IF-THEORY
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Mapping the Tale: Scene Description in IF 
by J. Robinson Wheeler
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       The more accurate the map, the more it resembles 
    the territory. The most accurate map possible would 
    be the territory. <br>
       The tale is the map that is the territory. <br>
       You must remember this. <br>
                            -- Neil Gaiman, American Gods
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Intrinsic to interactive fiction at its inception was the simulation of location,
of giving the player the ability to move from place to place. This illusion is
achieved, simply and efficiently, by strings of text, location names and scene
descriptions; and by a map of connections between the objects that print these
strings. When a player surrenders his sense of place to the game's map, he
responds to a new bit of text by imagining he has walked (or crawled, or slid, or
climbed) somewhere he hasn't been before, and is taking in all of the details. If
he recognizes a bit of text, he knows he has re-entered familiar territory.
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The basic requirements of scene descriptions go no farther than this. If you let
the player know where he is, and where the exits are, your job is done. This
article, however, will provide many examples of scene descriptions that first
meet and then, in some way, exceed these requirements. If your IF game has a
story, your scene descriptions should serve the story. If you want to give your
game atmosphere, broaden your use of sense details within your scene descriptions
to include sounds, smells, and even textures, instead of just sights. If you want
your game to have a strong narrative voice, scene descriptions are a good place
to establish it. If you are using a well-defined PC, the scene descriptions can
be used to reinforce your protagonist's point of view of each location. If your
game has a complicated back-story, scene descriptions can provide expositional as
well as locational detail. If the pace of the game quickens, scene descriptions
should keep pace, becoming briefer, more active, even changing from turn to turn
to sustain the player's feeling of urgency.
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Caves
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In the beginning, Will Crowther's original "Advent" (1972), the basic
map-and-scene-description system we still use today was invented and put to use
in a simulated exploration of Bedquilt Cave. The scene descriptions were
evocations of actual locations, and the location names were encapsulations of
these evocations. Some of them were fictional, serving to create the ambience of
adventure rather than the pure simulation of caving, as in the following example:
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In Hall of Mists You are at one end of a vast hall stretching forward out of
sight to the west. There are openings to either side. Nearby, a wide stone
staircase leads downward. The hall is filled with wisps of white mist swaying to
and fro almost as if alive. A cold wind blows up the staircase. There is a
passage at the top of a dome behind you. 
Rough stone steps lead up the dome.
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From a sense of nostalgia, or an interest in re-exploring well-trod IF territory
for one's own creative satisfaction, many modern authors continue to use caves as
a setting, even knowing full well that any cave descriptions are going to be
compared to what's already been done (and done many times, as IF in its first
decade was dedicated almost exclusively to Advent dervatives). The evocative
potential of cave descriptions seems not to have run dry, but new authors should
proceed with care; an IF trope, even if intended as homage, may be perceived as
an IF cliche instead.
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    Base of Canyon <br>
    You are in an alcove, a side chamber at the base of a vaulting 
    canyon. The walls spread upward around you. And the distant roof 
    is hung with glimmering stars -- droplet-tipped stalactites in some 
    hidden suffusion of light. A crevice runs along the canyon at your 
    feet. You can cross it and continue on ahead, or re-enter the crawl 
    behind you. 
    
