Why write IF?
Konnrad / T Taylor
You can't say money. This ain't pop music.
To earn respect is a bit stupid - I think Ancorhead is a great game - but I can't
remember who wrote it. (Sorry, if you're reading.)
Do we do it because we enjoy stapling our twisted mindscapes onto a computer screen and
getting others to prod them?
(By that, I mean altruism. I like creating something (music, fiction, poetry, coding)
and watching others enjoy it.)
What would you say?
TOM
--
(My face does show a thousand lines / As if a book of life. / It shows my happiness, and
my joy / All my pain and strife.
Gaze upon its happy smiles / See its youthful eyes. / But remember, every face can cry /
And every mouth tell lies.
By Tom.)
Susan Davis
>
> Why do we write IF?
Ars gratia artis.
-- Sue --
(and because it's fun)
--
Susan Davis <s...@secant.com>
Secant Technologies * 4853 Galaxy Pkwy, Ste. S * Cleveland, OH 44128
CLSC 1999 -- "Many Paths to the Stars"
M. St. Bernard
>
Out of an obsessive need to externalize my nagging, irresponsible
thoughts in an orderly, creative fashion, without keeping my neighbours
awake.
Muffy.
Adam Cadre
> Why do we write IF?
We want to impress Jodie Foster.
-----
Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
web site: http://adamcadre.ac
novel: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060195584/adamcadreac
Robb Sherwin
The stories that I have to tell lend themselves to the medium. The
computer game as a whole allows you to set the scene and give your
audience an opportunity to take things at the pace that entertains them
the most. And interactive fiction (as opposed to writing a shooter or
strategy game) gives you a chance to fully create your scenes,
characters and dialogue properly in your personal style.
The fact that a lone programmer can handle so much code gives rise to a
single, focused vision. The fact that there is no marketing team or
publisher applying pressure enables true creativity without compromise
for "the masses."
It's a beautiful medium that taps itself directly into its audience's
imagination.
(All that and, as stated above, J0di3 F0st3r!!!!!111)
--Robb
--
Robb Sherwin, Fort Collins CO
Reviews From Trotting Krips: http://ifiction.tsx.org
Knight Orc Home Page: www.geocities.com/~knightorc
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Adam J. Thornton
Adam Cadre <re...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
>Tom Taylor wrote:
>> Why do we write IF?
>We want to impress Jodie Foster.
No, I want to impress Tracy Valencia and Primo Varicella.
Adam
--
ad...@princeton.edu
"My eyes say their prayers to her / Sailors ring her bell / Like a moth
mistakes a light bulb / For the moon and goes to hell." -- Tom Waits
Stephen Granade
> Why do we write IF?
Money.
> You can't say money.
Damn.
Well, I did make *some* money at it.
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade | Interested in adventure games?
sgra...@phy.duke.edu | Visit About Interactive Fiction
Duke University, Physics Dept | http://interactfiction.about.com
Beej Jørgensen
I was going to say that I do it because it's so easy to create
awe-inspiring landscapes and worlds, fabulous creatures, and wonderful
puzzles, but what Adam said is technically more accurate.
-Beej
Ross Presser
Thornton).wrote.posted.offered:
>In article <39AEA6...@adamcadre.ac>,
>Adam Cadre <re...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
>>Tom Taylor wrote:
>>> Why do we write IF?
>>We want to impress Jodie Foster.
>
>No, I want to impress Tracy Valencia and Primo Varicella.
>
Might be tough to impress both at the same time.
--
Ross Presser * ross_p...@imtek.com
A blank is ya know, like, a tab or a space. A name is like wow! a
sequence of ASCII letters, oh, baby, digits, like, or underscores,
fer shure, beginnin' with a letter or an underscore.
Penguin Boy's email account
"Konnrad / T Taylor" <t...@stutaylor.SPAMISBAD.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message news:8om532$jjp$9...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
Good question. What would I say? I would say I am writing I.F. because I
can.
Justin
T Raymond
>Tom Taylor wrote:
>> Why do we write IF?
>
>We want to impress Jodie Foster.
Hmmm, I don't aim so high. Actually I started with IF back in the bad
old BBS days. I wasn't very good at it then, I'm not very good at it
now. I mess around with IF because in some cases it has helped me
figure out some programming difficulties in application type
languages. I'm not very good at those either.
To summarise, I write IF because it's something else to take up my
time that distracts me from other writing that I can't seem to finish
either.
Now if only knowing that were part of the solution.
Tom
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tom Raymond adk AT usaDOTnet
"The original professional ameteur."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
BrenBarn
>Do we do it because we enjoy stapling our twisted mindscapes onto a computer
>screen and
>getting others to prod them?
> (By that, I mean altruism. I like creating something (music, fiction,
>poetry, coding)
>and watching others enjoy it.)
Sort of, except for the altruism part :-). I haven't been writing IF long
enough to get to the point where I create works in the medium spontaneously.
But I do that all the time with the other three art forms you mentioned (music,
poetry, fiction), without thinking hardly at all about what other people will
think; I just do it because I enjoy it, and I find it stimulating.
But I DO enjoy stapling my twisted mindscape onto a computer screen (or a
piece of paper or a piano keyboard).
--BrenBarn (Bren...@aol.com)
(Name in header has spam-blocker, use the address above instead.)
"Do not follow where the path may lead;
go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail."
--Author Unknown
j_o...@my-deja.com
Plus, a safe, court-approved outlet for expressing my feelings about
the ex-spouse (hello, sailor!)
> Do we do it because we enjoy stapling our twisted mindscapes onto a
computer screen and
> getting others to prod them?
> (By that, I mean altruism. I like creating something (music,
fiction, poetry, coding)
> and watching others enjoy it.)
Trig
I think we all miss having our first grade crayon drawing stuck to the fridge
with fruit -shaped magnets. It's nice to be praised for creativity instead of
getting punished for deviating from the rest of the hive-minded populace.
Trig
--
"This may look like a slab of liver, but really, it's an external brain pack!"
Kevin Russell
> >>We want to impress Jodie Foster.
> >
> >No, I want to impress Tracy Valencia and Primo Varicella.
> >
>
> Might be tough to impress both at the same time.
Have you ever *seen* them both at the same time?
They're obviously really the same person. Like Superman
and Clark Kent.
-- Kevin
Emily Short
----------
In article <8om532$jjp$9...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>, "Konnrad / T Taylor"
<t...@stutaylor.SPAMISBAD.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Why do we write IF?
>
> You can't say money. This ain't pop music.
>
> To earn respect is a bit stupid - I think Ancorhead is a great game - but I can't
>remember who wrote it. (Sorry, if you're reading.)
>
> Do we do it because we enjoy stapling our twisted mindscapes onto a
>computer screen and
>getting others to prod them?
> (By that, I mean altruism. I like creating something (music, fiction,
>poetry, coding)
>and watching others enjoy it.)
>
> What would you say?
Because it's a new medium, and it allows a flexibility that other kinds of
writing do not. I've often found myself having to choose one of several
possible ways to end a story in static fiction. The freedom to write ALL
the possible endings is seductive (which is, no doubt, the reason I've spent
so long tweaking Galatea.)
Because it's a complicated medium, and exercises several different kinds of
skill. Prose style counts. Programming ability counts. If you're working
in glulx or HTML-TADS, artistic, photographic, or musical skill may count as
well. Personally, I've always had a problem with focus. (Guess why I have
an undergraduate degree in Greek with a minor in Physics. Hint: it wasn't
because Classical Mechanics has anything much to do with Classics.) So I
like creative work that has me sometimes working out dialogue for my
character and sometimes peering at my code to find the source of the Vile
Zero Error From Hell.
Because it has a small, articulate, dedicated audience. Even if people
don't love your game, their responses are likely to be instructive and
thoughtful. I've heard complaints about the amount (not enough) and flavor
(harsh) of some r*if feedback. But there are ways around the former problem
(Review Conspiracy, submitting to a major comp). And if you have the
stomach to handle it, one piece of criticism from a discerning, literate
player is worth MUCH more than a dozen repetitions of "I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!"
from readers on, eg, a fanfic newsgroup.
And because, like most of us, somewhere along the line I had my imagination
utterly captured by IF -- first by Infocom, then by Curses and Jigsaw, and
finally by "Spider and Web" -- and I found myself wanting desperately to
emulate, to answer, to surpass. Ultimately, art is something that you send
out into the world (unless you're Emily Dickinson) in the hope that it will
find an audience; it becomes a missionary or ambassador, or even an
espionage agent, seeking, if not Jodie Foster, then at least some kind of
sympathetic spirit. Writing IF is a way of saying to everyone whose game I
loved, "Yes, I heard you; can anyone hear me?"
Beats bombarding Graham and Zarf and the Implementors with messages of
hopeless adulation, don't you think?
ES
Richard Bos
> Why do we write IF?
Because I'm addicted to caffeine and coding.
Richard
Magnus Olsson
Spoliers for "Varicella" ahead.
You've been warned
Have you tried giving the command "wake up" in Varicella?
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Daryl McCullough
>
> Why do we write IF?
>
> You can't say money. This ain't pop music.
It's more like folk music.
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
Frisco
Konnrad / T Taylor <t...@stutaylor.SPAMISBAD.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message news:8om532$jjp$9...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Why do we write IF?
Because most of my skills lie somewhere on the other end of the skill
spectrum that would include 'writing' and 'programming'. So intrinsically,
the whole process of writing and releasing a game is pretty gratifying.
Also, I love entering my game's title in the Google search engine and
watching what pops up.
Francesco
kar...@fermi2.chem.yale.edu
[why IF?]
> Good question. What would I say? I would say I am writing I.F. because I
> can.
Er, there's quite a *lot* of things you *can* do. The question is, why
choose IF over other ways of spending your free time, such as learning to
play the harpsichord[1], or reading all of the Hardy Boys books backwards,
or watching C-SPAN.
-Amir
[1] I just realized that I wrote this because I'm listening to Bach (on
piano, though, so it's pretty subliminal).
Gunther Schmidl
> Also, I love entering my game's title in the Google search engine and
> watching what pops up.
