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INSERT INTO `essay` VALUES (1,'Evolution of Adventure and Zork',3,'',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','0000-00-00 00:00:00',0,4,0),(2,'Evolution of the Small Game',4,'The Evolution of Short Works\r\nFrom Sprawling Cave Crawls to Tiny Experiments\r\nby Stephen Granade\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nShort works of interactive fiction offer many pleasures. If the work\r\nis a more traditional game, when well-designed it is a fine Swiss\r\nwatch, every piece meshing together and turning in time, with no\r\nunneeded parts. If it is more experimental, it can surprise and\r\ndelight without becoming tiresome, a brief flurry of technical\r\nfireworks. In either case, the main pleasure is in seeing something\r\nsmall done well. Short works are constrained, the short story to the\r\nnovel of longer works, and have become the form of choice for many\r\ninteractive fiction authors.\r\n<P>\r\nShort games have not always been popular. For the twenty years between\r\nthe mid-1970s and mid-1990s, interactive fiction authors generally\r\nignored the possibility of a short game which was entirely\r\nself-contained, rather than a demonstration of or an ad for a long\r\ngame. Recently, the number of short games has increased dramatically,\r\nspurred on by the first Annual Interactive Fiction Competition. Short\r\ngames have become so prevalent that in 1998 several people asked in\r\nthe Usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction, \"Is the yearly competition\r\nhurting the release of long games?\" Given the dramatic shift in game\r\nsize over the last eight years, it is worth seeing how short games\r\ncame to be the near-standard.\r\n<P>\r\nOne primary question must be answered before the evolution of the\r\nshort game can be explored: what is a short game? How do we measure\r\nthe length of a piece of interactive fiction? Works are considered\r\nlong or short based on how long it takes to play them to completion,\r\nbut no reliable metric exists for measuring the length of play time\r\nacross even a majority of players. File size alone cannot serve, as\r\nsome games with multimedia resources such as pictures and music have\r\nlarge file sizes yet can be readily completed in the space of an\r\nhour. One of the longest games on record, \"Journey to Alpha Centauri\r\n(In Real Time)\" (Julian Fleetwood, 1998), which would take 3000 years\r\nto play to completion, has a file size of a mere 50 kb. Other similar\r\nnumeric measurements, such as the number of rooms, the amount of\r\ndescriptive text, or the number of puzzles in a piece of interactive\r\nfiction, correlate weakly with play time. The length of time to\r\ncomplete interactive fiction is very player-specific, and depends\r\nstrongly on how much time a given player spends solving a work\'s\r\npuzzles, if any; the player\'s reading and typing speed; and how\r\nmotivated a player is to finish a work. Since all but a few works of\r\ninteractive fiction do not occur in real time, players are free to\r\npause for any length of time between moves and consider their next\r\ncourse of action, time which is by custom counted as \"play time.\"\r\n<P>\r\nThe Annual Interactive Fiction Competition, which was created as a\r\nshowcase for short games, had to answer the question of \"how short is\r\nshort?\" G. Kevin Wilson, competition creator and organizer, settled on\r\na fixed length of play. Judges were to play games for no more than two\r\nhours before voting on a game. Though play time varies among players,\r\nthe average time does not vary that widely on such a short time\r\nscale. In practice this has produced competition games that are\r\ncommonly regarded as short, and consensus about which games are too\r\nlong for the competition is readily reached. For the purposes of this\r\narticle I will use a similarly nebulous definition and say that any\r\nwork widely regarded as taking ten or fewer hours to play is short.\r\n<P>\r\nEvery element of early works of interactive fiction was a reflection\r\nof those in \"ADVENT\" (Crowther and Woods, 1976), and game size was no\r\nexception. \"ADVENT\" was a sprawling game which took place in a large\r\nunderground land filled with puzzles and treasures. While some players\r\nwere able to complete \"ADVENT\" in a handful of hours, many took tens\r\nof hours to finish it. Early works mimicked \"ADVENT\" in size and\r\nlength of play time. Games such as \"DUNGEON\" (Tim Anderson, Marc\r\nBlank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, 1978) and \"Acheton\" (Jonathan\r\nPartington, David Seal, and Jon Thackray, 1978) were large affairs\r\ntaking many hours to complete. For a while, each successive game was\r\nlarger than the last.\r\n<P>\r\nThe trend towards increasing size was temporarily reversed when\r\ninteractive fiction moved from mainframe computers to personal\r\nones. Personal computers had small amounts of memory -- the standard\r\nmaximum memory of 16 kb on the TRS-80 Model I was typical -- and\r\nprograms were stored on cassette tapes. Scott Adams led the way in\r\nthis field, becoming the first to sell interactive fiction\r\ncommercially for play on personal computers. The adventures he wrote\r\nfor his company Adventure International were tiny, and used every\r\nimaginable trick to squeeze more game into the finite space\r\navailable. His tricks were of sufficient interest to warrant an\r\narticle in the December 1980 issue of Byte magazine. Adams\'s\r\nadventures lacked the prose of \"ADVENT;\" consider the following room\r\ndescription from Pirate\'s Adventure:\r\n<P>\r\n  I\'m in a sandy beach on a tropical isle<br>\r\n  Obvious exit: EAST<br>\r\n  Visible items: Small ship\'s keel and mast, Sand, Lagoon, Sign in<br>\r\n  the sand says: \'Welcome to Pirates Island, watch out for the tide!\'<br>\r\n<P>\r\nWhen Infocom was formed, its first product was \"DUNGEON\" ported to\r\npersonal computers. To make this possible, \"DUNGEON\" was cut into\r\nthree parts and each part rounded out to make a complete game. The\r\nresults were \"Zork I, II, and III\" (Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce\r\nDaniels, and Dave Lebling, 1979). Yet despite their small sizes, works\r\nsuch as the three \"Zork\" games and \"Pirate Adventure\" took a while\r\nto play. And works did not become any shorter as time went on.\r\n<P>\r\nEconomic pressures, more than mere homage to \"ADVENT,\" drove the size\r\nof commercial works of interactive fiction. Once companies began\r\ncharging for interactive fiction, players expected a certain amount of\r\nplay time for their money.  Companies began to boast of having large\r\ngames in an effort to attract customers. For instance, Level 9\r\ntrumpeted the 7,000 rooms of their adventure \"Snowball\" (Mike Austin,\r\nNick Austin, Pete Austin, and Ian Buxton, 1983). (While a true boast,\r\nsome 6,800 of those rooms formed a maze consisting of near-identical\r\nrooms.) In addition, many companies used hint books as a revenue\r\nstream. The best way a company could insure the sale of hint books was\r\nto include fiendishly difficult puzzles in the company\'s works, which\r\nin turn led to longer play times for those who refused to buy hint\r\nbooks.\r\n<P>\r\nAt the same time, economics, not just available memory and storage,\r\nkept works from becoming extremely long. Longer works require more\r\ntime to design, develop, and debug than shorter ones. As more memory\r\nand storage space became available, works became deeper, with the\r\naddition of more prose, items, and non-player characters (NPCs),\r\nrather than more game play per se.\r\n<P>\r\nThis situation remained more-or-less unchanged throughout the 1980s\r\nand on into the 1990s. Even as the commercial market for text-based\r\ninteractive fiction declined, game length changed little. Given this\r\nhistory, it is unsurprising that early works from the nascent\r\ninteractive fiction community were similar to commercial ones in size\r\nand scope, limited mainly by the capabilities of interactive fiction\r\nlanguages of the time, such as GAGS and AGT. A goal of many authors\r\nwho took part in the Cosmoserve online community for interactive\r\nfiction was to make games \"just like Infocom\'s.\" AGT games like \"Cliff\r\nDiver, Investigator for Hire: Crime to the Ninth Power\" (Patrick\r\nFarley, 1990) and \"The Multi-Dimensional Thief\" (Joel Finch, 1991),\r\nTADS games like \"Save Princeton\" (Karine Schaefer and Jacob Weinstein,\r\n1991) and \"Unnkulian Underworld: The Unknown Unventure\" (D. A. Leary,\r\n1990), and independently-programmed games such as \"Jacaranda Jim\" (Graham\r\nCluley, 1987), were of moderate\r\nsize, comparable to the sizes of many commercial games of the 1980s.\r\n<P>\r\nShort games were rare, and the ones which did appear were mostly\r\nsections from a longer work made available for demonstration purposes\r\nor, like \"Unnkulia One-Half: The Salesman Triumphant\" (David Baggett,\r\n1993), self-contained games which served as ads for other, longer\r\ngames. One notable deviation from this was \"John\'s Fire Witch\" (John\r\nBaker, 1995). Described by author John Baker as a \"snack-sized game,\"\r\nthe work was very favorably received. A large part of its appeal came\r\nfrom the novelty of its short length.\r\n<P>\r\nSuch short works would not remain a novelty for long, so to speak, as\r\ntheir creation experienced a tremendous boost later in 1995 with the\r\ncreation of the Annual Interactive Fiction Competition. The\r\ncompetition was organized by G. Kevin Wilson and the denizens of the\r\ntwo Usenet newsgroups dedicated to interactive fiction,\r\nrec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction. The competition\'s\r\ninitial purpose was to increase the number of works written using the\r\ninteractive fiction language Inform; only after much discussion was\r\nthe competition opened to games written in TADS as well. The decision\r\nto limit the competition to short games was a pragmatic one, as judges\r\nwere required to play all entries, and who would have the time to play\r\nfive or six longer works?  Thus the first competition had but one\r\nrule: games had to be written to be completed within two hours of\r\nplay.\r\n<P>\r\nThe works entered in that first competition were similar to \"John\'s\r\nFire Witch,\" a short game with traditional gameplay. Certainly \"Uncle\r\nZebulon\'s Will\" (Magnus Olssen, 1995), which won the TADS division of\r\nthe competition, was much like \"John\'s Fire Witch\" in feel and\r\nstyle. Even \"A Change In the Weather\" (Andrew Plotkin, 1995), winner\r\nof the Inform division, was traditional in style despite its cruel\r\nscheduling of events and rigid in-game timeline. The most unusual game\r\nof the competition, \"Undo\" (Neil deMause, 1995), finished last in the\r\nTADS division.\r\n<P>\r\nOther than the lengths of entries, what was most notable about the\r\nCompetition was the plethora of game reviews and discussion which came\r\non the heels of the Competition\'s conclusion. The community was asked\r\nnot to discuss the games during the adjudication period, resulting in\r\na pent-up flood of opinions which burst forth after the\r\nCompetition. Entries were heavily discussed and reviewed, garnering\r\nfeedback far in excess of that enjoyed by non-competition games.\r\n<P>\r\nMost short games entered in the next several annual competitions\r\nremained traditional in style and design. \"The Meteor, The Stone, and\r\nA Long Glass of Sherbet\" (Graham Nelson, 1996), which won the 1996\r\nInteractive Fiction Competition, could easily have been an Infocom-era\r\nwork which just happened to take around two hours to complete instead\r\nof twenty. A few competition works experimented with form and\r\nfunction; Andrew Plotkin\'s entry in the 1996 competition, \"Lists and\r\nLists\" (Andrew Plotkin, 1996), was a compiler for the computer\r\nlanguage Scheme coupled with a Scheme tutorial.\r\n<P>\r\nMore unusual works were beginning to appear outside the confines of\r\nthe competition. \"The Space Under the Window\" (Andrew Plotkin, 1997)\r\nwas more an interactive presentation of text than a traditional game,\r\nwhile \"Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die\" (Rob Noyes, 1996) was a\r\ndada-ist game whose title is entirely descriptive: the work contains\r\none room and one item, a phone booth; should you pick up the phone\r\nbooth, you will die.\r\n<P>\r\n1998 was a turning point in the evolution of short works. In late 1996\r\nEileen Mullin, editor of the e-zine XYZZYnews, created the XYZZY\r\nAwards. The Awards honor works in given categories such as Best NPCs,\r\nBest Puzzles, and Best Game, and are chosen by any members of the\r\ninteractive fiction community who wish to vote. Several games are\r\nnominated in each category, after which a single winner is chosen.\r\nThe 1997 awards were voted on in early 1998, and every XYZZY award\r\nwent to a short game. All but \"I-0\" (Adam Cadre, 1997), winner of Best\r\nGame, were entries in the 1997 Interactive Fiction Competition.\r\n<P>\r\nThen, in May of 1998, Lucian P. Smith and Adam Cadre both began\r\nmini-comps, small competitions in which entrants were to write short\r\nworks which fit a given premise. Lucian\'s mini-comp involved a rich\r\nrelative leaving behind a wacky will and a scavenger hunt, while\r\nAdam\'s merely specified that the game should involve chickens. The two\r\nmini-comps resulted in twenty-five works between them, all short. If\r\nthe Annual IF Competition had increased the acceptance of short works\r\nin the community, the mini-comps helped make short works the preferred\r\nform for experimentation and one-off jokes, and made mini-competitions\r\nthe standard way of encouraging new short works on a given theme.\r\n<P>\r\nMore experimentation with the form was to follow. In October of 1998,\r\nDavid Cornelson held the first SpeedIF event on ifMUD, an online\r\nmeeting place for members of the interactive fiction community. People\r\nwho were online and logged into ifMUD at the time generated a list of\r\nsuggested requirements in the style of a mad-lib: David would call out\r\na request for things such as \"what you might find in a glass,\" and\r\nthen collate his favorite reponses. Entrants then had two hours in\r\nwhich to write a short work which fit the chosen requirements. Both\r\nthe mini-comps and SpeedIF sparked the creation of short, often silly\r\nworks whose content was as likely to be a convoluted community in-joke\r\nas a carefully-designed traditional game.\r\n<P>\r\nOne work in 1998 had arguably the greatest influence on later short\r\nworks: \"Photopia\" (Adam Cadre, 1998), winner of the 1998 Interactive\r\nFiction Competition. \"Photopia\" combined multiple viewpoints and a\r\nnonlinear narrative in a way which had not been seen in interactive\r\nfiction before. It eschewed traditional puzzles for narrative drive\r\nand a tightly-constrained plotline. Many authors later imitated\r\nelements of \"Photopia\" in their own short works. By winning the Annual\r\nInteractive Fiction Competition, \"Photopia\" marked the acceptance of\r\n\"experimental\" interactive fiction by the mainstream community.\r\n<P>\r\nDespite the inroads made by short works of interactive fiction, most\r\nof the 1998 XYZZY Awards went to longer games such as \"Spider and Web\"\r\n(Andrew Plotkin, 1998), \"Once and Future\" (G. Kevin Wilson, 1998), and\r\n\"Anchorhead\" (Michael Gentry, 1998). Only two short games, \"Photopia\"\r\nand \"Little Blue Men\" (Michael Gentry, 1998), received awards, with\r\neach garnering one award apiece.\r\n<P>\r\n1999 saw the arrival of \"Aisle\" (Sam Barlow, 1999), a work which took\r\nexactly one turn yet had a multitude of possible endings, and the\r\nInteractive Fiction Art Show. The IF Art Show, the creation of Marnie\r\nParker, further advanced the cause of short works. Entries for the Art\r\nShow were meant to expound upon a single theme rather than to be\r\ncomplete games in their own right; to create a single object, scene,\r\nor character and explore it fully. Galatea, the eponymous non-player\r\ncharacter of \"Galatea\" (Emily Short, 1999), which was entered in the\r\nsecond IF Art Show, is widely accepted as the best NPC to date to\r\nappear in interactive fiction; she appears in a work devoid of the\r\nusual trappings of interactive fiction such as objects, puzzles, or\r\neven multiple rooms.\r\n<P>\r\nThe number of short works released each year continues to increase. In\r\n2000, despite the release of such lauded longer works as \"LASH\" (Paul\r\nO\'Brian, 2000), \"Augmented Fourth\" (Brian Uri!, 2000), and \"Dangerous\r\nCurves\" (Irene Callaci, 2000), every one of the 2000 XYZZY Awards went\r\nto short works. In addition, 2000 marked the first time that a SpeedIF\r\ngame, \"You Are a Chef!\" (Dan Shiovitz, 2000), was nominated for an\r\nXYZZY Award. In 2001 only one long work, \"First Things First\"\r\n(J. Robinson Wheeler, 2001), was released. During the same year, there\r\nwere 52 games entered in the Annual Interactive Fiction Competition,\r\nnine in SmoochieComp, six in TelegramComp, four in the IF Art Show,\r\nseventeen IF Arcade Games, and countless SpeedIF games, not to mention\r\n\"Textfire Golf\" (Adam Cadre, 2001) and \"The Weapon\" (Sean Barrett,\r\n2001). In just seven years the balance between short works and long\r\nones had completely reversed.\r\n<P>\r\nIn addition, the number of experimental games has risen.  \"For A\r\nChange\" (Dan Schmidt, 2000) used altered forms of English, while \"The\r\nGostak\" (Carl Muckenhoupt, 2001) dispensed with known language\r\naltogether, using instead a language in which the signifiers and\r\nsignified were never clearly identified. Games like \"Heroes\" (Sean\r\nBarrett, 2001) and \"Common Ground\" (Stephen Granade, 1999) employed\r\nmultiple viewpoints in the same time and place. \"shrapnel\" (Adam\r\nCadre, 2000) is a deconstruction of interactive fiction which, in the\r\nend, dissolves into a jumble of random characters -- random, except\r\nfor one encoded message.\r\n<P>\r\nLong works of interactive fiction may not ever die out, but short\r\ngames are undisputedly in ascendency. Short works give authors the\r\nchance to experiment with ideas or gimmicks which would be stretched\r\nthin if used in a longer work. In addition, they are more quickly\r\nwritten, as longer works may take multiple years to write, and provide\r\nauthors with player feedback much sooner. In the case of entries in\r\nthe Annual IF Competition, the amount of feedback and number of\r\nreviews will likely be an order of magnitude greater than that\r\nassociated with non-competition games. The interactive fiction\r\ncommunity has come to expect short works, especially experimental\r\nones, and rewards them with reviews and critiques. Given this dynamic,\r\nit is doubtful that long games will once again become the default form\r\nin the near future.',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2006-08-25 06:55:56',1,5,3171),(3,'History of Italian IF',7,'\"The best thing would be a parser with just one word:<br>\r\n>BARMAN<br>\r\nBarman: What?<br>\r\n>BEER<br>\r\nBarman: A beer for you.<br>\r\n>MONEY?<br>\r\nBarman: five bucks.<br>\r\n>PAY<br>\r\nBarman: Thanx.<br>\r\n<P>\r\nSo, this series of sentences seems perfect to me,\r\nmaybe I\'ll use it to write a game.\"\r\n<P>\r\nThe man who talks is Enrico Colombini, programmer from\r\nBrescia (northern Italy), the pioneer of adventure\r\ngames in Italy -- the Don Woods of the Mediterrean,\r\nto be clear. He has a curious aversion for the\r\nsophisticated parser invented by Infocom. And that\'s\r\nwhy he said that bizarre thing - the parser with just\r\none word. Fun, fantasy and easy plain work: no\r\ncomplicated sentences and no NPCs to ask \"What\'s\r\nwrong.\" It\'s provocative, certainly.\r\n<P>\r\nThe first game<br>\r\nIt\'s a boutade of the man who, in 1982, wrote the\r\nfirst text adventure of Italian history: \"Avventura\r\nnel castello\". \"I didn\'t know Infocom games yet and,\r\ncertainly, that was a good thing. Had I played them, I\r\nwould have tried to emulate their parser (\"put the red\r\nsheet and the green one in the big draw, then close it\r\nwith the strange key\"), things would have got really\r\ncomplicated, I would\'ve lost a lot of time, and maybe\r\nI would\'ve gave up. At the time I hadn\'t yet\r\ndiscovered that easy things are, often, the best way\r\nto gain victory, I needed a lot of years to understand\r\nthis, but that\'s another story.\"\r\n<P>\r\nTwenty years later, \"Avventura nel castello\" could still \r\ncompete against most (if not all)\r\nItalian adventure games. And at the time, without\r\nexaggeration, the game - for its\r\nquality - would have turned Scott Adams pale \r\n(but Scott Adams wrote a lot of games, and Colombini just five or six). \"Avventura nel castello\" was first released\r\nfor Apple II: at the beginning it was sold only in a\r\nshop owned by a friend of Enrico, and then it was\r\ndistributed by editorial group \"Jackson\": \"The sales\r\nwere never high, but the satisfaction was great\r\nbecause a lot of players wrote to know more about the\r\ngame. With \"Avventura nel Castello\" and with the board\r\ngame \"Melopoli\" (a computer version of Monopoly) I\r\nearned, if I remember right, three or four million.\r\nThe same as Scott Adams - but my millions were in lire,\r\nhis in dollars.\" In 1985 the MS-DOS version of the\r\ngame was released (the last edition is dated 1996). \r\n<P>\r\nItalian parser<br>\r\nBut what is the origin of the bizarre proposal of the\r\n\"Parser with one word\"? The origin is the italian\r\ntradition of text adventure, I think. Only after the\r\narrival of Inform in Italy did people release games with\r\na parser based on more than a verb/noun pair. \r\nItalian players, especially the ones who don\'t know\r\nEnglish (and there are many), are not used to a\r\ncomplex parser.  It sounds bad to their ears.\r\n\"Avventura nel castello\" and Colombini\'s other games \r\nhave a verb/noun parser. And the same is for\r\nmost of the games released in the eighties. \"Avventura nel\r\ncastello\" didn\'t have a large distribution because it\r\nran on the Apple and then on Ms-Dos, when\r\nthe most common home computers were Cbm64 and Spectrum.\r\nA lot of people wanted to play that game but couldn\'t. There were also a lot of people having fun with Infocom games, but the problems were the language and the slowness of the Cbm. The most common non-Italian games were those of Scott Adams: not much text to translate, an easy parser, speed and, in some cases,\r\ngraphics (and graphics, whatever you think, means\r\naudience). These games had a very large distribution\r\n(more than \"Avventura nel Castello\") because the software piracy was everywhere: at the time I\'d seen\r\nan original game only nine or ten times. The rest\r\nwas a big exchange, under the tables but also over the\r\ncounters of the shops, of tapes (or floppy disks) with\r\ncracked games. And in the videogames magazines\r\nappeared the first columns with hints for adventurers\r\n(in the golden age those columns became pages). \r\n<P>\r\nThe newspaper stands<br>\r\nThe adventures were still games for a small audience.\r\nThings changed when they arrived in the newspaper\r\nstands. Yes: the newsstands became gold mines for\r\nadventurers. In 1985, the first issue\r\nof a monthly publication called \"Next Strategy\" was\r\nreleased: on the tape there were three graphic\r\nadventures for Cbm (written by Roberto Tabacco and from\r\nthe no-better-known Hans Piu). If you play them today\r\nthe only pleasure comes from satisfying your\r\nnostalgia, for the rest is a frustration: it\'s\r\nimpossible to say that these games have a parser. The\r\ngame understands only the right sequence of commands\r\nthat lead to victory: nothing out of the scheme, no\r\nprovision of answers (even silly ones) for wrong actions. We\r\nare very far from \"Avventura nel castello\" and also\r\nfrom Scott Adams. Regression? Maybe. To win it was not\r\nenough to solve the puzzles; you had also to guess the\r\nexact words in the mind of the author. Until\r\nextreme things like a game who didn\'t understand the\r\nword \"follow\" but only the word \"track\". Certainly there\r\nare reasons for all this. At the time the standard (in\r\nother countries too) was more or less that one. Nobody\r\ndreamed of emulating Infocom: the magazine was\r\nsold every month, and you could not expect that the\r\neditor (who wasn\'t Bill Gates) would hire a team of\r\nprogrammers and beta-testers. And all were happy at the\r\nresults, because the players were enthusiastic: and that was enough to \r\ncontinue without raising the budget (which was already very\r\nhigh for such games). And there was another\r\nreason. The review had a high price: eight or nine\r\nthousand lire (roughly four or four and a half dollars).\r\nHad the games been very easy, the line of people requesting a refund\r\nwould have been longer than the line of people ready to buy the next issue\r\nwith new games and the solutions of the old ones. The\r\nstrategy, instead, was to insert a very difficult\r\npuzzle in one of the games, so the players had to buy\r\nthe next issue. \r\n<P>\r\nMore or less at the same level were the games of the\r\n\"Dream\" series (Editions Fermont, first issue november\r\n1985, in every issue three games for Cbm): they had\r\nblack and white graphics, retro style, and good and\r\nonirics plots. In every issue there was a game without\r\ngraphics, to make the most of the memory of the Cbm\r\nand offer more text and more puzzles.\r\n <p>\r\nThe Quill and higher quality<br>\r\nThe quality of the games (parser included) got better\r\nwith Bonaventura Di Bello. He, in his twenties, bought\r\nby mistake a \"Adventure: A planet of death\" by Artic\r\nComputing (while Colombini was hypnotized by Crowther\r\nand Woods, authors of \"Adventure\"). A little time\r\nlater Di Bello discovered The Quill (an illegal copy,\r\nof course, but then he bought an original one from England) and wrote a game on his Spectrum. He sent it to a\r\nmagazine called \"Load\'n\'Run\" and, in that moment,\r\nbegan his fortune: \"I was paid two hundred thousand\r\nlire (one hundred dollars).  Another two and I would\r\nhave been able to buy a new Spectrum!\". The editor,\r\nArscom, launched a new series: \"Epic 3000\", with three\r\ngames every month. Roberto Tabacco was the author of\r\nthe ones for Cbm, Di Bello wrote the ones for Spectrum\r\n(with The Quill and The Illustrator). The first issue\r\nwas sold on april 1986. The games, not protected by a\r\nantipiracy password (though they were in the following issues), were: \"Ring\", \"Duca Lynce\" and \"Il galeone\r\nscomparso\" (Cbm), \"Et in action\", \"L\'occhio del\r\ncondor\", \"Il triangolo maledetto\" (Spectrum). The\r\ninfluence of the Level 9 games was clear.\r\nIn december the last issue of the magazine was sold; it \r\nthen became \"Viking\" (first\r\nissue: january 1987), with a new editor, \"Edizioni\r\nHobby\": Tabacco was no longer working there, and the\r\ngames (three, the same for Commodore and Spectrum)\r\nwere all written by Di Bello. Two months earlier\r\n(november 1986) the \"Edizioni Hobby\" had launched the\r\nseries \"Explorer\" (three games, the same for Cbm and\r\nMsx): here Di Bello ported to Commodore the Spectrum\r\ngames of \"Epic 3000\". Sometimes a game continued in\r\ntwo or more episodes. The total of adventures written\r\nby Di Bello is 74: he was able to write a game every\r\nweek and was paid five hundred thousand lire (250\r\ndollars) per game. \"It would have been wonderful to\r\nlive writing those games; it would have been the same\r\nas living as a writer, or maybe better, because the\r\naudience of text games was superb.\" The first game of\r\nDi Bello, \"Dimensione sconosciuta\", is impossible to\r\nfind: \"Today I would like to remember it, rewrite it\r\nand release it online.\" Last three were never\r\nreleased. \"I remember the names, \"New Pasqua\" and\r\n\"Sorsi di terrore\". The third one was a thriller with\r\nthe PC hiring a killer to kill him and let all pass\r\nlike a suicide. I wasn\'t the author, the author was\r\nMarco Gobbi; I tried to contact him again some time\r\nago, but he\'s vanished.\" Most games, at the time, had\r\ngraphics, and there were people who released \"single\"\r\ngames, without thinking to launch a series. The\r\nstories were always very short and the locations never\r\nmore than ten. The name of the characters, we\'ll never\r\nunderstand why, were always anglophone (I don\'t\r\nremember even one Italian one): Dust Hanter, Jack\r\nByteson, Jonathan Thompson, Harry O\'Hara, Alan\r\nSimmons.\r\n<P>\r\nInside and out the system<br>\r\nThe parser still was verb/noun. But there were some\r\nexceptions, above all in the single games or in the\r\nshort series, like the mystery stories edited by\r\nSystems (\"Gialli Commodore\", just one game per issue).\r\nIn these cases, in fact, there was no hurry to release\r\na lot of games every month, the authors were not pros\r\nlike Di Bello, but people that had an idea for a\r\ngame, released it, and often vanished forever from the\r\nscene of text adventures (just like Enrico Ragaini,\r\nauthor of \"Il mistero della piramide\" for Cbm). The\r\nSystems mystery stories were the integration of a\r\nseries of lessons to write text adventures published\r\nby the magazine \"Personal Computer\" and \"Commodore\r\nComputer Club\": those lessons were very good and in\r\nthem appeared, for the first time, the concept of\r\nlibrary with words about the theory of locations, of\r\nthe inventory and suggestions for an \"intelligent\"\r\nparser.\r\n \r\nThe mystery stories by Systems were very well written\r\nand, among the games of the time, are the most similar\r\nto modern IF: yes, interactive stories. Like \"Il\r\nmistero di Zambesi Waters\", by Sandro Certi and Franco\r\nTodi.  The location is Africa and in the opening screen\r\nthere is a promise: \"this game accepts sentences with\r\none or two words, with a maximum of NINE\". It\'s\r\npossible to type something like \"Jump down from the\r\nbus\". But we are not inside a system: those are\r\npredefined sentences that are good only for one\r\nevent, one puzzle. If, in another and not\r\npredefinied situation, you type \"Jump down\", inevitably the\r\ngame says \"I don\'t understand\" (and not \"Jump down\r\nfrom what?\"). We are still far from a sophisticated\r\nparser, but we have good stories. We don\'t have a system\r\nof verbs, like the ones offered by The Quill. It\'s not\r\nstrange that the games written by Di Bello with The\r\nQuill were considered the best ones: if the author has\r\na system, a grill of verbs or sentences to dawn, he\r\ncan get good results with minimal effort. \r\n<P>\r\nOn the\r\ntapes of \"Explorer\" there was the announcement: \"In this\r\nmagazine you\'ll find a dossier to solve and to learn\r\nto write adventure games\". The editors understood that\r\na lot of people wanted to write their own games. To\r\nwrite a good adventure, with an elementary parser, is undeniably easier than writing a good shoot \'em\r\nup. So the market was open to this kind of experiment.\r\nAnd the book \"Scrivere un gioco di avventura sul\r\npersonal computer\" (1986) by Enrico Colombini had great success. With the book was sold a tape with some\r\nadventure game and the famous \"Modulo Base\", a system,\r\na grill of verbs to enlarge to create your own game\r\nusing Basic. I don\'t remember brilliant games written\r\nusing \"Modulo Base\"; I remember the ones of Colombini,\r\namong them \"L\'Anello di Lucrezia Borgia\",\r\n\"L\'Apprendista Stregone\" e \"L\'astronave condannata\".\r\nDi Bello too used the \"Modulo Base\" and here his\r\nhistory as an author of text adventures meets the one\r\nof Colombini: \"I used Modulo Base to realize a sort of\r\nThe Quill for Msx. I used it to create a dark/light\r\nroutine (with timers for lamps or other light\r\nobjects), and other things offered by The Quill. Then\r\nI tried to do the same with Amiga\'s Amos Basic, but it\r\nwas too late to launch text adventures again and the\r\nproject never took life. But I\'m sure Enrico remembers\r\nthat night when I woke him to ask a suggestion-- I hope\r\nhe forgave me!\".\r\n<P>\r\nIn the meantime, you could find, in newsstands (of\r\ncourse), an illegal italian version of The Quill. On\r\nthe magazines people announced \"new amateur\r\nadventure game\", but without Internet the distribution\r\nwas difficult, above all the distribution of Apple\r\ngames, a home computer not much present in italian\r\nhouses. Only using the personal archive of Colombini,\r\ntoday is possible to remember some interesting games.\r\nLike the good \"Catania Gions\" (1985), wrote by three\r\nmen from Pisa, Fausto Daluiso and Giuseppe and Gianluca\r\nPomponi: it\'s a sort of Indiana Jones story with\r\ngraphics similar to the one of \"Death in the\r\nCaribbean\". \"I knew the three authors -- says Enrico --\r\nwhen they asked me to write a plot for another game\r\nand I gave them the script of \"L\'isola del Giaguaro\",\r\nbut today we have just some demo pictures, since this\r\ngame was never completed\". Blue Bottazzi wrote \"Cappuccetto Rosso\" (1987), a only text game\r\ninspired by the famous fable for children. \"La rapina\r\ndi Corsut\" has, instead, a curious story. Wrote by\r\nLuca Nosotti and Carlo Vellano in 1985, it tried to\r\nenter a programmer competition, but the jury didn t\r\naccept it because of the presence, in the game, of a\r\ngroup of robbers. Maybe it\'s the only case of censorship in\r\nthe history of adventure games! Another game is\r\n\"L\'uscita\" by a little-known Ugo: it\'s a only text\r\nadventure with interesting multiple choices (and\r\ngraphical map). Possibly there were some lost games (for\r\nCbm and Apple or Spectrum) that were better than the\r\nones sold. But maybe we\'ll never know.\r\n<P>\r\nThe dark age<br>\r\nThe age of games sold in newspapers stands arrived at\r\nthe end with the last series: Epyx 3001 (editor\r\n\"Arscom\", first issue january 1988). Every issue had\r\nfive or six games only for Cbm, but the sales were bad\r\nand the series closed after six months. The years of\r\nthe dark age for text adventures are the same as in\r\nthe rest of the world. The games written at the end of\r\n80s and at the beginning of 90s are few, the ones\r\nsold nearly equal to zero. There were, however, some\r\nbad attempts to realize games using well-known comic\r\ncharacters like Diabolik and Dylan Dog, but the result\r\nis some action adventure with many lows and nearly no\r\nhighs. One of the most interesting happens in 1990, when on the review Amiga Byte  appears \"Demo Adventure\", an adventure toolkit (written by Maurizio Giunti) that allows you to create games with a good parser (\"attack orc with the sword\") but, curiously, doesn\'t admit synonyms for the nouns (while it does for verbs). With this system, a guy from Imperia (northwestern Italy), Marco Vallarino, wrote nearly twenty text adventures: among them there is \"Dracula\", notable because offers a lot of locations (84). At the time there was also an innovative experiment by Alessandro Uber and Fabrizio Venerandi: they\r\ncreated a text adventure for Mud, Necronomicom, played\r\nvia Videotel (a system of connected computers, used by\r\npubs and restaurants to attract guests) till 1994, and via Telnet\r\nsince 2001.\r\n<P>\r\nRevival<br>\r\nAnyway, the revival begins in 1995 when Vallarino reopens the sipario with \"Sfida all\'ignoto\" e \"Il giardino incantato\" and\r\nRobero Barabino develops a very nice game (underrated):\r\n\"Alieni per sempre\", a text adventure with graphics\r\nthat is a parody of the Tv serial \"Star Trek\" and bears structural similarities to \"Wonderland\" by post-Magnetic Scrolls. A curiosity: the first scene of\r\n\"Sfida all\'ignoto\" (a Ms-Dos game with an Infocom\r\nstatusline) is similar to the opening scene of\r\n\"Avventura nel castello\": an airplane crash.\r\n \r\nBut the parser changes with the arrival of Inform\r\n(today there don\'t exist games written with Tads or Hugo\r\nbecause of the lack of italian libraries). Ilario\r\nNardinocchi realizes the first Inform italian\r\nlibraries, while Luca Melchionna and Barabino write\r\nthe first italian Inform games: \"Zazie\" (inspired by\r\nthe book of Queneau) and \"Non sar  un avventura\", a\r\nfunny game that takes place on a beach full of people\r\nand girls to catch. The year is 1999. In the meantime,\r\nGiovanni Riccardi rewrites the italian libraries,\r\nopens an italian website for Inform and translates,\r\nfor didactical purpouses, \"Adventure\" and \"Toyshop\".\r\nOn the scene arrives then Tommaso Caldarola, who\r\nwrites the first game using the libraries of Riccardi:\r\n\"Uno zombie a Deadville\", horror splatter winner of\r\nthe 2001 \"Italian adventure of the year\" (the first\r\nedition of the competition, 2000, went to \"Non sar \r\nun avventura\"). A lot of people rediscovered\r\nadventuress thanx to the newsgroup\r\nit.comp.giochi.avventure testuali and to the website\r\nwww.ifitalia.cjb.net\r\n<P>\r\nBut the parser old style does not vanish forever (and\r\nmaybe this is a good thing, who knows?). Not all\r\nitalian authors know english, the first hurdle to learning\r\nInform. So other games are released with the verb/noun\r\nsystem: the series by Jois (finally a female author!)\r\nand \"Enigma\" by Marco Vallarino, both for Ms-Dos. With\r\nthe revival there is, also, an operation nostalgia:\r\n\"Progetto Lazzaro\" (www.progettolazzaro.org), a\r\nwebsite that hosts the old adventures sold in the\r\nnewsstand, with documentation and news.\r\n<P>\r\nThe attraction for the puzzles<br>\r\nSince 1982 changed authors, parser, systems, but not\r\npuzzles, and maybe they\'ll never change. Italians love\r\npuzzles, all the italian adventures are\r\npuzzle-oriented and, in the reviews, the presence of\r\nthe puzzles is important to get an high valutation.\r\nItalians don\'t have games like Photopia: the idea is\r\nthat adventures are games and games need to be\r\nchallenging. With or without the avveniristic one word\r\nparser launched by Enrico Colombini.\r\n<P>\r\nFrancesco Cordella, january/february 2002\r\n(thanx to Enrico Colombini, Bonaventura Di Bello, Marco Vallarino,\r\nPaolo Vece).',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 18:02:18',1,6,3126),(4,'History of Spanish IF',9,'History of Spanish IF\r\n<P>\r\nThe Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world.  It is not strange\r\nthat the text games have had a great reception and development in this language.