From glasser@iname.com Thu Dec 30 12:56:38 CET 1999
Article: 48618 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: glasser@iname.com (David Glasser)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [REVIEW] Common Ground
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 17:50:04 -0500
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I was part of the "Dudes, you gotta write non-competition reviews!"
squad, so here's one for Stephen Granade's new game "Common Ground".  I
think it's my first non-comp review ever; my goal in comp reviews has
usually been constructive criticism, especially when a game is its
author's first.  Since Stephen has already written four games (and two
of them in recent years to high praise), I didn't think that was
appropriate, so I ended up with something more like an analytical essay
without much criticism at all.  Maybe next time I'll actually write a
review :-)

[Complete spoilers for Common Ground, and some for Photopia]


So, does anybody really want to play *another* multi-perspective game
about a teenage girl and motor vehicles?

Well, if it's Stephen Granade's "Common Ground", I sure do.

Luckily, Common Ground was completely different from that other game in
all but the most superficial matters.  While Photopia seemed to be about
the forces leading up to and repercussing from one chance event, "Common
Ground" leaves the future in the hands and mind of the player: it allows
the "crucial event" to be "prevented" and leaves the results purely in
the mind of the player.  Both of these alternatives are interesting and
led to good games.  (I will now stop comparing CG to Photopia, since it
really should be taken on its own merits.)

Right after having finished playing CG, I thought that, while it was
fun, there wasn't much in it that couldn't have been done with a simple
four-part multi-spective static fiction story.  I restarted it and
played around a little more, and eventually I realized that I couldn't
have been further from the truth.  CG uses the standard conventions of
IF to portray the differences in perspective in a somewhat-average
American family in a way that would be impossible in a short story,
because short stories do not have the same level of standard
expectations as IF does.

We've all heard of the "lying narrator" in IF; I'd list some examples
but don't want to create spoilers.  CG uses something similar to this:
the biased narrator.  Of course, all narrators in IF are biased, but
since most games only have one narrator, or at the least only one
narrator for any given piece of game-time, the bias is invisible because
there is no reference point.  As far as I remember, even Photopia only
overlapped one short scene.  (Um, I really won't bring up Photopia any
more.)

In CG, though, the first three sections are mostly overlapped, doing
something that many (myself included) have been thinking about for a
while: showing a scene through more than one perspective in IF [1].  The
IF conventions are used to show the differences in the characters' life
views; for example, when mother Deb enters the living room, Frank's
dirty pair of boots stick out to her as the most important thing in the
room.  Neither Jeanie nor Frank notice them, even if the player types X
BOOTS [2]!  Similarly, when in the parents' bathroom Jeanie's sole
fixation is their tub, whereas Frank barely sees it. The standard IF
logic that all important objects are listed when you type LOOK shows
what each character considers important!

All in all, I consider "Common Ground" to be a successful attempt at
comparing the perspective of different character in IF.  And it's fun,
too!

--David

[1] There's something in the back of my mind that says this has been
done before, but since I can't think what I'll assume that Stephen is
the first to actually make a game using this.
[2] ...though Stephen has told me that he really should have implemented
X BOOTS for Jeanie.  But even had he, she wouldn't *notice* them and
Frank would still not be able to see them, so I'm going to consider my
point valid anyway.

Last note: I'm about to go out for the evening, and tomorrow morning I'm
leaving and won't get back until the second, so unless I go on the
Internet late tonight this is (bleah, cliche time) my last post of the
1900s.  I hope all you raifists, rgifers, ifMUDders, and assorted IF
mavens have a happy and safe New Year's.  Assuming the Internet as we
know it still exists, see you on the second.  (If society does descend
into complete anarchy, I'll try not to burn down any of the houses or
workplaces of any IF people unless it's definitely necessary, OK?)

-- 
David Glasser | glasser@iname.com | http://www.davidglasser.net/
"It's good to explore the G.U.E. caves / It's good to explore the G.U.E.
caves / You can count all the leaves / You can KILL TROLL WITH SWORD /
You'll get stuck but you won't be bored"-Joe.Mason, rec.arts.int-fiction


From olorin@world.std.com Tue Jan 11 15:44:02 CET 2000
Article: 48800 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: olorin@world.std.com (Mark J Musante)
Subject: [Review] 9:05 *SPOILERS*
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Here's my mini-review of Adam Cadre's new game "9:05".  Copy-n-pasted
from:

    http://www.ministryofpeace.com/if/reviews/short-games/905.html


  -=- Mark -=-











*SPOILER PROTECTION SPACE*














What a jarring jolt.

I would like to know what sort of reaction the player who thought to look
under the bed had upon solving this game.  I passed up the opportunity to
take a peek underneath.  As a result, my first play through the game ended
with shock and surprise.  If there's an equivalent to being nonplussed
when you're sitting at a keyboard, I was it.

The game is quite short.  There are only a few things you can do and Adam
does an excellent job of pointing the player in the right direction.
Dirty?  Obviously go take a shower and change clothes.  Need to sign a
form?  Well, there it is.  Along with a pen.  You don't play this game for
the puzzles.

It's the plot where the game shines.  Although extremely short (longer and
more detailed than "Speed IF", but shorter than a competition game), it
still has a chance to tell a little story.  The first ending, as I
indicated above, came as a complete surprise to me because I failed to
look under the bed.  If I had, I would have gotten a different shock, but
not quite as intense.

The strange part about this game is that the optimal ending for the
protagonist is not the optimal ending for the game.  The player gets a
longer game by having the PC pretend to be something he isn't and, at the
end, is rewarded with an amusing news story based on the events that
transpire.  When playing for the protagonsit, however, the player is given
a simple, curt ending that does little more than say "you have escaped."

Suffice to say, this little twist makes what otherwise would be a
pedestrian little contribution to the IF world into a game which seems to
have a perpetual smirk on its face.  Recommended.



From lpsmith@rice.edu Thu Jan 13 09:53:33 CET 2000
Article: 48842 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: lpsmith@rice.edu (Lucian Paul Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: lp Smith's So Far site
Date: 13 Jan 2000 04:57:11 GMT
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Jon Ingold (jon@ingold.fsnet.co.uk) wrote:
: Hi all,

: I've just finished So Far (finally) with a little help from Lp. Smith's
: invisclues site -  but I was trying to get to the final discussion bit and
: just not getting the phrasing right I think. I typed my magic phrase again &
: again, with this and that extra punctuation, it did nothing..

Woo!  Good to know people still get some use out of that.

The relevant URL (spoilers!  You really should play the game first!) is 

http://www.bioc.rice.edu/~lpsmith/IF/65.megayears.html

The archived rgif discussion is:

http://www.bioc.rice.edu/~lpsmith/IF/discussion/thoughts.html

Happy reading!  I just read through them again myself--fascinating
stuff.  Didn't win a bunch of XYZZY's for nothing, that one.

-Lucian


From lionheart@mad.scientist.com Wed Jan 26 10:33:32 CET 2000
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From: "Robin Lionheart" <lionheart@mad.scientist.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Adventure 751: What Happened to It?
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 20:48:05 EST
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"Mike Arnautov" <mla@mipmip.demon-co-antispam-uk> wrote in message
news:7Qw0DLAJP3i4Ewfw@mipmip.demon.co.uk...
> Al <designer@dgware.com> wrote:
> >A while back I posted the question about Adventure 751 that was
> >formerly posted on the old Compuserve Forums.
> >
> >
> >Anyone dug it up yet?
>
> Nope. Looks like it is joining the "wouldn't-it-be-nice-to-find-the-
> source" list. :-(
>
> --
> Mike Arnautov                               | From the heart
> http://www.mipmip.demon.co.uk/mipmip.html   | of the sweet peony,
> mailto:mla@mipmip.demon.co-antispam-uk      | a drunken bee.
> Replace -antispam- with a single dot.       |                  Basho

I dug up an old game transcript, which includes this background information.
Perhaps it may help you track down David Long to ask for the source:

> read book

           *** THE HISTORY OF ADVENTURE (ABRIDGED) ***
                       By:  W. I. Zerd, F.R.C.W.

ADVENTURE was originally developed by William Crowther, and later
substantially rewritten and expanded by Don Woods at Stanford Univ.
According to legend, Crowther's original version was modelled on an
a real cavern, called Colossal Cave, which is a part of Kentucky's
Mammoth Caverns.  That version of the game included the main maze
and a portion of the third-level (Complex Junction - Bedquilt -
Swiss Cheese rooms, etc.), but not much more.

Don Woods and some others at Stanford later rewrote portions of
the original program, and greatly expanded the cave.  That version
of the game is recognizable by the maximum score of 350 points.

The latest additions were done throughout 1978-80 by David Long
at the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business.
Long's additions include the seaside entrance and all of
the cave on the "far side" of Lost River (Rainbow Rm - Crystal
Palace - Blue Grotto - Rotunda - beyond Joshua's wall, etc., etc.).
The surface has also been greatly increased to include a much
more varied landscape containing swamp, marsh, seashore and
meadowland areas.  Most recent additions include the great Castle of
Aldor, the Elephants' Burial Ground, Leprechaun Rock and more.
The current cave is more than double the size of the Woods model,
and moreover the puzzles and treasures are somewhat more "dense",
(and more difficult!) in the current version.  During the expansion
process, the code was almost entirely rewritten to permit more
generalized handling of objects and to interpret a more complex
natural English syntax.

Except for a couple of trivial subroutines (to get user-ID's for
logging purposes), ADVENTURE is written entirely in FORTRAN.  This
not because Crowther/Woods/Long love FORTRAN, but because it is
almost infinitely portable.  There were indeed moments when it took
great strength to withstand the temptation to whip out some character
handling routine in MACRO, instead of the furshlugginer compiler.
For example, there is an excellent rival game to Adventure, called
DUNGEON, developed at M.I.T., which is totally non-portable since
it is coded in an obscure variant of two initially obscure compilers,
and can only be transported in executable form between DEC-10's
and 20's.

Thanks are owed to Roger Matus and David Feldman, both of U. of C.,
for several suggestions, including the Rainbow Room, the telephone
booth and the fearsome Wumpus.  Further thanks go to J. R. Carlson,
Bob Silverman and John Rager for many debugging suggestions.
Most thanks (and apologies) go to Thomas Malory, Charles Dodgson,
the Grimm Brothers, Dante, Homer, Frank Baum and especially Anon.,
the real authors of ADVENTURE.

       Copyright (C) 1978, 1979, 1980, David E. Long






From mol@bartlet.df.lth.se Wed Jan 26 23:46:37 CET 2000
Article: 49092 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: mol@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: IF with poor English
Date: 26 Jan 2000 23:45:24 +0100
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In article <86n4om$e7i$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Nick Montfort  <nickmontfort@my-deja.com> wrote:
>It's not a horrible idea to write the game in English - for certain
>purposes. Even if you can communicate well in English, through, unless
>you're Conrad or Nabokov - someone intimate with English diction,
>its shades of meaning and twists of syntax - it's not going to be
>well-written. 

You know, at first I didn't really know what to make of this
post. English is not my first language, and yet I write directly in
English. Could you really be comparing me to Conrad and Nabokov? No,
that's too much, even for an ego like mine. So, I had to resign myself
to that what you're really saying is that my games aren't
well-written. Well, I suppose I can live with that. You won't be the
first one to poin tout flaws in them; of course, it would have been
nicer if you had actually pointed at some concrete flaw, rather than
just let impeccable logic run its course. But one can't have
everything, I suppose.

>It might still be enjoyed by some people, as well as
>helping you to master aspects of IF craft.

Well, how very nice of you to tell me. Of course, I already thought
that some people enjoyed "Zebulon" despite its pitiful English, but
its nice to get some confirmation. And I suppose I have learned to
master some aspects of IF craft over the years; writing may not be one
of those, but then I apparently made the mistake of presuming to write
in a language other than my own. 

>For some people, though, writing that is above-average with a few great
>moments is worth more than dozens of gripping puzzles. If these people
>are part of your readership, consider other options:

I think you are underestimating the attraction of puzzles; "Zebulon"
didn't have dozens of gripping puzzles, but only two, and "Aayela" had
none, yet strangely enough I got the impression that at least some of
"those people" were part of my readership. But perhaps I'm mistaken
there as well.

But enough already.

I'm really sorry for the sarcasm and for the self-glorification above
(I honestly don't claim to be a very good writer, just a barely
adequate one, but I do have the presumption to think that my English
is good enough to be publishable), but I had to get this out of the
system. There are few things that make me so angry as when somebody
gets condescending whithout knowing what he's talking about,
especially if this behaviour is used to tell some newcomer that it's
no use for him even to try, he'll never be good enough, so he'd better
just forget about his ambitions.

There must be thousands of writers who are getting published in
languages other than their native ones. Sure, we don't hear about so
many of them - or, rather, we don't hear about them being non-natives
- but then we don't hear about the overwhelming majority of writers,
period. 

To be able to write as well as Nabokov did in a second (or, in his
case, perhaps it was third) language is a rare talent indeed (but then
only a handful of people in the world can write as well as he did, in
any language). But, for heaven's sake, we're not talking about Nobel
class prose here, we're talking about prose good enough to *work*, and
that's something quite different. (Contrary to popular prejudice, you
don't need an extraordinary command of language to be a successful
author; what you need above all is the ability to tell a story).


Of course, a certain level of fluency in English is necessary; a game
or story written in fractured English is unlikely to be
salvageable. But good editing can overcome a lot of grammatic
uncertainty and lack of sense for nuances. What I'm suggesting is that
our Finnish friend write in English (which, judging by his posts,
seems better than that of many natives), and then let a native speaker
edit his text. This approach seems entirely workable to me.

But, then, who am I to know. I'm just a stupid foreigner, remember?
And I forgot that I'm not supposed to be able to write English. How
unthoughtful of me. Sorry, next time I'll try to remember to bring the
pidgin.
-- 
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se, zebulon@pobox.com)
------    http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon   ------


From im@cs.york.ac.uk Sat Jan 29 09:50:59 CET 2000
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From: Iain Merrick <im@cs.york.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [Review] 9:05 / Common Ground
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This review was instigated by the Interactive Fiction Review Conspiracy:

    http://www.textfire.com/conspiracy/

If you've just written a game, why not submit it for review? Not only
will you get some useful free publicity, but we guarantee prestigious
and high-paying jobs in the post-revolution government for all
collaborators. (That's what they told me, anyway.)

	
* THE GAMES

Today we have a special two-for-one offer:

    _Common Ground_, by Stephen Granade
    _9:05_, by Adam Cadre

Both games are available at the IF-archive
(ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/) and its mirrors (such as
http://www.ifarchive.org/). Here's the IF-archive URLs:

    ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/Ground.gam
    ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/905.z5

You'll need a TADS interpreter to play _Common Ground_, and a Z-code
interpreter to play _9:05_. Interpreters for most computers can also be
found on the IF-archive.

I'll warn you before giving any spoilers, so it's safe to read this
review if you haven't played the games.


* QUICK DESCRIPTION (NO SPOILERS)

Having been asked to review _Common Ground_, I decided that _9:05_ was
similar enough that it made for an interesting comparison.

They're both very short. _Common Ground_ takes less than half an hour to
play, and _9:05_ only takes ten minutes or so. It seemed to me that they
put different spins on roughly the same gimmick; _9:05_ is a clever
joke, while _Common Ground_ makes some serious points in an underhand
manner.

_Common Ground_ is well-implemented and visually appealing, with curly
typographical quotes and stylised chapter headings if you're using
HTML-TADS. _9:05_ feels a bit more rough-and-ready, but the programming
is serviceable enough and the writing is good. I didn't find any major
bugs in either game. 


* WORTH PLAYING? XYZZY CANDIDATES?

Both games are worth playing. It's not a major investment in time to
play such short games, and they're both well above average.

But XYZZY candidates? Well, brevity is a double-edged sword; does _any_
ten-minute game really deserve to be rated above a huge interactive
novel that takes years to write and weeks to play? Long IF is so
difficult to write and so rewarding to play that I think it's only fair
that long IF should scoop the top awards. I won't be voting _Common
Ground_ for Best Game of 1999, and I don't expect to be voting for
_9:05_ in 2001.

I would like to see more high-quality short IF, however. Perhaps a 'Best
Miniature' category could be added to the XYZZYs? _Common Ground_ or
_9:05_ might not win this -- I don't think either is as good as, say,
_Lesson of the Tortoise_ -- but they would be strong contenders.

Now, I can't say much more about either game without spoiling the
surprise. Both surprises. So I'm not going to. If you haven't done so
already, you might want to download both games and play them -- it won't
take very long, and I think you'll enjoy it.


[SPOILERS coming up.]





























[SPOILERS. You have been warned.]


* NOW, HOW ABOUT THOSE GIMMICKS?

In _9:05_, you're woken up at 9:05am by the telephone. Who am I? What am
I doing here? Dammit, I'm late, better get up and ready _fast_... So
far, this is all pretty standard IF stuff. The author has skimped on the
background information, but it's pretty obvious what you're supposed to
do, so you play along.

You get out of bed, get cleaned up and drive to work, fill out the
Important Form -- and _then_ you discover that you're not who you
thought you were; you're a burglar who fell asleep on the job, after
murdering the guy you originally thought was you and stuffing him under
the bed. So you restart the game, notice all the ambiguous little
phrases which fooled you the first time round, and finish the game
properly. Fun. It's a nice little twist on the untrustworthy-parser
schtick, most memorably used in _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_.

The central gimmick in _Common Ground_ is actually completely different,
but bear with me. In this game you play a teenager called Jeanie, who's
getting ready for a night out. You stalk around the house avoiding your
nagging mother and drunken step-father until your friend arrives with
her car, and then you leave.

Then you switch into the shoes of Jeanie's step-dad, who's busy fixing a
toaster. Jeanie stomps around the house looking sulky -- in fact, she
does whatever you had her do in the first episode. You ask her where
she's going, but she doesn't really want to talk to you; finally her
lift arrives and she leaves, slamming the door.

In the third episode, you play Jeanie's mum (okay, okay: 'mom'), getting
yet another slant on the events of the evening. Jeanie helps you put
some groceries away if that's what you did in the first episode, or
flounces off to watch TV if you did that instead. This is a pretty nifty
gimmick, and I don't doubt that it was hard to get it to work just
right.

It's in the fourth and final episode that the similarity between _Common
Ground_ and _9:05_ emerges. It turns out that Jeanie is going to the bus
station to buy a ticket to Los Angeles. She's running away from home,
hopefully to become an actress. You might or might not find this as much
a surprise as it is to discover you're really a forgetful burglar in
_9:05_.


* YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

All this feels reminiscent of Adam's previous game, _Varicella_, which
was essentially one big save-and-restore puzzle. You could see _Common
Ground_ and _9:05_ as essentially being little save-and-restore puzzles,
though I don't think this is quite accurate.

In _9:05_, the important thing isn't going back to solve the game
properly; the important thing is realising what happened, and getting
the joke. In fact, the 'joke' ending is longer and in some ways more
satisfying than the 'proper' ending.

_Common Ground_ is even more ambiguous, since you can't really 'solve'
the game 'properly'. In the final scene you find out what's really going
on, but only then do you have to decide what to do -- should Jeanie get
on the bus to Los Angeles, or chicken out and go home again? Either way,
the game ends there and you have to imagine for yourself what might
happen next.

The common element between the games is doing everyday things without
really thinking of the consequences, and re-evaluating your actions
later on. _Common Ground_ is particularly satisfying because it does
this on two levels: watching the same scene through the eyes of three
different characters, and then getting an extra insight into one
character's motivation.

It's a neat gimmick. But is it more than a gimmick? I'm not sure; a game
like _9:05_ is clever the first time, but it could start a really
annoying trend. (Is it just me, or does Adam Cadre have a certain knack
for doing this?) I suppose _Common Ground_ shows that there is a certain
amount of mileage to be gotten out of intentionally misleading the
player.

So how about _Common Ground_'s trick of replaying the PC's actions from
another viewpoint? I think this has definite possibilities as a
general-purpose technique; many writers make skillful use of multiple
viewpoints on the same scene in linear fiction, and I don't see why it
couldn't be used similarly in IF.

One problem is that multiple viewpoints in IF will inevitably be harder
to write, as I'm sure Stephen Granade will confirm. _Common Ground_ does
some pretty sneaky stuff to make everything mesh together properly. Most
obviously, conversation is carefully constrained: you can choose to TALK
TO someone, or choose not to talk, but you can't choose exactly what to
say. This scheme still allows you to hold slightly different
conversations in each episode, but that just folds neatly back into the
story; what the characters each think they hear, and think they say,
_are_ different in tone and even content. It's up to you to decide which
character, if any, is closest to the truth.

I don't think something along the lines of _Back to the Future_ would be
possible in IF, though, where certain scenes are viewed several times
_without distortion_, and where the plot depends on every tiny event
meshing together perfectly. How on earth could you do all that _and_
give the player reasonable freedom of action?


* NON-SUCKY METHODS FOR SUCKING THE PLAYER IN

When I play IF, I like to know what I'm supposed to be doing. That
doesn't mean I can't enjoy a game where important information is hidden
>from  me -- which both _Common Ground_ and _9:05_ do -- but I will enjoy
it a lot more if it doesn't leave me floundering around at random trying
to figure out what my next move should be.

This is particularly important at the start of the game: there must be a
good 'hook' to draw the player in. And it's also particularly important
in short games: if a short game starts badly, I'll usually just decide
it's not worth my time bothering with it, whereas I'll often give a
longer game the benefit of the doubt.

The opening of _9:05_ is a great example of how to do it right:

    The phone rings.

    Oh, no -- how long have you been asleep? Sure, it was a tough
    night, but-- This is bad. This is very bad.

    The phone rings.

And bang, we're thrown right into the thick of things. It's obvious what
we need to do next: ANSWER THE PHONE. There's a nice sense of urgency
about the opening text, and repeating 'the phone rings' over and over
again (it also pops up after the room description) is a neat way of
conveying, well, a phone ringing over and over again. I've certainly
been in this sort of situation, and I had absolutely no trouble getting
under the skin of the PC -- or so I thought.

_Common Ground_, on the other hand, starts like this:

    Great, just great.  First you oversleep, end up being late for
    school.  Then the whole day sucks so bad you can barely wait until
    seventh period's over and you're free.  Now you've wasted so much
    time watching TV that you've gotta rush through your makeup or you
    won't be ready for tonight before April gets here with her wheels.
    Mississippi may say you're old enough to drive, but Frank sure
    doesn't agree.

    Man, you can't wait for all this to be over.

Now, this is reasonably good; I didn't stop playing immediately, and not
just because I had to review the thing. It works. But I don't think it's
as effective as the introduction to _9:05_. It gets the PC's feelings
across well enough, but doesn't throw you into a situation where your
next move is immediately obvious. Okay, so it says 'you've gotta rush
through your makeup'; but did _9:05_ say 'you'd better answer that
phone'?

Phrases like 'you can't wait for all this to be over' tend to stick in
my craw, too. Rather than simply being _told_ what I feel, I prefer a
more indirect approach, like... Well, like in _9:05_. In the case of
_Common Ground_, something like 'when is all this going to be over?'
might have worked better for me in the final sentence.


* CREATIVE USE OF TEDIUM

Once the game is underway, the most important thing (to my mind) is to
avoid annoying the player. This is where a good parser and a good
library come in handy. Now, both _9:05_ and _Common Ground_ have a
slightly problem here, since they both depend on making the player carry
out lots of commonplace actions -- getting out of bed, applying makeup,
washing and so on.

_9:05_ managed not to annoy me, for the most part. I did gnash my teeth
a little at things like this:

    Loungent Technologies parking lot
    You are at the employees' entrance to the Loungent Technologies
    building. There is a slot by the door, next to a sign reading
    "INSERT ID CARD HERE".

    The car is parked in the parking lot.

    >X WALLET
    It's a brown leather wallet.
  
    >LOOK INSIDE WALLET
    In the wallet are a driver's license and an ID card.

    >PUT ID CARD IN SLOT
    You need to be holding the ID card before you can put it into
    something else.

    >GET ID CARD
    Taken.

    >PUT ID CARD IN SLOT
    A green LED lights up, the door clicks open and you step inside.

Two quibbles: X WALLET really ought to tell me what's inside the wallet,
if it's open. And if the game knows I need to be holding the ID card to
put it in the slot, why can't it take the card out of the wallet
automatically? I think these are problems with the Inform library, in
fact, rather than _9:05_.

I found _Common Ground_ a bit better in this respect, mainly because it
performed some obvious actions automatically, such as opening doors when
I tried to walk through them. I _really_ wish more games did this.

So I actually enjoyed some of the tedium. Look at this:

    Carport
        The carport's in bad need of a cleaning, what with all of the
    supplies for fixing the cars lining the sides and spilling out
    almost into the middle. It's getting so you can't hardly find space
    for the station wagon, though you managed to squeeze it in somehow.
    And you're beginning to think that you might as well get rid of the
    bikes. The side door to the house is to the west.
        The station wagon's door is wide open.

    >CLOSE DOOR
    You bump the door closed with your hip, but it doesn't quite make
it.
    It stops short, leaving the dome light on.

    >AGAIN
    You hit the door pretty hard with your hip.  It closes.

    >W
    You'll have to open the side door first.

    >OPEN THE SIDE DOOR
    It's locked.  Frank must've locked it when he got home.

    >UNLOCK IT
    (with your key ring)
    You pull your key ring out, but drop it before you can unlock the
door. 
    "Shit!" you exclaim, then look around.  Looks like no one heard you.

    It's just not your night.

    >GET KEYS
    It's tough bending down and getting your keys without spilling
groceries
    out of the sacks, but you manage it.

    >UNLOCK DOOR
    (with your key ring)
    You fumble with your keys and finally manage to get the door
unlocked.

    >W
    You'll have to open the side door first.

    >OPEN DOOR
    You almost drop a sack doing it, but you eventually manage to get
the
    side door open.  You go through it and close it behind you.

This is wonderful. This should be a textbook example on How To Pace A
Scene. Look closely at which actions I was forced to repeat, and which
were performed automatically.

I had to shut the car door twice, I had a great deal of trouble opening
the side door -- but hey, this is mimesis. Just like the introduction to
_9:05_, this precisely captures a situation I've experienced in real
life, and immediately summons up all the relevant emotions. I'm pissed
off, but not at the game; I'm pissed off because I dropped my keys and
the bloody car door won't shut properly!

On the other hand, it didn't ask me what I wanted to use to unlock the
side door. That makes sense, too; how many times do you think to
yourself, 'hmmm, what might fit in this keyhole... My watch? This key?
My left shoe, maybe?' And note that it always knew what I meant by DOOR,
although there were two doors in the scene.

Best of all, look how it added an implicit 'GO WEST' to my final 'OPEN
DOOR' command. This is an excellent way of getting across the PC's
relief at finally getting into the house, of rushing through to the
kitchen to dump those heavy shopping bags... If instead the game had
printed 'you feel relieved to finally get inside the house', I would
have known what was going on, but I sure as hell wouldn't _feel_
relieved. _Especially_ if I then had to type 'WEST. CLOSE DOOR'.

It occurs to me that snippet from _9:05_ could be seen in a similar
light -- god knows I have enough trouble getting into work after hours
with my swipe card. I think the difference is that in _9:05_ I got
mindless, canned parser messages ('you need to be holding the ID card
before you can put it into something else'), whereas most of the
responses in the _Common Ground_ snippet were specifically written by
the author. It's reassuring to know that the author has things under
control, at a certain level, and that you're not just rapping your
knuckles on the parser's forehead.


* THE END

Okay, I'm almost done.

I suppose I should really mention the stories and characters and so on
-- all the stuff that makes this Interactive Fiction and not just Text
Adventures. I can't really think of anything in particular to say here,
except that I think both _Common Ground_ and _9:05_ were much more
enjoyable than the 'equivalent' short story would have been. They're
both good arguments for the very existence of IF, if an argument is
needed.

The whole point of _9:05_ is that _I_, the player, was the fool who fell
for the joke. If I was just reading about something which happened to
someone else, _9:05_ would be just another Urban Legend.

And the moment in _Common Ground_ when you realise that the game is
replaying your actions isn't something that could ever be captured in
static fiction, as far as I can see. There's a point, of course: how do
all these trivial actions affect the single important decision Jeanie
makes? Should she stay at home or get on the bus to pursue a romantic
dream? It's your choice.

Neither of these games changed my life. I didn't find myself musing over
the issues they raised a week after playing them. But I still enjoyed
playing them.

Stephen, Adam -- hell, everyone: more short IF, please!


-- 
Iain Merrick
im@cs.york.ac.uk


From obrian@ucsu.Colorado.EDU Sun Jan 30 15:47:45 CET 2000
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From: Paul O'Brian <obrian@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: IF with poor English
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:09:49 -0700
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On 26 Jan 2000, Magnus Olsson wrote:

> Of course, a certain level of fluency in English is necessary; a game
> or story written in fractured English is unlikely to be
> salvageable. 

As far as I'm concerned, this is the point. It doesn't matter whether
English is your first language or your tenth language -- what matters is
whether you can write well enough in English that your prose works. I
don't mean that you're as good as Nabokov -- the *vast* majority of native
English speakers couldn't make that claim either. I mean (as Magnus says)
just that the writing works -- that it's readable, it makes sense, and
perhaps it's even enjoyable to read. I had no idea English wasn't Magnus'
first language (though I might have guessed it, since he's Swedish)
because his English prose works. The same could be said for Mikko
Vuorinen, and the other Mikko (sorry I've forgotten your last name) who
posted querulously about whether his English would be good enough. 

The same could not be said for the writing on Sycamora Tree's web page.
For that matter, I wouldn't say that Rybread Celsius' English prose works 
(though I know many would disagree with me on that point), and as far as I
know he *is* a native English speaker. 

> But good editing can overcome a lot of grammatic
> uncertainty and lack of sense for nuances. What I'm suggesting is that
> our Finnish friend write in English (which, judging by his posts,
> seems better than that of many natives), and then let a native speaker
> edit his text. This approach seems entirely workable to me.

Me too. In fact, I would recommend this for *anybody*, myself included. I
think it should be a normal part of beta testing. Ask any author --
readers will catch things that you've missed, whether we're talking about
IF, or conventional fiction, or reviews, or *anything*. Have somebody read
your stuff before you release it to the public, and chances are they'll
find some ways to make it better. 

> But, then, who am I to know. I'm just a stupid foreigner, remember?
> And I forgot that I'm not supposed to be able to write English. How
> unthoughtful of me. Sorry, next time I'll try to remember to bring the
> pidgin.

Magnus, I don't think I've ever seen you quite that hostile. I don't think
Nick meant any specific harm -- he was just making an overly broad
generalization, and no doubt now is rethinking his position. (I hope.) 

-- 
Paul O'Brian  obrian@colorado.edu  http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
SPAG #19 is here, featuring reviews of 1999 IF competition games and
interviews with the winners, along with news, scoreboard, and more!
              Find it at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag





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Aris Katsaris wrote:
> 
> 
> Unless I'm wrong, did we have in last year's IF competition...
> 
> a) The first gay PC (in Exhibition) ? (ofcourse many games have PC
> that *might* have been gay but I'm talking about the game unambiguously
> telling us this)
>

	I believe one of the characters, very possibly the PC, in Neil Brown's
"The Lost Spellmaker" was a lesbian, and gets the above honors. 
However, the thread that resulted from discussion of that character
(some time before the game was released) was really what inspired me to
write Exhibition.  I knew I wanted to write a game where a gay
relationship was integral to the story and not some tacked on sub-plot
(the usual movie/sitcom route) but not the sole focus of the game )which
some said would make the work inaccessible to a straight audience).  A
statement was also made in that original thread along the lines of "if
the PC is gay then the game must be about him being gay" and I thought I
would try to approach that from a different angle.  QUITE a while later,
growing exhausted with my Then-Work-In-Progress (don't ask), I decided
to write a smallish game dealing with that concept.  Exhibition was the
outgrowth of that.

Ian Finley


From dromund@umSPAMbar.com Mon Jan 31 13:35:26 CET 2000
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From: Andrew Pontious <dromund@umSPAMbar.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [Review] Winchester's Nightmare
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 23:51:30 -0500
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This is a review, under the aegis of the IF Review Conspiracy 
(http://www.textfire.com/ifreview.html), for Winchester's Nightmare by 
Nick Montfort.

This work can be found in the IF Archive via FTP at 
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/winchest.z8

It requires a z-machine interpreter program to run. Please go to 
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/interpreters-infocom-zcode/zip/ or 
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/interpreters-infocom-zcode/frotz/ and look 
at the file there called "index" to find such an interpreter for your 
operating system.

The author's Web page about the game, including a 386 laptop version you 
can purchase for $250, is at 
http://nickm.www.media.mit.edu/people/nickm/if/winchester.html



In Winchester's Nightmare, you are a young girl, Sarah Winchester, 
experiencing a dream. In the dream, Sarah is exploring a place called 
United City in an attempt to find redemption for the deaths caused by 
the Winchester rifle.



First, the good news.

It's well-written. Its room descriptions are spare and get the point 
across nicely. Its various narrative scenes draw you in with their 
simplicity and immediacy.

The puzzles are nicely integrated into the plot, and they occur at the 
right intervals to keep the work interesting but not frustrating, 
puzzle-wise. I was also pleased with the final solution.

And it is expertly programmed; I found few bugs and experienced smooth, 
uninterrupted gameplay. (The author promises a bugfix release probably 
in early February.)

At times, I enjoyed Winchester a lot. If it were a small, conventional 
game, I would recommend it.



Now, the bad news.

Winchester's Nightmare is a small, conventional game masquerading as a 
large, experimental one. 

As such, while the payoff is worthwhile, I can't recommend the trip to 
get there.

What I can recommend is examining the unique reasons why the game 
doesn't work, below, and how those aspects could be changed. 

I've emailed the author and he has told me he has no plans to change the 
game conceptually, so this will primarily be of interest to other 
authors attempting to produce unusual effects or gameplay, especially 
ambitious first-time authors who may not have thought through the 
consequences of their ideas. (Anyone who has played the first version of 
my own game, Small World, has seen an especially acute case of these 
kind of overreach.)



According to the author's introduction (not available in the game 
itself, but available via the above-mentioned author Web page), "The 
interactor will hopefully be able to engage with the work as literature, 
rather staying in a jigsaw-puzzle mode of thinking during all of the 
interaction."

There are two main non-traditional techniques Montfort, an alumnus of 
MIT's Media Lab, uses to enhance his game in this literary fashion. (1) 
Changing the input prompt and disallowing abbreviations. (2) Including 
many extras locations and much more information than is needed to solve 
the puzzles and follow the game's plot.



(1) Throughout the entire game, the input prompt consists of the words 
"Sarah decides to". In addition, common abbreviations such as N, S, E, 
W, NW, NE, SW, SE, and L, X, I, Z, G are explicitly disallowed.

It seems to me like this was done to increase the sense that the player 
is in a novel, both reading and writing the novel as s/he goes along. So 
instead of

>x shell

the player reads/types

Sarah decides to look at the shell

The trouble with this approach is that in all other ways, the player is 
still in a traditional IF game.

- The cardinal directions are still the primary means by which Sarah 
travels from location to location. 
- The location descriptions are in the laconic style of traditional IF 
games. 
- The puzzles are solved using strictly traditional IF verbs and 
concepts.

In all other ways but the abbreviations, I still felt like I was playing 
an IF game, not reading a novel. Having to type out "south" instead of 
"s" didn't create or reinforce a novel/literary context, it merely 
annoyed me within an IF context. Especially since the game's numerous 
locations require you to type in those same cardinal directions over and 
over again. Others I've spoken to had the same response.

Also note that, if true immersion through typing was the goal, even 
"south" should have been banned in favor of "go south", since "Sarah 
decides to south" makes as little literary sense as "Sarah decides to s".

The solution? Add in an "expert mode" where both the prompt and the 
abbreviation restrictions are lifted.

The irony is that this game doesn't need tricks to pull you in; it 
pulled me in despite them by its professional writing and elegantly 
simple plot.



(2) This game has many, many locations, far more than are required for 
either the plot, the game's interludes, or its puzzles.

Some authors may argue that such locations are needed for atmosphere, or 
to add to the game experience.

But the tools used -- clipped room descriptions, clipped object 
descriptions -- however well-written, are tools geared toward 
interaction: taking, repeated examining for puzzle clues, manipulating, 
etc. Using them only as a static backdrop means depriving yourself of 
the benefits of the genre without achieving the level of static fiction.

And their large number means that in addition to solving the puzzles 
themselves, you have to find the puzzles, creating an additional, 
game-wide needle in a haystack "puzzle" which doesn't add anything 
thematically or plot-wise to the game.

End result: I got bored. I would never have finished the game if I 
wasn't tapped to write a review of it. Other players have reported the 
same effect.

The solution? Pare down the locations to those where puzzles are 
actually located or where at least some kind of meaningful interaction 
or narrative scenes takes place. Or add vastly more amounts of 
meaningful interaction. (The former is probably easier.)



The thing these two techniques have in common is that they aren't 
unconscious mistakes, they are deliberate choices made by the author for 
the sake of a certain IF experience. Montfort is to be *highly* 
commended for what appears to be a first-time work where I'm reduced to 
debating his choices, not identifying his obviously unintended errors. 

He has told me he may create future works which take experienced IF 
players more into account, and I look forward to his efforts.



If the above observations don't deter you, by all means play the game, 
as I think you will enjoy all other aspects of it.



-- Andrew Pontious
1/30/2000


From angelamari@bbvnet.com Wed Feb  2 19:38:55 CET 2000
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From: Angela <7170117394#angelamari@bbvnet.com>
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Well, seems like much has been going on since I went offline...

> David Welbourn wrote:
> Gay content in IF has usually been confined to quips when the PC either
> exits from a walk-in closet, or kisses a male NPC;  see _Eric the Unready_.
> By contrast, hetero content (kissing, "screwing", and romancing or rescuing
> a future spouse) has been used in many puzzles and plots;  see the
> _Sorcerers Get All The Girls_ series, _Space Quest_ series, _King's Quest_
> series, _Leisure Suit Larry_ series, and both _Leather Goddesses of Phobos_
> games -- and others.

Mmm, I'm not one who'll especially enjoy a Larry Leisure Suit kinda
thing transposed into a gay character. The gay characterization I was
referring to was related with the point of view of the character, not
with hir/hes sex life. Still, it's fair to note that sex quest games
with queer action are invisible, not to say inexistent.
 
> Of course, the vast majority of IF doesn't address sexual orientation at
> all.  Many many IF games isolate the PC from all fellow humans, making the
> issue moot.

Whether sexual orientation needs to be brought up as an issue in the
world of IF depends on the way stories develop. I believe stories are
starting resemble fiction writing more and more, it's not just the cave
and treasure stuff anymore. So relationships are showing up much often
than not. I might be wrong but I don't agree that IF modern stories do
not address this issue. Most of them do: there's often a husband/wife
around, a boyfriend/girlfriend, a dream, whatever. True that many games
isolate PCs, but I believe the tendency now is to make them interact, am
I wrong? 
 