'Hot Lesbian Teenage Sex'?
-- g.
(sorry)
kar...@fermi2.chem.yale.edu
> ----------
> In article <8om532$jjp$9...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>, "Konnrad / T Taylor"
> <t...@stutaylor.SPAMISBAD.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>> Why do we write IF?
>>
>> To earn respect is a bit stupid - I think Ancorhead is a great game -
>> but I can't remember who wrote it. (Sorry, if you're reading.)
By the way, I didn't answer this in the original post. This isn't a good
enough reason. I think respect may be a lot of it. Cf. Open Source
Software (Don't get me started. No, wait, it's too late.). Most OSS
projects are used by, say, 10-1000 people if you're lucky enough ever to
get it out the door. OTOH, if the ten people who use it are the exact ten
people in the world you want to get respect from, then that's fine, isn't
it?
I wrote a Perl port of Hunt the Wumpus. This is unbelievably useless. Not
only is it a completely --- well, let's say it's a game that's showing its
age, when compared with things like Curses and Doom. But on the off
chance that you really want to play it and you're concerned that you won't
be able to play it in the original BASIC implementation [1], well, it's
already been ported to C! (And Inform!)
So why did I do it? Well, because I got email from a couple people saying
it was a great game. And I knew that anyone who knew what Wumpus was
shared something with me, maybe even learned BASIC in summer camp (Yes,
I'm that geeky) and typed the whole thing into their computer;
anyone who would actually take the energy to download and play it was a
kindred spirit, so their respect was really valuable to me. Eventually, I
even got an email from Tom Christiansen (Perl Deity), which said (I'll
never wash my monitor again) "HURRAY! Adventure next?" [2] As a Perl
zealot, there aren't many people whose respect I'd value more.
In addition, Usenet is all about people sharing interests forming communities.
The "core" RAIF posters all know each other pretty well, and they know who
wrote the more popular games. And whose respect would a RAIFer want more
than another RAIFer? (She likes the same things I do; she *must* be
smart!)
And there's always the chance that you'll get more respect than you
expected. I wrote a tutorial for a word processing program, and it's now
been translated into 10 languages: I'm not only published, I've been
translated! The biggest kick was when I got an email from a guy who wanted
to translate it into Basque. Basque?! Similarly, it's exciting to know
that my work was useful (or in the case of IF, entertaining, or whatever
it is you want your game to be) for thousands of people around the world.
>>Do we do it because we enjoy stapling our twisted mindscapes onto a
>>computer screen and getting others to prod them? (By that, I mean
>>altruism. I like creating something (music, fiction, poetry, coding)
>>and watching others enjoy it.)
> Because it's a complicated medium, and exercises several different kinds of
> skill.
Right. I code for fun because of the intellectual exercise. It's like a
crossword puzzle only I get to Create! And in IF you get to build a whole
world (universe, castle, inside of a whale, whatever) instead of just a
program. And, as Emily said (much more eloquently than I, since she's a
Writer) there's a combination of intellectual and artistic
muscle-stretching.
I think the intellectual exercise has to be a large part of it. I mean,
there's always the chance that noone will like your work, or that your
help system is too good and noone posts hint requests so noone ever plays
it. (I commend the recent efforts to stop good games from falling through
the cracks, btw!) And an IF game takes a LONG time to code. (From what I
hear, never having come close to writing one.) So a lot of it has to be
because certain people are twisted enough to enjoy fighting with a
subroutine/turn of phrase enough to spend all of their free time on it.
> And because, like most of us, somewhere along the line I had my imagination
> utterly captured by IF -- first by Infocom, then by Curses and Jigsaw, and
> finally by "Spider and Web" -- and I found myself wanting desperately to
> emulate, to answer, to surpass. Ultimately, art is something that you send
> out into the world (unless you're Emily Dickinson) in the hope that it will
> find an audience; it becomes a missionary or ambassador, or even an
> espionage agent, seeking, if not Jodie Foster, then at least some kind of
> sympathetic spirit. Writing IF is a way of saying to everyone whose game I
> loved, "Yes, I heard you; can anyone hear me?"
This is really interesting. My first thought was that this suggests art is
basically just a series of people saying "Anything you can do I can do
better". But I think you're emphasizing a different side. Seeing something
of beauty -- no, of quality[3] -- is inspiring. It often engenders in people
the wish to do it on their own. Not just for competitive purposes [4], but
also because you want to add beauty or quality to the world. And you know
that you're unique, so that there's noone else in the world who can add
exactly the same kind of quality that you can.
And of course the ultimate payback is when you see something that you
created yourself, and recognize the quality in it.
Well, Tom, thanks for getting me thinking.
-Amir
[1] Not likely. My next project was writing a BASIC interpreter in Perl,
so you *can* play Wumpus in the original Basic, on a LOT of platforms.
Phew! Terrifyingly, Wumpus has also been ported to Befunge.
[2] No, I'm not porting Advent to Perl. But in case you're curious,
Mark Jason Dominus (Perl Minor Deity) is planning a port.
[3] And quality has its own sort of beauty. Whether it be a photo exhibit
of children with AIDS, or an algorithm that runs 50 times faster, or
EZ-Pass. (My wife started getting annoyed after about the twentieth time
we went through a toll booth without having to be stuck in traffic, and I
said, "I love EZ-Pass." I would do commercials if they asked me to.)
[4] And, the bragging aspects definitely exists, although to different
levels in different people. For example, I've always felt like Beethoven
was weeping as he wrote his music, terrified that he wouldn't be able to
write it the way it was Supposed to be. Whereas Mozart KNEW he was doing
it right. Often, I feel like he did crazy, groundbreaking (but
unbelievably beautiful, or maybe just funny) things just to say, "because
I *can*". And I guess stories of competition between artists spurring them
to do better are probably as common as stories of collaboration.
M. St. Bernard
>
> it was a great game. And I knew that anyone who knew what Wumpus was
> shared something with me, maybe even learned BASIC in summer camp
Hunt the Wumpus will always have a space in my heart, all cheesiness
aside. One of the most exciting things about being hooked up to the
internet was doing a search for "Wumpus," and finding out that people
are still enthralled with the game.
Well, maybe not so much with the game (I admit I haven't played it in
years), but more with the IDEA of the game. Most of my hacking away as
a teenager was centered around making newer versions of Hunt The
Wumpus. Ones with 200 rooms, random tunnel generators, and rivers
snaking through them. Ones where your footprints would be left behind,
as were the footprints of other creatures in the maze. What was so
inspiring about "Hunt the Wumpus?"
Part of it might have been those 2 "Computer Games" and "More Computer
Games" anthologies, put out around 1980. There was a drawing of the
Wumpus in one of those, and I'm afraid I was imprinted. I've been
hunting the Wumpus ever since!
Muffy. Who would love to shake Mr. Yob's hand. His name was Gregory
Yob, wasn't it?
Konnrad / T Taylor
> can.
But then you'd be terrorising little children in the street "because you can".
Or joining every church in your nation "because you can".
Or trying every flavour of Pot Noodle (yich) "because you can".
Or spending your life dribbling into a paper cup while whistling "Star Spangled Banner"
through your nose "because you can".
To be honest, the list is quite, quite endless.
(Or writing lists of stuff you could do "because you can", "because you can".)
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
> enough to get to the point where I create works in the medium spontaneously.
> But I do that all the time with the other three art forms you mentioned (music,
> poetry, fiction), without thinking hardly at all about what other people will
> think; I just do it because I enjoy it, and I find it stimulating.
>
> But I DO enjoy stapling my twisted mindscape onto a computer screen (or a
> piece of paper or a piano keyboard).
I do all 4 also. It's quite cool being able to express yourself (however inadequately)
in so many ways.
I just *enjoy* saying "stapling my twisted mindscape onto a computer screen" because
it's oh-so squishy-sounding, like a twisted mindscape is an alien baby, all purple and
gooey, and it pops messily as you assault it with your industrial-strength staple gun.
Cool.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
> writing do not.
Flexibility is good. I do genuinely think IF is going to be part of something big in
the future - the ideas in it lend themselves so readily to Virtual Reality stuff... all
that pure text could so easily become a 3D environment.
> Prose style counts. Programming ability counts. If you're working
> in glulx or HTML-TADS, artistic, photographic, or musical skill may count as
> well. Personally, I've always had a problem with focus. (Guess why I have
> an undergraduate degree in Greek with a minor in Physics. Hint: it wasn't
> because Classical Mechanics has anything much to do with Classics.) So I
> like creative work that has me sometimes working out dialogue for my
> character and sometimes peering at my code to find the source of the Vile
> Zero Error From Hell.
I think all forms of creative work have that. My short fiction isn't about character.
It's setting, dialogue, structure, motive...
My music is chords, melody, counterpoint... (of course, some music is drums, melody...
samples repeated endlessly, thusly losing the rich texture of sound, but then I'm stupid.)
I like the way coding has this, and the balance of the logic of the coding. It's really
cool - I think the coding is just as creative as the prose... in a different way, of
course.
> Because it has a small, articulate, dedicated audience. Even if people
> don't love your game, their responses are likely to be instructive and
> thoughtful.
I think that's true of most creative hobbies. It's the same on
rec.music.makers.songwriting (don't go if you dislike me, I post far too much there) and
the poetry/fiction NG's.
> And because, like most of us, somewhere along the line I had my imagination
> utterly captured by IF -- first by Infocom, then by Curses and Jigsaw, and
> finally by "Spider and Web" -- and I found myself wanting desperately to
> emulate, to answer, to surpass. Ultimately, art is something that you send
> out into the world (unless you're Emily Dickinson) in the hope that it will
> find an audience; it becomes a missionary or ambassador, or even an
> espionage agent, seeking, if not Jodie Foster, then at least some kind of
> sympathetic spirit. Writing IF is a way of saying to everyone whose game I
> loved, "Yes, I heard you; can anyone hear me?"
I think IF is good, but I want to weave new things into it. I'll never be great at
coding or puzzles, but I desperately want to put a bit of myself in there, however
inferior, just to see how it comes out. I know what *I* am musically, idealistically,
philosophically, prosaically, I have a morbid curiosity to see my ideas forced onto the
screen.