    A pool of thick, dark, reeking blood is spilled across the 
    ground. Bats crawl all around it -- rustling, fluttering, 
    feasting.
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The above example is from Andrew Plotkin's "Hunter, in Darkness" (1999), in which
he revisits not just "Advent" but an equally early game, "Hunt the Wumpus"
(Gregory Yob, 1972), which is usually considered an IF precedent but not IF.
"Wumpus" does feature a small map of locations and the ability to walk or shoot
crooked arrows through the connecting passages. Here, in a scene late in the
game, Plotkin follows the conventions of scene descriptions, but reaches for a
bit more atmosphere. After the matter-of-fact location name, the description
itself starts with "You are in...", a tradition that is still perfectly
acceptable. Note, though, that it does not read, "You are in the base of a
canyon," nor is the location name "Alcove." The disjoint adds to the sense of
size and space, of the player taking in the proportions of the canyon as he steps
into it. Before this location, the game has squeezed us through a succession of
claustrophobic rooms and tunnels; here, there is space, vaulting up around us as
we peer out of the alcove. The next sentence is a blunt declaration, "The walls
spread upward around you." This simple sentence serves two functions: repetition
for impact ("vaulting canyon" carries the same information), and the directing of
the player's eyes upward, following the canyon walls up. The next sentence starts
with "And," which is a stylistic choice that will bother grammar pedants, but it
works in this context. The player's eyes then switch abruptly from the lofty
beauty of the ceiling to the crevice in the floor, the mention of which segues
into the convention of listing the available exits from the room. Here, Plotkin
avoids having to mention compass directions, but still points the player at
appropriate exit actions: either going back or going ahead, across the crevice.
There is a certain momentum built into the scene description, backed up by the
momentum of the plot that has accrued by the time the player reaches this
location, that points across the crevice and to whatever lies beyond. The player
has reached the climax of the game, and the scene description is crafted not
merely to describe where he's standing, but to keep the tension building. 
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    Shore of An Underground Lake <br>
    A narrow ledge of solid rock at the southern end of a great 
    cavern. Beyond it lies a body of water so flat, so black and 
    tranquil, that it might be a surface of polished obsidian. 
    Embedded in the wall, a mirror reflects your movements: an 
    odd smoothness in the unshaped stone. 
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    A heavy bronze bell hangs from a stand.
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This example, from the beginning of Emily Short's "Metamorphoses" (2000), is
highly economical and strongly styled. The location name itself conjures the
broad picture, and then the description text ticks off details to flesh it out
and build the atmosphere. Missing is "You are on...", leaving a chiseled sentence
fragment as the starting point. This is a stylistic trait of this particular
author, but it works especially well here. Scenes before this one have
established an identity for the player character and a tightly focused narrative
point of view, hers. Omitting "You are on..." preserves the game's voice and
introduces a note of tension that is never resolved.
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Know the territory, so that you can go somewhere new. To paraphrase Andrew
Plotkin, if you want to write a cave, go visit a cave. In addition, play some IF
with cave descriptions, and study them, before you try writing your own.
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SIDEBAR: It is worth noting that scene descriptions often are followed by a
sentence or a short paragraph of supplementary scenery, leaving the player with a
final detail in the form of an obvious object to interact with. In the example
from "Metamorphoses," the player's eyes fall last on a heavy bronze bell. Note
that the mirror embedded in the wall is described in the main scene description,
leaving the bell to stand starkly alone. If we have studied our Classics, we
might know already that ringing the bell will help us to cross the lake, but the
author is giving all players a giant push in the right direction. In "Hunter,"
above, the gruesome supplement is at first encounter merely atmospheric, but it
later reveals itself to be as important to the player's progress, and in the same
way, as worth directing the player's attention to as is the heavy bronze bell in
the "Metamorphoses" example. In the example from "Advent," the supplement is
another room exit. The player will eventually discover that this is because the
steps that lead up are an obstacle to carrying out a particularly heavy item. The
steps are thus part of a puzzle, justifying the emphasis that is placed on them
by listing them separately. In some IF languages, authors will write these
supplementary descriptions in a separate object from the room object that prints
the main description, but the author should conceive them to be part of the one
scene description for the room. Separate the most important ones, and leave out
what does not need to be described, even if creating scenery objects is your idea
of fun.
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Here is an example of a weaker scene description. It has the right elements, but
does not hold up to the same level of scrutiny: 
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    Tunnels (as Peter and Valerie) <br>
    A huge cavern rises above you. The far reaches are lost 
    in shadow mist, and the vaults above fade into a darkness 
    pierced with long columns of stone. Chill water drips and 
    pools in broken declivities. You can hear little else. A 
    river of smoke-grey travertine flows down one wall of the 
    chamber. Pale fungi gleam in phosphorescence somewhere above. 
    Gloomy side chambers stretch off in many directions.
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This example appears in "Being Andrew Plotkin" (Wheeler, 2000), and is an
agglomeration of shorter descriptions written by Andrew Plotkin himself, taken
from various pages of Plotkin's personal website (which uses cave exploration as
an elaborate metaphor for site navigation). These descriptions predate "Hunter,"
but the stylistic similarities are recognizable. What comes out of this scene
description is a sense of contour and shape: the declivities which pool with
water, the flowing of the travertine down a wall, chambers and pockets, flat
darkness pierced by rounded stone.
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The pieced-together nature of the description is evident, unfortunately; the
ceiling is described as being lost in mist, fading into darkness, and hiding
phosphorescent fungi all at once. The attention to where the player's eyes are
looking, evident in the example from "Hunter," is missing here; instead of a
progression from eye-level to ceiling to floor, we look up, then we see pools of
water, then we listen, then we look at the wall, then we notice a light source
whose location we aren't even sure of, then a collection of exits. The words are
Plotkin's, but the organization obviously is not. A characteristic precision is
missing; authors should endeavor to follow the better example.
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Let us leave Bedquilt Cave behind and visit an equivalently nostalgic setting
from IF history. This, one of the most well-remembered and often-quoted scene
descriptions in IF, the starting location of "Zork I" (Blank, Lebling, et al.,
1980) is bafflingly minimal and inert:
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    West of House <br>
    You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with 
    a boarded front door. <br>
    There is a small mailbox here.
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What is memorable about this? Perhaps that it is iconic, starkly so; "a white
house with a boarded front door" is easily and quickly drawn in the mind, drawn
and then stored. Trying further to explain its appeal would be pointless and
grasping. There simply isn't much there, which becomes clear as we walk all the
way around the house, and view equally slim scene descriptions:
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    West of House <br>
    You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with 
    a boarded front door. <br>
    There is a small mailbox here. 
    