> And I can't think of any IF game that lets the player choose his/her
> character's orientation, in the way LGOP let the player choose his/her
> character's sex.

That sounds like a good idea, but I don't think many are willing to
contribute the programming extra hours that would take. And I think it
would be going a bit too far...
 
> Neil Brown wrote (regarding _The Lost Spellmaker_):
> In its defence it was written for the competition, and was therefore
> meant to be completed within two hours.
> 
> I shall now scuttle back under my rock.

Please accept my apologies then. :) And note that I did like the game.
 
> Neil K. wrote:
> 
> I have a work in progress, that's somewhat stalled at present, in which a
> same-sex relationship for the player character is a significant story
> element. But geez, everyone's tossing gay characters into their games
> these days, so perhaps I'll just make the player character a sexless
> ageless personalityless automaton, and toss it in a generic dungeon. 

Ha, ha. Maybe we've now been making too much of a fuss, haven't we?
Don't make it an automaton, please. 

Since I started it, I would like to add a few notes on this thread and
have done with it (at least from my part). 

If I sound too PC (read politically correct here), please accept my
excuses. I would say it's a sign of development that at least a few gay
characters have been showing up in late IF, and that it's starting to
overcome the lost-in-a-cavern complex, getting more in touch with the
real world. And I don't think the same can be said about other
mainstream games such as RPG. 

I would hope no one will start categorizing IF games under Sci-Fi,
Gothic, Humour and Gay, for example. It happens with literature, it
happens with films, or TV. And it's not a phenomenon that would make me
proud, much on the contrary. Since I'm not for categorization, I hope
many games will come up with gay (as well as ethnic) PC and NPC
representation and there will be no need to start up threads like this,
which I still think are *useful* today. And that goes for me.

G (moving van not included) ;)


From erkyrath@eblong.com Thu Feb  3 12:48:59 CET 2000
Article: 49394 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: Re: Writing in a foreign language
Date: 3 Feb 2000 03:07:45 GMT
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In rec.games.int-fiction Lucy Kemnitzer <ritaxis@cruzio.com> wrote:
> Anyway, "ritaxis" is a misspelling of "Rataxes," who is the King
> of the Rhinos in _Babar and the Wully-Wully,_ the only Babar book
> any of us like, and one of Frank's favorites.

Heh. I've seen your username for what-seems-like-forever, and I've 
never wondered. I've *known* I didn't know, but I never *wondered*. 

I'm conditioned not to ask about user names, I guess. It always turns out
to be some strange little story which wasn't what I expected, and which
the owner was probably tired of telling.

I don't know if you're tired of telling that, but it certainly is strange.
I mean, I always liked the feel of "ritaxis". Now, suddenly, it just looks
like poor spelling. That's unhappy.

--Z (and in case anyone is curious: it's the opposite of a mome rath.)

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From mol@bartlet.df.lth.se Thu Feb  3 12:51:55 CET 2000
Article: 49373 of rec.games.int-fiction
Path: news.lth.se!not-for-mail
From: mol@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Collaborating with writers to create IF
Date: 2 Feb 2000 22:22:18 +0100
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In article <877hba$2fi$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Nick Montfort  <nickmontfort@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <3896F73C.3F54@cs.york.ac.uk>, Iain Merrick
><im@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> >I don't think you'd need a Finnish-to-English translator, even.
>
>True, you wouldn't *need* one. It's just a better avenue to investigate
>than write-and-revise, I think. 

But where do you find a translator who is good enough both to
understand every nuance in the Finnish original and to translate those
nuances into English, *and* who is also familiar with the conventions
of IF, and of the genre you're (possibly) writing in? I suppose such
people exist, but I'm not sure they're prepared to work for free.

If you can't find a translator willing or able to do this, you could
perhaps find someone who's willing to turn imperfect English with a
Finnish accent into perfect English. 

I'm not sure what you mean by "write-and-revise", by the way. You have
the whole continuum from just requesting feedback for your own
revision to full-scale editing. More or less all writing involves
revision. And almost all published books are edited as well.

>The central issue to me doesn't have anything to with with "native
>speaker versus non-native speaker."

No, but what I reacted against was what I perceived as a blanket
statement, advising everyone to write in his or her first language
only.

>It's a matter of recognizing that
>writing is an art, that extraordinary writing is difficult to achieve,
>and that through all means -- including collaboration with expert
>fiction writers -- IF developers should be trying to better the
>literary aspect of their works.

Surely we should all strive for excellence. But each artist strives
for excellence within limits set by himself. No mater how good a piece
of IF is, it's unlikely to earn its author much money, if any at all,
so we're talkin about a labour of love here, and I really think its up
to the person who wants to create a piece of IF to decide whether they
want to do the programming, the writing, the overall design, think out
puzzles, or any combination of these. If you feel that you really want
to write it yourself, then "hire a professional author" is a lousy
piece of advice. It's like telling somebody who loves driving to take
the train because it's safer. 

Of course, if you have decided to write the text yourself, then you're
obliged to do it as well as you can, and that onligation includes
getting outside help if necessary. 

>But I'm unusual in that I consider IF to be primarily a reading and
>writing experience, with puzzle-solving a secondary aspect.

You're not unusual at all. In fact, this seems to be the majority
position among the regular posters to the IF groups. (I suspect it's
the minority position among IF fandom as a whole, though). 

>In article <876up8$uvf$1@bartlet.df.lth.se>, mol@bartlet.df.lth.se
>(Magnus Olsson) wrote:
>
>> I'm a bit surprised that Nick is so quick to dismiss this idea
>> [revising writing by done by a non-expert writer]
>
>It may work. I'm dismissing it (or, more accurately, considering it as
>less preferable than the other options I mentioned) based on my
>personal experience. If I see an example of truly stunning writing that
>was produced through this process, I would reconsider.

The problem is that you may already have seen such an example, without
knowing it, because you normally only see the finished result, with no
idea of how the author arrived at it.

>There are many hints in this thread that people seem to consider the
>writing of interactive fiction as something that any literate person
>can do as well as any other. 

I haven't seen any such hints at all (but then I know that I have
missed some posts, including some of yours, due to propagation
trouble). What has been said is that the required skills aren't as
rare as you seem to think.

>If I want to create a Myst-like,
>photorealistic, graphical IF, and I'm an expert in designing puzzles
>and programming, of *course* I would want to collaborate with an expert
>artist/designer to develop the graphical components. Even if I know how
>to use 3D Studio. 

But not if what you're really interested in is creating the
graphics. Why do amateurs paint? Surely not because they think they
can paint as well as Picasso. 

>I should add that I didn't *only* suggest working with a writer who
>"writes text to spec." That is one option, but it puts the writer in a
>subordinate role which could be a bit unfair a volunteer collaborator.
>In a deeper sort of collaboration, the writer could define the plot,
>setting, and characters, and work with the programmer to develop
>puzzles and other interactive aspects. The programmer would be in
>charge of interactive design. The writer would have responsibility not
>just for the text but also for the overall narrative elements.
>
>This is how the Synapse games (Breakers, Mindwheel, Brimstone, etc.)
>were developed, I believe. The Douglas Adams Infocom games were put
>together in a similar way, I'd guess.

But these were commercial projects, where the aim was to earn money,
not to realize some inner vision or just to have fun.

But, OK, let's buy your reasoning. Let's amplify the saying that if
it's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing, a bit. Let's say that
if you can't produce a piece of IF that doesn't meet professional
standards, then you shouln't write one. Or, at least, if you have an
idea for a game  but can't write like a professional author, you
should leave the writing to one. 

I'm sure the quality of released IF would go up.

But where would you find the expert writers? You can perhaps get expert
programmers from universities, but how do you get expert writers if
nobody who isn't already an expert should write? The only way to learn
to write is to write. You don't become an expert writer by delegating
all the writing to someone else.

I'd like to encourage all the aspiring IF authors at least to try to
write something, in English or in Finnish or whatever they like. They
may very well find out that it would indeed have been better to leave
the writing to someone else, but then they've at least learned a
lesson. They may also find that OK, the result wasn't very good, but
the next time they'll do better, because they've learned from the
experience. They may even turn out to be the Nabokov of IF. 

-- 
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se, zebulon@pobox.com)
------    http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon   ------


From dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu Thu Feb  3 12:52:28 CET 2000
Article: 49355 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Just not the same...<moan moan moan>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 12:58:25 -0600
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, US
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On 2 Feb 2000, Andrew Plotkin wrote:

> David Welch <songless@avfc.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> Highest "ratings"? From where? What _did_ you try?
> > 
> > Christminster
> > Delusions
> > Curses
> > Jigsaw
> > Unnkulia Zero
> > Klaustrophobia
> > Lost New York
> > Multi-Dimensional Thief
> > [...] (and basically all the Infocom top stuff)
> 
> It is worth noting that all those games were written 1996 or earlier.
> (Or maybe Jigsaw was beginning of 1997?) I think that at that time,
> Infocom was still the biggest influence on the amateur IF community.
> We were developing our own voices, but Infocom still loomed large -- even
> if it was in terms of "something to move away from".

Jigsaw was 1995, as I recall. Otherwise, what Zarf said.

> It's been three-ish years since then, and that just Ain't True Anymore.
> Infocom is a *distant* ancestor, and we're working off of what's happening
> *now*.
> 
> And the biggest difference -- I hope this doesn't set off a huge storm of
> disagreement :) -- is that IF authors think about story first. Puzzles are
> a supporting element; a particular game can use them heavily, lightly, or
> not at all, but we really are trying to avoid the archetypical
> "meaningless mass of puzzles".

Again, this is true.

It's interesting, though, that Infocom really did try to give its games a
vivid setting and premise (well, most of them), and marketed them as such.
If you bought Ballyhoo and gave the documentation more than a cursory
glance, you weren't likely to forget that the intent was to have a story
going on, not just a thin veneer of circus that provided an excuse for a
bunch of puzzles. 

I think it's worth separating out the Infocom games that arose from a
fairly specific and defined genre--cynical circus mystery, spy thriller,
17th-century romance--from those that were in genres whose borders are
much fuzzier, i.e., fantasy and science fiction. In many of the latter, it
seems to me, the random-collection-of-puzzles factor was much greater,
because there aren't many rules about what can appear in those game
worlds. In the former, however, there was usually a little more
discipline. (To a limited extent, of course--Hollywood Hijinx seemed to
have a fairly novel setting, but the premise turned out to be an excuse
for a lot of silly puzzles. Ditto Bureaucracy.)

I'm not saying the fantasy and sci-fi games were worse, on the whole; some
of them were among Infocom's best. But in quite a few of them, the story
was a minor player.

As for now--well, part of the resistance to fantasy now is that many
fantasy games seem to follow this pattern, I think. More generally,
though, I don't think the IF audience in 2000 looks all that favorably on
pure puzzle-fests that aren't justified by a good story.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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




From dsw@ionline.net Thu Feb  3 15:31:15 CET 2000
Article: 49382 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "David Welbourn" <dsw@ionline.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: I want an armadillo
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:49382

        "Can't curl, but can swim --
         Slow-Solid, that's him!
         Curls up, but can't swim --
         Stickly-Prickly, that's him!"
                -- from The Beginning of the Armadillos,
                    in Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

A lovely poem.  Except it's starting to corrupt in my mind into:

        "Lots of puzzles and minimal plot --
         Infocom games, that's wot!
         Minimal puzzles and lots of plot --
         Photopia, that's wot!"

Puh-lease.  The Infocom games were great.  Still are.  So is Photopia.  But
this emphasis of puzzles vs. story is giving us games like Snosae on one
side and Six Stories on the other.  I realize that IF is currently going
through an experimentation stage, but is this progress?  So now I just want
an armadillo: an IF game that seamlessly combines both puzzles and story.
I've always thought that the emphasis should be on: is it a fun (read:
entertaining) game or isn't it?  If not, why not?  If it's a fun game, the
puzzle/story mix shouldn't matter.

Part of this posting was motivated by seeing the phrase "meaningless
collection of puzzles" once too often.  I'm interpreting "meaningless" to
mean "arbitrary".  My mind, free associating, is now envisioning The
Recycled Zork Chronicles, a set of games where:
* hapless Arthur Dent is collecting featureless white cubes (which one will
he have to give to Marvin?);
* the adventurer in Zork II is giving a stuffed penguin, a toupee, and Mama
Maggio's cheese grater to a demon;
* hiding behind a curtain to see how Floyd the Robot opens the bookcase and
get the will;
* flying in bat-form through a glass maze to reach the final control panel
in Starcross's spaceship;
* giving the Four Fabulous Fluff-pieces of Famathria (one of which was under
the throne's seat cushion, one in the magic cloak, one in the brogmoid's
ear, and one in the thing the Implementors made but you don't know what it
is) to Otto the toad to get the spyglass;
* you, a fledging enchanter, must put a babel fish in your ear to understand
a turtle;
* getting Aura, Sensa, Waldo, and the other robots some gem-studded boots of
speed so they can run around the complex a lot faster;
* putting a blender into a music box, turning the box's dial to a clock
icon, and cranking its crank backwards nets you a frog with a crown on its
head.

Well, *that* was fun.  ;-)

Puzzles may repeat from one game to another, but the details in the way they
are presented... The details matter.  They can reinforce both genre and
story.

-- David Welbourn





From dromund@umS_PAMbar.com Fri Feb  4 11:43:12 CET 2000
Article: 49400 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Pontious <dromund@umS_PAMbar.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction,rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [bookclub] Comments on writing via 'Losing Your Grip'
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 00:42:26 -0500
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> First of all, no one complains about discussing why some puzzles work
> better than others, and are more interesting and engaging. Why not
> focus discussion on writing, too?

IF Barbie says, "Writing is hard!"

It's more difficult than coding, it's more difficult that inventing 
puzzles.

Because by "writing" you really mean all the words that pull together 
the puzzles and the mechanics.

You don't just mean the room descriptions, you mean how they fit in with 
the plot, the flow of the game. 

The same description may not work if you have to reread it 300 times, as 
opposd to just 50, to finish the game.

Transitional writing has to be seen in a variety of different reader 
contexts, usually. Whether you've solved puzzle A first or puzzle B 
first. How it catches the reader -- too soon after the last "scene"? Too 
late after a series of hard puzzles?

Also, the things you look at, as Nick said with the Head. It's not just 
whether they work in and of themselves, and it's not just seeing them 
always in the context of the rest of the work. Your writing has to work 
whether the player looks at them or not, and the writing around it has 
to choose to focus or not focus on guiding players toward particular 
descriptions.


I think there's been discussion elsewhere about multiple plotlines 
versus a single discovered plotline. 

My particular preference is when the game nudges you in the direction it 
wants you to go, and nudges you toward the nuances it wants you to see. 
So the writing has to be judged on how well it does that for a variety 
of players.


> If a critique like this has such an effect, then, no, r.a.i-f / r.g.i-f
> isn't an appropriate place for the discussion.


My compromise is to make sure I keep in mind in my critiques that all 
those factors above are very hard to juggle at once. 

If you get *some* of them right, it's probably a pretty good game. This 
as opposed to a review that tears some game apart because it doesn't get 
*all* of them perfect.

(Not that I've seen too many reviews like that, and Nick's certainly 
wasn't in that style.)


OTOH, I'm leery of reviews which say "Oh, this was just a great game!" 
and don't go into specifics.


From djheydt@kithrup.com Fri Feb  4 20:50:39 CET 2000
Article: 49436 of rec.games.int-fiction
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction,rec.arts.sf.composition
Path: news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.direct.ca!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!kithrup.com!djheydt
From: djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
Subject: "NO" in Tongan, was: Writing in a foreign language
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Message-ID: <FpDAM6.CKv@kithrup.com>
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In article <87cgqs$6ha$1@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
Magnus Olsson <mol@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>In article <38992652.483AEBA7@afs.net.au>,
>Steve Taylor  <steve@afs.net.au> wrote:
>>Andrew Plotkin wrote:
>>
>>> So, what *is* the Tongan for "no"? I've always wondered.

I CAN ANSWER THIS!!

But it'll take a bit of digression.

>>> (No doubt some of you understand why.)
>>
>>Only since I got a particularly nice Christmas gift this year. Collected
>>works, all in one box.
>
>Apparently, I didn't get the same Christmas gifts as Steve. Anybody care
>to explain?

I will explain.  Caution, an abundance of trivia ahead.

There's a Flanders and Swann song (and the nice Christmas gift
will have been a collection of their recordings, and I wish I had
it too), having the following lyrics:

Oh, it's hard to say "ooni-luku-maka-chee-chee-chee,"
But in Tonga, that means "No."
If I ever have the money, it's to Tonga I shall go,
For each lovely Tonga maiden there
Will gladly make a date,
And by the time she's said "ooni-luku-maka-chee-chee-chee,"
It is usually too late!

Well.  Randall Garrett once flew to Australia for a con and
discovered that the stewardess on his flight was Tongan.  Oh,
wow, thinks Randall.  "And how do you say 'no' in Tongan?" he
asked.  "'Hai'," she said.  Shucks, he thought, Japanese
loanword.

But I mentioned this once on rasfw, and a nice lady named Karen
Lofstrom at U-Hawaii, *who had actually done fieldwork in Tonga,*
said, 

>He misheard.  The word is "'ikai" -- note the glottal stop at the
>beginning.

So there you are.  The Tongan for "no" is _'ikai_, don't forget
the glottal stop.


Dorothy J. Heydt
(a treasury of useless information)
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com	
                   http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt


From dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu Tue Feb  8 11:34:27 CET 2000
Article: 49539 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [IF Conspiracy Review] Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 19:03:29 -0600
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, US
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:49539

The following review is posted under the auspices of the IF Review
Conspiracy, which is run by Marnie Parker, Stephen Granade, and myself.
More information about the Conspiracy is available at
www.textfire.com/ifreview.html.

TITLE: Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina
AUTHOR: Jim Aikin
E-MAIL: jaikin@pacbell.net
DATE: 1999
PARSER: Inform standard
SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters
AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/ballerina102.z8
VERSION: Release 1

There are inherent mimesis problems in most puzzle-fest IF, since most of
us do not live in a world where we need to solve logic problems or math
riddles to open doors. One of the most significant mimesis problems is the
objects-out-of-place syndrome--since most interesting puzzles involve
objects with unusual or striking properties, the game author needs to come
up with a good reason why the setting might include the objects that are
vital to her chosen puzzles. Jim Aikin's Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina
solves the problem in a rather creative way: the game is set in a shopping
mall. Not just any shopping mall, of course; this one includes such things
as a hair salon, a book bindery, and an antique store, the better to craft
puzzles with, my dear. What results is about as unabashed a puzzle-fest as
IF has ever seen--and while not all of the puzzles are highlights, the
result is still thoroughly enjoyable.

You're a parent (the game carefully avoids giving you a gender, though
given the limited NPC interaction, this isn't all that remarkable a feat)
searching for a doll on Christmas Eve, after the stores have closed; your
7-year- old daughter has her heart set on one Sugar Toes, and you're
determined to find it. That's the premise, and it's a good one, but in
truth it hardly matters whether you're after a ballerina doll or the Magic
Hair Dryer of the Gods, since you can largely forget about your ostensible
purpose until the very end. NJAOB is an old-style game: the puzzles are, I
think it's safe to say, the raison d'etre, and your daughter and the doll
provide a reasonably plausible framing device but not much more. (Perhaps
that's not fair--some of the crueler obstacles you overcome could be taken
as a wry comment on Christmas shopping and the primitive instincts it
brings out in parents who are intent on keeping their kids up with the
latest craze--but the game doesn't really do anything with that particular
angle.) The result is distinctly reminiscent of Infocom's golden years in
several respects; there's an initial premise, and the player is told to go
forth and solve puzzles, most of which have no obvious connection to the
ultimate goal, in hopes that things will work out in the end. On its
terms, it works well--but as the trend in recent IF has been toward the
integration of story and puzzles, NJAOB feels like something of a
throwback.

The puzzles--well, thereby hang quite a few tales. Most are quite clever;
indeed, even those that are familiar in certain respects have original
twists that help liven up the proceedings. There are some regrettable
inclusions, in particular a fifteen puzzle--with a twist, to be sure, but
it's still a fifteen puzzle in mechanics, and I dearly wished for a way to
skip it. (Turns out there is a way to skip the mechanics, but I
didn't realize it at the time, sadly.) There are also several mazes, all
of which have a twist of some sort, of course, but they're firmly within
the maze category. Several are math-based, one (one of the first puzzles
in the game) in a rather obscure way--and while some are straightforward,
others come perilously close to read-the-author's-mind. On the other hand,
most of the puzzles have a certain elegance--none, with the exception of a
certain logic puzzle, are needlessly complicated--and a few require rather
subtle lateral thinking. The layout of the game is distinctly
"wide"--after the player solves the first few puzzles, dozens more are
suddenly available all at once, so there are multiple puzzle-solving
avenues to explore for most of the game. As with most "wide" games,
however, there's an inherent frustration element--there may be many
puzzles to solve, but it's distinctly possible (particularly toward the
later stages of the game) that only one or two will be solvable at any
particular moment, meaning that you may not have the tools to solve the
problem you're currently struggling with. There's an in-game hint system
that adapts nicely to your progress in the game, however, and which
informs you if you're not yet ready to tackle a puzzle, so that's a saving
grace. There's even one puzzle that depends on ASCII-art renderings for
description--and while the ASCII art iss competently done, it feels like
something of a betrayal to have largely textual IF give up on text at a
key point. Moreover, as with many puzzle-fest games, the puzzles work only
if you don't think about them too much--the technicians who set up the
power and security systems for this shopping mall were either math Ph.D's
or Games Magazine editors.

Puzzle-fest IF has an inherent drawback that Ballerina addresses but
doesn't entirely overcome. The problem is that the game can feel like a
long slog, a series of Mensa-type puzzles without much in the way of
reward along the way; if the story doesn't go anywhere when the player
solves puzzles, and the only payoff is an object that's presumably useful
for another puzzle somewhere, the whole exercise can turn wearisome after
a while. Ballerina tries to overcome this in a rather unusual fashion:
there's a subplot of sorts that periodically intrudes on the
puzzle-solving in rather unexpected ways, so that now and again you're
rewarded with some interesting and particularly well-described events that
give your quest--well, not context as such, but something of a contrast.
The subplot doesn't really withstand close scrutiny--the hows and whys are
never resolved, or even touched, and some of the puzzle-solving associated
with it owes more to whimsy than to sense--and yet it improves the game
immeasurably, somehow; the incursion of the unexpected (and fantastic)
leaves the player feeling like she's experienced something more than a
doll-hunt. Suffice it to say that the story element lends the game a touch
of wonder--and considering that the premise effectively requires breaking
and entering on a grand scale, wonder is exactly what's needed here.

The setting is vividly rendered, though the talents of a writer as gifted
as this one aren't likely to be appreciated in this sort of game: there
are few notable events with which to capture the player's imagination, and
even the most skillful of room descriptions gets old after a hundred
readings or so. The tone of the descriptions varies from sparing...

The heavy structure of the shopping center stretches left and right from
here. When you crane your neck the building seems almost to be leaning
outward, as if it's in some danger of collapsing on top of you, or perhaps
pouncing on you. Doubtless that's only a trick of the light. An arched
entryway beckons to the south, above it the inscription 

        FLOGG & GRABBY'S STUFFTOWN 
                 EST. 1974 

carved in a pigeon-flecked substance that looks more like plaster than
real stone. Running along the building above the arch is a covered-over
exterior walkway. 

...to faintly silly:

You've never seen so many lamps in your life. Floor lamps, table lamps, 
gooseneck lamps, chandeliers, porch lights, track lighting -- when God
said, "Let there be light," whoever owns this shop said, "I can make a
buck on that." The only exit is the door to the lower concourse on the
east.

The feel of a slightly seedy shopping mall is well conveyed, for example
in the "pigeon-flecked substance" in the first description quoted above,
and to the extent that the game has an overall tone, the tawdriness fits
it well. Less well developed or apt is the eerie aspect, brought out in
the "pouncing" bit here and in various references to shadows and gloom
elsewhere; the writing is more than good enough to set a creepy scene, of
course, but the tawdry-glitzy aspect and frequent lapses into goofiness
(the above is hardly the only silly bit) undermine the effort. Again,
though, given that the puzzles rather than the setting and story are the
focus of attention here, it's hardly a major drawback. The overall feel of
playing Ballerina is hard to convey concisely; there's a temptation to
simply ignore the setting and view the game as a set of puzzles, given the
number and variety of those puzzles. Most players are likely to initially
absorb the well-described setting, but increasingly disregard it as they
start tackling the puzzles, and the extent to which the tone and style of
the game stays with the player consequently varies.

Technically, everything works well here--admirably well, considering the
size (a 500K-plus Z8 file) of the game and the vast numbers of objects.
The rucksack stand-in, appropriately enough a shopping bag, isn't
flawless--I spent more time than I wanted to fiddling with it, and the
game doesn't provide for things like automatically taking a key out of the
bag in order to unlock a door. The same problem recurs elsewhere; several
places where modern-day IF veterans might expect the game to supply
inferences don't make such inferences, which can be frustrating. Still,
it's good enough, and most of the glitches I noticed were minor details
rather than game- stoppers. The hint system is quite well done--the
adaptive aspect worked perfectly--and several puzzles have reasonably
logical alternative solutions.

If Ballerina suffers as a game-playing experience, then, it's less because
it doesn't succeed in what it set out to do than because its genre isn't
in critical vogue these days, if a field as sparse as IF criticism can be
said to have a vogue. The PC is largely a cipher, the story intermittent
and largely without momentum, the NPCs fairly cardboard--in short, the
game exists largely for the sake of the puzzles, rather than trying to
create an immersive experience through the story. It's far more
difficult--virtually impossible, even--to make a puzzle-centered game
immersive in the same way, and in that Ballerina occasionally requires
that the player draw on outside knowledge of one form or another, it
doesn't really try for immersion as such. The expectations of IF players
in this day and age have been shaped by so many moral ambiguities,
unreliable narrators, branching plots, and the like that the
puzzle-oriented nature of Ballerina may prove unsatisfying.

On the whole, then, Ballerina fits its genre admirably, and the player who
doesn't ask it to be more than a puzzle-fest will not be disappointed. The
puzzles are difficult, but largely fair, and they boast a wealth of
originality. It has some minor flaws, but it's worth checking out.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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






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From: "David Welbourn" <dsw@ionline.net>
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Ron wrote:
>Years ago, I played Zork1 on my old Commodore +4 (still have the game and
>the computer).  More recently, managed to round up the Zork text games for
>PC.
>Still more recently had opportunity to acquire "Return to Zork", "Zork
>Nemesis", and "Grand Inquisitor". Has anyone played these games? How good
>are they? Opinions?

Never played RTZ, but I have played and enjoyed both Nemesis and ZGI.  IMHO,
of the two, Nemesis is the better game, but ZGI is more true to the spirit
of the earlier Zork games.

Zork Nemesis has a large geography, divided amongst five buildings: a
temple, a music conservatory, an asylum, a castle, and a monastery.
Graphics are lush, detailed, and mood enhancing.  The music also helps set
the mood and keep you on edge.  There is definite tension, a sense of
wrongness in the air.  At each location, you can pan in a circle -- you can
see quite a lot.  Because of this, you won't need to worry much about
mapping, and a map of the temple is included in the game already.  Many
puzzles make use of alchemical correspondances between elements, symbols,
planets, colours, etc.  You'll need to hunt out the secrets of four
alchemists (hope you like reading all their letters, journals and
textbooks), and then try to reason as they did to discover how to put your
new knowledge to its best use.  Warning: some of it won't be pleasant; you
will have to decapitate a dead body at one point.  What are the alchemists
really after?  And who or what is the Nemesis that threatens you all?  Oh,
and it's also a love story.

The zorkian content of Zork Nemesis seems tacked on -- such as the fly-by of
Flood Control Dam #3 -- nice, but not truly integral to its story.  "Zork:
Grand Inquistor " corrects that, and adds silliness, magic, and a recap of
relevant Zork history (which is included as a freebie in the game).  In
fact, ZGI is so seeped in zorkian lore that it often seems like a parody.

So.  Zork: Grand Inquistor isn't meant to be taken too seriously.  The Grand
Inquisitor is trying to outlaw magic itself, while you -- a humble Suckalux
vacuum cleaner salesman -- are trying to restore magic to Zork.  If you're
not careful, you will be **totemized**.  (That means you'll be turned into a
totem, which is vaguely the size and shape of a hockey puck, not a good
thing.)  Aiding you on your quest is the third Dungeon Master (whose soul is
trapped in a lantern), the goddess Y'Gael (who pops in from the Etherial
Plane of Atrii to give you magical goodies, but otherwise can't help you),
the adventurer Antharia Jack (who gets himself arrested early on), the
dragon Griff (totemized), the brogmoid Brog (totemized), and Lucy Flathead
(totemized granddaughter of Lucrezia Flathead).  As you're the only one
suitably mobile, its up to you to save the day.  If you're really good with
your magic, a amiable (and ambulatory) castle named Hugh will also help you.

ZGI is a smaller game, but you'll still appreciate the new teleport stations
that let you zip around the Great Underground Empire quickly.  I found most
of the puzzles in ZGI to be either easy or bizarre, solvable once you figure
out what goes with what, that is.  And it's easy to overlook some things,
like a subway token at one point.  This leads to a lot of
try-everything-on-everything-else experimenting soon after you reach the
underground areas -- you can't get inside the DM's home, you can't ride the
subway, and you have no idea what to do in GUE Tech -- which can be
frustrating.  Hint: find a way to win some money, then concentrate on using
the vending machines and lockers in GUE Tech.

Still, do either of these games match the sheer expansiveness and
uninhibited fun of Beyond Zork or Zork Zero?  *sigh*  I wonder if Activision
would ever re-tool and re-issue any old Infocom games into graphic
adventures (as Sierra once did, turning Softporn Adventure into the first
Leisure Suit Larry?).

-- David Welbourn









From dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu Wed Feb  9 17:32:09 CET 2000
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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [bookclub] Dad and the grey man (long)
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The following is a "firestarter" post about Stephen Granade's game Losing
Your Grip, under the auspices of the IF Book Club. The Book Club is
organized by Lucian P. Smith; for more information, visit
the web page at http://www.textfire.com/bookclub/. (With no period at the
end.)

Central to figuring out what's going on in Losing Your Grip is the problem
of the grey man and your father--how are they connected, why do you see so
much of them, why are they important to you? These are my conjectures
about these characters and their roles, and, by extension, about what the
game as a whole meant.

It's important, first, to remember that the grey man is entirely new to
you--you hadn't met him before your odyssey began--and you manage to kill
him off entirely before the journey's done. Moreover, he appears on the
scene only after you deal with the sludge, though he doesn't say anything
at that point--but directly after you see him, you pick up the needle
sphere and get this, in your father's voice: ""Well.  Interesting stunt
you've pulled, coming to where I now live. I trust you'll stay for my
avalanche." The two events are separate but closely linked, leading me to
believe that the grey man is closely related to your associations with
your father.

The grey man also appears in Fit 2, both versions, though the script is
nearly identical: he asks you "don't you know why you're here?", and
suggests, sneering, that you're there to either "help idiots like [the old
woman" or "help a fellow student." At the start of the fit, though, you're
informed that you're there (in the hospital or at college) against your
will-- your father has decreed that you're to be a doctor, and this is a
step along the way. The grey man intrudes on you fairly early in the fit
to remind you of why you're there, and in that sense serves as a sort of
stand-in for your father--a caricature, almost, a figure that taunts you
about your inadequacy ("you weren't successful the first time"). Again, a
close link with your father--here, the grey man is the enforcer for your
father's wishes, a presence reminding you of your ongoing confrontation
with your father.

The final and most important appearance of the grey man is at the end of
Fit 3, when he destroys the faeries' hideaway, and tries to kill you--most
important because this, so to speak, is where push comes to shove: rather
than you and the grey man glowering at each other, this is the showdown.
Either he wins and your internal odyssey stops, or you win and you don't
hear any more from the grey man--you put him to rest, in a sense. Again,
this is on the heels of a traumatic confrontation with your father--
you've managed to hurt him, physically at least. There's a third party
involved, though: your imagination/creativity/escape- fantasy-life,
allegorized in the form of the faeries; in this particular scene, you get
away from your father for a while and immerse yourself in the
imaginative/fantasy world, but something, the grey man, comes crashing
back it to obliterate the happy fantasy and drag you back to real life. At
least, it tries.

The third fit is so important because the symbolic connections are closest
to the surface here--perhaps the theory is that you've gone far enough
back into your past that you can get at where things started to go wrong.
The grey man isn't your father, but he's your image of your father--the
hateful, sneering, pushy caricature of your father that you've substituted
for your father. Everything he does is an exaggeration of your father--
your father has no time for your fantasies, so the grey man takes it a
step farther by actually destroying them. Your father pushes you to
succeed, so the grey man harshly mocks you when you don't. Your father
tries to punish you, so the grey man tries to kill you. While the game
forces you to put your image of your father to rest, to a some extent, it
doesn't force you to put aside the anger that produced the image--you can
still clench your fist at the end, of course. But you can't kid
yourself--it's apparent by the end that he's not really a monster. The
ending is set up by the third fit, where your father and the grey man are
almost side by side--the grey man tells you that your father "sent" him,
which is actually true from your perspective, and by dealing with one you
make an implicit commitment to deal with the other. It's also important
that, as far as I can tell, you have to open the cage to get to the final
hospital scene, suggesting that the faeries stand in not only for your
imagination and creativity but also for your sense of compassion--and,
even, your ability to see things as they really are, see your father as he
really is.

Colors are central to Grip: against greyness stand all sorts of vivid
colors. In both versions of the fourth fit, colors are important--the
colored pieces, the colored strands--and since you're delving into your
own personality to bring it back into balance, it makes sense that you're
unearthing the colors of your buried self to displace the grey. (I.e.,
it's with the aid of your newfound balance, and recognition of the colors
you hadn't been acknowledging or using, that you can confront the
greyness-- the anger and fear surrounding your association with your
father.) The "plain" of the final fit seems to be the same as the muddy
field of the first fit, except that the rain is now gone-- but in the
color scheme, it's just full of greys and browns. ("A few twisted shrubs
and bushes, leafless and gaunt, cling to the cracked ground, ekeing out
enough sustenance to maintain a shadowy half-life.  Light filtering
through the roiling clouds above gives the entire scene an unhealthy grey
tinge.") Remember, also, that the game started in a sea of mud--brown
(washed away by snow--the hospital and your medical treatment? the ward is
certainly described as white often enough), and required you to fight off
another brown-black deluge in the sludge. The building itself is white,
but streaked with brown from the mud and the rain (presumably, your anger
and conflicting emotions, or whatever has come between you and your
father). So while you've put aside the caricature at the end and learned
to face your father rather than a distortion of him, you're still in the
middle of the gray and brown--all the negative associations.

It's easy to miss what happens in the final scene--I know I did the first
time around. You get to witness the impact of refusing to let go of the
pent-up vitriol: by the act of clenching his fist, your father kills the
dog, and you feel the force of his anger when he clenches his fist again.
Likewise, if you choose to clench your own fist, you see the "pulse" that
hits him with just as much force. The only way for both of you to survive
the confrontation is for you to relax your hand--if you don't do anything,
the force of his clenching kills you, but if you relax your hand, it
"passes through you," and your father "slumps, as if something vital has
been drained from him." Your refusal to keep fighting makes your father
unable to hurt you--at least, hurt you as much as he'd like--and thereby
takes away his power over you, and you're finally free to hear what he was
really trying to tell you from his hospital bed. In a sense, by relaxing
your fist, you tell him that you're not going to play the game (remember
the chessboard--it suggests the adversarial nature of what goes on between
you) anymore--and when you see that "something vital has been drained"
>from  him, you're seeing that he's lost his power over you.

Why the strings, at the end? To give you a sense of complicity, I think,
and to remind you that your father's abuse was a product as well as a
cause of your anger and alienation. Without that, it might be possible to
think that this is a story of an abuser and an abused; with it, it's more
about a poisoned relationship, and the implication is that you contributed
to its breakdown, even if not knowingly.

Are there loose ends here? Definitely. Some that might be worth tying up
but which I'm not going to address in any detail are the dog
(wish-fulfillment, perhaps--the happier childhood and relationship that
you didn't have--though how wish-fulfillment manages to transport
objects/tools between phases of your internal odyssey isn't quite clear to
me), Frankie and the head (one and the same, or at least strongly linked,
I think, given the mustache--Frankie seems to represent your powers of
introspection, and burying the head suggests that you've tried to avoid
introspection insofar as it might bring up something messy and
complicated, i.e., the sludge, when you really start poking around, i.e.,
getting the lights back on in the dark corners-- though who Sam is I can't
fathom), music (bagpipes and church music in Fit 3, the radio in Fit 1,
all the banners, Erin's headphones), and the non-sound sound thing in Fit
3. But the point of Grip, to my eye, is straightening out your
relationship with Dad, and acknowledging the great extent to which you're
responsible for the problems by (a) inventing a sort of shadow- dad and
(b) provoking and manipulating your father rather than trying to
understand.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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




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From: lpsmith@rice.edu (Lucian Paul Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [bookclub] Dad and the grey man (long)
Date: 7 Feb 2000 17:09:55 GMT
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[Note:  Spoilers ahoy for Grip, and a couple small ones for 'So Far' and
'Hitchhikers'.]

Second April (dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
: The following is a "firestarter" post about Stephen Granade's game Losing
: Your Grip, under the auspices of the IF Book Club. The Book Club is
: organized by Lucian P. Smith; for more information, visit
: the web page at http://www.textfire.com/bookclub/. (With no period at the
: end.)

[snip excellent analysis of grey man and father--essentially, that the
grey man is an exaggeration of your father, with whom you have a poisoned
relationship already.]

: Frankie and the head (one and the same, or at least strongly linked,
: I think, given the mustache--Frankie seems to represent your powers of
: introspection, and burying the head suggests that you've tried to avoid
: introspection insofar as it might bring up something messy and
: complicated, i.e., the sludge, when you really start poking around, i.e.,
: getting the lights back on in the dark corners -- though who Sam is I
: can't fathom)

Ah, you've missed some clues here.  I give you a quote from the head:

   "An interesting end, don't you think?  Jiminy Cricket never had such an
   exit scene."

Jiminy Cricket was, of course, Pinnochio's conscience.  And, in fact, if
you type ">X CONSCIENCE" it gives you a description of the head again.

The moustache connection with Frankie is interesting, but I don't *think*
it means he's also your conscience.  Perhaps a play on words with his
name?  Your 'frankness' or some such?  That would tie into your assessment
of him as your introspection.  Would the fact that Frankie had the
sunglasses mean anything?  That you need something from him to be able to
see things clearly that would otherwise be overwhelming? 