Anyway, thanks for being remarkably lucid. As always, I ask these questions not just to
find out about you as much, but because reading other peoples thoughts often teaches me
things about myself.
> Beats bombarding Graham and Zarf and the Implementors with messages of
> hopeless adulation, don't you think?
Hmm... I'd have to try both extensively first.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
>
> Money.
>
> > You can't say money.
>
> Damn.
Phew - I though my clever blocking of such a ploy had failed.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
Hey! Hands off. My Jodie Foster salutation rocket MK 3 is almost ready - and it will
explode in the stratosphere, scattering thousands of life-like (clothed and denudable)
Jodie Foster dolls amongst the peoples of the earth. This will thusly boost her career,
I'll get her ALL the Oscars at the next Oscars (well, obviously, it wouldn't be the
Grammy's) and then she'll be mine!
Of course, this is all an IF game.
Sob.
Where has my life gone?
TOM
P.S. Actually, trying to impress people so above you and out of your reach is not only
stupid, it's pointless. Stalk them instead!
Actually - an IF stalking game has amazing potential. Not from a "Ewww... grossly sick
depiction of looking through the window of Aguilera's bathroom" stuff, but
psychologically.
Hmm...
Konnrad / T Taylor
> with fruit -shaped magnets. It's nice to be praised for creativity instead of
> getting punished for deviating from the rest of the hive-minded populace.
Insightful, and worrying.
Those hive-minds almost got me, but now I'm one of those meddling pesky kids who trip
them up at every turn. Few.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
>
> Because I'm addicted to caffeine and coding.
I gave up caffeine. Now I'm awake through will and determination, not caff.... zzzzzzz
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
It shows you something about my pathetically anti-popular mindset that I prefer folk,
doesn't it?
TOM
Passenger Pigeon
bren...@aol.comRemove (BrenBarn) wrote:
> "Gunther Schmidl" gsch...@xxx.gmx.at wrote:
> >> Also, I love entering my game's title in the Google search engine and
> >> watching what pops up.
> >
> >'Hot Lesbian Teenage Sex'?
>
> What kind of game title is that? :-)
The best damn kind.
--
William Burke, passenge...@hotmail.com
HTH. HAND. * <--- Perth
Visit my web page! Current essay: Happiness. http://come.to/passenger-pigeon/
Elise Stone
>>Why do we write IF?
>
>I think we all miss having our first grade crayon drawing stuck to the fridge
>with fruit -shaped magnets. It's nice to be praised for creativity instead of
>getting punished for deviating from the rest of the hive-minded populace.
>
>
>Trig
I love this! Now, if I can only get my crayons to actually start
drawing something. <g>
Adam Cadre
To: Deviation Correction Unit 00902I.F
Reference: 20000901004802...@ng-fi1.aol.com
Reference Originator: Drone Unit 74028J.R
-----
REFERENCE FOLLOWS
-----
> It's nice to be praised for creativity instead of getting punished
> for deviating from the rest of the hive-minded populace.
*** WARNING 001.D ***
Drone Unit 74028J.R suggests positive consequence of subversion
-----
*** WARNING 001.G ***
Drone Unit 74028J.R provokes insurrection
-----
*** Suggested Corrective Action: TERMINATE DRONE UNIT ***
Konnrad / T Taylor
> watching what pops up.
Google verily kicketh ass.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
> aside. One of the most exciting things about being hooked up to the
> internet was doing a search for "Wumpus," and finding out that people
> are still enthralled with the game.
It was the second game I ever copied out of a BASIC book.
I did find it... enchantingly elegant and simple, to be honest.
I only played it about 3 times though. And I still think it's good.
That's quite amazing.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
Well... embarassingly, that's what you almost always get.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
> basically just a series of people saying "Anything you can do I can do
> better". But I think you're emphasizing a different side. Seeing something
> of beauty -- no, of quality[3] -- is inspiring. It often engenders in people
> the wish to do it on their own. Not just for competitive purposes [4], but
> also because you want to add beauty or quality to the world. And you know
> that you're unique, so that there's noone else in the world who can add
> exactly the same kind of quality that you can.
That's what all "true" things do - instill this "trueness", beauty, passion, idea, in
someone, and make them want to spread it and strengthen it and live it.
> And of course the ultimate payback is when you see something that you
> created yourself, and recognize the quality in it.
And other people see it too, and it makes them happy, of course. That's the finishing
touch, to some not neccesarry... but hey.
> Well, Tom, thanks for getting me thinking.
Thanks for thinking. And thanks for being a bunch of clever, creative people. Some
people think we're dying, but I find us everywhere.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
But does it do it for them?
> Alternative answer, weakly stooping to quoting from a musical, since my
> prose isn't that good: "The opposite of war isn't peace; it's creation."
Peace is absence of war.
Just as darkness is absence of light. Anti-light would be something like a black hole.
> > "'value' has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a
> > thing, its use to him...and second, what he must do to get it, its cost
> > to him...nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased
> > only through gasping effort and pain... if you boys and girls had to
> > sweat for your toys...you would be happier... and much richer. As it
> > is, with some of you, I pity the poverty of your wealth."
>
> Yup. I've decided not to make too much money, because it would be such a
> burden for my kids.
Well, you can always tell them that if you don't make too much.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
> but at a dance, it tends to be pretty good at getting the body moving in a
> way which classical music, for all its power, doesn't. Even to get the
> body moving in a different way than Swing does.
I agree. But the stuff that makes me dance is more than drums, melody, samples. The
stuff that makes me dance has classical influences, richness, texture, counterpoint and
all. Music, I think, all comes down to emotion, since it can't convey meaning. Until you
put lyrics on, and then it's you can have both.
> > I think IF is good, but I want to weave new things into it. I'll never
> > be great at coding or puzzles, but I desperately want to put a bit of
> > myself in there, however inferior, just to see how it comes out.
>
> Whereas I'll never be good at writing, but I "desperately want to put a bit
> of myself in there", too.
You seem lucid and creative enough in your English here.
TOM
Konnrad / T Taylor
> imagination" defines me quite well. Most times that I am working on
> either IF or writing, I get other ideas, which I write down to go
> back to later. The problem is that the ideas I write down are plot
> setups and character descriptions, generally several pages long. By
> the time I'm done getting details recorded (and yes I have to do
> that, I've lost many having not done so), I find I'm not able to go
> back to what I interrupted.
That gets me too. I now just let those pesky ideas slide. If they were good ideas
originally (you always write down mostly crap ideas, I think it's a universal law) they
come back, linked with older ideas that it fits with. I've come up with many good
novel-sized ideas like that.
> It's part of me. I know it. Knowing is part of the solution as you
> say. I also know that one day I will finish a work of IF, and a short
> story or book. That day is some time in the future still. I just have
> to grip about it once in a while as it tend sto get me focused for a
> little while.
Focus with simple breathing exercises. Or yoga. Or meditation. Something that's
relaxing and refreshing.
Simplest way to focus (and relieve stress), for me (and I pieced all my knowledge on
breathing exercises from talking to martial-artists, buddhists, reading books,
experimenting... and I just went with what worked), is to sit down, relax the shoulders
(they're nearly *always* tense), breathe in deeply through the nose, and breathe out
slowly through the nose... breathe out slower, it's relaxing. (If you want to charge up,
long nasal breath, shorter, but not forced, exhalation through the mouth while relaxed.
It helps in physical tasks immensely.)
Oh, and this is part psychological and part biological, so that's why it works really
well.
> > And then stop yourself from developing another addictive hobby,
> > let IF rest for a while,
> >and finish your "other writing".
>
> Heh, the only addictive hobby I have is reading.
Tell me about it! It's a nice escape, though, so I don't complain.
> > If something is important to you, you can always finish it.
> > Trust me... I finally finished something last year. I'd always
> > thought of myself as a writer, and I actually wrote a proper, real,
> > serious short-story
>
> Cool. There's hope for me yet. Congrats by the way. :)
> Heh, I'm a writer, I'm just not an author yet! *L*
You'll do it soon. It gets easier each time. Let me share with you some quotes that
have helped me immensely in all areas of creativity...
"Art is never finished, only abandoned."
Writing is a mug's game. It's heartbreak. It's pain and struggle and rejection and
isolation and the only reason...the ONLY reason...to do it is if you've got something to
say, something that burns in you so that you can't *NOT* write.
There's no real advice I can give to an aspiring writer that would mean a damn except to
write, keep writing, keep sending it out, and don't stop.
"How can this story ever end??"
The story never ends. It's this part of the telling that will end.
Mark Twain said, "Never write a scene until you have finished it to your satisfaction."
Meaning in your head. You should always play the scene over and over in your head, filling
it out further and further each time, until you can play it like a movie. Then, when it's
all worked out, you sit down and transcribe it.
And never follow somebody else's path; it doesn't work the same way twice for
anyone...the path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk, forcing the next person
to find their own way.
"If you would have your fiction live forever, you must neither overtly preach nor
overtly teach; but you must *covertly* preach and *covertly* teach." That, to me, is one
primary ingredient; it must, at its root, be *about* something more than car chases and
bomb blasts and shootouts. On some level, however cellular, it must instruct and ennoble
and elevate and enrich, make us question or consider.
You learn to write by writing. You learn to write better by never settling or getting
too comfortable with your own work.
"Of course everything has already been said, but since no one was listening, we must
begin again."
"Too many people mistake a passion for reading with a desire to write."
The problem isn't in the object being perceived; the problem is in the narrow world view
of the perceiver who bends everything to fit what he knows.
This may sound kinda scary, but aside from my original notes, I keep it all in my head.
You can tell a good story in just about any venue, provided you approach it with, as
Balzac said, "clean hands and composure." What matters is what you DO with the form, not
the form itself.
I guess the difference is that a writer of fiction or scripts has to put him-or-herself
into the scene, to feel what someone else has described in technical terms. From that
comes emotion, from emotion comes contact.
All my characters are in some way based on stuff I either see in myself, or would like
to see in myself were I a nobler and smarter person.