\r\nThe English influence always has been present, although it wasn\'t enough to\r\nimpose the term \"Interactive Fiction\". Spanish players prefered\r\nto speak about Conversational Adventure; the first word undoubtedly proceeding\r\nfrom the original one \"Advent\", which would inspire the first Spanish creators;\r\nthe \"Conversational\" term refers to a conversation, a chat, probably the one that\r\nsettles between the player and the game, or between the protagonist\r\nand his environment.\r\n<P>\r\nWhile in England and USA the phenomenon would begin to be extended at the end of\r\nthe 70s and principles of the 80s, in Spain we must wait until 1984 to see\r\nthe first adventures. An infant company named Dinamic -- soon to become the most\r\nimportant in Spain -- premiered Artist, a design program for drawing, and Yenght,\r\nthe first conversational Spanish adventure,\r\nprogrammed in assembler, with short descriptions.  It had many game flaws, not\r\nlimited to numerous sudden deaths. Nonetheless, it managed to bewilder many\r\nadventurers, who enjoyed it very much.\r\n<P>\r\nThese would be two of big supports to the genre in its beginnings: the company,\r\nDinamic, and the magazine publisher Hobby Press, through its magazines Microhobby\r\nand MicroMania. Dinamic would create a specific line for its conversational\r\ngames, among which were games created by small independent companies and games\r\nwritten for Adventures AD, a group of creators in Valencia that soon would stand\r\nout from the rest. Among the games of\r\nthe first group there was a variety of plots and styles, from classic\r\nadaptations like \" Don Quijote de la Mancha \" to literary \" Los Pjaros de\r\nBangkok \" (Birds of Bangkok) with the detective Pepe Carvalho, Star Wars\r\nparodies like \" La Guerra de las Vajillas\" or games set in the future such as\r\n\"Megacorp\". Another strong Spanish video game company, Topo Soft, curiously did\r\nnot release a conversational adventure in all its existence.\r\n<P>\r\nThe real launching of the genre came in 1988 with the publication of \" La\r\nAventura Original\" (Original Adventure), the first release by Adventures AD,\r\nwhich was a free adaptation of Advent, combining puzzles from the original game\r\nwith some adjustments. The game was a sales success, and its massive\r\ndistribution brought a considerable increase in fans. \r\n<P>\r\nAnother cause behind the popularization of adventures was the availability of the\r\nPAWS parser. Quill could be obtained only in English, but Adventures AD\r\ncontracted Tim Gilberts from Scotland, and together they released the translated\r\nversion of PAWS, which sold to the fans because they could construct their own\r\ngames.  This brought about an important increase in the number of these games,\r\nespecially in the years 1988 and 1989, due to the call of a\r\nnational contest run by the Spectrum\'s most popular magazine, Microhobby. \r\nMicrohobby was including two fixed sections in every issue to treat questions\r\nabout the creation of these games, answered by Andres Samudio, the predecessor of\r\nAD.\r\n<P>\r\nBetween 1988 and 1992 Adventures AD released six commercial games, all sales\r\nsuccesses up until the decline in 8-bits in 1992:\r\n<P>\r\nLa Aventura Original (Original Adventure)  (1988). Free adaptation of Crowther\r\nand Woods\'s \" Adventure \". It was presenting graphs in almost all the rooms and\r\nwas changing with regard to the original one on the game having be initiated in\r\nthe exterior of the cave, having to open a grating to give step to the second\r\nload, which develops completely in the underground. Instead of beginning with\r\nquotidian elements and introducing the supernatural little by little,\r\nthis version featured an elf and a dwarf in early stages, near the\r\nvolcano.\r\n<P>\r\nJabato (1989). Based on a comic character, set at the height of the Roman\r\nEmpire. Its principal innovation was the managing of several simultaneous\r\ncharacters, who were crossing a great part of Europe and Africa.\r\n<P>\r\nCozumel (1990). The first title of its trilogy \"Ci-u-Than\", settled in the\r\nCaribbean in the first half of the century. For many people, this was Adventure\r\nAD\'s best game.  The explorer Doc Monro is shipwrecked on the coast of the island\r\nof Cozumel, where he lives through great adventures. \r\n<P>\r\nLa Aventura Espacial (Space Adventure) (1990). Intended as a bracket in the\r\naccomplishment of \" Ci-u-Than\'s \" trilogy. It was set in the future, and had\r\na certain experimental flavor. Again you were handling several characters.\r\n<P>\r\nLos Templos Sagrados (The Sacred Temples) (1991). The second part of the  \r\n\"Ci-u-Than\" trilogy. A game of transition full of puzzles, also set in the\r\nCaribbean jungle.\r\n<P>\r\nChichen Itza (1992). Third part of its trilogy, many people says it was the most\r\ncomplete game, with a large number of NPCs and quests. It came in a difficult\r\nmoment for the company and especially for Dinamic, due to 8 bits  crisis and the\r\narrival of graphic adventures.\r\n<P>\r\nAll the games of Adventures AD had certain similarities. They consisted of two\r\nparts, the second one loading only with a password you obtained by finishing the\r\nfirst.  There were graphics in almost all locations.  They were programmed with a\r\nparser called DAAD, which made it possible to export the games to 8- and 16-bit\r\nplatforms of the moments.  The games of 16 bits were sometimes longer\r\nand had some more complex puzzles.\r\n<P>\r\nFor a time, there was some speculation that Adventures AD might gear up for the\r\nrelease of graphical adventures, but ultimately they did not take this step. \r\nFrom that moment on, activity centered on the amateur clubs, which had already\r\ncome into existence and were thriving.  In games distributed by AD there was an\r\nadvertisement promoting an amateur club, which no doubt helped its takeoff. \r\n<P>\r\nThe most important two clubs were the CAAD founded in Valencia in 1988 for assets\r\nat the time Juanjo Muoz, and the Year Zero Club founded on La Corua in 1992 and\r\nwhose more visible head was Fran Morell; they assembled nearly a thousand members\r\nand published interesting articles in newsletters. The fanzines also offered\r\nadvertising and lists of adventures that could be bought cheaply, from other\r\ngroups of fans. The production of games between 1986 and 1992, the first golden\r\nage of the conversational games, reached 200, mostly thanks to the efforts of the\r\namateur game-designers. From 1992 the activity of the fans fell considerably, and\r\nthe fanzines published on paper stopped shortly thereafter. \r\n<P>\r\nSome years afterwards, the arrival of the Internet would create the second golden\r\nage, in which the fans participated through email lists, several webpages with\r\nthat of the CAAD as reference, and an IRC channel. The CAAD webpage was created\r\nin 1997, with few resources at first, but leading to efforts to rescue the\r\ninformation in paper fanzines and provide ancient games now playable in\r\nemulation. There was a newsgroup started, in emulation of the English forums, but\r\nsoon it was invaded with spam and questions about graphical adventures. \r\nUltimately the community turned to a mailing list, now run through Yahoo Groups.\r\n<P>\r\nFor the 16 bit machines, three parsers appeared that\r\nwould continue the momentum PAWS gave to the creation of adventures: NMP,\r\nSintac and Caecho. Some also adventurers prefer programming their games directly\r\nin C or the dominant programming language. In 1997 the two extant clubs organized\r\nan adventure contest, in each of which fewer than a dozen adventures appeared. In\r\n1998 the CAAD repeated the summons and received the\r\nparticipation of 9 games, though the genre was remained in crisis and the\r\nwinner would not be voted on until 3 years later.\r\n<P>\r\nIn October 1998, a message appeared in the list of mail announcing the imminent\r\nappearance of InformATE (Inform Now Totally in Spanish). Though in the\r\nbeginning it did not raise too many expectations, it eventually surpassed the\r\nother systems; nowadays it is most used.\r\n<P>\r\nAt this point, however, and for some time thereafter, there were not very many\r\noptions for programming adventures.  They were written directly in C, Visual\r\nSintac (an improved version improved of Sintac that incorporates an attractive\r\nvisual environment (IDE)), or NMP, an evolved version of PAWS that only works in\r\nMSDOS.\r\n<P>\r\nAt the end of 1999 the first contest of short adventures was organized.  This was\r\nthe beginning of this second golden epoch. The call for games had great\r\nsuccess and in March, 2000 the second edition was celebrated. The successive\r\norganization of several from these contests (in the first one there was\r\nestablished a severe limit of a locality and three objects, which later would be\r\nextended) re-awoke the interest of the fans, who with the\r\nsupport of the IRC channel and the mailing list of mail, renewed their zeal for\r\nthe genre. Some of these contests called for variants: comedy games,\r\ngames of original and strange subject matter called \"nanos\", games set\r\nin Tolkien literature.  From 1999 through 2002, eight of these contests have been\r\norganized, raising the annual production to approximately 50 games.  From 2001,\r\nthere have also been annual prizes, rewarding the set of the production.\r\n<P>\r\nThe mailing list has more than 160 subscribers, though only 30 or 40 are really\r\nactive -- for which reason it is possible to consider the Spanish IF community to\r\nbe a betatesting community or a small test market.\r\n<P>\r\nIn June 2000, the people in charge of CAAD restarted the publication of the\r\nfanzine, this time in format PDF for web distribution.  There were a total of\r\nseven very full issues, through December of 2000.  Almost at the same time, in\r\nOctober of 2000, another digital fanzine appeared, named SPAC (clearly inspired\r\nby the equivalent SPAG), but monthly.  It continues in good health to this day,\r\nthanks to the collaboration of an increasingly active community. \r\n<P>\r\nAnother interesting initiative of last years has been a project to recover\r\nclassic games, called Project Base.  In a short time it has managed to recover\r\nmore than a hundred classic games a decade old.\r\n<P>\r\nAt present, every time they are more persons who are interested by this type of\r\ngames. Some of them reappear after being away for years, others are fans of the\r\nliterature that they find rest in this type of games. There is also an\r\nincreasingly numerous group of visually handicapped users who enjoy\r\nthis type of leisure, and even dare to program long adventures in Inform.\r\n<P>\r\nAnd what does the future bring for us? The adventurers\' active community is\r\nalready employed at new and interesting projects. The nucleus attoMOLE might lay\r\nthe foundations of the successor of InformATE. Paguaglus will allow us to rescue\r\nold adventures programmed in PAWS and to translate them to the current\r\nenvironments.\r\nMaybe someone will the task of adapting TADS and end Inform\'s\r\npredominance. There are also projects to develop new ways of creating\r\nconversational\r\nadventures, removed from the classic languages of programming, in the shape of\r\nvisual environments or descriptive languages of creation of adventures. The web\r\nof the CAAD will continue evolving, and as one of its many services, may attempt\r\nto rescue the MUD that had so many successes while it functioned.\r\n<P>\r\nDefinitely a pleasing future for the adventure community in Spain.\r\n<P>\r\nUseful links:\r\nCAAD: http://caad.iberpoint.net\r\nYahoogroups http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/caad/\r\nYear Zero Club http://www.geocities.com/zforzero/\r\nProyecto BASE http://www.pagina.de/Proyecto_BASE\r\nSPAC http://usuarios.lycos.es/SPAC/\r\nJSJ http://jsanjose.cjb.net/\r\nInformATE de Zak http://www.geocities.com/spinf_2000\r\nDhan  HYPERLINK http://www.geocities.com/lashojascaidas/\r\nhttp://www.geocities.com/lashojascaidas/\r\n<P>\r\n(I have to send some graphic screens)',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 03:45:41',1,6,1879),(5,'More Perspective on Spanish IF',12,'',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','0000-00-00 00:00:00',0,6,0),(6,'Make IF Fast',13,'',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','0000-00-00 00:00:00',0,7,0),(7,'Laying Out Geography for Interactive Fiction',1,'Challenges of a Broad Geography\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA large, well-designed world is a pleasure to explore, and expansive design does a good deal to dispel the feelings of claustrophobia that may come over an IF player. At the same time, games with large geographies are especially challenging to make playable. If the player spends too much time wandering around without a clear goal, he may get exasperated and give up. Mapping is a problem too: modern players are frequently less patient with the need to make a map than the players of old classics like Colossal Cave, perhaps because geography as a puzzle in itself is no longer new and interesting. And finally, if one has a specific story to tell, an expansive layout can make it hard to show the game to the player in the right order.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe challenges, then, are to build a layout that is easy for the player to understand without extensive mapping; to control access to parts of the geography in a way that sets the desired pace for the game, through puzzles and other design techniques; and to disguise the edges of the map from the player so that he doesn\'t feel claustrophobic.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPrinciples of Playability\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThis article makes certain assumptions throughout about what constitutes good game design, and some of them are obviously disputable. It may be worth making them explicit in advance:\r\n<P>\r\nThe player\'s job is to explore the game world as fully and deeply as possible. The author\'s job is to make that experience easy, fun -- and unavoidable. Engineering a good map is one way to make sure the player will see all the sights and experience the game structure as it was intended.\r\n<P>\r\nThe player should not have to spend too much mental energy on trivial memorization or note-taking. It is fair to ask him to think about the puzzles, do research, and make logical deductions, but all this should be in a setting of the utmost possible transparency. Nothing should be difficult without also being rewarding.\r\n<P>\r\nThe mechanisms by which these goals are achieved should seem as much as possible to be natural outgrowths of the setting and the plot of the game, however artificial they may in fact be.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\nStated as a set of ideals, these sound rather daunting. They can\'t always be achieved, and sometimes there are overwhelming reasons not even to try. Nonetheless, these goals underlie much of what follows.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMaking a Comprehensible Layout\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMemorable Topologies -- Avoiding Confusion -- Macroscopic Geography -- Hints and Helps\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSome map layouts are easier to remember than others. The maze is simply an arrangement of locations that defies easy memorization and defeats the player\'s ability to navigate. Correspondingly, there are assorted topologies that are easy to remember and navigate. The advantage of having an accessible game are numerous: the player is less likely to get stuck and give up; it is easier to play games on a PDA away from a desk if no note-taking is required; and (perhaps most significantly) having a map that is easily understood, rather than one that has to be studied on paper, leaves the player with a stronger sense of physical presence and immersion in the location.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMemorable Topologies\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nHub: A hub map is one in which a single location links several otherwise unconnected sections: for instance, in \"Jigsaw\" (Graham Nelson, 1995), the player is able to travel to the different times only from the central room containing the time machine. The hub does not always consist of a geographically central location; it may be a special kind of space, like the Wood Between Worlds in The Magician\'s Nephew (C.S. Lewis), that exists in some other dimension of reality from the places to which it leads.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe hub construction works well with a formal arrangement of puzzles, in which each section of the map has its own sub-goal. So, in \"Jigsaw\", the player must prevent Black\'s meddling in each of the time zones; so also, in \"Tookie\'s Song\" (Jessica Knoch, 2002) each seasonally-themed area has a single treasure for the player to collect. Having a series of related goals makes it easier for the player to tell when she has exhausted the possibilities in one section of the game, which is important if each section cannot be visited more than once. Some games go a step further and make it impossible to return to the hub until the section puzzles are completely solved, as in \"MythTale\" (Temari Seikaiha, 2002).\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIt is more challenging to fit this design to a game with a strong narrative arc: the impulse seems to be towards having a number of events or scenes of similar weight, rather than a sequence of rising action, crisis, and resolution. \"Jigsaw\" manages this to some extent by limiting the number of sections that are open at any given time, and putting the player\'s most dramatic interactions with Black into the later scenes. Even so, the conception of the game as a set of matched chapters sometimes overwhelms the sense of narrative continuity, especially when the narrative frequently stands still to allow for an especially fiendish puzzle.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nFormal Symmetry: Some maps avoid using a single nexus point, but do structure themselves on a formal symmetry. Adam Cadre\'s \"Varicella\" (1999) uses a highly symmetrical design for the palace, with staircases, hallways, and towers all arranged in a predictable square. The benefit of this design is to make the palace seem familiar to the player almost immediately, since he can predict on general principles where certain rooms must be. In a game where there are many events and non-player characters to keep track of, this nearly-transparent map is a considerable help.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe most common symmetrical layouts involve a single axis of symmetry or a four-fold arrangement around the major compass directions; any such arrangement gives the player a way not only to remember but even to anticipate the layout. Buildings in which each floor follows the same basic floor plan provide a handy vertical symmetry as well: see for instance \"The Mulldoon Legacy\" (Jon Ingold, 1999).\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSimilarities between matched rooms, whether thematic (all corner rooms are associated with one of the four elements) or functional (all corner rooms are bedrooms), are useful as long as they don\'t create tedium. Each room in a series needs to be distinct enough to reward the player\'s curiosity rather than merely fulfilling his expectations.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nStreet Map: A street map design allows the player to think of the structure of the world in terms of streets with a number of subordinate locations, such as shops. (Hallways giving onto bedrooms and closets work the same way.) The player automatically creates a hierarchy between two types of location: arterials, which can be remembered with respect to each other, and cul-de-sacs, whose location only needs to be remembered with respect to the arterial.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nFor this reason, hallways can in fact be quite useful in a game: they provide conceptual shape to the map the player must build in her head. A set of rooms all leading from the upstairs hallway is much easier to understand than a set of rooms all leading into each other with no hallway. Seeing a hallway with three exits gives the player an immediate sense of the relationship of rooms to each other, and, moreover, knows roughly how much space is to be explored. \"Deadline\" (Mark Blank, Infocom, 1982) does a good job of balancing hallway space with subordinate rooms; subsequent games have done more to make the hallways themselves interesting in some way. \"Varicella\" allows the player to see characters moving through and into adjacent rooms, which does a good deal to make the hallways seem like genuinely connected space rather than discrete segments.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThis kind of design is only helpful to the exploring player if it is obvious from the descriptions which exits lead to arterials. On a street map, the indoors/outdoors distinction makes this clear: on entering a new area, the player knows which directions to explore first (those that lead in, to shops and houses), and which to save for later (those that lead up the street, perhaps to a further intersection). Some players find it confusing to go from one room with many exits to another room with many exits to another room with many exits, trying to remember all the untaken paths; others prefer to do a breadth-first overview of the whole area before settling in for a detailed exploration of the byways. Either approach is made easier if the distinction between room types is made clear.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSome cue from the description helps a great deal with this, even if it is as trivial as, \"Great oak doors lead north to the rest of the chateau, and there is a smaller doorway northeast.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAny pacing-controlling puzzles can then be placed along the arterials, or at the entries to especially important cul-de-sacs.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nDisjunct Segments: A few games -- usually those with a primarily narrative goal -- consist of a series of areas without any geographical connection between them. In effect, the game takes place in a series of small maps, rather than in a single large one.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIn most such games, plot triggers to determine when the player will move to a new segment of the map. \"Photopia\" (Adam Cadre, 1998) relies heavily on this technique. New areas are associated with new scenes of the story, and it is not immediately obvious how the areas are related to each other. (Coming to understand what\'s going on is part of the process of playing the game -- a sort of meta-puzzle in an otherwise fairly puzzleless work.) The effect is a bit like the cut between scenes in a movie.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe chief danger of taking the map apart in this manner is that the author, not the player, controls the PC\'s movements. On the other hand, the map subsections are usually fairly small and manageable, so mapping becomes unnecessary. Moreover, there\'s no need to control map progress with puzzles per se.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThere are also segmented maps that are not plot-driven -- that is, movements between segments don\'t rely on a plot trigger occurring, but simply require the player to move between locations with a vehicle, portal, or GO TO ROOM verb. \"Reality\'s End\" (Harry Hol, 2003) does roughly this with a bicycle the player can ride to a specific list of places. Arguably this idea is merely the logical extension of the principle that a game should elide the uninteresting bits -- where \"interesting\" is determined by the goals of the work. Whereas \"Queen of Swords\" (Jessica Knoch, 2003) spends dozens of turns on the task of getting the player character suited up in fencing gear, another game might make this into a cut-scene or allow it to occur in a single command. Similarly, taking out the uninteresting intervening bits in a world allows for a sense of considerable space -- but at the expense of some of the sense of freedom and control the player might otherwise have experienced in wandering across the map in any direction.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nHybridization: It is not necessary to adopt one or another of these techniques and apply it rigorously to your entire game map. Many large games rely on a combination of these. \"Jigsaw\" uses the hub system as its overall organizing principle for the game as a whole, but relies on room-and-hallway organization for many of its subordinate zones. Indeed, it\'s moderately rare for a game not to make use of more than one.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAvoiding Confusion\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAsymmetrical Exits: One of the evil tricks employed by maze geographies is the use of asymmetrical exits. The player goes east to get from Twisty Room One to Twisty Room Two; in order to get back, he has to go up. This makes very little sense, is hard to draw on maps, and can cause considerable distress. Most authors have given up doing this, because of the anti-maze hue and cry; if they are going to write a game with a maze, they tend at least to look for some more inventive principle on which to design it. Nonetheless, a form of this problem persists.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nConsider this diagram. At the center is a house. Around the house, a garden path. (The astute reader may notice that this is almost exactly what happens in \"Zork\". The distinguished pedigree of the technique doesn\'t make it any less vexing, however.) Suppose that the player starts at the northernmost location. He goes west. Now he\'s around at the side of the house. He has just come west, so tries to go back-- east-- but he doesn\'t wind up where he came from; he winds up inside the house.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIt\'s possible that the player should have picked up on this nuance from the description. On the other hand, it is fairly hard to describe clearly the concept of a connection that turns as it goes from one location to another, and I have read many more bad descriptions of this relationship than good ones. Even so, this problem is at its worst, not when the player is exploring the map for the first time (though it may hamper written map-making, if he is trying to do that), but when he is running rapidly around an environment he\'s already explored. When he has just traveled east, he automatically thinks of the way back as \"west\" -- or at least, that\'s the way my brain works -- and it\'s quite easy to try to backtrack, make an error, and wind up in the wrong place; which is irritating when one is trying to execute a complex sequence of commands.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThere are reasons for using asymmetrical exits -- not least that the real world is not organized on a square grid. But rigorous adherence to the behavior of the real world is in fact rarely an asset in IF map design; the trick is to be as mimetic as possible while still leaving the player unconfused. In this particular situation, one could plausibly put locations at the corners instead of (or in addition to) the locations at the sides, or make travel between the rooms a simple NW/SE type of connection. [Not everyone agrees with me on this: Martin Oehm writes, in his article on map-making, that he likes to employ asymmetrical exits, though he goes on to explain that this should be made clear to the player.]\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nUnsupported OUT: In a room with only one exit, especially if that exit leads outdoors from an indoor location, it is very nice if the author provides both the real compass direction (say, NW) and OUT. This isn\'t a requirement, just a nicety, but I find myself, at least, instinctively using OUT a fair amount of the time when I am in an indoor location.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMany similar rooms: Too many identical rooms, even if their connections are symmetrical and straightforward, become a kind of maze; there\'s nothing for the player to remember, and they all blend together in a confusing way. But then, a dull repetitiveness is rarely desirable in any case.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMacroscopic Geography\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe topological organizations just discussed exist at the level of the world model, and consist of the actual links between rooms. A second kind of organization can be supplied within the descriptions: a sense of the individual locations as part of a continuous landscape. \"City of Secrets\" (Emily Short, 2003) tries to foster an awareness of areas within the city, larger than individual rooms but smaller than the whole map: the touristy part of town, the government center, the entertainment district, and so on. Different areas are more or less populous, offer different amenities, permit or deny different activities to the player, and share or don\'t share multi-location objects. A memorable topology helps the player survive without notes; a well-developed landscape deepens his sense of immersion in other ways.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nRivers: Any geographical feature that runs through or beside several locations reinforces a sense of continuous space. A coastline, a wall that runs past several locations, a cliff -- all such linear features give the player a way to string rooms together, and remember where he is with respect to other locations.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nGraham Nelson\'s \"The Meteor, The Stone, and a Long Glass of Sherbet\" (1996) places locations around the perimeter of a central cave, and then along its floor, so that the spaces in the game could be imagined as being positioned around the surface of a sphere. This shape is both novel and visually evocative, especially since the connecting route between levels is an enormous inverted tree with roots in the ceiling. \"Small World\" (Andrew Pontious, 1996) and \"Earth and Sky 2: Another Earth, Another Sky\" (Paul O\'Brian, 2002) invert this effect, with maps set on the surfaces of tiny planets. The locations are more tightly connected than they could be on a planar map, and they are further organized by time zones (in the former case) or polar and tropical regions (in the latter).\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nLandmarks: Another useful trick is the inclusion of a landmark that can be viewed from several different locations, a technique used to excellent effect in Kathleen Fischer\'s \"Inevitable\" (2003): the player\'s position is described with respect to an enormous ziggurat and several towers that can be seen from a long way away. The vista opens up as the player approaches these landmarks; so that the different areas of the map can be understood not merely as north and south of each other, but -- more simply -- as north or south of a central point. The player builds a hub-like conception of the game world even though there is no restriction on the movement to enforce that understanding of the layout.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMulti-location rooms: Many games feature locations that are all part of the same large space (such as the several-part \"Hall of Mirrors\" in Enchanter). The mnemonic effect here is to allow the player to effectively cluster several places under a single mental heading: four or five locations can all be mentally tagged \"the plaza\", with the internal relationships of \"North Plaza\", \"West Plaza\", etc., being obvious enough not to need special memorization.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA multi-location room can anchor a game map in much the same way that a landmark does. \"Wishbringer\" (Brian Moriarty, Infocom, 1985) puts a town square (or, actually, a \"rotary\") at the center of Festeron. It consists of north, south, east, west, and central locations, with one indoor location and one arterial location accessible from each side of the rotary. This area lies approximately in the middle of the game map and is the activity center of the town; the edge of the town is bordered by water, providing a continuous coastline and a tidy boundary to exploration. It is difficult to be more than a move or two away from either the Rotary or the waterfront; and the map further benefits from a clear hierarchy of indoor and outdoor locations. To make matters even easier, the original release came with a paper map providing an overview of the street layout. The whole thing is mercifully playable, as one might want from a game designed specifically for novices.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nHints and Helps\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nProviding the player with a map of the game world needn\'t be a complete spoiler: as mentioned, \"Wishbringer\" came with a map of Festeron, while \"Christminster\" (Gareth Rees, 1995) provides a handy ASCII image of the college layout. Neither of these maps shows every location in the game world, and there are numerous surprises to be found in each. But an overview of the geography makes it easier for the player to understand the spatial relationships, and map additional locations to the ones that are conveniently already on the chart.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPacing Access to the Geography\r\n<P>\r\nPuzzles and the Map -- When the Barriers Are Down -- Geography and Story\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nEven a well-designed map can confuse a player who has access to too much of it at a time. My own rule of thumb is that a maximum of six or seven new rooms should be made open at a time; fewer, if those rooms are themselves dense with interactive content such as NPCs or manipulable objects. In any case, the player should not be required to remember more than a handful of directions and objects at once.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPuzzles and the Map\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe simplest and most popular way to regulate progress through the game map is to divide the geography into sections, with puzzle-controlled barricades at the major junctions.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThere are many ways of categorizing puzzles with respect to narrative content or to the means of their solution. But puzzles can also be classified in terms of how they affect map layout and planning.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nBlock-point<br> There is a barrier that prevents a player from moving a certain direction from a certain location, usually until he has fetched some useful puzzle-solving device from another area of the map (and thus proven that he has explored adequately and is prepared to move on). The lock and key puzzle is the classic example, though it has a number of equally obvious variations: the monster who must be killed with a specific weapon, the NPC who must be placated with a specific gift.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nElegant variations involve requiring more than one item to defeat the block-point puzzle -- in terms of conceptual content some of these puzzles can be very clever and not cliched at all -- but from a map-design point of view, the effects are the same. The author must put a bottleneck into his map, a single passageway that controls access to the next area.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIt\'s often satisfying to put a block-point where the player will see it before he has any chance of seeing the elements of the solution: this gives him a sense of where things are going and what it is he is ultimately supposed to solve.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSemi-blocks<br> There is a barrier that prevents a player from moving from one location to the next, but it does not require any objects from any other areas of the map. Mazes, doors locked with riddles and decipherment puzzles, secret doors that can be discovered by careful searching, and climbable ivy-covered walls all fall into this category -- anything that requires exploration, realization, or one on-site action.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nFrom the perspective of the map designer, these may seem the least useful kind of puzzle: they do not guarantee that the player will experience the map in a different order than if the blockpoint were not there at all. They do slow down the gameplay and increase the challenge, of course -- but this affects pacing without altering the order of play. And many of these puzzles require either flashes of raw insight or tediously methodical solution. Without the give-and-take of a puzzle with partial solutions and positive feedback, the player may become stuck or bored.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThese drawbacks may explain why these kinds of puzzles have all fallen out of vogue, though they were common in old-school games. The advice on rec.arts.int-fiction over the last few years has mainly been to avoid mazes entirely, while riddles and decipherments are uncommon, and few players look for hidden doors unless they\'ve been clued to do so.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nDiscouraging as that may sound, there is still a legitimate reason, in some cases, to use a semi-block puzzle, one that requires the player only to do the right action at the location of the block in order to pass through. These points can also act as tests of knowledge or understanding: if the password isn\'t the answer to a riddle written over the door, but something picked up in conversation with other characters; if the action isn\'t a tedious mapping procedure but a ritual whose method has been carefully culled by research, or something that requires a developed understanding of the world model.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIn these cases, the semi-block guarantees, not that the player has explored the rest of the map enough to find the golden key hidden behind the wainscotting, but that she understands the rest of the world well enough to tackle the more complex puzzles that may lie beyond. In \"Savoir-Faire\" (Emily Short, 2002), the player is required to do an elementary piece of magic in order to leave the prologue and get access to the midgame -- not because that puzzle requires a complete exploration of the prologue area, but because, if the player does not yet understand how the game\'s magic works, she won\'t know how to even approach the later puzzles.