I'm afraid I'm blanking of any similar puns with 'Sam', though.  And why
would Frankie swear at Sam when the sludge appears?  Did Sam have
something to do with the sludge's reappearance?  Frankie's later comments
seem to indicate Sam was only studying it.  Unless *Sam* is the
conscience/head.  [Checks game--no, 'X SAM' doesn't work when in the
presence of the head.  Scratch that theory.]

And what, exactly, does it mean that the head's your conscience?  Going
through the game without one is another connection with Pinnochio--in the
original, Pinnochio stomps on Jiminy near the very beginning of book, and
goes through the rest of his adventures without a conscience.  Does anyone
know what kicking the head at the beginning does to the end game?  In
fact, there are three events I'd like to know about:

-kicking the head
-vaporizing the sludge
-freeing the fairies

All three (I think) affect how the end game plays out.  But it's
disheartening to replay the game trying different possibilities, even with
TADS's @replay option.  Anyone know?  And if not, is it kosher to ask
Stephen about it?

[Aside about game design here:  though it's an interesting concept to have
these three events change the specifics of the endgame, I fear the effort
ultimately fails if the influence is essentially invisible to the
player.  Zarf commented on this in his post about the game--though the
exietence of multiple possibilites may be intriguing, if it's not obvious
that more possibilities exist, a player will only see one, for better or
for worse.  If the point is the interplay between the differences, the
point gets lost.  I'm not, here, complaining about the difference between
clenching or relaxing your fist at the end.  That's tightly enough coupled
with the results that the player can fool around with it and see both (not
unlike how you answer the final question in 'So Far').  But to have an
early puzzle affect the very last scene *with no way to go back and change
it* is, I think, bad design.  (A counter-example:  the Hitchhiker's space
fleet puzzle, which you can either solve as Arthur at the beginning, or as
Ford later.)  Thus ends the aside.]

So what does it mean that Terry's conscience's services "were no longer
needed in the hall, so [he] was turned out in this rain,"?  Certainly, it
makes Terry more culpable in his relationship with his father, and makes
the strings a stronger reality in the end.  I suppose the whole quest of
the game could be to reinstate your conscience, in a manner of speaking.

This could also explain the second fit.  If, the first time through, Terry
was only out for him/herself, it would explain why (s)he didn't help
people.  The second fit would then be a 'what if?' scenario, where Terry
could see the positive results from taking other people into
consideration.

: 3. But the point of Grip, to my eye, is straightening out your
: relationship with Dad, and acknowledging the great extent to which you're
: responsible for the problems by (a) inventing a sort of shadow- dad and
: (b) provoking and manipulating your father rather than trying to
: understand.

Are there specific examples that exist in Grip that point to the
second?  I agree that that's what you're *told* you did, but I don't
remember ever actually *seeing* it.  I could be mis-remembering, though,
or it could be in bits I missed.

-Lucian


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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [bookclub] Dad and the grey man (long)
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 19:45:16 -0600
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On 7 Feb 2000, Lucian Paul Smith wrote:

> [Note:  Spoilers ahoy for Grip, and a couple small ones for 'So Far' and
> 'Hitchhikers'.]
> 
> Second April (dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
> : The following is a "firestarter" post about Stephen Granade's game Losing
> : Your Grip, under the auspices of the IF Book Club. The Book Club is
> : organized by Lucian P. Smith; for more information, visit
> : the web page at http://www.textfire.com/bookclub/. (With no period at the
> : end.)
> 
> [snip excellent analysis of grey man and father--essentially, that the
> grey man is an exaggeration of your father, with whom you have a poisoned
> relationship already.]
> 
> : Frankie and the head (one and the same, or at least strongly linked,
> : I think, given the mustache--Frankie seems to represent your powers of
> : introspection, and burying the head suggests that you've tried to avoid
> : introspection insofar as it might bring up something messy and
> : complicated, i.e., the sludge, when you really start poking around, i.e.,
> : getting the lights back on in the dark corners -- though who Sam is I
> : can't fathom)
> 
> Ah, you've missed some clues here.  I give you a quote from the head:
> 
>    "An interesting end, don't you think?  Jiminy Cricket never had such an
>    exit scene."
> 
> Jiminy Cricket was, of course, Pinnochio's conscience.  And, in fact, if
> you type ">X CONSCIENCE" it gives you a description of the head again.

Hmmm. I didn't think to try X CONSCIENCE, though I did catch the Jiminy
Cricket reference.

I'm still not sure this is wrong, in that conscience and the capability
for introspection are pretty closely linked--at least, it seems like Terry
has buried his conscience and refused to look inward, fearing the guilt
and shame he'll discover if he does (i.e., the sludge). If his conscience
were fully functional, he wouldn't be so unwilling to confront the
internal truth--turn the lights back on. But yes, you're right, it's more
accurate to call the head the conscience.

> The moustache connection with Frankie is interesting, but I don't *think*
> it means he's also your conscience.  Perhaps a play on words with his
> name?  Your 'frankness' or some such?  That would tie into your assessment
> of him as your introspection.  Would the fact that Frankie had the
> sunglasses mean anything?  That you need something from him to be able to
> see things clearly that would otherwise be overwhelming? 

I was thinking about this--yes, but it's also important that the things
that you can't see clearly are _outside_--outside the building, literally,
and outside of Terry, figuratively. Getting the sunglasses from Frankie is
a (somewhat contrived) indication that getting your mental house in order
will also enable you to put the rest of your world back together.

I'm still not sure how diverting the avalanche fits into all this, though.
The grey man calls it "my avalanche," but does that mean it's coming from
outside you--from your father, or your perception thereof? Here, and in
the sludge, is where I start to lose my handle (my grip, even) on the
metaphor. What on earth is the heater--what's enabling you to combat the
tide of guilt, shame, fear that most people seem to accept as the sludge?
And how does vaporizing it set off some other catastrophic event, in the
form of the avalanche? And when you sacrifice yourself to divert the
avalanche, what's the RL analogue--you keep the external catastrophe from
wiping you out entirely, but how?

It's worth noting that the first three fits all end with some sort of
self-sacrifice--for the faeries in fit 3, for Buddy or the huddled shape
in fit 2, for, um, Frankie/the building in fit 1.

> I'm afraid I'm blanking of any similar puns with 'Sam', though.  And why
> would Frankie swear at Sam when the sludge appears?  Did Sam have
> something to do with the sludge's reappearance?  Frankie's later comments
> seem to indicate Sam was only studying it.  Unless *Sam* is the
> conscience/head.  [Checks game--no, 'X SAM' doesn't work when in the
> presence of the head.  Scratch that theory.]

I can't think of any puns myself. Frankie refers to Sam as "one of [his]
colleagues," and says, "He left mid-afternoon yesterday" or some such
thing. "Colleagues" might suggest that Sam is also tied into the powers of
introspection, since we also learn that he thought there was a connection
between the spheres and the sludge...perhaps, in light of that, Sam is the
part of Terry's mind that's been trying to look at his troubles rationally
and make sense of them, and the breakdown that landed Terry in the ward is
Sam's giving up and leaving.

> And what, exactly, does it mean that the head's your conscience?  Going
> through the game without one is another connection with Pinnochio--in the
> original, Pinnochio stomps on Jiminy near the very beginning of book, and
> goes through the rest of his adventures without a conscience.  Does anyone
> know what kicking the head at the beginning does to the end game?  In
> fact, there are three events I'd like to know about:
> 
> -kicking the head
> -vaporizing the sludge
> -freeing the fairies

I can say that vaporizing the sludge doesn't affect the endgame, though I
don't know about kicking the head. I've never done anything other than
free the faeries--if you don't free them, you don't get the hospital scene
at the end (your father and the strings) though I think that's the only
difference. As I said in my review in SPAG a while back, it feels
analytically wrong to me that failing to vaporize the sludge doesn't
affect the rest of the game--I mean, I thought that meant that Terry
hasn't gotten his emotional ducks in a row (and I imagined the sludge
going on to fill up the entirety of his mind). Surely that should make
more of a difference than simply five fewer points. (Maybe I'm wrong here,
but the first time I played through it, I didn't get rid of the sludge,
and I got to the end with 95 points--and I didn't notice anything
different when I did get rid of the ssludge.

> So what does it mean that Terry's conscience's services "were no longer
> needed in the hall, so [he] was turned out in this rain,"?  Certainly, it
> makes Terry more culpable in his relationship with his father, and makes
> the strings a stronger reality in the end.  I suppose the whole quest of
> the game could be to reinstate your conscience, in a manner of speaking.

Where is the quote from? I don't remember it. I'd say the initial premise
is to reinstate your conscience--whether you lash out or go along
initially doesn't affect whether you decide ultimately to try to change
things. 

> : 3. But the point of Grip, to my eye, is straightening out your
> : relationship with Dad, and acknowledging the great extent to which you're
> : responsible for the problems by (a) inventing a sort of shadow- dad and
> : (b) provoking and manipulating your father rather than trying to
> : understand.
> 
> Are there specific examples that exist in Grip that point to the
> second?  I agree that that's what you're *told* you did, but I don't
> remember ever actually *seeing* it.  I could be mis-remembering, though,
> or it could be in bits I missed.

The end, really, is the main point where you see it, with the strings--in
fact, I think the point is that you couldn't see it before, not until
you put aside your hostility toward your father and stopped blaming him
for everything. Though your encounter with him in fit 3 also suggests that
you can, and do, hurt him just as much as he hurts you.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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






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From: lpsmith@rice.edu (Lucian Paul Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [bookclub] Dad and the grey man (long)
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Second April (dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
: On 7 Feb 2000, Lucian Paul Smith wrote:
: > Second April (dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:

: > The moustache connection with Frankie is interesting, but I don't *think*
: > it means he's also your conscience.  Perhaps a play on words with his
: > name?  Your 'frankness' or some such?  That would tie into your assessment
: > of him as your introspection.  Would the fact that Frankie had the
: > sunglasses mean anything?  That you need something from him to be able to
: > see things clearly that would otherwise be overwhelming? 

: I was thinking about this--yes, but it's also important that the things
: that you can't see clearly are _outside_--outside the building, literally,
: and outside of Terry, figuratively. Getting the sunglasses from Frankie is
: a (somewhat contrived) indication that getting your mental house in order
: will also enable you to put the rest of your world back together.

: I'm still not sure how diverting the avalanche fits into all this, though.
: The grey man calls it "my avalanche," but does that mean it's coming from
: outside you--from your father, or your perception thereof? Here, and in
: the sludge, is where I start to lose my handle (my grip, even) on the
: metaphor. What on earth is the heater--what's enabling you to combat the
: tide of guilt, shame, fear that most people seem to accept as the sludge?

I can make some wild guesses here, but I really have no idea either.  Heat
as passion?  knowledge?  truth?

: And how does vaporizing it set off some other catastrophic event, in the
: form of the avalanche? 

I think this is a game design thing more than a metaphor thing.  Like
Christminster, there's nothing logically connecting the timed events, you
just need to solve one puzzle before you can go on to the next (or at
least see it happen--there's no requirement that you vaporize the sludge
before getting to the avalanche scene.)

: And when you sacrifice yourself to divert the
: avalanche, what's the RL analogue--you keep the external catastrophe from
: wiping you out entirely, but how?

I'm not so sure that outside the hall is outside you completely.  The hall
itself does seem to represent your consciousness (your ego?  super-ego?),
but I believe the landscape in general is still your mental
landscape.  Perhaps it represents your subconscious, and the avalanche the
mental turmoil brought about by your poisoned relationship with your dad. 

Remember also this bit:

>ask him about spheres

Frankie says, "They were my project.  Well, mine and some 
colleagues.  They'd been buried near here for years."  He gazes at the
spheres for a minute, then at you.  "Makes you wonder why someone would go
to all the trouble to bury them."

So these memories were ones you had intentionally supressed (buried in
your subconscious).  Maybe unearthing them is part of what triggered the
avalanche.  (Though they seem pretty innocuous.  A random birthday party,
your first time driving, and a game of flashlight tag.  Why *would*
someone go to all the trouble of burying them?)

: It's worth noting that the first three fits all end with some sort of
: self-sacrifice--for the faeries in fit 3, for Buddy or the huddled shape
: in fit 2, for, um, Frankie/the building in fit 1.

If the building is your conscious mind, sacrificing yourself to protect
yourself seems a bit odd.  My inclination here is to say "This bit was a
puzzle, not a metaphor," but perhaps I should cut Stephen some more slack
;-)

: I can't think of any puns myself. Frankie refers to Sam as "one of [his]
: colleagues," and says, "He left mid-afternoon yesterday" or some such
: thing. "Colleagues" might suggest that Sam is also tied into the powers of
: introspection, since we also learn that he thought there was a connection
: between the spheres and the sludge...perhaps, in light of that, Sam is the
: part of Terry's mind that's been trying to look at his troubles rationally
: and make sense of them, and the breakdown that landed Terry in the ward is
: Sam's giving up and leaving.

The event that landed you in the ward was an experimental drug designed to
kick your smoking habit.  The whole game is about the unintended side
effects of said drug.

Now, when the game actually begins is an interesting question.  Does it
begin the second you start taking the drug, and you're simply suddenly
privy to what's happening in your mind?  Or did the drug itself
percipitate you current mental crisis?  I lean towards the first, myself,
particularly in light of the timing of the events from the 
pyramids/spheres.  (You wander around a bit, then the nurse notices you,
you wander some more, they take you off the IV, then the avalanche comes
and you wake up.)  So my guess is your mental crisis was already in
progress, and the drug just let you experience it first-hand.

: > In fact, there are three events I'd like to know about:
: > 
: > -kicking the head
: > -vaporizing the sludge
: > -freeing the fairies

: I can say that vaporizing the sludge doesn't affect the endgame, though I
: don't know about kicking the head. I've never done anything other than
: free the faeries--if you don't free them, you don't get the hospital scene
: at the end (your father and the strings) though I think that's the only
: difference. 

I thought I remembered someone saying that the voice saying "let go,
Terry" only appeared if you had solved one of the above puzzles.  Maybe
it, too, was the fairies bit.

: > So what does it mean that Terry's conscience's services "were no longer
: > needed in the hall, so [he] was turned out in this rain,"?  Certainly, it
: > makes Terry more culpable in his relationship with his father, and makes
: > the strings a stronger reality in the end.  I suppose the whole quest of
: > the game could be to reinstate your conscience, in a manner of speaking.

: Where is the quote from? I don't remember it. 

>ask head about northeast
"My services were no longer needed in the hall, so I was turned out in
this rain," the man spits out.

: > : 3. But the point of Grip, to my eye, is straightening out your
: > : relationship with Dad, and acknowledging the great extent to which you're
: > : responsible for the problems by (a) inventing a sort of shadow- dad and
: > : (b) provoking and manipulating your father rather than trying to
: > : understand.
: > 
: > Are there specific examples that exist in Grip that point to the
: > second?  I agree that that's what you're *told* you did, but I don't
: > remember ever actually *seeing* it.  I could be mis-remembering, though,
: > or it could be in bits I missed.

: The end, really, is the main point where you see it, with the strings--in
: fact, I think the point is that you couldn't see it before, not until
: you put aside your hostility toward your father and stopped blaming him
: for everything. Though your encounter with him in fit 3 also suggests that
: you can, and do, hurt him just as much as he hurts you.

Hmmm.  I agree that the strings bit is the first time Terry should realize
what was happening.  But I as a player would have liked to see some actual
*events* at times during the game, misinterpreted by Terry, but
re-analyzable in light of the final revelation.  Perhaps that's what Fit 3
was supposed to do.  But I don't really buy it, personally.  Sneaking out
of the house to go have fun is just being a kid, it's not some weird
psychologial drama you've created in order to manipulate your dad.

-Lucian




From mberlyn@cascadepublishing.com Thu Feb 10 11:09:20 CET 2000
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From: "Mike Berlyn" <mberlyn@cascadepublishing.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Textfire??
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:25:57 -0800
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Aris,

There was a strong desire to name Cascade Mountain Publishing "Textfire" but
we decided on the more-conservative name.

-- Mike
http://www.cascadepublishing.com


Aris Katsaris wrote in message <7af43e$g41$1@ns1.otenet.gr>...
>What are the Textfire games? Am I correct to assume they were meant as a
>joke, demos of non-existent games?
>
>Aris Katsaris
>
>




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From: Salvasan <salvasan@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [bookclub] LYG - a mechanical perspective of gameplay
Date: 10 Feb 2000 04:28:35 GMT
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First, I'll mention the game version I played, so that we don't end up
arguing about apples and oranges:

  Losing Your Grip, a Journey in Five Fits
  Version 4 (Nov 29 1998) Copyright 1998 by Stephen Granade
  Developed with TADS, the Text Adventure Development System.

played on an interpreter compiled for i386 Linux.

The following are a few disorganized notes on my experiences playing
this game.  I haven't played much IF over the last two decades so
consider this a case study of how a newbie approaches a game such as
LYG.  The focus here is on the mechanics of game play rather than on
any metaphysical interpretation or any such philosophical pondering.


[ Warning: The following contains spoilers for LYG ]



* Fit 1

Starting play I first set out to identify the genre.

: A section of the air just above your head shimmers.  A small pyramid falls
: from the disturbance to the ground below.

This suggests a certain fantasy element to the adventure; something
I'm not particularly fond of.  More on that in Fit 3.  Soon enough I
realized this was more of a dream sequence rather than a troll-fest so
I pressed on.

What struck me first was the lack of objects to pick up.  I wandered
around for the first half hour with nothing but a coat and gloves,
plus this dog.  Almost everything else illicited canned responses of
"There's no need to..." and "Don't worry about the...".  This made it
difficult to ascertain the objective of this round.  What would I have
done without Frankie? Regardless of the symbolic meaning conveyed by
his presence, he seems to serve the role of game rule book.  I prefer
discovering the objective myself from the evidence around me, rather
than having it told to me via questioning of just one individual.  But
this is a dream state so why expect logical objectives?

I figured out the insulation-coat problem and the wheels-sludge-heater
problem without help. However the rucksack trick was clued in only
subtly by the dog. I only realized what to do when I consulted the
walk-through to figure out how to bridge the fence cables.

Previous IF has conditioned one to avoid anything that causes instant
death. The last thing I expected was a solution that involved carrying
out an action that does exactly that. In dream sequences anything goes
it seems. There is at least one other puzzle in LYG that is like this.

I thought in modern era IF vital objects are not hidden under pieces
of furniture. I probably tried "look under X" more often than in other
games.

Lot's of red herrings here also. The broken light, the missing benches
in the balcony, standing behind the lectern, the hot water tank, the
scratched desk, the muddy floor. All these superfluous details only
served to reinforce a behaviour that would lead one to miss vital
clues in later Fits.


* Interlude prior to Fit 2

Figuring out how to resume dreaming was a puzzle in itself, so much so
I was disappointed that no points were awarded. I realize the author
has neatly divided the five Fits into 20 point packages, so rewarding
an interlude with anything more than mere progress probably would not
have fit in with the overall game design. Oh well 20/100.

* Fit 2 hospital

I thought the atmospheric elements were quite effective here.
Amazingly I completed this Fit without any hints, but a helluva lot of
restore/undo owing to the many ways to reach an unsolvable state,
especially if you forgot to bring your rucksack. Once I passed right
by the first hospital bed without ever meeting Mr Grey. There is also
some implementation bug regarding the BP cuff. If I slip it on my arm
and then give it to the nurse, later I still seem to be wearing it
according to "x arm" but I'm not able to refer to it.

Anyway I thought this Fit to be quite playable and well paced. The
puzzles didn't seem to be blatant obstacles with get-X-use-X
solutions. Even the one locked door already had the key in it, though
prior IF conditioning almost had me searching for this key.

* Fit 2 med school

[ Only when I first dipped into the walk-through for Fit 3 did
  I realize there was an alternative Fit 2. Restore. ]

As with the Hospital Fit I too found this to be quite playable (again,
no hints). Unwinnable states abound here too. The least obvious
unwinnable state was freezing the ceramic square in a solid block of
ice. It never occurred to me that all that equipment was merely a
substitute for a much needed bottle. Wouldn't a sponge do?  Too bad
clothing wasn't implemented

: >put tuft in water
: There's no need to put that in the water.

A minor quibble -- players unaware of the alternative 2nd Fit will be
confused by the sudden reappearance of the dark sunglasses in the
rucksack even though the PC never explicitly placed them there.  No
other object from Fit 1 is given similar treatment -- not the gloves,
not the coat.  The player will thus credit the sunglasses with more
importance over other items, yet in this Fit these facial accessories
serve only as a red herring (unless I have missed an alternative
solution or Easter egg somewhere -- maybe I should have tried them on
at Stephen's beach)

[ Yes, the author makes a cameo here -- you have to push through one
  of the grey misty doors twice.  How many IF authors program
  themselves into a game? ]

It would be difficult to fix this inconsistency without rendering the
hospital Fit2 unwinnable, since one always ends up wearing the glasses
at the end of Fit 1.

A small visualization problem: the rounded box is the size of a bread
box. The cylinder is knee high and topped with a funnel. Somehow:

: You put the cylinder directly under the end of the pipe so that its funnel
: lies under the box's hole.
       ^^^^^

Just how big is a breadbox? How short are my legs? The PC must have
the legs of a faery, which brings me to Fit 3

* Fit 3

In LYG, "examine" is not synonymous to "search". Assuming otherwise I
missed finding the clover.

I really don't enjoy fantasy outings. Objectives and sub-goals
can be so arbitrary. Yet this fit in rooted in a reality of sorts -- a
sharp contrast of childhood imagination and strained relations. I
played along to find out how the PC's view of his father would
progress.

Allowing me to extract my own blood was an interesting red herring.  I
even cut my poor dog. Since visiting Terry's dad seemed suicidal, the
last thing I expected was that Terry's father would oblige by cutting
himself. Hint book time.

Thus rendering myself invisible to animals my dog still reacted to
seeing me. He is of course my magical companion in a dream world where
anything can happen.

The author put significant effort into implementing the faery prison
cell -- the unwinnable state reached when the PC eats faery food.  At
least I think it's unwinnable at this point. I wonder why there is so
much detail here. Is there something more?



[ I consider both 4th Fits as being rather mathematical. One focuses
  on spatial relationships whereas the other... erm... let's just say
  that finding the symbolic representation was the key ]

* Fit 4 symbolic

I wish I knew more Greek mythology.  Cost me a hint.  I plead
ignorance, your honour.  What were those rivers again?

I did manage to solve the Russian doll problem using the subtle hints:

: The two pieces slide together effortlessly, as though magnetically
: attracted.

I was wondering when IF would attempt an infinite regress.

The strands problem was just plain unintuitive. What a weird way to
give commands to a device.  A verb/noun parser encased in a thick
layer of frustration.

I never did figure out the purpose of the fist sized knob on the
asymmetrical arch.

* Fit 4 spatial

The puzzles here all had some logic to them. Discovering the logic was
the hard part.  I solved the rot-tr-inv problem almost by trial and
error. The description of the shelves was like that for the mirror box
in Zork III.

The Cartesian coordinates levitating belt puzzle reminded me of the
time machine puzzle in Zork III. The positive real line puzzle didn't
make much sense at all. I half expected to see a Greek sprinter
chasing after a tortoise.

I did encounter a slight hindrance with TADS's parser in the sphere
room, mostly due to my inexperience.

: >push crate
: In which direction would you like to push the crate?
: 
: >east
: As you approach the walls, you find yourself off-balance.  The closer
: you get to the walls, the worse the disturbance in your inner-ear
: becomes.  You are forced to give up the attempt.

>From  this I assumed incorrectly one cannot push the crate.  Evidently
a case of being bitten by assumed parser disambiguation. I know. I
know. Whenever pushing a free standing object, always supply a
direction. I got bitten by this playing Change in the Weather.


I also discovered a triggering problem with the coloured
crystals. Being the greedy adventurer that I am I thought the object
was to collect the crystals, the red one being first filched. Later I
discovered they fit together. I placed the whole rainbow assembly on
the pedestal and what happens? Nothing.  I had to remove the top
violet one and replace it to trigger the end of this Fit.



My problem with the 4th Fits was that they seemed totally unrelated to
the rest of the game.  It is like a building extension constructed as
an afterthought just to house cool stuff -- in this case a bunch of
unrelated puzzles with clever gimmicks and with no direct relation to
the underlying plot.  One could have made LYG a story in four Fits and
not miss anything storywise.  In contrast to the previous Fits, Fit 4
seemed to be an excerpt from the days of Zork.  Am I missing something
here?

This was all very discouraging to me. I was prepared to give up at
this point and not bother writing this article.  I dived into the hint
book quite frequently here.  Maybe I need to rack up some experience
points playing more contemporary IF.


* Fit 5

Thank goodness for UNDO.

Seeing the PC's dog mature and age through the Fits did suggest its
eventual demise. Nevertheless I felt sorry for the NPC.

I'm left with many loose ends. Perhaps this is part of the game design
-- many points of reference open to reinterpretation, to ponder long
after completion.

I'm not one for commenting on prose, but the passages worked for
me. The writing style did not distract. My interest was stimulated
enough to attempt the alternative Fits. Overall however the whole game
seems like one long dream state. You wake up in the end with a
fragmented recollection of the adventure and no satisfactory
conclusion tying it all together.




From abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com Fri Feb 11 11:06:41 CET 2000
Article: 49600 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "J Walrus" <abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: What is best Zork game?
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 09:48:31 -0000
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Matthew Murray <mmurray@cc.wwu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SOL.4.05.10002090819480.6557-100000@titan.cc.wwu.edu...

> And, for the record, while there were a number of similarities
> between Softporn Adventure and Leisure Suit Larry, they weren't
exactly
> the same game.

The following comes from an interview with Al Lowe, creator of Leisure
Suit Larry:

# 'Larry 1 was based on a text-only game called _Softporn_ that Sierra
# published in the Paleolithic period of home computers (1980). Sierra
wanted
# an updated, fully graphical version of that design. When I examined it
# carefully, I realised I just couldn't do it. There was no protogonist
at
# all! It took its mission seriously: your goal was really to "score
three
# chicks." It was so out of touch, I said there was only one thing I
could do:
# parody it. Mock it. Laugh at it. So  created a hero so out of it, he
thought
# leisure suits were still hip.

Make of that what you will.


JW




From dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu Mon Feb 14 09:54:13 CET 2000
Article: 49690 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: What is best Zork game?
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 22:54:52 -0600
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On Sun, 13 Feb 2000, Mike Sousa wrote:

> > On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Sarah E. Bergstrom wrote:

Actually, that was me.

> > All of the text Zork games have their flaws, but they're all worth trying;
> > IMO, Zork III is the best, though Zork Zero is certainly flashier and
> > glitzier.
> 
> Interesting.  Of Zork 1-3, I disliked III the most.  I thought Zork II was head
> and shoulders above I & III.  Zork Zero was classic, though by introducing
> graphics, I automatically gave it two strikes before I even started it.
(I got
> over it when I finished it -- very well done.)

Should I open up the can of worms? Oh, why not.

Zork III certainly doesn't work in the same way as I and II--i.e.,
eclectic and goofy treasure hunt--and if you're expecting more of the
same, it's bound to be a disappointment. But I'd say that's why it _does_
work so well--it plays with your expectations, forces you to grow out of
the treasure-gatherer mode. For instance...

[spoilers]
















...the jewel room puzzle: wow, a whole bunch of treasures! Except you
can't take them--at least, you can only take one of them, and it's for a
specific reason unrelated to its intrinsic worth. Similarly, the top of
the cliff--forget this stupid staff, I want that treasure! No--you need
the staff, which has absolutely no use in itself, because it's integral to
the new role you're going to assume. There was nothing even vaguely
related to this role-orientation in the first two. The ending delivers the
final twist--you finally reach the treasure you've presumably been looking
for, but it's not for you, really, and you're charged with guarding it
rather than, I dunno, spending it on riotous living. Fantasy meets
reality. 

Encountering the hooded figure is subversive on a different level--you
have an adversary who attacks you, and yet your goal is to see who's under
that hood, rather than to kill him. It matters, now, whom you're fighting,
and solving the puzzles requires a recognition that helping an adversary
is sometimes better than disposing of him. Discretion is the better part
of valor, etc. Again, 180 degrees from the mindset of the first two.

The setting is part of it too--it actually feels like a setting, not just
a random collection of rooms that houses a bunch of puzzles. That was
certainly the effect of the Zork I layout, and to some extent Zork II as
well--when you can go from a volcano to a topiary to a bank in the space
of a few moves, it doesn't set as vivid a scene as it might. In Zork III,
most of the locations feel like they're part of the same place--the Land
of Shadow, the Barren Area, the beach, the lake, all have the
deserted-heath feel to them, with the sunshine at the cliff for contrast.
(Admittedly, it's a bit strange to have a lake so close to the ocean, but
still, the scene fits together pretty well.)

So, no, it wasn't quite so much fun as the first two--but it was
marvelously subversive in some rather subtle ways. If you consider that
your character hasn't had any sort of goal up to now, the way you sort of
acquire a goal in Zork III is rather interesting--"seek me when you feel
yourself worthy," the DM says, but "worthiness" isn't exactly typical
adventurer worthiness since the objects that allow you to meet the DM are
obtained by some rather uncharacteristic behavior.

Sure, it ain't flawless. In particular, it's pretty player-unfriendly at
some key points, such as the earthquake closing off the passage, and the
randomized chance of picking up the amulet. But player-friendliness was
largely a thing of the future in 1983, so let's not be too harsh. (Plus,
the mirror box is far and away the best puzzle of the whole trilogy.)

Zork Zero--well, my main objection was that it felt aimless. With earlier,
smaller games, it didn't matter so much that there was no story and the
only purpose was picking up loot, but with a game as long as Zork Zero,
having no plot just made the thing drag. Meretzky's a funny guy, but even
funny gets tiresome after 2000 moves.

Plus, he stole quite a few of the puzzles from the canon, and I can only
be so impressed with a game that does that.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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





From erkyrath@eblong.com Mon Feb 14 22:47:19 CET 2000
Article: 49685 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: What's the "Lunatix Factor?"
Date: 14 Feb 2000 03:39:41 GMT
Organization: MindSpring Enterprises
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Neil K. <fake-mail@anti-spam.address> wrote:
>  Dan Schmidt <dfan@thecia.net> wrote:
> 
>> Of course, Hunter, in Darkness finished 8th in the comp, and it won
>> two awards, so maybe there was really a 'Hunter factor' :)
> 
>  Or, indeed, a David Ahl Jr / Zarf factor. I don't mean that to sound
> snarky - just that I can easily see people skipping over a game if it
> doesn't look immediately interesting or whatever, and it's written by
> nobody they've heard of. Then, when the competition is over more people
> might say - oh hey, so Zarf wrote that game. Huh. Maybe I'll check it out
> again...

I wish I could say that wasn't a factor -- in fact, I wish I had some clue
whether it was or wasn't a factor. But I don't. 

However, note that in the comp reviews -- mostly written before I came out
of the pseudonym -- people *were* commenting on the setting. I recall
several people who were impressed by the cave environment, even though
they disliked the game as a whole. So I think that award would have gone
to _Hunter_ no matter who wrote it.

Now, the "best puzzle" award, er, puzzles me. I mean, the basic idea of
the puzzle is pretty trivial. (I'll avoid spoilers, but if you've played
it you know what I mean.) And many -- most -- of the people who downrated
_Hunter_ in the competition, did so *because* of the maze. 

Plus, I did release an updated version of _Hunter_ after the comp (but
still in 1999). And the most important change was an added comment about
the maze. (Saying, essentially, that mapping it is pointless and don't
bother.)

So either (a) those people changed their minds because they found out it
was me, or (b) those people changed their minds because of my added
comment, or (c) those people changed their minds for some other reason, or
(d) those people split their votes for "best puzzle", or (x) there just is
no correlation between the opinions in the IFComp reviews and the XYZZY
votes, and I'm spinning theories out of air.

I have no idea.

(But I'm still happy to have won. Thanx, folx!)

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu Mon Feb 14 22:47:40 CET 2000
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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: What's the "Lunatix Factor?"
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 22:10:05 -0600
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, US
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On 14 Feb 2000, Andrew Plotkin wrote:

> Now, the "best puzzle" award, er, puzzles me. I mean, the basic idea of
> the puzzle is pretty trivial. (I'll avoid spoilers, but if you've played
> it you know what I mean.) And many -- most -- of the people who downrated
> _Hunter_ in the competition, did so *because* of the maze. 

With all due respect, I was surprised by this too--IMO, it's not even the
best puzzle in the game. (The last puzzle is terrific, I think.)

My best guess is that people were impressed by the technical aspect of it
(you know what I mean), and somehow translated being impressed by the
technical aspect into calling it a good puzzle, which I don't think
necessarily follows.

Also, three of the five nominees were noncomp -games that may not have
been all that widely played, so that might have influenced things--I think
the flood puzzle from For a Change was a perfectly good puzzle, but
perhaps others didn't agree. Anyway, the point is that a large part of the
voting population might have been choosing from two, rather than five, and
if the "ooh-Zarf" factor means anything, some might have been choosing
>from  one.

Anyway: congrats to Zarf and to all the other winners--I thought the
distribution seemed pretty fair.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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




From dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu Mon Feb 14 22:49:09 CET 2000
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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: What's the "Lunatix Factor?"
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 12:10:41 -0600
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> I guess when I logged onto the MUD to check the results (can't believe it
> slipped my mind) and saw that somebody had predicted a game with the
> stipulation "unless the Lunatix factor kicks in, then all bets are off" I
> was confused because it *did* seem derogatory. A few moments ago I checked
> out the poll results and noticed somebody said "Yay, not <game-name>" upon
> hearing one of the winners (according to David's comments). Does "game-name"
> = Lunatix? That's fine, and that's a fair opinion. :) For better or worse,
> good or bad, you can't account for taste and there are no wrong answers when
> it comes to what's enjoyable. :)

Well, as the person who wrote the "Lunatix factor" line, I should say that
that was not meant to be derogatory as such. My point was that the Lunatix
noms were out of step with the general current of r*if opinion--i.e., the
people who voted for Lunatix sufficiently to give it four nominations
weren't posting to r*if, as Dan said. So if those people had been numerous
enough that Lunatix had gotten awards, IMO, all bets would be off for the
other categories as well, because who knows who those people would vote?
If they're out of step with the prevailing opinion on Lunatix, they could
likewise think differently about other games as well.

As for "Yay not Lunatix" (I wasn't there, but I just looked at the
transcript), I agree with David that it's not really appropriate. We all
have favorites, and we're all entitled to hope that certain games
win--and, even, that certain games don't. I know I do. But it's not really
necessary to say so out loud.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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







From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Feb 15 09:54:06 CET 2000
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [announce] shrapnel
Date: 14 Feb 2000 18:02:26 GMT
Organization: MindSpring Enterprises
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David Brain <david@atlan.cix.co.uk> wrote:
> There's a fine line between genius and insanity, and I still have no idea which side 
> Adam is on...

I'm voting "genius" for the moment. If he snaps and starts barbecueing the
neighbors, of course, we'll have to pencil in some corrections.

I like Shrapnel. My quibble with it is...

(SPOILER space)















It felt like it could have been more interactive. I contrast this with
Photopia in *two* says. Photopia felt (on my first run-through) like it
*was* sufficiently interactive, but its structure turned out to require
the very rigid structure it actually had. Win-win.

Shrapnel felt, in the last half, like I was being led around by the hand;
and I don't think the structure required this. The *events* are of course
all set up in advance, but the storyline -- the player
witnessing/discovering these things -- could have been more involving.
"Walk through door, stumble across next plot element" is fine once, fine
twice, but becomes mechanical when used over and over.

This is not a major flaw. The game works well, but I think it could have
been stronger in that respect.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Feb 15 18:02:38 CET 2000
Article: 49755 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [announce] shrapnel (SPOILERS)
Date: 15 Feb 2000 16:41:19 GMT
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Steve Evans <trout@netspace.net.au> wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2000 12:31:22 -0600, Second April
> <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
> 
>>Did anyone catch that it ignored what you type on the restart/restore/quit
>>prompts? At least, if you type "restore," it'll print "restart" and send
>>you back to where you were. Very weird feeling.
> 
> Yes, it totally ignores whatever you type here. The spacebar works as
> well as anything for navigating these pieces of the story. And, yes it
> is unsettling. The appearance of having lost that ultimate control via
> restart/restore/quit that a player usually has over a work of IF is
> kinda scary, and good for producing sweaty palms the first time it
> happens. It's a nice challenge to the player's perceptions, but I
> wouldn't like to see it overused.

It would be ostentatious, I suppose, to point out that I used the same
technique in my 1983 IF debut, _Enchanter II_. 

:-)

(Er, I'm pretty sure. I haven't looked at that thing in years. No, it's
not on the IF archive -- you'd have to search through Apple 2 pirate
archives.)

(I know I also planned to use the keyboard-usurpation trick in _Expelled_,
yet another of my youthful parody escapades. But that one never got
finished. Pity.)

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From tril@host.ott.igs.net Fri Feb 18 10:05:12 CET 2000
Article: 49800 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Suzanne Britton <tril@host.ott.igs.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: All About "Worlds Apart" (and thanks)
Date: 17 Feb 2000 23:24:11 GMT
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Hello everyone,

Firstly, thank you all for the "Best Story" vote. Of the categories for
which my game was nominated, I thought "Best Setting" the most likely--but
few could have made me happier than the award I actually received. Now
seems as good a time as any to post something about what went into "Worlds
Apart" and what I was trying to achieve with it.

This was not my original intention. The original intention was to play my
usual mouse-in-the-corner role and listen quietly, as I expected the game
to garner a good deal more discussion and debate than it has thus far. But,
although I've heard plenty from people who enjoyed it, and seen a few posts
and reviews, I have yet to see a single subject line on the order of "WA:
What the heck does it mean?"  And to my dismay, it appears that a great
number of people--even some who *liked* the game--are coming out of "Worlds
Apart" with a message that is a great deal more straightforward and
two-dimensional than I intended.

Thus, this post. I could wait for WA to get picked by the Book Club, and
hope. Instead, I'm going to try to get the ball rolling myself. Mild story
spoilers (no puzzle spoilers) follow:

"Worlds Apart" was first conceived roughly 5 years ago, although I didn't
begin serious work on it until much later. Its primary conceit was to be
this: that while there would be small bouts of problem-solving, the game
itself would have no tangible goal. Instead, its goal would be one of
self-realization and self-discovery. At the time, the wave of
"experimental" IF had yet to begin, and almost all the games out there were
some variation of "find the magic whatzit" or "kill the evil kunkel". I
wanted to do something rather different.

As time went on, and I tossed the idea around in my head, the new wave
began and I watched incredible works like Tapestry, Delusions, and So Far
go by, each one planting ideas on how I could bring my own opus to
fruition. Shortly after the 1996 IF competition, I started programming. At
the time, "Worlds Apart" was conceived as a single, novel-sized work in two
parts: the first section would have Lyesh coming to terms with herself (and
the player gradually finding their way into her shoes), and in the second,
she would help someone do the same. It wasn't long before I realized that
the only way I could do justice to both halves was to divide them into two
games. Soon after that realization, the project took off, and the bulk of
the work on it was done in marathon writing and programming sessions over
the two years that followed.

