaton hurts. I think the
problem is not everyone agrees what falls into what category. But any
categorization "service" could also have a section that offers disagreeing
views.
I really like that glass wall description. Maybe, someday, we can break it.
Later, Doe :-)
Magnus Olsson
Chris Piuma, etc. <edi...@flim.com> wrote:
>In article <8aqt1j$6iq$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>, Andrew Plotkin
><erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>> Have you
>> *noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*, not
>> for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
>
>Well, I think Mr. Dewey and his Magic Decimal System gave it the old
>college try for books...
Isn't that classification by *subject* rather than *genre*?
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, zeb...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon ------
Stephen Granade
> In article <160320002112028146%edi...@flim.com>,
> Chris Piuma, etc. <edi...@flim.com> wrote:
> >
> >Well, I think Mr. Dewey and his Magic Decimal System gave it the old
> >college try for books...
>
> Isn't that classification by *subject* rather than *genre*?
Yes indeed. In fact, if you visit a Dewey-based library which has no
separate fiction section, you'll get to browse the 800s (mostly, mm,
823, I think) for fiction.
Paul O'Brian
> Yes, but I find there's a void here:
>
> o Low quality searches on a particular type of game: Baf's aging
> guide.
[snip]
> Back to the bookstore, when you walk into ftp.gmd.de, there are no
> categories, and there is no knowledgeable bookkeeper. As someone
> pointed out, you have to have a protracted conversation on rgif to get
> your answer. Sometimes you just want something quick.
OK, I'm beginning to be persuaded by this argument. However, what the
"classification exercise" thread showed (and, in fact, what I expected it
to show) is that everybody has their own ideas of what the proper
categories are, and that lots of games don't slot neatly into any
category. Arcum Dagsson suggests that the ideal system would match
on multiple keys, much like Baf's Guide did, and this makes sense to me,
but I still feel that any given classification system is going to be,
well, wrong a lot of the time for a not insignificant number of people.
Sure, you can class Wearing The Claw as fantasy, and you won't get much
disagreement, because it fits neatly into that genre category. But
Varicella? It's... kind of a courtly intrigue, a bit of a thriller with
its countdown clock, some sort-of advanced tech, some science fictional
elements, some horror, some experimentalism. Where does it end up?
Zarf said that this is not a task that improves with consensus. I'm
inclined to agree. Plant Kingdom said: "If one wishes to make a list
of games similar to Baf's, devise some categories that appeal to you,
reveal your biases, and run with it. Perhaps the type of IF one likes is
linked to the categorical systems one finds useful and acceptable...."
I'm inclined to agree with that, too.
Paul O'Brian
> Where IF is concerned, and it's such a incestuous little group of
> people, well, I think it does more harm than good. The one difference
> between our hobby and most other artisitic endeavors is that we're more
> or less a closed society.
Really? I didn't realize. When did we become closed? Was it after I
joined? (Must've been.) Was it after you joined? (Must've been.) Was it
after Josh joined? (Must've been.)
YesuSlave
catagory would go under many. We don't need to say something as simple
as...well, Zork is fantasy, so we can't classify it as comedy or adventure.
That would be foolish. I am in favor of classification, but I also like the
search idea. Let me put in the word "fantasy" and ge Zork and Enchanter, and
then let me put in adventure and get "Zork and Enchanter" This is a valid
search. The thing is is that I'm not looking for fantasy and getting Photopia.
MFischer5
>>So the review process has a different effect. I think we're still too
>>small of a group to handle public criticism well. I think we need more
>>encouragement and education, more marketing (to each other and to the
>>masses), and less "your game sucked and here's why..."
From: doea...@aol.com (Marnie Parker)
>However, I helped start the conspiracy for IF authors to get feedback, which
is
>an very important part of any review process. Movie, book, IF, whatever.
>
>>If we were to weigh the two - I would actually favor categorization over
>>reviews.
>
>Not sure I agree with this.
I think there are two different kinds of feedback needed about a game:
There's a General Review (including a category if the author likes), like Roger
Ebert might give about a movie:
"This dragon-quest had a nice little story, though the pacing could have been
better and the ending was cliched. However it was full of laughs, and its
imagintive use of puzzles more than make up for it. Two thumbs up."
This is what I, as a player, might want to see to determine if I should play
the game. After reading that, I might decide I don't like cliche's and I'm not
in the mood for humor, so the ficticious game might not be the one for me...
unless I'm really into puzzles.
The other is a Technical Review - which MUST contain spoilers to be of any use,
and will probably NOT be of interest to non-author players. Perhaps these kinds
of reviews are only for rai-f.
"The game began OK, but I felt the author overused daemons - especially the one
for the Sea Otter that printed the same 3 lines every other turn for the entire
game. By the time the game was over I was ready to roast that critter. I found
the NPC's to be stilted, except for the Baker whose response to "EAT THE OTTER"
was perfect. More of that kind of humor would have greatly improved the
atmosphere for me. On the bright side, the author's descriptions of things were
wonderful. <example>."
Of course, it's hard enough to even get ONE review, let alone two, and I'm not
sure how many people would be brave enough to provide a full blown Technical
Review.... which is sort of like a public Beta Test report. The advantage,
however, of it being public is that someone, upon reading that, might respond
with:
"I think that had the NPC's been more interactived, it would have detracted
from the true purpose of the game. And extraneous humor in a thriller isn't
always the best thing anyway."
Kathleen ($0.02)
dcorn...@my-deja.com
mfis...@aol.com (MFischer5) wrote:
<snip>
> I think there are two different kinds of feedback needed about a game:
>
> There's a General Review (including a category if the author likes),
> The other is a Technical Review - which MUST contain spoilers to be of
any use,
I like this and I'm sorry I haven't been able to articulate it.
Technical reviews are far more common in the newsgroups, general reviews
are not common OR these two types of reviews are inter-mixed...
There are parts for the author to read as "you could have done better
here" and there are parts for a potential game-player to read as "the
overall plot revolved around dragons.."
Does anyone else agree that we would be better served with a
differentiation of review types?
Jarb
Brian 'Beej' Hall
Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
>> guide.
>
>keys, much like Baf's Guide did, and this makes sense to me, but I
>still feel that any given classification system is going to be, well,
>wrong a lot of the time for a not insignificant number of people.