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe author should also bear in mind that semi-blocks can be solved trivially by a player who has already played once; knowledge puzzles, unlike those involving portable objects, do not need to be solved over again. From this perspective, if the game is intended to be replayed a number of times, it may be desirable to have a simple one- or two-step solution (like speaking a password) rather than a many-step solution (passing through a maze or configuring a complicated machine). On replay, there will be no entertainment in finding the multi-step solution (because it is already known), so it may be better to avoid the tedium and go with a simple solution.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nContinuous Need<br> The player can enter an area freely, but in order to survive and explore it, he has to have with him some kind of equipment. The archetypal form of this is the light source puzzle, but it can take a number of other functionally equivalent forms: the underwater area that can only be visited with scuba gear, the mine that requires a gas mask, the sensitized floor that can only be passed over with levitation boots.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe chief significant difference between this and a blockpoint, for the present purpose, is that this kind of restriction can be applied to an area of the map whether or not that area has several entrances. \"A Stop For the Night\" (Joe Mason, 2003) does a particularly clever twist on this: a certain area is dark; it has multiple entrances, but the only way to bring in light is to enter from a well-lit direction, opening the door in the process. Entering through the wrong entrance, without having first come in the right one, leaves the player fumbling in shadow.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nLimited Access<br> The player only has access to an area of the map for a brief period of time (under the influence of some timed puzzle); or, alternatively, the player can only bring a limited subset of the inventory with him into the room.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAt their worst, limited-access puzzles are sublimely frustrating, forcing players to save and replay failed attempts to pass through some critical area. At their best, however, they can actually help the player, especially during a late phase of the game play. If the player has discovered dozens of inventory items, restricting his options to a few tools may make it easier for him to figure out which applies to the puzzle in the limited area. Or again, limiting the amount of time spent with a complex machine can convey to the player that only a few turns of manipulation are required, and he needn\'t seek a 37-step solution.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThis is a tricky technique to use well, especially since some players will balk when they realize they have entered a timed puzzle. Generally it\'s wise to make the puzzle replayable a number of times, rather than killing the player at the end of a failed session (or, worse, rendering the game unplayable but leaving the player alive). The end-game may be a good place to deploy these puzzles: they provide both focus and urgency, just at the time when the player has most invested and the plot is at its climax.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nHowever one chooses to use these types of puzzle, the author should always look closely at how beta-testers interact with them. The puzzle may not be achieving quite what the author had in mind; careful tuning is always in order. Even as minor an adjustment as the addition of a few turns to a timed puzzle can make a large difference in the player\'s experience of the game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWhen the Barriers Are Down\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPlanning a game\'s geography doesn\'t just mean planning for how the player will experience it the first time he moves through the rooms. Especially in a large game, the player will continue traversing areas of a map that have long since been solved. Making a large map playable and rewarding in the mid-to-late stages of a game is no longer a question of learnability, but of access and variety. At the very least, the map should not become too much of an impediment to late-game play -- as it can be, if too much space stands between the sole remaining puzzles. At best, the late-game transformation of the map can connect things in new ways that shed new light on the player\'s entire experience.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThough not a work of textual IF, \"Myst 3\" (Presto Studios, 2001) contains a remarkable execution of this idea: the player is allowed to explore an area thoroughly, and then at the very end his perspective shifts, and something he had written off as meaningless decoration suddenly becomes part of a large-scale pattern. The moment of recognition is marvelous.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nLimiting Frontiers<br> Suppose we say the frontier of a game map is any area where there are still puzzles to be solved and new exits to be used. The problem with having frontiers on all sides of a game map is that it expands concentrically, forcing the player to traverse ever more territory between puzzles. This isn\'t inherently bad, but it does mean the author should give some thought to how the player will get across the game world efficiently during the later stages.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThere are a variety of design strategies to get around this. A tight hub design is the ultimate in limited frontiers: one is always pushing outward from the same location. Some games encourage the player to push in one direction, and (more or less cleverly) discourage exploration along other sides of the map, by strategic placements of barriers (\"For A Change\", Dan Schmidt, 1999); coastlines (\"Anchorhead\", Michael Gentry, 1998); and really long roads that go nowhere (\"Enchanter\", Mark Blank and David Lebling, Infocom, 1983). Some use a street map design where most or all of the streets are available early on, but puzzles block off the buildings and interior spaces (\"Wishbringer\").\r\n<P>\r\nThe middle game is likely to have the largest area of playable map that the player will face. In laying this out, it adds to the interest to make connections in the half-cardinal compass directions -- northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest -- and to steer away from a feeling that the game has a square grid. (One of the few defects of the `Trinity\' middle game, though possibly that was the price to be paid for one of its better puzzles.) Equally, a few, possibly long, loops which can be walked around reduce retracing of steps and avoid the appearance of a bus service map in which half a dozen lines have only one exchange.  -- Graham Nelson, Designer\'s Manual 4th Edition, 379\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nRings and One-Way Paths<br> A map with a ring construction provides shorter paths between parts of the game world. On the other hand, it\'s a challenge for puzzle construction: it\'s hard to block off subsections of a map if they can be approached from more than one direction. Putting a blockpoint puzzle at each entry to the area means that the player may solve the first puzzle and then go back and try to solve the second as well, only to be disappointed when it leads to the same area he\'s already visited. One way to resolve this is with the \"continuous need\" sort of puzzle, which can block a segment of the ring quite effectively. Another is to place two blockpoints, but give them an identical solution -- a key or passcard that opens both doors, for instance.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n\"Zork I\" solves the ring-construction problem with passages that can be traveled only in one direction: the trap door that closes behind the player, the fireplace that can only be ascended. Slides, chutes, spaces too narrow to re-enter from the other direction, ensure that the player will move through the ring in the direction chosen by the author.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nClosing Used Areas<br> Some games also make some areas of the map accessible only once. This effectively embeds a miniature game -- a small segment with its own goals and requirements -- into the larger structure. The player can\'t come back later, so that area doesn\'t cause the game world to sprawl unnecessarily.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe chief danger of using this method is that it\'s easy for the game to become unwinnable if the player returns from this subsection without achieving all of its goals, or if he accidentally leaves something critical there.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nShortcuts<br> Applied injudiciously, the one-way ring structure can be annoying, in that it forces unnecessary trekking even at those stages of the game where all the puzzles involved have been solved. Likewise annoying is any puzzle -- maze, complicated machine, irascible creature -- that requires a complex series of steps to traverse each time the player wants to pass through that area.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe canonical solution is to provide the player with shortcuts, ways to pass between rooms that only open up when the puzzles have been solved. A new shortcut should not be the sole reward for solving a puzzle, but it does make a nice bonus. (\"Curses\" deals with this by giving the player magical teleportation powers, \"Zork\" by having the Cyclops crash through the wall and make a new opening; there are all sorts of reasons one might provide for removing the barrier between two rooms unexpectedly, without the player having previously thought of that barrier as a puzzle to be solved.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nVehicles also work for this purpose, providing a reasonable excuse to allow the player to cross large territories in a single turn -- but only after he has found his car keys or the bus pass.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA final approach, sometimes challenging to code and not suitable on all occasions, is to allow the player to travel to any visited location on the game map with a single command such as >GO TO THEATER. Without compressing the geography of the game map, this command simplifies the player\'s experience of late-game navigation. (A clever point of the ADRIFT game system is that it provides an automatic mapping function and provides built-in pathfinding: the player clicks on a part of the map he wants to visit, and the game automatically navigates him to that location.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nVariety and Depth<br> Changing existing locations is another way to keep a map entertaining. \"A Change in the Weather\" (Andrew Plotkin, 1995) alters descriptions of the locations as time passes, so that places that have been visited before take on a new atmosphere and new activities become possible; \"Being Andrew Plotkin\" (J. Robinson Wheeler, 2000) shows the same places from the perspectives of several different characters, and the differences in their viewpoints is the source of much of the game\'s subtle richness.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nVariety of description is not the only option, either. The active NPCs who move across the maps of \"Anchorhead\" and \"Christminster\" bring new activity to already-explored places. In \"Anchorhead\", the player\'s familiarity with the map becomes an asset instead of a liability: far from getting bored, she relies on that knowledge to allow her to navigate the increasingly urgent stages of the endgame, and the progression of the plot brings new interactivity to areas where the original puzzles have already been solved.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSimilarly strong is \"First Things First\" (J. Robinson Wheeler, 2001), which allows the player to explore the same areas over several different time periods. The pattern of the map is, of course, essentially consistent from one time period to the next, but each era has its own quirks -- which, moreover, change as the player\'s activities in one time period ripple forward to affect the future ones. Likewise, items in early periods take on new significance as the plot progresses. The result is a map that is easy to learn -- the overall space is relatively compact -- but which continues to unfold in interesting ways throughout the course of the game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nGeography and Story\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nLinearity<br> A highly puzzle-oriented game such as \"Curses\" controls its territory by blocking entrances with puzzles, but it is fairly flexible about the order in which the player enters new areas. By contrast, \"Jigsaw\", though it is equally (or even more) challenging in the design of its puzzles, nonetheless has a much more tightly constructed plot, and correspondingly is more restrictive about order of access. All the zones may be entered from the central hub area, but most of them are blocked off at the outset, and access to certain ones requires exhausting the others.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPuzzle design, from this point of view, becomes a means to ensure that the player experiences the areas of the map -- and their associated events in the story -- in an acceptable order. The author guards the king\'s audience chamber with a servant who must be bribed; he places the bag of gold in the guest bedroom, so that the player is guaranteed to explore that area before proceeding; in order to reach it, she must pass through the hallway, where the palace vizier is wandering around. The author can now plot accurately (enough) the path the player will take through the space, and guarantee that she will meet the vizier before she meets the king.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nCarefully applied, this method can even disguise the linearity of a fairly strict narrative design, by making a string of events (which always happens in the same order) appear to be a natural outcome of the geography of the setting and the goal the player is pursuing. More elegant still would be to move the vizier into the hallway while the player is retrieving the gold, so she runs into him on the way out instead of on the way in. Now he doesn\'t look like just another puzzle to be solved on the way into the bedroom, and his movements seem like the result of independent intelligence. It may not occur to the player that she was guaranteed to walk through that hallway on the way to see the king, and at just exactly that point in the plot.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMultiple playings are likely to expose the mechanisms behind the magic; but if you have engaged the player enough that she not only finishes the game but also plays it over, you have probably scored a success already.\r\n<P>\r\nWhat reward for solving a puzzle? One is obvious: the game state advances a little towards its completion. But the player at the keyboard needs a reward as well: that the game should offer something new to look at. The white cubes in `Spellbreaker\', with the power to teleport the protagonist to new areas, are far more alluring than, say, the ``platinum pyramid\'\' of `Advent\', which is only a noun with a few points attached and opens up no further map. -- Graham Nelson, Designer\'s Manual 4th Edition, 394.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPlot as Reward<br> I would go a step further, and say that, in addition to new territory, a solved puzzle should reward the player with some new information about the plot or new backstory. As the game progresses, it becomes less and less feasible for the solved puzzle to open major new areas -- after all, things are drawing to a close, and the amount of new geography left to explore is diminishing. On the other hand, the closer one gets to the end of the game the more appropriate it is to offer the player major revelations and plot developments.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAt the Edge of the World\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSooner or later, however small or large your game world may be, the player will come to the edge of it. This is not a problem if you\'ve chosen to set your game in an area with a natural border: a spaceship, an island surrounded by hundreds of miles of ocean, a cave system. A building will do, too, if necessary, and if you can give the player good enough reasons not to climb out the windows or walk out the doors.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIf the setting is somewhere in the middle of an open field, however, the player may wonder why he can\'t wander off any old direction; and there are an assortment of techniques for making your game feel as though it is set in a larger continuous world without actually having to implement the things at the edges.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe thing to bear in mind, with all of these options, is that the player is not actually going to be fooled into thinking the game world is infinite. She knows perfectly well that the map must be limited in scope and that there are edges to where she can go. The author\'s mission is to help the player pretend that the world continues forever in all directions -- and perhaps envision what lies in those directions -- while making it clear which areas are worth focusing on for the purpose of advancing the game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nLong Roads: My least favorite solution to this problem is the one used by \"Enchanter\". The player sets off down a long road. Each location of the road (probably represented in the underlying code as the same single room) is identical to the previous one, except that (perhaps out of pity for the player) the Implementors put in a series of taunting signs, a la Burma Shave, that will eventually suggest that you are going the wrong way.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWhile this does give the impression of space, it also tends to irritate the player. Subsequent games have used this technique as a practical joke. \"Silence of the Lambs 2\" (\'Thief of Bad Gags\', 2002), which promises the player a large supply of cheese at the end of a very long road. I patiently trudged along said road for over 200 turns before sadly concluding that it wasn\'t going to result in any dairy-related bliss -- a trick made all the nastier by the fact that the game would periodically offer false encouragements such as \"You must be nearly there by now!\" Along the same lines, \"Annoyotron\" (Ben Parrish, 1999) derives its eponymous feature from forcing the player to trudge up and down a long hallway of entirely identical rooms.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nFalse Doors: Some games include barricades that look like they might one day be traversable, but aren\'t, or doors that are locked and can never be unlocked during the whole course of the game. Used very carefully, the false door makes it seem as though the game environment is larger than the area the player is actually allowed to walk through. Make the door too interesting, however, and the player may waste a lot of time trying to open it, to her frustration. It\'s worst of all if she feels cheated at the end of the game because she never found out what was behind that door: instead of impressing the player with the expanse of your game world, you\'ve drawn attention to its limitations and wasted her time.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIt\'s the boring door that works best in this situation. \"Doors line the hallway on both sides; your own is E5, to the north.\" Now the author has created an environment that suggests adjoining locations, as complex as the real world, but where there isn\'t much temptation to try the non-descript doors, which do not even have compass directions explicitly associated with them. In descriptions it helps to be as explicit as possible about the nouns and verbs to be used with the interactive, implemented parts of the game world; being vague is a sign to the player that the vaguely-described thing is only scenery. (Not handling this distinction well -- by encouraging too much interaction with unimplemented items, or not giving enough information to use critical ones -- is one of the hallmarks of an inexperienced author. As always, beta-testing helps turn up trouble areas.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n\"So Far\" (Andrew Plotkin, 1996) uses this technique frequently and effectively: the locked door in the game\'s prologue, which obviously cannot be opened, but behind which there are speaking characters, adds a sense of breadth and habitation to the world. At the same time, the unresponsiveness of that door to interaction effectively discourages the player from trying to reach the characters beyond -- keeping the gameplay within bounds, and at the same time playing into the game\'s thematic development.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nTrompe l\'Oeil Vistas: The author can describe the view of what lies in some direction, but in such a way that it\'s clear to the player that there\'s nothing interesting over there: a broad expanse of desert or wasteland, a thick forest, a trackless wilderness or a tangle of suburban streets will all discourage the intrepid adventurer. Or tell the player how the landscape continues on the far side of an uncrossable chasm or rushing river.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe point of all this is to avoid having directions where there\'s no described barrier, no reason to assume the presence of a building, a cave wall, or an impenetrable forest, but where the game nonetheless tells the player only, \"You can\'t go that way.\" This situation leaves a strange blank the imagined world -- as though the player had looked around and seen only an untraversable grey fog to the west, the wall at the end of the world.',1,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 05:01:45',1,7,7587),(8,'CYOA',14,'Parallel Dimensions: Understanding CYOAs\r\n<P>\r\n\"Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.\"\r\n<P>\r\nTraditional Interactive Fiction on the computer is \"parsed\" IF; the user input \r\nconsists of free text. In book form, Choose-Your-Own-Adventures, CYOAs, are \r\ncommon. A great variety has been published, covering different genres like \r\nfantasy, science fiction, or horror. The workings of those interactive books are \r\nrelatively simply; the playing reader is presented with enumerated bits of text. \r\nAfter each text, several choices and their numbers are offered, leading to more \r\nbits of text, and more choices.\r\n<P>\r\nControlling complexity\r\n<P>\r\nWhat sounds like a straight-forward concept can be quite time consuming to \r\nwrite. If every station would offer only the minimum of two different paths to \r\nfollow, and each path would lead to a unique station, the author would have to \r\ncreate several thousand stations -- just to offer a dozen to the player.\r\n \r\nThe first rule-of-thumb: Find a way to have cross-paths, circles, and \r\nbottle-necks. Ultimately the information design to your basic CYOA compares to \r\nan internet website, where stations are pages, and choices are links, building a \r\nnetwork structure of referenced information. \r\n<P>\r\nMeaningful choices\r\n<P>\r\nA crucial point is that every choice made should become an integral part of the \r\ncontinued story, or the reader will feel cheated. Different choices should all \r\n\"work\" in some way, resulting in a second rule: Don\'t offer meaningless choices. \r\n<P>\r\nControl over the linear flow of the narrative is stronger than in parsed, \r\ndigital IF, since the number of different player behaviors from within each \r\nsingle context is limited. In return the player expects more traditional \r\nstory-telling, as opposed to a simple action-reaction scheme. (Most true in CYOA \r\nbooks; instead of typing \"open drawer\", one has to go through some minor hassle \r\nto get to the next part.) \r\n<P>\r\nThe open box\r\n<P>\r\nParsed IF resembles building one\'s own ladder to climb. The trick is to make \r\nevery step work, and finding the right tools. The narrative path itself can be \r\nrather linear; even when one may have to run in every possible direction to find \r\nhammer and nails. \r\n<P>\r\nA CYOA will throw all the tools at the player\'s feet at any given position. The \r\napproach can be more like steering a canoe through a river. Instead of a wall to \r\nclimb over, the obstacle is the irreversible decision of the past.\r\nOf course, a CYOA is spiced up by a puzzle that lets one run in circles until a \r\nsolution is found -- but more often that not, good morals outwin being smart. \r\n(And then sometimes, it can be thrilling to literally play evil, and see how \r\nthings work out.) \r\n<P>\r\nWhat if?\r\n<P>\r\nIn real life, we often ask ourselves; what if ... I would have done this, \r\ninstead of that? As real life goes, we will never know. But CYOAs yield the \r\npower of fiction. The author takes on the role of fate, offering a life of \r\nmultiple realities, handing out answers. \r\n<P>\r\nAs much as clever puzzles are the core of parsed IF; giving meaningful reactions \r\nto such player characteristics as moral, personal style, perseverance, \r\nwillingness to take risks, is the core of choice-based IF. \r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPhilipp Lenssen, author of the Quest Markup Language for digital CYOAs',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 03:46:29',1,14,533),(9,'Dada IF',15,'2 Brief Dada Angels\r\n<P>\r\nBy Ryan Stevens writing as Rybread Celcius\r\n<P>\r\nBrief History of IF With Quasi-Mesostic\r\n<P>\r\nIneXplicable at first, Yet inevitable later [Zork II for instance]: two doZen of that storY of late siXteenth-centurY London, three doZen are familiar child\'s puZzle-books, and still largelY uneXplored land in between. Cited bY Designer and Date MagaZine: \"the grail of puZzle-free Yet interactive literature seems for teXt: while the industrY puZzles, nearby caves were being hotly seiZed endlesslY! The Great OnyX Cave BY StandardiZed Commands was a textual maZe game.\" (TerrY Winograd, 1972) The aim was to eXplore and onlY a few of the puZzles, FROzEN RIVERS OF ORANGE STONE, AN AWKWARD CANyON AND A GOOD PASSAGE ExIT, freelY adapted Zazie, a craZy artificial intelligence LaboratorY, more compleX than liberallY neat puZzles. In Tracy Kidder\'s PulitZer prize-winning book The Soul of a New Machine (1981) a journalist\'s eYe-view to eXplore. Rooms, currencY of a recurring puZzle to become ``wiZards\'\' in a \'\'fantasY siX\'\' at the UniversitY of Alberta, Canada. WiZards\' houses, maZes with limited batterY power with eXits in all directions, and so forth, recur endlesslY in `Zork\'. A puZzle-plaY boX, is actuallY froZen rivers of improvised imitation called `Zork\', which at its height six years later emploYed.... you. Would eXpect You were running LiZ Cyr-Jones MagaZine, manY PhoeniX Computer LiteracY magaZines, a doZen others: mutuallY TeXt. Adventures were an exception, reallY, \'Zork I\' was offered for RendeZvous RaY! DeluXe. And few plaYers can tolerate a priZe. For the first priZe would take quite another strategY: eXtol the verY computeriZed Zork. MaY the uneXpected buY even more haphaZardly stocked RendeZvous with LarrY.\r\n<P>\r\nDancing on the Head\'s of Needle-Nose Pliers\r\n<P>\r\nAdam Cadre writes real books. Andrew Plotkin writes software. Graham Nelson himself is a poet. Smart people, able to code, write, spell, etc. They have ideas, and they express them. Myself, I have ideas. And try to express them. But it\'s like some sitcom father trying to get all the clothes into suitcase. They overflow, wrinkle and escape. What\'s left is some sad ready-made. The line between a bad game and a Dada game need not exist, they share the same Venn diagram. But the attributes expand. There is the sense of the uncanny and stupid, without stepping into the realm of surreal (a more fleshed out plane), but ghosting its border. Their is also a futurist quality to them, with the pieces usually coded very fast with very little planning or forethought. Stream of consciousness would be an inaccurate prison, but a perfectly acceptable adjective. Grammar mistakes and coding ineffiencies paint miniscule portraits of the author\'s states. Does a manic room live it\'s life in a run-on sentence? Is the virtually lifeless NPC a metaphor for a single use tool? Are these non sequitar interactions injokes, fit somehow in, or allude to the phantasmagoria of the author\'s logic? Perhaps. Atmosphere leaks in in pecular ways and nonsense gives way to its own logic. A true Dadaist game is an imprint of the author\'s mind, pressed again and again, denting each previous pressing. This shape makes any title a maze, despite how the rooms are linked, and the viewer go beyond the \"Guess the Verb\" frustration to a leap of intention, personality and connection. Despite the headache and grievances, those who work through a piece can often feel a brief outline of beauty, for two sentences will rub just right way, or a random event juxstaposes itself within a turn of entering an instant death room. The aesthetics of the absurd have the uncanny and the stupid as well. And this is were the Dadaist piece is seperated from the truly dismal. For the Dadaist piece will have at least a small contingent that sees some sort of merit beyond satire, even if it can\'t be argued well, or, indeed, at all. The speed of thought transduced to words per minute, compiled and shot through the world: Nonsense is a right.',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 03:47:18',4,8,666),(10,'Parser at the Threshold:<br>Lovecraftian Horror in Interactive Fiction',16,'THE PARSER AT THE THRESHOLD: LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR IN INTERACTIVE FICTION\r\n<P>\r\n\"I must be very deliberate now, and choose my words.\"\r\n-- H. P. Lovecraft, \"The Rats in the Walls\"\r\n<P>\r\nHorror is a wide-open field, not so much a genre in its own right as an atmosphere that can be applied to nearly any imaginable setting; there is as much horror to be found in the suburban streets of David Cornelson\'s *Cattus Attrox* as in the antiseptic laboratories of Ian Finley\'s *Babel,* or in the ante-bellum backwoods of Adam Cadre\'s *Shrapnel.* It\'s a challenge, sometimes, to even know where to begin.\r\n<P>\r\nThe stories of H. P. Lovecraft occupy a peculiar place in this field. Although the classic tropes of the Lovecraftian tale may also be applied across many kinds of settings, it is nevertheless a highly specific and distinct subgenre. Its trappings and descriptive cues -- the crumbling tomes, the ancient blasphemies, the awful, bubbling divinities outside the boundaries of our universe -- these set the story from more conventional flavors of horror, giving it an immediate context and making it recognizable to any reader who is even casually acquainted with the source literature. This sense of familiarity makes it a comfortable entry point for writers and game designers hoping to craft their own stories in Lovecraft\'s image.\r\n<P>\r\nHowever, like any variety of genre fiction, Lovecraftian horror is easy to do, and somewhat more difficult to do well. One can too easily get so lost in the trappings at to forget what makes Lovecraft\'s stories so distinct and compelling -- to lose sight of the forest, as it were, amongst all the tentacles.\r\n<P>\r\nTo pose just one example: Lovecraft\'s stories are not particularly scary. It\'s true. It is something of an open secret amongst fans of the literature; they are loathe to admit it, but most will if pressed. Oh, it\'s true, \"Cool Air\" is undeniably creepy; \"The Rats in the Walls\" delivers a bit of a shock at the end; \"The Shadow Over Innsmouth\" has wonderful suspense worthy of any action film . . . but the stories aren\'t frightening, not in a visceral way, not in that way that makes you turn suddenly in your chair, shiver, and check down the darkened stairs before trepidly returning to the computer keyboard to enter your next move. And no amount of blasphemous horrors from beyond the universe will ever make them so. The monsters of the Lovecraftian world are often, by the author\'s own admission, indescribable. Its horrors are unnamable. How can the reader be frightened by something which, he is flatly told, is beyond his every experience?\r\n<P>\r\nWhat sets Lovecraft apart from almost all other subgenres of horror is that his stories are not really about fear. They are about *revelation.* They are about piecing together an Awful Truth. Piecing that truth together, and possessing that truth once assembled, is not necessarily meant to be scary. It is merely meant to be, in a word, horrible.\r\n<P>\r\nFrom this perspective, Lovecraftian horror can be ideally suited to the genre of interactive fiction, because the player of the game and the protagonist in the game mirror each other in their goals. Both are presented with a hidden story that is gradually revealed, puzzle by puzzle, to the enterprising seeker. Both sift through fragments of text until the final narrative is laid bare. Hopefully, only one will have cause to regret it when the search is finally over.\r\n<P>\r\nThe essence of this sort of tale is not whether the story takes place in the modern day, or in New England in the 1920s, or in the slums of Victorian London. It is not whether the terrible monsters are batrachian, or squamous, or merely rugose. The essence is in how the story is structured. Although there are many variations on the theme, the \"classic\" Lovecraftian situation can be broken down like so: A lone investigator arrives at an abandoned place, delves into written lore, and pieces together the Awful Truth. We\'ll examine each of these elements in turn and discuss how it can be applied to game design.\r\n<P>\r\n\"There was no one in the soaking street, and in all the world there was no one I dared tell.\"\r\n-- H. P. Lovecraft, \"The Shunned House\"\r\n<P>\r\nLone investigators are the easy part: nearly the entire corpus of IF revolves around the model of protagonists wandering off by themselves and fiddling with things. Here, at least, is a literary precedent.\r\n<P>\r\nYour protagonist should not be a nameless cipher. Horror is about terrible things happening to *people,* so give the player a person she can care about. Don\'t be afraid to supply the character\'s motivations and even, to a certain extent, the character\'s thoughts feelings in response to events in the game. Although it is the player who will be guiding the protagonist\'s footsteps and making all the important decisions, a clear motivation helps to put the game in a context that the player can immediately relate to.\r\n<P>\r\nIdeally the explorer should have some personal stake in the investigation. These sorts of journeys are not pleasant, and the merely idly curious will beat a hasty retreat as soon as things begin to get wriggly. The protagonist -- and by extension the player -- should want not to get out, but to go deeper. For example, in *Anchorhead* (as well as in many of Lovecraft\'s stories), the motivator is family. The heroine has every reason to press on in the face of danger when the life and sanity of her husband is at stake. It needn\'t be that intimate, however. An archaeologist performing research vital to his career, a detective trying to find a missing girl, a safety inspector investigating a decrepit tenement -- all of these people would have an abiding reason to see the job done.\r\n<P>\r\nAnd in many cases, all you have to do is get them to take the first few steps -- and then let the door swing shut and lock behind them.\r\n<P>\r\n\". . . that cavernous, aeon-dead honeycomb of primal masonry; that monstrous lair of elder secrets which now echoed for the first time, after uncounted epochs, to the tread of human feet.\"\r\n-- H. P. Lovecraft, \"At the Mountains of Madness\"\r\n<P>\r\nSince non-player characters are one of the most difficult elements in an IF game to craft well, it is convenient that Lovecraftian settings typically have so few of them.\r\n<P>\r\nEvery abandoned place is an archaeological dig (including, obviously, an abandoned archaeological dig). Ghost towns, condemned asylums, ancestral estates -- they have their histories. People once lived there, and once did things there, and evidence of this should be apparent in the room descriptions and the objects that you place. A decaying theatre is more than just dusty furniture and broken glass: it is a yellowed program stuffed between two seats, a dried-out makeup kit in the dressing room, notes scribbled in the margins of a crumbling script book. Let the place itself tell something of the people who used to inhabit it.\r\n<P>\r\nThe exploratory phase of your game is important. Avoid a sense of urgency. Lovecraft wrote leisurely stories; the evil is always something that occurred in the past, and now lies dormant and deeply buried. Perhaps the player will awaken it once more, inadvertently (but, of course, inevitably), but give her time to explore first. Limit your puzzles, if you choose to employ any, to \"passive\" types -- variations on the locked door, inaccessible areas of the map. Allow the atmosphere to sink in. Let the player get a sense of the space she is now in, and let the implications gradually become apparent: that this empty place once housed people, and now, for *some reason,* the people are all gone.\r\n<P>\r\n\"The glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things -- in this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor.\"\r\n-- H. P. Lovecraft, \"The Call of Cthulhu\"\r\n<P>\r\nSomeone always writes it down. The written record is the protagonist\'s primary link to what is really going on, and it is the most important segment of the Lovecraftian quest. Diaries, letters, police reports, newspaper clippings, carved hieroglyphs (which must be translated, of course), patient files, genealogical records, even the spoken testimony of a broken old man who knows too much -- all pieces of a puzzle told in words. Here is where the actual player and the fictional protagonist are in perfect synchronicity: the goal of both is to unlock as much text as possible.\r\n<P>\r\nWhatever you do, don\'t dump the entire backstory on the player all at once. Make him work for it. Scramble it, scatter it, reveal it in fragments and in the wrong order. Locating and collating all the pieces is the macguffin that drives your puzzles through this part of the game; every torn page is a treasure, and the protagonist\'s notebook is the trophy case. Some pages may be in code. Some pages may be incomprehensible without reference to other pages. Some pages may contain clues to the whereabouts of other pages. All of them will be hard-won.