Inspired by the richly immersive top games of the '96 competition,
immersion soon became one of my primary goals in "Worlds Apart". By the end
of the experience, I wanted the player to be so engrossed in this alternate
world and so identified with Lyesh, that the line between player and
player-character became blurred. I also wanted there to be so much
*optional* detail in this gameworld that players would only catch a small
fraction of it on their first time through. In fact, it came to be that
much of the optional detail was essential to fully understanding the story,
and I put a disclaimer to this effect in the ABOUT text. WA was not meant
to be played once and understood immediately.

Unfortunately, the replayability of "Worlds Apart" is one of the things
many people (Aris and my beta-testers excluded) seem to have missed. I
laughed aloud to hear one reviewer say (paraphrased) "I know I haven't
found everything, but how much more can there be?" Answer: more than you
can imagine. There's a reason that WA's gamefile is comparable to Avalon in
size, even though its scope is much smaller. WA's size is in *depth*.  You
won't see all of it on your first time through, or even your twelfth time
through. If you've reached the end of the story filled with unanswered
questions, please don't wait for Full Circle to answer them! Play again,
and explore. More than likely, the answers are there to be discovered. Just
to pick out a sampling, all of the following questions have answers which
are either hinted at or blatantly revealed in optional parts of WA:

  * Who or what caused Lyesh's initial nightmare?
  * Who is responsible for Lashiaran sparing Lyesh's life, and what
    connection does this individual have to her?
  * What is the significance of the seal in the plaza?
  * What is the significance of the raptor's wound?
  * Why does Saal have fangs?
  * Can Saal be trusted?
  * Is Lashiaran a Villain(tm) with no redeeming features? (hint: NO!)
  * Why does Lyesh increasingly think of her mother as "Kitara" rather
    than "mother" as the game progresses?
  * Where did the guards in the imager come from?
  * How is Saal connected to the other major NPC's in the game?
  * Who was Lyesh's father? What was he like?
  * Where did Echo come from? Who are her parents?
  * If you've talked to Lia about the dancer: what possible connection
    does this dancer have to the rest of the story?
  * If you've talked to Yuri about his trip to the starship: what connection
    does the Emperor have to the rest of the story? (hint: a big one)
  * Why did Lyesh wake up with a headache? Why is it worse when she wakes
    up in Yuri's room?
  * Who or what is Nepenthe (besides a word I borrowed from Greek :-), and
    what is the dual-meaning of "Nepenthe's Wind"?
  * Who wrote the inscription on the statue?
  * Who is represented by the rose will-o-wisp and the rose light in the
    cave? (hint: not Yuri)
  * Armed with the answer to that question, try this: What does it signify
    that Lyesh was drawn back to her memories of Yuri, twice, by the rose
    light?

This is, as I said, just a smattering. To find the answers, explore,
explore, explore. Talk to people. Ask them about things (not just tangible
things).  Thank them, apologize to them, attack them, sing to them, touch
them, and question them incessantly. If someone asks you a yes/no question,
try answering it (almost every single yes/no question posed in dialogue
gets a new response when it is answered). Check the locket to find hidden
meanings (it's not just a hint device). Of course, not all of these
questions have straightforward answers, and there are other questions whose
answers are entirely up to the reader to decide. Frankly, I'm dying to hear
people debate them!

I never intended "Worlds Apart" to be a pat story with a pat moral. I knew
there was a danger people would take it as such, especially when it
contains such opinionated and outspoken characters as Kitara and Chayle. I
even put a disclaimer in the end text to that point (in retrospect, I wish
I'd put it at the beginning). Kitara is *not* the spokesperson for "Worlds
Apart": in fact, one of the major themes of the story is Lyesh's gradual
separation of her identity and viewpoint from her mother's.

I'm flattered to find that "Worlds Apart" is considered, among at least a
few female fans, to be the first IF "chick flick"--but also concerned. The
male Dyrana in WA are every bit as important as the females. You may have
found that characters like Yuri and Azaera are less forceful, less
outspoken, and less inclined to "buck the system" than the female
ones. This is no coincidence.  It is the consequence of entrenched gender
differences in many of the Dyrana castes, including some rather strong
stereotypes that males (esp. male hasidja) are expected to conform to. It
does *not* mean that the males have less character or are less worth
listening to when they do speak. Kitara and Yuri are equally flawed and
equally worthwhile individuals, IMHO (yes, IMHO. I'm just the author. Part
of the game is deciding for yourself how exactly you feel about the other
characters, and whether you buy what I just said :-).

On the whole, the gender division among Dyrana is vastly different from
ours and has a number of interesting consequences, a fact that I hope
someone other than my staunchest beta-testers managed to pick up. And yes,
it is possible to learn more about this directly, if you spend enough time
chatting with Yuri, Chayle, and/or Saal.

"Chick flick?" Only in so far that "Worlds Apart" is more about internal
struggle than tangible problem-solving. But I've always felt that "Women
are from Venus, Men are From Mars" is a load of hooey, anyway.

Whew. I guess all this is to say, if you came out of "Worlds Apart"
thinking that the moral is "freedom good! slavery bad!" then

  *** You have missed the point entirely. ***

The real story is much more subtle, much more internal, and much more open
to debate than you think.

This brings me to "Full Circle", the sequel to "Worlds Apart", which should
make it a great deal clearer what I'm really trying to say with my writing.
FC, is, in a nutshell, a story about a soul that has been broken by abuse,
and how it gets put back together.

Be forewarned that FC's tone will be quite different, though it has the
same core. WA's tone, setting, and symbolism were all dictated by the main
character--Lyesh--and her culture. While Lyesh remains the player-character
in "Full Circle", she will no longer be the *main* character. The new
setting and focus will dictate a somewhat grittier tone. Nevertheless, I'm
confident that most of those who appreciated WA will find FC equally or
more fulfilling. I regret that many people seem to have been "left hanging"
by the ending of WA (I intended it to be more satisfying than it apparently
was). This will not be the case with FC--in fact, if anything, you'll be
feeling nigh-on emotionally exhausted by the end :-)

At this point, I have no idea whether "Full Circle" will actually happen,
and whether it will be interactive or static. I'll do my best to bring it
to completion in some form. And I'll inform the community whenever there is
a significant leap-forward.

That's all. Thanks for listening.

Suzanne

-- 
tril@igs.net                     \    EEEAGH!  FLYING DEMONIC PUMPKIN HEAD!!!
http://www.igs.net/~tril/         \   When the horror finally ends, you're
"Worlds Apart" Homepage:           \  someplace else.
http://www.igs.net/~tril/worlds/   /               -- Dan Shiovitz, SpeedIF 2


From erkyrath@eblong.com Wed Feb 23 13:23:36 CET 2000
Article: 49938 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: REVIEW: The Legend of Lotus Spring
Date: 23 Feb 2000 07:03:21 GMT
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REVIEW: The Legend of Lotus Spring

(Review copyright 2000, Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>)

Graphics: superb
Atmosphere: superb
Story: quite good; certainly a change
Writing: maybe good to someone, but poor in English
Interface: mediocre
Gameplay: good, if you explore carefully
Difficulty: very easy
Puzzles: almost none, and mostly optional at that
Forgiveness rating: you cannot get stuck or make a mistake

You see the marketing first; you can't avoid it. 

"A favorite among women and teenage girls..." I have a stock reaction to
that line, you know: "...So you don't want me as a customer." But don't
misunderstand; my stock reaction to any marketing is negative. Anyway,
it goes on, "...yet perfect for the romantic in all of us." Whew;
that'll keep the door open for the Quake-fraggers. For a moment you had
me worried.

Yes, I mock. The state of the industry, really, more than this one game.
Even to do something different -- to buck a trend -- is a marketing
angle that has to be hammered for all it's worth. (Unconventionality is
trendy, didja know.)

And the whole Games For Girls trend makes my head spin, it does. I
hardly know who to scream at louder. The CompUSA rack is packed with
more decapitation, disembowlification, incineration, impalation, world
domination, flesh wounds, grief, and hurt than you can comfortably fit
in a month of real history. And this scares people because, no, wait for
it, because *girls don't like that crap*. Girls like, you know, girly
stuff. Quick! Write some for them!

Somewhere between "Spock's Brain" and Victorian England, that's where
we're stuck. Or the segregated South. Only this time the girls are told
to be *proud* of drinking at their consensual, non-violent, pink-painted
water fountains. (Boys, of course, deserve no better than *their*
aggressive, domineering, dinosaur-slobbered and truck-battered
fountains. Which end of the stick would you like, the short end or the
short end?)

I don't know what to do about it. I once wanted to write a game, okay, a
game based on the Doom engine (this was a while ago, when I was young
and merely cynical) where you play a beefed-up, buzz-cut,
bull-shouldered Marine in a saffron robe, charging through a decaying
world of rampaging blood-dripping demons and ghouls, and you're handing
out flowers. You know, individual daffodils, or flung bouquets and MIRV
leis. Rocket-propelled corsages. Long-stemmed red roses. I never decided
whether a flower-bedecked demon should become gooney-eyed and peacable,
or just eat the flowers and then tear your arms off. I'm not sure it
matters.

But marketing is lies (did I warn you about the negative reaction?) so I
leave it here. If _The Legend of Lotus Spring_ is being pushed as
something different, I can certainly judge it on its own merits. I spend
enough time begging for something -- *anything* -- not enslaved to the
twin gods of Focus Group and Market Poll. So, bar the occasional
five-paragraph rant on institutionalized sexism, I will confine my
remarks entirely to the game itself.

The Emperor Xian Feng stands on a boat, drifting towards Yuan Ming Yuan,
the Garden of Perfect Brightness -- an imperial paradise outside
Beijing. Lotus Spring, whom he loved, is no longer there. Xian Feng
doesn't know what happened to her, but walking around the empty garden
will... well, it will hurt *differently*, maybe.

(You know what that's like.)

_Lotus Spring_ is somewhere on the hairy edge between an adventure game
and an interactive movie. If you've been following the text adventure
scene, you know what I mean: _Photopia_ was buried in the same fuzz. And
_Lotus Spring_ will certainly trigger the same arguments that _Photopia_
did. Is it really a game, when you *do* nothing, but merely -- "merely"
-- explore and watch? Is a puzzle a puzzle when it's optional? Is a game
a game when there're no closing credits?

In fact, I simplify. Most of the game is explore-and-watch, yes. But I
don't mean that it's non-interactive. Exploring means opening boxes,
searching cabinets, writing with brushes, lighting candles, making
music. You simply don't see this level of background detail in other
graphical adventure games. _Lotus Spring_ is *all* stuff to play with. 

(Again, as a text adventure fan, I can be blase. *I* write games that
way. I know lots of people who do. But to see it in a graphical game is
a heady mix of "Aha!" and "Well, *finally*.")

As you play, memories of your time with Lotus Spring are evoked. Each of
the eighteen locations around the garden has one major scene to find,
recall, or discover. Once you find it, the corresponding page in your
diary is filled in -- an ongoing prose narrative of your progress, with
more detail than can be conveyed visually. 

But, of course, the eighteen diary scenes are not the sole goal. Each
location has many details to explore; the diary page itself often leads
you to more of them, once you are able to read it. And the game is in
the details. If you charge straight to the final diary scene -- even if
you view *every* diary scene, and read the entire narrative -- you won't
have the whole story. This is subtly handled; I'm impressed.

To complicate matters further, there *are* puzzles, after all. (To shunt
the argument -- by "puzzle", I here mean any action beyond "examine
everything".) But only a few puzzles; and most of them are optional.
Only one, if I recall correctly, lies in the way of you seeing every
diary scene. (An odd choice. The only thing more confusing than too many
puzzles in a game is a single puzzle; it catches players off-guard.)

Similarly, you can find six objects which can be carried around. A few
more can be taken, but only used within a single room. One of the six
objects is needed to get to the latter part of the game; the rest are
(again, the quotes) "merely" for discovering more of the story. 

The pacing, therefore, worries me. Not on my own account! My experience
of the game was very smooth. But... I'm an orderly sort of geek. I was
*careful* to do everything in order -- explore each room thoroughly
before going on to the next. I was even careful to explore them in order
of their corresponding diary pages. If I accidentally ventured ahead of
myself, I backed up. And so I saw the whole story, just about, and I saw
it in order; and the eighteenth diary scene ended the game for me. Which
was satisfying. 

But if I had wandered around more randomly... I don't know. I don't
think the flow of story could survive very much rearrangement. The
eighteenth scene, for example, is very easy to stumble on before the
seventeenth. That could be awfully anticlimactic; or it might lead
players to simply stop. (The final scene sure *feels* climactic, even
though -- as in _Myst_ -- the gameplay continues with no "The End".)

I missed two of those six objects, for another example. One was early in
the game, and I simply didn't notice it was takeable; even if I had, I
might not have played with it long enough to take it. (A puzzle was
involved, sort of.) Much later, I needed that object to get another, and
I needed *that* object to see a crucial scene... I think. In fact,
another object worked as a substitute. I don't know whether that's a
bug, or a deliberate alternate solution. In any case, I saw the crucial
event, but I missed two or three others in the intervening sequence. 

And, upon watching the "ending", I was not motivated to go back and find
them. (Or the two objects.) I had most of the puzzle -- and I worry that
other people, left with an even more tattered picture, will shrug and
put the game away. It's a lot of dull searching over well-known
territory for those last pieces, after all; and there's no promise of
bigger revelations to motivate one. Maybe you don't think that way, but
I like a strong finish. 

Bluntly -- after the final scene, I sat back, smiled, shut down the
game, and started trawling the CD for video files. I found those two
objects, but for me, the story was already over.

Whew. I'm already at 1300 words, and I had this whole list of issues to
discuss...

The story. It's a Chinese story. Have you ever read a fairy tale from a
foreign culture? (No, Western Europe and America aren't foreign to each
other.) Whoever said stories are universal lives in too small a
universe. Stories from other places can be *jarring* -- sometimes you
just don't have the background knowledge to tell what's going on. I had
that problem, to an extent, in _Lotus Spring_. A guy mooning after a
girl -- okay, I understand that. But what does the Dowager Empress have
to do with it? What laws are being broken? Can't the Emperor do whatever
the heck he wants? 

Even little details -- coloring the eye of an unfinished painting --
lose their resonance if you don't know the underlying story. (A painter
was so talented that he had to leave the eyes blank, for fear that a
flawless painting would come to life on him.) And this game has, as I
said, lots of details.

(You can get a lot of that background knowledge from the object catalogs
in the game. Hit "I", and you get a list of nearby objects, with notes
about the stories, history, and legends of each. Footnotes, in other
words. But I've never liked the footnotes approach either; they turn an
exploration into a lecture, and wreck whatever sense of immersion I have
in a game. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't find out about this
command at all until a few minutes ago. It's not visible in the game
interface. (Commands you can only find out about in the manual. Sigh.)
Would I have enjoyed the game more if I'd known? Probably not; but
that's just me. Decide for yourself.)

The genius of Barry Hughart (you knew I was going to come round to him
eventually) is that he told Chinese fairy tales straight up, from the
native point of view, but with enough commentary that we barbarians
understood the point. And not in footnotes, either. He compromised
neither the story nor the flavor. _Lotus Spring_ doesn't really manage
to pull that off. The story is there, but the flavor is muddied in
translation. In fact, the prose is clumsy enough that I'm sure it *was*
translated from a Chinese original; and not well. Damn.

The art... did I mention the art? It's pretty good. --That's a joke,
folks. The art is stunning. Yuan Ming Yuan is a *gorgeous* place. It's
not -- quite -- photorealistic; the models are just a bit stylized. I'd
even say "simplistic", but that sounds like a criticism. It's not.
Objects in _Riven_ looked more real, but _Lotus Spring_ has far more in
each room. Everything is *crowded*. Okay, nothing is dirty or worn --
but it's an Emperor's pleasure garden, so what can you expect? Emperors
get perfection. And details. I think I mentioned the details.

(I stopped, once, and looked at the screen, and said "I *want* one."
This has happened before. But usually it's a miracle, or an
impossibility, like the crawling-water retort in _Riven_. Here, I
wanted... a carved window screen. I could make it out of plaster. Maybe
I will.)

The characters, too, are both somewhat simple and truly amazing. Not in
their appearance, which is no better than most digital actors you've
seen. It's the movement. I don't *think* they were motion-captured; they
didn't have that... grit to them. Rather -- recall the very best kind of
puppetry. Body language, unconscious grace, studied and recreated by
*conscious* design. A rare art in games, since motion capture and
straight-out video came in the door. I wish it were done more often.

The game takes place over the course of the day. You encounter clocks (a
nice touch), and later changes in the weather, and sunset, and night.
Not that this hasn't been done in text games, of course (ahem), but
again, I'm glad to see it rendered visually. And yes, the sunset looked
great. *Someone* knows what light is for. 

(It would be quibbling to point out that since each scene is rendered
just once, and you can backtrack, you can make time run backwards by
running around the lake. One day we'll have the storage or rendering
capacity...)

I should mention the music as well. I quite liked it, although the sound
loops are only about fifteen or twenty seconds long, which means that
after you've been in a room for a while, you've had enough of that
particular tune. 

...Except one. The composer, just once, pulled off some
circle-of-modulation magic. It was eerie; I listened to the same
twenty-second bar at least a dozen times, thinking "Wow! Every bar is
different now!" It took me that long to twig. I *knew* it wasn't
repeating, because every phrase was *higher* than the one before... Yes,
I know the theory of the endlessly-rising chords. But nobody's ever
slipped it to me so successfully, in a real piece of music. Yow. (I
wonder why it was only *one* track. I certainly spent enough time in
other rooms, thinking "Okay, I'm tired of this tune now.")

The interface was, unfortunately, smattered with small flaws. The hidden
commands I mentioned. ("I" for object catalog; "M" for map. I found the
inventory and save-game dialogs myself; I was *looking* for those...)
Some animations can be interrupted, but others can't. Navigation
hotspots are too often placed in standard locations (top / bottom / left
/ right sides), rather than matching up to visible scenery. Navigation
is awkward in many places; you frequently have to maneuver around a desk
before you can play with its contents, and I felt like I was steering an
aircraft carrier. And the diary hotspots were pretty obscure too. Not a
huge deal, but a player unfamiliar with graphical adventures might have
trouble -- and _Lotus Spring_ is aiming at new markets. More care
wouldn't have hurt. 

Your cursor, by the way, is no mere arrow. You get a tiny fat-faced
china doll, who not only signals hotspots, but climbs into the scene to
manipulate objects for you. The loco-in-actor is a coy nod to the IF
separation between player and protagonist; and, I suppose, the
separation between Emperor and mundane world. Not a lot is done with the
conceit, but it's distinctive; I approve.

Speaking of sunset and night, it's getting late here.

My conclusion, wishy-washy though it be: _The Legend of Lotus Spring_
took me only about four hours. It's small. It's beautiful, but I don't
normally recommend a game solely for the artwork. The prose is awkward.
Nonetheless... I enjoyed it a great deal. It scratched long-untended
itches in the graphical adventure realm: a rich, engaging setting, which
is presented as itself and not as frosting between car chases or puzzle
machines. The story is, in the end, a tidy little fairy tale. 

You won't find what you're used to. You may not find what you're looking
for. No alien menaces, no world-threatening discoveries, no titanic
battles. It's engaging, but mostly through mass of detail, not
obstacles. If this game is what you want, it'll be exactly what you
want.

I realize that doesn't tell you a damn thing. Even worse, it sounds like
marketing copy. Er, sorry.

I'll tell you one thing, though. If it turns out that only girls like
this game, I'm gonna go back to my bat-cave and cry.

Availability: Dreamcatcher's on-line store. It's a hybrid CD,
Mac/Windows. Like most of Dreamcatcher's games, it's twenty bucks. Maybe
that'll help make up your mind.

System requirements: MacOS 7.5 or later; 90 MHz PPC; 16 megs RAM; 10
megs hard drive space; 8x CD-ROM; 16-bit color ("thousands").
(Windows-side, make that Pentium 166 and 32 megs RAM.) They mean it
about the CD-ROM, by the way. I tried the game on my 120MHz machine with
the elderly 2x CD drive, and the video was just hopelessly skippy.
Gorgeous stuff, but they didn't skimp on the bandwidth.

Macintoshness: On-and-off. They do use standard load-save dialogs, and
they don't mess with your monitor settings. On the down side, no menu
bar (would have solved that hidden-command problem, yes?) And the folder
icon on the CD doesn't look like a folder. You think I'm nitpicking? The
install instructions say "Copy the Lotus Spring folder to your hard
drive," and I really was baffled for a second because I thought the
flower icon was an application, not a folder. (The application icon
inside is an identical flower.) There's a reason for UI conventions,
people, and it's not because UI designers are swaggering tin-plated
dictators with delusions of godhood.

(This review, and my reviews of other adventure games, are at
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/gamerev/index.html)

--Z


"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From stupid_q@my-deja.com Wed Feb 23 13:25:26 CET 2000
Article: 49939 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Quentin.D.Thompson <stupid_q@my-deja.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [REVIEW of sorts..] Shrapnel
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 09:37:24 GMT
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 [WARNING: The views expressed in this post are probably going to remain in a
single digit minority, but that doesn't bother me too much.]

Imagine you're standing outside a house with a door, and using that as an
image to describe all of Adam Cadre's games. In I-0, opening that door was a
puzzle, but there were 69,105 different ways of doing it, and besides it was
always fun. In Photopia, even if you sucked at solving puzzles, you'd get the
darned door open somehow. In 9:05, you're allowed to open the door, only to
find that you've just _left_ the house, and not entered it. In Varicella,
you'll probably die the first 100 times you try opening that door, but that
doesn't prevent you from finding it absolutely brilliant.

In Shrapnel, on the other hand, that darned door is stuck, and you just can't
open it - you have to wait for the author to open it for you, _his_ way.
Don't ask me why, but I found that annoying. I'm not complaining about the
low puzzle coefficient (my views on Photopia and other puzzleless games are
on record, anyway) but the fact that it didn't feel like playing a game - it
felt like watching the author playing with every trick of phrase, of
technique, of programming in his old kit bag, while I sat on and said: "Oh,
wow, that's so clever. I think I'll go back to writing side-scrollers." :)
Shrapnel suffers from much the same faults as the sleep sequence in _A Moment
Of Hope_ - when you "die", and get a "RESTART, RESTORE or QUIT?" prompt, you
can't type anything except RESTART. Period. Even if I press
B,I,T,E,space,M,E,!, what appears on the screen is RESTART, and the game goes
on until the bitter end. Heck, that kind of attitude didn't win Moment (or
_In The End_) too many friends in the first place.

The story is similarly confused: it's a Zork parody, it's a Civil War
Southern Gothic-type thing, it's a comment on abuse, it's intriguingly
under-developed science fiction - it often seemed to me like a bad Kurt
Vonnegut piece, though I must take back my initial impressions, as Adam's own
essay on Shrapnel never mentions his name once (Oddly enough, I had similar
feelings about _Photopia_, though not in a negative sense.) But then, if
Vonnegut had been writing this, he would've elicited a wry smile from me: all
this game did was make me scratch my head and say "What the hell was the
point of all that"? Of course, after reading the MAKING OF essay, it makes a
bit more sense - but I've played plenty of complex games (Losing Your Grip
for example) that I could grasp without a MAKING OF essay. This is the
author's second game involving child abuse, and the second involving trauma
to a young girl of 13-14: obviously these issues mean a lot to the author,
and I'm not questioning his sincerity one bit it just gives me an
uncomfortable sense of deja vu.

On the other hand, the rot13 message at the end of the game earns this one
extra points: at least I didn't get the whole darned thing wrong. Shrapnel's
not a bad game by any means - it's just intensely annoying, a dark piece of
IF with no obvious point. ("Darkness" for its own sake is like puzzles for
their own sake, or mazes for their own sake, or linearity for its own sake -
it doesn't suffice to make a game.) No offence intended to anyone, but I've
really learnt to appreciate games like NJAG and Inheritance after finishing
this one.


My score for Shrapnel: 6 out of 10.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From mol@bartlet.df.lth.se Fri Mar  3 15:55:15 CET 2000
Article: 50152 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: mol@bartlet.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Latin words (was: Lunatix on AOL)
Date: 2 Mar 2000 23:04:04 +0100
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In article <89mnts$2ed$1@bartlet.df.lth.se>,
Magnus Olsson <mol@bartlet.df.lth.se> wrote:
>By the way, has anybody got a copy of the delightful poem
>(from Cambridge, IIRC) poem which starts
>
>"What is that which roareth thus?/Could it be a motor bus?"
>
>and goes on to inflect "motor bus" as a Latin nominal phrase?

OK, I found it:

 What is this that roareth thus?
 Can it be a Motor Bus?
 Yes, the smell and hideous hum 
 Indicat Motorem Bum!           
 Implet in the Corn and High
 Terror me Motoris Bi:
 Bo Motori clamitabo
 Ne Motore caeder a Bo --
 Dative be or Ablative
 So thou only let us live:
 Whither shall thy victims flee
 Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
 Thus I sang: and still anigh
 Came in hordes Motores Bi,
 Et complebat omne forum
 Copia Motorum Borum.
 How shall wretches live like us
 Cincti Bis Motoribus?
 Domine, defende nos
 Contra hos Motores Bos!
                             A.D. Godley


...and my source indiciates that it's from Oxford, not Cambridge.

-- 
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se, zebulon@pobox.com)
------    http://www.pobox.com/~zebulon   ------


From reply@adamcadre.ac Tue Mar 14 10:10:23 CET 2000
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From: Adam Cadre <ac@adamcadre.ac>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Pauses (was Shrapnel)
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 16:46:28 -0800
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[spoilers for Hunter, in Darkness follow]





Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> People's reading speed varies too much. I've been known to kill a
> program halfway through a two-second cosmetic delay, because I had
> gotten bored with it. [...] Shrapnel allowed you to hit a key to
> continue, right?

Well, not just "allowed" -- that was how text flow was resumed.  It
wasn't a timed delay.  (Or wasn't meant to be, at any rate.  Does
Inform have a default number of seconds after which text flow resumes
if no key is pressed?)

My thinking in my decision to use pauses was influenced by the fact
that I read a lot of comics.  A comic book is split into pages, and
each page split up into panels -- but though the panels are read one
at a time, an awareness of every panel on a given page (or, rather,
every two-page spread) seeps into the reader's consciousness the
moment it's visible.  So if you want your surprises to really be
surprising, you can't put the set-up on panel two and the actual
surprise on panel three of the same page.  You need to set it up such
that the set-up is on the last panel of a given page and that a page
turn is necessary to see the surprise on the following page.

The same is true for IF.  After each new chunk of text appears, a
player is aware of some aspects of what has happened even without
reading it: have I died (or won)?  Have I been transported to a new
room?  Has enough suddenly happened to require a full paragraph or
more?  Has something different happened from the last time I tried
this?

Your own Hunter, in Darkness uses pauses -- when you enter the leftmost
cavern, you don't *know* what happens after "the floor drops away to
nothing beneath you" until you press a key.  Are you okay?  Do you
fall into a new room?  Do you die?  With the pause, the outcome is
truly surprising, just as if it had occurred after a page turn in a
comic; without it, not so much.

Contrast this with the Tight Crawl.  You're crawling forward...

| >G
| You brace your legs as best you can, and shove futilely against the
| trap.
|
| >G
| You brace your legs as best you can, and shove futilely against the
| trap.
|
| You are never going to leave this place.

It seems pretty clear to me that the purpose of repeating the previous
message verbatim is to make it seem as if you've reached a default
message -- that no matter how many times you try to go forward from
here, you'll get the same response.  Only it doesn't work!  Even
before we read the second line, we know we've received a new message,
because two lines appeared on the screen instead of one.  This is, of
course, a clue -- knowing that the response was indeed different, and
just pretending to be the same, I knew to press forward yet again.
But what a difference a pause could have made!  If I had had to press
a key before the second line had come up, it would have looked like a
real default response instead of a fake one, a true dead end instead
of a transparent illusion of one.  And with that feeling sinking in
as I read the line and pressed the space bar, how much more dramatic
would the follow-up line have been?

This specific moment was, in fact, what prompted me to go whole hog
on the pauses in Shrapnel.  The squandered drama was an object lesson
in how effective a pause can be.

Er, no offense.

  -----
 Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
 http://adamcadre.ac


From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Mar 14 10:14:13 CET 2000
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Pauses (was Shrapnel)
Date: 14 Mar 2000 05:39:57 GMT
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Adam Cadre <ac@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
> [spoilers for Hunter, in Darkness follow]
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
> 
> My thinking in my decision to use pauses was influenced by the fact
> that I read a lot of comics.  A comic book is split into pages, and
> each page split up into panels -- but though the panels are read one
> at a time, an awareness of every panel on a given page (or, rather,
> every two-page spread) seeps into the reader's consciousness the
> moment it's visible.  So if you want your surprises to really be
> surprising, you can't put the set-up on panel two and the actual
> surprise on panel three of the same page.  You need to set it up such
> that the set-up is on the last panel of a given page and that a page
> turn is necessary to see the surprise on the following page.

Sure. Pacing. There are paragraph, section, and chapter breaks in books
for the same reason. Even on the sentence level -- I have a tendency to
structure my prose so that the critical word of a sentence is *last*.

(I overdo it, I'm sure.)

> Your own Hunter, in Darkness uses pauses -- when you enter the leftmost
> cavern, you don't *know* what happens after "the floor drops away to
> nothing beneath you" until you press a key.  Are you okay?  Do you
> fall into a new room?  Do you die?  With the pause, the outcome is
> truly surprising, just as if it had occurred after a page turn in a
> comic; without it, not so much.

Absolutely. Although also -- maybe more -- I think of such breaks as
representing a hiatus in the *character's* consciousness. Not necessarily
a period of *un*consciousness, but at least a moment where thought is
broken and has to get underway again, from a standing start.

> Contrast this with the Tight Crawl.  You're crawling forward...
> 
> | >G
> | You brace your legs as best you can, and shove futilely against the
> | trap.
> |
> | >G
> | You brace your legs as best you can, and shove futilely against the
> | trap.
> |
> | You are never going to leave this place.
> 
> It seems pretty clear to me that the purpose of repeating the previous
> message verbatim is to make it seem as if you've reached a default
> message -- that no matter how many times you try to go forward from
> here, you'll get the same response.  Only it doesn't work!  Even
> before we read the second line, we know we've received a new message,
> because two lines appeared on the screen instead of one.  This is, of
> course, a clue -- knowing that the response was indeed different, and
> just pretending to be the same, I knew to press forward yet again.

That whole section was a balancing act, of course. What I *really* wanted
-- well, I *really* wanted the player to back up and then shift forward
again. Failing that (and most people did), I wanted the player to type
"forward" *without having any hope that it would work*.

You can imagine all the different ways I could have structured this. I
chose that particular one as a mildly superior option of several, not
because it was *the* correct way. 

In fact, I hoped that "You are never going to leave this place" would
appear as a *daemon* message, rather than part of the command response. (I
had already had lots of timed daemon messages on the subject of weariness,
pain, losing blood, and so on.) Not a perfect imposture, particularly the
second time you play the sequence, but as good as I could think of.

> But what a difference a pause could have made!  If I had had to press
> a key before the second line had come up, it would have looked like a
> real default response instead of a fake one, a true dead end instead
> of a transparent illusion of one. 

Surely the blinking cursor, with no command prompt, is as much a clue as
extra output? The previous pauses in the game *signalled* something
entirely new about to happen. They produce heightened tension, not a sense
of futility. 

(Unless I put a pause after *every* motion in that crawl. Which would get
mechanical.)

One could *use* the standard command prompt, but interrupt it the first
time a key is hit. But that is itself a new effect, and I think the effect
is jarring expectations. (A variant of what you did with auto-typing
"RESTART".) I would use something like that to convey the player being
startled out of his skivvies; not giving up.

> And with that feeling sinking in
> as I read the line and pressed the space bar, how much more dramatic
> would the follow-up line have been?
> 
> This specific moment was, in fact, what prompted me to go whole hog
> on the pauses in Shrapnel.  The squandered drama was an object lesson
> in how effective a pause can be.

Okay, I'll tell you how I would get the effect you want. I'd create a
second window (or use the status line), and pop timed messages in there
*independently* of the player's commands. Perhaps a comment on the
protagonist's feelings -- a thought-in-the-back-of-the-head -- which
changes every minute, or every thirty seconds, or some such interval.
Faster in tense situations.

Okay? Now I can throw in all *sorts* of commentary, while hiding the fact
the link to what the player typed. He types "forward"; five seconds
player, the status line flashes "You are never going to leave this place."
(Or, depending on style, "I am never going to leave this place.") But
*something* was going to flash up there anyhow.

I know I should write this game rather than telling you about it, but
hell, ideas are cheap. I declare this one public domain.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From robb_sherwin@juno.com Tue Mar 14 10:15:09 CET 2000
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From: Robb Sherwin <robb_sherwin@juno.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Wow, I'm a genius (Shrapnel)
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 00:56:15 GMT
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In article <8ajob0$kdf$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>,
Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
>> John Hill <johnhill@onefuse.net> wrote:
>> There are lots of games I haven't played. Is the pause device
>>relatively new, or has it been around for a while?
> It's been sprinkled in games from the beginning.
> Mostly in the category of "a mistake everyone makes once"... :)
>(I'll put up with unavoidable hardware delays, of course. Text
> games have no such excuse.)


Heh... when I first started playing Zork I it was on a PCjr from a
floppy drive. I should mention at this point that I had never played
anything like it before and it creeped the living hell out of me. The
game would pull info off the 5.25" floppy drive but -- and this is the
thing -- it would sometimes do so after it had already displayed all
the text for a new room and was awaiting my command.

So I'd, for instance, be playing in the middle of the night in complete
darkness, finally get into Hades, be reading the description, get
almost to the end of it and suddenly -- BAM! -- the game would access
the incredibly noisy and obnoxious PCjr floppy drive. The drive's LED
would light like the devil's lone eyeball looking back at you.

Unfortunately, with 3.5" drives, drives with green (?!?) lights, hard
disks and (slightly) faster floppy access time such an effect is
unknown to the modern generation of video game player.


--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.


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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Action Games
Date: 14 Mar 2000 05:58:08 GMT
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IF <mordacai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 
> Michael Straight wrote:
>> 
>> Zarf's review of a playstation 3-D shooter has made me curious about what
>> else y'all are playing when you're not playing IF.  Are there any other
>> action games or RPGs that meet the high standards of IF players the way
>> Ultima Underworld and System Shock once did?
> 
> 	The Final Fantasy series, FF VIII in particular.  The single reason I
> own a Playstation.  I'm aware that not everyone agrees with me, but for
> me these games beautifully meld engaging story telling and stunning
> imagery.  Highly recommended.

I played a couple hours each of FF 5 and 6. Those are ports from the
original Nintendo, so the graphics are of course crap; but what really
turned me off was the pacing. You take three or five steps and bam, no
warning, you have to fight a battle. *And* it's a battle with a beautiful
(for the time) fade-in, beautiful animated attacks, and a beautiful
fade-out. In whch the characters dance.

Bored me shitless. 

(You recall my earlier comment about a two-second pause being too long.)

Then I played about twenty minutes of FF8. The imagery was stunning. The
storyline was, well, clearly the barest beginning of an immensely
complicated plot. And I entered the training garden, took three steps,
no warning, bam, beautiful battle fade-in...

There's no way I could stand that.

One thing about Silent Hill, and also the Tomb Raider games and Soul
Reaver (the other action games I've enjoyed): you're always driving. (Bar
cut-scenes, which are by definition always new material to you.) The game
never interrupts you to start a fight; it's just normal play with a
monster close to you. And easy fights can take arbitrarily close to zero
time. If you've gained the appropriate power or skill, you can whap
something without slowing down. Or just ignore it.

I got a much better view of these features when I tried the Final Fantasy
games, which -- as far as I can tell -- explicitly deny them. 

(And, if I may jump back to pure IF for a moment: In a text game, at least
on a desktop PC, you again are always driving. Either reading, thinking,
or typing. Graphical games have different pacing because CD loading delays
are almost always noticeable -- and video is *inherently* fixed-pace.)

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Mar 14 10:27:35 CET 2000
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Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Action Games
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IF <mordacai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 
> Michael Straight wrote:
>> 
>> Zarf's review of a playstation 3-D shooter has made me curious about what
>> else y'all are playing when you're not playing IF.  Are there any other
>> action games or RPGs that meet the high standards of IF players the way
>> Ultima Underworld and System Shock once did?
> 
> 	The Final Fantasy series, FF VIII in particular.  The single reason I
> own a Playstation.  I'm aware that not everyone agrees with me, but for
> me these games beautifully meld engaging story telling and stunning
> imagery.  Highly recommended.

I played a couple hours each of FF 5 and 6. Those are ports from the
original Nintendo, so the graphics are of course crap; but what really
turned me off was the pacing. You take three or five steps and bam, no
warning, you have to fight a battle. *And* it's a battle with a beautiful
(for the time) fade-in, beautiful animated attacks, and a beautiful
fade-out. In whch the characters dance.

Bored me shitless. 

(You recall my earlier comment about a two-second pause being too long.)

Then I played about twenty minutes of FF8. The imagery was stunning. The
storyline was, well, clearly the barest beginning of an immensely
complicated plot. And I entered the training garden, took three steps,
no warning, bam, beautiful battle fade-in...

There's no way I could stand that.

One thing about Silent Hill, and also the Tomb Raider games and Soul
Reaver (the other action games I've enjoyed): you're always driving. (Bar
cut-scenes, which are by definition always new material to you.) The game
never interrupts you to start a fight; it's just normal play with a
monster close to you. And easy fights can take arbitrarily close to zero
time. If you've gained the appropriate power or skill, you can whap
something without slowing down. Or just ignore it.

I got a much better view of these features when I tried the Final Fantasy
games, which -- as far as I can tell -- explicitly deny them. 

(And, if I may jump back to pure IF for a moment: In a text game, at least
on a desktop PC, you again are always driving. Either reading, thinking,
or typing. Graphical games have different pacing because CD loading delays
are almost always noticeable -- and video is *inherently* fixed-pace.)