This is absolutely correct, unfortunately. But that's why I called it a
"low quality search". :)
-Beej
Stephen Granade
> I like this and I'm sorry I haven't been able to articulate it.
> Technical reviews are far more common in the newsgroups, general reviews
> are not common OR these two types of reviews are inter-mixed...
>
> There are parts for the author to read as "you could have done better
> here" and there are parts for a potential game-player to read as "the
> overall plot revolved around dragons.."
>
> Does anyone else agree that we would be better served with a
> differentiation of review types?
Possibly, but I'm not sure I could write just one or the other. When I
review a game, I am both player and game designer. I don't think I
could pass a magnet over my review and remove just the parts which
would be of interest to authors.
dcorn...@my-deja.com
Stephen Granade <sgra...@login1.phy.duke.edu> wrote:
>
> Possibly, but I'm not sure I could write just one or the other. When I
> review a game, I am both player and game designer. I don't think I
> could pass a magnet over my review and remove just the parts which
> would be of interest to authors.
Agreed. That's why we need more non-authors to write reviews.
okbl...@my-deja.com
dcorn...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> Does anyone else agree that we would be better served with a
> differentiation of review types?
Paul O'Brian seems to agree, given that the latest issue of SPAG
includes a new section called "SPAG Specifics", reviews with spoilers
for both "Bliss" and "9:05".
--
[ok]
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <20000317111445...@ng-ca1.aol.com>,
> mfis...@aol.com (MFischer5) wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> I think there are two different kinds of feedback needed about a game:
>>
>> There's a General Review (including a category if the author likes),
>> The other is a Technical Review - which MUST contain spoilers to be of
> any use,
>
> Technical reviews are far more common in the newsgroups, general reviews
> are not common OR these two types of reviews are inter-mixed...
>
> There are parts for the author to read as "you could have done better
> here" and there are parts for a potential game-player to read as "the
> overall plot revolved around dragons.."
>
> differentiation of review types?
Which kind do I write?
This is a serious question. Feel free to use, as examples, the graphical
reviews I've posted in the past few days on RGIF.
okbl...@my-deja.com
> improves with concensus.
It's worth repeating. There are interesting comparisons to be drawn
between the by-committee "Leonard Maltin's Film Guide" and Michael
Weldon's "Psychotronic Film Encyclopedia", of which Weldon appears to be
sole author. The Psychotronic book is more useful, in the long run,
because it has a consistent voice and one can interpret the reviews
accordingly.
> Nor is it a matter of "charting a frontier", for heaven's sake. Have
you
> *noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*,
not
> for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
I don't understand what you mean here. Genre classification has never
been done? You mean *formally*? Publishers still look for
science-fiction, horror, romance, etc. Movies are still arranged by
genre in the video store. IMDB lists many genres and which movies fall
into which categories.
What am I misunderstanding?
dcorn...@my-deja.com
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
> Which kind do I write?
>
> This is a serious question. Feel free to use, as examples, the
graphical
> reviews I've posted in the past few days on RGIF.
I just read the ZGI one and I would say this is a Critical Review
(hybrid).
A purely technical review would have focused on the interface and the
vacuum cleaner issue, while a general review would have stuck to the
humor comments and comparisons to previous zork games/the zork world.
At least that my take. I would admit though that in the case of
graphical reviews, a critical review seems to be the best. Many of the
reasons you purchase graphical games is based on the interface design
and flexibility, which is a technical item.
Whereas in IF, technical issues are related to grammar usage, NPC
communication, puzzle definition ... and these can easily be left out of
a review with nothing being lost as far a game player is concerned.
Remember - a non-writing game player doesn't know the difference between
good NPC development and bad. They'll be more inclined to differentiate
plot devices and storylines than technical details such as these.
Jarb
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <8au22g$c5c$2...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>
>> Which kind do I write?
>>
>> This is a serious question. Feel free to use, as examples, the
> graphical
>> reviews I've posted in the past few days on RGIF.
>
> I just read the ZGI one and I would say this is a Critical Review
> (hybrid).
Okay, that's good. I certainly *intended* to cover every base I could. :)
> A purely technical review would have focused on the interface and the
> vacuum cleaner issue, while a general review would have stuck to the
> humor comments and comparisons to previous zork games/the zork world.
>
> At least that my take. I would admit though that in the case of
> graphical reviews, a critical review seems to be the best. Many of the
> reasons you purchase graphical games is based on the interface design
> and flexibility, which is a technical item.
>
> Whereas in IF, technical issues are related to grammar usage, NPC
> communication, puzzle definition ... and these can easily be left out of
> a review with nothing being lost as far a game player is concerned.
Jeesh, really?
> Remember - a non-writing game player doesn't know the difference between
> good NPC development and bad.
Can I *teach* him?
Seriously -- I can't imagine any aspect of a game where it's *useless* to
tell players whether it's well-done or not. Maybe the player has no grasp
of how good NPCs are implemented, but surely he's going to notice the
difference? Even if it's only "For some reason, I didn't care about the
other characters."
I'm not a filmmaker, but I appreciate film reviews that comment on
technical aspects -- direction, sound, whatever. Maybe I'll say "Hey, I
didn't notice that!" and pay more attention to that aspect next
time. Maybe I'll say "Nope, I *never* notice that* -- and then I know more
about how I react to movies.
dcorn...@my-deja.com
I'm the same way - I'm fairly critical of most hollywood product because
I've actually had a little 'schooling' on the 'art' of movie-making. So
when Roger Ebert mentions cinematogrophy, I pay attention to that sort
of thing. Heck, I was in shock when in Hannah and Her Sisters, at the
lunch scene, the camera never cut and continued to pan around the table.
I felt like I was in a dance with the three women. I felt the same shock
during the opening 7 minutes of The Player, also uncut.
But is IF the same? Maybe.
I think it's more likely that you in particular are capable of walking
the middle ground, giving both general and technical information,
without boring the writer-audience or scaring the player-audience. At
the same teaching the less knowledgable.
Not to mass-offend the other IF reviewers (heh), but this isn't always
the case. I think some would be better served writing general reviews,
some technical, and very very few should be writing critical reviews.
The critical review shouldn't be too technical and it shouldn't be all
plot, story information. Somewhere in the middle.