I'd thought it was going to be something other than what it was; there's a writing
phrase, "it's too much what it is."
There's a little of lots of things in the writing, it's hard to pin down any one of
them; I don't sit down and say, "Okay, now to use some psychology on this." A writer is
like a sponge; you pick up lots of colors and strangenesses, then when you come to write
something, you squeeze, and everything comes out together. I write what the dark and scary
parts of my brain seem interested in writing about.
If you hang out with writers long enough, the really *good* ones, you learn soon enough
that most of them talk exactly the way they write.
Lemme give you a forinstance...when Asimov was first struggling as a writer, he had
lunch with his agent one day. He was having a hard time describing things, using language
to paint pictures. The agent said, "You know how Hemingway would describe the sun rising
in the morning?" No, Asimov said, leaning in...how? "The sun rose in the morning."
That's the great thing about being alive...there's always a new trauma waiting just
around the corner for you to learn from and draw upon.
Some folks catch double-meanings when they're there...some don't...some find double
meanings when they're *not* there. Art is a participatory sport.
- J Michael Straczynski. He wrote Babylon 5.
TOM
Matt.
"Konnrad / T Taylor" <t...@stutaylor.SPAMISBAD.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Well, OK, I'll do a psychologically clever game based on stalking
some famous celebrity,
> since no-one else is interested.
Why not try a psychologically clever game based on the player being
stalked, has this been done before?
Matt.
--
Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after
a great idea hits you, and just before you realise
whats wrong with it.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Unmitigated Galla
That's not necessary -- I'm perfectly capable of writing my own IF.
But thanks!
:-)
--
Susan Davis <s...@sue.net>
Magnus Olsson
Vincent Lynch <ma...@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
>Konnrad / T Taylor <t...@stutaylor.spamisbad.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>> Just as darkness is absence of light. Anti-light would be something like
>> a black hole.
>
>anti-photons? (Are anti-photons also photons?
Yes, the photon is its own antiparticle.
What this has to do with IF escapes me completely, though. So let's
get back on topic: what I like about writing IF is the world building.
Sure, all fiction involves world building, but in IF you put together
your own little model world that actually works - you can't just
describe it, or read about it, but interact with it and have it
interact with you. That's a great feeling, a bit like builidng model
railroads, I suppose.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Konnrad / T Taylor
"Matt." <oz722...@icqmail.com> wrote in message news:8p43d3$s43$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <8p0mej$3e0$3...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> "Konnrad / T Taylor" <t...@stutaylor.SPAMISBAD.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Well, OK, I'll do a psychologically clever game based on stalking
> some famous celebrity,
> > since no-one else is interested.
>
> Why not try a psychologically clever game based on the player being
> stalked, has this been done before?
I was thinking of that, also.
TOM
W. Top Changwatchai
message news:8op7vl$td8$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
That doesn't necessarily follow.
Why do I like chocolate? Because I do. That doesn't mean I'm also gonna
like vanilla, strawberry, coffee, mocha almond fudge, mint chocolate chip,
New York Super Fudge Chunk, ... Er, ahem. Where was I again?
The point is, although we might attempt rationalize our preferences (I could
talk about pheromones and endorphins and such), at heart some (perhaps many,
perhaps most) of our motivations spring from the dark recesses of our base
desires: food, shelter, sleep, sex, IF.
Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at u i u c dot edu
W. Top Changwatchai
Ah, nostalgia.
Hunt the Wumpus was one of the first computer games I ever played, using my
dad's account on a university mainframe. I also recall playing the
mainframe staples Star Trek, Animal, and of course Adventure.
I too typed in "Wumpus" from David Ahl's wonderful books of source code for
BASIC games. I even typed in "Wumpus 2," which featured different cave
layouts and even let you input your own layout (wonderful!). I remember
Gregory Yob's comments on the reactions his game produced in the computer
terminal rooms. Apparently it was a pretty old game even by the time I
encountered it. I remember Yob's being amazed that some people would play
without mapping the cave. Actually, I'm pretty amazed to this day to learn
that some people don't like mapping adventure games. Different strokes, I
guess.
The Ahl books featured source to Star Trek and Animal too. Sadly, they did
not have source to Adventure, which probably didn't have a BASIC port at the
time (either that or it was too long). I was pleased to learn recently that
John Menichelli wrote an Inform port of a C port of the BASIC version of
Star Trek from the Ahl books. More nostalgia.
I recall a little in-joke in the runtime example for Animal (a simple "game"
which let you input new terms and create distinguishing queries). For
"wumpus" the query was "Is its last name Yob?" Another example of a monster
taking on the name of its creator, I suppose.
I just remembered something: the reason I decided to learn C as a kid was
because a friend of mine had written an adventure game in C. At the time I
thought this was the coolest thing ever. His game featured a one-character
parser, however.
Tim Hartnell also had a couple of books of source for BASIC games. One,
intriguingly enough, was called something like "How to Write Adventure Games
on Your Computer." Even as a kid I knew the techniques were pretty
primitive (compared to the kings of the day, Infocom), but still I pored
over every example. Funny I never ended up writing any IF of my own...
Magnus Olsson
to the field of Wumpology?
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/wumpus.z5
Muffy St. Bernard
> I too typed in "Wumpus" from David Ahl's wonderful books of source code for
> BASIC games. I even typed in "Wumpus 2," which featured different cave
> layouts and even let you input your own layout (wonderful!). I remember
> Gregory Yob's comments on the reactions his game produced in the computer
> terminal rooms. Apparently it was a pretty old game even by the time I
> encountered it. I remember Yob's being amazed that some people would play
> without mapping the cave.
We obviously had the same books! I remember one of the caves in
Wumpus2 was a "New York City" cave, where all the tunnels were one-way.
The actual CODE in those books was pretty terrible...it went all over
the place, and I remember even at a young age noticing redundancies in
it, and outright mistakes. Other great games in those books:
"Life," which I was totally enthralled by, particularly since it would
take about 15 minutes for my computer to calculate each mysterious
update. I remember the furor around "Life," and a competition to
"prove" that any state had a finite number of evolutions. Then, I got a
PC, and suddenly I could go through 1000 evolutions in a few seconds,
and it stopped being fun. (Incidentally, I remember a version of "Life"
written by somebody who objected to the sudden death of the cells...he'd
introduced an "afterlife" for the cells to go to, from which they'd be
reincarnated).
"Hammuraabi" where I learned what the word "bushel" meant. :-)
"Twonky" the sort of game Yob wrote Wumpus to improve upon.
And there was another one whose name I've forgotten, a camel race
across the desert...you were always being pursued by "Wild Berbers" and
it had a real silly sense of humour.
> The Ahl books featured source to Star Trek and Animal too. Sadly, they did
> not have source to Adventure, which probably didn't have a BASIC port at the
> time (either that or it was too long).
Too long, I expect, and there was always a struggle between the desire
of users to type adventure games in, and their desire not to have it
spoiled by reading the code. A few books came out with "coded"
adventure games, which were maddening to type, even with somebody else
reading it to you. "XGGZYYYKWW PPOOEK..."
> Tim Hartnell also had a couple of books of source for BASIC games. One,
> intriguingly enough, was called something like "How to Write Adventure Games
> on Your Computer."
I had that one too. :-)
Two word parser, and the concept of a map database. I remember
"doors" being a big deal to implement.
I always liked having the engine created for me, so I worked mainly
with AdventureWriter and (later) AGT.
Muffy.
Dylan O'Donnell
> Tim Hartnell also had a couple of books of source for BASIC games. One,
> intriguingly enough, was called something like "How to Write Adventure Games
> on Your Computer." Even as a kid I knew the techniques were pretty
> primitive (compared to the kings of the day, Infocom), but still I pored
> over every example. Funny I never ended up writing any IF of my own...
A copy of this circulated in the prizes for the Competition for
several years, each year being donated anew by the person who'd won it
last time. I see that it hasn't turned up again this time, though :-/
--
: Dylan O'Donnell http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/ :
: "Product is. Product is Product. Warehouse produces Product. :
: Members(Warehouse) do jobs --> Product is produced." :
: -- Dan Shiovitz, "Bad Machine" :
T Raymond
>The point is, although we might attempt rationalize our
>preferences (I could talk about pheromones and endorphins and
>such), at heart some (perhaps many, perhaps most) of our
>motivations spring from the dark recesses of our base desires:
>food, shelter, sleep, sex, IF.
Heh, and not necessarily in that order ;)
Tom
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tom Raymond adk AT usaDOTnet
"The original professional ameteur."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Adam Biltcliffe
> And there was another one whose name I've forgotten, a camel race
> across the desert...you were always being pursued by "Wild Berbers"
and
> it had a real silly sense of humour.
I have a sudden irresistable compulsion to start work on ZCamel.
jw
ge...@wgp.org
>I recall a little in-joke in the runtime example for Animal (a simple "game"
>which let you input new terms and create distinguishing queries). For
is that where that comes from? Heh. That's a programming assignment in the
duke CS coursepath... to write that game in C++. Never knew there was any
particular history behind it, just figured it was called animal because that
was the example used when it was first made as an assignment...
W. Top Changwatchai
> "W. Top Changwatchai" wrote:
> > I too typed in "Wumpus" from David Ahl's wonderful books of source code for
> > BASIC games. I even typed in "Wumpus 2," which featured different cave
> > layouts and even let you input your own layout (wonderful!). I remember
> > Gregory Yob's comments on the reactions his game produced in the computer
> > terminal rooms. Apparently it was a pretty old game even by the time I
> > encountered it. I remember Yob's being amazed that some people would play
> > without mapping the cave.
>
> We obviously had the same books! I remember one of the caves in
> Wumpus2 was a "New York City" cave, where all the tunnels were one-way.
> The actual CODE in those books was pretty terrible...it went all over
> the place, and I remember even at a young age noticing redundancies in
> it, and outright mistakes. Other great games in those books:
Tell me about it! I recall a way-cool automatic maze generator. I was really
into (non-IF) mazes back then, and here was a fairly non-trivial thing to code up
(well, for my 12-year-old self). But the code was virtually unreadable, being
filled with one-letter variable names and tons of gotos (even gotos to gotos),
dead code, useless code, incorrect code.