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From stupid_q@my-deja.com Sun Mar 19 11:22:35 CET 2000
Article: 50394 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Quentin D. Thompson <stupid_q@my-deja.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Worlds Apart walkthrough!
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 13:37:27 GMT
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 The following statement is not a joke: if you really want a walkthrough and
explicit spoilers for the story, plot, writing, ideas and over-the-top
imagery that make up Suzanne Britton's opus, Worlds Apart, visit the
following URL:

http://enya.org/en/lyrics/index.htm

and follow each link one by one. Serious. This never occurred to me until a
few weeks ago (I finished Worlds Apart, and semi-reviewed it, somewhere in
January if I recall correctly) and I stumbled on it entirely by accident: my
brother had an Enya album, "The Memory of Trees" with him, and while we were
abusing our sound system one day, I asked him to play it out of curiosity "to
see if it'd be, like, good elevator music for Worlds Apart" since the author
had mentioned it in her end-of-game credits. The first song we played was one
called "Anywhere Is", and I was thinking to myself: "What the ????, this
sounds just like the opening scene of Worlds Apart!" By a quirk of fate, the
manufacturers had shipped the album with a lyrics booklet, and I perused it
with growing dismay, realising that tons of 'plot' points, deeper messages,
images and even plain spoilers lay therein. By the time we hit the last song,
"On My Way Home", I was seriously considering the album a Worlds Apart
soundtrack. Some time later, t verify the correctness of my hypothesis, I
visited the URL above (you can find it through Yahoo!, if you're curious) and
found exactly what I expected. My reactions to this are mixed. While there
are undoubtedly some really good images in Enya's songs, even for a non-fan,
a lot of Worlds Apart's vices (yes, it did have some - let's not belabour the
issue) could also be traced back to this source. The over-the-top images, the
occasional platitudes, the variable and sometimes puerile philosophy - it was
all there, damn it. And while I'm not for a moment insinuating that Worlds
Apart was plagiaristic in any sense, it still left me feeling uncomfortable.
Heck, lots of IF authors have been inspired by various musicians (Joe Mason's
In The End by Rush, Gunther Schmidl's Only After Dark by NIN, my own
Halothane by Radiohead and U2 in patches) but none of those games openly took
the lyrics of songs and incorporated them so deeply into their games that
reading, say, a Radiohead or Rush lyric would provide instant spoilers and
other explicit details about Joe's game, or Gunther's, or mine. Heck, if I
was going to make one of my games owe so much to another person I'd pick
someone, um, better. Like William Shakespeare. Or Weird Al Yankovic. Or
whatever. And I think Enya deserves a joint XYZZY award for best story of
1999 - it's only fair. In the meantime, Worlds Apart new players, hands off
those Celtic records. Unless you're the kind of person who plays every game
with a walkthrough handy. :)

On second thoughts, however, Enya did one thing that forever endears me to
her: she didn't ever include anything vaguely resembling Lashiaran in her
lyrics. Wonder where he came from....


[Exit Best Story, pursued by a bear.]


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From im@cs.york.ac.uk Sun Mar 19 11:24:06 CET 2000
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From: Iain Merrick <im@cs.york.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Worlds Apart walkthrough!
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 15:54:54 +0000
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Quentin D. Thompson wrote:

> The following statement is not a joke:

Oh dear.

> if you really want a walkthrough and
> explicit spoilers for the story, plot, writing, ideas and over-the-top
> imagery that make up Suzanne Britton's opus, Worlds Apart, visit the
> following URL:
> 
> http://enya.org/en/lyrics/index.htm

Okay, I'm reading the lyrics. I found your post unfair and bitter and
petulant and highly objectionable, but if I find any 'explicit spoilers'
I'll let you know.

> and follow each link one by one. Serious. This never occurred to me until a
> few weeks ago (I finished Worlds Apart, and semi-reviewed it, somewhere in
> January if I recall correctly) and I stumbled on it entirely by accident: my
> brother had an Enya album, "The Memory of Trees" with him, and while we were
> abusing our sound system one day, I asked him to play it out of curiosity "to
> see if it'd be, like, good elevator music for Worlds Apart" since the author
> had mentioned it in her end-of-game credits.

She mentioned Enya as a very strong influence, yes. That justifies
anything short of outright plagiarism, I think -- which is what you seem
to be accusing Suzanne Britton of.

> The first song we played was one
> called "Anywhere Is", and I was thinking to myself: "What the ????, this
> sounds just like the opening scene of Worlds Apart!"

Um. In what way? I really don't see it. It reminds me as much of
_Winchester's Nightmare_ as _Worlds Apart_, actually. The song mentions
beaches, and both games start on beaches. So what?

Reading the lyrics to a few more songs, I still can't find any 'explicit
spoilers'. Could you give some specific examples, please?

[...]
> The over-the-top images, the
> occasional platitudes, the variable and sometimes puerile philosophy - it was
> all there, damn it. And while I'm not for a moment insinuating that Worlds
> Apart was plagiaristic in any sense,

But you are, though presumably it's unintentional.

Is your sneering tone unintentional, too?

[...]
> Heck, if I
> was going to make one of my games owe so much to another person I'd pick
> someone, um, better. Like William Shakespeare. Or Weird Al Yankovic.

Tastes do differ, you know.

> And I think Enya deserves a joint XYZZY award for best story of
> 1999 - it's only fair.

If this is a joke, it's not very funny.

> On second thoughts, however, Enya did one thing that forever endears me to
> her: she didn't ever include anything vaguely resembling Lashiaran in her
> lyrics. Wonder where he came from....

The imagination of the game's author, possibly? She isn't obliged to
base every single element on Enya lyrics just because you think you've
spotted a pattern.

> [Exit Best Story, pursued by a bear.]

What a nice way of putting it.

Look, all that stuff you just posted just seems like a sick joke. If you
were being serious, please back up your arguments with specific
examples. Either way, please don't be so fucking disrespectful towards a
well-intentioned game and its well-intentioned author.

-- 
Iain Merrick
im@cs.york.ac.uk


From tril@host.ott.igs.net Sun Mar 19 11:24:30 CET 2000
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From: Suzanne Britton <tril@host.ott.igs.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Worlds Apart walkthrough!
Date: 15 Mar 2000 17:01:12 GMT
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[Very mild spoilers for Worlds Apart follow]

Whee! A WA-inspired flamewar!

FWIW, "Memory of Trees" had minimal influence on Worlds Apart, since most
of the game was written before I bought the CD, and it's not one of my
favorites. But now I'm curious, so....*peruse*

"To leave the thread of all time
and let it make a dark line
in hopes that I can still find
the way back to the moment"

"A new moon leads me to
woods of dreams and I follow,
A new world waits for me"

"I know that if I have heaven
there is nothing to desire.
Rain and river, a world of wonder
may be paradise to me."

Neat. Though the third sounds a lot more like Kitara talking than it does
Lyesh.

-Suzanne

-- 
tril@igs.net                     \    
http://www.igs.net/~tril/         \   This space intentionally left blank.
"Worlds Apart" Homepage:           \
http://www.igs.net/~tril/worlds/   /


From tril@host.ott.igs.net Sun Mar 19 11:25:18 CET 2000
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From: Suzanne Britton <tril@host.ott.igs.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Worlds Apart walkthrough!
Date: 16 Mar 2000 17:52:21 GMT
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Yipe. A while back I jokingly said to someone on ifMUD, "I'll know I've
arrived when one of my games sparks a flame war."

Yay. I think.

Quentin D. Thompson <stupid_q@my-deja.com> wrote:

> This is the kind of thing I'm referring to, though I felt "On My Way Home"
> was pretty close too. If I've offended you (I _always_ write in a flippant,
> slightly snarky style - my review of Shrapnel, or even my Comp entry, stand
> as testimonials to that) I'm sorry.

No offense taken, but thanks for the apology. If anything, I'm fascinated
by the overlapping imagery you pointed out, since, as I mentioned in
another posting, I take inspiration from Enya's instrumentals more than her
lyrics. I could go into an OT thread about the links between imagery and
music, but I don't exactly seem to be surrounded by other Enya fans here
:-)

I do, to be honest, think that you missed many of the subtleties in WA.
But then, I probably missed the point of Halothane, so we're even.

[Tril falls silent, looks around uncertainly, and waits for everyone to
holster their flamethrowers.]

Suzanne

-- 
tril@igs.net                     \    
http://www.igs.net/~tril/         \   This space intentionally left blank.
"Worlds Apart" Homepage:           \
http://www.igs.net/~tril/worlds/   /


From dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu Sun Mar 19 11:26:47 CET 2000
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From: Second April <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Worlds Apart walkthrough!
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 10:11:59 -0600
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On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Quentin D. Thompson wrote:

>  The following statement is not a joke: if you really want a walkthrough and
> explicit spoilers for the story, plot, writing, ideas and over-the-top
> imagery that make up Suzanne Britton's opus, Worlds Apart, visit the
> following URL:
> 
> http://enya.org/en/lyrics/index.htm

Um.

Yes, there are images in common there, but (a) I wouldn't say that Suzanne
took the writing from Enya in any sense and (b) I sure as hell wouldn't
say it's a "walkthrough." You can't solve Worlds Apart's puzzles by
listening to Enya for two reasons: one, she isn't real big on
enunciation, and two, her lyrics are strictly jumbles of (mostly
cliched) images.

E.g.:

One look at love and you may see
it weaves a web over mystery,
all ravelled threads can rend apart
for hope has a place in the lover's heart.
Hope has a place in the lover's heart.

Whispering world, a sigh of sighs,
The ebb and the flow of the ocean tides.
One breath, one word may end or may start
a hope in a place of the lover's heart.
Hope has a place in a lover's heart.

I think you should give Worlds Apart a little more credit here. I don't
recall any writing in Worlds Apart that made me wince--and if I read
anything like the above in any work of IF, I'm pretty sure I'd wince.

You could just as well say that For a Change was inspired by Enya because
it involved an ocean (well, a lot of water), shadows, and music.

Duncan Stevens
dns361@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




From adam@princeton.edu Sun Mar 19 11:26:54 CET 2000
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From: adam@princeton.edu (Adam J. Thornton)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Worlds Apart walkthrough!
Date: 16 Mar 2000 01:20:16 GMT
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In article <Pine.HPP.3.93.1000315095950.18898A-100000@merle.acns.nwu.edu>,
Second April  <dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu> wrote:
>You could just as well say that For a Change was inspired by Enya because
>it involved an ocean (well, a lot of water), shadows, and music.

I guess I'd better 'fess up before I'm busted.  _Sins Against Mimesis_
was a direct and blatant plagiarism of Kraftwerk's "Pocket Calculator."
Except for the parts that were lifted from "The Ballad of Eskimo Nell."

Adam
-- 
adam@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


From erkyrath@eblong.com Sun Mar 19 16:41:31 CET 2000
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
Date: 17 Mar 2000 03:44:28 GMT
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REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor

(Review copyright 2000, Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>)

Graphics: good
Atmosphere: good, in a cartoony way
Interface: good
Difficulty: fairly hard; too hard in places
Puzzles: some good, some ill-defined
Plot: trivial
Writing and dialogue: very good
Forgiveness rating: you can't get stuck. You can die, but fatal mistakes
are immediately fatal, so save frequently
Zorkness: see below

This requires multiple apologies. (Quiz afterwards.)

First, I'm reviewing the Mac version of _Zork Grand Inquisitor_. Er,
sorry.

As you probably know, and are probably screaming at your monitor this
moment, there *is* no Mac version of _Zork Grand Inquisitor_. Logicware
was doing the port, and Logicware seems to have tanked. (See
http://www.logicware.com/html/about.html -- worth a chuckle, actually.)
Word got out months ago that although they had finished the technical
work, they didn't have the resources to push the damn thing out the
door.

Perhaps it will be released someday; I have no inside information on
that. However, for the moment, ZGI-Mac is a dead project.

But -- Activision *did* have the release candidate discs. And this and
that happened, and I know a guy who knows a guy, and the guy was in a
generous mood, and, well... I got some CD-Rs in the mail.

So to forestall your next questions:

* Yes, I have ZGI for the Mac. And you don't.
* No, you can't have my copy.
* No, you can't borrow my copy.
* No, you can't have a copy of my copy.
* No, you can't get a copy the same way I did.
* So don't ask.

And yes, I'm writing this purely to be smug at you. And I apologize for
that.

(But it *does* play under Virtual PC, so I'm not being a total twit in
posting this to comp.sys.mac.games.adventure.)

Now the next apology. See, I am prejudiced against Activision's Zork
games. (I told you this a many years ago, when I was reviewing _Zork
Nemesis_.)

Authors are not interchangeable. Different authors do things
differently; and I think Activision does Zork badly. Their sense of
whimsy is not that of Blanc and Lebling and the other Infocom folk. It
just ain't. Their sense of the Zork universe doesn't match. Even less
forgiveably, their visual interpretation is all wrong. *That is not my
white house.*

(Of course it's not, you mutter. How could it be? Isn't their imagery
just as valid as yours? Sure it is -- but part of the thing, the schtick
of the written word, is that everybody's imagery *is* valid. Grounding
it in real images is... not necessarily wrong, but a risk. It is at risk
of being in *bad taste*. When you make a movie of a great book, it had
better be a *great* movie -- or you deserve the razzing you get.)

(Let me make clear: In making three graphical Zork games, Activision has
not acted illegally. They bought the copyrights and paid Infocom's price
for them. I don't even say they acted immorally. I say... that they
disappointed me, and let down the standard that Infocom had set forth.)

(I have to put *three* footnotes on that, no, *four*, goddammit, I can't
figure out where this review is going, anymore, either. Primus: _Zork
Nemesis_ was a *good* game. I liked it -- because it ignored the Zork
heritage almost completely, did its own thing. As its own game, it
didn't disappoint me. Only when considered as a Zork sequel do I get
annoyed. Secundus: _Zork Zero_, the last Zork game of the true Infocom
era, *also* disappointed me -- I thought it *also* had the whimsy wrong,
the setting wrong, and by the way the game design sucked. Tertius: But I
quite liked _Spiritwrak_, a fan-written freeware text adventure set
(with permission) in the Zork universe. Not the most polished game
around -- but the author caught the Zork atmosphere dead-on. Quartius:
In the long run, everything is public domain. I *don't* support the idea
of eternal copyright. Every work goes back into the cultural mixing pot
>from  whence it was largely drawn... but "long run" is on the order of a
human lifetime. Zork just isn't that old yet.)

What I'm saying, after all, is *not* that I hate graphical games, or
sequels, or Activision. But pick up someone else's work (particularly
with them watching!) and try to repeat it, and fail; it doesn't make me
happy.

So here I am, the ungrateful sod, gifted with the only copy of Mac ZGI
ever released from cloistered halls, and I'm kvetching about it. Er --
sorry.

Surely I can give it a fairer shot than that? Yeah, yeah, I can. So,
griping and whining, I wedged my mind open with a cinderblock and booted
up.

Weirdly, it worked. Imagine -- an adventure, published by some *other*
major game company; a spoof of the Zork universe -- the popular property
of their friendly rivals, Activision. A very gentle spoof, mind you.
Somewhere between parody and respectful pastiche. A different visual
style, a separate work, certainly; they couldn't *do* a Zork game, that
would be trademark infringment. But making use of the genre, while
simultaneously having a little fun with the idea. Pointing out the
sillier conventions, exaggerating the traits.

I balanced this image precariously in front of my eyes, and I was okay
with it. I was able to enjoy ZGI. Maybe I'm nuts. (Notice that I was
*ignoring* all the actual Zork references, just as I did when playing
_Nemesis_. Some other magical university, some other white house, some
other master wizard, some other seaside town. Heh, that university is a
reference to GUE Tech, from the Infocom games! Okay, it was definitely
nuts. But it got me through.) 

See, considered as a spoof, ZGI was funny as heck. The lines were good.
("Yeah, yeah, pull out the old inventory! Something's gotta work!" I
could quote many more, but I'd spoil it.) I laughed. And it wasn't a
*pure* spoof, which would have been way too much of a thing. The laughs
were on top of a solid base of a fantasy game -- a bog-standard quest
plot, sure, but enough to keep you moving.

I won't even try to make the main storyline sound impressive. You Find
The Stuff. When all the Stuff is found, you pluck the twanger and win.
The fun is in the puzzles, the characters (including your trusty
sidekick-cum-running-commentary) and the scenery.

The puzzles are, erm, good and bad. 

(In fact I hit a bad start, getting stuck on the very first puzzle; but
that turned out to be insufficient information due to a sound bug.
Something was goofed up in the volumes of the background music,
dialogue, and foreground sounds. I was, you recall, playing from "final
candidate zero" discs -- unreleased. The PC version didn't exhibit the
bug, and I probably wouldn't have gotten stuck with it.)

Past that, I did pretty well. I went to the walkthrough, um, count count
count, ten times. That's a bit high. A couple of these were objects I'd
missed seeing, but most, I think, were just insufficiently clear game
design. I didn't always have a good idea of what the author thought was
possible. (The commentary NPC forestalled this in many places, but not
everywhere.) And a couple of puzzles failed the last-ditch test; even
*after* I looked at the solution, I had no idea how I was supposed to
think of *that*.

(The coconut sequence needed a *lot* more feedback about why things
happened. Ditto a certain electrical field. And the prison security
console, as far as I can tell, requires you to make a clever guess
followed by a lucky guess to get through -- and if you guess wrong, you
die. The learning-by-suicide problem.)

Yes, you can die. The visual gag used doesn't strike me as funny, and
definitely doesn't make up for the timed deaths, or the deaths by bad
guess. Bleah. Many of the dangerous areas were well-marked; but not all
of them. I don't mind a quick try-and-restore, but inconsistent
reinforcement of the save impulse is a problem.

The interface is the same panning view that _Nemesis_ used, with a
couple of additions. You have pop-up menus for your inventory and spell
list. (Footnote: they don't pop up fast enough. The sliding animations
take nearly half a second! Waiting is *dull*.) You also have a close-up
inventory screen, which includes special items and a way to examine
objects, use them on each other, use spells on objects, etc. (Footnote
two: I *really* wish that "examine objects" tool would *tell you what
they are*. A detailed image doesn't always help. You start the game with
an electric mouse... well, I *thought* it was an electric mouse. Or
possibly a cigarette lighter -- except that it wouldn't burn anything. I
used it on everything. Turned out, in fact, to be a vacuum cleaner.)

(A *vacuum cleaner*?)

(Of course it's a vacuum cleaner. You're a vacuum cleaner salesman. For
bonus points, you can tell me how I was supposed to *know* I was a
vacuum cleaner salesman, and that was a vacuum cleaner. It's not on the
game box. It's not in the game booklet. It's not in the game intro, or
any on-line documentation. Did I miss something? Am I stupid?)

(Okay, wait, I think I found it. If you die early in the game, or use
the score hotkey, your initial score ranking is given as "PermaSuck
salesman". I guess that was supposed to be a clue. My eye skipped right
over this, though, and that's why I was fooling around with an "electric
mouse" for half the game. Argue if you like, but I think that's bad
design. ZGI is not an amnesia game; your background should not be
confusing. Nor your mice.)

I think the review part of this review is still shorter than the apology
part. For balance, a scant handful of nits....

That's not how I pronounce "Frobozz". Or "Antharia". Sigh.

Oh, no, not the placemat-keyhole-letter-opener gag *again*...

And one of the death scenes purports to shows the command "GO BRIDGE".
What? Infocom parsers don't buy that. "ENTER BRIDGE", certainly. "GO
OVER BRIDGE". "GO ON BRIDGE" or "GET ON BRIDGE", perhaps. But not "GO
BRIDGE".

Please.

Conclusion: An entertaining light game, with a sharp sense of humor.
Don't expect either the storyline _Nemesis_ had, or the universe of the
Infocom Zork games.

System requirements: The PC version says 90 MHz Pentium, 16 megs memory,
50 megs free disk space, 4x CD-ROM, thousands of colors. The Mac version
-- who knows? But on my 333 MHz Powerbook, it ran nearly full speed
under Virtual PC, even with all the graphics options set to maximum
quality. VPC should run it acceptably on slower Macs.

(This review, and my reviews of other adventure games, are at
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/gamerev/index.html)

--Z


"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From reply@adamcadre.ac Tue Mar 21 10:54:57 CET 2000
Article: 50570 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Adam Cadre <ac@adamcadre.ac>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: clustering survey results
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 18:47:25 -0800
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Okay, here's the list I've come up with.  It differs slightly from the
results from the "initial results" thread in that (a) the data has now
been weighted to account for strong opinions (++ vs. +, for instance),
and (b) it's been subjected to statistical analysis by Andrew Schepler,
rather than just having me eyeball the cells and picking the ones that
stand out.  Andrew took the data from my weighted table and calculated
the type of correlation (direct or inverse) and the chance that the
correlation was random (so a value like 0.991 means any correlation is
almost certainly random, while a value like 0.009 means it almost
certainly is not.)  Listed below are the correlations where the chance
of randomness was less than or equal to 0.010.  For the full results,
see http://www.msu.edu/~schepler/weightp1.html (rows and columns are
not marked, but the order from top to bottom and from left to right is
the same as in the survey.)

I must admit that my mind has been changed.  It does now seem to me
that it could indeed be helpful to look at a result like this:

| Worlds Apart:
| + Anchorhead
| - Chicks Dig Jerks
| - Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang, The
| - Moment of Hope, A
| + Ralph
| + Winter Wonderland

...that is, how well your tastes match up with the tastes reflected in
the list does indeed strike me as a fairly good indicator of how much
you might enjoy Worlds Apart.  My hypothesis was wrong: clustering
does indeed seem to exist.

So, with no further ado, the list:

Aisle:
- Moment of Hope, A

Anchorhead:
+ Babel
- Chicks Dig Jerks
+ Varicella
+ Worlds Apart

Babel:
+ Anchorhead
+ Enlightenment
+ So Far

Bad Machine:
+ I-0
+ Little Blue Men

Beat the Devil:
+ Enlightenment
+ Winter Wonderland

Chicks Dig Jerks:
- Anchorhead
+ Enemies
+ Moment of Hope, A
- Worlds Apart

Curses:
+ Jigsaw

Day for Soft Food, A:
+ For a Change
- Moment of Hope, A
+ Sunset Over Savannah

Death to My Enemies:
+ Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang, The

Enemies:
+ Chicks Dig Jerks

Enlightenment:
+ Beat the Devil
+ Exhibition
+ Mulldoon Legacy, The
+ Muse: an Autumn Romance
+ Not Just a Game
+ Winter Wonderland

Everyone Loves a Parade:
+ Little Blue Men
+ Muse: an Autumn Romance

Exhibition:
+ Enlightenment

For a Change:
+ Day for Soft Food, A

Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang, The:
+ Death to My Enemies
- Worlds Apart

I-0:
+ Bad Machine

Jigsaw:
+ Curses
+ Losing Your Grip

Little Blue Men:
+ Bad Machine
+ Enlightenment

Losing Your Grip:
+ Jigsaw

Moment of Hope, A:
- Aisle
+ Chicks Dig Jerks
- Day for Soft Food, A
- Ralph
- Shrapnel
- Sunset Over Savannah
- Varicella
- Worlds Apart

Mulldoon Legacy, The:
+ Enlightenment
- Sins Against Mimesis

Muse: an Autumn Romance:
+ Enlightenment
+ Everyone Loves a Parade

Not Just a Game:
+ Enlightenment

Ralph:
- Moment of Hope, A
+ Worlds Apart

Shrapnel:
- Moment of Hope, A
+ Spider and Web

Sins Against Mimesis:
- Mulldoon Legacy, The

So Far:
+ Anchorhead

Space Under the Window:
+ Winter Wonderland

Spider and Web:
+ Shrapnel

Sunset Over Savannah:
+ Day for Soft Food, A
- Moment of Hope, A

Varicella:
+ Anchorhead
- Moment of Hope, A

Winter Wonderland:
+ Beat the Devil
+ Enlightenment
+ Space Under the Window
+ Worlds Apart

Worlds Apart:
+ Anchorhead
- Chicks Dig Jerks
- Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang, The
- Moment of Hope, A
+ Ralph
+ Winter Wonderland

no strong correlations:
Bear's Night Out, A
Christminster
Common Ground
Halothane
Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina
Photopia
Zero Sum Game

  -----
 Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
 http://adamcadre.ac


From buzzard@world.std.com Tue Mar 21 10:56:26 CET 2000
Article: 50564 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
Message-ID: <FrqGD3.Ko3@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 18:22:15 GMT
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:50564

Andrew Plotkin  <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
>GraemeCree <graemecree@aol.com> wrote:
>>>the schtick of the written word, is that everybody's imagery *is* valid.
>>>What I'm saying, after all, is *not* that I hate graphical games, 
['this is not my beautiful white house']
>> Nevertheless, this IS a criticism that applies to all graphical games, and
>> one which would be equally makable if Blank and Lebling themselves had done
>> a graphical Zork adventure.
>
>True -- and I *would* have been equally suspicious if they had done that,
>after a N-year gap. Well, no: I would have been 75% as suspicious.

I believe (possibly quite wrongly) that, had Lebling and Blank
made a graphic adventure in the Zork, they would have *avoided*
showing a white house, a flood-control dam, or a Wizard of
Frobozz. I trust those two to realize that the part of their
audience that played the old games already have their own
imagined visuals for these things and that it is better not to
tread on those at all. They could still make *references* to them,
but they would *want* to explore all brand new territory anyway.

The opportunity to revisit an old world in a new medium is never
one to be taken lightly (as Zarf commented re: book vs. movie).

SeanB


From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Mar 21 10:56:51 CET 2000
Article: 50560 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
Date: 20 Mar 2000 15:47:16 GMT
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Sarah E. Bergstrom <sarahb@sccs.swarthmore.edu> wrote:
> Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
> 
> : The puzzles are, erm, good and bad. 
> 
> Hmm.  I think of myself as an atrociously bad puzzle-solver, though I like 
> them, and I never touched a walkthrough for ZGI.  My 10-yr old sister and I 
> solved it after getting it for Christmas before I went back to college at the
> end of winter break, easily.  Mostly the work of 3 late nights playing.  
> (Though one of the prison puzzles might have confused me if I hadn't solved it
> in Anchorhead.  It's a classic, but I'd seen it at this point.)  

Thus demonstrating, of course, that everyone gets stuck in different
places. (And that working in teams helps a *lot*; see figure 1.)

Okay... SPOILERS...











How did you work through the dragon-island sequence? Or, for that matter,
attaching the (ahem) electric mouse to the vending machine? Those were
places where I just thought the correct action was totally random.

Did you, in fact, look at the electrical field around the tower and say
"Ha! That's an invisible barrier!" (I said "Ha! That's a *magical*
barrier, and, um, I don't have any spells that apply to magical
electricity.")

In other places, of course, I missed a clue because I failed to look in
the right place -- obvious mistake. 

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From lpsmith@rice.edu Tue Mar 21 10:57:33 CET 2000
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From: lpsmith@rice.edu (Lucian Paul Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
Date: 20 Mar 2000 16:46:07 GMT
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Andrew Plotkin (erkyrath@eblong.com) wrote:

: Okay... SPOILERS...











: How did you work through the dragon-island sequence? Or, for that matter,
: attaching the (ahem) electric mouse to the vending machine? Those were
: places where I just thought the correct action was totally random.

The dragon-island sequence was one of the places I went to the
walkthrough.

The electric mouse was one of my favorite moments of the game, for
precisely the same reasons you disliked it.  I loved the dry commentary,
"Where on earth were you keeping *that*?"  I loved the fact that it was a
"Sure, pull out the ol' inventory!  *Something's* gotta work!" puzzle.

Well, OK, there were a *few* clues.  The name of the item did include
'Perma-Suck', and you could reasonably be expected to think that 'sucking'
would be a good thing in that instance.  After seeing the relatively small
hole on the machine, I believe I thought, "Well, hey, maybe I can get the
loose candy by getting it to attach to this 'perma-suck' thing, and the
next puzzle will be getting it off again."  But mostly it was a "Hmm, how
about this object?  OK, how about this one?" puzzle.

Actually, the biggest problem for me with that one was discovering that
you could get a close-up of the *base* of the machine.  I believe I found
that out by accident.  To my mind, that's a bigger problem than the fact
that you don't know what you're carrying around.

Another 'hidden view' I had a problem with was the Infinite Hallway.  Once
I got to that screen, the solution was obvious.  Getting to that screen
was the hard bit.

: Did you, in fact, look at the electrical field around the tower and say
: "Ha! That's an invisible barrier!" (I said "Ha! That's a *magical*
: barrier, and, um, I don't have any spells that apply to magical
: electricity.")

That is indeed what I thought.  I note that 'invisible' is a subset of
'magical'.  Part of the situation there, I think, was that by that point,
I *trusted the game*.  I knew it wouldn't throw something at me a spell or
an inventory item or simple manipulation couldn't handle.  So if I have a
turn-invisible-purple spell, chances are it's gonna work on this thing I
can't see.  This is, of course, the advantage of the 'can't get stuck'
philosophy of game design.  And probably its weakness, too, at that.

-Lucian


From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Mar 21 10:57:49 CET 2000
Article: 50563 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
Date: 20 Mar 2000 16:58:46 GMT
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Lucian Paul Smith <lpsmith@rice.edu> wrote:
> Andrew Plotkin (erkyrath@eblong.com) wrote:
> 
> : Okay... SPOILERS...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The electric mouse was one of my favorite moments of the game, for
> precisely the same reasons you disliked it.  I loved the dry commentary,
> "Where on earth were you keeping *that*?"  I loved the fact that it was a
> "Sure, pull out the ol' inventory!  *Something's* gotta work!" puzzle.
> 
> Well, OK, there were a *few* clues.  The name of the item did include
> 'Perma-Suck', and you could reasonably be expected to think that 'sucking'
> would be a good thing in that instance.  After seeing the relatively small
> hole on the machine, I believe I thought, "Well, hey, maybe I can get the
> loose candy by getting it to attach to this 'perma-suck' thing, and the
> next puzzle will be getting it off again."  But mostly it was a "Hmm, how
> about this object?  OK, how about this one?" puzzle.
> 
> Actually, the biggest problem for me with that one was discovering that
> you could get a close-up of the *base* of the machine.  I believe I found
> that out by accident.  To my mind, that's a bigger problem than the fact
> that you don't know what you're carrying around.

Aaa-HA!
 
I never discovered that at all.

> To my mind, that's a bigger problem than the fact
> that you don't know what you're carrying around.

Obviously. :)

> Another 'hidden view' I had a problem with was the Infinite Hallway. Once
> I got to that screen, the solution was obvious.  Getting to that screen
> was the hard bit.

Ditto. I used a walkthrough there, as well.

> : Did you, in fact, look at the electrical field around the tower and say
> : "Ha! That's an invisible barrier!" (I said "Ha! That's a *magical*
> : barrier, and, um, I don't have any spells that apply to magical
> : electricity.")
>
> That is indeed what I thought.  I note that 'invisible' is a subset of
> 'magical'.  Part of the situation there, I think, was that by that point,
> I *trusted the game*.  I knew it wouldn't throw something at me a spell or
> an inventory item or simple manipulation couldn't handle.

This is a good point. I *didn't* trust the game, and that's a big factor
in going to a walkthrough so quickly.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From yesuslave@aol.com Tue Mar 21 10:58:23 CET 2000
Article: 50572 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: yesuslave@aol.com (YesuSlave)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
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Ok, this is sort of half piggybacked to the orriginal post and some ideas that
have come up since.  

I particularly loved ZGI, and honestly I couldn't see what was wrong with it. 
However, upon considering Zarf's review I realized that there are generally two
schools of Zorkian though (or maybe three, but I'll get to that).  There is the
Blanc, Lebling, Zork 1-3, with very little plot, lots of atmosphere, and
strange things showing up in strange places.  This is Zork at its most raw and
pure.  
Then there is the Enchanter/Beyond Zork/Zork 0/Wishbringer idea of Zork, which
is looser in situation, but much more cohesive in storyline and reason.  Why am
I here?  I am here to find Wishbringer.  Why  do I have this book?  I am an
Enchanter trying to stop an evil wizard.  
Much more to the story, less in the way of scenery for scenery's sake.  
I think this is why I loved ZGI, it took the mood of Zork 0, and the other post
Trilogy games, and ran with it.  It did not do the "You are standing in a field
west of a white house" type thing where you go "Why am I standing west of a
white house?"  

The third view, I think, is that its all pure Zork, and that Zork simply grew
up a little over time.  Some people like the later stuff, some people like the
early stuff.  I'm a fan of the later stuff myself, simply because I have never
felt compelled to complete Zork II or III, I just got bored.  But I tried my
darndest to finish Beyond Zork and Zork 0 without any help.  

ZGI was a lot of fun for us later Zorkers.  I think that its just simply a
matter of which you are.  Early ZORK, or Late Zork.  

Just rambling,
Josh


Play Deephome, an interactive exorcism and repair job. 
Http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/Yesuslave


From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Mar 21 10:58:31 CET 2000
Article: 50574 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
Date: 21 Mar 2000 05:05:16 GMT
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YesuSlave <yesuslave@aol.com> wrote:
> ZGI was a lot of fun for us later Zorkers.  I think that its just simply a
> matter of which you are.  Early ZORK, or Late Zork.  

This theory is contraindicated by the fact that Spellbreaker is one of my
favorite Infocom games, and Beyond Zork is high on the list too.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From sarahb@sccs.swarthmore.edu Tue Mar 21 10:59:14 CET 2000
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From: "Sarah E. Bergstrom" <sarahb@sccs.swarthmore.edu>
Subject: Re: REVIEW: Zork Grand Inquisitor
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Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
: Sarah E. Bergstrom <sarahb@sccs.swarthmore.edu> wrote:
:> Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
:> 
:> : The puzzles are, erm, good and bad. 
:> 
:> Hmm.  I think of myself as an atrociously bad puzzle-solver, though I like 
:> them, and I never touched a walkthrough for ZGI.  My 10-yr old sister and I 
:> solved it after getting it for Christmas before I went back to college at the
:> end of winter break, easily.  Mostly the work of 3 late nights playing.  
:> (Though one of the prison puzzles might have confused me if I hadn't solved it
:> in Anchorhead.  It's a classic, but I'd seen it at this point.)  

: Thus demonstrating, of course, that everyone gets stuck in different
: places. (And that working in teams helps a *lot*; see figure 1.)

: Okay... SPOILERS...











: How did you work through the dragon-island sequence? Or, for that matter,

That's the one I got the closest to stuck on -- I pounded on it for a while,
then stepped back and said "okay, I've found all the items, etc, now how can
I combine them that I a) haven't before and b) makes sense."

: attaching the (ahem) electric mouse to the vending machine? Those were

I figured out what the "mouse" was when I was pounding on the first puzzle 
(I'd tried the correct thing, but had the timing wrong, so was looking for 
another solution.)  The woman in one house says they don't want a vacuum 
cleaner.  Thus I determined that I had a vacuum cleaner, and the vending 
machine puzzle was clued with something like "vacuum sealed".  

: Did you, in fact, look at the electrical field around the tower and say
: "Ha! That's an invisible barrier!" (I said "Ha! That's a *magical*

Yeah, basically.  What I couldn't do was notice the plug after I'd made 
the fence visible.  I didn't think to look for a new hotspot for a while,
and kept trying to take the fence out without moving.  

: In other places, of course, I missed a clue because I failed to look in
: the right place -- obvious mistake. 

Ah.  My only troubles were trying to solve puzzles before I could, since 
I thought I knew how already.

I liked ZGI almost as much as RTZ out of the graphical ones.  I couldn't 
stand Nemesis, mostly b/c I couldn't stomach parts of it enough to keep 
going.  I'm really not good with the sight of blood and dismemberment.  
And the pseudo-classical mythos scheme irritated me.  (I.e. I didn't like 
it as a Zork game, which I think most will agree with, but since I didn't 
like it as a *game* at all, it had no redeeming value.)  RTZ was much harder,
and kept me working on it for a long time, and required a hintbook (I think 
I only used the hint section, not the walkthrough, but I'm not sure.)  

Sarah

-- 
"...Cuchulain stirred,
Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard
The cars of battle and his own name cried;
And fought with the invulnerable tide."
                --William Butler Yeats
***Sarah Bergstrom <sarahb@sccs.swarthmore.edu>***


From erkyrath@eblong.com Tue Mar 21 21:53:48 CET 2000
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Unwinnable games
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Peter Killworth <P.Killworth@soc.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'm a bit confused by this thread. I am used to having to replay
> bits of IF, either because I did something wrong or because I've
> thought of a better way. Puzzle solving takes a little work (it 
> shouldn't take a LOT of work, eg in certain puzzles in certain 
> adventures I'm too polite to name). But life often involves 
> retracing of steps. I don't understand the problem by those who
> never want to have to replay part of the game... if you can't make
> a mistake, where is the challenge?

Well, the basic point is that replying part of a game is a terrible idea
for a non-reward; it can be very dull. Dull is not what you want in a
game.

I find this much more true in graphical games than in text games,
however. And I think this is why the unlosable game really took off with
the Myst-genre graphical game, as opposed to text games.

In any case, a mistake doesn't have to involve a lot of replying. 

* In some cases, a mistake may simply fail; that's still a challenge,
because you haven't advanced, just gained negative information.
* In other cases, a single "undo" will take care of it. 
* In yet others, the player will have saved a game just before the
dangerous point, because the game clearly clued him in that this was
smart. So he just has to type "restore".

And those categories are roughly the divisions I used when I start
talking about the "Zarfian game cruelty scale", several years (!) ago.

Of course, I *do* tend to write games at the bottom of the scale, where
some replying is inevitable. But I don't do it because it's the only way
to write a challenging game. :) 

If you look, most of the puzzles in even the cruellest game fall into one
of the less-cruel categories. One has to rate the overall game at the
level of its worst puzzle, to give the player fair warning, but it's never
*all* like that.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From rpresser@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid Mon Mar 27 20:57:40 CEST 2000
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From: rpresser@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid (Ross Presser)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [REVIEW] Lash
Date: 27 Mar 2000 15:55:37 GMT
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I expect that my review will be the least wonderful review of this most 
wonderful work.  It reads more like a book report from high school than like 
actual criticism.  I know you can do better.

This review has (of course) massive spoilers.
S
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The prologue for this game, by which I mean the four documents you can read 
before even starting the game, is excellent.  The author spent a good deal of 
effort producing a very mixed emotion: adventure, sadness, even nostalgia 
(for old Colossal Cave dungeon crawls).  I really had no idea what to expect 
>from  this beast when I started it.  The prologue ends when you connect to the 
MULE to begin the game. You are asked to enter your last name to identify the 
MULE; this simple act sets quite a stage.

The first third of the game consists of very ordinary dungeon-crawl type 
investigation.  You dig holes, you go around the house to an open door, you 
look under the mattress.  At the same time as you are concentrating on these 
ordinary goals, like "how do I get through the steel door" and "how do I get 
this weird TONE-LOCK safe open", the author is setting the stage.  You are 
learning bits and pieces about what this site was like in the era of slavery.

The author then throws you completely off track (or does he?) by making you 
read a journal from the War.  You get all wrapped up in the lady scientist's 
troubles.  You fully expect when thrown into the past to interact with HER.

Finally you get upstairs and you activate the simple booth and you find 
yourself in the past.  And what happens next?  Just as you're trying to do 
the ordinary thing and investigate your surroundings, you are found and 
GRABBED and DRAGGED DOWNSTAIRS and WHIPPED until you bleed and then SALT is 
thrown in your wounds.  Your character has never experienced pain of this 
nature before, and I daresay you haven't either.