Paul O'Brian
> In article <8atp6e$org$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> dcorn...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone else agree that we would be better served with a
> > differentiation of review types?
>
> Paul O'Brian seems to agree, given that the latest issue of SPAG
> includes a new section called "SPAG Specifics", reviews with spoilers
> for both "Bliss" and "9:05".
Well...
I don't know that I endorse the notion of separating all reviews into
Technical vs. General. I just wanted a place in SPAG where people could
send reviews that don't try to skirt around spoilers. SPAG's general
policy is that reviews must be spoiler-free, but sometimes it's very
useful for a review to discuss specific aspects of a particular work, even
if that discussion contains spoilers. Thus, SPAG Specifics.
For me, the difference between regular SPAG reviews and SPAG Specfics
reviews is that the former must not contain spoilers, and the latter may
(and in fact probably should, if it's going to usefully address specifics
about the game). The former may or may not include in-depth analysis of
particular aspects of the work, while the latter must. I'm not certain
that these categories map perfectly onto the Technical/General categories
Dave proposes, especially since Dave is actually suggesting a third
category (Critical) that synthesizes the other two. I don't think there
can be a synthesis of a regular SPAG review and a SPAG Specifics review --
either the review contains spoilers or it doesn't.
okbl...@my-deja.com
<Pine.GSO.3.96.100031...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>,
Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> wrote:
>
Shhh! I'm plugging the 'zine. ;-)
(I don't disagree with your points. I do sort of think this whole thing
is a lot of foofaraw.)
--
[ok]
dcorn...@my-deja.com
okbl...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> Shhh! I'm plugging the 'zine. ;-)
>
> (I don't disagree with your points. I do sort of think this whole
thing
> is a lot of foofaraw.)
> --
rec.arts.foofaraw - That what we _ARE_ all about...
Jarb
cody sandifer
> Not to mass-offend the other IF reviewers (heh), but this isn't always
> the case. I think some would be better served writing general reviews,
> some technical, and very very few should be writing critical reviews.
>
> The critical review shouldn't be too technical and it shouldn't be all
> plot, story information. Somewhere in the middle.
>
> Jarb
Also, shouldn't the "technical" reviews come (in part, anyway) from the
beta-testers? If I'm doing something goofy in a technical sense, I'd
rather that information come from a reviewer than the general public.
Sample technical feedback from helpful reviewers:
"You're restricting the player's actions incorrectly. You really should
be using roomAction, rather than dobjGen, because..."
"Dynamic objects keep disappearing from the player's inventory. This is
probably because you inadvertently replaced..."
"Why does the verb CHOW waste a turn? Try using a systemVerb here because..."
(Am I misinterpreting "technical" here? I think I missed the original
definition.)
Anyway, I guess I'm suggesting that authors should have at least one
Inform, TADS, or Hugo fiend on their beta-testing squad (depending on the
author's choice of language) to ensure that the final game is technically
ok. Don't leave it up to the reviewers! (Not that that's what anyone was
suggesting. Just a thought.)
cody
Chris Piuma, etc.
<m...@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
> In article <160320002112028146%edi...@flim.com>,
> Chris Piuma, etc. <edi...@flim.com> wrote:
> ><erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
> >> Have you
> >> *noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*, not
> >> for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
> >college try for books...
> Isn't that classification by *subject* rather than *genre*?
I would argue that "WW2 history" is as much a genre as "science
fiction". There are as many different subjects to focus on in your WW2
book as in your sci-fi book.
Fiction, IIRC, gets broken down by nationality and era. Even though in
most libraries it gets its own unnumbered section, there's a spot for
it in the Dewey Decimal System.
There are books that are just as problematic to the Dewey Decimal
System as Shrapnel would be to any IF classification system. And these
books and pieces of IF should be enouraged, IMO.
--
Chris Piuma, etc.
Editor, flim
http://www.flim.com
Leapin' lizards!
David Samuel Myers
:> Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site where games were classified
:> according to their I-F structure? Anyone visiting the site could take
:> a test to determine their I-F personality type, and linked to games
:> that fit.
: The problem is that there aren't enough ratings in the first place, let
: alone a break down by personality types.
: I think a detailed review of a game can provide enough clues, though,
: to how a given player will enjoy the game. Terms like "puzzle
: fest" "puzzleless" "off the wall" "straightforward" "highly
: interactive" say a lot. And, yes, that won't work every time, but
: neither will personality type classification.
I think she was suggesting something akin to the book suggester function
you have at places like amazon.com. You tell it was books you liked and it
breaks down the elements in those books and tries to suggest more. If
you've read some of the ones it suggests, then you can rate those and it
will refine even more.
The trick is (maybe?) to tease out what kind of "elements" (e.g. types of
plots, settings, is the game sci-fi?, etc ad infinitum/naseum) and ask the
user what types of elements they appreciated in books/films/traditional
media or in previously played IF games. Maybe....
I really like that idea. I'd volunteer to help with any kind of keyword,
or plot element "teasing out". As for using posted ratings, that could be
possible, but I tend to agree that it's not comprehensive enough to trust
(and that was part of the problem in the first place).
hmmmmm
david
Stephen Granade
> In article <jdsnxpx...@login1.phy.duke.edu>,
> Stephen Granade <sgra...@login1.phy.duke.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Possibly, but I'm not sure I could write just one or the other. When I
> > review a game, I am both player and game designer. I don't think I
> > could pass a magnet over my review and remove just the parts which
> > would be of interest to authors.
>
> Agreed. That's why we need more non-authors to write reviews.
So we need reviews to draw in non-authors, but we need non-authors to
write reviews.
Heh. Full circle.
TableSaw
> improves with concensus.
>
you
> *noticed* that the task of genre classification has *never been done*,
not
> for books, not for movies, not for board games or wallpaper patterns?
I feel the need to disagree. Genre classification has been going on for
centuries dating back to when Aristotle laid down the rules for a
tragedy (and promised to do the same for comedy.) Perhaps what you mean
to say is that genre classification has never been completed. It is a
process which continues on and on, constantly bringing new ideas and
perspectives into the myth. Just taking a look at the varied answers to
the question "What is SF?" by fans, authors, and critics shows that
there is a constant attempt to provide a working classification of what
is and is not.