    >SOUTH <br>
    South of House <br>
    You are facing the south side of a white house. There is no 
    door here, and all the windows are boarded. 
    
    >EAST <br>
    Behind House <br>
    You are behind the white house. A path leads into the forest 
    to the east. In one corner of the house there is a small window 
    which is slightly ajar. 
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With dark wit and a bit of daring, Adam Cadre's "Shrapnel" (2000) riffs on our
expectations of this familiar location:
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    West of the house <br>
    You are standing in an open field west of a white house with 
    a boarded front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around 
    this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night. 
    
    Three snarling attack dogs fight with one another over the 
    remains of your corpse. 
    
    >S <br>
    You walk around to the south side of the house... 
    
    
    South of the house <br>
    You are standing south of a white house. There is no door here, 
    and all the windows are boarded. However, one window upstairs is 
    unevenly boarded, and you can see light shining through a crack 
    between two boards. 
    
    >E <br>
    You walk around to the back of the house... 
    
    Behind the house <br>
    You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other 
    buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, 
    outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of 
    weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the 
    back door slightly ajar. 
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Starting from the scene descriptions found in "Zork," Cadre has embroidered them
with just enough extra detail to evoke an actual setting, a sense of time, place,
and character that are missing from the original. Choose your details carefully,
because they can tell a whole story.
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Minimalist scene descriptions like those above are no longer common to any games
but those of the speed-IF variety and the occasional large-scale IF, where they
are the fatigued work of an author trying to bully through to the end of a long
project. From "First Things First" (Wheeler, 2001):
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    Laura's office <br>
    Laura's office is a small, windowless room with a file 
    cabinet and a plain white desk.  The only exit is to the east.
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If you find yourself writing a scene description like this one, drink some strong
coffee and try again.
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Secondary sense descriptions
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Sight is the natural sense that we cater to in a scene description, answering the
player's question "What can I see here?", but secondary sense details can be
useful tools for IF authors.
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    Darkness <br>
    It is too dark to see. 
    
    A rattling, rustling hiss courses back and forth here. It 
    reminds you of... what? Perhaps the sound of the wind in 
    the dry grassy plains, back wherever they are. If so, the 
    wind itself is a distant high wail to the northwest; a deep 
    rumble is barely detectable to the west; and a cacophony of 
    shrieks and brassy calls pours from the northeast. 
    
    A singing, thrumming chord hangs above you as well. 
    
    A cheery bubbling sound surrounds you. 
    