After the pain is through for the MULE, the pain begins for the (human) 
player.  What do you see next? (paraphrased)
  The master says "NIGGER, GET THE GOWN".
  The master says "NIGGER, WEAR THE GOWN".
Forcefully making it clear that in ordering your MULE around you are treating 
it like a slave.

You the human player are then treated to a brutal vignette of the slavery 
era.  There are several ways to exit it, and several options along the way, 
and all of them hurt.  By the time you get back to the future, by whatever 
means, your sympathy for the slaves and for the MULE is completely engaged.

Soon after you get back to the future your MULE becomes aware of what you are 
already painfully aware -- that it is being treated as a slave.  If you 
continue to treat it like a slave -- giving it orders, perhaps causing it 
pain or threatening its life -- it eventually rebels, like Nat Turner did so 
many years ago.  If you instead give it freedom, it is grateful, but makes it 
clear that it is not gushing with gratitude.

All in all, this work felt much like the brutal whippings it described.   
Emotionally, I felt whipped and salted.  I personally didn't have the 
strength of character to replay it much; after getting two different endings 
I txd'd it to see the rest of the text.  That's a shame; there are many 
scenes I missed that would have increased the already significant emotional 
impact (the argument, for example, or the MULE's reaction to an attempt to 
shoot Momma.)  I didn't even attempt to start any fires, which apparently the 
author spent a great effort in coding.

This game probably would not have been eligible for the comp, because it 
takes more than 2 hours to play; at least it does if you get the impact the 
author is intending.  But it deserves the highest praise; higher praise than 
I could ever give.  The little touches that drive the parallel home -- 
"NIGGER, GET THE GOWN" vs. "MULE, DIG HOLE"; "MULE Presser" vs. slave-names; 
the white/black conflict in the journal -- qualify this work immediately for 
a place in the canon alongside _A Mind Forever Voyaging_ and _Spider And 
Web_.

Recommended.

-- 
Ross Presser * rpresser@imtek.com
"You can kill more lusers per hour with a dull spoon and a kind sword, 
than with just a dull spoon." -- rsteenw@xs4all.nl (Rik Steenwinkel)


From dsw@ionline.net Tue Mar 28 18:17:26 CEST 2000
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Subject: [LASH] Optimum ending? (SPOILERS)
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Gabe McKean wrote ...
>This brings up an interesting point.  What would you consider an optimum
>ending?  As far as I could tell, there were three major things that you
>could have an effect on:
>
>(Semi-Spoilers)
>
>
>
>How much money you get at the end, whether L. has everything she needs
>before she leaves, and how M. feels about you at the end.

(MINOR SPOILERS)





Well, my first time through, I hadn't completed any of the above to optimum
status -- partly since I hadn't toured the east side of the house much at
all, partly since I wasn't being very clever wandering as L. in the house at
night.  My current best finish to Lash is $727 thousand, L. on the U.R., and
M. is free.  I once had $1 million at end, but I can't seem to reproduce it,
and can't imagine what I'm missing.

In retrospect, there should be a "have you tried this...?" area at the end
of the game -- except, it's not obvious which endings should be rewarded
with such insights.  So, here is my "have you tried" list....

(MORE SPOILERS BELOW)
(DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU HAVE AT LEAST $700,000 AND L. HAS ESCAPED SAFELY)













Have you tried to...
* leave the fields when the overseer is watching?
* touch the mirror in the Dining Room?
* ask Momma about the stool? (which clue I haven't followed up on yet...)
* hide under Nicholas's bed before he retires?
* hide under Michael's bed before he retires?
* attack Nicholas while wearing his clothes?
* kiss Nicholas?
* kiss Michael?
* hear the argument in the library?
* hear Nicholas talk to Elizabeth's portrait?
* hear the argument in Michael's bedroom...?
* .. and follow Michael afterwards?
* put in the slave privy what you found in the small ruin
* read anything as L. -- tan book, sketchbook, pictures, library book?
* eat the jerky?
* tell anyone about me?
* push the button again when you get back?
* notice the subtle changes to room descriptions when you get back?
* put the corroded wire in the kitchen's outlet?
* try to leave the property before, during, or after the dream?
* order a shutdown before, during, or after the dream?

-- David Welbourn





From sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu Tue Mar 28 18:22:24 CEST 2000
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From: Stephen Granade <sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [IF Conspiracy Review] Inform School
Date: 26 Mar 2000 22:33:03 -0500
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This review was written under the aegis of the IF Review
Conspiracy. Marnie Parker, Duncan Stevens, and I may or may not have
anything to do with this Conspiracy. Shh. If you'd like to learn more
about the Conspiracy, please visit
http://www.textfire.com/ifreview.html.

TITLE: Inform School
AUTHOR: Bill Shlaer
E-MAIL: shlaer@aol.com
DATE: 1999
PARSER: Inform standard, with additions
SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters, though it makes heavy demands on those
interpreters
AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/School.z5
VERSION: Release 1

As you might guess from its name, Inform School, by Bill Shlaer, is an
attempt to teach Inform from within the confines of an Inform
game. This is not exactly new ground. Andrew Plotkin's Lists and Lists
was a Scheme compiler and set of exercises which masqueraded as a game
in the 1996 competition. Bill's earlier game, Informatory, a 1998
competition entry, let you look at some of the game's code through the
use of a codex helmet. These examples notwithstanding, Inform School
has set itself a much harder task. It is not only trying to teach you
a language but also how to use that language to write a text
adventure. In doing so, its reach has exceeded its grasp. Inform
School is an amazing example of what can be done with the z-machine,
but the inherent limits of the z-machine and some poor pedagogical
choices limit Inform School's effectiveness as an aid to learning
Inform.

I'm not a newcomer to Inform. Though I'm nowhere near as proficient
with Inform as I am with TADS, as long as I have my trusty printout of
the Designer's Manual on hand I can get by. I've even written some
things in Inform. (And before you ask, no, you can't see them. I've
let enough bad games of mine escape the confines of my hard drive.)
Since I do know Inform to a certain degree, I'm not sure that I'm the
intended audience for Inform School. Actually, I'm not sure what the
intended audience for Inform School is.

You begin the game a new student at the Inform School. It's the summer
term, and no teachers are around. When you arrive, you must find your
task list and equipment, then make your way to the lab where you'll be
doing your experimenting. You are to work your way through the
assigned tasks, then take the final exam. The setting is a nice touch,
and plays to the strengths of a text adventure: simulation and the
creation of places.

You're not alone at the school. Igor the lab assistant is there to
give you a demonstration, if you so desire. I found his demonstration
less than useful, as he rushed through so many concepts that I
couldn't keep track. I felt like I was being shoved through the
demo. I gave up trying to follow Igor's demonstration and dived into
the task list.

Well, I say "dived." More accurately, I ran headlong into a cliff-like
learning curve. I stepped back and took a closer look at the in-game
documentation. The game recommends that you keep two copies of the
game running, so that you can use one to call up sections of the
documentation while performing your tasks in the other. Let me echo
that sentiment. Without having a second copy of the game on hand, I
was unable to remember how to use Inform School's interface.

That interface is a mixed bag. I soon discovered that Bill had added a
small text editor to Inform School, allowing you to type all of your
objects straight into the game. A z-machine text editor! On the one
hand, that's a nifty keen hack. On the other hand, its features are
limited. Programmers who are used to text editors will find it
confining, and I think newcomers who have never programmed before will
be overwhelmed.

Really, the entire interface is like that. You type in objects, add
their descriptions and attributes, and even add code to the
object. You can have react_befores. You can create new verbs. The game
uses a scaled-down version of Inform, and appears to compile objects
on the fly. It's a tour de force of z-machine trickery. However, you
cannot edit the code of your objects all in one go. You must select an
object, then select what part of the object's code you'd like to
edit. The interface for doing so is about as simple as is possible,
which is still far too complex for my liking. All of this adds up to a
pretty snug straitjacket. I felt as if I was learning Inform while
wearing an eyepatch and only being allowed to type with one pinky. I
think other experienced programmers will feel similarly constrained by
the interface. However, as constrained as it is, it's too complex for
people who haven't programmed before. Due to time constraints I put
Inform School aside for a week; when I came back to it, I had
completely forgotten how to use its special interface. How is this
better than a text editor or an integrated development environment?

The task list also suffers from a lack of focus. Is it written for
people who have programmed before, but don't know Inform? Is it for
those who have never programmed at all? At several points the in-game
manual assumes you know something about programming. At other times,
it spells things out in minute detail.

There are 27 tasks which build upon one another. Theoretically you are
to read a task, perform it, then check your answer in the manual. In
practice I didn't do this. I would read a task, have absolutely no
idea how to perform it, and have to turn to the manual to find out
how. Better I had been introduced to concepts, given the chance to
practice those concepts, and only then asked to demonstrate my mastery
of them. When later tasks required me to use concepts from earlier
tasks, I had to turn back to the manual to remember how the concepts
worked. Any pedagogical benefit from having me create my own objects
was lost because I was copying from the manual.

There are classrooms you can visit to see finished examples of the
tasks. You can look at the code of the finished objects if you get
stuck mid-task. I found this to be more of a hinderance than a help,
due to name-space collisions. Remember how I mentioned that you had to
select objects before you could edit them? The manual uses the same
object names as the objects in the classrooms. If you're following the
manual, you're likely to follow the manual's naming conventions when
creating your objects. (In fact, you almost need to, as later tasks
involve earlier objects, and the manual will refer to the objects by
the names the manual gave them.) Once you've done that, you'll have
trouble selecting objects you've created, as the game won't know if
you're refering to your new object or the one in the classroom. The
game even tells you as much: "If you follow the tasks too slavishly,
the objects you create will have the same names as similar objects in
the classrooms. This will confuse the debugging verbs and make them
less useful." Of course, the game doesn't mention this until the
middle of task 9, long after this advice is needed.

All of this sounds fairly dire, which is unfair to Inform
School. There are a number of good points to the game. The manual
becomes less and less explicit as the tasks progress, forcing you to
fill in the blanks with your own knowledge. Once you do get used to
the interface, you can make rapid progress. And the game is often
clever. The manual, in explaining how darkness is handled in rooms,
says, "By default, places in Inform are dark. This is the result of
evolution; our ancestors hunted treasure in dark caves." Or, when you
destroy an object: "Almost silently, a destructor drops from nowhere
and binds to the doomed object. Properties are ripped off one by one
accompanied by a faint squealing. At last there is a soft pop, and the
object implodes leaving only an acrid cloud of bits that gradually
disperses. The destructor vanishes."

I have a confession, one which I tell you in the strictest of
confidences: I didn't finish the final exam. I flunked Inform School.

(Don't make too much fun of me, or I will by damn write TADS School
and make the final so difficult that Mike Roberts himself would have
trouble passing it.)

Now, I'm egotistical enough to think that I could have finished the
final, given enough time and energy, but I just couldn't make myself
do it. When you start it, you are moved to "(somewhere)". There's no
exit, but you must leave. You know this because every turn you are
told, "You have to get out of here." But to where? And why? Once
you've solved that problem, you're moved to a room with a map case you
can't refer to. Once you figure that out, you must figure out that
you're to open the map case and then plan how to make that
possible. It's a series of guess-what-the-author-wants-you-to-do
exercises, and I found it easy to make the examination train jump the
rails, leaving me unable to continue. The idea behind the final exam
is okay, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

Whether you will profit from Inform School depends on what you want
>from  it. As a pure game, its entertainment potential is limited, as is
often the case with educational games. As an example of technical
wizardry, Inform School is dazzling -- it should have garnered at
least a nomination for the 1999 "Best Use of Medium" XYZZY Award. As a
teaching tool for learning Inform, I fear its usefulness is sharply
limited.

Stephen

-- 
  Stephen Granade                | Interested in adventure games?
  sgranade@phy.duke.edu          | Visit About.com's IF Page
  Duke University, Physics Dept  |   http://interactfiction.about.com


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In article <jdpushnl3k.fsf@login1.phy.duke.edu>,
Stephen Granade <sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu> wrote:
> This review was written under the aegis of the IF Review
> Conspiracy. Marnie Parker, Duncan Stevens, and I may or may not have
> anything to do with this Conspiracy. Shh. If you'd like to learn more
> about the Conspiracy, please visit
> http://www.textfire.com/ifreview.html.
>
> TITLE: Inform School
> AUTHOR: Bill Shlaer
> E-MAIL: shlaer@aol.com
> DATE: 1999
> PARSER: Inform standard, with additions
> SUPPORTS: Z-code interpreters, though it makes heavy demands on those
> interpreters
> AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
> URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/School.z5
> VERSION: Release 1
>
> As you might guess from its name, Inform School, by Bill Shlaer, is an
> attempt to teach Inform from within the confines of an Inform
> game. This is not exactly new ground. Andrew Plotkin's Lists and Lists
> was a Scheme compiler and set of exercises which masqueraded as a game
> in the 1996 competition. Bill's earlier game, Informatory, a 1998
> competition entry, let you look at some of the game's code through the
> use of a codex helmet. These examples notwithstanding, Inform School
> has set itself a much harder task. It is not only trying to teach you
> a language but also how to use that language to write a text
> adventure. In doing so, its reach has exceeded its grasp. Inform
> School is an amazing example of what can be done with the z-machine,
> but the inherent limits of the z-machine and some poor pedagogical
> choices limit Inform School's effectiveness as an aid to learning
> Inform.

As a pedantic point, Inform School doesn't implement an Inform
compiler. It implements an interpreter and editor for an extract of
Inform called Inf.

I agree that it could have been packaged as a really cool z-machine
abuse. I would probably get more downloads too. Hey Don, how about it?

> I'm not a newcomer to Inform. Though I'm nowhere near as proficient
> with Inform as I am with TADS, as long as I have my trusty printout of
> the Designer's Manual on hand I can get by. I've even written some
> things in Inform. (And before you ask, no, you can't see them. I've
> let enough bad games of mine escape the confines of my hard drive.)
> Since I do know Inform to a certain degree, I'm not sure that I'm the
> intended audience for Inform School. Actually, I'm not sure what the
> intended audience for Inform School is.

I think it's for people with some free time on their hands, and open
minds. The Inf interpreter within a z-code game is really worth looking
at, if only to try it, and say: "Gee, that's cool."

> You begin the game a new student at the Inform School. It's the summer
> term, and no teachers are around. When you arrive, you must find your
> task list and equipment, then make your way to the lab where you'll be
> doing your experimenting. You are to work your way through the
> assigned tasks, then take the final exam. The setting is a nice touch,
> and plays to the strengths of a text adventure: simulation and the
> creation of places.

I think the setting is very good, too. There is a smallish backstory,
and the campus is a bizarre combination of immense ego and underlying
tackyness that I found surprising.

> You're not alone at the school. Igor the lab assistant is there to
> give you a demonstration, if you so desire. I found his demonstration
> less than useful, as he rushed through so many concepts that I
> couldn't keep track. I felt like I was being shoved through the
> demo. I gave up trying to follow Igor's demonstration and dived into
> the task list.

I never liked Igor, but he's an interesting artifice. Most error
messages received concerning the Inf editor come from Igor, who flits
etherealy in and out of the room. The actual Igor object is in the
courtyard. I told Don that it's a shame he hadn't seen "Young
Frankenstein" before writing Igor.

> That interface is a mixed bag. I soon discovered that Bill had added a
> small text editor to Inform School, allowing you to type all of your
> objects straight into the game. A z-machine text editor! On the one
> hand, that's a nifty keen hack. On the other hand, its features are
> limited. Programmers who are used to text editors will find it
> confining, and I think newcomers who have never programmed before will
> be overwhelmed.

I don't really know, but the text editor itself is much less powerful
than a real editor. The tradeoff with that is that it is very easy
to use. You mileage may differ, but it is certainly easier to learn than
a fancy text editor, or even Notepad. It's just very limited.

> people who haven't programmed before. Due to time constraints I put
> Inform School aside for a week; when I came back to it, I had
> completely forgotten how to use its special interface. How is this
> better than a text editor or an integrated development environment?

I was a beta-tester, and this kept happening to me. However, as you
say, I don't think there was a better solution availlable for what Don
wanted to do.

> The task list also suffers from a lack of focus. Is it written for
> people who have programmed before, but don't know Inform? Is it for
> those who have never programmed at all? At several points the in-game
> manual assumes you know something about programming. At other times,
> it spells things out in minute detail.

The in-game manual for Inf is very large and long. On the other hand,
it does contain everything you need to know to use Inf, and a great
deal of information about Inform itself.

> There are 27 tasks which build upon one another. Theoretically you are
> to read a task, perform it, then check your answer in the manual. In
> practice I didn't do this. I would read a task, have absolutely no
> idea how to perform it, and have to turn to the manual to find out
> how. Better I had been introduced to concepts, given the chance to
> practice those concepts, and only then asked to demonstrate my mastery
> of them. When later tasks required me to use concepts from earlier
> tasks, I had to turn back to the manual to remember how the concepts
> worked. Any pedagogical benefit from having me create my own objects
> was lost because I was copying from the manual.

I had no trouble with the tasks, because the manual is divided up into
sections, each of which tells you what you need to know to solve the
corresponding task. Some fiddly parts of the interface needed better
documentation though, like the syntax for selecting which object to
work on, which I could never remember.

> There are classrooms you can visit to see finished examples of the
> tasks. You can look at the code of the finished objects if you get
> stuck mid-task. I found this to be more of a hinderance than a help,
> due to name-space collisions. Remember how I mentioned that you had to
> select objects before you could edit them? The manual uses the same
> object names as the objects in the classrooms. If you're following the
> manual, you're likely to follow the manual's naming conventions when
> creating your objects. (In fact, you almost need to, as later tasks
> involve earlier objects, and the manual will refer to the objects by
> the names the manual gave them.) Once you've done that, you'll have
> trouble selecting objects you've created, as the game won't know if
> you're refering to your new object or the one in the classroom. The
> game even tells you as much: "If you follow the tasks too slavishly,
> the objects you create will have the same names as similar objects in
> the classrooms. This will confuse the debugging verbs and make them
> less useful." Of course, the game doesn't mention this until the
> middle of task 9, long after this advice is needed.

I never extensively visited or used the classrooms. Some betatester I
am.

> All of this sounds fairly dire, which is unfair to Inform
> School. There are a number of good points to the game. The manual
> becomes less and less explicit as the tasks progress, forcing you to
> fill in the blanks with your own knowledge. Once you do get used to
> the interface, you can make rapid progress. And the game is often
> clever. The manual, in explaining how darkness is handled in rooms,
> says, "By default, places in Inform are dark. This is the result of
> evolution; our ancestors hunted treasure in dark caves." Or, when you
> destroy an object: "Almost silently, a destructor drops from nowhere
> and binds to the doomed object. Properties are ripped off one by one
> accompanied by a faint squealing. At last there is a soft pop, and the
> object implodes leaving only an acrid cloud of bits that gradually
> disperses. The destructor vanishes."

There are many nice touches, I agree. Excellent attention to detail.

> I have a confession, one which I tell you in the strictest of
> confidences: I didn't finish the final exam. I flunked Inform School.
>
> (Don't make too much fun of me, or I will by damn write TADS School
> and make the final so difficult that Mike Roberts himself would have
> trouble passing it.)
>
> Now, I'm egotistical enough to think that I could have finished the
> final, given enough time and energy, but I just couldn't make myself
> do it.

Hunh. I thought the final was the most fun of the entire game. It places
you in an empty room, gives you a goal and a compiler, and lets you go
wild with whatever hacks you can think of to get through. There are
surely no other puzzles like it anywhere on the archive. If you can't
solve the problem, you write code to make it possible. How many times
have you wished for such a thing while stuck?

Hey Don, how about some add-on extra credit exams?

> Whether you will profit from Inform School depends on what you want
> from it. As a pure game, its entertainment potential is limited, as is
> often the case with educational games. As an example of technical
> wizardry, Inform School is dazzling -- it should have garnered at
> least a nomination for the 1999 "Best Use of Medium" XYZZY Award. As a
> teaching tool for learning Inform, I fear its usefulness is sharply
> limited.

"Sharply" is a little harsh, but yes, it isn't very easy to use. But if
you can get through (and I know you can), I think the benefits for a
beginning Inform programmer are real and attainable.

--
Neil Cerutti (neilc@norwich.edu)


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu Tue Mar 28 18:25:47 CEST 2000
Article: 50730 of rec.games.int-fiction
Path: news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!skynet.be!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!usenet
From: Stephen Granade <sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [IF Conspiracy Review] Inform School
Date: 27 Mar 2000 19:38:18 -0500
Organization: Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Lines: 94
Message-ID: <jdog80nd39.fsf@login1.phy.duke.edu>
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Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> writes:

> In article <jdpushnl3k.fsf@login1.phy.duke.edu>,
> Stephen Granade <sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu> wrote:
> I agree that it could have been packaged as a really cool z-machine
> abuse. I would probably get more downloads too. Hey Don, how about it?

Well, that goes to the question of what the aim of Inform School
is. Being packaged as a z-machine abuse might garner it more
downloads, but would new Inform programmers be apt to overlook it then?

> > That interface is a mixed bag. I soon discovered that Bill had added a
> > small text editor to Inform School, allowing you to type all of your
> > objects straight into the game. A z-machine text editor! On the one
> > hand, that's a nifty keen hack. On the other hand, its features are
> > limited. Programmers who are used to text editors will find it
> > confining, and I think newcomers who have never programmed before will
> > be overwhelmed.
> 
> I don't really know, but the text editor itself is much less powerful
> than a real editor. The tradeoff with that is that it is very easy
> to use. You mileage may differ, but it is certainly easier to learn than
> a fancy text editor, or even Notepad.

Huh. Are you talking about the mechanics of the editor, or the whole
package? If it's the mechanics, I don't see how it's much different
than Notepad: use the cursor keys to move around, press a special key
to save your results.

> > There are 27 tasks which build upon one another. Theoretically you are
> > to read a task, perform it, then check your answer in the manual. In
> > practice I didn't do this. I would read a task, have absolutely no
> > idea how to perform it, and have to turn to the manual to find out
> > how. Better I had been introduced to concepts, given the chance to
> > practice those concepts, and only then asked to demonstrate my mastery
> > of them. When later tasks required me to use concepts from earlier
> > tasks, I had to turn back to the manual to remember how the concepts
> > worked. Any pedagogical benefit from having me create my own objects
> > was lost because I was copying from the manual.
> 
> I had no trouble with the tasks, because the manual is divided up into
> sections, each of which tells you what you need to know to solve the
> corresponding task.

My beef wasn't with that, really -- I could turn to the appropriate
manual entry and follow the instructions. But when I did that, I
didn't *learn* anything.

> > Now, I'm egotistical enough to think that I could have finished the
> > final, given enough time and energy, but I just couldn't make myself
> > do it.
> 
> Hunh. I thought the final was the most fun of the entire game. It places
> you in an empty room, gives you a goal and a compiler, and lets you go
> wild with whatever hacks you can think of to get through. There are
> surely no other puzzles like it anywhere on the archive. If you can't
> solve the problem, you write code to make it possible. How many times
> have you wished for such a thing while stuck?

Actually, never. Game playing and game writing are completely
different pursuits for me. In one I'm creating a world; in another,
I'm participating in someone else's world. Being able to code my way
out of that world destroys my involvement with it.

However, this is neither here nor there. Being able to code your way
out of situations is exactly what the final is about, and is well
within bounds. My problem was in knowing what my goals were. As I went
along, what I was supposed to do next often wasn't clear to me. And no
matter how many paths I could take, there was only one goal ahead of
me, and if I hadn't figured out what that goal was, the game ground to
a halt. There was no feedback given for near-misses.

> > Whether you will profit from Inform School depends on what you want
> > from it. As a pure game, its entertainment potential is limited, as is
> > often the case with educational games. As an example of technical
> > wizardry, Inform School is dazzling -- it should have garnered at
> > least a nomination for the 1999 "Best Use of Medium" XYZZY Award. As a
> > teaching tool for learning Inform, I fear its usefulness is sharply
> > limited.
> 
> "Sharply" is a little harsh, but yes, it isn't very easy to use.

It's more than an ease-of-use issue, I think. I worry that,
pedagogically speaking, Inform School has a number of weaknesses which
keep it from being an effective teaching tool. What I'd love to see is
a rewrite of Inform School where input from a teacher was incorporated
to fix those weaknesses.

Stephen

-- 
  Stephen Granade                | Interested in adventure games?
  sgranade@phy.duke.edu          | Visit About.com's IF Page
  Duke University, Physics Dept  |   http://interactfiction.about.com


From sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu Tue Mar 28 18:27:00 CEST 2000
Article: 50730 of rec.games.int-fiction
Path: news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!skynet.be!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!usenet
From: Stephen Granade <sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [IF Conspiracy Review] Inform School
Date: 27 Mar 2000 19:38:18 -0500
Organization: Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Lines: 94
Message-ID: <jdog80nd39.fsf@login1.phy.duke.edu>
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X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4
Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:50730

Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> writes:

> In article <jdpushnl3k.fsf@login1.phy.duke.edu>,
> Stephen Granade <sgranade@login1.phy.duke.edu> wrote:
> I agree that it could have been packaged as a really cool z-machine
> abuse. I would probably get more downloads too. Hey Don, how about it?

Well, that goes to the question of what the aim of Inform School
is. Being packaged as a z-machine abuse might garner it more
downloads, but would new Inform programmers be apt to overlook it then?

> > That interface is a mixed bag. I soon discovered that Bill had added a
> > small text editor to Inform School, allowing you to type all of your
> > objects straight into the game. A z-machine text editor! On the one
> > hand, that's a nifty keen hack. On the other hand, its features are
> > limited. Programmers who are used to text editors will find it
> > confining, and I think newcomers who have never programmed before will
> > be overwhelmed.
> 
> I don't really know, but the text editor itself is much less powerful
> than a real editor. The tradeoff with that is that it is very easy
> to use. You mileage may differ, but it is certainly easier to learn than
> a fancy text editor, or even Notepad.

Huh. Are you talking about the mechanics of the editor, or the whole
package? If it's the mechanics, I don't see how it's much different
than Notepad: use the cursor keys to move around, press a special key
to save your results.

> > There are 27 tasks which build upon one another. Theoretically you are
> > to read a task, perform it, then check your answer in the manual. In
> > practice I didn't do this. I would read a task, have absolutely no
> > idea how to perform it, and have to turn to the manual to find out
> > how. Better I had been introduced to concepts, given the chance to
> > practice those concepts, and only then asked to demonstrate my mastery
> > of them. When later tasks required me to use concepts from earlier
> > tasks, I had to turn back to the manual to remember how the concepts
> > worked. Any pedagogical benefit from having me create my own objects
> > was lost because I was copying from the manual.
> 
> I had no trouble with the tasks, because the manual is divided up into
> sections, each of which tells you what you need to know to solve the
> corresponding task.

My beef wasn't with that, really -- I could turn to the appropriate
manual entry and follow the instructions. But when I did that, I
didn't *learn* anything.

> > Now, I'm egotistical enough to think that I could have finished the
> > final, given enough time and energy, but I just couldn't make myself
> > do it.
> 
> Hunh. I thought the final was the most fun of the entire game. It places
> you in an empty room, gives you a goal and a compiler, and lets you go
> wild with whatever hacks you can think of to get through. There are
> surely no other puzzles like it anywhere on the archive. If you can't
> solve the problem, you write code to make it possible. How many times
> have you wished for such a thing while stuck?

Actually, never. Game playing and game writing are completely
different pursuits for me. In one I'm creating a world; in another,
I'm participating in someone else's world. Being able to code my way
out of that world destroys my involvement with it.

However, this is neither here nor there. Being able to code your way
out of situations is exactly what the final is about, and is well
within bounds. My problem was in knowing what my goals were. As I went
along, what I was supposed to do next often wasn't clear to me. And no
matter how many paths I could take, there was only one goal ahead of
me, and if I hadn't figured out what that goal was, the game ground to
a halt. There was no feedback given for near-misses.

> > Whether you will profit from Inform School depends on what you want
> > from it. As a pure game, its entertainment potential is limited, as is
> > often the case with educational games. As an example of technical
> > wizardry, Inform School is dazzling -- it should have garnered at
> > least a nomination for the 1999 "Best Use of Medium" XYZZY Award. As a
> > teaching tool for learning Inform, I fear its usefulness is sharply
> > limited.
> 
> "Sharply" is a little harsh, but yes, it isn't very easy to use.

It's more than an ease-of-use issue, I think. I worry that,
pedagogically speaking, Inform School has a number of weaknesses which
keep it from being an effective teaching tool. What I'd love to see is
a rewrite of Inform School where input from a teacher was incorporated
to fix those weaknesses.

Stephen

-- 
  Stephen Granade                | Interested in adventure games?
  sgranade@phy.duke.edu          | Visit About.com's IF Page
  Duke University, Physics Dept  |   http://interactfiction.about.com


From mol@pobox.com Sat Apr  1 23:59:49 CEST 2000
Article: 50874 of rec.games.int-fiction
Path: news.lth.se!not-for-mail
From: mol@pobox.com (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - help needed!
Date: 1 Apr 2000 23:58:57 +0200
Organization: Chronically disorganized
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <8c5rf1$2af$1@bartlet.df.lth.se>
References: <38E4CA34.65DF@primo.aprilo.com>
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:50874

In article <38E4CA34.65DF@primo.aprilo.com>, 
S Makane <smakane@primo.aprilo.com> wrote:

>I'm really enjoying this game (I especially liked the NPC's)

Yes, the emotional modelling is pretty impressive, and I liked the
way the NPC's would carry on conversations with each other,
even when you're not in the same room as they are, and incorporate the
things you have done into their conversations (have you tried
eavesdropping on the Captain and Number One when they discuss your
behaviour during the F'bluxi Rust Removal ritual?). 

>but now I'm stuck in several places and desperately need some help.
>1) I loved the maze, and the way mapping it out spelled out the
>combination for the Captain's safe, but when I open the safe it only
>contains some smoldering papers. Am I doing something wrong?

If you translate the F'bluxi text written on the inside surface of the
Hyper-Thermical Phase Wrench, you'll get an important clue. And
remember that you must be careful with how you walk in the upper
weapons bay levels - you must not walk close than three meters from
the manholes, or the bad guys will hear you through the
Multi-Temporal Phase Junctions. Also remember to wear green at the
F'bluxi embassy reception, or you're in for a nasty surprise later on.

>2) How do I get the Captain to act on the evidence I've collected?
>I've tried things like "Tell Captain that Lucy put Sam's phaser in
>under your bed" but she doesn't seem to believe me.

You'll have to get the Captain in the right mood for her to believe
you - remember that you're in rather bad grace after what you did to
her brother. Perhaps you could ask somebody else to tell her? But then
of course you'll have to make him or her believe you as well. A hint:
some clever application of the pheromone spray could be in order. 

>3) I used the Multi-Molecular Size Converter to shrink the Bobzellian
>battle fleet so I could put it in my backpack, btu that doesn't seem
>to do me any good. Is there anything else I could use it on?

Have you tried using it on yourself? The Captain? The black hole?

Hope this helps!


-- 
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se, mol@pobox.com)
------    http://www.pobox.com/~mol   ------


From mol@pobox.com Sun Apr  2 09:20:58 CEST 2000
Article: 50874 of rec.games.int-fiction
Path: news.lth.se!not-for-mail
From: mol@pobox.com (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - help needed!
Date: 1 Apr 2000 23:58:57 +0200
Organization: Chronically disorganized
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <8c5rf1$2af$1@bartlet.df.lth.se>
References: <38E4CA34.65DF@primo.aprilo.com>
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:50874

In article <38E4CA34.65DF@primo.aprilo.com>, 
S Makane <smakane@primo.aprilo.com> wrote:

>I'm really enjoying this game (I especially liked the NPC's)

Yes, the emotional modelling is pretty impressive, and I liked the
way the NPC's would carry on conversations with each other,
even when you're not in the same room as they are, and incorporate the
things you have done into their conversations (have you tried
eavesdropping on the Captain and Number One when they discuss your
behaviour during the F'bluxi Rust Removal ritual?). 

>but now I'm stuck in several places and desperately need some help.
>1) I loved the maze, and the way mapping it out spelled out the
>combination for the Captain's safe, but when I open the safe it only
>contains some smoldering papers. Am I doing something wrong?

If you translate the F'bluxi text written on the inside surface of the
Hyper-Thermical Phase Wrench, you'll get an important clue. And
remember that you must be careful with how you walk in the upper
weapons bay levels - you must not walk close than three meters from
the manholes, or the bad guys will hear you through the
Multi-Temporal Phase Junctions. Also remember to wear green at the
F'bluxi embassy reception, or you're in for a nasty surprise later on.

>2) How do I get the Captain to act on the evidence I've collected?
>I've tried things like "Tell Captain that Lucy put Sam's phaser in
>under your bed" but she doesn't seem to believe me.

You'll have to get the Captain in the right mood for her to believe
you - remember that you're in rather bad grace after what you did to
her brother. Perhaps you could ask somebody else to tell her? But then
of course you'll have to make him or her believe you as well. A hint:
some clever application of the pheromone spray could be in order. 

>3) I used the Multi-Molecular Size Converter to shrink the Bobzellian
>battle fleet so I could put it in my backpack, btu that doesn't seem
>to do me any good. Is there anything else I could use it on?

Have you tried using it on yourself? The Captain? The black hole?

Hope this helps!


-- 
Magnus Olsson (mol@df.lth.se, mol@pobox.com)
------    http://www.pobox.com/~mol   ------


From gmckean@wsu.edu Sun Apr  2 09:21:24 CEST 2000
Article: 50879 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Gabe McKean" <gmckean@wsu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - help needed!
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 19:22:25 -0800
Organization: Washington State University
Lines: 58
Message-ID: <8c6ec8$6ea$1@leopard.it.wsu.edu>
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:50879


Magnus Olsson wrote in message <8c5rf1$2af$1@bartlet.df.lth.se>...
>In article <38E4CA34.65DF@primo.aprilo.com>,
>S Makane <smakane@primo.aprilo.com> wrote:
>
>>I'm really enjoying this game (I especially liked the NPC's)
>
>Yes, the emotional modelling is pretty impressive, and I liked the
>way the NPC's would carry on conversations with each other,
>even when you're not in the same room as they are, and incorporate the
>things you have done into their conversations (have you tried
>eavesdropping on the Captain and Number One when they discuss your
>behaviour during the F'bluxi Rust Removal ritual?).

My favorite NPC was Moyd the old robot.  I especially like his reactions
DURING the Rust Removal ritual :)


[snip]
>And remember that you must be careful with how you walk in the upper
>weapons bay levels - you must not walk close than three meters from
>the manholes, or the bad guys will hear you through the
>Multi-Temporal Phase Junctions.

An alternative solution is to tear up a blanket from the sleeping quarters
and wrap the pieces around your feeet, so as to make your footsteps silent.
A bit obscure, perhaps, but I figured it out before I thought of staying
away from the manholes.

>Also remember to wear green at the
>F'bluxi embassy reception, or you're in for a nasty surprise later on.

I really disliked this puzzle.  The only hints are that if you happen to
translate the 'star-date' into the standard calendar it ends up being March
17, and that you're told by the ambassador that the F'bluxi celebrate many
Terran holidays.

>>2) How do I get the Captain to act on the evidence I've collected?
>>I've tried things like "Tell Captain that Lucy put Sam's phaser in
>>under your bed" but she doesn't seem to believe me.
>
>You'll have to get the Captain in the right mood for her to believe
>you - remember that you're in rather bad grace after what you did to
>her brother. Perhaps you could ask somebody else to tell her? But then
>of course you'll have to make him or her believe you as well. A hint:
>some clever application of the pheromone spray could be in order.

You'll also need a bottle of F'bluxi ale.  That's some strong stuff!

>>3) I used the Multi-Molecular Size Converter to shrink the Bobzellian
>>battle fleet so I could put it in my backpack, btu that doesn't seem
>>to do me any good. Is there anything else I could use it on?
>
>Have you tried using it on yourself? The Captain? The black hole?

Just be careful not to use it on your clothes while your still wearing them!




From jcmason@uwaterloo.ca Wed Apr  5 00:51:06 CEST 2000
Article: 50894 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: jcmason@uwaterloo.ca (Joe Mason)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - help needed!
References: <38E4CA34.65DF@primo.aprilo.com> <8c5rf1$2af$1@bartlet.df.lth.se> <8c6ec8$6ea$1@leopard.it.wsu.edu>
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Gabe McKean <gmckean@wsu.edu> wrote:
>>Also remember to wear green at the
>>F'bluxi embassy reception, or you're in for a nasty surprise later on.
>
>I really disliked this puzzle.  The only hints are that if you happen to
>translate the 'star-date' into the standard calendar it ends up being March
>17, and that you're told by the ambassador that the F'bluxi celebrate many
>Terran holidays.

You mean you didn't notice the green banners draped all over the otherwise
business-oriented Gethel District?  As soon as I saw that, I realized there
was a festival coming up, and that I should probably find out which.

Also, if you listen to the SubEtherBroadcaster in G'Laya's office (while
waiting for the sublevel supervisor to show up) there's a "Countdown to B'Bli"
which'll tell you the exact date, as well as a strong hint which holiday it
is.  To be honest, though, most people probably turned the radio off ASAP:
F'bluxi "music" really is horrid.

Personally, I thought the puzzle with the Matter Destroyer and the oranges was
more unfair.

Joe


From julie_somersfieldNOjuSPAM@hotmail.com.invalid Wed Apr  5 00:51:06 CEST 2000
Article: 50906 of rec.games.int-fiction
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sounds interesting - where can i get the game?

* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!



From jon@ingold.fsnet.co.uk Wed Apr  5 00:51:06 CEST 2000
Article: 50910 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Jon Ingold" <jon@ingold.fsnet.co.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - help needed!
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..I thought these things were supposed to be done *before* 12:00?

Jon




From dseybert@earthlink.net Wed Apr  5 00:51:06 CEST 2000
Article: 50904 of rec.games.int-fiction
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Subject: Dragons from Outer Space - Where?
From: David Seybert <dseybert@earthlink.net>
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This sounds like it might be very enjoyable. Where can I find it?

Dave Seybert



From rpresser@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid Wed Apr  5 00:51:07 CEST 2000
Article: 50907 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: rpresser@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid (Ross Presser)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - Where?
Date: 3 Apr 2000 15:40:30 GMT
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alt.distinguished.dseybert@earthlink.net (David 
Seybert).wrote.posted.offered:

>This sounds like it might be very enjoyable. Where can I find it?

Send email to the original poster, S. Makane.  He'll give you 
directions on where to download it (and the necessary interpreter 
library, RAIF-POOL 401.69.69).


-- 
Ross Presser * ross_presser@imtek.com
"You can kill more lusers per hour with a dull spoon and a kind sword, 
than with just a dull spoon." -- rsteenw@xs4all.nl (Rik Steenwinkel)


From doeadeer3@aol.com Wed Apr  5 00:51:07 CEST 2000
Article: 50909 of rec.games.int-fiction
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:50909

Bing. April 1st ring a bell?