Classification of works is very important. As listed before, it gives
potential viewers a chance to identify similar works by identifying key
traits that are similar to them. In addition it can help authors by
providing a framework within to place their story. It can provide an
assumed context to provide implicit information to a reader. And it
provides a basis for comparing works.
The important thing is that the guidelines of classification are never
left to rigidify. The traits that determine a genre, mode, or style can
always be changed, and when this is kept in mind it becomes an inclusive
process rather than an exclusive process. Further, it can be dangerous
to attempt to define a style by identifying traits of a class. This
creates artificial and exclusive divisions. Instead, classifications are
best drawn from a pre-existing group of works with similar aspects by
recognizing those traits and starting a dialogue about their importance.
I perceive that classification is already beginning in IF, although it
is still to early to make any real headway in the matter. Example:
Earlier in this discussion Joe Mason made a reference to recommending
"games by Zarf." When I read this I was reminded of a mention that I had
read somewhere about "Zarfian games." A little research led to two
reviews by Second April in SPAG #14 (May 17, 1998;
http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/backissues/SPAG14) of the games "A Change
in the Weather" and "Spider and Web."
Currently, of course, a Zarfian game remains one created by Zarf. But in
these two essays, Second April is laying the foundations for making
using this term as a general classification of style based on the works
of Andrew Plotkin.
Concerning "Change":
"Andrew Plotkin's first serious game, as he terms it, is an intriguing
effort: it introduced the IF community to many *key Zarfian elements*,
notably the "cruelty" of making nearly every move vital and closing off
the game without warning, and the magic realism that dominated So Far."
[emphasis mine]
...
"A Zarf game wouldn't be a Zarf game if everything were fully explained
(or even explainable)."
Concerning "Web":
"As with other Zarf works, furthermore, the hardest points are the most
satisfying to solve--they're rewarded in one way or another."
Later, reviewing "Hunter, In Darkness":
"As with Plotkin's previous works, the writing is skillful; most of the
five senses are at work throughout the game, and the descriptions often
reflect a multisensory experience." (SPAG 19; Jan. 14, 2000;
http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/h.html#hunter)
And so in these excerpts and in the essays as a whole, a picture is
begun to be drawn of the elements of a "Zarfian style":
-skillful writing.
-difficult puzzles.
-perticular detail given to setting.
-easily putting the game into an unwinnable state by overlooking things
early on.
-Instances where timing is important.
-Ambiguity of plot, circumstances, and/or resolution.
-Subversion of "traditional IF" (which is itself, of couse, a very
loosely defined classification).
Whether all of these traits are necessary to what is "Zarfian" is up to
debate, as is whether or not there are other traits that should be
included. The point is that at some time, someone other than Plotkin may
write a game with these traits and someone may wish to say, "That is a
very Zarfian game." The classification is no longer tied to the
essentialist definition that Zarfian games are written by Zarf. To go
further, if this style becomes very well-established, authors my wish to
then test the boundaries of "Zarfian" when createing their works.
The above is an example of how classification can be made an incredibly
useful tool in understanding any work, and how it can be applied to
Interactive Fiction. The message, I wish to emphasize is that these
classifications must come from careful examination and dialogue about
works already made, rather than either trying to create categories and
then fit pieces into them, or by declaring that no work can be any
classification other than itself.
--
Tony
"Prick love for pricking and you bet love down."
Mercutio: Romeo & Juliet
Plant Kingdom
>In article <8au22g$c5c$2...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>,
>Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>
>> Which kind do I write?
>>
>> This is a serious question. Feel free to use, as examples, the
>graphical
>> reviews I've posted in the past few days on RGIF.
>
>I just read the ZGI one and I would say this is a Critical Review
>(hybrid).
>
>A purely technical review would have focused on the interface and the
>vacuum cleaner issue, while a general review would have stuck to the
>humor comments and comparisons to previous zork games/the zork world.
>
>At least that my take. I would admit though that in the case of
>graphical reviews, a critical review seems to be the best. Many of the
>reasons you purchase graphical games is based on the interface design
>and flexibility, which is a technical item.
>
>Whereas in IF, technical issues are related to grammar usage, NPC
>communication, puzzle definition ... and these can easily be left out of
>a review with nothing being lost as far a game player is concerned.
Hm. Perhaps the three levels are roughly:
a) back of the book cover
b) review in the New York Times book review section
c) article in a Critical/Literary Theory journal (or perhaps a
magazine targeted at writers)
Beta-test reports are notes scribbled on the back of grubby,
laser-printed, unbound manuscripts in red marker.
Grammar foibles, the way NPCs are (or fail to be) implemented, et al.
are a critical part of the aesthetic experience. In fact, anything
that affects the playing is relevant and should be fair game in a
player-oriented review.
Detail level, spoiler-type content, level of jargon, and
design/mechanical vs. aesthetic/subjective analysis determine the
review's level of orientation towards authors/programmers, theorists,
or players.
>Remember - a non-writing game player doesn't know the difference between
>good NPC development and bad. They'll be more inclined to differentiate
>plot devices and storylines than technical details such as these.
Ooh, I don't agree with that. You don't have to play very many games
to get a feel for what makes a good and satisfying NPC (call them
'other characters in the game' or some such, if you must) experience,
and what does not.
Perhaps we need rec.[arts|games].int-fiction.d for the discussion of
the best way to post and write reviews for each respective audience?
(N.b., NOT a serious proposal.)
----
"You, Sir, talk like a Rosicrucian who will love nothing but a sylph, who
does not believe in a sylph, and who yet quarrels with the universe for
not containing a sylph."
--Thomas Love Peacock, _Nightmare Abbey_
Gene Wirchenko
>In article <8audmf$8pr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>okbl...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>> Shhh! I'm plugging the 'zine. ;-)
>>
>> (I don't disagree with your points. I do sort of think this whole
>thing
>> is a lot of foofaraw.)
>> --
>
>rec.arts.foofaraw - That what we _ARE_ all about...
"interactive", you forgot "interactive"! It's
rec.arts.interactive.foofaraw!
Why bother with artificial distinctions? If you're writing a
review, write the best one you can. If it happens to be technical for
the game in question, then it's technical. If it's player-oriented,
then it's player-oriented.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Mel
<snip>
> Whereas in IF, technical issues are related to grammar usage, NPC
> communication, puzzle definition ... and these can easily be left out of
> a review with nothing being lost as far a game player is concerned.