\r\n<P>\r\nThis is the story of your game, the story of what happened before, so embellish it. Make it grandiose and complex. Use several different sources of information to introduce a variety of conflicting perspectives. Don\'t simply confirm what the player must have already guessed. As the fragmentary accounts slowly begin to resolve into a complete history, details of the setting will attain new significance. The barber chair with leather straps up in the attic is unsettling in its own right when first discovered -- when the protagonist reads the diary entries that explain *why* it is there, it should be all the more menacing.\r\n<P>\r\n\"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.\"\r\n-- H. P. Lovecraft, \"The Call of Cthulhu\"\r\n<P>\r\nThere will come a time when the player has collected all the pages, read all the history, made all the necessary connections. There is a point when the final, Awful Truth of the situation will be made clear. This is the end game, the climax of your story. This is the moment when history catches up with the present, when everything the protagonist has learned comes to bear on where she is *right now* -- when she realizes that the giant has been slumbering beneath her feet this whole time, and now it is about to awaken.\r\n<P>\r\nHere is where you want to instill urgency. Time-sensitive puzzles and life-or-death decisions have their place in this segment of the game. Even Lovecraft himself was not above adding the occasional action sequence; a flight across rooftops with torch-bearing cultists swarming the streets below would not be at all out of genre. However, avoid making these sorts of puzzles overly difficult or finicky about precise verbiage. Nothing dispels the suspense more effectively than having to replay the most gripping scene in the game ten times because you can\'t figure out how to get out of the handcuffs. (Wisdom I dearly wish I\'d had when I wrote *Anchorhead.*) Throw obstacles in the player\'s path, certainly, but make the solutions obvious, so she can most past them quickly and get on with her breathless flight.\r\n<P>\r\nResist the temptation to overdescribe. Although strict faithfulness to Lovecraft\'s style sometimes requires that the climax be *a labored restatement of the obvious, written entirely in horrified italics,* the truth is that overblown, detail-laden descriptions of slimy, bubbling nastiness tend to leave readers more bemused than fearful. The art of suggestion by concealment is nowhere more important. Remember that the Awful Truth cannot truly be described, only implied.\r\n<P>\r\nThe Awful Truth is not how gross and slimy the monster is, but what the very existence of that monster implies. There runs through much of Lovecraft\'s work a theme of cosmic nihilism -- the sense that the universe is so vast and impersonal, and humankinds\' place in it so insignificant, that to confront living, breathing proof of it is to go mad. In *Anchorhead,* that the earth was nearly devoured by a giant squid-god is terrible; that, to the squid-god, our earth is merely a single crumb amongst many, a morsel hardly worthy of attention except for the tiny noise made by a handful of cultists -- *that* is the Awful Truth. \r\n<P>\r\nConsider how, or if, you wish to reflect this in the ending of your game. The \"winning\" move in a Lovecraftian story may well be to go mad, or die, or go mad *and* die. Perhaps the protagonist escapes without stopping the evil, knowing that it can never be stopped, only hidden. Perhaps the protagonist\'s reward is to be forever burdened with the responsibility of hiding it from others. In any case, that last message, \r\n<P>\r\n   *** You have won ***\r\n<P>\r\nshould always be read with a hefty grain of salt, if it to be read at all.\r\n<P>\r\n\"Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise.\"\r\n-- H. P. Lovecraft, \"The Call of Cthulhu\"\r\n<P>\r\nI have attempted to break out what I consider the most basic elements of the \"classic,\" or archetypal, Lovecraftian story, to show how they might be implemented in interactive fiction. As I said at the beginning, there is always room for variations on the theme. There are many, many ways to do Lovecraft, and any or all of these elements can be twisted, altered, or rearranged to suit your own personal vision of cosmic nihilism. Good luck.\r\n<P>',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 03:53:33',1,8,2268),(11,'Research for Historical IF',18,'Some thoughts about setting \r\n<P>\r\nInteractive Fiction allows a player to explore their setting like no other medium. In static fiction, the author can move his protagonist quickly from location to location, perhaps polishing off in a simple paragraph details about the main character\'s morning - waking up, getting out of bed, going downstairs, grabbing his hat and coat, etc. Writing the same sequence in interactive fiction requires far greater attention to detail. In static fiction the author creates a linear narrative that the reader must follow, while in interactive fiction the author only suggests a direction for the player, then lets the player decide how to get there. After the author provides motivation for the character to get out of bed, it is up to the player to decide when and how he does so. And along the way, questions arise: What does the bed look like? The sheets? What\'s under the bed? In the dresser? Can I take a shower? Change clothes? And so on. Each question is answered through careful coding by the author, each answer requiring more thought about the specifics of the setting.\r\n<P>\r\nThe traditional player character of Interactive Fiction, the nameless, faceless *You*, serves to focus attention away from character toward setting, in effect transforming the setting into the protagonist of the story. When thinking back on something like the Zork series (Infocom), one usually thinks about the setting - the Great Underground Empire, not about the adventurer who explores it.\r\n<P>\r\nBuilding a game based on a fictional setting is difficult enough, and requires at least twice the consideration put into writing setting for static fiction. Creating a game based on a real life setting is doubly onerous - not only must you be detailed, you must also be accurate. The amount of research that needs to be done to get the details right, or at least right enough, is daunting. It is for this reason that very few works of interactive fiction written so far are based on real life settings, even though the very first adventure game, \"Adventure\" (Will Crowther and John Woods, 1977) started out conceptually as a model of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.\r\n<P>\r\nI knew what I wanted to accomplish when I began writing 1893: A World\'s Fair Mystery, but had no idea how to achieve it. I wanted to recreate the Columbian Exposition of 1893, an important historical place and time for the city of Chicago, to build a virtual model that could be entered, explored, and lived in. I wanted the setting to be fixed in reality enough to work as an educational model, but also be flexible enough to allow for an entertaining game. It took me four years of working on the project to bring it to a state that satisfied my goals. Along the way, I learned quite a bit about what not to do, and a little about what seemed to work best. I\'d like to share some of what I learned here, about what kind of setting to choose, a good approach to research, and finally, coding the game itself.\r\n<P>\r\nChoosing a setting<br>\r\nChances are you\'ve already got a setting in mind for your game. If not, here are a couple things you should think about when making that choice:\r\n<P>\r\nChoose a setting that interests you. <br>\r\nDon\'t pick a setting just because you think it would make a real nifty game. Pick it because you have a genuine interest in that particular place. Ask yourself a simple question: Would you want to research this setting even if you weren\'t writing IF? Use IF as an excuse to do research you\'ve always wanted to do but never had the time, not as the sole reason you are doing the research at all. Otherwise, there is a strong possibility you will lose interest in the project before it is finished, or take too many shortcuts and leave the setting hollow and unconvincing to players who really are interested.\r\n<P>\r\n...but not just you. <br>\r\nYou may in fact find your dorm room to be an incredibly fascinating place, but chances are you are alone in that outlook. Your college campus is probably similarly uninteresting to the vast majority of potential players, so too is the quiet suburban town you grew up in. Historic sites are good, as are major cities, small islands, or tourist destinations. You can choose something well known, like the Tower of London, and your game appeals to thousands of potential players who have already been there. Or choose something obscure, like the Isle of the Coconut Monk in southern Vietnam, to pique the curiosity of your players and leave them curious to see the real place for themselves, one day. \r\n<P>\r\nSetting the time.<br> \r\nYour setting is a place, defined not only spatially but also in time. When does your adventure take place? Perhaps you want to set your adventure at the Pyramids of Giza. But when? Will the player character be a slave, building the pyramids for his masters in ancient Egypt? A modern-day tourist? Or perhaps your story takes place during Napoleon\'s invasion of Egypt, your player character a French soldier who discovers a secret entrance. Or, like \"Lost New York\" (Neil deMause, 1996), you may add a time travel device to show how your setting changes over time. Whatever you chose, keep in mind the amount of research you will have to do to make your setting come alive. \r\n<P>\r\nDoing the Research<br>\r\nOnce you have decided on a setting, its time to delve more deeply into that setting than you have before. Ideally, you should already have read something, watched an interesting program about the place, or even visited it before, and know a bit about it. Now it\'s time to dig deeper.\r\n<P>\r\nBecome an armchair tourist. <br>\r\nIf you\'ve chosen as your setting a place that still holds interest to tourists, there is no better place to start your research than in the travel section of your local bookstore. Travel guides often contain detailed maps that can help get you started creating your game map. These maps make an excellent starting point because they often are already simplified from what exists in the real world, with many small side streets omitted, saving you from doing some of the paring down yourself. Travel guides such as Lonely Planet Guides also contain a great deal of background information about the place you are going to write about, and often references to further material.\r\n<P>\r\nVisit your local Library. <br>\r\nPull all the books the library has about your setting, get yourself a table, and start skimming. Check out the ones that appear to be the most worthwhile in terms of information and especially detail. Photographs are extremely useful to learn the details of the setting you are bringing to life. If you are recreating an historical setting, no older than 100 years or so, seek out some printed material about the setting that was published at the time. Larger research libraries should have extensive newspaper archives. You never know what you might find! While doing research in the Chicago Public Library, I came across a complete collection of English language newspapers published in 1930\'s Shanghai! If you are recreating an historical setting, make sure you spend time researching the time period in general along with the setting in particular, to gain valuable information about the food, clothing, and habits of the people living then.\r\n<P>\r\nVisit the Site. <br>\r\nNothing is more important than being there. If at all possible, you must go to the site. If you\'ve been there before you decided to write interactive fiction, you probably need to go again. Don\'t go until you know everything you can about the place from your readings. Too many times I\'ve gone somewhere, looked around, and left, and later found out about something particularly interesting that was there, but that I walked right past without noticing because I didn\'t realize its importance. \r\n<P>\r\nBeing at the site is the best way to pick up a lot of incidental details that otherwise you would never know anything about. Walk around. Take pictures or video of everything you see. If you don\'t have a map, start making one. Take note of the weather, how the air feels, smells. Listen carefully, what are the sounds that you hear? Touch everything you can. Find a few obscure details and make note of them.\r\n<P>\r\nI\'ll never forget the day I visited Aya Sophia in Istanbul. I felt like I had been there before, because before traveling to Turkey, I played the graphic adventure \"Byzantine: the Betrayal\" (Discovery Channel Multimedia, 1997). I was shocked and pleased by how faithfully the game replicated the real mosque/cathedral, right down to the tower of scaffolding which helped support its dome. I knew, without asking a tour guide, that there were stairs to the balcony, and I knew exactly where they were. I knew, on leaving the church, if you stopped, turned around, and looked up, you would see some beautiful mosaic work. Graffiti on a balcony railing, which I supposed was the invention of the game, turned out to really exist. But most impressive of all was the fact that I even recognized the singing of the songbirds outside the Church - they were included in the ambient noise of the game. The sound of songbirds, the graffiti, the scaffolding - none of this would have been part of the game had the developers not actually physically gone to the site and explored it themselves.\r\n<P>\r\nTalk to people. <br>\r\nNow this is something I really regret not doing more of. It turns out that no matter what setting you turn your interest toward someone else has done the same. And they have been doing their own research for years before you even got started. Dropping by the local historical society will turn up plenty of these folks, with more interesting anecdotes than you could find in years of researching on your own. Some places conduct tours of famous sites, when you visit, join a tour, and chat up the tour guide afterwards. One day, late in developing 1893: A World\'s Fair Mystery, I met a gentleman who had been conducting bird watching walks on the site of the grounds for the past thirty years. He could tell me which of the birds we were seeing were likely to have been on the site at that time, and which were introduced later (and by whom!). He could even point out the trees that were there at the time, and still alive today. Don\'t be afraid to visit experts, chances are they will be delighted that you are writing a computer game about their favorite place, you may even find you\'ve got a whole new group of players eager to try it out when you\'ve finished.\r\n<P>\r\nDo too much research, but know your limit. <br>\r\nIn general, when you have finished doing your research, chances are you\'ll find that you only use about 1/10th of the information you\'ve collected - and that strikes me as just about right. If you try to cram everything you\'ve learned into your game, your narrative will quickly become buried in a sea of irrelevant information. The details you have learned but did not include are still valuable - they help you know what not to put in your game, to avoid anachronisms in an historical setting. Little leftover bits can wind up in character conversations, perhaps as asides, or in object descriptions, giving your game world a seemingly effortless depth. That said, you\'ve still got to know when to call it quits when studying. Keep in mind you aren\'t writing your Master\'s thesis, you\'re writing a game. I knew I had gone too far when I was sitting in the archives of the Chicago Historical Society and I called up a box of personal correspondence from the Director-General of the Columbian Exposition. As fascinating as it was, it bore absolutely no relevance to the game world, so I quickly put it back, and spent the rest of the day at the beach. \r\n<P>\r\nBuilding your world<br>\r\nThere are many different recommended approaches to coding. The aspects I will touch on here refer exclusively to building a model of a real-life setting in your game, the setting as protagonist. \r\n<P>\r\nSimplify. <br>\r\nNo matter how exact you want your model to be, it will still have to be vastly simplified from reality. Consider that just one exhibit hall at the 1893 World\'s Fair, the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, housed thousands of exhibits, on its main floor and gallery, in a space larger than five football fields. In the game, I chose 16 representative exhibits in 23 locations - and even that made for a very large area for players to explore. In \"Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels (Bob Bates, Infocom, 1987), you can walk from Trafalgar Square to Whitehall in a single move. And why not? While spending time on the road in-between would be more realistic, it would also be a lot more boring.\r\n<P>\r\nIt\'s never too early to start. <br>\r\nThe only way to really understand what you need to find out about your setting is to start coding it. Modern IF tools make it very easy to create a room and play-test it immediately. Build the entryway to the Palace at Versailles, or the approach to Angkor Wat. As your write the location\'s description, you will begin to know exactly what kind of additional research you will need to do. Questions will arise that need answering - what catches the eye at the entrance? How big is that chandelier? Just what the heck is a \'Gobelin\' tapestry, anyway? Writing rooms helps to bring gaps in your knowledge of a place more sharply into focus. As your setting solidifies, don\'t be surprised if your original ideas about the narrative flow of your game begin to change. New possibilities will present themselves, growing organically out of your setting.\r\n<P>\r\nMake things up. <br>\r\nOnce you\'ve done all that research, and you are happily coding away, you\'ve earned yourself the right to make up stuff. If you\'ve got a solid grasp on your setting, you can use your imagination to fill in the gaps plausibly, and most players won\'t notice the difference. After all, this is a work of interactive fiction, not interactive non-fiction. Since some players might want to use your game partially as an educational tool about the setting it takes place in, be careful not to change the big stuff. Anything that might be particularly confusing for a player (Is it real or not?) could be mentioned in the game\'s HELP file.\r\n<P>\r\nFinal thoughts<br>\r\nSurrounded by the material comforts of the modern world, those of us with an interest in the places and people of the past struggle to connect with them. We can learn about them through books and television, but that\'s usually not enough. Some may collect artifacts from a place or event long gone, handle these objects of another age and contemplate what they meant to people at the time. Others may pack their suitcases and travel, to stand in the footsteps of history, to physically inhabit the spaces and places that were important in the past. All of these activities, different as they are, share a common purpose, to reach out to the past and in turn better understand ourselves. As a player, I find nothing as exciting as when I am given the opportunity to explore in detail such a setting, and to role-play just for a moment that I am there, and I have an important purpose, a job to do, that I am not simply a spectator or tourist, that I am, for a short while, a part of that place in a way I had only been before in my dreams. \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n-- Peter Nepstad\r\nMay 13, 2003\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2006-08-25 07:07:26',1,8,2760),(12,'IF and the Science Fiction Genre',19,'IF AND SCIENCE FICTION:  A GENRE ARTICLE\r\nMaureen Mason <mmason@igc.org>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nI. Introduction \r\n<P>\r\nEver since commercial interactive fiction (IF) came of age in the 1980\'s,\r\nscience fiction (SF) themes have been a natural fit.  Many of the early IF\r\nauthors, like the early-adopting home-computer users they were writing\r\ngames for, were familiar with classic SF tropes and gadgets, and\r\nincorporated spaceships, supercomputers and intelligent robots into\r\nproducts like Steve Meretzky\'s outerspace games, \"Planetfall\" (Infocom,\r\n1983), \"Stationfall\" (Infocom, 1987) and \"The Hitchhiker\'s Guide to the\r\nGalaxy\" (Infocom, 1984).  During that era, even interacting with the IF\r\nparsers themselves seemed a thing of science fiction:  as a player it was\r\nhighly pleasurable to get intelligent, often unexpected and witty,\r\nresponses from a game; typing in full sentences at the command prompt\r\ncreated the illusion of talking to a smart computer.  \r\n<P>\r\nIn addition, SF is a genre, like Tolkien-style fantasy, in which authoring\r\nand discovering a wholly imaginary world is an elemental pleasure.  Among\r\nSF fans, in fact, good worldbuilding can sometimes carry a story even when\r\nplot or characterization is very thin.  Good SF novels open with\r\nintriguing settings that promise to entertain and surprise.  Take the\r\nfirst sentence of Dan Simmon\'s _Hyperion_ (New York, Doubleday, 1989), for\r\nexample:\r\n<P>\r\nThe Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played\r\nRachmaninoff\'s Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained\r\nSteinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the\r\nswamps below.  (Simmons 3)\r\n<P>\r\nThe prospect of exploring an entirely fresh setting is not only one of the\r\npleasures of SF,  it is also one of the great strengths of IF.  There\'s\r\nnothing quite like the anticipation of firing up a new game and wondering\r\nwhere it will take you.  You can\'t dip into the game\'s \"pages\" or browse\r\nahead the way you can with a book, to see what\'s coming.  In fact one of\r\nthe main rewards for solving IF puzzles has traditionally been that you\r\nthen advance to a new area and Read It for the Very First Time (a pleasure\r\nthat can never be repeated).  So the marriage of SF\'s worldbuilding and\r\nIF\'s active discoveries can be particularly satisfying.  \r\n<P>\r\nUnfortunately SF games, like SF literature, can be an acquired\r\ntaste.  Many widely-read and intellectually curious people avoid SF as too\r\nidiosyncratic and self-referential, and rightly complain that SF novels\r\nrequire too much work or familiarity with *other* SF to be enjoyable for\r\nthe newcomer.  In the twenty years since IF was first widely published,\r\nhowever, literary SF has undergone a sea-change.  Modern science fiction\r\nisn\'t only about space exploration, or encounters with aliens, or worlds\r\nwith futuristic high tech anymore. The boundaries of the genre are\r\nblurring, and non-SF readers are more likely to test the waters.  Fantasy\r\nis invading SF and vice versa.  The genre has attracted more established\r\nauthors from other fields who are writing speculative fiction out of their\r\nwider experiences.  The gee-whiz gadget factor in SF plots, while still\r\nalive and kicking, is increasingly taking a back seat to the drama of the\r\nhuman condition, transplanted to imagined future or alternative\r\nworlds.  This has potential to inspire modern IF and send it off into\r\ninteresting directions, perhaps attracting new players to SF games in the\r\nprocess.\r\n<P>\r\nI. The Pleasures of Classic-Style SF Games \r\n<P>\r\nClassic SF games drew heavily from the tradition of space exploration in\r\nliterary SF, whose settings ranged from Arthur C. Clarke\'s alien artifacts\r\nand Ray Bradbury\'s evocative, polymorphing Mars, to all the other worlds\r\nwhere space adventurers stumble onto a strange planet, or the ruins of an\r\nancient civilization, or a starship adrift, or an abandoned space outpost\r\nwhere all the colonists have disappeared or fled.  IF stories written in\r\nthis style contain a central puzzle: the PC must figure out how things\r\nwork, piece together evidence and solve the mystery of what\r\nhappened.   Typically the player, like the PC, gets to poke around,\r\nactivating old machines and recording devices, reading records, perhaps\r\neven trying to decipher an alien language.  \r\n<P>\r\nNewer games in this traditional style include Ian Finley\'s 1997\r\n\"Babel\" (research station abandoned after a biological disaster), Nate\r\nCull\'s 1997 \"Glowgrass\" (abandoned world with a Planet of the Apes-style\r\ntwist), Ross Raszewski\'s 2001 \"Moments Out of Time\" (abandoned home in\r\npost-nuclear United States) , Sean Barrett\'s 2001 \"The Weapon\" (alien\r\nartifact, with the added obstacle of a hostile colleague who is at once\r\ntrying to help and to thwart you), and Paul O\'Brian\'s 2000\r\n\"LASH\" (plantation abandoned after Second American Civil War).\r\n<P>\r\nOne problem with exploring an abandoned landscape, searching for the story\r\nit has to tell, is that it can be a pretty lonely experience, even when\r\nthe game gives you a helper-NPC like \"Planetfall\"\'s Floyd or Dig Leader\r\nCheryl in \"The Weapon\".  While there are many examples of novel and\r\naffecting aliens in the literary SF genre-ranging from collective\r\nhive-minds to plasma entities inhabiting the core of stars-IF so far has\r\nnot told the classic SF story of \"first contact\", perhaps because it is\r\nchallenging enough for an author to realize a normal NPC.  \"The\r\nHitchhiker\'s Guide to the Galaxy\" (Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky,\r\nInfocom, 1984) and \"Arrival, or Attack of the B-Movie Cliches\" (Stephen\r\nGranade, 1998) used humor to create aliens that exhibit all-too-human\r\ntraits like vanity and greed, with the author\'s tongue firmly in\r\ncheek.  Other than \"Worlds Apart\" (Britton, 1999), in which the player\r\ncharacter turns out to be a very interesting nonhuman on an Earth-like\r\nplanet, the SF genre in IF has yet to introduce us to a really, well,\r\n*alien* alien.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nII. The Pleasures of Multi-Genre SF Games \r\n<P>\r\nThere have always been multi-genre SF works in literature, just as in IF,\r\nwith an enticing blend of the surreal and the mundane, the historical and\r\nthe futuristic, and lately more and more SF writers are moving away from\r\nthe traditional SF emphasis on science and the drama of the\r\nmachine.  Young authors like Nalo Hopkinson and China Mieville are writing\r\nfabulist novels, while others like Dan Simmons and Maria Doria Russell and\r\nPatricia Anthony have taken the tired old tropes of space exploration and\r\nfirst contact, and turned them into rich stories about religious faith and\r\ndoubt.  There is a lively overlap between SF and other genres, as writers\r\ntransplant the hardboiled detective novel to a near-future (Richard\r\nRusso\'s San Francisco cops) or the romance or historical novel to the\r\nnear-past (Kage Baker\'s California chronoarcheologists).  \r\n<P>\r\nIF that is multi- or meta-genre not only can attract players that don\'t\r\nnormally care for science fiction, it can also make for terrific\r\ngames.  One of the oldest IF works of this type, which was decidedly fresh\r\nfor its time, was \"Trinity\" (Moriarity, Infocom, 1986).  The game sneaked\r\nup on you:  there were no time-travel machines, no teleporters, no hi-tech\r\ngear to scare off players who didn\'t \"do\" science fiction. You began as a\r\ntourist in a pleasurable if slightly eccentric version of Kensington\r\nGardens, London but gradually the landscape became more surreal and before\r\nlong you were escaping the start of World War III and emerged into a\r\nfantastical world of giant mushrooms, complete with sundials that\r\ndistorted time and trellises that distorted space.  The game eventually\r\ntook you to Nagasaki, outer space and an atomic research station, among\r\nother real and fantasy settings, and one of its primary pleasures was\r\ndiscovering how all the parts fit into the whole.  By then, science\r\nfiction fan or no, you were along for the ride. \r\n<P>\r\nOne of the simplest ways for a science fiction writer to blend genres in\r\nIF is to use futuristic technology as simply the framing device for a more\r\nconventional story.  Story hooks like virtual reality booths or time\r\ntravel machines offer great flexibility to an author who wants to tell an\r\nSF story that appeals to an audience broader than hardcore SF fans, given\r\nthat the PC can be transported to settings ranging from historical palace\r\nintrigue to present-day romance to classic locked-room murder mystery.       \r\n<P>\r\nA pioneer in this tradition of layering realities was \"A Mind Forever\r\nVoyaging\" (Steve Meretzky, Infocom, 1985), which used the framing device\r\nof a computer simulation to land the PC in a naturalistic city, complete\r\nwith a wife and child and a life of his own, and then charged the player\r\nas well as the PC to explore and assess the changes in that society over\r\ntime.  The city felt wonderfully open-ended and well-realized, even though\r\nit fell far short of the standards for realism today, because its\r\nconstraints-you could only interact with a small number of citizens and\r\nmost buildings couldn\'t be entered, for example-felt like a limitation of\r\nthe simulation, not of the parser or the game itself.\r\n<P>\r\nAnother benefit of the time travel/VR/multiple realities framing device\r\nfor IF authors is that it\'s easy to give the PC a motivation to explore\r\nand discover his or her identity and goals, without resort to a clumsy\r\nplot device like amnesia.  It\'s not unusual in these games for the PC to\r\nbe as much a newcomer to the game\'s setting as the player.  Whether it\'s\r\nthe Professor waking up as a dead guy in the ruins of his underwater lab\r\nin \"Till Death Makes a Monkfish Out of Me\" (Jon Ingold and Mike Sousa,\r\n2002), or the time traveler in \"Vicious Cycles\" (Simon Mark, 2001) trying\r\nto thwart a terrorist plot, or Arthur Dent turning up as \"Phil\" at a party\r\nin Islington in \"The Hitchhiker\'s Guide to the Galaxy\" (Douglas Adams &\r\nSteve Meretzky, Infocom, 1984), the PC typically is confused at first has\r\nno idea what to do-just like the player.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nIII. We\'re not in Kansas anymore\r\n<P>\r\nAuthors of science fiction have always faced a special challenge:  if you\r\ndrop your reader into a story where daily life is full of futuristic\r\ntechnology, how do you bring him or her up to speed on the basic life\r\nskills the protagonists already understand?  A reader immersed too\r\nsuddenly into a world of farcasters, warpdrives, black I.C.E. or\r\nnanotechnology is a reader frustrated and distracted from the story.  This\r\ndilemma is even more acute for authors of IF.  Readers who don\'t\r\n\"get\" elements of an SF novel\'s setting can keep reading, or skimming,\r\neven if they fail to experience the novel as intended.  An IF player who\r\nloses a full visual sense of the world and how things work there will\r\nprobably get stuck.  In games with puzzles, there\'s no skimming.\r\n<P>\r\nAlthough the maxim \"show not tell\" applies to SF novels as well as SF\r\ngames, there\'s nothing wrong with openly instructing a reader about the\r\nworld instead of weaving all the details into the scenes themselves.  \"The\r\nHitchhiker\'s Guide to the Galaxy\" (Adams & Meretzky, Infocom, 1984) used\r\nwhimsical footnotes to fill in details about the gameworld and the note\r\ncommand was incorporated in later SF games like the Unnkulian series,\r\ne.g., \"The Legend Lives!\" (Baggett, Great Underground Adventures,\r\n1994).  The Guide itself, and indeed all games containing Guide-like\r\nencyclopedias crafted more for the player rather than the player\r\ncharacter, demonstrates that exposition does not have to kill the momentum\r\nof the narrative, particularly when it\'s delivered in an entertaining\r\nstyle.  \r\n<P>\r\nIF\'s great strength, however, is that the player can learn by doing.  The\r\nmost satisfying way for an game to accomplish the task of familiarizing\r\nthe player with an unusual setting is by making the invented, unfamiliar\r\nelements of the setting into puzzles that the player can work out.  \r\n<P>\r\nIn \"Kaged\" (Ian Finley, 2000), for example, the PC is a faceless\r\nbureaucrat in a 1984- or Brazil-style law enforcement institution who is\r\nnewly emboldened to break the rules and explore.  The obstacles he\r\nencounters in moving around the Citadel of Justice and obtaining necessary\r\nitems serve as puzzles for the player.  They also paint a world of\r\npervasive surveillance, Rube Goldberg-esque regulations, officious (and\r\nsuspicious) underlings, and total conformity enforced by the threat of\r\nviolence.\r\n<P>\r\nIn \"Worlds Apart\" (Suzanne Britton, 1999),  the nature and powers of the\r\nPC, as well as the social and natural structure of the gameworld, are\r\nslowly revealed through exploration and conversation.  The game includes\r\nnontraditional puzzles such as an instruction session with a mentor who\r\nencourages the PC to learn her abilities through trial and error, giving\r\nthe player a pleasurable surprise when an action works, like using a\r\nmuscle for the very first time.\r\n<P>\r\nWhether their games are more or less puzzle-driven, IF authors can learn\r\nfrom the techniques of good SF writers who rely less on exposition or\r\nfamiliarity with the familiar conventions of traditional SF (e.g., how\r\ntime-travel paradoxes and faster-than-light-travel work) and instead\r\nconvey the invented or high-tech elements of their gameworlds with a light\r\ntouch.  Admittedly it is much easier for a novelist to show a character\r\nusing say, a Hawking mat, than it is for an IF author to make a Hawking\r\nmat available to the PC-who should already know what it is, and what to do\r\nwith it-and then clue the player sufficiently well that the *player* knows\r\nwhat to do with it, too.  One solution is to leave the high tech or\r\nfantastical elements in the background, if they cannot be readily made\r\ninto puzzles in the foreground, and let the player\'s actions be focused on\r\nother aspects of the drama, such as character interaction, while little\r\ndetails of the world seep in.\r\n<P>\r\n*************************\r\nEditor: I planned to put in a paragraph here with an example of a novel\r\nthat conveys an invented future world through background elements and\r\ndoesn\'t intrude with infodumps or alienate the new SF reader.   Maureen\r\nMcHugh\'s \"China Mountain Zhang\" may be too soft a SF novel for a good\r\nexample, so I\'m still thinking.  I\'m also open to suggestions.\r\n*************************\r\n<P>\r\nIV.  Conclusion \r\n<P>\r\nAt its best, the SF genre provides the same pleasure as any other good\r\npiece of interactive fiction-engaging characters in an entertaining story\r\nwith good, integrated puzzles along the way-with an added spice:  the\r\nworlds in this genre are decidedly fresh.  The mixing of styles and the\r\nnew perspectives that are invigorating literary SF may inspire current and\r\nnew IF authors, and attract players who will be surprised to discover that\r\nthey enjoy science fiction after all.\r\n<P>\r\nMeanwhile, IF authors and players alike should keep an eye on the written\r\nSF genre.  In 1995 Neal Stephenson in _The Diamond Age_ made an IF story\r\nthe centerpiece of his novel, introducing an intelligent book, the \"Young\r\nLady\'s Illustrated Primer\" that used interactive stories to teach his\r\nyoung picaresque heroine how to survive in a technologically and socially\r\ncomplex world.  SF is not only a great source of story ideas for IF,  it\r\nis also imagining IF\'s future.  \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nWORKS CITED\r\n<P>\r\nBooks\r\n<P>\r\nSimmons, Dan. _Hyperion_.  New York, Doubleday, 1989.\r\nStephenson, Neal. _The Diamond Age_. New York, Bantam, 1995.\r\n<P>\r\nNote to Editors: Please let me know if you prefer me to give cites to\r\nrelevant works of the authors I mentioned by name at the beginning of Part\r\nII, i.e., Hopkinson, Mieville, Simmons, Russell, Anthony, Russo, and\r\nBaker.\r\n<P>\r\nGames\r\n<P>\r\nAdams, Douglas and Meretzky, Steve.  \"The Hitchhiker\'s Guide to the\r\nGalaxy\".  Infocom, 1984.\r\n<P>\r\nBaggett, David.  \"The Legend Lives!\".  Great Underground Adventures, 1994,\r\n1996.\r\n<P>\r\nBarrett, Sean. \"The Weapon\".  2001.\r\n<P>\r\nBritton, Suzanne. Worlds Apart, 1999\r\n<P>\r\nCull, Nate.  \"Glowgrass\".  1997.\r\n<P>\r\nFinley, Ian. \"Babel\". 1997.\r\n<P>\r\n---. \"Kaged\". 2000.\r\n<P>\r\nGranade, Stephen.  \"Arrival, or Attack of the B-Movie Cliches\".  1998\r\n<P>\r\nLebling, Dave. \"Starcross\".  Infocom, 1982.\r\n<P>\r\nMark, Simon.  \"Vicious Cycles\".  2001\r\n<P>\r\nMeretzky, Steve.  \"A Mind Forever Voyaging\".  Infocom, 1985.\r\n<P>\r\n---.  \"Planetfall\".  Infocom, 1983\r\n<P>\r\n---.  \"Stationfall\".  Infocom, 1987.\r\n<P>\r\nMoriarity, Brian.  \"Trinity\".  Infocom, 1986.\r\n<P>\r\nO\'Brian, Paul.  LASH, 2000.\r\n<P>\r\nRaszewski, L. Ross. \"Moments Out of Time\".  2001.',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2006-08-25 07:11:19',2,8,2978),(13,'Writing Descriptive Prose in IF',4,'Descriptions Constructed<br>\r\nby Stephen Granade\r\n<P>\r\nA work of interactive fiction is a web of descriptions. Nearly every\r\nobject and room in a work has a description, a block of text\r\nassociated with that object which is printed after a LOOK or EXAMINE\r\ncommand.\r\n<P>\r\nThe word \"description\" is a lie, though, or at the very least\r\nmisleading. The main purpose of a description may not be to describe\r\nan object. At the most basic level, descriptions are the primary\r\nmethod by which an author conveys information about a game world.\r\n<P>\r\nAuthors don\'t have to reveal much about an object or room at all in a\r\ndescription. They can overtly or subtly mislead players. Elements of\r\nan object can go undescribed in order to emphasize other elements. An\r\nauthor can write a description that lies, if the narrator telling the\r\nstory is unreliable. Descriptions can also carry more information\r\nabout an object than the physical: what mood the room or object\r\nevokes, the state of the game world, and even meta-game information.