    The chord is getting louder.
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This scene description from "So Far" (Plotkin, 1996) completely dispenses with
sight, replacing it with sound. Note how many different kinds of sounds are
evoked, and that the final sentence, "The chord is getting louder," is used to
create suspense.
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In the earlier example from "Being Andrew Plotkin," the player is told what it
sounds like to be standing there, which adds a little bit of atmosphere, but it
is not deployed with enough aim to have much effect. Sound description doesn't
matter to the scene; the appropriate time to use it is when it does.
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In my own defense, here is a better-crafted scene description from "Being Andrew
Plotkin":
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    Weird Tunnel <br>
    You are on your hands and knees in a claustrophobic tunnel. 
    It leads down, as nearly as you can tell, but your equilibrium 
    is distorted in here. The curving walls gleam with the semblance 
    of wet rock, but the palms of your hands tell a different story. 
    It feels like organic tissue, a thick layer of hide, with the 
    elastic strength of muscle. Like sharkskin, it is silken and 
    slick in one direction but resists any backwards movement 
    with a roughened grain.
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Here, sight is given less attention than the sense of touch; it's not what the
place looks like that makes it weird, it's how it feels on your bare palms. The
direction of the room's exit, down, appears at the top of the scene description
instead of at the tail, but the fact that there is only one way to go is
underscored by what does come at the end, the sharkskin feel of the floor. The
description gives the player the unsettling impression that he is sliding down a
gullet rather than doing some casual spelunking. "This is no cave," as Han Solo
once put it.
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Smells, too, can be the right detail to add in certain locations, as in this
example from "The Tale of the Kissing Bandit" (Wheeler, 2001):
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    Garden park <br>
    The luscious gardens, abloom in the early spring, send 
    forth their heady aromas on the nuzzling breezes. Aloft, 
    too, are the erotic perfumes of the finely dressed ladies 
    in white, walking two by two in the early eve, innocent 
    as does, poised as summer swans.
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Active scene descriptions
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Scene descriptions can move even farther away from being passive scenery, instead
serving as active instruments of narration. They describe this present moment of
the story, what is happening instead of what is visible. Here is an example from
"First Things First" (Wheeler, 2001):
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    Hanging for dear life <br>
    You are hanging for dear life, with your body slipping 
    around the trunk of the tree. Soon you'll be upside down, 
    trying to support your weight with atrophied muscles, with 
    fingers that can't find a grip on waterlogged bark. 
    
    You feel your body shift again.
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Aiding the author in the transition to this more active style of scene
description is the use of linking text. In the typical case, IF games move the
player from room to room directly, eliding the short journey in between.
Transitional text is used for special cases, where how you got there matters, and
it makes sense to think of them as part of the scene descriptions that follow
them. Two examples, once again from "Hunter, In Darkness" and "Being Andrew
Plotkin," respectively, illustrate this technique: 
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    >FORWARD <br>
    You continue. Scrabble with fingers, brace arms, push 
    with toes. You're definitely tilted head-down now. Is 
    the stone pressing more tightly to either side of you?
    
    Tight Crawl <br>
    You lie on your side, gasping, trying to recover some 
    strength. Your back is sore; your neck is worse. Your 
    head aches from cracking into unexpected stone. A cold 
    stony knot presses into your left side, your right knee. 
    You stretch forward once more, feeling for a few more 
    inches before you continue. 
    
    Splash. 
    
    Your fingers are submerged in water. 
    
    --
    
    >OUT <br>
    You experience blind panic for the first time in your life, 
    despite the absurdity of the setting, and the recognizable 
    fiction of the threat. Your life; how small and petty it all 
    seems, and how short. There is little light in these twisting 
    tunnels, and the faster you run, the more time moves in 
    slow motion, and your thoughts turn inward. Your life has 
    been blind and short, you think; appropriate, because down 
    this last dark turn of the cave tunnel you have met with an 
    unexpected, dead end.
    
    Dead End <br>
    It is the classic dead end. More than that, it is the archetypal 
    dead end. Nowhere forward, nowhere back. The ceiling shocks 
    with its height, the walls oppress with their closeness. There 
    are no exits. 
    
    A helix of light hangs in the air here, twirling and changing 
    colors. 
    