> Remember - a non-writing game player doesn't know the difference between
> good NPC development and bad. They'll be more inclined to differentiate
> plot devices and storylines than technical details such as these.
Ugh. I like Zarf's answer, but I'll write a long drawn out one anyway
just
to give some perspective.
I could tell before I was writing games. Okay I got the Adventure Game
Toolkit, about the same time - no before, I started playing games with
much in the way of NPCs, but there were always things I thought could
have been better (hey even NPCs :P ). I noticed guess-the-verb and
objects that behaved unrealistically, and not being able to do things
that just *made sense*. These things were obvious to me when I was
still looking at the Scott Adams adventures and thinking the amount of
programming needed to make one was *insane*. Sure, I could be patient,
after all, the existence of such games was impressive, but I noticed and
I really think anyone intellectual enough to still *want* to play text
adventures probably does, too.
Am I just weird?
Mel
Second April
> dcorn...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Whereas in IF, technical issues are related to grammar usage, NPC
> > communication, puzzle definition ... and these can easily be left out of
> > a review with nothing being lost as far a game player is concerned.
What?
Um, game players _do_ care about these things, and a review that neglected
to mention them--particularly if they're particularly good or particularly
bad--would be a pretty inadequate review. Even in your "general" category,
if the point is to inform other players about the relative merits of a
game so that they can decide whether to try something, technical issues
are highly relevant.
The writers' community that cares about things like puzzle definition
cares about them because they affect playing experience, presumably.
> > Remember - a non-writing game player doesn't know the difference between
> > good NPC development and bad. They'll be more inclined to differentiate
> > plot devices and storylines than technical details such as these.
Do I detect a hint of snobbery here?
I've experimented with Inform some--I've started but not finished some
projects--so I don't know whether that makes me a "non-writing game
player." Whether I am or not, though, I haven't gained whatever
understanding of NPC development I have from trying to write in Inform;
I've gained it from playing and seeing examples of good and bad NPCs. I
don't see any reason why someone who's never even tried to write a thing
wouldn't understand NPC development.
What, exactly, are the things that game writers would want to discuss but
which those ignorant unwashed players wouldn't understand?
Duncan Stevens
dns...@merle.acns.nwu.edu
But buy me a singer to sing one song--
Song about nothing--song about sheep--
Over and over, all day long;
Patch me again my thread-bare sleep.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
David Cornelson
news:Pine.HPP.3.93.100032...@merle.acns.nwu.edu...
> I know, this thread's dead, but I was away and I'm just reading it now.
>
> > dcorn...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > > Whereas in IF, technical issues are related to grammar usage, NPC
> > > communication, puzzle definition ... and these can easily be left out
of
> > > a review with nothing being lost as far a game player is concerned.
>
> What?
>
This is an old thread, but the point I was trying to make was that reviews
can be overly technical, when many people just want to know what it's all
about - was it good and how did it make you feel...
All the dirty details can be saved for a more in depth review.
The difference in my mind is...
"The story unfolds quickly once you land on the planet and you soon hook up
with a robot named Floyd. Floyd is way cool...."
OR
"The scenery was relatively mundane and the Floyd character had humorous
responses to many things that happen throughout, but after awhile..."
I like the former more than the latter. Just me...
Jarb
Stephen Granade
> The difference in my mind is...
>
> "The story unfolds quickly once you land on the planet and you soon hook up
> with a robot named Floyd. Floyd is way cool...."
>
> OR
>
> "The scenery was relatively mundane and the Floyd character had humorous
> responses to many things that happen throughout, but after awhile..."
>
> I like the former more than the latter. Just me...
I don't quite see the difference here, other than the less formal tone
of the first example. Are you saying you prefer a more light-hearted,
upbeat review?
edr...@my-deja.com
"David Cornelson" <dcorn...@placet.com> wrote:
> The difference in my mind is...
>
> "The story unfolds quickly once you land on the planet and you soon
> hook up with a robot named Floyd. Floyd is way cool...."
The thing is, this doesn't tell me anything useful. It provides no
information about the story except that it unfolds quickly (too
quickly? just right? what?), and that you think Floyd is way cool. If I
don't know what your criteria for way cool is or how you arrived at
that judgment, I don't have any way of guessing whether I might feel
the same way.
> "The scenery was relatively mundane and the Floyd character had
> humorous responses to many things that happen throughout, but after
> awhile..."
On the other hand, this tells me something concrete. First: you think
the scenery is mundane. Now, I am well aware that you and I may have
differing opinions about what constitutes "mundane", but at least I now
know that at least one person from the IF community found the
descriptions less than inspiring, so I'll be paying attention to that
when/if I play the game. The Floyd character has "humorous responses" --
so now I know the game is funny, I like funny -- to "many things" --
okay, so there's a lot of detail, a lot of thought went into the
programing, that's another good mark -- "but after a while..." -- hmm,
seems the humor doesn't stretch very far, at least in this one
reviewer's opinion. All that specific detail is giving me a much
clearer picture of what you thought of the game, and, insofar as I am
reading this review to see if downloading the game will be worth my
while, it's about 10 times as helpful. All in about the same number of
sentences.
-M.
TenthStone
<sgra...@login2.phy.duke.edu> wrote:
>"David Cornelson" <dcorn...@placet.com> writes:
>
>> The difference in my mind is...
>>
>> "The story unfolds quickly once you land on the planet and you soon hook up
>> with a robot named Floyd. Floyd is way cool...."
>>
>> OR
>>
>> "The scenery was relatively mundane and the Floyd character had humorous
>> responses to many things that happen throughout, but after awhile..."
>>
>> I like the former more than the latter. Just me...
>
>I don't quite see the difference here, other than the less formal tone
>of the first example. Are you saying you prefer a more light-hearted,
>upbeat review?
I guess what Jarb might be saying is that instead of talking about
the game in terms of subjects like "NPC development", a non-technical
review would be less likely to discuss artistic specifics and more
likely to mention overall effects, as in the contrast between
The story would have been better served if the author had been
less verbose in his descriptions. The huge chunks of text that
Ms. X throws all the time at the player show a depth of conceptual
detail that in this reviewer's opinion cannot -- and should not --
be well expressed in text without bogging down the story's pacing
and hurting the suspense effect that the author is trying for.
and
One of the problems with this game is that it's just not very
involving. I could tell that Ms. X knows what she's trying to
do. The game is clearly supposed to be a suspense, and sometimes
I really got into it. But other times, like in the bar, I just
couldn't feel what she was feeling and the game got really slow.