\r\n<P>\r\nLetting go of the preconception that descriptions must describe frees\r\nauthors to achieve any number of effects. This hasn\'t been discussed\r\nin depth before, despite the sizeable amount of extant advice on\r\nwriting descriptions, especially for rooms. Graham Nelson, in \"The\r\nCraft of Adventure\" (later subsumed into the \"Inform Designer\'s\r\nManual\"), explores both the craft and art of writing room\r\ndescriptions. He focuses on physical descriptions, a relaying of what\r\nthe room looks like, as well as how you provide the player with\r\ndirectional information. Similarly, in \"Writing Basic Adventure\r\nPrograms for the TRS-80,\" Frank DaCosta gives five guidelines for\r\nwriting room descriptions, four of which are generally applicable:\r\ninclude pathway hints, use non-oriented language (language which\r\ndepends on how you entered the room, such as \"You fall into a dark,\r\nslimy pit\"), avoid describing unimplemented objects, and use creative\r\ndescriptions. In both works the assumption is that descriptions\r\ndescribe. This assumption is so self-evident that neither work\r\ndiscusses how you describe objects, since you\'ll just be talking about\r\nwhat the object looks like.\r\n<P>\r\nI\'m interested in the things you can do with a description besides\r\ndescribe. If you\'re looking for a primer on how to describe objects,\r\nlook elsewhere, preferably at how games you like handle this\r\ntask. Throughout I\'ll be speaking to authors, though players may find\r\nthis article interesting. I won\'t be talking much about the <i>art</i>\r\nof description-writing. I\'m taking a nuts-and-bolts approach to the\r\ntask: if I have three goals for a description, how do I go about\r\nassembling sentences to achieve those goals?  Last, I\'ll continue to\r\ncall the text associated with objects and rooms \"descriptions,\" but\r\nkeep in mind that a description doesn\'t necessarily have to describe.\r\n<P>\r\nRather than pull examples from other games, I\'m going to invent\r\ndescriptions for a completely new game, \"Quod Erat.\" In it, the player\r\nis a tourist visiting the ruins of Ostia, once a thriving harbor city\r\nsome twenty miles from Rome. While there, the player will be thrown\r\nback in time, visiting the city when it was still a city.\r\n<P>\r\nLet\'s start with mood and atmosphere. How you describe is as important\r\nas what you describe. Choice of words and phrasing; the use of\r\nliterary techniques such as metaphor, assonance, and juxtaposition of\r\nimages; and what you emphasize in your descriptions have as much of an\r\neffect on the atmosphere you invoke as Monet\'s choice of colors did on\r\nhis series of paintings of the Rouen Cathedral.\r\n<P>\r\nThe first location in Ostia the player will reach is actually the\r\ntombs just outside of Ostia. I want to emphasize the emptiness of the\r\nruins as a contract to later in the game, when the player travels back\r\nin time to when Ostia was a thriving city. And I\'m not above using\r\ncheap dramatic tricks to get my point across -- good thing I\'m\r\ndiscussing craft and not art. I also want to remind players of their\r\nstatus as tourists.\r\n<P>\r\n  Tombs Outside Ostia\r\n<P>\r\n  Walls, or the remains of them, box you in on all sides.  Wind\r\n  whistles through the head-height niches in some of the\r\n  walls. Underneath your feet loose stones crunch. The southwest\r\n  corner where the walls meet is low enough and the dirt in the corner\r\n  piled high enough that you could scramble out.\r\n<P>\r\nI\'ve pulled out every cliched trick in the book. I have wind whistling\r\nthrough empty openings, I have crunching stones underfoot, and I have\r\na total lack of life. Players will undoubtedly look at the niches, so\r\nI\'ll re-emphasize the dead nature of Ostia. I\'ll also remind them that\r\nthey\'re tourists.\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE NICHES<br>\r\n  Burial niches, according to the poorly-photocopied sheet you read\r\n  back in the Welcome Center. They are just deeper than you can reach,\r\n  and all are empty.\r\n<P>\r\nOne of the main locations in Ostia is the Capitolium, an ancient\r\ntemple dedicated to the Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno, and\r\nMinerva. The Capitolium is an imposing edifice, despite its lack of a\r\nroof or front wall. As above I want to mention the ruins of Ostia and\r\nthe general disrepair of the Capitolium.\r\n<P>\r\n  In Front of a Brick Shell\r\n<P>\r\n  To the north rises a shell of reddish brick. It\'s twice as wide as\r\n  it is deep or tall, and it\'s rather tall. The wall in front of you\r\n  is missing, giving you room to enter the shell. The whole thing is\r\n  on top of a tall podium, though your side of the podium has\r\n  stairs. Ruins are on all other sides, though most of them look to be\r\n  to the south.\r\n<P>\r\nI didn\'t call it the Capitolium because the player doesn\'t know that\'s\r\nwhat it is yet. This segues nicely into my second point: descriptions\r\ndon\'t have to be static. They can reflect the increasing knowledge of\r\nthe player or the changing state of the game world. In the case of\r\n\"Quod Erat,\" the player will eventually find a tourbook and map, the\r\nbetter to learn about Ostia. Once they find the tourbook and return to\r\nthe Capitolium, they\'ll see the following:\r\n<P>\r\n  In Front of the Capitolium\r\n<P>\r\n  According to your tourbook, the rectangular shell of reddish-brown\r\n  brick rising in front of you is the Capitolium, dating back to the\r\n  reign of Hadrian. The shell is over fifty feet high and deep, and\r\n  twice as wide. It stands atop a tall podium; luckily there are\r\n  stairs leading up to the Capitolium. The wall in front of you to the\r\n  north is missing, giving you room to enter the former temple. The\r\n  forum stretches out on all other sides, the bulk of it lying to the\r\n  south.\r\n<P>\r\nI would limit how much game-critical information is in a changed room\r\ndescription. Even though my games default to verbose room listings,\r\nnot all players will stick with that setting.\r\n<P>\r\nThe description of an object can change as the player learns more\r\nabout it as well. A common trick is to describe an object in sketchy\r\ndetails when listed in a room description, only to have the object\'s\r\ndescription tell the player what it really is. The EXAMINE command is\r\ncommonly assumed to mean, \"I want to take a close look at the object.\"\r\nIt\'s thus reasonable for what is described as a piece of paper in a\r\nroom description to turn out to be a grimy dollar bill when examined.\r\n<P>\r\nThe coin that will take the player back into the past begins as a\r\ndirt-covered nub on the floor of a room.\r\n<P>\r\n  Base of the Western Spiral Staircase\r\n<P>\r\n  This narrow niche off the <i>cella</i> ends to the west in a spiral\r\n  staircase winding around a thick column. The floor of the niche has\r\n  been swept smooth by countless feet, except for raised nubs of dirt\r\n  near the north wall. The <i>cella</i> itself is to the east.\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE NUBS OF DIRT<br>\r\n  For the most part, rocks covered in dirt. There is a glint from\r\n  one of them.\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE GLINT<br>\r\n  Something disc-shaped, and covered in dirt. Metal shows through the\r\n  dirt in places.\r\n<P>\r\nThe glint serves to tell the player that there\'s something special\r\nabout one of the nubs of dirt. The hint of metal suggests that the\r\ndisc should be cleaned. This is important, since the coin is activated\r\nby rubbing it. When the dirt is cleaned off, it is revealed to be a\r\ncoin.\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE DISC<br>\r\n  Now that you\'ve cleaned off the dirt, you can see that the disc is a\r\n  coin. One side is badly damaged and nearly smooth, but the other\r\n  side has a picture of a man on a chariot holding a spear aloft.\r\n<P>\r\nAnd to olden Ostia the player goes! Mentioning the results of an\r\naction in an object description is a good way to acknowledge the\r\nplayer\'s actions, but can become tiresome if they carry the object\r\nthroughout the remainder of the game. After the first time they\r\nexamine the disc/coin, I\'ll strike the first sentence and add the\r\nphrase \"of the coin\" to the remaining sentence, so that the\r\ndescription will begin, \"One side of the coin is badly damaged...\"\r\n<P>\r\nI\'m glossing over a number of game details, of course, like what\r\nsynonyms for \"nub(s) of dirt\" or \"glint\" the game should\r\nrecognize. Since I\'m worried about descriptions and not general game\r\ndesign, I\'ll merely wave my hands about furiously and assume we\'ll get\r\nthose details right.\r\n<P>\r\nSo much for evolving player knowledge; what about an evolving game\r\nworld? In Infocom\'s \"Enchanter,\" the room descriptions change as the\r\ngame progresses, describing a castle that decays further with each\r\npassing day. The change I have in mind for \"Quod Erat\" is even more\r\ndramatic. The player can, by mucking about in the past, end up\r\ndestroying the Capitolium. When the player does so and returns to the\r\npresent, the description of the Capitolium has changed.\r\n<P>\r\n  In Front of the Capitolium Podium\r\n<P>\r\n  The podium where the Capitolium used to be rises in front of\r\n  you. Marble stairs lead northward to its top, where a few of the\r\n  Capitolium walls, none more than two feet high, still stand. The\r\n  forum stretches out to all sides of you.\r\n<P>\r\nAfter the very first description I gave, I mentioned that players will\r\nundoubtedly look at the niches. When you mention things in room\r\ndescriptions, players will generally examine them. The more\r\nprominently you mention objects, or the odder you make their\r\ndescription within the room description, the more notice they\'ll\r\ndraw.\r\n<P>\r\nYou can use this fact to direct players\' attention and lead them in\r\nthe direction you want them to go. For instance, once in old Ostia,\r\nthe player will come across a Roman terra-cotta lamp. This lamp will\r\nserve a two-fold purpose. One, it will provide light. Two, it will\r\nprovide a source of heat. (It will also provide fire, always a\r\ndangerous substance in interactive fiction. I\'m sure the game will\r\ndeal with it properly, hand wave, hand wave, hand wave.)  The heat\r\nfrom the lamp will be necessary to soften the wax stopper of a bottle\r\nlater on.\r\n<P>\r\nSince players won\'t necessarily connect heat with light, I\'ll mention it\r\nexplicitly so as to direct players and help them follow my lead. When\r\nreading a paragraph, people remember best what\'s in the first\r\nsentence, followed by what\'s in the last sentence. For this reason I\'m\r\ngoing to mention the heat in the first sentence. This is an effect\r\nthat is not to be overused. Players may figure out that you always put\r\nimportant details in the first or last sentence if you don\'t vary your\r\ntechnique. Save the first-or-last-sentence trick for situations where\r\nyou want to give a stronger-than-normal clue.\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE LAMP<br>\r\n  Heat rises from the lit wick of the terra-cotta lamp. The lamp is\r\n  teapot-shaped, with a circular handle on one end and the wick\r\n  emerging from the spout on the other end. Where the convex lid of a\r\n  teapot would be is a concave top inscribed with a battle scene.\r\n<P>\r\nSimilarly, if there\'s something important in a room which a player\r\nneeds to examine, you can make sure to mention it in such a way as to\r\nset it apart from the rest of the room description. For instance, in\r\nthe builder\'s guild courtyard, there are some marble columns which\r\ncontain clues to a puzzle. I want to make sure players notice them.\r\n<P>\r\n  Courtyard of the Builder\'s Guild\r\n<P>\r\n  The courtyard, surrounded by the builder\'s guild, is a rectangle\r\n  with its narrow ends to the north and south. The entire courtyard is\r\n  surrounded by a porticus with brick piers. The north and south sides\r\n  have squat marble columns that differ from all the others you\'ve\r\n  seen. Leaning in one corner of the courtyard is a statue.\r\n<P>\r\nThe phrase \"differ from all the others\" is meant to catch the player\'s\r\nattention: hey, here\'s something out of the ordinary. This effect can\r\nbe used as a stage magician uses patter and fast hand movements, to\r\ndistract the player for a while. There is a bathhouse in Ostia, and\r\none of the rooms with a basin has a trap door leads to a tunnel\r\nbelow. The room\'s floor is covered with mosaics, except where the trap\r\ndoor is. If the player examines the gap in the mosaic, or even the\r\nmosaic or floor itself, the trap door will be described.\r\n<P>\r\nTo delay that event, I\'m going to make one of the architectural\r\ndetails of the room more prominent. I\'ll also make sure to mention the\r\nbasin in every sentence, and only mention the mosaic as a lead-in to\r\ndescribing the basin.\r\n<P>\r\n   Northern Cold Basin\r\n<P>\r\n   Geometric designs picked out in black-and-white mosaics run nearly\r\n   all the way around the basin in the center of the room. All three\r\n   walls of the basin have niches; from them, water jets from a\r\n   pipe. The west niche seems deeper than the other three. Tall\r\n   columns separate the basin from the frigidarium.\r\n<P>\r\nI said I wouldn\'t discuss how you deal with room exits in room\r\ndescriptions, but I lied just the tiniest bit. There is a south exit\r\nfrom the room which I didn\'t describe because the only initial way\r\ninto the room is through that exit.\r\n   \r\nObject descriptions can carry meta-game information. There are times\r\nwhen use of an object requires special syntax that will not be easily\r\nguessible. The stone-placing game in \"Quod Erat\" is one such\r\nobject. Players must place marbles on a rectangular grid.\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE BOARD<br>\r\n  The wooden playing board has hemispherical depressions arranged in a\r\n  six-by-five grid. Each depression is just big enough to hold one of\r\n  the marbles from the trough beside the board.\r\n<P>\r\n  [To place a marble in a specific depression, type >PUT MARBLE IN X,\r\n   Y where X, Y are the x and y coordinates on the board.]\r\n<P>\r\nIt\'s customary to set such meta-game information off from the regular\r\ndescription by surrounding it with square braces.\r\n<P>\r\nWhile descriptions customarily give physical information, they don\'t\r\nhave to. You can describe without really describing by depending on\r\nwhat the player knows from real life.\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE PEBBLE<br>\r\n  Pebbles in the past are just like pebbles in the present, only\r\n  newer.\r\n<P>\r\nSometimes what you want to describe isn\'t really visible. At one point\r\nin \"Quod Erat,\" a mouse runs across the floor of the room and into a\r\nmousehole. An attempt to examine the mouse will result in\r\n<P>\r\n  >EXAMINE THE MOUSE<br>\r\n  You can see nothing of it, as fast as it ran across the floor and\r\n  into its mousehole. There is the hint of light glinting off eyes\r\n  deep within the hole.\r\n<P>\r\nSometimes you\'ll want to use descriptions to indicate the player\'s\r\nstate rather than that of the world. In old Ostia the player can find\r\na bottle of drugged liquor. The player will, of course, drink from it,\r\ndespite the inadvisability of such an act. Shortly after that occurs,\r\nthe player\'s grip on reality will slip rather badly. The resulting\r\nroom description when it first occurs will bear little resemblance to\r\nthe actual room description when the player isn\'t drugged.\r\n<P>\r\n  In a Grey Fog\r\n<P>\r\n  You are surrounded by a grey fog which hides most everything.\r\n  Indistinct shapes surround you, some near, some far. Thinner patches\r\n  of fog lead south and southwest.\r\n<P>\r\nThe directions in the description will correspond to actual room exits\r\nfor whatever room the player is in, though subsequent movement will\r\ntake the player into uncharted territory.\r\n<P>\r\nI\'ve given a number of examples of what you can do with descriptions\r\nbesides describe. They can set the tone and atmosphere of parts of the\r\ngame. They can reflect the changing nature of player knowledge and the\r\nstate of the game world. They can both lead and mislead players,\r\nletting you choose in part where the players will focus their\r\nattention. They can carry meta-game information, and they can even\r\ncarry no information about the true physical nature of the object they\r\npurport to describe.\r\n<P>\r\nThe above list is not exhaustive. It\'s meant to serve as a starting\r\npoint, not an ending one. Nor is it meant to suggest that all\r\ndescriptions must do more than describe. Descriptions are meant to\r\nconvey information in one form or another, and most of the time that\r\ninformation should be the physical description of the object in\r\nquestion. Nevertheless, knowing some of what descriptions can do will\r\nhopefully give you ideas of things to do in your own games.',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-02-13 18:55:52',1,9,3440),(14,'Descriptive styles in IF',13,'IF-THEORY\r\n<P>\r\nMapping the Tale: Scene Description in IF \r\nby J. Robinson Wheeler\r\n<P>\r\n       The more accurate the map, the more it resembles \r\n    the territory. The most accurate map possible would \r\n    be the territory. <br>\r\n       The tale is the map that is the territory. <br>\r\n       You must remember this. <br>\r\n                            -- Neil Gaiman, American Gods\r\n<P>\r\nIntrinsic to interactive fiction at its inception was the simulation of location,\r\nof giving the player the ability to move from place to place. This illusion is\r\nachieved, simply and efficiently, by strings of text, location names and scene\r\ndescriptions; and by a map of connections between the objects that print these\r\nstrings. When a player surrenders his sense of place to the game\'s map, he\r\nresponds to a new bit of text by imagining he has walked (or crawled, or slid, or\r\nclimbed) somewhere he hasn\'t been before, and is taking in all of the details. If\r\nhe recognizes a bit of text, he knows he has re-entered familiar territory.\r\n<P>\r\nThe basic requirements of scene descriptions go no farther than this. If you let\r\nthe player know where he is, and where the exits are, your job is done. This\r\narticle, however, will provide many examples of scene descriptions that first\r\nmeet and then, in some way, exceed these requirements. If your IF game has a\r\nstory, your scene descriptions should serve the story. If you want to give your\r\ngame atmosphere, broaden your use of sense details within your scene descriptions\r\nto include sounds, smells, and even textures, instead of just sights. If you want\r\nyour game to have a strong narrative voice, scene descriptions are a good place\r\nto establish it. If you are using a well-defined PC, the scene descriptions can\r\nbe used to reinforce your protagonist\'s point of view of each location. If your\r\ngame has a complicated back-story, scene descriptions can provide expositional as\r\nwell as locational detail. If the pace of the game quickens, scene descriptions\r\nshould keep pace, becoming briefer, more active, even changing from turn to turn\r\nto sustain the player\'s feeling of urgency.\r\n<P>\r\nCaves\r\n<P>\r\nIn the beginning, Will Crowther\'s original \"Advent\" (1972), the basic\r\nmap-and-scene-description system we still use today was invented and put to use\r\nin a simulated exploration of Bedquilt Cave. The scene descriptions were\r\nevocations of actual locations, and the location names were encapsulations of\r\nthese evocations. Some of them were fictional, serving to create the ambience of\r\nadventure rather than the pure simulation of caving, as in the following example:\r\n<P>\r\nIn Hall of Mists You are at one end of a vast hall stretching forward out of\r\nsight to the west. There are openings to either side. Nearby, a wide stone\r\nstaircase leads downward. The hall is filled with wisps of white mist swaying to\r\nand fro almost as if alive. A cold wind blows up the staircase. There is a\r\npassage at the top of a dome behind you. \r\nRough stone steps lead up the dome.\r\n<P>\r\nFrom a sense of nostalgia, or an interest in re-exploring well-trod IF territory\r\nfor one\'s own creative satisfaction, many modern authors continue to use caves as\r\na setting, even knowing full well that any cave descriptions are going to be\r\ncompared to what\'s already been done (and done many times, as IF in its first\r\ndecade was dedicated almost exclusively to Advent dervatives). The evocative\r\npotential of cave descriptions seems not to have run dry, but new authors should\r\nproceed with care; an IF trope, even if intended as homage, may be perceived as\r\nan IF cliche instead.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Base of Canyon <br>\r\n    You are in an alcove, a side chamber at the base of a vaulting \r\n    canyon. The walls spread upward around you. And the distant roof \r\n    is hung with glimmering stars -- droplet-tipped stalactites in some \r\n    hidden suffusion of light. A crevice runs along the canyon at your \r\n    feet. You can cross it and continue on ahead, or re-enter the crawl \r\n    behind you. \r\n    \r\n    A pool of thick, dark, reeking blood is spilled across the \r\n    ground. Bats crawl all around it -- rustling, fluttering, \r\n    feasting.\r\n<P>\r\nThe above example is from Andrew Plotkin\'s \"Hunter, in Darkness\" (1999), in which\r\nhe revisits not just \"Advent\" but an equally early game, \"Hunt the Wumpus\"\r\n(Gregory Yob, 1972), which is usually considered an IF precedent but not IF.\r\n\"Wumpus\" does feature a small map of locations and the ability to walk or shoot\r\ncrooked arrows through the connecting passages. Here, in a scene late in the\r\ngame, Plotkin follows the conventions of scene descriptions, but reaches for a\r\nbit more atmosphere. After the matter-of-fact location name, the description\r\nitself starts with \"You are in...\", a tradition that is still perfectly\r\nacceptable. Note, though, that it does not read, \"You are in the base of a\r\ncanyon,\" nor is the location name \"Alcove.\" The disjoint adds to the sense of\r\nsize and space, of the player taking in the proportions of the canyon as he steps\r\ninto it. Before this location, the game has squeezed us through a succession of\r\nclaustrophobic rooms and tunnels; here, there is space, vaulting up around us as\r\nwe peer out of the alcove. The next sentence is a blunt declaration, \"The walls\r\nspread upward around you.\" This simple sentence serves two functions: repetition\r\nfor impact (\"vaulting canyon\" carries the same information), and the directing of\r\nthe player\'s eyes upward, following the canyon walls up. The next sentence starts\r\nwith \"And,\" which is a stylistic choice that will bother grammar pedants, but it\r\nworks in this context. The player\'s eyes then switch abruptly from the lofty\r\nbeauty of the ceiling to the crevice in the floor, the mention of which segues\r\ninto the convention of listing the available exits from the room. Here, Plotkin\r\navoids having to mention compass directions, but still points the player at\r\nappropriate exit actions: either going back or going ahead, across the crevice.\r\nThere is a certain momentum built into the scene description, backed up by the\r\nmomentum of the plot that has accrued by the time the player reaches this\r\nlocation, that points across the crevice and to whatever lies beyond. The player\r\nhas reached the climax of the game, and the scene description is crafted not\r\nmerely to describe where he\'s standing, but to keep the tension building. \r\n<P>\r\n    Shore of An Underground Lake <br>\r\n    A narrow ledge of solid rock at the southern end of a great \r\n    cavern. Beyond it lies a body of water so flat, so black and \r\n    tranquil, that it might be a surface of polished obsidian. \r\n    Embedded in the wall, a mirror reflects your movements: an \r\n    odd smoothness in the unshaped stone. \r\n<P>\r\n    A heavy bronze bell hangs from a stand.\r\n<P>\r\nThis example, from the beginning of Emily Short\'s \"Metamorphoses\" (2000), is\r\nhighly economical and strongly styled. The location name itself conjures the\r\nbroad picture, and then the description text ticks off details to flesh it out\r\nand build the atmosphere. Missing is \"You are on...\", leaving a chiseled sentence\r\nfragment as the starting point. This is a stylistic trait of this particular\r\nauthor, but it works especially well here. Scenes before this one have\r\nestablished an identity for the player character and a tightly focused narrative\r\npoint of view, hers. Omitting \"You are on...\" preserves the game\'s voice and\r\nintroduces a note of tension that is never resolved.\r\n<P>\r\nKnow the territory, so that you can go somewhere new. To paraphrase Andrew\r\nPlotkin, if you want to write a cave, go visit a cave. In addition, play some IF\r\nwith cave descriptions, and study them, before you try writing your own.\r\n<P>\r\nSIDEBAR: It is worth noting that scene descriptions often are followed by a\r\nsentence or a short paragraph of supplementary scenery, leaving the player with a\r\nfinal detail in the form of an obvious object to interact with. In the example\r\nfrom \"Metamorphoses,\" the player\'s eyes fall last on a heavy bronze bell. Note\r\nthat the mirror embedded in the wall is described in the main scene description,\r\nleaving the bell to stand starkly alone. If we have studied our Classics, we\r\nmight know already that ringing the bell will help us to cross the lake, but the\r\nauthor is giving all players a giant push in the right direction. In \"Hunter,\"\r\nabove, the gruesome supplement is at first encounter merely atmospheric, but it\r\nlater reveals itself to be as important to the player\'s progress, and in the same\r\nway, as worth directing the player\'s attention to as is the heavy bronze bell in\r\nthe \"Metamorphoses\" example. In the example from \"Advent,\" the supplement is\r\nanother room exit. The player will eventually discover that this is because the\r\nsteps that lead up are an obstacle to carrying out a particularly heavy item. The\r\nsteps are thus part of a puzzle, justifying the emphasis that is placed on them\r\nby listing them separately. In some IF languages, authors will write these\r\nsupplementary descriptions in a separate object from the room object that prints\r\nthe main description, but the author should conceive them to be part of the one\r\nscene description for the room. Separate the most important ones, and leave out\r\nwhat does not need to be described, even if creating scenery objects is your idea\r\nof fun.\r\n<P>\r\nHere is an example of a weaker scene description. It has the right elements, but\r\ndoes not hold up to the same level of scrutiny: \r\n<P>\r\n    Tunnels (as Peter and Valerie) <br>\r\n    A huge cavern rises above you. The far reaches are lost \r\n    in shadow mist, and the vaults above fade into a darkness \r\n    pierced with long columns of stone. Chill water drips and \r\n    pools in broken declivities. You can hear little else. A \r\n    river of smoke-grey travertine flows down one wall of the \r\n    chamber. Pale fungi gleam in phosphorescence somewhere above. \r\n    Gloomy side chambers stretch off in many directions.\r\n<P>\r\nThis example appears in \"Being Andrew Plotkin\" (Wheeler, 2000), and is an\r\nagglomeration of shorter descriptions written by Andrew Plotkin himself, taken\r\nfrom various pages of Plotkin\'s personal website (which uses cave exploration as\r\nan elaborate metaphor for site navigation). These descriptions predate \"Hunter,\"\r\nbut the stylistic similarities are recognizable. What comes out of this scene\r\ndescription is a sense of contour and shape: the declivities which pool with\r\nwater, the flowing of the travertine down a wall, chambers and pockets, flat\r\ndarkness pierced by rounded stone.\r\n<P>\r\nThe pieced-together nature of the description is evident, unfortunately; the\r\nceiling is described as being lost in mist, fading into darkness, and hiding\r\nphosphorescent fungi all at once. The attention to where the player\'s eyes are\r\nlooking, evident in the example from \"Hunter,\" is missing here; instead of a\r\nprogression from eye-level to ceiling to floor, we look up, then we see pools of\r\nwater, then we listen, then we look at the wall, then we notice a light source\r\nwhose location we aren\'t even sure of, then a collection of exits. The words are\r\nPlotkin\'s, but the organization obviously is not. A characteristic precision is\r\nmissing; authors should endeavor to follow the better example.\r\n<P>\r\nLet us leave Bedquilt Cave behind and visit an equivalently nostalgic setting\r\nfrom IF history. This, one of the most well-remembered and often-quoted scene\r\ndescriptions in IF, the starting location of \"Zork I\" (Blank, Lebling, et al.,\r\n1980) is bafflingly minimal and inert:\r\n<P>\r\n    West of House <br>\r\n    You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with \r\n    a boarded front door. <br>\r\n    There is a small mailbox here.\r\n<P>\r\nWhat is memorable about this? Perhaps that it is iconic, starkly so; \"a white\r\nhouse with a boarded front door\" is easily and quickly drawn in the mind, drawn\r\nand then stored. Trying further to explain its appeal would be pointless and\r\ngrasping. There simply isn\'t much there, which becomes clear as we walk all the\r\nway around the house, and view equally slim scene descriptions:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    West of House <br>\r\n    You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with \r\n    a boarded front door. <br>\r\n    There is a small mailbox here. \r\n    \r\n    >SOUTH <br>\r\n    South of House <br>\r\n    You are facing the south side of a white house. There is no \r\n    door here, and all the windows are boarded. \r\n    \r\n    >EAST <br>\r\n    Behind House <br>\r\n    You are behind the white house. A path leads into the forest \r\n    to the east. In one corner of the house there is a small window \r\n    which is slightly ajar. \r\n<P>\r\nWith dark wit and a bit of daring, Adam Cadre\'s \"Shrapnel\" (2000) riffs on our\r\nexpectations of this familiar location:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    West of the house <br>\r\n    You are standing in an open field west of a white house with \r\n    a boarded front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around \r\n    this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night. \r\n    \r\n    Three snarling attack dogs fight with one another over the \r\n    remains of your corpse. \r\n    \r\n    >S <br>\r\n    You walk around to the south side of the house... \r\n    \r\n    \r\n    South of the house <br>\r\n    You are standing south of a white house. There is no door here, \r\n    and all the windows are boarded. However, one window upstairs is \r\n    unevenly boarded, and you can see light shining through a crack \r\n    between two boards. \r\n    \r\n    >E <br>\r\n    You walk around to the back of the house... \r\n    \r\n    Behind the house <br>\r\n    You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other \r\n    buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, \r\n    outhouse, niggers\' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of \r\n    weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the \r\n    back door slightly ajar. \r\n<P>\r\nStarting from the scene descriptions found in \"Zork,\" Cadre has embroidered them\r\nwith just enough extra detail to evoke an actual setting, a sense of time, place,\r\nand character that are missing from the original. Choose your details carefully,\r\nbecause they can tell a whole story.\r\n<P>\r\nMinimalist scene descriptions like those above are no longer common to any games\r\nbut those of the speed-IF variety and the occasional large-scale IF, where they\r\nare the fatigued work of an author trying to bully through to the end of a long\r\nproject. From \"First Things First\" (Wheeler, 2001):\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Laura\'s office <br>\r\n    Laura\'s office is a small, windowless room with a file \r\n    cabinet and a plain white desk.  The only exit is to the east.\r\n<P>\r\nIf you find yourself writing a scene description like this one, drink some strong\r\ncoffee and try again.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSecondary sense descriptions\r\n<P>\r\nSight is the natural sense that we cater to in a scene description, answering the\r\nplayer\'s question \"What can I see here?\", but secondary sense details can be\r\nuseful tools for IF authors.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Darkness <br>\r\n    It is too dark to see. \r\n    \r\n    A rattling, rustling hiss courses back and forth here. It \r\n    reminds you of... what? Perhaps the sound of the wind in \r\n    the dry grassy plains, back wherever they are. If so, the \r\n    wind itself is a distant high wail to the northwest; a deep \r\n    rumble is barely detectable to the west; and a cacophony of \r\n    shrieks and brassy calls pours from the northeast. \r\n    \r\n    A singing, thrumming chord hangs above you as well. \r\n    \r\n    A cheery bubbling sound surrounds you. \r\n    \r\n    The chord is getting louder.\r\n<P>\r\nThis scene description from \"So Far\" (Plotkin, 1996) completely dispenses with\r\nsight, replacing it with sound. Note how many different kinds of sounds are\r\nevoked, and that the final sentence, \"The chord is getting louder,\" is used to\r\ncreate suspense.\r\n<P>\r\nIn the earlier example from \"Being Andrew Plotkin,\" the player is told what it\r\nsounds like to be standing there, which adds a little bit of atmosphere, but it\r\nis not deployed with enough aim to have much effect. Sound description doesn\'t\r\nmatter to the scene; the appropriate time to use it is when it does.\r\n<P>\r\nIn my own defense, here is a better-crafted scene description from \"Being Andrew\r\nPlotkin\":\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Weird Tunnel <br>\r\n    You are on your hands and knees in a claustrophobic tunnel. \r\n    It leads down, as nearly as you can tell, but your equilibrium \r\n    is distorted in here. The curving walls gleam with the semblance \r\n    of wet rock, but the palms of your hands tell a different story. \r\n    It feels like organic tissue, a thick layer of hide, with the \r\n    elastic strength of muscle. Like sharkskin, it is silken and \r\n    slick in one direction but resists any backwards movement \r\n    with a roughened grain.\r\n<P>\r\nHere, sight is given less attention than the sense of touch; it\'s not what the\r\nplace looks like that makes it weird, it\'s how it feels on your bare palms. The\r\ndirection of the room\'s exit, down, appears at the top of the scene description\r\ninstead of at the tail, but the fact that there is only one way to go is\r\nunderscored by what does come at the end, the sharkskin feel of the floor. The\r\ndescription gives the player the unsettling impression that he is sliding down a\r\ngullet rather than doing some casual spelunking. \"This is no cave,\" as Han Solo\r\nonce put it.\r\n<P>\r\nSmells, too, can be the right detail to add in certain locations, as in this\r\nexample from \"The Tale of the Kissing Bandit\" (Wheeler, 2001):\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Garden park <br>\r\n    The luscious gardens, abloom in the early spring, send \r\n    forth their heady aromas on the nuzzling breezes. Aloft, \r\n    too, are the erotic perfumes of the finely dressed ladies \r\n    in white, walking two by two in the early eve, innocent \r\n    as does, poised as summer swans.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\nActive scene descriptions\r\n<P>\r\nScene descriptions can move even farther away from being passive scenery, instead\r\nserving as active instruments of narration. They describe this present moment of\r\nthe story, what is happening instead of what is visible. Here is an example from\r\n\"First Things First\" (Wheeler, 2001):\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Hanging for dear life <br>\r\n    You are hanging for dear life, with your body slipping \r\n    around the trunk of the tree. Soon you\'ll be upside down, \r\n    trying to support your weight with atrophied muscles, with \r\n    fingers that can\'t find a grip on waterlogged bark. \r\n    \r\n    You feel your body shift again.\r\n<P>\r\nAiding the author in the transition to this more active style of scene\r\ndescription is the use of linking text. In the typical case, IF games move the\r\nplayer from room to room directly, eliding the short journey in between.\r\nTransitional text is used for special cases, where how you got there matters, and\r\nit makes sense to think of them as part of the scene descriptions that follow\r\nthem. Two examples, once again from \"Hunter, In Darkness\" and \"Being Andrew\r\nPlotkin,\" respectively, illustrate this technique: \r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    >FORWARD <br>\r\n    You continue. Scrabble with fingers, brace arms, push \r\n    with toes. You\'re definitely tilted head-down now. Is \r\n    the stone pressing more tightly to either side of you?\r\n    \r\n    Tight Crawl <br>\r\n    You lie on your side, gasping, trying to recover some \r\n    strength. Your back is sore; your neck is worse. Your \r\n    head aches from cracking into unexpected stone. A cold \r\n    stony knot presses into your left side, your right knee. \r\n    You stretch forward once more, feeling for a few more \r\n    inches before you continue. \r\n    \r\n    Splash. \r\n    \r\n    Your fingers are submerged in water. \r\n    \r\n    --\r\n    \r\n    >OUT <br>\r\n    You experience blind panic for the first time in your life, \r\n    despite the absurdity of the setting, and the recognizable \r\n    fiction of the threat. Your life; how small and petty it all \r\n    seems, and how short. There is little light in these twisting \r\n    tunnels, and the faster you run, the more time moves in \r\n    slow motion, and your thoughts turn inward. Your life has \r\n    been blind and short, you think; appropriate, because down \r\n    this last dark turn of the cave tunnel you have met with an \r\n    unexpected, dead end.\r\n    \r\n    Dead End <br>\r\n    It is the classic dead end. More than that, it is the archetypal \r\n    dead end. Nowhere forward, nowhere back. The ceiling shocks \r\n    with its height, the walls oppress with their closeness. There \r\n    are no exits. \r\n    \r\n    A helix of light hangs in the air here, twirling and changing \r\n    colors. \r\n    \r\n    \"We\'re trapped!