    "We're trapped!" whispers Valerie, as much color drained from 
    her face as there is pulsating in the helix above. 
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Authors should be aware that certain effects work only once, and that a scene
description written to take advantage of a strong but one-time lead-in may look
awkward all other times the player reads it. The above example from "Hunter" is
somewhat guilty of this, but Plotkin does replace the supplementary text; the
one-time only moment of your fingers splashing into water changes, on repeated
looks, to:
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    A trickle of water runs past you, and merges into a shallow 
    pool at your fingertips.
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In the following example from "Christminster" (Gareth Rees, 1995), the player is
ascribed an overly-generous respectfulness, in that she bows her head in memory
of the honored dead every time she passes through:
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    Archway between the Courts <br>
    A long, low stone archway with First Court to the west, 
    and a door to Second Court to the east. On the north wall 
    is a war memorial, a series of simple slate tablets listing 
    the names of the members of Biblioll College, undergraduate 
    and graduate, who died in the First World War of 1914-1918. 
    You bow your head for a moment in memory of these young men 
    and what they might have become.
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This is passable, and perhaps forgiveable if one takes into account that "Brief"
was still the default mode for IF games at the time, and the author may have
assumed that most players would only see it the one time.
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More notorious is an example from "First Things First," in which a location to
which the player repeatedly returns sports a scene description that is only
appropriate once:
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    Inside house <br>
    You finally step into your house.  Not much of a victory, 
    given the circumstances.  Just a lot of planks and rafters.  
    A temporary work ladder is nailed into the structure, and 
    leads up to the second floor.
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Ignoring this scene description's other faults, we see that the same basic
problem is on view in "The Mulldoon Legacy" (Jon Ingold, 1999): 
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    >DOWN <br>
    (down a short flight of stairs) 
    
    Outside the Botanical Room <br>
    Success! After descending a few steps northwards on the 
    catwalk you have slipped into a darker archway in the middle 
    of the cavern and are now standing face to face with the 
    Botanical Room door to the north. Typically, all you have 
    to do now is work out how it opens, as there is no window 
    you could look through to check if the plants are still 
    alive. 
    
    The Botanical Room door is closed and locked. 
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Note also the parenthetical transition text, which appears on every trip to this
location even though it is not important. The main problem with this scene
description is the author's intrusiveness, a problem often expressed as telling
instead of showing.
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The same author continues to write scene descriptions in a similar vein, but has
learned better how to get away with it, by quickening the pace of his stories, so
that a one-use scene description is likely not to be accessed more than once.
Here, in "All Roads" (Ingold, 2001), his scene descriptions are clearly
functioning as narrative:
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    Scaffold in the City Square <br>
    Your head is pulled back, held by the rope pressing 
    on your throat. Your toes pivot on a rickety stool, 
    which shakes as your legs shake. The crowd filling 
    the square are chattering like monkeys, but they are 
    just flits of colour in the corners of your eyes. You 
    cannot look round - instead you gaze straight across 
    the Square, to the great dial of the Clock. 
    
    Slowly, the hand of that great dial swings lower. You 
    are going to hang. 
    
    --
    
    Venetian Streets <br>
    You walk through streets and winding alleys, avoiding 
    the canals where the crowds will be. The Captain has 
    one hand on the manacles around your hands, and the 
    sharp tip of metal is ever present on your back. Tall 
    buildings rise impassive on either side, cutting out 
    the sun, and you wonder if you shall ever see it again. 
    
    But though it is dark, it is never dark enough for you to leave.
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In the first example, Ingold never even provides a description of the city square
itself, or the scaffold, but the PC's predicament is explanation enough for the
omission. It is hardly the time and place to be taking in the sights. In the
second, the moment is effectively caught of walking against your will through
unfamiliar back-streets. In both cases, the player will be engaged in trying to
escape from the situations at hand, and typing "Look" repeatedly is probably not
going to be his first priority.
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Mutable scene descriptions
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Sometimes in IF, room descriptions provide game scenery but do not remain static;
when we return to a location later on, there will be differences. In "A Change in
the Weather" (Plotkin, 1995), the mutability of the scene descriptions makes them
memorable. This is one of the key experiments of the game, and its theme, change.
The sky grows dark, the sun sets, and the rains come; the map is technically the
same, but the descriptions morph dynamically. 
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    Rocky Outlook <br>
    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. The park 
    stretches off to the north and west, a vast expanse of bright 
    meadowland, patched with dark woods and stitched with streams 
    that glitter in the sunlight. In the distance, a lake reflects 
    white fire from the setting sun. 
    