That just absolutely killed the suspense.
The first would be really helpful to the author -- well, to any
author -- who now has specific pieces of advice she can take to
heart should she decide to attempt another suspense. Yet, for a
player's purposes it's not that great because it's far more detailed
than he really needs.
The second would be really helpful to a player, who can easily
evaluate the strengths of weaknesses of the game and then decide
whether he wants to play it. To an author, though, it's just a bunch
of uselessly vague generalities.
In general, a player needs an analysis focused on how the game itself
is, while an author needs an analysis focused on how the game might
be improved.
----------------
The Imperturbable TenthStone
tenth...@hotmail.com mcc...@gsgis.k12.va.us
Second April
> The story would have been better served if the author had been
> less verbose in his descriptions. The huge chunks of text that
> Ms. X throws all the time at the player show a depth of conceptual
> detail that in this reviewer's opinion cannot -- and should not --
> be well expressed in text without bogging down the story's pacing
> and hurting the suspense effect that the author is trying for.
>
> and
>
> One of the problems with this game is that it's just not very
> involving. I could tell that Ms. X knows what she's trying to
> do. The game is clearly supposed to be a suspense, and sometimes
> I really got into it. But other times, like in the bar, I just
> couldn't feel what she was feeling and the game got really slow.
> That just absolutely killed the suspense.
>
> The first would be really helpful to the author -- well, to any
> author -- who now has specific pieces of advice she can take to
> heart should she decide to attempt another suspense. Yet, for a
> player's purposes it's not that great because it's far more detailed
> than he really needs.
>
> The second would be really helpful to a player, who can easily
> evaluate the strengths of weaknesses of the game and then decide
> whether he wants to play it. To an author, though, it's just a bunch
> of uselessly vague generalities.
I disagree--it seems like a bunch of uselessly vague generalities to a
player as well. It doesn't tell a player anything that _you_ found it "not
very involving" or that _you_ "couldn't get into it" if the player doesn't
know you. With the former, on the other hand, the player knows what to
expect--lots and lots of detail--and the player can decide: hmmm, am I the
sort of person that that sort of thing bugs so much that I shouldn't
download the game? Or will it only be a minor annoyance?
> In general, a player needs an analysis focused on how the game itself
> is, while an author needs an analysis focused on how the game might
> be improved.
Sure. But "how the game itself is" doesn't mean "how the game makes me
personally feel," because that doesn't necessarily say anything to anyone
else.
Mary K. Kuhner
> The story would have been better served if the author had been
> less verbose in his descriptions. The huge chunks of text that
> Ms. X throws all the time at the player show a depth of conceptual
> detail [...]
> One of the problems with this game is that it's just not very
> involving. I could tell that Ms. X knows what she's trying to
> do. The game is clearly supposed to be a suspense [...]
Dissenting opinion: even as a player I would *much* rather have
the more technical review. The problem is that, except for a
reviewer I know very well, "I liked it" or "I didn't like it"
and even "I found it suspenseful" or "I didn't find it suspensful"
are almost useless to me. I don't know if I'd have the same
reaction. Saying "huge chunks of text" tells me something about
whether *I* might like the game, independent of whether the
reviewer did. I know, for example, that I am more tolerant of
big chunks of text, and less tolerant of hard puzzles, than most
reviewers. So I might like this game even if the reviewer didn't.
I routinely decide to buy books based on negative reviews, and
decide not to buy them based on positive reviews, because I can
see from the specifics in the review that my tastes are different
from the reviewer's. But I can't do this with a review that
boils down to "I liked it" or "I didn't like it"!
Detailed reviews don't have to spoil the game's surprises, and
I really prefer them to vague ones.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Dissenting opinion: even as a player I would *much* rather have
> the more technical review.
[Much scissification.]
> I routinely decide to buy books based on negative reviews, and
> decide not to buy them based on positive reviews, because I can
> see from the specifics in the review that my tastes are different
> from the reviewer's.
[Again.]
> Detailed reviews don't have to spoil the game's surprises, and
> I really prefer them to vague ones.
I wholeheartedly concur. Those of us with atypical tastes
find reviews like "It was really funny" or "the characters
were good" to be drivel. That tells me nothing. Tell me
that there were a lot of one-liners and allusions to popular
culture (so I can avoid it like cast iron pants) or tell
me that the vocabulary was expansive and several of the
characters multifaceted, dynamic, and tragic (so I can
get a second opinion and maybe read it). You can tell
me you liked it (or not) too, but I won't care about that.
Tell me _why_ I should like it (or not) or don't bother.
--
If your IP address starts with 202, you can't
send me mail. Sorry. I was getting too much
spam from that IP block.
Dan Schmidt
| I guess what Jarb might be saying is that instead of talking about
| the game in terms of subjects like "NPC development", a non-technical
| review would be less likely to discuss artistic specifics and more
| likely to mention overall effects, as in the contrast between
|
| The story would have been better served if the author had been
| less verbose in his descriptions. The huge chunks of text that
| Ms. X throws all the time at the player show a depth of conceptual
| detail that in this reviewer's opinion cannot -- and should not --
| be well expressed in text without bogging down the story's pacing
| and hurting the suspense effect that the author is trying for.
|
| and
|
| One of the problems with this game is that it's just not very
| involving. I could tell that Ms. X knows what she's trying to
| do. The game is clearly supposed to be a suspense, and sometimes
| I really got into it. But other times, like in the bar, I just
| couldn't feel what she was feeling and the game got really slow.
| That just absolutely killed the suspense.
|
| The first would be really helpful to the author -- well, to any
| author -- who now has specific pieces of advice she can take to
| heart should she decide to attempt another suspense. Yet, for a
| player's purposes it's not that great because it's far more detailed
| than he really needs.
Actually, as a player, I'd much rather have the first review. I have
trouble understanding what the second one means. "I just couldn't
feel what she was feeling and the game got really slow" means nothing
useful to me.