\" whispers Valerie, as much color drained from \r\n    her face as there is pulsating in the helix above. \r\n<P>\r\nAuthors should be aware that certain effects work only once, and that a scene\r\ndescription written to take advantage of a strong but one-time lead-in may look\r\nawkward all other times the player reads it. The above example from \"Hunter\" is\r\nsomewhat guilty of this, but Plotkin does replace the supplementary text; the\r\none-time only moment of your fingers splashing into water changes, on repeated\r\nlooks, to:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    A trickle of water runs past you, and merges into a shallow \r\n    pool at your fingertips.\r\n<P>\r\nIn the following example from \"Christminster\" (Gareth Rees, 1995), the player is\r\nascribed an overly-generous respectfulness, in that she bows her head in memory\r\nof the honored dead every time she passes through:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Archway between the Courts <br>\r\n    A long, low stone archway with First Court to the west, \r\n    and a door to Second Court to the east. On the north wall \r\n    is a war memorial, a series of simple slate tablets listing \r\n    the names of the members of Biblioll College, undergraduate \r\n    and graduate, who died in the First World War of 1914-1918. \r\n    You bow your head for a moment in memory of these young men \r\n    and what they might have become.\r\n<P>\r\nThis is passable, and perhaps forgiveable if one takes into account that \"Brief\"\r\nwas still the default mode for IF games at the time, and the author may have\r\nassumed that most players would only see it the one time.\r\n<P>\r\nMore notorious is an example from \"First Things First,\" in which a location to\r\nwhich the player repeatedly returns sports a scene description that is only\r\nappropriate once:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Inside house <br>\r\n    You finally step into your house.  Not much of a victory, \r\n    given the circumstances.  Just a lot of planks and rafters.  \r\n    A temporary work ladder is nailed into the structure, and \r\n    leads up to the second floor.\r\n<P>\r\nIgnoring this scene description\'s other faults, we see that the same basic\r\nproblem is on view in \"The Mulldoon Legacy\" (Jon Ingold, 1999): \r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    >DOWN <br>\r\n    (down a short flight of stairs) \r\n    \r\n    Outside the Botanical Room <br>\r\n    Success! After descending a few steps northwards on the \r\n    catwalk you have slipped into a darker archway in the middle \r\n    of the cavern and are now standing face to face with the \r\n    Botanical Room door to the north. Typically, all you have \r\n    to do now is work out how it opens, as there is no window \r\n    you could look through to check if the plants are still \r\n    alive. \r\n    \r\n    The Botanical Room door is closed and locked. \r\n<P>\r\nNote also the parenthetical transition text, which appears on every trip to this\r\nlocation even though it is not important. The main problem with this scene\r\ndescription is the author\'s intrusiveness, a problem often expressed as telling\r\ninstead of showing.\r\n<P>\r\nThe same author continues to write scene descriptions in a similar vein, but has\r\nlearned better how to get away with it, by quickening the pace of his stories, so\r\nthat a one-use scene description is likely not to be accessed more than once.\r\nHere, in \"All Roads\" (Ingold, 2001), his scene descriptions are clearly\r\nfunctioning as narrative:\r\n<P>\r\n    Scaffold in the City Square <br>\r\n    Your head is pulled back, held by the rope pressing \r\n    on your throat. Your toes pivot on a rickety stool, \r\n    which shakes as your legs shake. The crowd filling \r\n    the square are chattering like monkeys, but they are \r\n    just flits of colour in the corners of your eyes. You \r\n    cannot look round - instead you gaze straight across \r\n    the Square, to the great dial of the Clock. \r\n    \r\n    Slowly, the hand of that great dial swings lower. You \r\n    are going to hang. \r\n    \r\n    --\r\n    \r\n    Venetian Streets <br>\r\n    You walk through streets and winding alleys, avoiding \r\n    the canals where the crowds will be. The Captain has \r\n    one hand on the manacles around your hands, and the \r\n    sharp tip of metal is ever present on your back. Tall \r\n    buildings rise impassive on either side, cutting out \r\n    the sun, and you wonder if you shall ever see it again. \r\n    \r\n    But though it is dark, it is never dark enough for you to leave.\r\n<P>\r\nIn the first example, Ingold never even provides a description of the city square\r\nitself, or the scaffold, but the PC\'s predicament is explanation enough for the\r\nomission. It is hardly the time and place to be taking in the sights. In the\r\nsecond, the moment is effectively caught of walking against your will through\r\nunfamiliar back-streets. In both cases, the player will be engaged in trying to\r\nescape from the situations at hand, and typing \"Look\" repeatedly is probably not\r\ngoing to be his first priority.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMutable scene descriptions\r\n<P>\r\nSometimes in IF, room descriptions provide game scenery but do not remain static;\r\nwhen we return to a location later on, there will be differences. In \"A Change in\r\nthe Weather\" (Plotkin, 1995), the mutability of the scene descriptions makes them\r\nmemorable. This is one of the key experiments of the game, and its theme, change.\r\nThe sky grows dark, the sun sets, and the rains come; the map is technically the\r\nsame, but the descriptions morph dynamically. \r\n<P>\r\n    Rocky Outlook <br>\r\n    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. The park \r\n    stretches off to the north and west, a vast expanse of bright \r\n    meadowland, patched with dark woods and stitched with streams \r\n    that glitter in the sunlight. In the distance, a lake reflects \r\n    white fire from the setting sun. \r\n    \r\n    The sun is lazily approaching the horizon. \r\n    \r\n    Rocky Outlook <br>\r\n    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. The park \r\n    stretches off to the north and west, a vast expanse of bright \r\n    meadowland, patched with dark woods and stitched with streams \r\n    that glitter ruby in the sunlight. In the distance, a lake \r\n    reflects red fire from the setting sun. \r\n    \r\n    The western horizon has become a surging sea of gold and scarlet \r\n    waves. The light is magical -- a cool bronze radiance that \r\n    somehow makes the grass and foliage more intensely green than \r\n    ever. \r\n    \r\n    Rocky Outlook <br>\r\n    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. The park \r\n    stretches off to the north and west, a vast expanse of dim \r\n    meadowland, patched with dark woods and stitched with dark \r\n    streams. A layer of mist is rolling across the landscape. \r\n    \r\n    The mist is turning to a drizzle of rain. \r\n    \r\n    Rocky Outlook <br>\r\n    A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. A dark expanse \r\n    stretches to the north and west, impenetrable with rain. \r\n    \r\n    A stream of runoff water is flowing down from the southeast, \r\n    and pouring down the trench to the unseen stream below. \r\n    \r\n    It\'s dark and it\'s raining. Hard.\r\n<P>\r\nThe question, \"How would my PC view this location?\" is a useful one for authors\r\nto keep in mind when writing scene descriptions. In \"Being Andrew Plotkin,\" which\r\nfeatured multiple player characters, a particular room description repeatedly\r\nchanged to reflect the point of view of each PC the player inhabited during the\r\ncourse of the game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    File Room (as Peter) <br>\r\n    This bleak room with its short, slumping ceiling does \r\n    nothing to brighten your morale. Short file cabinets, \r\n    marked in reverse alphabetical order, crawl in a line \r\n    along the walls like an army of stupid robots. One measly \r\n    window lets in a tiny square of sunlight. \r\n    \r\n    You see a copier machine here. \r\n    \r\n    File Room (as Valerie) <br>\r\n    The file room is one of your favorite rooms in the \r\n    company building. One, it\'s always orderly and clean; \r\n    and two, it doesn\'t sport brightly colored IKEA furniture. \r\n    It\'s businesslike and efficient. There\'s even a window to \r\n    give the area a sense of openness. Early moonlight peeks in, \r\n    drawing a long amber trapezoid on the carpet. \r\n    \r\n    Peter is here. \r\n    \r\n    File Room (as Zarf) <br>\r\n    The file room is an unimpressive rectangular room full of \r\n    squat cabinets. The file cabinets are a pale yellow, like \r\n    raw milk, and each stands about 38 inches high. There is \r\n    a maladjusted ceiling tile, and scruffy stains on the padded \r\n    carpeting. In the north wall is a window, about two and a \r\n    half feet square, with a crank latch. A copier machine sits \r\n    near the wall, bearing no make or marking that you recognize, \r\n    even though no company produces generic photocopiers that \r\n    you know of. Even more curiously, the wall socket behind \r\n    it is empty, meaning that the copier is not plugged in, \r\n    and yet it definitely seems to be turned on. \r\n    \r\n    File Room (as Peter) <br>\r\n    The file room looks considerably cleaner, perhaps better \r\n    than before. The reassuring familiarity of its short, \r\n    slumping ceiling seems now to brighten your morale. Short \r\n    file cabinets, marked in reverse alphabetical order, stand \r\n    in a clean line along the walls like a perfect set of \r\n    teeth. A window affords a beautiful view and a kind \r\n    square of sunlight.\r\n<P>\r\nA different kind of mutable description is used in \"Varicella\" (Adam Cadre,\r\n1999). Here, in a spin on the effects of the meta-command \"Brief,\" scene\r\ndescriptions are elaborate on the first visit to the room and succinct thereafter\r\n(though the game is still considered to be in \"Verbose\" mode by default). Cadre\r\nstocks these initial scene descriptions carefully, carefully choosing details\r\nthat allow him to fill out the game\'s back-story and to flesh out his large cast\r\nof characters. Although the narration is in the traditional second-person, Cadre\r\nfilters everything through the PC\'s particular view of the world, always\r\nexploring his main character\'s attitudes and memories.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Dining Hall <br>\r\n    Though this dining hall was able to hold the entire \r\n    Venetian delegation with ease when they were here for \r\n    the (failed) peace negotiations, you\'ve grown far more \r\n    accustomed to seeing it at one-thirty in the morning as \r\n    King Charles and Miss Sierra indulge in a postcoital \r\n    late-night snack at a table built for sixty. It\'s been \r\n    ages since this chamber even remotely resembled the \r\n    raucous banquet depicted on the tapestry decorating \r\n    the southern wall. An old suit of armor stands guard \r\n    over the entrance to the kitchen, off to the north; \r\n    other exits lead east and west.\r\n<P>\r\nNote how much information about the game\'s world is contained in the description\r\nof just one room, and also that the size of the room is implied by these side\r\ndetails rather than spelled out. This is a game world with a full history, and\r\nthe sense of the kingdom\'s grander past as opposed to its seedy present is also\r\nbrought out.\r\n<P>\r\nThe shorter description of this same location is succinct and functional, but\r\nstill carries a memory of the original: \r\n<P>\r\n\r\n    Dining Hall <br>\r\n    The tapestry decorating the southern wall depicts a \r\n    raucous banquet, but the dining hall is quiet at the \r\n    moment. An old suit of armor stands guard over the \r\n    entrance to the kitchen, off to the north; other exits \r\n    lead east and west.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nConclusion: Getting the job done\r\n<P>\r\nIt is not often said, in praising works of IF, \"Great scene descriptions!\" Even\r\nat their best, scene descriptions provide scenery and atmosphere, and are not\r\ninteractive in and of themselves. They are there to be read, but are usually not\r\nthe parts of the game that players find most remarkable or memorable.\r\n<P>\r\nIn practice, authors mainly have to concentrate on getting the job done. A scene\r\ndescription, once written, tends to remain static, because an IF author\'s to-do\r\nlist is always full, from the beginning of a project to its release and even\r\nafter, and never leaves room for rewriting a scene description that gets the job\r\ndone. Keeping the game from exploding with error messages is much more important.\r\nSo, to close, here are some examples of authors just getting the job done, with\r\nthe reminder that it did not stop any of them from winning acclaim for their\r\nwork.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n\"Christminster\": <br>\r\n    Library <br>\r\n    A vast room, filled with bookshelves from floor to \r\n    ceiling: rows and rows of narrow dark stacks stretching \r\n    away into the distance. There is a card index next to \r\n    the door, which leads out to the north. \r\n<P>\r\n\"So Far\": <br>\r\n    Chill Tunnel <br>\r\n    The tunnel is very straight. You can tell that it\'s not \r\n    quite east-west, though; the distant bright spot of outside \r\n    snow is more east-northeast, and a strange watery glow is \r\n    visible west-southwest.\r\n<P>\r\n\"Spider and Web\": <br>\r\n    Angle Branch <br>\r\n    The corridor runs north and south, like every other hallway \r\n    in this place. A short hallway branches off to the northeast. \r\n    To the west is a blank metal door, with attendant black plate \r\n    beside it.\r\n<P>\r\n\"Varicella\": <br>\r\n    Northeast Tower Antechamber <br>\r\n    The northeast tower lies, stunningly, to the northeast, \r\n    while other exits lead west to the dining hall and south \r\n    to the eastern ballroom.\r\n<P>\r\n\"Pytho\'s Mask\" (Short, 2001): <br>\r\n    Archway <br>\r\n    Inside a sort of archway through the body of the palace \r\n    itself. To the east lies the square garden; west, more \r\n    gardens but more wild. \r\n    \r\n    The small door to the south stands open.\r\n<P>\r\n\"All Roads\": <br>\r\n    Office of Guiseppe Florantine <br>\r\n    The aide\'s office is simple enough - cabinets line one wall, \r\n    and a large desk fills the centre of the room, its piles of \r\n    paper extremely organised. The aide himself is seated in a \r\n    deep chair behind, looking up at you expectantly.\r\n<P>\r\nEveryone writes their fair share of workmanlike scene descriptions, and the above\r\nexamples should remind authors not be deterred from releasing work because their\r\nscene descriptions are functional but not spectacular. As I said at the\r\nbeginning: Let the player know where he is, and where the exits are, and your job\r\nis done.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWorks Cited\r\n<P>\r\nBlank, Marc, David Lebling, Bruce Daniels, and Tim Anderson. \"Zork I.\" \r\n    Infocom, 1980.<br>\r\nCadre, Adam. \"Shrapnel.\" 2000.<br>\r\n--- \"Varicella.\" 1999.<br>\r\nCrowther, Will. \"Advent.\" 1972.<br>\r\nIngold, Jon. \"All Roads.\" 2001.<br>\r\n--- \"The Mulldoon Legacy.\" 1999.<br>\r\nPlotkin, Andrew. \"A Change in the Weather.\" 1995.<br>\r\n--- \"Hunter, in Darkness.\" 1999.<br>\r\n--- \"So Far.\" 1996.<br>\r\n--- \"Spider and Web.\" 1998.<br>\r\nRees, Gareth. \"Christminster.\" 1995.<br>\r\nShort, Emily. \"Metamorphoses.\" 2000.<br>\r\n--- \"Pytho\'s Mask.\" 2001.<br>\r\nWheeler, J. Robinson. \"Being Andrew Plotkin.\" 2000.<br>\r\n--- \"First Things First.\" JRW Digital Media, 2001.<br>\r\n--- \"The Tale of the Kissing Bandit.\" 2001.<br>\r\nYob, Gregory. \"Hunt the Wumpus.\" 1972.<br>\r\n<P>',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 04:47:09',1,9,5617),(15,'Crimes Against Mimesis',23,'written by Roger Giner-Sorolla<br>\r\noriginally posted to Usenet in April 1996 \r\n<P>\r\n\r\nTable of contents:\r\n<P>\r\nInitial remarks: Puzzles, problem-solving, and IF<br>\r\nCrimes Against Mimesis<br>\r\n    1. Objects out of context<br>\r\n    2. Contexts out of context: Genre bending<br>\r\n    3. Puzzles out of context: Cans of soup, or, \"Holy conundrum, Batman!\"<br>\r\n    4. Lock-and-Key, and Four Ways Out<br>\r\n     5. \"I Am Not A Puzzle! I Am A Human Being!\" -- The Reality of NPC\'s<br>\r\n    6. The Three Faces of \"You\" -- Player and Protagonists<br>\r\nClosing Comments\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nInitial remarks: Puzzles, problem-solving, and IF\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nHello all,\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nI\'ve been lurking on here for a couple of months, ever since I got stuck on Christminster. The high quality of debate and thinking on these newsgroups is amazing, and so is the interest value of the games being put out by the likes of Messrs. Nelson, Rees, and DeMause.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe recent debate on \"puzzley\" and \"puzzle-free\" IF has got me thinking about what exactly makes an IF game too \"puzzley.\" I think that IF (hyperfiction and the like) can definitely be free of problem-solving elements, but an IF game cannot. Here\'s why:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThere are three possible elements of challenge in a game: coordination, chance, and problem-solving. Chess is an example of a game that is pure problem-solving; a slot machine is a game that is pure chance; and a shooting gallery is a game that is a pure test of hand-eye coordination.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIf an interactive computer program has none of these elements -- if, say, the point of the game is to wander through a landscape and look at all the pretty scenery -- I think most of us would be reluctant to call it a \"game.\" The pure walk-through would get more \"game-like\" if, for example, the designer added a large number of non-obvious \"Easter eggs\" -- birds that sing when you click on them, hidden areas, and so forth. Now, the goal is to see the walk-through in its entirety; certain problems have to be solved to achieve this goal.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe walk-through would also get more \"game-like\" if challenges of coordination were added (shoot the pixies in the Enchanted Forest!) or if elements of chance were added (chase the randomly moving Wumpus through the landscape!) Adding any of the three possible elements of a game would move our hypothetical walk-through closer to the ideal of an \"interactive game.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nBut, in my view, an \"interactive FICTION game\" must draw its \"game\" elements almost exclusively from problem-solving. It\'s no coincidence that the average IF enthusiast gets annoyed when the outcome of an IF game can be seriously affected by chance factors (see Nelson\'s \"Player\'s Bill of Rights\") -- I suspect that a similar annoyance would result from a challenge to coordination suddenly popping up in the middle of a game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n>KILL TROLL WITH CHAINSAW<br>\r\n[Loading DOOM mode ... please be patient]\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAt the very least, chance and coordination challenges detract from the main focus of an interactive fiction game, which is problem-solving. They somehow make the game less prototypically IF.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThis should not be surprising; most of us play interactive FICTION games for the same reason we read genres of fiction like mystery, Gothic, adventure, and SF. These genres of fiction are all about problem-solving -- Who killed Roger Ackroyd? What\'s the secret of Ravensbrooke Castle? How do I communicate with the alien ship? How am I going to make it across the Yukon alive?\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIn fiction of this type, the pleasure comes from kibitzing along with the problem-solving methods of the detective, the starship pilot, or the explorer. The clever reader may even try to work out a solution on his own, based on clues in the narrative. Then, even more fun can be had by comparing one\'s own problem-solving efforts to those of the protagonist, and to the \"solution\" that is eventually revealed.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe added pleasure of the interactive fiction game comes, of course, from collapsing the distance between reader and protagonist. The player is directly involved in solving problems; she can manipulate the environment in a way that a reader of linear fiction cannot. But an IF game retains the goal of problem-solving that confronts both the reader and the protagonist in linear fiction.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nChance and hand-eye coordination are impossible to integrate into the reader\'s experience of linear fiction, of course. In fact, I suspect that these elements are seen as detracting from the \"fiction\" aspect of \"interactive fiction,\" because they are not, and cannot be, a part of linear fiction.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nTo sum up my views: an IF game without problem-solving elements is not an IF game. If it has no challenges at all, it is not a game, just a work of IF. If its challenges are not of the problem-solving type, it can be called an interactive game, but it has alienated itself from our experience of fiction.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWell, that\'s quite a bit of prologue to the more concrete point I\'d originally intended to make about problem-solving and puzzles. So, I\'ll let this stand on its own for now -- but with the promise (or threat?) that my next post will deal directly with why some problem-solving challenges in IF also grate against our experience of fiction, and come off as \"too puzzley.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nCrimes Against Mimesis<br>\r\n[Warning: This essay contains references to plot elements (but no spoilers) for \"Theatre\", \"Christminster\", and \"Jigsaw\"; and one mild spoiler for a puzzle early on in \"Curses\".]\r\n<P>\r\nContinuing on my previous tack, here is my necessarily incomplete survey of IF-game elements that detract from the work\'s reality as a piece of *fiction*, along with suggested solutions. I hope this list will make a worthy complement to the points raised by Graham Nelson in his \"Player\'s Bill of Rights\" from his Craft of Adventure essays, which deals mainly with the elements that detract from the enjoyment of the work as a game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSome of my points also build upon Mr. Nelson\'s observations on game atmosphere and puzzle construction, particularly in essays 4 and 5 of \"Craft.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAs stated before, I see successful fiction as an imitation or \"mimesis\" of reality, be it this world\'s or an alternate world\'s. Well-written fiction leads the reader to temporarily enter and believe in the reality of that world. A crime against mimesis is any aspect of an IF game that breaks the coherence of its fictional world as a representation of reality.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA general rule of fiction guiding these observations, which will be reiterated later, is this: If the reason for something is not clear to the Model Reader (a late-20th-century person armed with a reasonable knowledge of contemporary Western life and literary conventions), it should be explained at some point during the narrative. Even fantastic elements must be placed against the background of known legends and lore. The ghost who returns to haunt his murderer need not be explained; but if by novel\'s end we don\'t find out why a ghost walks up and down the midway of the abandoned carnival every third Sunday playing the kazoo, we are bound to feel hoodwinked, unless the author claims the Absurdity Defense [which will be discussed in the next installation.]\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMy remarks are aimed at game writers and players who judge an interactive fiction game as a work of fiction, not merely a game, and want to know how to write good games that will also be good fiction. That being said, the prosecution is now pleased to present the first three crimes against mimesis, which have to do with violations of context.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n[The second set of three crimes are more subtle, having to do with assumptions in the structure of the problems, or \"puzzles\", in an IF game. These will be covered in my next installment.]\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n1. Objects out of context\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n>look<br>\r\n  This is a tidy, well-appointed kitchen.  On the table you see a chainsaw.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe object out of context is one of the screaming red flags that indicates that the puzzle has taken precedence over the maintenance of a coherent atmosphere. (As Graham Nelson would put it, \"the crossword has won.\") In the imaginary example above, the game author needs the player to pick up the chainsaw for later use, and has dropped it in any old place where the player can find it.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThis is fine for the gameplay, but damaging to the fictional integrity of the game. In any coherent world, things are generally where they are supposed to be. If they are not, there is a reason for it; and the work of fiction further demands that out-of-place objects or happenings have some significance that the reader (player) can guess at, or find out.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nOne solution to the chainsaw-in-the-kitchen problem would be to move the chainsaw to a woodshed. But let\'s be more creative, and rewrite the game so that the chainsaw has some reason to be in the kitchen:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n  This is a tidy, well-appointed kitchen.  On the table you see\r\n breakfast: six fried eggs, a foot-high stack of pancakes and about a\r\n pound of fried bacon. A huge checked flannel shirt is draped across the\r\n chair, and on the other end of the table you see a chainsaw.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nNow, the chainsaw has a context: evidently, a lumberjack was called away just before eating breakfast, and the chainsaw is his. Putting objects in context can actually add to the gameplay, suggesting realistic obstacles to getting the object. In this example, the author could put a time limit on getting the chainsaw and leaving before the lumberjack returns -- you might expect that he wouldn\'t be too happy to see you walk off with it!\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAs for why the lumberjack was eating breakfast in that particular kitchen, and why he was called away ... well, a good work of fiction will answer these questions too, in due time. The answers don\'t have to be profound; they just have to make sense. (For example, \"A large, burly, bearded man stomps in, drying his hands with a paper towel\" would give the player a pretty good idea of where the lumberjack has been.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n2. Contexts out of context: Genre bending\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIf the object out of context is a hoary adventure-game tradition, the \"anything goes\" jumbling together of contexts within the same game is an even more established -- some would say beloved -- feature of the game tradition started by Adventure. The original Adventure itself (to say nothing of its 550-and-up point expansions) was an omnium-gatherum of storybook characters, Tolkien refugees, and fairy-tale phenomena. Zork (Dungeon) added thereto a raftload of anachronistic objects and locations -- the flood control dam, plastique explosive, the Bank of Zork.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWhile the atmosphere common to these games and their descendants has a rambling, Munchhausenish charm, it leaves much to be desired in the way of fictional coherence. It\'s interesting to note, though, that the endgame of Adventure (in which it is implied that the whole cave complex is a sort of theme park maintained by Witt & Co.), and the extensive after-the-fact elaborations on the history and setting of Zork\'s Great Underground Empire, are partially successful attempts at explaining the diverse elements of their respective games. Apparently, pressures towards fictional unity exist even in a patently absurdist dungeon-style game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nFor the most part, unless they are aiming to imitate Zorkish whimsy, today\'s adventure game authors are very careful to place each game within a single genre. Reviewers are alert to incoherencies as subtle as the switch from ghost-story horror to Lovecraftian horror midway through \"Theatre.\" Where settings are intentionally diverse, as in \"Curses\" and \"Jigsaw\", they are usually presented as a series of internally coherent scenes, simultaneously separated and held together by framing devices. In \"Curses,\" the various modes of time/space/reality travel separate the scenes, while the theme of the Meldrew family holds them together to some extent; and in \"Jigsaw,\" the framing device is quite literally the frame (and pieces) of the magical jigsaw puzzle.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA more fruitful bit of advice to today\'s game designer might be to look beyond the genre in organizing the game. \"Theatre,\" in my opinion, is one game that relies too heavily on the horror genre, and too little on the specific plot and background of the game, to provide a context for its array of ghosts and creatures. Some, it\'s true, are related to the background -- the ticket-taker\'s ghost, the invisible monster -- but the slug-thing, the entity under the stage, the living mannequins have no reason for existing except that \"this is a horror story.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nCompare this to \"Christminster,\" which (IMHO) is a much more satisfying piece of fiction. Just about all the locations and personages in the game fit easily with our real-world image of an old English college -- the chapel, the cellars, the library, the cat, the professors. But more importantly, the unusual elements are well-integrated with the background, so that by the end of the game we know who built the secret passages, why the telephone system is so primitive, and who put the bottle in the cellar. It would have been easy enough, for example, to leave the secret passages unexplained, relying on the genre convention that \"old English buildings have secret passages.\" The way the passages are integrated with the background story, though, contributes a great deal to the \"reality\" of Christminster\'s specific fictional setting.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n3. Puzzles out of context: Cans of soup, or, \"Holy conundrum, Batman!\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMost of the problem-solving in IF games is an imitation of the kind of problem-solving we do in dealing with the real world -- or would do, if we led lives as interesting as those of the average adventure-game protagonist. Objects have to be manipulated, physical obstacles have to be overcome, people and animals have to be persuaded or evaded or defeated in a fight.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAnd then there are...\r\n<P>\r\nMazes. Riddles. Towers of Hanoi. Cryptograms, anagrams, acrostics. Etcetera.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\nThese are the kinds of problems we normally play with to escape dealing with the real world and its problems. So, when one of these \"set-piece\" puzzles comes up in an IF game, we are in danger of being rudely reminded that the fictional motivation for the game -- the efforts of the hero to gather loot, get back home, save her family, town, way of life or universe -- is itself only a trivial diversion. Or, to quote Russ Bryan\'s immortal comment on a set-piece puzzle in \"The Seventh Guest,\" what the hell kind of villain thwarts the hero\'s progress with soup cans in the kitchen pantry?\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMystery and adventure fiction, from Poe\'s \"The Gold Bug\" on, can capably integrate set-piece puzzles into the overall mimetic goals of the story. The cryptic message in \"The Gold Bug\" is actually a set of instructions to a treasure; the cryptogram in Conan Doyle\'s \"The Dancing Men\" was devised by two characters who had a need to communicate in secret. From Oedipus to Tolkien, the riddle has similarly been used as a challenge to the hero\'s wits in which the reader can share. But the convention of including puzzles in the adventure story leads easily enough to excess. Think of the intentionally ludicrous villains in the old \"Batman\" television show, who always leave a coded clue to the location of their hangout, and are indeed the kind to thwart Batman\'s progress with soup cans. (Lucky for Batman, his utility belt can always be counted on to supply a Bat-Can-Opener.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nApart from the primitive, anti-fictional approach -- \"answer this riddle to open this door, just because\" -- there are two main ways the IF writer can work set-piece puzzles into a game. The less satisfying way is to postulate some sort of 1) eccentric genius, 2) mad god, 3) warped wizard, 4) soup-can Sphinx, who has set up the puzzles out of a) pure native goofiness b) a desire to test the hero\'s wits c) sheer boredom d) the requirements of a bizarre system of extraplanar magic. This way is less satisfying because, like the scheming of Batman villains, it refers too obviously to genre conventions instead of to an original representation of life. The advantage of this approach, though, is that it provides a very broad excuse to work in a wide variety of puzzles.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAre there more fictionally coherent excuses for a set-piece puzzle or two? Consider the anagram near the beginning of Curses; the cryptogram in Christminster; the Enigma machine in Jigsaw. All of these puzzles are related to credible real-world uses -- authors as illustrious as Voltaire have used an anagram as a pseudonym; a maths professor may very well keep his secret journal in code; and of course, the cracking of the Enigma code was a historically vital conundrum.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nI hope these examples will be more instructive than any actual rules for guiding the tactful insertion of set-piece puzzles into a work of IF. The basic principle recalls French critic Jean Baudrillard\'s theory that Disneyland is only a decoy, an explicit sign of artificiality obscuring the fact that all of America is a \"Disneyland.\" Instead of calling attention to the artificiality of the whole situation, a riddle or maze or anagram should have a more or less realistic role in the context of the game, serving to diminish rather than enhance the sense that the objects-and-locations \"action\" of the game is itself a contrivance.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n[This part of the essay contains medium-grade spoilers for the games Adventure, Christminster and Theater, and non-spoiler references to a couple of the Zork puzzles.]\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSo far, I\'ve been looking at the ways that IF games can lose their power as works of fiction by poor contextualization of objects, locations and puzzles. The second half of my critical rogues\' gallery encloses a more insidious set of offenses. In this part of the essay, and the next part, I\'ll cover those \"Crimes Against Mimesis\" that are provoked by the structure of the puzzle-based adventure game itself.\r\n<P>\r\nProblems of contextualization can usually be fixed by better writing and planning of the existing game. But many of the problems I\'ll cover below are harder to deal with. In these examples, a feature which offends the sense of reality is often convenient to the programmer or game player. To exclude it would make writing the game more difficult, or playing the game less satisfying.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nStill, striving toward this goal can do a lot to improve the quality of a game as a work of fiction, while keeping its play enjoyable. My insidious aim is to get the writer/programmer who would spend the same X hours doing up a sprawling 200-room mega-dungeon to spend the same X hours constructing a tighter, smaller, but fictionally more meaningful and satisfying game. (Of course, some writers have been moving in that direction on their own -- I\'m thinking specifically of the improvement in fictional atmosphere from Magnus Olsson\'s \"Dunjin\" to his \"Uncle Zebulon\'s Will\"...)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nNow, onwards.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n4. Lock-and-Key, and Four Ways Out\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe most common problem in any interactive game is the lock-and-key puzzle. The solver starts out with an object, or \"key\", and has to find a place where this key can be used to gain access to another \"key\", which in turn allows access to another ... and so on, until the final goal is reached.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nSometimes, a lock-and-key puzzle makes no pretensions to be anything else, as with the red, blue and yellow keys in \"Doom.\" And, of course, literal locks and keys appear in more sophisticated games, most notably \"Christminster.\" Actual locks and keys can enhance or reduce a game\'s fictional realism, depending on whether they are presented in appropriate contexts. One can only find so many keys inside fishes\' bellies, lost in the wainscotting, dropped at random in corridors, or hanging around guard dogs\' necks before the artifice of the puzzle structure becomes painfully clear. By contrast, all six of the keys in \"Christminster\" are hidden in places where one might actually keep a key, and all their locks are guarding places that one would expect to be locked; moreover, we end the game with a pretty clear idea of who normally uses each key and why.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nBut more often, an IF game will keep the basic logic of the lock-and-key puzzle, but use other objects to implement it. A hungry frog bars the entrance; it will only let you pass if you give it a live fly. The bridge is broken; you can only get across it using the plank you found at the construction site. The key can be a found object, a character or creature whom you\'ve convinced to follow you, a piece of information like a password; the lock can be an obstacle to another location, or an object that requires another object to be useful, such as a corked bottle.