    The sun is lazily approaching the horizon. 
    
    Rocky Outlook <br>
    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. The park 
    stretches off to the north and west, a vast expanse of bright 
    meadowland, patched with dark woods and stitched with streams 
    that glitter ruby in the sunlight. In the distance, a lake 
    reflects red fire from the setting sun. 
    
    The western horizon has become a surging sea of gold and scarlet 
    waves. The light is magical -- a cool bronze radiance that 
    somehow makes the grass and foliage more intensely green than 
    ever. 
    
    Rocky Outlook <br>
    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. The park 
    stretches off to the north and west, a vast expanse of dim 
    meadowland, patched with dark woods and stitched with dark 
    streams. A layer of mist is rolling across the landscape. 
    
    The mist is turning to a drizzle of rain. 
    
    Rocky Outlook <br>
    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. A dark expanse 
    stretches to the north and west, impenetrable with rain. 
    
    A stream of runoff water is flowing down from the southeast, 
    and pouring down the trench to the unseen stream below. 
    
    It's dark and it's raining. Hard.
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The question, "How would my PC view this location?" is a useful one for authors
to keep in mind when writing scene descriptions. In "Being Andrew Plotkin," which
featured multiple player characters, a particular room description repeatedly
changed to reflect the point of view of each PC the player inhabited during the
course of the game.
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    File Room (as Peter) <br>
    This bleak room with its short, slumping ceiling does 
    nothing to brighten your morale. Short file cabinets, 
    marked in reverse alphabetical order, crawl in a line 
    along the walls like an army of stupid robots. One measly 
    window lets in a tiny square of sunlight. 
    
    You see a copier machine here. 
    
    File Room (as Valerie) <br>
    The file room is one of your favorite rooms in the 
    company building. One, it's always orderly and clean; 
    and two, it doesn't sport brightly colored IKEA furniture. 
    It's businesslike and efficient. There's even a window to 
    give the area a sense of openness. Early moonlight peeks in, 
    drawing a long amber trapezoid on the carpet. 
    
    Peter is here. 
    
    File Room (as Zarf) <br>
    The file room is an unimpressive rectangular room full of 
    squat cabinets. The file cabinets are a pale yellow, like 
    raw milk, and each stands about 38 inches high. There is 
    a maladjusted ceiling tile, and scruffy stains on the padded 
    carpeting. In the north wall is a window, about two and a 
    half feet square, with a crank latch. A copier machine sits 
    near the wall, bearing no make or marking that you recognize, 
    even though no company produces generic photocopiers that 
    you know of. Even more curiously, the wall socket behind 
    it is empty, meaning that the copier is not plugged in, 
    and yet it definitely seems to be turned on. 
    
    File Room (as Peter) <br>
    The file room looks considerably cleaner, perhaps better 
    than before. The reassuring familiarity of its short, 
    slumping ceiling seems now to brighten your morale. Short 
    file cabinets, marked in reverse alphabetical order, stand 
    in a clean line along the walls like a perfect set of 
    teeth. A window affords a beautiful view and a kind 
    square of sunlight.
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A different kind of mutable description is used in "Varicella" (Adam Cadre,
1999). Here, in a spin on the effects of the meta-command "Brief," scene
descriptions are elaborate on the first visit to the room and succinct thereafter
(though the game is still considered to be in "Verbose" mode by default). Cadre
stocks these initial scene descriptions carefully, carefully choosing details
that allow him to fill out the game's back-story and to flesh out his large cast
of characters. Although the narration is in the traditional second-person, Cadre
filters everything through the PC's particular view of the world, always
exploring his main character's attitudes and memories.
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    Dining Hall <br>
    Though this dining hall was able to hold the entire 
    Venetian delegation with ease when they were here for 
    the (failed) peace negotiations, you've grown far more 
    accustomed to seeing it at one-thirty in the morning as 
    King Charles and Miss Sierra indulge in a postcoital 
    late-night snack at a table built for sixty. It's been 
    ages since this chamber even remotely resembled the 
    raucous banquet depicted on the tapestry decorating 
    the southern wall. An old suit of armor stands guard 
    over the entrance to the kitchen, off to the north; 
    other exits lead east and west.
<P>
Note how much information about the game's world is contained in the description
of just one room, and also that the size of the room is implied by these side
details rather than spelled out. This is a game world with a full history, and
the sense of the kingdom's grander past as opposed to its seedy present is also
brought out.
<P>
The shorter description of this same location is succinct and functional, but
still carries a memory of the original: 
<P>