But I buckled down and deciphered the algorithm...and recall being massively
disappointed at its inefficiency and predictability. But it gave me ideas on how
to create my own maze generator. Funny, soon after I wrote a maze generator, I
became less interested in solving mazes myself. Hope that's not true of IF.
>
> "Life," which I was totally enthralled by, particularly since it would
> take about 15 minutes for my computer to calculate each mysterious
> update. I remember the furor around "Life," and a competition to
> "prove" that any state had a finite number of evolutions. Then, I got a
> PC, and suddenly I could go through 1000 evolutions in a few seconds,
> and it stopped being fun. (Incidentally, I remember a version of "Life"
> written by somebody who objected to the sudden death of the cells...he'd
> introduced an "afterlife" for the cells to go to, from which they'd be
> reincarnated).
I've always been fond of "Life," and it's possible that that program introduced me
to Scientific American and the god Martin Gardner. I even did a version of it for
my senior project in undergrad. I recall reading about neat constructs such as
walkers that move across an empty grid, as well as a "walker-gun" which shoots off
a stream of walkers. You could use walkers which cancel each other out, forming
the basis of 2-D "and" and "not" gates. From this starting point, you could in
theory implement any computational device simply using "Life" constructs.
Interesting to contemplate a virtual PC implemented in "Life," running a "Life"
simulation...
Heh, your afterlife comment reminds me of yet more SciAm articles about cellular
automata and the complex systems some people create for "artificial life." A fun
topic. Hmm...perhaps the basis for an IF puzzle. I shall have to think more
about this.
I find it interesting that you too felt something like a loss of wonder after
delving in a topic. Not that this is a bad thing--by understanding something
better I believe we can appreciate it more.
>
> "Hammuraabi" where I learned what the word "bushel" meant. :-)
> "Twonky" the sort of game Yob wrote Wumpus to improve upon.
> And there was another one whose name I've forgotten, a camel race
> across the desert...you were always being pursued by "Wild Berbers" and
> it had a real silly sense of humour.
I loved all three of these games. "Hammurabi" (apparently misspelled in the game)
got me interested in simulation games, "Twonky" in "Hack"-type games where you map
a grid, and "Camel"... well, "Camel" was just fun to play. It was outrageously
difficult and yet its silliness and humor kept me playing again and again. Even
after typing in the source, I still couldn't stop playing, trying to get farther
and farther into the desert. (I don't think I ever won, but I came *darn* close.)
Hmm, I wonder whether there's a lesson here for IF. What makes a game playable or
not? For example, repeated, arbitrary deaths might not be so bad if the player
doesn't really lose any ground, and if there's a sense of the absurd.
My favorite game, and with by far the longest listing, was called something like
"Sea Battle." In it, you play a destroyer hunting subs, or maybe it was the other
way around. There was also an island and a sea monster, and a whole host of
options. I remember diligently typing that game in (it took hours, even with a
friend reading it to me), playing it, modifying it.
Then one day my dad bought me a strange little game: Zork I.
> > The Ahl books featured source to Star Trek and Animal too. Sadly, they did
> > not have source to Adventure, which probably didn't have a BASIC port at the
> > time (either that or it was too long).
>
> Too long, I expect, and there was always a struggle between the desire
> of users to type adventure games in, and their desire not to have it
> spoiled by reading the code. A few books came out with "coded"
> adventure games, which were maddening to type, even with somebody else
> reading it to you. "XGGZYYYKWW PPOOEK..."
Heh, I think we're well on our way to becoming old farts: "In my day, we didn't
have any 'gmd archive' or 'interpreters' or 'if programming languages.' We typed
in coded adventure games by hand, and by god we liked it! What was that checksum
again?"
> > Tim Hartnell also had a couple of books of source for BASIC games. One,
> > intriguingly enough, was called something like "How to Write Adventure Games
> > on Your Computer."
>
> I had that one too. :-)
> Two word parser, and the concept of a map database. I remember
> "doors" being a big deal to implement.
> I always liked having the engine created for me, so I worked mainly
> with AdventureWriter and (later) AGT.
>
> Muffy.
Although I was very fond of Hartnell's book, it must have discouraged me, because
I knew that "real" adventure games just couldn't be written that way. And it
seemed you'd have to do so much work just to get an infrastructure set up, much
less create a playable game.
IF engines really are amazing. Hats off again to their creators.
W. Top Changwatchai
Well, we've already got "Star Trek" and "Life" and "Wumpus." I'd say if
everyone pulls together, we could get the Inform version of the Ahl book
done in time for next year's competition.
Graham Nelson must be rolling over in his grave. ("What? Oh, really?
He's not? Ssssssorry!") ^_^
Top
PS Was it just me, or were the illustrations in those Ahl books just
unbelievably cool? I used to try practicing drawing like that, but soon
realized I'd better restrict myself to programming.
W. Top Changwatchai
> "W. Top Changwatchai" <n...@spam.com> writes:
> > Tim Hartnell also had a couple of books of source for BASIC games. One,
> > intriguingly enough, was called something like "How to Write Adventure Games
> > on Your Computer." Even as a kid I knew the techniques were pretty
> > primitive (compared to the kings of the day, Infocom), but still I pored
> > over every example. Funny I never ended up writing any IF of my own...
>
> A copy of this circulated in the prizes for the Competition for
> several years, each year being donated anew by the person who'd won it
> last time. I see that it hasn't turned up again this time, though :-/
I'm sure I've still got mine somewhere at my mom's. I couldn't bear to part with
it, though.
W. Top Changwatchai
Really? Interesting how ancient history pops up every now and again.
The thing that really impressed me was how short the program was. I think they
even tried to fit it in just a couple lines of BASIC code. I think it was my
first encounter with a dynamic data structure, "redim" notwithstanding.
Gunther Schmidl
> > across the desert...you were always being pursued by "Wild Berbers"
> and
> > it had a real silly sense of humour.
>
> I have a sudden irresistable compulsion to start work on ZCamel.
Wait, I remember that also. Man, I must be *old*.
And I'm only 23.
--
+-----------------+---------------+------------------------------+
| Gunther Schmidl | ICQ: 22447430 | IF: http://gschmidl.cjb.net/ |
|-----------------+----------+----+------------------------------|
| gschmidl (at) gmx (dot) at | please remove the "xxx." to reply |
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------+
Aquarius
Which has to be better than ZCaml, in the tradition of Lists and Lists.
:)
Aquarius
--
"Arrogant, yet fruity"
-- description by Tristan of me^Hy homebrewed beer
Magnus Olsson
>not have source to Adventure, which probably didn't have a BASIC port at the
>time (either that or it was too long).
I'd say it was far, far too long. Not merely for the book, but for the
computers the book was aimed at. Remember that the book dates to the time
of the first generation of home computers, when a typical machine
had perhaps 4 kB of available RAM, and (if you were lucky) an ordinary
audio cassette player as mass storage. Floppy disks cost more than most
hobbysists could afford.
Muffy St. Bernard
It's always the most obvious names that escape us. :-)
ZCamel would make me very, very happy! Though I could never figure
out the logic of the game, and I NEVER, EVER won.
Muffy.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> "Muffy St. Bernard" wrote:
>
> But I buckled down and deciphered the algorithm...and recall being massively
> disappointed at its inefficiency and predictability. But it gave me ideas on how
> to create my own maze generator. Funny, soon after I wrote a maze generator, I
> became less interested in solving mazes myself. Hope that's not true of IF.
Every few years I get back into random maze generation myself. :-)
Particularly Wumpus mazes. But after so many years of ATARI BASIC,
where array tables weren't allowed (You couldn't have an EXITS(1,3) for
example, so you needed to resort to EXITS1(3), EXITS2(3) etc...) I'm
afraid I'm stuck in a dead way of thinking.
I got it down to the point where I could have realistic Wumpus rivers
by giving each room a "depth" value, then starting with a water source
in one room and have it travel downhill from there. This worked very
well. At this point it was becoming more of a "CHTHON" game (Piers
Anthony) than a "WUMPUS" game, however.
> I've always been fond of "Life," and it's possible that that program introduced me
> to Scientific American and the god Martin Gardner. I even did a version of it for
> my senior project in undergrad. I recall reading about neat constructs such as
> walkers that move across an empty grid, as well as a "walker-gun" which shoots off
> a stream of walkers.
Weren't the walkers something like:
####
#
#
They were nifty, and that walker gun was an insane invention!
Ever stop to wonder how much work people put into theorizing about
that little game??
> I find it interesting that you too felt something like a loss of wonder after
> delving in a topic. Not that this is a bad thing--by understanding something
> better I believe we can appreciate it more.
Some topics are most interesting because of their mystery, and then
when they're demystified...well, either they're flexible enough to keep
you interested, or not. Fortunately, IF is a flexible enough medium
that I'll never get tired of it. But with Life, once you get a hang of
its repetition and logic -- and maybe once you get older as well! -- you
realize it's not very mystical at all...and there isn't much more you
can do with it.
> I loved all three of these games. "Hammurabi" (apparently misspelled in the game)
> got me interested in simulation games, "Twonky" in "Hack"-type games where you map
> a grid, and "Camel"... well, "Camel" was just fun to play. It was outrageously
> difficult and yet its silliness and humor kept me playing again and again. Even
> after typing in the source, I still couldn't stop playing, trying to get farther
> and farther into the desert. (I don't think I ever won, but I came *darn* close.)
There was also "Minotaur," which LOOKED interesting, but the darn
thing kept on charging at you. And "Joust." WHY DID I THROW OUT THOSE
BOOKS???
> Hmm, I wonder whether there's a lesson here for IF. What makes a game playable or
> not? For example, repeated, arbitrary deaths might not be so bad if the player
> doesn't really lose any ground, and if there's a sense of the absurd.