You did some other things besides making the first one specific and
the second one vague, though, like saying "in this reviewer's opinion"
instead of "I think", and "The story would have been better served if"
instead of "I wish that". That I can take or leave. I wonder if part
of what you were trying to compare was a pseudo-scholarly tone vs. a
conversational tone, rather than just technical vs non-technical.
--
Dan Schmidt | http://www.dfan.org
Sean T Barrett
>Actually, as a player, I'd much rather have the first review.
Unfortunately, this being rec.arts.int-fiction, everyone
saying this IS an author.
So I guess we need THREE kinds of reviews: reviews for the
author of the work, reviews for casual players of the work,
and reviews for 'critical' players of the work, who are themselves
authors. (I'm being mildly facetious.)
>I have
>trouble understanding what the second one means.
I suspect that this was a poor pair of examples and that
there are others to be found.
It is clear, at least, that different people want different
things out of reviews as players. In my comp reviews I was
careful to avoid spoilers even though the reviews were in
one sense explicitly aimed at the authors of the works.
Yet, I saw numerous "reviews" of 9:05 which spoilered the
main thing-you-shouldn't-know about that game. I even saw
one person follow up such a review with "wow, that sounds
really cool, I wasn't going to play it but now I'll have
to." To me that seems ludicrous--playing 9:05 already
knowing the secret allows you to examine it critically
and be impressed with Adam Cadre's clever writing, but
you totally miss out on *experiencing* the effect first-hand;
but clearly, from the case I just mentioned, some people
just don't care about it, so what do I know?
SeanB
Of course, as everyone knows, what counts as a spoiler varies.
Personally, I was annoyed just having been spoilered that
there WAS a "trick" to 9:05 (somebody posted "you fooled
me"), because that kind of knowledge can put me in a meta-
mode where I'm hunting for the trickiness instead of just
playing. I managed to suppress the knowledge and get the
fool effect, though.
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <wkaejfl...@thecia.net>, Dan Schmidt <df...@thecia.net> wrote:
>>Actually, as a player, I'd much rather have the first review.
>
> Unfortunately, this being rec.arts.int-fiction, everyone
> saying this IS an author.
>
> So I guess we need THREE kinds of reviews: reviews for the
> author of the work, reviews for casual players of the work,
> and reviews for 'critical' players of the work, who are themselves
> authors. (I'm being mildly facetious.)
I think I said somewhere upthread that I react the same way to movie
reviews, and reviews of novels, and reviews of plays, and... even though
I'm *not* a filmmaker or a novel writer or a playwright.
Sean T Barrett
>Often I read reviews of books that I've already read; I'm not
>exactly sure why I do that.
I do it because I may learn something about the book, I may
learn something about the reviewer, and I may learn something
about the process of reviewing. (I could also imagine doing
it because I found the review entertaining, but I wouldn't
be expecting that without it being some particular reviewer,
and I don't know of any who make me feel that strongly.)
>So what, exactly, *is* a good predictor of whether I will like
>something? I'm really not sure.
Find a reviewer with whom you seem to be in synch, and use that
person's reviews.
Or to bring it full circle to another thread (in another newsgroup?),
find a big database of other people's likes and dislikes, enter
sufficient of your likes into it, and let a computer do a lot of
number crunching and offer you the best correlations it can find.
I'm not sure why www.moviecritic.com is recommending "Scream 3" to
me, given my absolute distate for horror movies (even parodies
thereof), even after I've ranked 180 movies, but other people have
gotten good results, and I actually haven't *seen* Scream 3 to know
for sure. (And to be fair, after I had hit ~100 or so, it seemed
to be predicting within +-1 of what I would say for the following
80, at least 90% of the time.)
SeanB
Sean T Barrett
>Sean T Barrett <buz...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>Dan Schmidt <df...@thecia.net> wrote:
>>>Actually, as a player, I'd much rather have the first review.
>>
>> Unfortunately, this being rec.arts.int-fiction, everyone
>> saying this IS an author.
>>
>> So I guess we need THREE kinds of reviews: reviews for the
>> author of the work, reviews for casual players of the work,
>> and reviews for 'critical' players of the work, who are themselves
>> authors. (I'm being mildly facetious.)
>
>I think I said somewhere upthread that I react the same way to movie
>reviews, and reviews of novels, and reviews of plays, and... even though
>I'm *not* a filmmaker or a novel writer or a playwright.
I guess I should have hedged my "who are themselves authors"
more carefully.
I think you've discussed thinking about and being interested in
the constructions and mechanics going on behind the scene in such
works, though. (Who was it who posted something about 'Hmm, ok, I
will pay attention to the cinematography of that movie then'?) I
don't actually believe you need to be an author in a given medium
to be a successful critic of that medium. But I think there are a
fair number of, for lack of sufficient brainpower to think of an
unloaded nonpejorative term, uncritical players who do enjoy or
not enjoy works, but they do this without understanding the
mechanics that went into creating the work.
And I was only being *mildly* facetious because I do think it's
there are other meaningful distinctions in what people want out
of reviews, but I don't know if this is one.
I guess in some sense it boils down, uselessly, to this: Zarf, you're
an author *period*. I'm distrustful of your anecdotal evidence on
the subject.
Of course *I* only have anecdotal evidence on the subject. Indeed,
I am the same way as you in terms of my interests and willingness to
hear the technical details.
I'm just suspicious that your and my personal experiences DON'T
apply to lots of other people. I can't manage to project my
attitudes onto other people and believe that they'd act the way
they do. E.g. I've got to think SOMETHING is up with the people
who DO want to hear a plot summary as part of a review which leads
to them deciding whether they want to experience a given work.
SeanB
Jon Ingold
> I guess in some sense it boils down, uselessly, to this: Zarf, you're
> an author *period*.
Have you written anything outside of IF, Zarf? Do you plan to?
Jon
Stephen Granade
> But I think there are a
> fair number of, for lack of sufficient brainpower to think of an
> unloaded nonpejorative term, uncritical players who do enjoy or
> not enjoy works, but they do this without understanding the
> mechanics that went into creating the work.
Fair enough. But I want my reviews to educate at the same time. Even
"uncritical players" can learn to enjoy the underpinnings of
entertainment, but it won't happen without reviews that feed that
need.