Doe :-)




doeadeer3@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------
Iffy Theory - http://members.aol.com/doepage/theory.html
IF Art Gallery - http://members.aol.com/iffyart/
IF Review Conspiracy - http://www.textfire.com/conspiracy/





From abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com Wed Apr  5 00:51:07 CEST 2000
Article: 50914 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Adam 'Jw' Biltcliffe" <abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - Where?
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 20:20:07 +0100
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Ross Presser <rpresser@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:8F0B8487Cpt101594@207.211.168.97...
> alt.distinguished.doeadeer3@aol.com (Marnie
> Parker).wrote.posted.offered:
>
> >Bing. April 1st ring a bell?
> >
> >Doe :-)
>
> Aw, you gave it away! :)

Mind you, it does sound cool - anyone want to try their hand at writing
it?


Jw




From jcmason@uwaterloo.ca Wed Apr  5 00:51:07 CEST 2000
Article: 50917 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: jcmason@uwaterloo.ca (Joe Mason)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - Where?
References: <8F0B7E457pt101594@207.211.168.97> <20000403124630.06346.00000781@ng-ff1.aol.com> <8F0B8487Cpt101594@207.211.168.97> <sehsg5u0eop62@corp.supernews.com>
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Adam 'Jw' Biltcliffe <abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com> wrote:
>> Aw, you gave it away! :)
>
>Mind you, it does sound cool - anyone want to try their hand at writing
>it?

Hey, weren't you just asking Inform questions on raif?

Guess you're nominated!

Joe


From gmckean@wsu.edu Wed Apr  5 00:51:07 CEST 2000
Article: 50921 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Gabe McKean" <gmckean@wsu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - Where?
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 23:04:24 -0700
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Joe Mason wrote in message
<8zbG4.119533$Hq3.3017679@news2.rdc1.on.home.com>...
>Adam 'Jw' Biltcliffe <abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com> wrote:
>>> Aw, you gave it away! :)
>>
>>Mind you, it does sound cool - anyone want to try their hand at writing
>>it?
>
>Hey, weren't you just asking Inform questions on raif?
>
>Guess you're nominated!
>
>Joe

And if you're *real* fast, you might get it done in time for the upcoming
Dragon-Comp!




From abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com Wed Apr  5 00:51:08 CEST 2000
Article: 50929 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Adam 'Jw' Biltcliffe" <abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - Where?
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Gabe McKean <gmckean@wsu.edu> wrote in message
news:8cc0k1$o3b$1@leopard.it.wsu.edu...
>
> Joe Mason wrote in message
> <8zbG4.119533$Hq3.3017679@news2.rdc1.on.home.com>...
> >Adam 'Jw' Biltcliffe <abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com>
wrote:
> >>> Aw, you gave it away! :)
> >>
> >>Mind you, it does sound cool - anyone want to try their hand at
writing
> >>it?
> >
> >Hey, weren't you just asking Inform questions on raif?
> >
> >Guess you're nominated!
> >
> >Joe
>
> And if you're *real* fast, you might get it done in time for the
upcoming
> Dragon-Comp!

Having seen the number of first games entered in the Dino-Comp, I'm
already working on something for the Dragon-Comp. However, after that,
give me maybe two years to design and code all the fancy stuff mentioned
in this and the previous DFOS thread and work it into a coherent game,
and yeah, I'll do it.


Jw




From genew@shuswap.net Wed Apr  5 00:51:08 CEST 2000
Article: 50920 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: genew@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Dragons from Outer Space - Where?
Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2000 06:56:09 GMT
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doeadeer3@aol.com (Marnie Parker) wrote:

>Bing. April 1st ring a bell?

     Yeah.  NOW!

     It didn't sound any "worse" than many posts I've read.  I didn't
even consider it as an April Fool's joke.  Well done.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     He/She has prejudices.


From wkoman@bresnanlink.net Thu Apr  6 18:48:12 CEST 2000
Article: 50955 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: wkoman@bresnanlink.net (Rainfire)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [LASH] Optimum ending? (SPOILERS)
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 02:46:56 GMT
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On Sat, 25 Mar 2000 09:43:43 -0000, "Adam 'Jw' Biltcliffe"
<abiltcliffe@bigfoot.NOHORMELPRODUCTS.com> wrote:

>
>Gryg Lawgoch ap Madog <baal@xmission.com> wrote in message
>news:38DBEC9B.3E138EA9@xmission.com...

>> I've found three ways to 'wake up' from the dream:
>>
>> 1. You could allow your avatar to be caught by the Master again.
>>    (Fairly easy if you're not careful.)
>> 2. You could try to kill the Master while he's asleep.
>> 3. And of course, you could try to escape from the plantation.
>
>4. You can kill yourself by jumping off the roof.
5. Shoot yourself with the gun.
6. Attack Matthew when he's his bedroom (get shot by gun)
 6a. Take the gun, drop it in an adjacent room (i.e. not the master's
bedroom), and attack Matthew. You get knocked out by the master's
ring, and you die via unknown causes.
7. Shoot Michael with the gun.

Wakoman
(a.k.a. Rainfire)


From erkyrath@eblong.com Wed Apr 12 22:00:03 CEST 2000
Article: 51033 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: I beg your pardon? (was Re: LASH review)
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Roger Carbol <rcarbol@home.com> wrote:
> genew@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko) wrote:
> 
> 
>>>>However, it is not serving IF either to go in with an infantry
>>>>squad to blow away the cow.
> 
>>>[Announce] Petunia Comp
>>>Save the prize petunias from the hungry cow.  Infantry is optional.
> 
>>     Entries must be in by May (May flowers).
> 
> Do not wumpi fall into the family of ungulates?

Ungulates are *hoofed* animals; the wumpus, of course, has suction feet.

Also, ungulates are all grazers and browsers. They don't eat
adventurers. (Unless you're a particularly adventurous blade of grass.)

(ObIF: That IFComp entry which I won't say the title, because it would be
a spoiler.)

I wouldn't be surprised if wumpi *eat* ungulates, as part of their natural
diet. (Adventurers evolved very recently, you know.) But I'm not familiar
with the sorts of ungulates that live underground. Cave moose, no doubt.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."


From sgranade@login2.phy.duke.edu Thu Apr 13 12:40:51 CEST 2000
Article: 50998 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Stephen Granade <sgranade@login2.phy.duke.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [Bookclub] LYG + JFW
Date: 09 Apr 2000 15:12:26 -0400
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This post is part of Lucian Smith's IF Bookclub. In it I will be
discussing John's Fire Witch, and doing so without the benefit of
spoiler space. For more information about the Bookclub, please see
http://www.textfire.com/bookclub/.

At some point in Lucian's bookclub interview of me, he asked what
games had influenced Losing Your Grip. I mentioned John's Fire
Witch. Ever watchful for more bookclub opportunities, Lucian asked me
to amplify on the connection for this month's bookclub.

On the surface, I think the similarities are obvious. Both are short,
tightly-plotted games more interested in puzzles than in story, with a
light-hearted take on their subjects.

Beyond these similarities, however, is a deeper one: both were written
in TADS.

And beyond that similarity lies the heart of how John's Fire Witch
influenced my writing of Losing Your Grip. Before I talk much about
that connection, I need to talk about when I played John's Fire Witch.

I played John's Fire Witch on my 1995 spring break vacation, shortly
after it had come out. For those of you keeping track, this was
pre-competition, pre-Plotkin, and very pre-Cadre. I had written one
publically-available game, the easily-forgettable Waystation.  TADS
2.2 had been out for a little while; having registered TADS 2.1 for
Waystation, I was wondering if I should upgrade. (Later I did.) Inform
1 had been released in 1993, but not many games of note had been
written with Inform. Brendon Wyber had released Theatre in 1994;
Christminster was going to be released in August of 1995, followed
shortly by Jigsaw.

My dad had a laptop, more for the novelty of having a portable word
processor than for anything else, and I loaded several pieces of IF on
it before we left on our vacation. I played the games off and on,
eventually solving The Golden Wombat of Destiny and the Sound of One
Hand Clapping.

Then I turned to John's Fire Witch, and I was amazed. For one thing,
this game was short! At the time, there weren't a lot of short games
to be had. (This was pre-competition, remember?) Our view of IF was
still shaped by Infocom, so people tended to release Infocom-sized
games. Besides, who would want to play a self-described snack-sized
game?

A lot of people, it turns out. But that wasn't what struck me the
most. What I marvelled at was how well the game was written.

It had a lot of detail. I remember being excited by how much detail
there was. If nothing else, John's Fire Witch taught me that detail
was important. It became my maxim: if it's important enough to mention
in a room description, it's important enough to give a description
to.

It also had tight puzzle design. Things fit together nicely, from the
teleportation card to the deadly sins puzzle. There wasn't a lot of
wasted space or effort, and I appreciated it.

This brings me to the deadly sins puzzle, the element of John's Fire
Witch which most influenced my planning of Losing Your Grip. The
deadly sins puzzle is arguably the best one in the game. It's
certainly the most memorable. You're told to collect the deadly sins,
but you can't find enough sins to complete the task. With only six
sins found, you had to think to give the bag to the devil, who would
become so prideful that you could then add him to your collection of
sins and get past him.

The solution to this puzzle is somewhat like the solution to being
stuck in the passageway in Andrew Plotkin's "Hunter, in Darkness" in
that you have to reach a point where you think you've failed, then
continue on anyway. The sins puzzle requires a lateral step in
thinking. When I was stuck on the puzzle, I was frustrated beyond
belief, but once I solved it, I felt a great sense of accomplishment.

More than that, though, the puzzle got me to thinking seriously about
how puzzles go together. I didn't have any of the Infocom collections
at the time; the last Infocom game I'd played had been in the
mid-80's, when I wasn't thinking much about how games went
together. Most of the amateur games I'd played hadn't been all that
great. (In my defense, I had yet to play Curses, or any of the
Adventions or Mike Roberts games.) And here was a game that helped me
codify what I liked in adventure game puzzles, and gave me the hope
that I could create similar puzzles in TADS. It was a heady feeling.

So that's the absolute true story of how John's Fire Witch influenced
Losing Your Grip.

Stephen


-- 
  Stephen Granade                | Interested in adventure games?
  sgranade@phy.duke.edu          | Visit About.com's IF Page
  Duke University, Physics Dept  |   http://interactfiction.about.com


From cerutti@together.net Tue Apr 18 18:00:54 CEST 2000
Article: 51124 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: cerutti@together.net (Neil Cerutti)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [bookclub] John's Useless Objects
References: <38FBDD08.3DE46F10@cypress.com>
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On Mon, 17 Apr 2000 20:56:56 -0700, Mike Noel posted:
>I was also intrigued by the oven door.  Why was it stuck?  I
>mean, the author could have let the door open only to reveal an
>empty oven.  Or the stove could have been just a range top with
>no oven.  Or it could have been sealed shut from all the greasy
>food that was cooked there. But why was it possible to open it
>just a crack?

It was an (ill-advised in my opinion) red-herring joke. The first
time I played it I got terribly confused by the oven, which in
one sentence "doesn't even work" and in another smells of "cooked
fish, possibly herring." At the time, I was on the look-out for
anything out of the ordinary, and I wasted a lot of time on the
oven.

>Overall I thought the game was great and entertaining.  Certainly it
>wasn't a literary work.  But that was fine with me.

I didn't like the sudden appearance and summary dispatch of the
goblin. As a puzzle it was lame and it in my opinion didn't fit
in with the other puzzles.

An interesting problem John created  for himself is the
appearance of the fire-ring, which logically should have allowed
wandering around all over the snowed-in town.

-- 
char NeilCerutti[]= "cerutti@together.net";


From baker-j@ix.netcom.com Wed Apr 19 11:40:08 CEST 2000
Article: 51152 of rec.games.int-fiction
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Mike Noel wrote:
> After it was all done I was curious about a few things.  First of all,
> what was the laundry chute good for? I tried throwing the bottle down
> the chute but the poison gas either collected in the basement or floated
> up and got me.  I can't remember which one it was.  I tried to throw
> some other things down the chute but everything seemed to get stuck.

One of the favorable reviews that the game got (long ago) complimented
JFW on being refreshingly absent of in-jokes.  So I with some
embarassment admit that the laundry chute was mainly there as an
in-joke.  When I first rented that apartment ('89 or '90 I think), I
kind of liked the fact that it had a laundry chute.  Approximately half
of everything I ever tried to throw down it got stuck.  That would lead
to me and my college roommate at the time (both him and his room were
edited out of the game) spending unreasonable amounts of time trying to
retrieve items of clothing that we _really_ wanted back but...  "You
have a feeling you will never see it again." :)  During one ill-fated
attempt to get items out, we became convinced that we needed something
heavy to drop down it.  We ended up sending down a 25 lb iron
weight-lifting plate, which promptly got stuck too.  Weeks later when we
were prodding UP the chute with a very long, sturdy board we dislodged
it and it nearly killed me.  (This technique is not accounted for in the
game, BTW)

Anyway, that's the story of the chute.

Some other meaningless (but fond for me) Fire Witch trivia:

When I was distributing early beta copies to some testers I had
recruited from the newsgroup, I was using the incoming directory of
ftp.gmd.de.  I was placing encrypted zip files with the .gam file inside
there.  Shortly thereafter I started getting bug reports from someone I
didn't know.  Paul David Doherty had seen the file ("b.zip"  I think it
was), downloaded it, and was curious enough to perform a dictionary
attack on it using pkcrack.

I personally am curious if after all these years anyone ever discovered
my extremely tiny and trivial Easter Eggs.  Some of the beta testers
will answer you if you say their names out loud (the phrase was of their
choosing).

I also know that there at least 3 people who know what "necken-sway"
means. :)  I won't give that one away though.  It's easy enough if you
look for it, but it doesn't have any bearing on the game.

I had an awesome time writing that game, and it was released at a time
when there wasn't a hell of a lot out there.  It really did cause a
small stir in the community during the first few months.  When it came
up as a bookclub suggestion, I knew that it would be much more
critically reviewed this time around, what with all the really quality
stuff that has been released over the last few years.  And it was. :) 

But that's fine with me.  I wrote it the way it was because that's the
type of game that I personally like to play.  I've always had a fondness
for Zorky/Scott Adamsy types of games, and if I ever get around to
writing the sequel, it'll be the same way.
-- 
John Baker
"Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe." - Thulsadoom


From mrblore@earthlink.net Tue May  2 14:07:03 CEST 2000
Article: 51327 of rec.games.int-fiction
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Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
From: mrblore@earthlink.net (Steven Howard)
Subject: [REVIEW] Chico and I Ran
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J.D. Berry's CHICO AND I RAN is a zany whirlwind tour of the past three 
decades of American television and pop music.  Thanks in large part to
an  outstanding hint feature, you could probably win the game without
having  watched much American TV, but you wouldn't get any of the jokes.

Upon starting the game, the player must choose one of four characters to
 play. The characters have slightly different goals, but they all need
to do pretty much the same things to achieve them.  Each character (a
television  executive, museum curator, actress, and talent agent) has a
different  reason for wanting to explore the world of 1970s sitcoms. 
The main section of the game consists of four chapters in which the
character enters the  worlds of "Bewitched," "The Brady Bunch," "The
Mary Tyler Moore Show," and  "Three's Company."  In each case, the
character has been transformed into a character from a different sitcom
(Niles from "Frasier," Phoebe from  "Friends", Al from "Married with
Children", and George from "Seinfeld,"  respectively).  Much of the
humor in the game arises from the reactions of  the '80s and '90s
characters to the '60s and '70s sitcom world.  Niles'  reaction to Aunt
Clara's stole and Phoebe's first meeting with Carol Brady, for example,
are both wonderful, and really capture the "culture shock" of 
characters removed from their normal setting.

The puzzles are mostly easy, although not trivially so.  The best
sections  ("Bewitched" and "The Brady Bunch") have several puzzles
available at once, along with some that are dependent on solving other
puzzles first.  Dealing with Gladys Kravitz was, for me, one of those
puzzles that just clicks -- 
one of those times where the solution isn't obvious, but once you think of 
it, you know it's the right answer.  The Marsha Brady puzzle, on the other 
hand, was the game's supreme "huh?" moment.  It's not a Bank of Zork type
"huh?" -- the puzzle and its solution are actually pretty straightforward 
-- more of a second season of "Twin Peaks" type "huh?"  There's either a 
joke I didn't get, or J. D. Berry is just weird.  Possibly both.

Once the four chapters are done, there's a brief end game where the player 
can choose one of three different final puzzles, at least two of which lead 
ultimately to the same ending.  One of these is a very clever example of
the puzzle that looks like a maze but isn't a maze.  

Throughout the game, many locations mention that music is playing.  If you 
"listen," you're treated to parody lyrics (more-or-less germane to the 
current scene) to a popular song from the 1980s.  There are at least three 
of these songs included as "easter eggs" -- that is, they're not 
mentioned in room descriptions and appear in response to commands other 
than listen.  It's probably no surprise that "xyzzy" is one such command.

As I mentioned before, the built-in hints are very well done.  In response 
to "hint" (or sometimes "hint <object>"), there is a "Momentary Split 
Screen" in which characters from another show ("Happy Days", "The Partridge
Family", etc.) make some comment about the current situation.  These do 
tend to vary in explicitness, from gentle nudges to flat-out telling the 
player what to do.  Some of them are quite funny as well, leading me to 
spend some time getting hints for puzzles I'd already solved.

My only major complaint with the game is that it got worse as it went 
along.  The "Bewitched" and "Brady Bunch" chapters weren't perfect: they 
had their share of empty rooms and unresponsive NPCs, but those weaknesses 
overwhelm the latter two chapters.  As far as I can tell, the "Three's 
Company" chapter has no non-scenery objects in it.  

If the whole game had been like the "Bewitched" chapter, I'd recommend it 
unreservedly.  If the whole game had been like the "Three's Company" 
chapter I'd just as unreservedly recommend against it.  As it stands, I 
recommend this game for people who watched a lot of American TV in the 
1970s and listened to the radio a lot in the 1980s.

========
Steven Howard                    
mrblore@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~mrblore




From icallaci@my-deja.com Mon May 15 15:49:24 CEST 2000
Article: 51603 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: icallaci@my-deja.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [Dangerous Curves] Have you tried...
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 23:51:45 GMT
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I didn't have room to include an AMUSING section in Dangerous Curves,
so I thought I'd list some fun things to try here. Be sure to download
the latest version from GMD's /incoming/if-archive directory, dated May
13, 2000 (to be moved to /if-archive/games/zcode at some point). Some
of the suggestions below may not work correctly in previous versions.
Sorry.

Minor spoilers for Dangerous Curves:

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

WAIT UNTIL 11:00 or CLIMB ON THE DESK before Jessica leaves your
office.

LOOK AT THE DOOR when you're inside one of the offices in the Fremont
building.

ASK THE BARTENDER FOR SOME RYE.

Drink 5 or more drinks (not beer) at the bar and then drive your car
somewhere.

Drink 9 or more drinks (not beer) at one sitting in the bar.

Honk the horn or throw something at the mechanic when your Ford is
up on the hydraulic lift.

GO TO THE BATHROOM when you're in the bathroom (try this at night,
in the dark).

GO IN THE VACANT LOT after dark (well, actually, go in and then
come out).

BUY A GUN from the pawnshop and take it into the bank or the police
station.

WAIT 15 MINUTES inside Rosie's Diner (without ordering).

Go see Jessica or the mayor's receptionist while you're wearing the
surgical scrubs.

GO DOWN to the hospital basement. Twice.

GO TO BED after more than 24 hours without sleep.

Sit through Mass on Wednesday evening.

GET GAS at the service station and don't pay for it.

Stay inside the real estate office until the realtor shows up for
work in the morning.

irene


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From obrian@ucsu.Colorado.EDU Sat Jun 24 10:00:32 CEST 2000
Article: 52275 of rec.games.int-fiction
From: Paul O'Brian <obrian@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [Totally OT] Al's wacky anti-government rant glossary
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OK, I've tried resisting, but my will has been sapped -- I'm now going
to post to this crazy thread. (Though I will, at least, change the damn 
subject header.) So, for those of you who find yourselves a little
confused by Al's posts, I offer the following glossary. Words to be
defined are SHOUTED in homage to Al's lovable style:

COMMUNIST: Anyone who disagrees with or makes fun of Al.

EXTORTION: Income taxes. 

FAIR AND JUST: See LAWFUL.

FRAUDULENT: Deriving from laws that Al disagrees with.

HERE: In the United States.

LAWFUL: Deriving from laws that Al agrees with. 

PILL, A: Nut, a.

POLITIICALLY INCORRECT: An income tax evader. As in "When... they want to
take your possessions or whatever because you've been politically
incorrect you'll understand."

2ND AMENDMENT: The gun nut's interpretation of the Second amendment --
not that one that begins "A well regulated militia..." but rather the one
that begins "Millions of unconnected armed individuals...". 

SCREWED: Protected. As in "I guess the Canadians like the right to be
screwed by their government."

SORRY: Not sorry. As in "SORRY IF I'M SHOUTING BUT I MAKE NO APOLOGIES TO
ANYONE."

THIS COUNTRY: The United States.

Please refer to this helpful guide next time you find yourself confused by
Al's invaluable but often inscrutable epigrams. 

-- 
Paul O'Brian   obrian@colorado.edu   http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
The pulse-pounding, electrifying, edge-of-your-seat event you've been waiting
for is here! Yes, SPAG #21 is out!   http://www.sparkynet.com/spag




From dnrb@starpower.net Sat Jun 24 10:00:40 CEST 2000
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From: "Duncan Stevens" <dnrb@starpower.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [Totally OT] Al's wacky anti-government rant glossary
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 20:51:17 -0400
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Paul O'Brian <obrian@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.3.96.1000623075608.25746B-100000@ucsu.Colorado.EDU...
> OK, I've tried resisting, but my will has been sapped -- I'm now going
> to post to this crazy thread. (Though I will, at least, change the damn
> subject header.) So, for those of you who find yourselves a little
> confused by Al's posts, I offer the following glossary. Words to be
> defined are SHOUTED in homage to Al's lovable style:

[snip]

You forgot:

CONSTITUTION: The First and Second Amendments. Maybe a little bit more if
we're feeling generous. But definitely not the Sixteenth. Never happened.

--Duncan





From dnrb@starpower.net Mon Jun 26 16:00:56 CEST 2000
Article: 52356 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Duncan Stevens" <dnrb@starpower.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [IF Book Club] Spiritwrak
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 23:23:02 -0400
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This is an IF Book Club post. See www.textfire.com/bookclub for more
information. Warning: there are major spoilers for Spiritwrak below.

This isn't an essay so much as it's a series of thoughts about Spiritwrak,
most of them related to game design, specifically poor--or, at least, no
longer acceptable, game design. While there are things to like about
Spiritwrak, there are also plenty of things for game authors to avoid,
IMO.

First: that damn transportation system, both tedious--usually at least
twenty turns wasted getting from one area to another--and unfair, in that
it's not really so terribly hard to run out of coins. Sure, if you do the
bank puzzle early on, it's probably not a problem, but if you don't,
you're apt to end up stuck somewhere. The irritating thing is that the
author seemed to build in a shortcut, namely the huncho spell--which, a la
Beyond Zork, should let you move from place to place pretty quickly via
the Ethereal Plane--but (a) you don't get access to that shortcut until
the end of the game, and (b) you need all four rods to use the huncho
spell, and players lose the four rods shortly after collecting all four of
them. (You can still get to the Ethereal Plane via the gating device
thing, but that's not exactly handy.) If access to the shortcut had come
along much earlier in the game, the subway would have been bearable; as it
is, it's a major nuisance.

Second, did anyone else find it odd that the quest itself--at least,
collecting the four rods--was strikingly less interesting than the puzzles
you solve to get there? I guess I'm reacting mostly to the way you get rid
of the evil nasty spirits, i.e., cast the same spell on each one. The
spirits themselves are guarded by some fun (even if highly artificial
puzzles)--the layers of wood beams, the trophy puzzle--but the spirits are
pretty wimpy. This struck me as peculiar.

The bag of holding--either the fur sack or, bizarrely, a flowerpot--was a
welcome touch, but it came along way too late. I was juggling objects long
before I found either of the "holding" objects. Moral: if you're going to
sacrifice realism to avoid inventory management puzzles, do it _right
away_. Dammit.

Mind-reading: a little too much of it. The ZEMDOR spell (triplicate) is
neat, but how I should have known to cast it on the cereal box, and how I
should have anticipated that the box would turn into three _different_
boxes, well, I dunno. The hide-the-rod-in-the-foundation-of-the-house
puzzle--I don't know why, but for some reason it wasn't obvious to me that
the one brick was weaker than the other, and it certainly wasn't obvious
that I have to leave the weak brick lying around so that someone else can
put it in the hole (as opposed to putting it in the hole myself). There's
a scroll in the painting? Like, why? The umbrella-in-the-pool puzzle still
makes zero sense to me, and the zombie puzzle is a cute joke that I doubt
most people would get until after the fact. My whistle will shatter glass?
Suggesting that I needed to find the Frobozz Magic Spatula to get the cake
out of the pan was a tad mean.

Also, in the category of bad puzzles, the logic puzzle doesn't work at
all. Specifically: one of the chambers (which can either be lying or tell
the truth) essentially says "I am lying." Uh...

There are a few good things in the game design department, I guess.
Assembling the various bits of backstory over the course of the game was
arguably the most interesting thing that happened, and while some of the
fragments you find are kind of repetitive, most are sort of
intriguing--and the sequence of fragments (more or less predictable) does
a nice job of unfolding the story bit by bit. Thumbs up for that. The
spheres you get for various good deeds are a bit hokey, but it's still not
a bad touch--it makes the quest feel a bit less formulaic than it might
be. The seesaw puzzle is pretty cool (though it's also easy to suddenly
render the game unwinnable), and the scroll-on-the-ledge puzzle is clever.
Not many of the puzzles were really strikingly original, but a few were.

On Zorkiness: yes. As in, it does capture the feel pretty well (though the
amount of slavish copying is part of that)--similar to Balances and Frobozz
Magic Support, better than Zork Zero. (I've never tried the graphical
games.) Zorkiness isn't enough to make it good, of course, but it did push
my nostalgia buttons, which helped. It didn't really have the same sense of
humor as such, but the whimsy--the volcano puzzle, the contest, the alarm
clock puzzle--were all reminiscent of Zork.

On the whole: not much plot, in the classic Zork style, and some game design
problems, but a nice trip down memory lane.




From dsyu@my-deja.com Tue Jun 27 09:48:49 CEST 2000
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From: dsyu@my-deja.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: [IF Book Club] Spiritwrak
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 06:23:17 GMT
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[follow-up]

Well, it's been, what, 4+ years since I wrote Spiritwrak.  Boy,
I suddenly feel old.  Anyhoo...a special thanks to all those
who blew the dust off Spiritwrak and took it for a spin.

<some pseudo-spoilers follow>

-- On the transportation system:

I'd probably say I got more "nays" than "yays" on this aspect
of the game.  Initially, this was supposed to serve two purposes:
1) create a (false) sense of distance in the game between
locales and 2) be something of a puzzle, in that you had to
properly conserve coins to get to where you wanted to go.

"2" failed, and wasn't well thought out -- the gist being that
until the player really knew where to go, they wouldn't know
to conserve coins.  The Bank puzzle was added in version 3 as
a hack to address this.  Maybe a map early on would have helped.

"1" however, I thought worked out.  The Beyond Zork Ethereal
Plane was simpler and more convenient, I'd agree, but I'd also add
that the intention wasn't to provide a quick and easy means
of transportation.  I was always a big fan of the weird and
amusing means of transportation in Zork games (raft, balloon,
sky-car, roller coaster, etc.), and I wanted SW to have something
similar.

Using BZ as an example, I'm the type of person who never
really used the Ethereal plane to hop around, just so I could
get another ride on the sky-car.  Admittedly, the process
got essentially tedious, but just the faux feeling that you
were "traveling" made it worth it (to me).  Of course, with a subway,
there isn't as much scenery as, say, a hot-air balloon ride,
so I tossed in some odd denizens, and some quirks along the
way.

-- On puzzles and combat:

Creating the puzzles was something of a learning experience.
Most of the original puzzles were based on random academic
problems.  Morgan's windcats puzzle, for example, was
inspired (and I used this word loosely) by a classic
distributed computing problem (The Byzantine Generals Problem).
In the end, however, some puzzles I liked, players didn't
(ancient temple puzzle) and vis versa (the see-saw puzzle was
a total last-minute afterthought puzzle).  It all depends on
experiences and personal tastes, and I discovered (duh) that
it's quite difficult to create "generic" puzzles that are easily
approachable by anyone.

The other aspect to the game was that I tried to put a
mini combat-system in it, which only partially gets used when
dealing with the spirits (which you can't really fight anyway)
and the golems.  Different schools of thought on this -- I
liked the combat-system in the Zork series, for example.
I didn't like the overly RPG-like system in BZ.  Half-way
through doing this, however, I realized that it didn't really
make sense to have an intricate combat system in SW, since
the main character was a priest, after all.  Ergo...lame
combat system.

-- On Zorkiness:

As any fan-based work goes, replicating an environment is done
more as an act of homage, rather than an attempt to be
exceedingly accurate.  I mainly concentrating my efforts on
trying to replicate some of the Zork environment (mostly
creatures and characters) and whimsy (cakes, volcano, etc).
I felt I managed to capture a bit of the atmosphere, although
the plot suffered somewhat, and was a bit jumbled to begin with.
Such is life.

Dan



In article <8j6i38$7k9$1@bob.news.rcn.net>,
  "Duncan Stevens" <dnrb@starpower.net> wrote:
> This is an IF Book Club post. See www.textfire.com/bookclub for more
> information. Warning: there are major spoilers for Spiritwrak below.
>
> This isn't an essay so much as it's a series of thoughts about
Spiritwrak,
> most of them related to game design, specifically poor--or, at least,
no
> longer acceptable, game design. While there are things to like about
> Spiritwrak, there are also plenty of things for game authors to avoid,
> IMO.
>
> First: that damn transportation system, both tedious--usually at least
> twenty turns wasted getting from one area to another--and unfair, in
that
> it's not really so terribly hard to run out of coins. Sure, if you do
the
> bank puzzle early on, it's probably not a problem, but if you don't,
> you're apt to end up stuck somewhere. The irritating thing is that the
> author seemed to build in a shortcut, namely the huncho spell--which,
a la
> Beyond Zork, should let you move from place to place pretty quickly
via
> the Ethereal Plane--but (a) you don't get access to that shortcut
until
> the end of the game, and (b) you need all four rods to use the huncho
> spell, and players lose the four rods shortly after collecting all
four of
> them. (You can still get to the Ethereal Plane via the gating device
> thing, but that's not exactly handy.) If access to the shortcut had
come
> along much earlier in the game, the subway would have been bearable;
as it
> is, it's a major nuisance.
>
> Second, did anyone else find it odd that the quest itself--at least,
> collecting the four rods--was strikingly less interesting than the
puzzles
> you solve to get there? I guess I'm reacting mostly to the way you
get rid
> of the evil nasty spirits, i.e., cast the same spell on each one. The
> spirits themselves are guarded by some fun (even if highly artificial
> puzzles)--the layers of wood beams, the trophy puzzle--but the
spirits are
> pretty wimpy. This struck me as peculiar.
>
> The bag of holding--either the fur sack or, bizarrely, a flowerpot--
was a
> welcome touch, but it came along way too late. I was juggling objects
long
> before I found either of the "holding" objects. Moral: if you're
going to
> sacrifice realism to avoid inventory management puzzles, do it _right
> away_. Dammit.
>
> Mind-reading: a little too much of it. The ZEMDOR spell (triplicate)
is
> neat, but how I should have known to cast it on the cereal box, and
how I
> should have anticipated that the box would turn into three _different_
> boxes, well, I dunno. The hide-the-rod-in-the-foundation-of-the-house
> puzzle--I don't know why, but for some reason it wasn't obvious to me
that
> the one brick was weaker than the other, and it certainly wasn't
obvious
> that I have to leave the weak brick lying around so that someone else
can
> put it in the hole (as opposed to putting it in the hole myself).
There's
> a scroll in the painting? Like, why? The umbrella-in-the-pool puzzle
still
> makes zero sense to me, and the zombie puzzle is a cute joke that I
doubt
> most people would get until after the fact. My whistle will shatter
glass?
> Suggesting that I needed to find the Frobozz Magic Spatula to get the
cake
> out of the pan was a tad mean.
>
> Also, in the category of bad puzzles, the logic puzzle doesn't work at
> all. Specifically: one of the chambers (which can either be lying or
tell
> the truth) essentially says "I am lying." Uh...
>
> There are a few good things in the game design department, I guess.
> Assembling the various bits of backstory over the course of the game
was
> arguably the most interesting thing that happened, and while some of
the
> fragments you find are kind of repetitive, most are sort of
> intriguing--and the sequence of fragments (more or less predictable)
does
> a nice job of unfolding the story bit by bit. Thumbs up for that. The
> spheres you get for various good deeds are a bit hokey, but it's
still not
> a bad touch--it makes the quest feel a bit less formulaic than it
might
> be. The seesaw puzzle is pretty cool (though it's also easy to
suddenly
> render the game unwinnable), and the scroll-on-the-ledge puzzle is
clever.
> Not many of the puzzles were really strikingly original, but a few
were.
>
> On Zorkiness: yes. As in, it does capture the feel pretty well
(though the
> amount of slavish copying is part of that)--similar to Balances and
Frobozz
> Magic Support, better than Zork Zero. (I've never tried the graphical
> games.) Zorkiness isn't enough to make it good, of course, but it did
push
> my nostalgia buttons, which helped. It didn't really have the same
sense of
> humor as such, but the whimsy--the volcano puzzle, the contest, the
alarm
> clock puzzle--were all reminiscent of Zork.
>
> On the whole: not much plot, in the classic Zork style, and some game
design
> problems, but a nice trip down memory lane.
>
>


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From im@cs.york.ac.uk Wed Jun 28 13:02:03 CEST 2000
Article: 52395 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: Iain Merrick <im@cs.york.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: [Review] Offensive Probing
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 11:37:57 +0100
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OFFENSIVE PROBING by Ben Croshaw
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/zcode/Probing.zip

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

[NOTE: You might suspect this of being a REVIEW CONSPIRACY review, but
of course there is no REVIEW CONSPIRACY, so it can't be. You are warned
that the REVIEW CONSPIRACY does not look kindly upon people claiming,
despite the carefully-planted evidence to the contrary, that the REVIEW
CONSPIRACY exists. There is no REVIEW CONSPIRACY. Thank you.]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I certainly can't accuse this game of having a dull title. For fans of
_Doctor Who_, "offensive probing" might induce visions of attractive
young Companions screaming "NO, NOT THE MIND PROBE!" to the
accompaniment of magnificently cheesy sound effects as enthusiastic if
slightly unconvincing aliens strap them into uncomfortable-looking
pieces of hi-tech furniture. Fans of _Barbarella_ may have other kinds
of probing in mind, though still with the cheesy sound effects. And
indeed, this game is billed as "An Epic Sci-Fi Adventure".

But no cheesy sound effects. Guess you can't have everything.

_Offensive Probing_ is actually an inoffensive little game with some
nice little puzzles and some nice little jokes. There are dozens of
minor Inform games in the IF archive, most of which are pretty poor;
_Offensive Probing_ is in the same class, but it's one of the good ones.
Not quite _Balances_, but I enjoyed it.

It's about the length of a smallish comp game; I finished it in two
shortish sessions, spending most of my time stuck on two puzzles. I'll
blame the first on temporary stupidity on my part, but I think the game
was being unfair in the second case -- I'll explain in more detail in
the spoiler section, below. The plot is entirely linear, but the game
does have a reasonable amount of interactivity in other areas.

The coding is pretty solid: I only found one glaring bug. I would have
preferred a few more frills and niceties, though: the author's notes are
supplied as a separate text file, rather than a help menu within the
game, for instance. The zip file also includes a PC executable, which
seems pretty pointless. Luckily it's pretty small, or I'd be annoyed
rather than merely bemused.

This slight lack of polish is evident in a couple of other respects.
First, there are more than a few useless objects lying around the place;
none are really red herrings, however, and some have decent jokes
attached. The scoring system is also a bit unimaginative: it does the
job of letting you know how you're progressing, but no more. Perhaps I'm
nit-picking, but I'd at least have liked a nice round number for the
maximum score, and maybe an itemised FULL SCORE list.

The game is unforgiving, but not cruel. Keep a few saves handy and
you'll be fine. And that's about all I can say without getting into
spoiler territory. So: if you have an hour or so to spare, and you don't
have any religious objections to tongue-in-cheek space opera, give
_Offensive Probing_ a whirl. It's good clean fun.

[ ** SPOILERS: coming up ** ]




























[ ** SPOILERS: you have been warned ** ]

The first puzzle I got stuck on was the one with the syringe. I
inexplicably failed to think of the obvious solution, though the fact
that there's no INJECT verb may have distracted me slightly.

The second puzzle I got stuck on was opening the child-proof bottle, and
this time I was pretty annoyed when I stumbled across the solution --
QEBC OBGGYR, in rot13. To me this is really non-intuitive; not only is
the verb being used in a non-standard way, but OERNX OBGGYR prints the
annoying default library message, which in this context is not only
annoying but misleading. Grrrr.

I think this is a similar mistake to, say, requiring the player to wait
for five turns in a certain location: it sounds reasonable in principle,
but in practice the player won't hang around for that long without some
additional incentive. Note that the player stopping and thinking for a
long time doesn't mean that the _player character_ will necessarily do
so. (Perhaps I'm being harsher on this puzzle that it deserves, since I
can't help comparing it to the excellent child-proof bottle puzzle in
_Curses_. But it does suffer from the comparison.)

The glaring bug? When you meet the captain for the first time, he stands
around like a statue until you eventually come up with an action he
responds to:

    >CAPTAIN, HI
    There is no reply.

    >Z
    Time passes.

    >KICK CAPTAIN
    That's not a verb I recognise.

    >KISS CAPTAIN
    Before you have time to do or say anything, the Captain says
    "Ah, Ensign McSondheim. Welcome on board the SFS Connery."

More amusing than harmful, really. This kind of bug I can live with.

(Speaking of amusing, my favourite joke in the game is the response to
READ MEDICAL REPORT. Good stuff.)

A few more quibbles: OUT should be a recognised exit in the first room,
and similarly for a few more locations here and there. Also, the section
of corridor east of the coolant shaft doesn't allow you to travel west
again, despite what the room description says. Oh, and SLEEP doesn't
work when you're in your quarters, but ENTER BED does. These are worth
fixing, but nothing life-threatening.

The envelope can be used as a makeshift SACK_OBJECT, but for me this
doesn't count as a bug. Limiting the number of objects you can carry
does -- almost.