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nDisguising \"locks-and-keys\" as real-world objects may superficially contribute to the realism of the atmosphere, but once the player figures out what is going on, the artifice of the one-on-one mapping between objects and problems becomes even more jarring. Graham Nelson identified this, in \"The Craft of Adventure\", as the Get-X-Use-X syndrome. Give the goat a tin can, and it will cough up a red handkerchief; wrap the handkerchief around your head, and the gypsies will let you into the cave; use the lantern you found in the cave to get past the giant mole; and so on. These pat, lock-and-key solutions don\'t really do justice to the complex process of real-world problem-solving, and after a while they get boring even as abstract puzzles.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nFortunately, there are many structural remedies to the predictability of the lock-and-key game. Let\'s consider five:\r\n<P>\r\na) Solutions requiring more than one object\r\nIt\'s not a novel idea that a problem might require more than one object to solve. Adventure and the original Zork both had a couple of multi-object conundrums -- the chained bear; the exorcism in Hell; the explosive and fuse -- and in general, these went a long way towards making the puzzles more realistic and interesting.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\nStill, a multi-object puzzle can come off as artificial. In particular, the scavenger hunt for the various components of a Very Significant Object is one of the stalest chestnuts in modern fantasy literature, derived (as usual) from Tolkien\'s Lord of the Rings trilogy with its Nine Rings of Power: Collect \'em all for World Domination!\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe Quest for Prefab Parts is to plot structure what the Quonset Hut is to architecture. It shows up in innumerable role-playing game scenarios, assembly-line sword-and-sorcery novels, and seasons of \"Doctor Who\"; and, from what I\'ve seen, not even the best IF games can completely keep away from this device. If the author doesn\'t make the \"pieces\" interesting objects in their own right, and plausibly integrate them into the storyline, he or she can expect some eye-rolling from the sophisticated reader (\"Not the Six Shards of the Dinner Plate of the Gods again!\") As an example, the task of piecing together the diary in \"Theater\" is much more believable than the task of collecting the four \"eye gems\" which comes later on in the same game.\r\n<P>\r\nb) Objects relevant to more than one solution\r\n<P>\r\nAgain, multi-purpose objects had their start early on in text adventure games -- the original \"Adventure\", for one. As I recall, the second use for the keys in that game popped up just about at the point where I had arrived at the one-object, one-puzzle principle by induction, and started confidently leaving things lying by the puzzles they solved. How annoying to trek back to the surface for the keys!\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nBut my assumptions were fair game for a clever designer, and nowadays it\'s expected that a good IF game will require the player to find more than one use for a number of objects. In general, fictional realism is thereby improved; the player must jettison the comfortable \"lock-and-key\" rule, which bore little resemblance to the messy process of real-world problem-solving. However, most games nowadays allow near-unlimited carrying capacity, and the result is an equally bizarre Model Player who takes and keeps everything just in case it might prove useful later on -- a Crime Against Mimesis in its own right; number 6, I believe.\r\n<P>\r\nc) Problems having more than one solution\r\n<P>\r\nTo my mind, the crucial difference between a \"puzzle\" and a real-world problem is that the real problem has more than one possible solution. This is true even of such a barren, abstract task as knocking a banana down from a 10-foot ceiling with only a chair and a yard-long pole. Chimps are usually able to \"stand on chair\" and \"hit banana with pole,\" proving that Homo sapiens is not the only tool-user around. This human, not to be outdone by a mere Pan Troglodytes, came up with:\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n> throw chair at banana<br>\r\n> balance chair on pole and hit banana with chair<br>\r\n> hold pole and jump at banana<br>\r\n> knock on door. shout for experimenter. threaten experimenter with\r\n  lawsuit. experimenter, get the banana<br>\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPerhaps the Model Adventure-game Player is a chimpanzee? But all joking aside, few puzzles in any game are set up to admit this variety of solutions, and the reason is simple: the Model Adventure-game Programmer is only human. Game designers would rather spend time coding a variety of locations than implementing every second-string solution to a problem like the banana one, where the most likely solution is indeed the chimp\'s way. Players would rather play a game with a variety of challenges, and to this end, are willing to accept some restriction in possibilities, especially where the alternative solutions are less obvious than the intended one.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAll the same, nothing cries \"This is a game, not a story!\" louder than a puzzle that ignores obvious and reasonable attempts to solve it. By convention, some crude solutions are generally excluded: breaking things, burning things, hitting or killing creatures. The default messages for such actions in Inform and TADS imply that the protagonist is just not the type to take a sword to the Gordian Knot -- a Doctor Who or Miss Marple, not a Rambo. Even with this healthy assumption in place, many puzzles break the fictional mood by accepting only one plausible, but rather unusual solution, when there are more straightforward ways to go.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAs an example, look at the opening scene of Christminster. The problem is to rouse a man who is sleeping on a key, just enough so he\'ll roll over without waking. The solution is to tickle him with a feather (this isn\'t such a terrible spoiler, since getting the feather is really the hard part). As a puzzle this makes sense, but as a real-world problem it\'s hard to see why you can\'t just tickle the old codger with your fingers, even though the game doesn\'t understand \"hands,\" \"fingers,\" or \"tickle man\" without an indirect object. Anyway, the message to the player is clear: \"Be creative ... my way!\" And the hand of the puzzle author intrudes on the scene.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAn IF writer who wants to avoid this problem has three options:\r\n<P>\r\nto allow the alternative solution;<br>\r\nto have the alternative solution turn out to be a wrong one even though it apparently works at the time (e.g., tickling the man with your hands is too strong a stimulation; he wakes up in the next turn and catches you stealing the key);<br>\r\nto program in a plausible, specific reason why the alternative solution is not allowable, in place of the default \"You can\'t do that\" message (e.g., \"Touching a strange man with your hands would be ... well, improper.\").\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\nOf these, the second is the most interesting; it gives the player at least a nudge in the right direction, while allowing the author to retain control over the puzzle structure. In all fairness, the player should be able to figure out beforehand that the alternative solution is not the best one, or else be given a chance to do it over the right way. A good example of a well-clued \"wrong\" alternative solution would be feeding a hungry swine with a rare string of pearls that\'s needed later on, when the beast will just as gladly wolf down a handful of acorns.\r\n<P>\r\nd) Objects irrelevant to problems and problems without solutions\r\n<P>\r\nA player who is only interested in the game tends to see irrelevant objects and unsolvable problems as unsporting annoyances; \"red herrings\" planted by a fiendish game designer, in defiance of the implicit rule that everything is relevant and the task is to find out which thing is relevant to which. Because coding up a lot of useless objects and locations is hard work, designers generally agree. Most games today subsume irrelevant objects into the scenery, leaving only a couple of ringers. Even then it is considered sporting to flag useless items as such, usually with a hint or a more-or-less witty pun on the phrase \"red herring.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIf we see the game as more than a collection of puzzles, though, a game feature can have nothing to do with any puzzle and still contribute to the atmosphere or the storyline. \"Smart red herrings\" like the gargoyle and the chapel in Christminster strengthen the background of the game with additional information (even if the meaning of the initials on the gargoyle is somewhat, ahem, obscure). At the same time, they effectively rebut the creeping suspicion that all the features in the environment are dictated by one puzzle or another, and serve notice that the fictional milieu has a life outside of the mere game which is being played out inside it. Even the \"shadowy figure\" red herring in the original Adventure is eventually explained in terms of the game\'s rudimentary background (those vain dwarves!) Consequently, the player feels satisfied, rather than frustrated, when its true nature is revealed. To sum up, in the well-written IF game, every item and location should still serve some purpose; but the puzzle-game shouldn\'t be the only purpose.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\n5. \"I Am Not A Puzzle! I Am A Human Being!\" -- The Reality of NPC\'s\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nPaper-and-pencil roleplaying games use the term \"non-player characters\", or NPC\'s, to refer to the troupe of imaginary personalities controlled by the game referee. In the hands of an imaginative referee with a flair for improv acting, NPC\'s can take on a life of their own. The referee can assess how they would react in nearly any situation, and have them banter, barter, bluster or battle accordingly, pursuing their own motivations while remaining true to type.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nComputer interactive-fiction games also refer to characters programmed by the game\'s author as \"NPC\'s\". In a comparison between the two kinds of game, though, the live referee has a rather unfair advantage over the programmer. The game-master bases NPC output on a highly sophisticated interactive algorithm synthesizing years of social observation and literary convention: the human mind. To even begin to compete, the computer-game author must effectively write this algorithm from scratch; an impossible task, even for the artificial-intelligence experts!\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWith limitations like this, it\'s hard to blame game designers for following the lead of the early text-adventure games, and relegating NPC\'s to very simple roles: either roving menaces from a hack-and-slash campaign of Dungeons and Dragons (the dwarf and pirate in Adventure, the thief in Zork) or mere components of a lock-and-key puzzle (the troll and bear in Adventure, the cyclops in Zork). And yet, a few game designers have managed to create memorable and personable characters. In the Infocom era, the robot companion Floyd from Planetfall stands out. Among recent games, Jigsaw is notable for the enigmatic and recurrent character Black, while Christminster employs a dramatis personae of no fewer than twelve vivid personalities, including a very stubborn cat.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAmazingly, when examined closely, memorable characters in IF are really doing much the same things that their more forgettable counterparts are doing -- roaming about the map, reacting to single words, serving as puzzles to be overcome by the right object or objects to overcome the right puzzle. Few works of linear fiction can entirely dispense with non-protagonist characters; even Jack London\'s classic solo adventure story, \"To Build A Fire\", included a canine character with at least as much personality as the hapless human hero. So, if our goal is to write IF that is good fiction as well as a good game, it\'s essential to make characters come alive -- preferably, without resorting to advanced artifical intelligence programming!\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nGood writing, of course, is the linear fiction writer\'s key to creating believable characters without any interactivity at all, and the text elements of the interactive NPC -- description, dialogue and actions -- are no different from those of the fictional character. The challenge is in joining these elements into a single, well-defined character. As with object placement, there are many ways to achieve the illusion of realism. An NPC\'s features need not be completely expected and stereotypical, but they should be explained if they violate common sense, unless you\'re aiming for a comical effect. Why is the policeman cowardly? (His uncle is a big political boss who got him the job.) Why does the minister take your satchel? (He believes you are an immoral thief and intends to return your treasures to their rightful owners.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIn fact, all the characters in a game, even minor ones, should be able to pass the book editor\'s eternal question, \"What motivates the dwarf to throw an axe at you?\" The ticket-taker takes your ticket because it\'s his job; a desire for world domination pushes Sauron to seek the One Ring; and so on. The answer need not be terribly deep, but it should be evident from the context and the information you provide.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nContinuity across settings helps immensely in convincing the player that an NPC exists independently of any single puzzle. A single character who appears in a variety of situations (like Planetfall\'s Floyd) offers far more opportunity for character exposition and development than would an arkload of different creatures, one for each puzzle. As with objects, well-developed NPC\'s should have more than one function in the game, and these functions should make sense as a whole given the NPC\'s personality and motivation. In Christminster, Professor Wilderspin\'s erudition, kindness, and love of exploration are very consistently brought out through the puzzles in which he figures, and the result is an interesting and emotionally engaging character.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA more complicated example of continuity appears in Jigsaw, where the character of Black starts out as an impossible yet oddly helpful annoyance, and gradually reveals playful, vulnerable, and even amorous sides over the course of sixteen episodes. Perhaps only love can explain why Black allows the protagonist to interfere, time and time again, with his/her attempts to change history! In any case, the development of Black\'s character across such a variety of roles is an impressive feat. If it works, it does so because of the multifaceted personality and conflicted motives that are brought out in Black\'s reactions and dialogue -- continuity through an explicit admission of discontinuity, perhaps.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe beauty of the NPC illusion is that, when well-done, it can hide enormous limitations in the interactivity of the character. Inform and TADS only allow the player to converse after a fashion, by probing the NPC with single-word input (\"ask Einstein about relativity\"). Even with this limitation, it\'s patently unrealistic to expect a piece of code to be able to hold forth about every irrelevant topic the player could bring up. At the very least, though, a well-developed NPC should be able to react to basic conversational input about the elements of the present situation, and about his/her background. The default response for unknown input can itself convey character; consider \"Fiona treats you to a lengthy and brilliant conversation about , which unfortunately leaves you no closer to getting out of the prison cell\" versus \"Fiona just grunts and goes back to reading her paper\". Customized responses to social actions such as \"kiss\",\"hit\", and \"give\" are also essential to the fully individualized NPC.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAre there workable models for more complex and responsive NPC\'s? While it\'s unreasonable to expect an intelligence like 2001\'s HAL to emerge from a 400 kilobyte game, I think that the increasing desire of authors to create interactive games with literary elements may result in games where the NPC, instead of being a mere accessory to a lock-and-key puzzle (\"Hercules, lift stone\"; \"give mouse to cat\"), actually is the puzzle.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nI have in mind a very interesting class of NPC created on DhalgrenMOO by the character \"Calkins.\" (Those with Telnet access may log on to Dhalgren at dhalgren.english.uwashington.edu 7777, then \"connect Guest\" and \"help type of automaton is a psychological maze. The rooms are the NPC\'s moods, such as \"angry\" and \"interested\", and the passages are the player\'s commands such as \"hug NPC\",\"feed NPC\" and \"ignore NPC\". The automaton\'s description changes with its mood, and each command is echoed by a response, which may or may not help the player figure out exactly what impact the command has had.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAs a specific example, allow me to present my own creation, the automaton \"Kim\" (currently on display at DhalgrenMOO; type \"@go #1603\" to join her). This is a transcript of one of many possible interactions with her; the command and response syntax should be familiar to adventure-game players. \"Trismegistos\" is my character; the automaton\'s responses are displayed to all players in the room (including the person interacting with it) in the third person, which makes for some inconsistencies in grammar.\r\n<P>\r\nlook at kim {initial description}<br>\r\nA short, craggy, thirtyish shag-cut blonde, wearing black Keds and a\r\n sleeveless blue greasemonkey coverall with her name stitched above the\r\n ciggy pocket. Kinda tough, kinda tender, she could be your best buddy or\r\n your worst nightmare.\r\n<P>\r\nsmile kim<br>\r\nTrismegistos catches Kim\'s attention by trying to smile. She smiles right\r\n back at Trismegistos, half-mockingly.\r\n<P>\r\nl at kim {description for new mood}<br>\r\nKim looks back at you, half amused. She seems relaxed.\r\n<P>\r\ntalk kim<br>\r\nTrismegistos\'s conversation interests Kim. She crosses her arms and\r\n smiles at Trismegistos, listening.\r\n<P>\r\nl at kim<br>\r\nKim smiles at you. \"Whatcha lookin\' at?\"\r\n<P>\r\nsing kim<br>\r\nTrismegistos sings, and Kim sings along, loudly and off-key, smiling.\r\n<P>\r\nl at kim<br>\r\nKim smiles at you. \"Whatcha lookin\' at?\"\r\n<P>\r\ntalk kim<br>\r\nTrismegistos\'s conversation grabs Kim. She listens, smiling, and laughs\r\n at all Trismegistos\'s jokes.\r\n<P>\r\nhit kim<br>\r\nTrismegistos hits Kim, who hits him back, playfully.\r\n<P>\r\nkiss kim<br>\r\nTrismegistos\'s kiss cools Kim down some. She looks at Trismegistos\r\n warily, trying to figure him out.\r\n<P>\r\nl at kim {back to initial}<br>\r\nA short, craggy, thirtyish shag-cut blonde, wearing black Keds and a\r\n sleeveless blue greasemonkey coverall with her name stitched above the\r\n ciggy pocket. Kinda tough, kinda tender, she could be your best buddy or\r\n your worst nightmare.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\nNote that the same command can have different effects, depending on which mood she\'s in. (I wouldn\'t advise hitting her when she\'s not in a good mood!) Note also that these are only three of her eight moods.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nCharacters with \"mood mazes\" have many possible uses in a game. Some moods may provide vital information; other moods may make the character more receptive to requests for help. Moods might also be triggered by giving or showing certain objects to the NPC, or asking her about certain things, or bringing other NPC\'s into the room ... The possibilities for creating intricate social situations are nearly endless.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nI can\'t help but suspect that character-based puzzles may have taken on a stigma from early attempts like the seduction puzzles in \"Softporn.\" (Yes, Kim can also be seduced; but the direct approach won\'t work, and the actual experience may be less fun than getting there...) This stigma is unfortunate, because pornography is not the only fictional genre that can be adapted into an IF game via social and psychological, rather than physical, problem-solving. Imagine games centered on courtly intrigues, political maneuvering, or the machinations of the psychological thriller! Concepts like \"Dangerous Liaisons: An Interactive Intrigue\" could go a long way to attract players who are put off by conventional, scavenger-hunt type puzzles, and want a more literary experience.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n6. The Three Faces of \"You\" -- Player and Protagonists\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nComputerized interactive fiction is a discourse between the game program and the game player, mediated by the player\'s character (PC). By convention, the program addresses the player in second person declarative as if he or she were the character (\"You are standing in a field in front of a white house\"), while the player addresses the game program in a sort of pidgin second person imperative, as if the program were the character (\"examine house\";\"go west\").\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe origins of both sides of this curious dialogue are plainly traceable. The program\'s voice echoes a human referee in a role-playing game informing the players of events in the imaginary world, while the player\'s lines resemble commands in a text-based operating system (\"copy file to b:\\\",\"cd if-archive\"), their choppiness dictated by the simplemindedness of the parser.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nAlthough bizarre by conventional literary standards, this convention has proved surprisingly robust in IF games over the years. A few games have experimented with third- or first-person narration, but none have inspired a real tradition. Perhaps it\'s more satisfying, in an interactive nature game, to have your situation narrated directly to you by the (Dungeon) Master\'s voice, as opposed to the narrative detachment of first or third person.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nBut the problem with second-person narrative, and perhaps a reason why literary fiction writers generally avoid it, is this: it is easy to define who is speaking in first person, or who is being spoken of in third person, but it\'s not so easy to see who is being spoken to in second. In effect, second person confounds the reader with the protagonist. What\'s more, in a narrative that is at the same time a fiction and a game, the protagonist\'s identity fractures even further, into three distinct persons...\r\n<P>\r\nThe Reader/Player.<br>\r\nThis is you, the real human being sitting at your computer playing the game. Your goal is to amass points, finish up, and have a good time along the way. You command all the reality-warping conveniences of the game program: save, restore, undo. You know when an item is important, because it is described as a separate object rather than as part of the scenery; you know when an action is important, because you get points for doing it.\r\n<P>\r\nThe Game Protagonist.<br>\r\nThis is you, a nameless cipher of a person who just loves picking up objects and toting them around, because you Never Can Tell when they\'ll come in handy. Your goal is to fiddle around with all these objects in any way you possibly can, so you can explore your environment as thoroughly as possible and amass all the really important objects, so you can get to the really important places. Strange urges guide you -- whispered warnings from disastrous alternate universes your player \"undid\", oracular impulses to pick up the can opener in the kitchen because it\'s the only thing you really feel is important there.\r\n<P>\r\nThe Story Protagonist.<br>\r\nThis is you, Jane Doe, an unassuming college sophomore who has stumbled upon a sinister plot to destroy the world. Or maybe you\'re John Doe, a cigar-chomping private investigator with calloused knuckles and a callous attitude, who has stumbled upon a sinister plot to destroy the world. Or maybe you\'re Jhin-Dho, a half-elven sorcerer\'s apprentice who has ... Anyway, your goal is to stop the villains while staying alive, though it\'s a bit odd that you keep picking up stray objects without knowing why, and they always prove to be useful later on...\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nEarly adventure games did not bother much with defining the story protagonist. The result (at least in my experience) is an entertaining kind of imaginative romp in which the blank hero takes on the identity of the sweatshirted person at the keyboard, running around the dungeon in tennis shoes, playing the game from within. In fact, the appearance of the Zork games\' Adventurer in the \"Enchanter\" series comes off as an amusing surprise, precisely because most players never thought of Zork\'s protagonist as a character in his own right.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nActually, the \"hero-is-you\" approach has an honorable precedent in imaginative fiction. Ever since Mark Twain\'s Connecticut Yankee visited King Arthur\'s court, everyday slobs have explored strange and fantastic worlds. And what better way to encourage involvement than to write the player in as the hero? But the limitations of the blank hero are equally obvious, once you\'ve played enough adventure games. Without any distinct identity, the player has only the motivations of the game protagonist as a guide, and \"get the items, solve the puzzles, get the treasure\" quickly grows stale when repeated from game to game.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nRecognizing this, game writers in the early 1980\'s began to present stronger plots and identify their story protagonists more distinctively. Sweatshirt and sneakers gave way to wizards\' robes, detectives\' fedoras, 18th century crinolines. But as the story protagonist took firmer shape, the motives and behaviors of the game protagonist lingered on, like a kleptomanic doppelganger. Even today, few IF games have managed to present a protagonist whose actions are completely defined by his or her own character, rather than by the objects-and-puzzles intrigues of the game. (Exceptions tend to fall within the mystery genre; but then again, linear mystery novels themselves have a long tradition of balancing realistic characterization with the game-like rules of the whodunit.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWriting up a blank protagonist is easy enough, and a sensitive writer will try to avoid accidental assumptions such as \"You wake up with a stubbly chin\" (not applicable to both genders) or \"You turn white as a sheet\" (not applicable to all complexions).\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA writer who wants to write a definite character, though, has to think in entirely different terms. Will the character be given only an identity, or a fully developed personality as well? Most IF games present the story protagonist more in terms of social roles and motivations, than in terms of strong personality traits. For example, in Christminster, you are Christabel Spencer, a young, properly-brought-up British woman whose brother, a college professor, has mysteriously vanished. Christminster does an exceptionally job of outlining Christabel\'s role as a woman by limiting her actions (she can\'t enter chapel bareheaded) and through the NPCs\' dialogue (the villains and the Master are condescending, while young Edward sees her as a confidante).\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nMotivationally, too, Christabel\'s actions are clearly determined. She needs to explore the college, so that she can complete her brother\'s researches and eventually find out what happened to him. Even the one necessary act of vandalism she commits as the beginning of the game can be explained as an attempt to enter the college, although the text could bring this out a bit more clearly.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nChristabel\'s role in the fiction is much more clearly defined than her personality. She is by turns stoic (when attempting to cry on demand) and squeamish (at the sight of a skeleton), proper (when entering chapel) and improper (when commiting various acts of theft, wiretapping and trespass). Her constant traits are those inherited from the game protagonist: inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness. The variety of her other traits, too, can mostly be chalked up to the demands and necessary limitations of a number of different puzzles.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nBut it\'s not clear to me that straitjacketing the story protagonist with a definite personality is always a good idea. While the reader/player can usually identify with a person of a different gender, ethnicity, social role, or time period, it\'s harder to project one\'s self into an entirely different set of personality traits. Such a protagonist would be experienced more as a \"he\" or \"she\" than as an \"I\", robbing the second-person narrative of its potency; and character identification would suffer at the expense of character definition.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nA basic tenet of social psychology -- the \"fundamental attribution error\" -- can be stated thus: we are reluctant to accept our own actions as indicative of our personality traits, and eager to attribute the actions of others to their personality traits. In part, this is because we see ourselves exercising many different traits in different situations. We are deferent to superiors, authoritative to underlings; courageous in areas of our expertise, hesitant in things we know little of; cheerfully unafraid of spiders, but repelled by the sound of crinkling styrofoam. (Well, I am, anyway.)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nChristabel\'s apparent inconsistency of personality, then, may actually be helpful in getting the player to identify with her. What\'s more important to writing vivid story protagonists, in my view, is consistently bringing out the character\'s role in relation to the external world, and setting his or her actions up to reflect clearly defined motivations.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nClosing Comments\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nI\'ll close by covering two special problems, and offering partial solutions: one in which the player\'s task can result in a less believable story protagonist, and one in which the game protagonist\'s task can also undermine the story.\r\n<P>\r\nSave, Restore, Undo.\r\nSome might argue that an IF game is made more \"realistic\" by disallowing the ability to restore games or undo moves, but I disagree. The ability to undo is no less realistic than the ability to restart the game, and a good deal more convenient. Given that a restartable game can always be played with knowledge from a previous, failed \"incarnation,\" the task of the player is not literally to live or die as the protagonist would, but to maneuver the protagonist so as to \"write\" the optimal narrative that the game author has hidden within the program, in which the protagonist does everything right and achieves a happy ending.\r\n<P>\r\n(This process brings to mind a toy from my childhood called \"Chip-Away\" -- a rather literal-minded take on Michelangelo\'s famous dictum that the statue is hidden within the block of marble. The makers of \"Chip-Away\" embedded a white plastic statue within a block of white soap, and the young \"sculptor\" was provided with hammer and chisel...)\r\n<P>\r\nAll the same, the finished account of the protagonist\'s efforts will look odd if it shows signs of having been produced this way. Practically speaking, this means that the player should in theory be able to complete the story without using any information gained from fatal dead-ends. An obvious violation: hiding a magic word at the bottom of a (full) well so that you see it just before you drown, and pass it on to your next game-incarnation.\r\n<P>\r\nA less obvious violation: the fatal trial-and-error puzzle. Consider four identical doors, one leading onwards, one concealing a lethal explosive. In the story that would result from solving this puzzle, it would be much more satisfying to the story reader and the game player if there was some way to tell which door hides the ticking bomb, rather than having success come only from a lucky guess. The clue may be difficult enough so that the player opts for the brute-force, save-restore-undo method (who would think to \"listen to north door\"?), but at least it is there to explain the story protagonist\'s actions in a fictionally satisfying way. Even though real-life survival may often depend on dumb luck, fiction can only get away with so many strokes of fortune before suspicion sets in.\r\nExamine All. Get All.\r\nIn the same way that save/restore/undo can lead a story protagonist to act in strange ways, the demands of the game protagonist can often intrude into the story. Most jarringly, the game protagonist finds it useful to pick up all objects that the program indicates can be picked up, when the story protagonist might have no real reason to, say, take an apple peeler out of someone\'s kitchen.\r\n<P>\r\nLet\'s look at the two ends of this problem. On the picking-up end, there is the cue that the game author sends the game protagonist when presenting a room with a usable object in it:\r\n<P>\r\n   This is a well-stocked, modern and efficient kitchen,\r\n  done up in an avocado-green color scheme.\r\n   On the table you see a battery-powered flashlight. An apple\r\n  peeler is lying on the counter.\r\nThe well-trained game protagonist will, of course, pick up both these objects and take them along. But the story protagonist? If he or she is anticipating doing some exploring, it would make sense to pick up the flashlight -- but why the apple peeler? And in terms of the story, what is so darned attractive about the apple peeler, as opposed to all the other objects subsumed in the description of the \"well-stocked kitchen\": the pots, pans, knives, can opener, oven gloves, and so forth?\r\n<P>\r\nOn the putting-things-down end, there is the recent trend towards allowing near-infinite carrying capacity via a container -- rucksack, purse, or what have you. Understandably so, since realistic constraints on inventory make for an annoying game where much of the action consists of running about trying to remember where you dropped that screwdriver. And yet, the person who is reading the story has to wonder occasionally at the verisimilitude of a character who casually totes around a portable yard-sale of forty-odd objects, as happens at the end of \"Jigsaw.\"\r\n<P>\r\n(What\'s even more annoying about \"Jigsaw\"\'s cluttered rucksack, only one or two of these objects have any use outside the episode in which they were found. Yet the faithful game-protagonist hangs on to the green cloth cap, the stale piece of corn bread, the mandolin because \"you never know...\" A shame, because the time-travel theme could easily have provided some cosmological excuse to prevent the export of objects from their own time period. The challenge then could have been to find some way of getting around this rule in order to solve the later puzzles, as in the later stages of Uncle Zebulon\'s Will where the protagonist has to smuggle objects past the watchful demon...)\r\n<P>\r\nThese challenges to the fictional integrity of the protagonist\'s actions may not have an easy answer, and I don\'t think they should necessarily be answered at the expense of anyone\'s convenience. In the kitchen, for example, I don\'t think the answer is to code up a whole lot of useless pots and pans. Hiding the apple peeler is also futile, since the good game protagonist knows to search every nook and cranny before moving on.\r\n<P>\r\nThe action to be simulated here is the protagonist coming across a Very Important Unpeeled Apple in the course of the adventure and thinking, \"Oooh ... there might be an apple peeler back in the kitchen!\" Cuing reminiscences explicitly would give away the solution to the puzzle, of course. It might be possible to force the player to go back to the kitchen and explicitly type \"look for peeler\" in order for the apple peeler to appear. Or, to forbid that the apple peeler be taken until the apple has been encountered, with messages to the effect of \"What on earth do you need that thing for?\"\r\n<P>\r\nI suspect, though, that clever game players will figure their own way around these devices, commanding protagonists to search for every likely object in a location, and looking for hints to a new puzzle by going back and trying to pick up every \"forbidden\" object they\'ve encountered. Perhaps a workable compromise would be to design games so that most of what you need to solve a given problem is available relatively nearby, apart from obviously useful tools or strange artifacts that can be taken from scene to scene.\r\n<P>\r\nAlternatively, you could place very realistic limits on what can be carried around, but automate the process of remembering where objects are, as with the \"objects\" command in Inform. Even the process of going back and getting them could be automated, possibly with a \"walk-to\" routine that checks to see if there is a free path from the current location to the known object\'s location, and expending the requisite number of game turns to get the object, while taking only a second of the player\'s time.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nRoger Giner-Sorolla<br>\r\nNew York University, New York, NY<br>\r\nDept. of Psychology (Social/Personality)',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 04:58:24',4,10,9405),(16,'Surrealism and Magic',24,'Authoring Magical and Surrealistic Works of Interactive Fiction\r\nBy J. D. Berry\r\n<P>\r\n\"Magic is surreal almost by definition and surrealism is dangerous.