As well, after you've typed the code in, it can be more fun to
play...sort of like, when you cook food yourself, it often tastes
better. :-)
> My favorite game, and with by far the longest listing, was called something like
> "Sea Battle." In it, you play a destroyer hunting subs, or maybe it was the other
> way around. There was also an island and a sea monster, and a whole host of
> options. I remember diligently typing that game in (it took hours, even with a
> friend reading it to me), playing it, modifying it.
I could never get it to work! I think it used array tables again, in
a way I couldn't easily modify for my ATARI. But I DO remember it
well...the little "sample" that they included in the book actually had
"later on" breaks in it, since playing it would obviously take forever.
I do believe the sea monster was a capital "S"? And there were a
bunch of things that looked like \./ ?
> Then one day my dad bought me a strange little game: Zork I.
I don't remember my first, it certainly wasn't Zork. It was probably
some form of Adventure ported to the Timex Sinclair. I do know that the
first IF I wrote was a version of "Alien."
> Heh, I think we're well on our way to becoming old farts: "In my day, we didn't
> have any 'gmd archive' or 'interpreters' or 'if programming languages.' We typed
> in coded adventure games by hand, and by god we liked it! What was that checksum
> again?"
I get very sentimental about this stuff...there seemed to be a lot of
discovery, and sitting around thinking "wow, I can improve on this, just
imagine the POTENTIAL of this!" Though I don't think I ever had FUN
typing them in, I had lots of fun modifying them, and writing them
myself.
I have to admit, I NEVER typed in a coded adventure game...just
looking at them frustrated me!
> Although I was very fond of Hartnell's book, it must have discouraged me, because
> I knew that "real" adventure games just couldn't be written that way. And it
> seemed you'd have to do so much work just to get an infrastructure set up, much
> less create a playable game.
>
> IF engines really are amazing. Hats off again to their creators.
Exactly. Thank goodness people have the patience and focus and
ability to write these infrastructures. Kudos!
Muffy.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> PS Was it just me, or were the illustrations in those Ahl books just
> unbelievably cool? I used to try practicing drawing like that, but soon
> realized I'd better restrict myself to programming.
Yes, sort of goofy cartoons with lots of robots, and they were covered
in quirky details...little access panels with funny comments on them.
This is why I mentioned the drawing of that giant, salivating wumpus
(who had a little flap on him for pouring in gas, or a sign on him that
said "this way up" or something?). "Eliza" was a robotic psychiatrist
with a pen and paper. I was always disturbed by the drawing for "Bocce"
however...that bocce ball with a power cable just struck me as wrong.
:-)
It's amazing what makes an impression on you when you're young! How
much of our brains is dedicated to remembering this stuff?
Muffy.
Adam Biltcliffe
> ZCamel would make me very, very happy! Though I could never figure
> out the logic of the game, and I NEVER, EVER won.
Well, if no-one can find any bugs in the version at
http://www.crosswinds.net/~jwalrus/zcamel.zip, I'll upload it to GMD.
:)
jw
Sean T Barrett
>d again. Even after typing in the source, I still couldn't stop play
>ing, trying to get farther and farther into the desert. (I don't thi
>nk I ever won, but I came *darn* close.)
>Hmm, I wonder whether there's a lesson here for IF. What makes a gam
>e playable or not? For example, repeated, arbitrary deaths might not
> be so bad if the player doesn't really lose any ground, and if there
>'s a sense of the absurd.
This sounds to me LESS like Camel and MORE like Shrapnel, actually.
But maybe Adam has never been truthful about its inspiration.
Sean
Philip Armstrong
>when they're demystified...well, either they're flexible enough to keep
>you interested, or not. Fortunately, IF is a flexible enough medium
>that I'll never get tired of it. But with Life, once you get a hang of
>its repetition and logic -- and maybe once you get older as well! -- you
>realize it's not very mystical at all...and there isn't much more you
>can do with it.
Alternatively, you discover that life is Turing complete and realise
that you could spend your time much more constructively trying to
build widgets in some other domain :)
Phil
--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt
kar...@fermi2.chem.yale.edu
> Perhaps at this point I can be allowed to mention my own contribution
> to the field of Wumpology?
> ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/wumpus.z5
Are you not also the Magnus Olsson who posted the Wumpus source to Usenet,
as mentioned in Eric Raymond's C port?
-Amir
W. Top Changwatchai
news:39BAB23B...@hotmail.com...
> "W. Top Changwatchai" wrote:
> >
> > PS Was it just me, or were the illustrations in those Ahl books just
> > unbelievably cool? I used to try practicing drawing like that, but soon
> > realized I'd better restrict myself to programming.
>
> Yes, sort of goofy cartoons with lots of robots, and they were covered
> in quirky details...little access panels with funny comments on them.
> This is why I mentioned the drawing of that giant, salivating wumpus
> (who had a little flap on him for pouring in gas, or a sign on him that
> said "this way up" or something?). "Eliza" was a robotic psychiatrist
I remember it well. Even though it's probably better in the imagination for
the Wumpus to be a shadowy, unseen monster, that's the version I always
think of, even when playing "Hunter, in Darkness."
> with a pen and paper. I was always disturbed by the drawing for "Bocce"
> however...that bocce ball with a power cable just struck me as wrong.
> :-)
> It's amazing what makes an impression on you when you're young! How
> much of our brains is dedicated to remembering this stuff?
In my case, probably about 80%. Another 15% is dedicated to manufacturing
yet more of it. The rest is "other."
Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
W. Top Changwatchai
news:8pehdn$l0u$2...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk...
Fantastic! I don't recall the "status" command before...that makes it a lot
easier to figure out what to do. I "cheated" by looking at your simplified
code--I think the optimal strategy is "3, 3, 2, 1, 4" repeated, so it took
me about 10 tries to win.
I wonder if fixing any bugs would be against the spirit of the original
game... ^_^ Although I see you did fix a couple.
Only bug I saw is that backspacing and then retyping a command seems to
overwrite the command, without erasing the the previous input (in WinFrotz,
anyway).
W. Top Changwatchai
news:39BAB164...@hotmail.com...
> Weren't the walkers something like:
>
> ####
> #
> #
>
> They were nifty, and that walker gun was an insane invention!
> Ever stop to wonder how much work people put into theorizing about
> that little game??
Well, if you think of it in the context of cellular automata, Turing
machines, and the theory of computation...a *heck* of a lot.
>
> > I find it interesting that you too felt something like a loss of wonder
after
> > delving in a topic. Not that this is a bad thing--by understanding
something
> > better I believe we can appreciate it more.
>
> Some topics are most interesting because of their mystery, and then
> when they're demystified...well, either they're flexible enough to keep
> you interested, or not. Fortunately, IF is a flexible enough medium
> that I'll never get tired of it. But with Life, once you get a hang of
> its repetition and logic -- and maybe once you get older as well! -- you
> realize it's not very mystical at all...and there isn't much more you
> can do with it.
>
Depending on your interests and personal bent, however, these demystified
topics can form a stepping stone to yet more mysteries. Some topics you get
bored of, some lead to current interests, and some...simply invoke
nostalgia.
> > I loved all three of these games. "Hammurabi" (apparently misspelled in
the game)
> > got me interested in simulation games, "Twonky" in "Hack"-type games
where you map
> > a grid, and "Camel"... well, "Camel" was just fun to play. It was
outrageously
> > difficult and yet its silliness and humor kept me playing again and
again. Even
> > after typing in the source, I still couldn't stop playing, trying to get
farther
> > and farther into the desert. (I don't think I ever won, but I came
*darn* close.)
>
> There was also "Minotaur," which LOOKED interesting, but the darn
> thing kept on charging at you. And "Joust." WHY DID I THROW OUT THOSE
> BOOKS???
>
I'm gonna hafta look mine up next time I visit home...
> > Hmm, I wonder whether there's a lesson here for IF. What makes a game
playable or
> > not? For example, repeated, arbitrary deaths might not be so bad if the
player
> > doesn't really lose any ground, and if there's a sense of the absurd.
>
> As well, after you've typed the code in, it can be more fun to
> play...sort of like, when you cook food yourself, it often tastes
> better. :-)
>
I have the strong suspicion that my cooking only tastes good to me, no
matter what anybody else says. I hope IF creation isn't like that. ^_^
> > My favorite game, and with by far the longest listing, was called
something like
> > "Sea Battle." In it, you play a destroyer hunting subs, or maybe it was
the other
> > way around. There was also an island and a sea monster, and a whole
host of
> > options. I remember diligently typing that game in (it took hours, even
with a
> > friend reading it to me), playing it, modifying it.
>
> I could never get it to work! I think it used array tables again, in
> a way I couldn't easily modify for my ATARI. But I DO remember it
> well...the little "sample" that they included in the book actually had
> "later on" breaks in it, since playing it would obviously take forever.
> I do believe the sea monster was a capital "S"? And there were a
> bunch of things that looked like \./ ?
>
Yup, you got it. The game was actually pretty playable (especially if you
read the code). When I get my hands on that book again (which may not be
for a while), look for another silly .z5 game.
> > Then one day my dad bought me a strange little game: Zork I.
>
> I don't remember my first, it certainly wasn't Zork. It was probably
> some form of Adventure ported to the Timex Sinclair. I do know that the
> first IF I wrote was a version of "Alien."
>
For me, in between Adventure and Zork were the Scott Adams games. But Zork
came around the time I stopped typing in games by hand.
I remember thinking every single one of them was unsolvable. I simply
couldn't get my mind around them. Then one day I solved the easiest one
(Scott Adams' "Pirate Adventure") and that opened the floodgates.
Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
W. Top Changwatchai
news:8pdasp$lum$1...@news.lth.se...
> In article <L1%t5.1072$Aq4....@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> W. Top Changwatchai <n...@spam.com> wrote:
> >The Ahl books featured source to Star Trek and Animal too. Sadly, they
did
> >not have source to Adventure, which probably didn't have a BASIC port at
the
> >time (either that or it was too long).
>
> I'd say it was far, far too long. Not merely for the book, but for the
> computers the book was aimed at. Remember that the book dates to the time
> of the first generation of home computers, when a typical machine
> had perhaps 4 kB of available RAM, and (if you were lucky) an ordinary
> audio cassette player as mass storage. Floppy disks cost more than most
> hobbysists could afford.