    Dining Hall <br>
    The tapestry decorating the southern wall depicts a 
    raucous banquet, but the dining hall is quiet at the 
    moment. An old suit of armor stands guard over the 
    entrance to the kitchen, off to the north; other exits 
    lead east and west.
<P>

Conclusion: Getting the job done
<P>
It is not often said, in praising works of IF, "Great scene descriptions!" Even
at their best, scene descriptions provide scenery and atmosphere, and are not
interactive in and of themselves. They are there to be read, but are usually not
the parts of the game that players find most remarkable or memorable.
<P>
In practice, authors mainly have to concentrate on getting the job done. A scene
description, once written, tends to remain static, because an IF author's to-do
list is always full, from the beginning of a project to its release and even
after, and never leaves room for rewriting a scene description that gets the job
done. Keeping the game from exploding with error messages is much more important.
So, to close, here are some examples of authors just getting the job done, with
the reminder that it did not stop any of them from winning acclaim for their
work.
<P>

"Christminster": <br>
    Library <br>
    A vast room, filled with bookshelves from floor to 
    ceiling: rows and rows of narrow dark stacks stretching 
    away into the distance. There is a card index next to 
    the door, which leads out to the north. 
<P>
"So Far": <br>
    Chill Tunnel <br>
    The tunnel is very straight. You can tell that it's not 
    quite east-west, though; the distant bright spot of outside 
    snow is more east-northeast, and a strange watery glow is 
    visible west-southwest.
<P>
"Spider and Web": <br>
    Angle Branch <br>
    The corridor runs north and south, like every other hallway 
    in this place. A short hallway branches off to the northeast. 
    To the west is a blank metal door, with attendant black plate 
    beside it.
<P>
"Varicella": <br>
    Northeast Tower Antechamber <br>
    The northeast tower lies, stunningly, to the northeast, 
    while other exits lead west to the dining hall and south 
    to the eastern ballroom.
<P>
"Pytho's Mask" (Short, 2001): <br>
    Archway <br>
    Inside a sort of archway through the body of the palace 
    itself. To the east lies the square garden; west, more 
    gardens but more wild. 
    
    The small door to the south stands open.
<P>
"All Roads": <br>
    Office of Guiseppe Florantine <br>
    The aide's office is simple enough - cabinets line one wall, 
    and a large desk fills the centre of the room, its piles of 
    paper extremely organised. The aide himself is seated in a 
    deep chair behind, looking up at you expectantly.
<P>
Everyone writes their fair share of workmanlike scene descriptions, and the above
examples should remind authors not be deterred from releasing work because their
scene descriptions are functional but not spectacular. As I said at the
beginning: Let the player know where he is, and where the exits are, and your job
is done.
<P>

Works Cited
<P>
Blank, Marc, David Lebling, Bruce Daniels, and Tim Anderson. "Zork I." 
    Infocom, 1980.<br>
Cadre, Adam. "Shrapnel." 2000.<br>
--- "Varicella." 1999.<br>
Crowther, Will. "Advent." 1972.<br>
Ingold, Jon. "All Roads." 2001.<br>
--- "The Mulldoon Legacy." 1999.<br>
Plotkin, Andrew. "A Change in the Weather." 1995.<br>
--- "Hunter, in Darkness." 1999.<br>
--- "So Far." 1996.<br>
--- "Spider and Web." 1998.<br>
Rees, Gareth. "Christminster." 1995.<br>
Short, Emily. "Metamorphoses." 2000.<br>
--- "Pytho's Mask." 2001.<br>
Wheeler, J. Robinson. "Being Andrew Plotkin." 2000.<br>
--- "First Things First." JRW Digital Media, 2001.<br>
--- "The Tale of the Kissing Bandit." 2001.<br>
Yob, Gregory. "Hunt the Wumpus." 1972.<br>
<P>