To back up and take a different side road of the discussion, I don't
think most of us who are writing "critical reviews" are delving that
deep into the nitty-gritty, really. I certainly don't say things like
"a react_before was called for here" or "Mr. Author needs to change
his adescs." What I want to do is say, okay, I reacted to the game
like this. Why was that? What influenced my reaction? How much of it
was due to the game and how it was put together? If an aspect of the
game doesn't have an impact on my experience, I won't cover it.
Dan Shiovitz
Zarf has written a number of works, among them such public favorites
as "Lord Percy", "Only A Factory-Girl", and "Mervyn Keene, Clubman".
He is currently working on his next piece about a man who, though
dying of diphtheria contracted from his stint in the Sudan, must
nevertheless steel himself to officiate as the best man at the wedding
of his friend best friend to the woman he (the one who went to the
Sudan) loves.
>Jon
--
Dan Shiovitz :: d...@cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW
Daryl McCullough
>I think I said somewhere upthread that I react the same way to movie
>reviews, and reviews of novels, and reviews of plays, and... even though
>I'm *not* a filmmaker or a novel writer or a playwright.
I'm not sure how the following observation relates to the points
raised in this thread, but...
Often I read reviews of books that I've already read; I'm not
exactly sure why I do that. Sometimes I find that in reading
a particularly negative review, I agree with every single
technical point made by the reviewer, and yet I loved the
book anyway. It happens the other way around, as well: I
read a complimentary review that points out wonderful technical
points about the book, and I agree with all of them---yet the
actual book left me cold.
The only conclusion that I can draw from these experiences
(which occur frequently enough) is that the technical details
just don't do very well at predicting what I will like or dislike.
To be fair, neither do more gut-level reviews---"I loved it!" or
"It was garbage!"---my emotional responses can be very different
from those of the reviewers.
So what, exactly, *is* a good predictor of whether I will like
something? I'm really not sure.
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
W. Top Changwatchai
Hi! I'm sort of a newbie here, though not technically...
As a player, I like to skim reviews just to get a sense of which games I want
to play. The fewer details revealed, the better. Then after I finish
solving a game, I like to go back and read its reviews in depth. At that
point, the more detailed and specific the better, especially as it applies to
ideas for games I'm thinking of implementing.
I take the same approach with films. I see trailers or talk to friends to
find out good movies to watch, but I don't discuss the movies or read reviews
till afterward. Anybody else do this?
Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at uiuc dot edu
Jon Ingold
> as "Lord Percy", "Only A Factory-Girl", and "Mervyn Keene, Clubman".
> He is currently working on his next piece about a man who, though
> dying of diphtheria contracted from his stint in the Sudan, must
> nevertheless steel himself to officiate as the best man at the wedding
> of his friend best friend to the woman he (the one who went to the
> Sudan) loves.
You're kidding! He's *the* Andrew Plotkin? I should have realised - the same
distinctive narrative voice, the same love of strong, well fleshed-out
female characters controlling and manipulating the men in the story; the
same use of exotic desert locations and aristocratic English residences -
and, of course, Mervyn Keene being an anagram of Wumpus.
I feel pretty silly now, I can tell you.
Jon
Andrew Plotkin
>>
>>I think I said somewhere upthread that I react the same way to movie
>>reviews, and reviews of novels, and reviews of plays, and... even though
>>I'm *not* a filmmaker or a novel writer or a playwright.
>
> more carefully.
>
> I think you've discussed thinking about and being interested in
> the constructions and mechanics going on behind the scene in such
> works, though. (Who was it who posted something about 'Hmm, ok, I
> will pay attention to the cinematography of that movie then'?) I
> don't actually believe you need to be an author in a given medium
> fair number of, for lack of sufficient brainpower to think of an
> unloaded nonpejorative term, uncritical players who do enjoy or
> not enjoy works, but they do this without understanding the
> mechanics that went into creating the work.
I... don't disbelieve this, but I would rather hear from them what they
want out of a review. Rather than guessing.
> I guess in some sense it boils down, uselessly, to this: Zarf, you're
> an author *period*. I'm distrustful of your anecdotal evidence on
> the subject.
Hee hee. You're probably right.
Jon Ingold writes:
> Have you written anything outside of IF, Zarf? Do you plan to?
I plan to do everything. Furthermore, I inherently believe that everyone
else plans to do everything, if only they find the bit they're interested
in enough to start.
I don't believe in uncreative people.
For example, Dan Shiovitz is turning out to be an excellent writer of
fairy tales. (Ahem.)
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Find a reviewer with whom you seem to be in synch, and use that
> person's reviews.
Impossible.
I use a rule of thumb: if at least three educated people
who know me fairly well suggest it as something I would
like, I give it a shot. Usually I like it.
If I lower the number to two educated people who know me
fairly well it's a dicier proposition, and not infrequently
I end up wondering what brand of powdered bleach the people
who thought I would like the thing were snorting.
Iain Merrick
[...]
> For example, Dan Shiovitz is turning out to be an excellent writer of
> fairy tales.
So is David Dyte, isn't he?
> (Ahem.)
Well, maybe not.
Stefan Blixt
> The story would have been better served if the author had been
> less verbose in his descriptions. The huge chunks of text that
> Ms. X throws all the time at the player show a depth of conceptual
> detail that in this reviewer's opinion cannot -- and should not --
> be well expressed in text without bogging down the story's pacing
> and hurting the suspense effect that the author is trying for.
>
>and
>
> One of the problems with this game is that it's just not very
> involving. I could tell that Ms. X knows what she's trying to
> do. The game is clearly supposed to be a suspense, and sometimes
> I really got into it. But other times, like in the bar, I just
> couldn't feel what she was feeling and the game got really slow.
> That just absolutely killed the suspense.
OK, since everyone is in love with the first style I think I should
say something. Reviews that tell me how I should write my game kind of
offend me. That's not the reviewer's business, their business is to
tell me if they liked my game or not, and if other people might like
my game or not, and why.
The important thing here is that the answer to why something like
this works or not often has little to do with such precise qualities
as "large chunks of text" or even "lots of one-liners". I think it's
more complicated, and I unfortunately don't feel equipped to explain
in what way. It's just the elusiveness of art.
I should say that I tend to like anything that's different in some way
rather than anything that has high quality. Many things that are
considered high-quality and well crafted I just find boring. But that's
just me.
Be well.
/Blixt