Hmm, good point. Still, it's odd that no adventure games made it into those
books. I remember *starting* one on my TI-99/4a (I didn't even have the
Extended Basic cartridge), and yes I used audio tapes for mass storage. My
big problem at the time was not being motivated to create anything really
interesting or playable (after all, who was going to play it?)...my interest
was just in creating the infrastructure. This interested has since shifted.
^_^
Magnus Olsson
The very same. What I posted was some BASIC source which I'd found on
an FTP archive (IIRC it was the source archive of some early PC user
group, PC-BLUE or something like that).
Geoff Bailey
In article <q92jrss8bn13sq824...@4ax.com>, <ge...@wgp.org> wrote:
>"W. Top Changwatchai" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>> I recall a little in-joke in the runtime example for Animal (a simple
>> "game" which let you input new terms and create distinguishing queries).
>
> duke CS coursepath... to write that game in C++. Never knew there was any
> particular history behind it, just figured it was called animal because
> that was the example used when it was first made as an assignment...
You may be interested in http://www.20q.net/ -- same idea, but with a
huge (and surprisingly effective) database.
Cheers,
Geoff.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoff Bailey (Fred the Wonder Worm) | Programmer by trade --
ft...@cs.usyd.edu.au | Gameplayer by vocation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magnus Olsson
>news:39BAB164...@hotmail.com...
>> Weren't the walkers something like:
>>
>> ####
>> #
>> #
>>
>> They were nifty, and that walker gun was an insane invention!
>> Ever stop to wonder how much work people put into theorizing about
>> that little game??
>
>Well, if you think of it in the context of cellular automata, Turing
>machines, and the theory of computation...a *heck* of a lot.
The most exciting result is perhaps that Life on an infinite grid can
simulate a Turing machine - that is, you can build a general-purpose
computer out of life cells. The design I've seen described represented
data as streams of gliders (what you call walkers) and eprformed
calculations by colliding these in different way. For example,
an AND gate would be some combination of cells that would normally
just sit there, but if two gliders simultaneously impacted with it,
it would absorb them and spit out a new glider. Fascinating stuff.
And then there's the speculation that the entire universe, with all
its naturla laws, could be programmed as a gigantic cellular automaton
(this assumes, of course, that space-time is quantized into a very
fine grid). Greg Egan has written an SF novel about it, but I think
his imagination went overboard a little on the philosophical issues.
Magnus Olsson
W. Top Changwatchai <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>Hmm, good point. Still, it's odd that no adventure games made it into those
>books.
If I may hazard a guess, the books were just too early for that -
mid-to-late 70's, I think. There were adventure games around, but they
were for larger machines, and perhaps nobody had thought about writing
one for a microcomputer at the time.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> For me, in between Adventure and Zork were the Scott Adams games. But Zork
> came around the time I stopped typing in games by hand.
>
> I remember thinking every single one of them was unsolvable. I simply
> couldn't get my mind around them. Then one day I solved the easiest one
> (Scott Adams' "Pirate Adventure") and that opened the floodgates.
>
To me, they always seemed unsolvable as well. I won't divulge my
track record for solving IF, but it's shamefully low. :-) This is
mainly because I love the SENSE of adventure, and I particularly love
exploring (any game with a lot of tunnels and niches is automatically up
in my books).
I was one of those people who wished folks would just let me EXPLORE,
instead of killing me, when I was playing Quake II.
Muffy.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> Hmm, good point. Still, it's odd that no adventure games made it into those
> books. I remember *starting* one on my TI-99/4a (I didn't even have the
> Extended Basic cartridge), and yes I used audio tapes for mass storage. My
> big problem at the time was not being motivated to create anything really
> interesting or playable (after all, who was going to play it?)...my interest
> was just in creating the infrastructure. This interested has since shifted.
What always frustrated me was the huge amount of memory that room
descriptions used up...writing in BASIC, it seemed like I was spending
all of my time scrolling past room descriptions, and then needing to
make the descriptions more terse so I could free up some memory later
on.
The only solution I found was to place the room descriptions on a
floppy as text files, but this was hard to housekeep, it overworked my
floppy drive, and suddenly the disk would become corrupted and I would
be left in a state of extreme depression!
Muffy.
David Given
"Muffy St. Bernard" <muffy...@hotmail.com> writes:
[...]
> Weren't the walkers something like:
>
> ####
> #
> #
I always knew it as a glider. They were actually dead easy to make ---
you'd find them appearing spontaneously in chaotic regions.
> They were nifty, and that walker gun was an insane invention!
> Ever stop to wonder how much work people put into theorizing about
> that little game??
It is just a generic cellular automaton. Lots, and lots, and *lots* of
research has gone into CA.
The most insane thing I've ever seen in Life is this:
http://www.rendell.uk.co/gol/tm.htm
It's a full turing machine implemented in Life. The pictures are amazing
--- you can actually see all the logic elements and the memory stores and
so on. The logical components communicate by sending timed pulses of
gliders, which are detected by other components... it's all a bit slow,
though.
Here's one gate:
http://www.rendell.uk.co/gol/bigpic/in.gif
--
+- David Given ---------------McQ-+
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | Closed mouths gather no feet.
| Play: dgi...@iname.com |
+- http://wired.st-and.ac.uk/~dg -+
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> It's a full turing machine implemented in Life. The pictures are amazing
> --- you can actually see all the logic elements and the memory stores and
> so on. The logical components communicate by sending timed pulses of
> gliders, which are detected by other components... it's all a bit slow,
> though.
My God!
I had no idea this sort of thing was happening. I was always dealing
with Life on a scale of a 40 x 22 character display.
Thanks for the link, this will keep me busy a long time!
Muffy.
okbl...@my-deja.com
> much of our brains is dedicated to remembering this stuff?
Huh. I have a friend who *carries those two books around with him*. He
claims to do it just to pad out his bookbag/briefcase.
But I'm beginning to wonder.
--
[ok]
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
W. Top Changwatchai
> This is
> mainly because I love the SENSE of adventure, and I particularly love
> exploring (any game with a lot of tunnels and niches is automatically up
> in my books).
> I was one of those people who wished folks would just let me EXPLORE,
> instead of killing me, when I was playing Quake II.
>
> Muffy.
Sorry, I'm just picturing a little kid playing hide and seek, saying, "Will
you please stop tagging me? I'm try to *explore* here." ^_^
W. Top Changwatchai
> This is
> mainly because I love the SENSE of adventure, and I particularly love
> exploring (any game with a lot of tunnels and niches is automatically up
> in my books).
> I was one of those people who wished folks would just let me EXPLORE,
> instead of killing me, when I was playing Quake II.
>
> Muffy.
Sorry, I'm just picturing a little kid playing hide-and-seek, saying, "Will
you please stop tagging me? I'm trying to *explore* here." ^_^
W. Top Changwatchai
news:hcgip8...@127.0.0.1...
> The most insane thing I've ever seen in Life is this:
>
> http://www.rendell.uk.co/gol/tm.htm
>
> It's a full turing machine implemented in Life. The pictures are amazing
> --- you can actually see all the logic elements and the memory stores and
> so on. The logical components communicate by sending timed pulses of
> gliders, which are detected by other components... it's all a bit slow,
> though.
>
> Here's one gate:
>
> http://www.rendell.uk.co/gol/bigpic/in.gif
My jaw is hanging open. That is Cool.
Top
PS I emailed that link to my old automata theory prof.
PPS "A bit slow"? You mean it might be a while before I can run Linux on
it?
W. Top Changwatchai
news:8pi67f$d...@staff.cs.usyd.edu.au...
I remember reading in the description of "Animal" that some people thought
it might be a good start to creating a knowledge base, but even then it
seemed really impractical to me. This database is pretty darn cool, but I
think calling it "artificial intelligence" is a bit much. Though I've
always liked the idea of taking a distributed approach to creating a
knowledge base.
Top
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> > It's amazing what makes an impression on you when you're young! How
> > much of our brains is dedicated to remembering this stuff?
>
> Huh. I have a friend who *carries those two books around with him*. He
> claims to do it just to pad out his bookbag/briefcase.
>
> But I'm beginning to wonder.
I'm beginning to worry about your friend! :-)
Nostalgia and sentimentality are all wonderful, but I try not to carry
them around with me everyday in my bag.
I do, however, DEEPLY regret throwing the Ahl books out when I moved
the first time, mainly so I wouldn't need to carry them. I thought,
"there are certain things from my childhood that are unimportant and can
be jettisoned." Not to mention the first Ahl book (the one I liked
less) was falling apart.
Now I'm at home, twiddling my thumbs and wishing I could see that
picture of the Wumpus again!
Muffy.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> Muffy St. Bernard <muffy...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:39BCD493...@hotmail.com...
>
> you please stop tagging me? I'm try to *explore* here." ^_^
>
Actually, picture a little kid being ASKED to play hide and seek, and
responding with "not right now, I've just been captured by pygmies!"
Or something frightening and typical along those lines. :-)
Muffy.
Adam Biltcliffe
> Adam Biltcliffe <abilt...@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, if no-one can find any bugs in the version at
> > http://www.crosswinds.net/~jwalrus/zcamel.zip, I'll upload it to
GMD.
>
> Fantastic! I don't recall the "status" command before...that makes it
> a lot easier to figure out what to do. I "cheated" by looking at your
> simplified code--I think the optimal strategy is "3, 3, 2, 1, 4"
> repeated, so it took me about 10 tries to win.
:scribbles frantically for a moment.
Since a '2' gets you int(rnd*10) miles, and a '3' twice that, I think
it's actually better to go "3, 3, 1, 4", although I could be wrong.
Usually, what gets me is those *&£^ing berbers, especially in the
original when you couldn't drink while captive. (I know changing that
makes it slightly easier, but I felt that it was too annoying to leave
as it was.)
> I wonder if fixing any bugs would be against the spirit of the
original
> game... ^_^ Although I see you did fix a couple.