And that's about that. If you've finished the game, you'll have
discovered that it's merely the first part of a promised trilogy. I
don't know about you, but I'll certainly keep an eye out for part 2. And
_Offensive Probing_ is a solid enough game that I wouldn't bet against
the next two parts seeing the light of day, unlike many of the "Part One
Of An Epic Saga"-type games on GMD.

-- 
Iain Merrick
im@cs.york.ac.uk


From wild_dj@mit.edu Sat Aug 12 15:23:30 MEST 2000
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Subject: Re: Selections for Children (Witness spoilers)
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From: wild_dj@mit.edu (Jake Wildstrom)
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In article <8n1ddd$p2k$1@flood.xnet.com>,
Jason Compton  <jcompton@typhoon.xnet.com> wrote:
>Jake Wildstrom <wild_dj@mit.edu> wrote:
>
>: And in Witness there's the matter of Mrs. Linder and Stiles's affair. Also,
>: even if you don't see that as a problem, you probably want to turn on the
>: Tandy bit.
>
>True, although it's off-camera. Decent enough point.
>
>Does the Tandy bit affect the plot? Or just keep you from getting
>responses to dirty suggestions?

There are 12 places in Witness where the Tandy code is used:

2 of them are responses to destructive activities, which normally merits the
response "Vandalism is for private dicks, not famous police detectives". The
Tandy bit changes "dicks" to "eyes".

When you ASK STILES ABOUT PHONG, he tells you "He seems straight, but I don't
really trust slanteyes.". 'slanteyes' becomes 'his kind'.

ASK MONICA ABOUT MURDER yields "Isn't it obvious? That bastard Stiles squibbed
him off!". 'bastard' becomes 'idiot'.

Similarly, if before you accuse her you ASK MONICA ABOUT STILES: "That bastard
who killed Dad? I'd spit in his face if it was worth the trouble." As above,
'bastard' becomes 'idiot'.

And after you accuse her, she'll say "That poor bastard. First he fell in love
with Mother, a married woman; then he actually trusted her husband. I don't know
what he uses for brains." As above, 'bastard' becomes 'idiot'.

ASK MONICA ABOUT PHONG: "He's a right gee, no matter what some people say about
his race." 'race' becomes 'kind'.

Most actions you try to take on Monica result in her saying:
"I don't know what game you're playing, Detective, but count me out. If you think
I'm just a dumb twist, think again." 'twist' becomes 'twit'.

If a game fails to SAVE (or SUSPEND) it says that "Your story couldn't be
suspended. Consult your instruction manual if necessary." Tandy added
"or Reference Card" to that phrase.

If you surprise Monica in the workshop, she says "My God, you gave me a start!".
The word "God" is removed in Tandy.

The VERSION command under Tandy says "Licensed to Tandy Corporation."

Somewhere in the game is the phrase "Necrophilia went out with fur coats!" which
is Tandyified to "You can't be that desperate!". I have no idea what input yields
this result. Anyone? I've tried the obvious actions.

+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
| A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into         |
| theorems.              -Paul Erdos                          |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                       Jake Wildstrom                        |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+


From ghira@mistral.co.uk Tue Aug 15 15:01:48 MEST 2000
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From: Adam Atkinson <ghira@mistral.co.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Sangraal (spoilers!)
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In article <8n9sjd$bcr$1@corolla.OntheNet.com.au>,
  "Nym" <nym@nym.com.au> wrote:

Here there be spoilers.

> Ok, How do I show lust in the city (the seventh deadly sin)?  What is
with
> the floor in the Byzantine room in the city?

I think this puzzle is acceptable only because you have
so little material to work with inside nastil-xarn. You have
very very few items here. Try doing things with them in the
first Byzantine room.

>  How do I get through
the wall
> of fire?

The one with the changing patterns on it? Someone will tell
you how to do it.

>What are all the gems for?

Which gems?

> Is the widows and orphans
society like
> the warden in Crobe?

In the sense that you give them treasures to get full points
for them, yes. In the sense that you can never get
treasures back from them, yes. You can't give them non-treasures.

Also, be warned that you can't assume that treasures are useless.
It's probably safest to pile the treasures up somewhere and
only give them to the Widows and Orphans if you think you
qualify as Second to None and want to make sure.

>  Should I give them my treasures?

Eventually, yes. In the short term, I wouldn't if I were you.
Sangraal was officially written to be suitable for beginners -
and by comparison with Acheton, Fyleet, Quondam, Xeno, ...
it's an easy game. I suspect treasures were supposed to be
useless as this would make life easier for beginners. However,
there is in fact at least one useful treasure in the game. (Not
counting the sword, which the widows and orphans won't accept
anyway.)

> Is there any
logical
> way to get around the maze on the island?

Yes. Though mapping it is a pain. There are two treasures in it.
If you can find those, and the exit, you've done everything you
need to do. Work out which way the island is rotating, and how
much it rotates per turn. Then try to think of a way of dealing
with that as you build up your map. I think I moved a marker
along the top row of my map to tell myself how much out of phase
the labels were with reality.

> Ok, that should do for now!  I have completed the maze in the palace,
but I
> don't know what to do with the pillar of salt.

You will be told, eventually.

> Is there a lot of
bible
> references in this game or is it just me?

I don't think there are ever so many. There are lots of
references to all kinds of things, but they don't generally
help you solve the puzzles. I hope Graham makes Avon available
eventually - it's a JRP1 game where the descriptions and puzzles
are all Shakespearean, but the solutions generally aren't,
so knowing Shakespeare doesn't help much. I particularly like
"From here you can see that all the world's a stage, and all
the men and women merely players. They have their exits
and their entrances to the north, south, east and west".

--
Libri di matematica piu' o meno ricreativa:
http://www.mistral.co.uk/ghira/recmathslibri.html


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From dnrb@starpower.net Tue Aug 22 13:27:37 CEST 2000
Article: 53550 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Duncan Stevens" <dnrb@starpower.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: A Change in the Weather discussion (*SPOILERS*)
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 00:06:52 -0400
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W. Top Changwatchai <no@spam.com> wrote in message
news:ZEHn5.1330$9N1.22807@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu...
> Is there any forum where solved games are discussed and these discussions
> archived?  I know that's exactly what the IF Bookclub was formed to do,
but
> it's pretty new and not too many games have been discussed yet.

Other than this, no. Newsgroup posts are archived at GMD, though it's only
through early 1997--but that should give you whatever discussion of Weather
there was.
>
> S
>
> P
>
> O
>
> I
>
> L
>
> E
>
> R
>
> S
>
> .
>
> .
>
> .
>
> (I played Release 6)
>
> These questions go from easiest to hardest to answer (I think).
>
> 1.
> Was there any use to be made of the fact that the branch was burning?  The
> game didn't let me burn any of the things I tried to burn, so the only use
I
> found for the fire was to light up the shed.  But this didn't help me at
all
> because if I tried to keep the branch burning, I would inevitably waste
too
> many moves and the bridge would collapse.  (I instead had to wait for
> lightning to see inside the shed.)
>
> Is the burning just a red herring?  If so, it's well done...the branch
*can*
> be used to light up the shed.  Plus you can wave it around to keep it
> burning longer.  But all I ever used it for was to prop up the bridge.

Yes, as far as I could tell, and yes, it's a really good one; it plays on
the IF veteran's expectations (it's still burning, therefore I need to use
that property to solve a puzzle). I remember that there was a line in the
Invisiclues for, I believe, Zork I, in response to the question "Is the
[something--maybe the basket and chain, maybe the matchbook] important?";
the book said "Anything that complex in Zork I is important." That
assumption still tends to govern the way that IF fans solve puzzles now.

> So what's the deal with the rusted key and shed?  Before you go to sleep
it
> doesn't work, but at night both key and door aren't as rusty as you
thought
> earlier.  I tried to form all sorts of explanations but none of them
really
> made sense:  that you travelled back in time (to before the key and door
> rusted), or that heightened adrenaline made you try harder to unlock the
> door, or that you dreamed the whole thing, or even that the PC isn't human
> (!).
>
> Plus, why was the shed locked the next morning?  This detail nags at me
> because it would have been just as easy implementation-wise to leave the
> shed unlocked.  Other events from the previous night stayed the same:
spade
> blade in crack, sandbags, even branch under the bridge.

Sheer magic realism; there's no need for a time-travel or
heightened-adrenaline explanation. When the sun goes down and the storm
hits, Things Work Differently. I think it's better _not_ to have an
explanation. (Another point that can only be explained by magic realism is
that the dawn is clear if you save the bridge, but overcast if you don't.)
Leaving traces of your activities from the night before shows that it wasn't
All Just A Dream.

> 4.
> It's odd that once you cross the bridge to the hill, the game doesn't let
> you cross back even if you're dead tired with the rain pouring down on
you,
> and you're about the catch pneumonia.

True. Strict realism does suffer here, since there isn't (yet) a reason why
you'd be that averse to crossing back. (You are told that you're not sure
you trust the bridge, of course.) On the other hand, your character seems
pretty quirky--not everyone crawls into caves on hillsides to take a nap--so
maybe you're to infer that once you get an idea in your head, such as
ditching the picnic, you get really, really committed to it.

In addition, at night after you wake
> up, you get these messages at the Stream Bank:
>
> >listen
> A sussurus of voices comes from across the bridge, too faint to make out
but
> too loud to ignore. You do not know what they say, but something inside is
> terrified that they are calling for you.
>
> >w
> The thought of crossing into that darkness, with its inhabitants, is
beyond
> bearing.
>
> I can understand wanting to wander off and do some exploring.  Heck, I've
> done it myself.  But the depth of the PC's reaction seems to cry out for
an
> explanation.

Well, at this point, Toto, you're not at a picnic anymore, and the things
calling your name aren't your friends. What they are is left for you to
imagine. (Of course, what happens when they cross the bridge is left for you
to imagine as well, along with what exactly is the difference between
meeting them on that side and meeting them on this side.)

> 5.
> Anybody have good ideas for a "backstory" tothe game?  I realize it's
> probably meant to be very ambiguous, but what would be a good explanation
> for the PC's aversion to rejoining his friends, and why is it so important
f
> or him to save the bridge?

You said it best, I think; it's meant to be very ambiguous, and whatever
backstory makes sense to you applies. You could take the straightforward
explanation for wanting to save the bridge--the PC doesn't want to have to
wade across the stream (picture a _very_ wide and deep stream)--or something
less straightforward (the PC wants whatever's across the bridge to cross
it).

Plus, any thoughts on meanings of the dreams?
> (I count three:  sleeping in the rain, sleeping with a soggy blanket,
> sleeping with a dry blanket.)

I just took those as a cross between foreshadowing and registering,
unconsciously, what's going on while you sleep--the roar of the storm, the
lightning, etc.

--Duncan




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References: <ZEHn5.1330$9N1.22807@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <8nnkp6$eap$1@bob.news.rcn.net>
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:53551

Duncan Stevens <dnrb@starpower.net> wrote in message
news:8nnkp6$eap$1@bob.news.rcn.net...
> W. Top Changwatchai <no@spam.com> wrote in message
> news:ZEHn5.1330$9N1.22807@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu...
> > Is there any forum where solved games are discussed and these
discussions
> > archived?  I know that's exactly what the IF Bookclub was formed to do,
> but
> > it's pretty new and not too many games have been discussed yet.
>
> Other than this, no. Newsgroup posts are archived at GMD, though it's only
> through early 1997--but that should give you whatever discussion of
Weather
> there was.

Unfortunately, not very searchable.

> >
> > S
> >
> > P
> >
> > O
> >
> > I
> >
> > L
> >
> > E
> >
> > R
> >
> > S
> >
> > .
> >
> > .
> >
> > .
> >
> > (I played Release 6)
> >
> > These questions go from easiest to hardest to answer (I think).
> >
> > 1.
> > Was there any use to be made of the fact that the branch was burning?
The
> > game didn't let me burn any of the things I tried to burn, so the only
use
> I
> > found for the fire was to light up the shed.  But this didn't help me at
> all
> > because if I tried to keep the branch burning, I would inevitably waste
> too
> > many moves and the bridge would collapse.  (I instead had to wait for
> > lightning to see inside the shed.)
> >
> > Is the burning just a red herring?  If so, it's well done...the branch
> *can*
> > be used to light up the shed.  Plus you can wave it around to keep it
> > burning longer.  But all I ever used it for was to prop up the bridge.
>
> Yes, as far as I could tell, and yes, it's a really good one; it plays on
> the IF veteran's expectations (it's still burning, therefore I need to use
> that property to solve a puzzle). I remember that there was a line in the
> Invisiclues for, I believe, Zork I, in response to the question "Is the
> [something--maybe the basket and chain, maybe the matchbook] important?";
> the book said "Anything that complex in Zork I is important." That
> assumption still tends to govern the way that IF fans solve puzzles now.
>

Well, it got me but good.  I must have replayed the night sequence dozens of
times trying to figure how to keep that darn branch burning and still save
the bridge.  (Somewhere someone is smiling evilly.)

I like puzzles that play with IF expectations, especially if they're fair.
I remember one in a graphical adventure where to avoid some guards, you
needed to move your character into some shadows that didn't otherwise
register.  You wouldn't be able to solve that by trying all combinations of
verbs and nouns.  On the contrary, a naive player might hit upon the
solution faster because he wasn't concentrating on the "game" elements.

> > So what's the deal with the rusted key and shed?  Before you go to sleep
> it
> > doesn't work, but at night both key and door aren't as rusty as you
> thought
> > earlier.  I tried to form all sorts of explanations but none of them
> really
> > made sense:  that you travelled back in time (to before the key and door
> > rusted), or that heightened adrenaline made you try harder to unlock the
> > door, or that you dreamed the whole thing, or even that the PC isn't
human
> > (!).
> >
> > Plus, why was the shed locked the next morning?  This detail nags at me
> > because it would have been just as easy implementation-wise to leave the
> > shed unlocked.  Other events from the previous night stayed the same:
> spade
> > blade in crack, sandbags, even branch under the bridge.
>
> Sheer magic realism; there's no need for a time-travel or
> heightened-adrenaline explanation. When the sun goes down and the storm
> hits, Things Work Differently. I think it's better _not_ to have an
> explanation. (Another point that can only be explained by magic realism is
> that the dawn is clear if you save the bridge, but overcast if you don't.)
> Leaving traces of your activities from the night before shows that it
wasn't
> All Just A Dream.
>

OK, I think I buy that, at least for why things work differently at night.
But it still bothers me that the shed was locked the next day.  It's a
personal problem.  ^_^  Maybe I would feel better if the sandbags were also
gone, so that it would be possible that you hallucinated actually getting
inside the shed.

> > 4.
> > It's odd that once you cross the bridge to the hill, the game doesn't
let
> > you cross back even if you're dead tired with the rain pouring down on
> you,
> > and you're about the catch pneumonia.
>
> True. Strict realism does suffer here, since there isn't (yet) a reason
why
> you'd be that averse to crossing back. (You are told that you're not sure
> you trust the bridge, of course.) On the other hand, your character seems
> pretty quirky--not everyone crawls into caves on hillsides to take a
nap--so
> maybe you're to infer that once you get an idea in your head, such as
> ditching the picnic, you get really, really committed to it.
>

Hmm, good point.  I've wandered away from an outing before, but I don't
think I've ever slept in a cave or played fetch with a fox.

> In addition, at night after you wake
> > up, you get these messages at the Stream Bank:
> >
> > >listen
> > A sussurus of voices comes from across the bridge, too faint to make out
> but
> > too loud to ignore. You do not know what they say, but something inside
is
> > terrified that they are calling for you.
> >
> > >w
> > The thought of crossing into that darkness, with its inhabitants, is
> beyond
> > bearing.
> >
> > I can understand wanting to wander off and do some exploring.  Heck,
I've
> > done it myself.  But the depth of the PC's reaction seems to cry out for
> an
> > explanation.
>
> Well, at this point, Toto, you're not at a picnic anymore, and the things
> calling your name aren't your friends. What they are is left for you to
> imagine. (Of course, what happens when they cross the bridge is left for
you
> to imagine as well, along with what exactly is the difference between
> meeting them on that side and meeting them on this side.)
>

You know, I didn't even think of that...that one possible motivation for
your actions is that you wanted to make the bridge crossable somehow
(without crossing yourself).  Intriguing.

Also highly effective.  When I came across the quoted passages above, I knew
I *had* to finish the game, to get an explanation (which wasn't forthcoming,
but oh well).

By the way, I have a couple of minor questions from your review of the game
in SPAG #14:
1.  You mentioned that there was "a required action in the first half of the
game which is much less than obvious, and which is clued rather subtly."  Is
that playing fetch with the fox?  Because I agree, that took me forever to
figure out.  (Like with the best puzzles, though, afterward it seemed so
obvious; I realized there were so many clues.)  This is definitely one game
that required the PC to do things which he learned to do from previous
deaths.

2.  You mentioned an element of magic realism:  "a certain change that the
rain couldn't logically cause."  Are you referring to the key and the shed,
or was there something else?

I think my favorite part of the game, aside from the captivating
descriptions of...well basically the perfect outdoor weekend, is when I
first realized that all the night events fit together, and that I could
figure out how to influence them and effect a better resolution.

Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at u i u c dot edu





From dnrb@starpower.net Tue Aug 22 13:29:42 CEST 2000
Article: 53561 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Duncan Stevens" <dnrb@starpower.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: A Change in the Weather discussion (*SPOILERS*)
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 09:16:48 -0400
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W. Top Changwatchai <no@spam.com> wrote:

> > > S
> > >
> > > P
> > >
> > > O
> > >
> > > I
> > >
> > > L
> > >
> > > E
> > >
> > > R
> > >
> > > S
> > >
> > > .
> > >
> > > .
> > >
> > > .
> > >

> 1.  You mentioned that there was "a required action in the first half of
the
> game which is much less than obvious, and which is clued rather subtly."
Is
> that playing fetch with the fox?  Because I agree, that took me forever to
> figure out.  (Like with the best puzzles, though, afterward it seemed so
> obvious; I realized there were so many clues.)  This is definitely one
game
> that required the PC to do things which he learned to do from previous
> deaths.

Yes--though, frankly, the whole rescue-the-spade-and-move-the-boulder bit
isn't all that obvious either. You pretty much need to assume that your
motivation is "explore nooks and crannies," which I suppose isn't such a
stretch, but it isn't necessarily clear. Even given that, it takes a whole
separate leap to discern that the fox will do something helpful for you if
you play fetch with it. At least, in the second half of the game, what you
want to do is clear (at least, clear after the first screw-up). You can
argue that this is actually a strength--more subversion of expectations and
such--though I'm not sure I agree, since inadequately developed motivations
have been around ever since the original Zork.

> 2.  You mentioned an element of magic realism:  "a certain change that the
> rain couldn't logically cause."  Are you referring to the key and the
shed,
> or was there something else?

Yes, the key and shed.

> I think my favorite part of the game, aside from the captivating
> descriptions of...well basically the perfect outdoor weekend, is when I
> first realized that all the night events fit together, and that I could
> figure out how to influence them and effect a better resolution.

Yes--very intricately done. I tend to prefer somewhat more forgiving
puzzles, myself. For me, Weather is a good puzzle game with absolutely
terrific writing.

--Duncan




From no@spam.com Tue Aug 22 13:30:06 CEST 2000
Article: 53576 of rec.games.int-fiction
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:53576

<icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8np0sf$pvu$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <8nol07$ar$1@bob.news.rcn.net>,
>   "Duncan Stevens" <dnrb@starpower.net> wrote:
>
> > Yes--very intricately done. I tend to prefer somewhat more forgiving
> > puzzles, myself. For me, Weather is a good puzzle game with absolutely
> > terrific writing.
>
> Spoiler space:
>
> 10
>
> 9
>
> 8
>
> 7
>
> 6
>
> 5
>
> 4
>
> 3
>
> 2
>
> 1
>
> OK, that's enough:
>
> Am I the only person who wondered why the PC's companions don't
> seem worried at all about their friend who has been missing all
> night during a violent storm? At the end of the game, they're
> still at the campsite, going on with their vacation as if nothing
> has happened. No search party, no anxious discussions about what
> they should do...it felt weirdly incomplete to me. I wanted to
> go up to one of them and yell in his/her face, "Didn't you even
> MISS me?!"
>
> irene
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

Given all the other elements of "magical realism" and ambiguity, I didn't
find this aspect particularly distressing.  Once I'd suspended disbelief
enough to accept the fox's peculiar intelligence, the key and shed, and the
way the PC behaved and reacted to events, I was willing to accept that
whatever happened between the time the bridge was saved (and the crowd was
approaching) and the time the PC woke up would give a suitable explanation.

Here's one possible mundane explanation:  recall from the beginning text
that they are "new companions" who don't even notice you've left the group.
Maybe at this cook-out people come and go as they please anyway.  Perhaps
the park is just up the road from the school you've just enrolled in.
Perhaps the voices you heard the previous night were just in your
imagination.  (Though I do wish there were more clues as to who these
searchers were.)

Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at u i u c dot edu





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From: icallaci@my-deja.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: A Change in the Weather discussion (*SPOILERS*)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 15:29:09 GMT
Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy.
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In article <jc6o5.1436$9N1.23915@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
  "W. Top Changwatchai" <no@spam.com> wrote:
> <icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8np0sf$pvu$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> >
> > Spoiler space:
> >
> > 10
> >
> > 9
> >
> > 8
> >
> > 7
> >
> > 6
> >
> > 5
> >
> > 4
> >
> > 3
> >
> > 2
> >
> > 1
> >
> > OK, that's enough:
> >
> > Am I the only person who wondered why the PC's companions don't
> > seem worried at all about their friend who has been missing all
> > night during a violent storm? At the end of the game, they're
> > still at the campsite, going on with their vacation as if nothing
> > has happened. No search party, no anxious discussions about what
> > they should do...it felt weirdly incomplete to me. I wanted to
> > go up to one of them and yell in his/her face, "Didn't you even
> > MISS me?!"
> >
> Given all the other elements of "magical realism" and ambiguity, I
> didn't find this aspect particularly distressing.  Once I'd suspended
> disbelief enough to accept the fox's peculiar intelligence, the key
> and shed, and the way the PC behaved and reacted to events, I was
> willing to accept that whatever happened between the time the bridge
> was saved (and the crowd was approaching) and the time the PC woke up
> would give a suitable explanation.
>
> Here's one possible mundane explanation:  recall from the beginning
> text that they are "new companions" who don't even notice you've left
> the group. Maybe at this cook-out people come and go as they please
> anyway.  Perhaps the park is just up the road from the school you've
> just enrolled in. Perhaps the voices you heard the previous night
> were just in your imagination.  (Though I do wish there were more
> clues as to who these searchers were.)

Well, maybe... but I never thought of CitW as magical realism. I saw
the fox acting like a dog as not too much of a stretch, and I figured
the other stuff that happened was a result of the PC's
half-awake/half-dream state from panic and exhaustion. The end
game signaled a return to normal waking life, but it never felt
right to me, since my supposed "friends" never even noticed I was
gone all night, probably lost and possibly hurt. I did think those
voices in the night were my friends searching for me, so when those
same "friends" acted as if nothing happened when I returned, the
result for me was confusion and a sense of "if they don't care,
then I (as a player) certainly don't either."

irene

irene


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From no@spam.com Tue Aug 22 13:31:44 CEST 2000
Article: 53587 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "W. Top Changwatchai" <no@spam.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
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Xref: news.lth.se rec.games.int-fiction:53587

<icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8nrhr9$io3$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <jc6o5.1436$9N1.23915@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
>   "W. Top Changwatchai" <no@spam.com> wrote:
> > <icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:8np0sf$pvu$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > >
> > > Spoiler space:
> > >
> > > 10
> > >
> > > 9
> > >
> > > 8
> > >
> > > 7
> > >
> > > 6
> > >
> > > 5
> > >
> > > 4
> > >
> > > 3
> > >
> > > 2
> > >
> > > 1
> > >
> > > OK, that's enough:
> > >
> > > Am I the only person who wondered why the PC's companions don't
> > > seem worried at all about their friend who has been missing all
> > > night during a violent storm? At the end of the game, they're
> > > still at the campsite, going on with their vacation as if nothing
> > > has happened. No search party, no anxious discussions about what
> > > they should do...it felt weirdly incomplete to me. I wanted to
> > > go up to one of them and yell in his/her face, "Didn't you even
> > > MISS me?!"
> > >
> > Given all the other elements of "magical realism" and ambiguity, I
> > didn't find this aspect particularly distressing.  Once I'd suspended
> > disbelief enough to accept the fox's peculiar intelligence, the key
> > and shed, and the way the PC behaved and reacted to events, I was
> > willing to accept that whatever happened between the time the bridge
> > was saved (and the crowd was approaching) and the time the PC woke up
> > would give a suitable explanation.
> >
> > Here's one possible mundane explanation:  recall from the beginning
> > text that they are "new companions" who don't even notice you've left
> > the group. Maybe at this cook-out people come and go as they please
> > anyway.  Perhaps the park is just up the road from the school you've
> > just enrolled in. Perhaps the voices you heard the previous night
> > were just in your imagination.  (Though I do wish there were more
> > clues as to who these searchers were.)
>
> Well, maybe... but I never thought of CitW as magical realism. I saw
> the fox acting like a dog as not too much of a stretch, and I figured
> the other stuff that happened was a result of the PC's
> half-awake/half-dream state from panic and exhaustion. The end
> game signaled a return to normal waking life, but it never felt
> right to me, since my supposed "friends" never even noticed I was
> gone all night, probably lost and possibly hurt. I did think those
> voices in the night were my friends searching for me, so when those
> same "friends" acted as if nothing happened when I returned, the
> result for me was confusion and a sense of "if they don't care,
> then I (as a player) certainly don't either."

Interesting...OK, let's drop the magical realism interpretation and assume
that all the night events can be explained due to the PC's disturbed mental
state.  This brings us back to one of my original questions:  what explains
the locked shed the next morning?  I mean, if some version of the events
happened, then theoretically the PC did at some point use the key to unlock
the shed, so it should also work the next morning, right?

Plus, a minor point:  in the morning, your blanket (and presumably you) are
no longer wet.

Possibly these details were added specifically to undermine a fully
realistic (and simple) interpretation.  But I suspect I'm overanalyzing.


Here, this explanation might make you feel better about the PC's friends:
assuming the voices the previous night were really your friends searching
for you, then it seems that they found you:

--------------------------------------------------
>dig spot
You tear at the earth, heedless of your burning fingers. A stone yields, and
then another; and then a third is sucked from beneath your hands, pulled by
the current that is rushing along your channel. You lean back, choked
breaths lost in the rain that drums on your face. The standing pool on the
path is rapidly subsiding.

A flash of movement draws your eye. The fox is still on the bridge, but no
longer crouched in readiness. It stands tall, looking at you with a
wide-jawed fox grin; and then faces west, into the voices that have gone
high with triumph. They come closer, closer, along the bridge that you have
labored to save.

They are calling your name, after all.
--------------------------------------------------

(Let me pause here a second:  what a great climax!)

>From  the "realism" point of view, you'd expect your friends to take you back
to camp, dry you off, etc.  Then why did the PC wake up in the cave?  It
makes sense that perhaps the PC explained to her friends that she was all
right, just had an exhilarating experience (as a player, I certainly felt
that), and that to really end it right she would like to finish the night
alone, surrounded by the evidence of her triumph.  Seems to be in character,
and I'd expect the friends could grok that.

Plus, I really like the way the "successful" ending contrasted with the
ending you'd get if you never cross the bridge in the first place:

Moving west on first move:
--------------------------------------------------
>w
You turn your back on the hill, and consider the distant shapes of your
companions. One of them waves hugely to you. You shrug, and begin jogging
towards them.

    *** You have a good time after all. ***
--------------------------------------------------


Moving west after waking up in the morning:
--------------------------------------------------
>e
But you've come so far.

>w
You turn your back on the hill, and consider the distant shapes of your
companions. One of them turns and calls your name. Others point, and wave,
and laughter and shouts precede them flowing across the meadows.

You smile to yourself, and begin jogging towards them.

    *** You have a good time after all. ***


This one night will not end, not under this sky
Of stars and embers and hot tea and song
And stories remembered not a moment too long
And laughter, darkness, fire, the circle, and I.
--------------------------------------------------

On the surface, not much has changed.  But actually a heck of a lot has
changed.  And the implication is that having these solo experiences actually
helped the PC bond with and appreciate her new friends.  A nice theme (if
I'm not reading too much into it), and one that speaks to me.

Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at u i u c dot edu





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Subject: Re: A Change in the Weather discussion (*SPOILERS*)
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In article <Gieo5.1486$9N1.24628@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
  "W. Top Changwatchai" <no@spam.com> wrote:

> Interesting...OK, let's drop the magical realism interpretation and
> assume that all the night events can be explained due to the PC's
> disturbed mental state.  This brings us back to one of my original
> questions:  what explains the locked shed the next morning?  I mean,
> if some version of the events happened, then theoretically the PC did
> at some point use the key to unlock the shed, so it should also work
> the next morning, right?

You're right, but I never noticed that when I played, so it didn't
affect my perception of realism vs magic.

> Plus, a minor point:  in the morning, your blanket (and presumably
> you) are no longer wet.

I just assumed that at some point it had stopped raining and the PC
had dried off.

[snip]

> Here, this explanation might make you feel better about the PC's
> friends: assuming the voices the previous night were really your
> friends searching for you, then it seems that they found you:

[snip]

> They are calling your name, after all.

LOL! Funny how different people can put different interpretations
on things. I assumed they called my name but never found me and
gave up. That's why it was so bizzare to end the game with them
waving at me as if nothing had happened. I was convinced those
voices meant my friends were searching for me. At the end when
they didn't seem the least bit concerned, I thought maybe the PC
had dreamed the whole thing, including hearing his/her name called.

> From the "realism" point of view, you'd expect your friends to take
> you back to camp, dry you off, etc.  Then why did the PC wake up in
> the cave?

Because they never found me. The game never says or implies that
they found me. I assumed because the storm was so violent that
voices didn't carry far, that my hearing them was a stroke of
luck but that the fury of the storm swallowed my voice. Hmmm...
I can't remember if I tried YELL or YELL FOR HELP at that point.
I played it some time ago.

Anyway, it's a minor point, I guess. But I've wondered all this
time why my "friends" didn't show a little more concern for a
bedraggled comrade who had been lost outdoors in a violent storm
all night.

irene


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.


From dnrb@starpower.net Tue Aug 22 13:32:39 CEST 2000
Article: 53593 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "Duncan Stevens" <dnrb@starpower.net>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: A Change in the Weather discussion (*SPOILERS*)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 18:51:25 -0400
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(spoilers)


















<icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8ns822$em0$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> LOL! Funny how different people can put different interpretations
> on things. I assumed they called my name but never found me and
> gave up. That's why it was so bizzare to end the game with them
> waving at me as if nothing had happened. I was convinced those
> voices meant my friends were searching for me. At the end when
> they didn't seem the least bit concerned, I thought maybe the PC
> had dreamed the whole thing, including hearing his/her name called.

But, um, you're right there when they come across the bridge. How could they
not find you? (And given that the sandbags are still lying around, and
there's other evidence of the night before, how could it be a dream?)

To the extent there's a coherent interpretation (and I'm not sure there is),
I vote for the view that the voices aren't from your friends at all, but
>from  some other--things, and it's important to you that you meet them on
that side of the bridge, for some reason. (The alternative essentially
posits that you meet your friends, they say, "Cool--you're all right!," you
say "Yeah," and you then take off to sleep in the cave, which just seems
weird to me.)

--Duncan




From no@spam.com Tue Aug 22 13:33:00 CEST 2000
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Duncan Stevens <dnrb@starpower.net> wrote in message
news:8nsb0s$26p$1@bob.news.rcn.net...
> (spoilers)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> <icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8ns822$em0$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > LOL! Funny how different people can put different interpretations
> > on things. I assumed they called my name but never found me and
> > gave up. That's why it was so bizzare to end the game with them
> > waving at me as if nothing had happened. I was convinced those
> > voices meant my friends were searching for me. At the end when
> > they didn't seem the least bit concerned, I thought maybe the PC
> > had dreamed the whole thing, including hearing his/her name called.
>
> But, um, you're right there when they come across the bridge. How could
they
> not find you? (And given that the sandbags are still lying around, and
> there's other evidence of the night before, how could it be a dream?)
>
> To the extent there's a coherent interpretation (and I'm not sure there
is),
> I vote for the view that the voices aren't from your friends at all, but
> from some other--things, and it's important to you that you meet them on
> that side of the bridge, for some reason. (The alternative essentially
> posits that you meet your friends, they say, "Cool--you're all right!,"
you
> say "Yeah," and you then take off to sleep in the cave, which just seems
> weird to me.)
>
> --Duncan
>
>

I also feel that a strictly realistic interpretation would have to be
stretched to explain certain incongruous details, but it's tantalizing that
it *almost* works.  I think Duncan's theory is quite intriguing and could
form the basis for a whole other story.  But for this game, I think any
"official" explanation could only detract from the story's simplicity and
power.

Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at u i u c dot edu





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<icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8ns822$em0$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <Gieo5.1486$9N1.24628@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
>   "W. Top Changwatchai" <no@spam.com> wrote:
> > Plus, a minor point:  in the morning, your blanket (and presumably
> > you) are no longer wet.
>
> I just assumed that at some point it had stopped raining and the PC
> had dried off.
>

Not to run the point into the ground, but I want to point out that if you
find the cave but get the blanket wet *before* going to sleep, then the game
skips all of the night events and you awaken tired and miserable:

--------------------------------------------------
The blanket has gotten quite soaked.

[...]

>sleep
You curl yourself up as best you can. It's dry in here, but you're still
cold. (The soggy blanket is worse than useless.) Nonetheless, you try to
close your eyes...

[skip dream]

You awaken sore and cold, bathed in the listless light of an overcast dawn.
It takes some time to drag yourself down the hill -- and then you find that
the bridge has been washed out by the storm. By the time you wade across the
swollen stream, you're as soaked and miserable as if you'd slept out in the
rain after all. You reach civilization exhausted and with what promises to
be a lovely cough.

    *** Things could have turned out better. ***
--------------------------------------------------

On the other hand, during all the night events, I was running around
everywhere with the blanket (picture a frantic Linus).  Yet after saving the
bridge I apparently had a wonderfully restful sleep and woke up with a warm,
dry blanket instead.

Take it from someone who's gone camping in a thunderstorm:  even if the rain
stops, you ain't gonna wake up dry and comfy if your bedding got drenched.
^_^

> [snip]
>
> > Here, this explanation might make you feel better about the PC's
> > friends: assuming the voices the previous night were really your
> > friends searching for you, then it seems that they found you:
>
> [snip]
>
> > They are calling your name, after all.
>
> LOL! Funny how different people can put different interpretations
> on things. I assumed they called my name but never found me and
> gave up. That's why it was so bizzare to end the game with them
> waving at me as if nothing had happened. I was convinced those
> voices meant my friends were searching for me. At the end when
> they didn't seem the least bit concerned, I thought maybe the PC
> had dreamed the whole thing, including hearing his/her name called.

Heh heh!  You snipped the passage I considered evidence they'd found you.
Here is the whole thing:

--------------------------------------------------
A flash of movement draws your eye. The fox is still on the bridge, but no
longer crouched in readiness. It stands tall, looking at you with a
wide-jawed fox grin; and then faces west, into the voices that have gone
high with triumph. They come closer, closer, along the bridge that you have
labored to save.

They are calling your name, after all.
--------------------------------------------------

Specifically, the voices "have gone high with triumph."  Our premise is that
they were looking for the PC; this indicates that they succeeded.

> Anyway, it's a minor point, I guess. But I've wondered all this
> time why my "friends" didn't show a little more concern for a
> bedraggled comrade who had been lost outdoors in a violent storm
> all night.
>

It's fascinating how the player's state of mind gets mingled in with the
PC's.  When I finally figured out how to save the bridge, I felt so
triumphant that the next morning (in game time) I spent a while wandering
around all the locations of the hillside, marvelling at the contrast the
bright summer morning made with the desperate events of the previous night.
I wanted to savor the peace and beauty, and I almost didn't want to cross
the bridge and "win."  I must have transferred these feelings to the PC...in
my universe, the PC has had a marvelously transforming experience and is
ready to rejoin society, ready to play volleyball and to enjoy the rest of
the summer weekend.

Yet, I'm glad to see the other perspectives people have had on the game.
Hallmark of great art and all that.  (Hmm, I better stop before the author's
head swells.)

Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at u i u c dot edu





From no@spam.com Wed Aug 23 10:53:25 CEST 2000
Article: 53625 of rec.games.int-fiction
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From: "W. Top Changwatchai" <no@spam.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
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Subject: Re: A Change in the Weather discussion (*SPOILERS*)
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<icallaci@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8nu7ks$mc8$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> [...]
> I thought the game very
> effectively represented what it would be like to be lost all
> night in a violent storm. Hope, despair, panic...all those
> swirling emotions can wreak havoc with one's mind, and that's
> what I thought was going on. It never entered my mind that the
> game was anything but a realistic account of being lost all
> night in a storm.

It may be that lots of things hinge on whether or not the player would enjoy
being in the situations the PC is in.  For many people (probably most),
being caught outside in a raging thunderstorm, with flooding and crashing
trees and threatening voices is nothing but a nightmare, a traumatic
experience to be recovered from.  But for me, given the final outcome, I
think I would have rather enjoyed it.  How strange is that?

An example comes to mind from the movies:  The Terminator clearly represents
a situation where the protagonists are not having fun.  On the other hand,
in Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's clear that Indiana Jones would much prefer
swashbuckling around the world than staying at home grading papers.

To return to IF, here's a bunch of games I've played since rediscovering IF
earlier this year, and how I'd categorize them:

PC's not having fun:
- Christminster, Anchorhead, Trapped in a One-Room Dilly, Shrapnel, The
Awakening, Wearing the Claw, Hunter in Darkness, Rematch, The Light:
Shelby's Addendum, Alone

PC's having fun:
- Edifice, Photopia (in spite of...you know), Enlightenment, A Change in the
Weather (for me anyway), Phlegm, Perilous Magic (in a mean way), Foggywood
Hijinx

Mind you, this doesn't reflect how much I enjoyed the game as a player, but
in retrospect it probably did influence how generously I interpreted the
story and situations.  For example, I felt cheated because Dilly didn't
explain anything, but not so with CitW.  Wearing the Claw had a better story
than Foggywood Hijinx (which was just a parody), yet somehow I concentrated
on the flaws in Claw's story but not on those in Foggywood.  (This also
shows why it's probably easier to produce an enjoyable humorous game than
one that's serious.)

If the situation in CitW were more dire (say, if the PC had an ill friend to
care for) then I would have judged it differently.  But for me, it would
have been a completely different game.

Top
--
W. Top Changwatchai
chngwtch at u i u c dot edu