I always wonder about stuff like this, and problems like whether to
leave it in all caps or make it look nicer (I didn't think Camel was big
enough to warrant "Classic" and "New" modes like I did for my Inform
port of Wizard's Castle).
I always feel when looking at games like this that I'd like to make some
kind of massively extended version, adding assorted new features bit by
bit much as I guess the original authors must have done. Especially when
looking at games like "Seabattle". (Also, I guess the title ZBattle
would sound really clever to those of you out there who pronounce Z as
'zee'.)
> Only bug I saw is that backspacing and then retyping a command seems
to
> overwrite the command, without erasing the the previous input (in
> WinFrotz, anyway).
I noticed that, but I concluded that it was a WinFrotz bug, since DOS
Frotz doesn't do this.
Anyway, now it looks as though I have to think about plucking up the
courage to mail the archive maintainers ...
jw
W. Top Changwatchai
news:39BE26DD...@hotmail.com...
> Now I'm at home, twiddling my thumbs and wishing I could see that
> picture of the Wumpus again!
>
> Muffy.
Fear not. A web search turned up:
http://www.icon-stl.net/~jeffh/games/index.html
Most of 'em are from the Ahl books. Here's a version of Wumpus which is
different from Yob's original, but which is very close to the one I played
on my old TI:
http://www.aros.net/~johnson/wumpus.htm
Arcum Dagsson
<abilt...@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com> wrote:
Well, actually someone did give in to an urge to majorly extend "Camel". If you
have access to a Mac, check out out "Desert Trek". Think Camel with graphics, a
UI, more obsticles, and a bunch of misc stuff added...
--
--Arcum Dagsson
"You say there's a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand
there naming Beatles songs?"
W. Top Changwatchai
> W. Top Changwatchai <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
> > Adam Biltcliffe <abilt...@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Well, if no-one can find any bugs in the version at
> > > http://www.crosswinds.net/~jwalrus/zcamel.zip, I'll upload it to
> GMD.
> >
> > Fantastic! I don't recall the "status" command before...that makes it
> > a lot easier to figure out what to do. I "cheated" by looking at your
> > simplified code--I think the optimal strategy is "3, 3, 2, 1, 4"
> > repeated, so it took me about 10 tries to win.
>
> :scribbles frantically for a moment.
>
> Since a '2' gets you int(rnd*10) miles, and a '3' twice that, I think
> it's actually better to go "3, 3, 1, 4", although I could be wrong.
> Usually, what gets me is those *&£^ing berbers, especially in the
> original when you couldn't drink while captive. (I know changing that
> makes it slightly easier, but I felt that it was too annoying to leave
> as it was.)
I shouldn't have said "optimal"--instead, read "fairly optimal."
Still, I think 3314 should work about as well as 33214. If we think of 2 as
moving at speed "1" and 3 as moving at speed "2" (and 1 and 4 moving at
speed "0"), then both sequences would seem to average out at speed 1.
(Though 3314 is slightly better in that you would expect to reach the
destination in fewer moves, and thus have lower chance of sandstorms and
wild berbers and sore humps. Though there's also a lower chance of
oases...)
Probably better still is simply the strategy of repeating 334, sticking in a
"1" where necessary. If nothing bad happens to you, then the sequence ought
to go something like 3341334313433143341334...
This sequence appears to generate an average speed of, let's see... 16/15 if
I can count properly.
Given that the pygmies move faster than 1 (on average), plus the various
obstacles that slow you down, no wonder it's so hard to win the game!
>
> > I wonder if fixing any bugs would be against the spirit of the
> original
> > game... ^_^ Although I see you did fix a couple.
>
> I always wonder about stuff like this, and problems like whether to
> leave it in all caps or make it look nicer (I didn't think Camel was big
> enough to warrant "Classic" and "New" modes like I did for my Inform
> port of Wizard's Castle).
>
> I always feel when looking at games like this that I'd like to make some
> kind of massively extended version, adding assorted new features bit by
> bit much as I guess the original authors must have done. Especially when
> looking at games like "Seabattle". (Also, I guess the title ZBattle
> would sound really clever to those of you out there who pronounce Z as
> 'zee'.)
Oh, exactly...I know just how you feel.
By the way, what are the legal issues in doing a "cover" of a classic game
like this? It would seem to not be much of a risk, since after all the
source is readily available, this was a long time ago, and no profit is
being made.
>
> > Only bug I saw is that backspacing and then retyping a command seems
> to
> > overwrite the command, without erasing the the previous input (in
> > WinFrotz, anyway).
>
> I noticed that, but I concluded that it was a WinFrotz bug, since DOS
> Frotz doesn't do this.
>
> Anyway, now it looks as though I have to think about plucking up the
> courage to mail the archive maintainers ...
>
>
> jw
>
>
Top
Adam Biltcliffe
:checks source.
<nitpicky howmuch=very>
Taking a drink doesn't take a turn, so 3314 and 33214 actually have
average speeds of 1.33... and 1.25 respectively :)
</nitpicky>
> > > I wonder if fixing any bugs would be against the spirit of the
> > > original game... ^_^ Although I see you did fix a couple.
> >
> > I always wonder about stuff like this, and problems like whether to
> > leave it in all caps or make it look nicer (I didn't think Camel was
> > big enough to warrant "Classic" and "New" modes like I did for my
> > Inform port of Wizard's Castle).
Um, speaking of which, was that ever uploaded to GMD? I can't find it
there, and I feel kind of silly asking this since I wrote it [1].
> > I always feel when looking at games like this that I'd like to make
> > some kind of massively extended version, adding assorted new
features
> > bit by bit much as I guess the original authors must have done.
> > Especially when looking at games like "Seabattle". (Also, I guess
the
> > title ZBattle would sound really clever to those of you out there
who
> > pronounce Z as 'zee'.)
>
> Oh, exactly...I know just how you feel.
>
> By the way, what are the legal issues in doing a "cover" of a classic
> game like this? It would seem to not be much of a risk, since after
> all the source is readily available, this was a long time ago, and no
> profit is being made.
Since the source was published (and I even own the book with it in), I'm
pretty sure it's actually outright legal. Wizard's Castle I wasn't so
sure about, since I'm not sure of the form in which it was originally
distributed, but the risk is probably still pretty small even so.
jw
[1] If anyone's really interested, I wrote it just before I went on
holiday and asked someone else to upload it for me.
okbl...@my-deja.com
> Nostalgia and sentimentality are all wonderful, but I try not to
carry
> them around with me everyday in my bag.
Actually, he's got a "good reason" for it. He's designing a
programming language and had planned to develop a tutorial for it based
on games like those in the book. (Though it's not like you'd do much
more than work with the general ideas: the source code is virtually
unreadable.) Or so he says. ;-)
> Now I'm at home, twiddling my thumbs and wishing I could see that
> picture of the Wumpus again!
I could probably get him to mail you a scan....
W. Top Changwatchai
> :checks source.
>
> <nitpicky howmuch=very>
> Taking a drink doesn't take a turn, so 3314 and 33214 actually have
> average speeds of 1.33... and 1.25 respectively :)
> </nitpicky>
Obviously I didn't take a very careful look at the source!
Still, I would think my second solution would be slightly better than 3314
since it spaces out the drinks more.
Anyway, I wonder whether that would actually be the optimal solution for the
original BASIC game.
>
> > > > I wonder if fixing any bugs would be against the spirit of the
> > > > original game... ^_^ Although I see you did fix a couple.
> > >
> > > I always wonder about stuff like this, and problems like whether to
> > > leave it in all caps or make it look nicer (I didn't think Camel was
> > > big enough to warrant "Classic" and "New" modes like I did for my
> > > Inform port of Wizard's Castle).
>
> Um, speaking of which, was that ever uploaded to GMD? I can't find it
> there, and I feel kind of silly asking this since I wrote it [1].
I didn't find zcamel there.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> http://www.icon-stl.net/~jeffh/games/index.html
>
> Most of 'em are from the Ahl books.
VOW!
"Turkeys should fly, not ride camels!"
There is such a thing as sentimental overload...I'll have to check
this one out in chunks. For some reason, I always found it very funny
that my camel was "filling my canteen and eating figs." It was the
eating figs part that I liked. Now, looking back, eating figs is pretty
natural for a camel...but filling canteens isn't.
This is probably why it all grabbed me so much...the potential for
creating a new reality was obvious from the start.
Must play them all...
Muffy.
Adam Biltcliffe
> Adam Biltcliffe <abilt...@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com> wrote:
>
> > Um, speaking of which, was that ever uploaded to GMD? I can't find
it
> > there, and I feel kind of silly asking this since I wrote it [1].
>
> I didn't find zcamel there.
Well, it wasn't there. But now it is! Ha! zcamel.inf, zcamel.z5,
wcastle.inf and wcastle.z5 should all be in incoming/if-archive and will
hopefully migrate in time to games/zcode and games/source/inform.
jw
jho...@frii.com
> And there was another one whose name I've forgotten, a camel race
> across the desert...you were always being pursued by "Wild Berbers" and
> it had a real silly sense of humour.
Camel was Awesome! My dad actually liked it so much that he wrote a camel
2.0 for our Atari 400... I'm pretty sure he wrote the whole thing down on
paper before coding it (He couldn't get me off the computer long enough...)
and I ended up typing it in. If I can find his notes next time I'm at Dad's
(he never tosses ANYTHING) I'll Informify it.
--
John Holder (jho...@frii.com) http://www.frii.com/~jholder/
<jholder> do you like FreeBSD?
<hal> I need to get the ISDN line running so that I will tell it to pass over
me and replace my SuSE box with FreeBSD.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> Camel was Awesome! My dad actually liked it so much that he wrote a camel
> 2.0 for our Atari 400... I'm pretty sure he wrote the whole thing down on
> paper before coding it (He couldn't get me off the computer long enough...)
> and I ended up typing it in. If I can find his notes next time I'm at Dad's
> (he never tosses ANYTHING) I'll Informify it.
Lucky you! Instead of writing improved versions of fantastic early
computer games, my father just said, "Why don't you go play baseball or
something?"
I'd be very curious to see what Camel 2.0 was like!
Muffy.