\" -- Graham\r\nNelson, \"The Craft of Adventure\"\r\n<P>\r\nMagic and surrealism are common themes in interactive fiction. They excite the\r\nimagination, transforming the everyday into endless possibilities. However, as\r\nMr. Nelson suggests, when you write such a work, you play with fire. If you\'re\r\nnot careful, you\'ll get burned.\r\n<P>\r\nEndless possibilities in these genres suggest there\'s no one right way to go\r\nabout writing such a work. This article isn\'t a how-to manual. This is a\r\ndiscussion of the nature of these settings and the issues unique to them.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWhy write such a work?\r\n<P>\r\n\"I had been wanting to write a game with weird language for a long time. Partly\r\nthis is because I don\'t trust myself to write memorably enough in a normal vein;\r\nwriting in a strange style evades that issue entirely.\" -- Dan Schmidt, referring\r\nto his IF work \"For A Change\" (1999) in a SPAG interview.\r\n<P>\r\nSchmidt\'s work is widely regarded as a classic of Interactive Fiction. His\r\nhumility aside, the man can write. One doesn\'t win the Xyzzy award for \"Best\r\nWriting\" without knowing a little something about the craft. Words convey an\r\nauthor\'s ideas, in any type of fiction. A surrealistic setting does not excuse\r\npoor writing, and few things will alienate your audience faster than ineffective\r\nprose.\r\n<P>\r\nBut Schmidt introduces a valid strategy, one that applies to many areas of\r\nlife-play to your strengths. With a surreal or fantastic setting, the interactive\r\nfiction medium is itself a strength. Using these genres, you can leverage what\r\nseems to be a constraint and make it work for you.\r\n<P>\r\n\"When the game is written competently and sufficiently debugged, this trick\r\n[making the PC some kind of unusual or non-human creature] often works remarkably\r\nwell, even better than its static fiction equivalent might. Why is that? I think\r\nit\'s because IF has an advantage over static fiction in the area of character\r\nidentification. When you\'re reading a book, you may read third-, first-, or even\r\nsecond-person accounts of a particular entity\'s exploits, and with sufficiently\r\neffective writing and characterization, you may even identify with that entity\r\nquite strongly despite its non-human traits, but no matter what you are still\r\nwatching that entity from a distance. IF, however, literalizes the process of\r\nidentification one step further. Not only does the prose put you in someone\r\nelse\'s head, you actually have to guide the choices of that someone. I\'d submit\r\nthat when a reader is compelled to guide a character\'s actions, especially if\r\nthere are puzzles involved, that reader will try to think like that character\r\nwould think. When this happens, the identification process has reached a place\r\nwhere static fiction can rarely take it.\" -- Paul O\'Brian, from his \"Verbose\" Web\r\nPage, reviewing \"The Djinni Chronicles\" (2000)\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe best part of writing a work that has a bizarre setting is that nobody can\r\ntell you \"Things don\'t work that way.\" Well, they can tell you, but they\'d be\r\nwrong. That is, if your world is consistent.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nHow Interactive Fiction (IF) is similar to Static Fiction (StF).\r\n<P>\r\n* An underlying set of laws and operating principles (rules) apply in the work\'s\r\nuniverse.\r\n<P>\r\nThe author establishes these laws separate from the body of work, or story. \r\n<P>\r\nWhen the setting is the modern-day, real world, there\'s not much the author needs\r\nto do. He\'s already familiar with how the world works, its causes and effects,\r\nits meanings.\r\n<P>\r\nWith a magical setting, the author faces the \"lazy medieval\" temptation.\r\n<P>\r\n\"The commonest \'mythology\' is what might be called \'lazy medieval\', where\r\nanything prior to the invention of gunpowder goes, all at once, everything from\r\nGreek gods to the longbow (a span of about two thousand years). In fact, anything\r\nan average reader might think of as \'old world\' will do, the Western idea of\r\nantiquity being a huge collage.\" -- Graham Nelson, \"The Craft of Adventure\"\r\n<P>\r\nThe author may think he gets the best of both worlds using a lazy medieval\r\nsetting. A) He has the freedom to add to his work whatever seems nifty or\r\nexpedient. B) He assumes the player will be as familiar with this setting as he\r\nis with the real world. Even if these assumptions are correct, A plus B doesn\'t\r\nequal C-a captivating world. \r\n<P>\r\nThe player, upon his realization that he\'s in a lazy medieval setting, will\r\nattribute laziness to the author. The player may feel that he won\'t experience\r\nanything new, and that the author substituted convention for imagination. Even\r\ngood writing may not overcome these attributions.\r\n<P>\r\nThe author of a work with a surrealistic or unique magical setting has much\r\nthinking to do. Beyond a basic level of accessibility-a person at least remotely\r\ncomprehending what is going on-the author can take nothing for granted in regards\r\nto how things happen and why.\r\n<P>\r\nConsistency is key.\r\n<P>\r\n\"The truth is that good fantasies carefully limit the magic that\'s possible. In\r\nfact, the magic has to be defined, at least in the author\'s mind, as a whole new\r\nset of natural laws that cannot be violated during the course of the story. That\r\nis, if at the beginning of the story you have established that your hero can make\r\nonly three wishes, you better not have him come up with a fourth wish to save his\r\nneck right at the end. That\'s cheating, and your reader will be quite correct to\r\nthrow your book across the room and carefully avoid anything you ever write in\r\nthe future\" -- Orson Scott Card, from \"How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.\r\n<P>\r\nBut all of this effort is not without reward. The more detailed and thought-out\r\nthe world\'s rules, the more support the story will have. These rules spark\r\ncreative ideas and suggest logical plot threads. They impart a feeling of\r\nauthenticity, that the world the reader/player experiences is real. \r\n<P>\r\nA tree can be only as tall as its roots allow. The deeper you dig into your\r\nworld, the fuller your work will be.\r\n<P>\r\n* Gradual revelation of these laws in the context of a story. The reader/player\r\nis not expected to read a 50-page rulebook before beginning a story. Part of the\r\nenjoyment for the participant (reader or player) is learning bits at a time as\r\nthe story unfolds. The following text illustrates this:\r\n \r\n\"For A Change\" -- \"Under the High Wall (on the resting)\r\nSweetness fills the shade of the High Wall to your east. Under this sweetness\r\nlies a small expanse of fod. A mobile releases mildly to the west; ...\"\r\n<P>\r\n\"The War of the Worlds\" -- H. G. Wells.\r\n\"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this\r\nworld was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man\'s\r\nand yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various\r\nconcerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man\r\nwith a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and\r\nmultiply in a drop of water.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\"The Djinni Chronicles\" - [opening screen]\r\n\"A wish diminished me. I fulfilled my summoner\'s desire expending Purpose. I\r\nreturned to my container before I was lost forever.\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nThe reader/player gains some basic information about the world that he is\r\nentering. He has a guess at what role he might take and at what he might expect\r\nfrom his surroundings. This introductory text was not just a lecture on the first\r\nfew rules from the list, however. A story is afoot.\r\n<P>\r\nThe rules of the world never change, but the reader/player\'s understanding of\r\nthem certainly may. Each new event--in the broad sense--presents an opportunity\r\nto add a new rule or two. It is also the place to clarify a difficult rule or\r\nobfuscate one the reader/player thinks he has down pat. \r\n<P>\r\nObservation: The sun rises, arcs across the sky, and sets behind the horizon.\r\nInitial Conclusion: The sun revolves around the earth.\r\nLater Clarification: The earth revolves around the sun.\r\n<P>\r\nThe rule never changed, only the reader\'s perspective.\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nHow Interactive Fiction differs from Static Fiction\r\n<P>\r\nBoth IF and StF authors work from a set of \"world rules.\" When the StF author is\r\nready to insert a story into his world, he writes. When the IF author is ready,\r\nhe writes and implements. Implementation is critical to consider before diving\r\ntoo deep into a work.\r\n<P>\r\nThis is not an article on coding techniques, design principles or machine\r\nspecifications. The implementation I\'m talking about is \"do-ability.\" As a\r\nprogrammer, can you do (implement) the necessary code that enable a player to\r\nexperience your vision?\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nWith an interactive environment, a player should be capable of many different\r\nactions.\r\n<P>\r\nI\'m sure most writers go through a compromise phase-that time of planning when\r\nyou realize some things just won\'t work. In some cases, simple deletion does the\r\ntrick. But how to work around it when the story demands complex elements? Fudge?\r\nAdd? Rewrite? (I would like to tack on \"writing\" to Murphy\'s law on sausage and\r\nlegislation. If you like it, you should never watch it being made.)\r\n<P>\r\nWith IF, there\'s not only the writing compromise phase, but there\'s also an\r\nimplementation compromise phase. One second after I conceived the idea for TDC, I\r\nrealized that there was no way I could implement the powerful djinni we all know\r\nand love as a player character. Um, yeah... you can fly anywhere, conjure\r\nanything, become anything, and wield the forces of nature with wanton abandon.\r\nOh, I\'ll be sure to provide a unique and intriguing story line for each of the\r\nbillion paths.\r\n<P>\r\nI liked the idea, though. So I got out my constraining net-yeah, the black one\r\nwith the cedar handles-and focused on how I could limit a djinni. Some of these\r\nconstraints were incorporated into the set of world rules. For example, a djinni\r\nhas only so much potential before it must return to its container. But I handled\r\nother constraints in the writing. In the setting, you\'re in the middle of\r\nnowhere. You\'ll run out of potential before you reach anything noteworthy. In the\r\nplot, your goal encourages you to save your energies for only the most important\r\ntasks. You certainly don\'t want to waste it turning into an elephant. (And, OK, I\r\ncertainly didn\'t want to implement that.)\r\n<P>\r\nImplementation compromise may blend with writing compromise. You can reconcile\r\nimplementation problems through your writing. It\'s a tool you can use, and there\r\nare appropriate tools for every job. I have one rule thumb: if you think it feels\r\nforced, your players will probably think so, too.\r\n<P>\r\nDon\'t shy away from implementing complex objects. Where would the community be\r\nwithout some of the wonderful NPCs and gadgets we\'ve encountered and experienced\r\nin the last few years? Such creations can truly enhance a work of interactive\r\nfiction. \r\n<P>\r\nMany articles within this IF Theory Book will tell you to practice your craft.\r\nI\'ll mention here it, too. Experience gives you the knowledge of when to\r\nimplement and how to implement. It lets you know when and how to integrate your\r\nwriting with the implementation.\r\n<P>\r\nIn StF, the author controls the story, the pace, and all of the incidentals. He\r\ndoesn\'t have to consider where or how the protagonist may deviate from the plot.\r\nThe author\'s responsibility to his reader ends at \"be engaging at all times.\"\r\n<P>\r\nIn IF, the author and the player have a continuous, symbiotic relationship. The\r\nauthor must consider where and how the protagonist may deviate from the plot, and\r\nwhat effect that will have on the world. \r\n<P>\r\nIn general, the player controls the pace actively, the author, subtly. Subtlety\r\nis not of less importance. It is the river flowing gently in some parts, rapidly\r\nin others. It forks and twists. It offers spectacular scenery. Combining these to\r\ncreate an enjoyable experience is an art. But the player may get out of the boat,\r\ntake a wrong fork, or never figure out how to steer the canoe. So much for the\r\nbreathtaking waterfall located a few miles downstream.\r\n<P>\r\nThis is especially important for a writer using a magical setting and critical\r\nfor a surrealistic one. A player may fumble around in a normal world, let alone\r\nin one where his very frame of reference is askew.\r\n<P>\r\n\"For descriptive language, where I couldn\'t be completely mysterious because it\r\nwould leave the player without a clue, I mostly tried to keep one step of\r\nmetaphorical distance from whatever I was describing. So if something was rising,\r\nI\'d instead say it was getting larger, or gaining, or something.\" --Dan Schmidt,\r\n\"For A Change\"\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nIn general, the author controls the story actively, the player, subtly. Nothing\r\ncan happen in an interactive work that the author doesn\'t script. The player may\r\ncome up with an ingenious solution or a clever rejoinder, but it won\'t matter if\r\nthe author didn\'t anticipate it. However, each player will have his own approach\r\nand his own thoughts as he plays. Each player will experience the work\r\ndifferently.\r\n<P>\r\nIn a normal world setting, a player can usually fill in the blanks-the places\r\nwhere the author did not anticipate. But a writer of a magical or surrealistic\r\nwork must take greater care. When an author fails to account for something, a\r\nplayer in his world will do one of the following:\r\n<P>\r\no He won\'t be able to fill in the blanks at all.\r\no He will fill the blanks in from a normal world perspective.\r\no He will attempt to piece things together based on his limited knowledge of the\r\nworld.\r\n<P>\r\nIf you\'re creating a work of surrealism, one of the above may be just the\r\nperspective you\'re looking for. But deliberate use of them demands tight control.\r\nYou have to be consciously aware of how you implement them and the overall\r\neffects they will have on the player.\r\n<P>\r\n\"I had to cut back on the weird language in some places. For example, darkness\r\nwas originally described without any reference to the lack of light; it was\r\ndescribed as the lack of thought, thought and light being somewhat synonymous in\r\nthe game\'s word. But that just confused the hell out of people, so I had to take\r\nit out.\" -- Dan Schmidt\r\n<P>\r\n\r\nI see each work of IF as its own unique pas de deux, an intricate dance between\r\nthe author and the player. The author is the ballroom dance instructor. But the\r\ndance studio here adds challenges. The instructor can\'t dance directly with the\r\nplayer, so she must lay out the footprints of the dance steps on the floor. She\r\ncan\'t maintain an active dialog with the player, so she must anticipate his\r\nproblems from start to finish, leaving a recording of her advice at each step. \r\n<P>\r\nThe pupil learns as he dances, most likely making mistakes. But he must feel the\r\nsoul of the dance before he becomes discouraged.\r\n<P>\r\nCreating unique magical IF is a pas de deux with a deaf player. I don\'t mean\r\nsomeone who is physically hearing impaired, but rather one who chooses not to\r\nhear because he\'s heard it before. The pupil sees everything he needs to do, but\r\nthe instructor\'s commands are lost. The instructor must provide visual clues\r\nbeyond the numbered footprints, at least at first.\r\n<P>\r\nCreating surrealistic IF is a pas de deux with a blind player. The pupil learns\r\nnothing from the numbered footprints on the floor. Because the instructor cannot\r\ndirectly communicate in IF, she must impart the feel of the dance exclusively\r\nthrough her descriptions.\r\n<P>\r\nIF authors have beta testing at their disposal. Through this, you will discover\r\nhow well your dance instructions encourage, clarify and entertain. \r\n<P>\r\n\r\nConclusion\r\n<P>\r\nIf form truly is liberating, what more could you ask from the IF magic and\r\nsurrealism genres? You get a form within a form within a form. Have you ever felt\r\nso liberated? \r\n<P>\r\nSeriously, though, the magic/surreal form allows you to focus your raw, unique,\r\nwildly creative ideas into a medium that may be a perfect fit. Interactive\r\nfiction is a relatively young field, and many possibilities are unexplored. There\r\ncertainly will be a considerable amount of work involved in implementing your\r\nideas. But what masterpiece demanded anything less?\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>\r\n--\r\nBibliography\r\n<P>\r\n\"For A Change\", (c)1999, a work of Interactive Fiction by Dan Schmidt\r\n<P>\r\nThe Society for the Promotion of Adventure Games (SPAG), (c)2000, Issue # 19,\r\nPaul O\'Brian, editor\r\n<P>\r\n\"War of the Worlds\", first published in 1898, by H. G. Wells\r\n<P>\r\n\"How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy\", (c)1990, Orson Scott Card, ISBN\r\n0-89879-416-1\r\n<P>\r\n\"The Djinni Chronicles\", (c)2000, a work of Interactive Fiction by J. D. Berry\r\n<P>\r\n\r\n<P>',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 03:59:56',1,10,2829),(17,'Simulationism: Means and Goals',27,'[[I haven\'t detailed most of the references, and I need to mention games that do\r\nthe simulations listed.]]\r\n<P>\r\nSimulation in Interactive Fiction\r\n<P>\r\n== THEORY ==\r\n<P>\r\nAt the heart of the interactivity of Interactive Fiction lies the behavior of the\r\nmodel world: the responses to actions performed by the player character. Modern\r\nIF development systems are designed to make it easy for authors to create these\r\nresponses in a declarative manner: the author specifies exactly what happens in\r\nreaction to a particular command in a particular scenario. If the player tries to\r\nTAKE BOOK from a high shelf, and the player character is not standing on the\r\nchair, the game is coded to print a very specific string: \"You stretch as far as\r\nyou can, but you can\'t quite reach the book.\" If the player is standing on the\r\nchair, the game prints \"You stretch out and easily grab onto the book, pulling it\r\noff the top shelf\", then allows the IF system\'s TAKE-handling code to proceed as\r\nnormal.\r\n<P>\r\nAn alternative strategy would be to give all shelf/table-like containers in the\r\ngame a height property, and to give the player (and other potential actors) a\r\nreach property; then, by combining the heights of any objects the player is\r\nstanding on with the reach of the player, a general check can be performed to\r\ndetermine whether the player can reach so high. This is a simulationist approach.\r\n<P>\r\nSimulationism is a design philosophy and an implementation strategy for providing\r\ninteresting reactivity without the need for the case-by-case authoring required\r\nby declarative programming. A simulation implements a number of rules, then\r\ncharacterizes the objects in specific ways that the rules will take advantage of.\r\nObjects will have a small number of case-by-case characterizations for use by the\r\nsimulation instead of the large number of case-by-case declarations of behavior\r\nin response to specific actions.\r\n<P>\r\nIn the example implementation described above, the same height used for deciding\r\nwhether the player can reach a given table-like object is also used to determine\r\nhow high the player is currently elevated when standing on a table-like\r\nobject--both aspects of the reach problem have been reduced to a single property.\r\nSimilarly, the system could be extended to allow knocking objects off shelves\r\nwith brooms or other long objects by giving such objects a length by which they\r\nextend reach. The length simply characterizes an inherent physical property of\r\nthe object, not a reach-specific property, and so could be used in other\r\nsimulations.\r\n<P>\r\nThe simulationist strategy described above may also open up alternative solutions\r\nto the problem. Perhaps the author intended the player to have to find a ladder\r\nto reach a very high object, but instead a clever player stacks a crate on a\r\nchair on a table and stands on the crate.\r\n<P>\r\nThese qualities are typical of simulation. As an implementation strategy,\r\nsimulation allows a wide variety of behaviors to be characterized with only a\r\nsmall number of properties. As a design strategy, simulation tends to open up\r\nemergent solutions which the author didn\'t anticipate, empowering the player, but\r\nputting a carefully planned-out play-sequence at risk.\r\n<P>\r\nA TYPICAL SIMULATION\r\n<P>\r\nWhen an IF player character picks up an object, puts it on a table or in a bag,\r\nand travels from room to room, the player is exercising a simulation typically\r\nprovided by the the library of an interactive fiction development system. This\r\nsimulation answers a question--\"where is object X?\"--which is basic to the\r\nexperience of IF. Although this simulation has grown from the simple one which\r\nappeared in the original colossal cave \"Adventure\" (Crowther and Woods), that\r\ncore simulation can still be seen in every text adventure and work of interactive\r\nfiction written since.\r\n<P>\r\nThis simulation is exquisitely simple: every object has a \"location\" property\r\nwhose value is another object. This notion of location is very abstract; an\r\nobject in a room is typically \"on the floor/ground\", but this is not always true.\r\nIt may be a painting on the wall, or a chandelier hanging from the ceiling; such\r\ndetails may be visible as special text output by descriptions, but the program\r\nhas no notion of this when processing objects based on location. The only way of\r\nprogrammatically notating more concrete spatial relationships is to put objects\r\ninside others: a pendant may be in a box on a table in a room. This is indicated\r\nby the pendant\'s location being the box, the box\'s location being the table, and\r\nthe table\'s location being the room. To answer the question \"what is in the\r\nroom?\" we cannot merely list the items which have the room as their location, but\r\nmust search recursively for objects within objects in the room.\r\n<P>\r\nThe relationship between an object and the object/room it is contained in is\r\nimplicit in this property. There are also other, more explicit connections\r\nbetween rooms (or even from objects to rooms or objects to objects) which\r\nrepresent other sorts of traversibility than those represented by the nested\r\nlocation hierarchy--typically corridors and doorways, paths and roads.\r\n<P>\r\nThis \"location simulation\" exhibits some fairly typical properties of\r\nsimulations: flexibility of meaning from a small number of properties (on the\r\nfloor, in the sky, in a box, on a table, on the wall), a large number of actions\r\nthat manipulate the properties (GET, PUT x ON y, EMPTY x, ENTER x), behavior\r\nreadily predicted by the player (the consequence of each of the above commands is\r\neasily anticipated, unless the author has added declarative overrides),\r\ninteraction with other simulations (open/closed, opaque/transparent), and the use\r\nof synthetic text generation (\"You see a bear trap, a football helmet, and a\r\nstaple remover here\", \"You put the safety pin on the rickety table\").\r\n<P>\r\nSIMULATIONS IN GAMING\r\n<P>\r\nMost non-IF games are built entirely from simulations. These games feature a\r\nsmall set of rules and a large number of objects or creatures that obey those\r\nrules.\r\n<P>\r\nIn Tetris (Pajitnov, 1986), tetraminoes fall down the screen while the player can\r\ntranslate them horizontally and rotate them. They collide with the other pieces\r\nwhich have fallen based solely on which grid squares each piece occupies. After a\r\npiece can fall no further, a new piece falls; if a row is filled, that row is\r\ndeleted, and the remaining filled grid squares fall down a row. This is the\r\nentire ruleset of Tetris; there are no special cases for rotating an L-shape, nor\r\na special rule for how a square interacts with a bar.\r\n<P>\r\nIn Doom (id Software, 1993), the player has full control over the character\'s\r\nmotion using a simple mapping from the player\'s control inputs to PC movement.\r\nThis movement is then affected by a simulation accounting for the walls in the\r\nworld, the height changes in the floor, and other obstacles like barrels and\r\ncreatures. When shooting, a set of rules govern whether a given projectile hits a\r\ngiven target. When a barrel explodes, it does damage to nearby objects\r\nautomatically; this can lead to a chain reaction of exploding barrels. Nobody\r\nwrote code for \"a chain reaction of exploding barrels\"; it is a consequence of\r\nthe explosion simulation and a map designer putting down barrels close to each\r\nother.\r\n<P>\r\nIn Chess, each piece has its own specific rule for how it is allowed to move and\r\ncapture other pieces; but the interaction of these is entirely governed by the\r\nrules without special cases. There is nothing built into the rules of Chess about\r\ndefending a piece; instead, this emerges as a consequence of the rules: a piece\r\nwhich can \"attack\" another piece on its own team is defending that piece, in that\r\nif the latter piece is captured, the former can retaliate. Such retaliation is\r\ninsufficient, though, if the initial capturing piece is \"worth less\" than the\r\ninitially captured piece; but this notion of \"worth less\" is not something stated\r\nin the game rules, but rather is a natural consequence of the capabilities of the\r\ndifferent pieces, emerging from the one rule about how they move and capture.\r\n<P>\r\nMagic the Gathering (Garfield, 1992?) is somewhat like Chess with much more\r\nper-piece complexity, but it still structures the per-piece rules through\r\nsimulations like \"swampwalking\" and \"prevents swampwalking\" rather than \"piece X\r\naffects piece Y\".\r\n<P>\r\nIn some sense, there is a continuum from \"fully simulated\" as Tetris is to \"fully\r\ndeclarative\" as a typical Choose-Your-Own-Adventure is; Chess lies somewhere in\r\nthe middle, offering a fairly large number of rules to give each piece its unique\r\nmovement. In some Doom-like games in which enemies are affected differently by\r\ndifferent weapons, this susceptibility is defined through a purely declarative\r\ntable that simply indicates the amount of damage done for each combination of\r\nweapon and creature. Crossword puzzles offer an extreme case; in one sense, they\r\nare purely declarative--if you had to teach a non-English speaker how to judge if\r\na puzzle was solved, you would simply provide the complete puzzle answer; in\r\nanother sense, though, crossword puzzles are a simulation which use a\r\nhypothetical English dictionary/encyclopedia as part of the rules.\r\n<P>\r\nFor a more detailed discussion of emergent behavior and other consequences of\r\nsimulations, read Harvey Smith\'s \"The Future of Game Design: Moving Beyond Deus\r\nEx and Other Dated Paradigms\" (currently available at\r\nhttp://www.igda.org/Endeavors/Articles/hsmith_intro.htm )\r\n<P>\r\nCOMPUTERS MEET THE REAL WORLD\r\n<P>\r\nDeclarative programming is almost unique to IF as compared to both games and\r\nprogramming in general. (In fact, most computer programming languages lack the\r\nfacility for providing per-object declarative variations--allowing *code* on\r\nindividual objects. This may seem surprising considering that object-oriented\r\nprogramming was originally strongly associated with simulation\r\nprogramming--referencing \"the real world\". But simulating people standing in line\r\nand being served at different rates is very different than what IF generally\r\ntries to accomplish.)\r\n<P>\r\nFor most games, typical programming languages designed to allow dealing with\r\nlarge numbers of similar objects suffice, given hundreds of similar if not\r\nidentical monsters, ten equivalent race cars on a race track, or twenty-two men\r\nin helmets and a single ball of pigskin. This last case, American Football, is\r\nsomewhat peculiar, however: because each of the men on the team serves a\r\ndifferent role, there needs to be very different AI logic to handle each one.\r\nAlthough this logic is not necessarily attached to the object representing the\r\nman (since several men from each team might play that role), it does require each\r\nman to behave rather differently. Although this logic might have elements of\r\nsimulation in it--responding directly to the location of the ball-carrier rather\r\nthan to the current play that\'s been called--it is going to have to have a\r\ncertain declarative component to it, because that is the nature of the thing\r\nbeing simulated: football players really *have* assigned roles\r\n that they are supposed to undertake.\r\n<P>\r\nThis gets at why simulation is used so rarely in IF: simulations are good at\r\nhandling things which behave similarly. If our goal is to portray the real world,\r\nsimulation only helps us so far as the things in the real world behave\r\nsimilarly--and moreover only so far as multiple such objects appear in the game\r\nworld. If only two of the objects in the simulated world--a newspaper and a\r\nsheet--are rippable, it is unlikely to be worth the effort to build a ripping\r\nsimulation. A superball, a tea kettle, and a notebook have very few things in\r\ncommon; you can\'t bounce a tea kettle, write on a superball, or heat water in a\r\nnotebook.\r\n<P>\r\nThis is not to say that simulation is of no use in IF--as the \"location\"\r\nsimulation reveals, it is arguably the opposite: simulation provides an essential\r\ninteractivity that establishes a \"you are there\"ness. Without it, IF would\r\nessentially have all possible interactions explicitly enumerated, much closer to\r\na CYOA. But simulation should not be thought of as a tool for achieving\r\n\"realism\"; in fact, the further down the simulation route you go, the less varied\r\nyour objects may to seem to the player. Rather, simulation is a tool for creating\r\nflexible interactivity, predictable consequences, cross-simulation interaction,\r\nand emergent outcomes. Declarative programming can usually achieve \"more\r\nrealistic\" results except in the case of complex interactions and\r\ncross-simulation interactions.\r\n<P>\r\nDESIGN VS. IMPLEMENTATION\r\n<P>\r\nA simulationist design embraces the notions of flexible interactivity and\r\npredictable consequences inherent in simulations. At its most extreme, the\r\ndesigner accepts that players will find new, unexpected solutions to problems\r\nbased on \"exploiting\" the properties of the simulation. So long as that\r\nsimulation feels \"real\", the designer accepts that players will do this and\r\nconsiders this a good thing.\r\n<P>\r\nA simulationist implementation recognizes the challenge of achieving consistent\r\nresponses across a large set of actions, or the impossibility of implementing a\r\nvery large set of actions, and uses an algorithmic rather than declarative\r\napproach to specify outcomes.\r\n<P>\r\nAlthough simulationist design and implementation usually go hand-in-hand, they\r\ndon\'t have to. \"Lock & Key\" (Cadre, 2002) exhibits a simulationist design,\r\nallowing traps and connections to be placed in arbitrary configurations, but the\r\ncrux of the game lies in how each trap affects the adventurer struggling past\r\nthem, and each of these interactions (and their dependence on the adventurer\'s\r\nstate as caused by previous traps) is carefully hand-coded declaratively. On the\r\nother hand, \"Fit for a Queen\" (Barrett, 2001) offers a contraption in which\r\nplacing objects of different weights on different platforms causes a hanging\r\nobject to swing to different locations; this contraption is implemented as a\r\nweight-based simulation to create a puzzle that has a particular solution implied\r\nby the competition rules--a non-simulationist design. (The typical \"interesting\"\r\nconsequences of simulationist design are here irrelevent: the intended solution\r\ndoesn\'t depend on any other puzzles being solved \r\nand doesn\'t consume any resources, so should \"alternate\" solutions exist, they\r\nwon\'t have consequences on the rest of the game.)\r\n<P>\r\nMost of the time, however, a system is simulationist both by design and\r\nimplementation.\r\n<P>\r\n== CRAFT ==\r\n<P>\r\nTEXT SYNTHESIS\r\n<P>\r\nWorks of IF are among the few primarily text-based \"games\", which introduces a\r\ncomplexity for simulations in IF by comparison to other games: the need to\r\nexpress the state of a simulation with text. Certainly it is possible to simply\r\nprint the coordinates of the objects, as in \"Asteroids\" (Raszewski, 2001), or\r\ndraw them with ASCII art as in the old BASIC Star Trek games. But IF has\r\ngenerally borrowed more from the part of the \"Dungeons & Dragons\" room\r\ndescriptions that offered qualitative, subjective information (\"water drips\r\nslowly in the corner\") than in the quantiative, objective information (\"the\r\n10-foot wide corridor extends 30 feet west, then turns south, widening to\r\n20-feet\").\r\n<P>\r\nAs such, simulations tend to have sophisticated algorithms for putting pieces of\r\ntext together. The most familiar of these is the list: \"two all-beef patties,\r\nspecial sauce, lettuce, cheese, onions, and a sesame seed bun\". More\r\nsophisticated list printing as seen in Inform and Tads 3 allows grouping items in\r\ncategories and using nested listings, producing things like \"a safety pin, four\r\nbooks (two copies of \'Life, The Universe, and Everything\', one of \'Infinite\r\nJest\', and one of \'American Gods\'), and two torches (one lit)\".\r\n<P>\r\nBut even for simple cases like \"You put the safety pin on the rickety table\"\r\ngetting perfect-sounding English can involve some complexity involving pronoun\r\nsubsitutions; for example, Dan Schmidt pointed out during Tads 3 development that\r\nan early implementation of LOOK UNDER would print \"You see nothing under you\" and\r\n\"Bob sees nothing under him\" (Schmidt, 2001, post to Tads3 mailing list), rather\r\nthan the preferred \"under yourself\" and \"under himself\". In Heroes (Barrett,\r\n2001), I needed to print text when one character attacked another, but if both of\r\nthem had the same \"name\", the first reference to each would be altered to\r\nsomething like \"the guard\" and \"the other guard\". Further references in the\r\nresponse used pronouns if the two guards had different genders, or else did not\r\nuse pronouns if they were the same.\r\n<P>\r\nAlthough next-generation libraries like Tads 3 offer tools to make this sort of\r\nEnglish-generation easier to write, in the end it will always require some human\r\nintervention, at least until natural-language generation is completely solved.\r\n<P>\r\nPARSING\r\n<P>\r\nA number of simulation techniques may produce indistinguishable objects, which\r\ncomplicates understanding references to the objects. The ability to refer to\r\nobjects based on their situation (their location, their dynamic properties) is\r\nimportant, both for disambiguation questions (\"which water, the water, the water,\r\nor the water\") should instead be, \"which water, the pond water, the water in the\r\nbottle, or the water in the bucket?\"), and for referring to the objects (\"put the\r\nball on the table in the box\"). Tads 3 offers some facilities to do this\r\nautomatically.\r\n<P>\r\nREALISM AND ABSTRACTION\r\n<P>\r\nSimulations exhibit varying degrees of realism. Generally they are always\r\ndesigned to achieve some sense of \"truth\" (although that truth may be about an\r\nalternate universe, e.g. with a simulation of magic); the question is the degree\r\nof detail provided by simulation. It is important to be willing to make\r\nabstractions and not strive for perfect realism. The traditional \"location\"\r\nsimulation has strong verisimilitude, but little realism, since so little of the\r\ntrue nature of location is captured in containment-plus-exits. As such it is a\r\npowerful abstraction: it is easy for the player to understand, easy to program,\r\nand easy to modify. As an extreme case, consider the challenge of writing code\r\nthat is hardcoded to \"the blue key unlocks the silver door\" compared to having a\r\nfull 3-dimensional description of the key and the lock along with code that\r\nanalyzes their shapes to determine whether one unlocks the other.\r\n<P>\r\n== FIFTY SIMULATIONS ==\r\n<P>\r\nIt might sound like I\'m down on simulationism, but outside of the IF world, I\'m a\r\nserious simulationist. But because the best IF tends to integrate puzzles very\r\ntightly with the storyline, and for other reasons mentioned above, I think it\'s\r\nmuch more challenging to use simulation successfully in IF. I also think it\'s a\r\nworthwhile and productive area to explore, but that authors pursuing it need to\r\nclearly understand how simulations interact with storytelling, game design,\r\nemergent behavior, and realism, rather than simply pursuing simulations because\r\nthey are \"neat\" or \"more realistic\".\r\n<P>\r\nBecause simulations are just a tool to use in a game, any given simulation is\r\nreally useful on a game by game basis. Nevertheless, for the remainder of this\r\narticle, though, I\'ll discuss a number of possible specific simulations. These\r\nmight be implemented by library authors to create a more flexible basis for game\r\nauthors, or just implemented directly for a single game. \r\n<P>\r\nFor the most part, these are \"realistic\" simulations based around the behaviors\r\nof real-world objects, since anything else would be of limited use. Many of the\r\nsimulations interact with each other, so they\'ll become more interesting and\r\nsignificant as more are created.\r\n<P>\r\n- Baseline simulations\r\n- Physical properties\r\n- Spatiality\r\n- Sensing\r\n- Divisibility\r\n- Liquids\r\n- Gases\r\n- Damage\r\n- Mechanisms\r\n- Magic\r\n- Player character\r\n<P>\r\n[[The above is the list of sections that appears below. I don\'t know if it needs\r\nsummarizing here or not.]]\r\n<P>\r\nBASELINE SIMULATIONS\r\n<P>\r\nThe following are nearly universal in current IF systems.\r\n<P>\r\n_Location_: a simple representation of object positioning, based on objects being\r\n\"in\" or \"on\" other objects; the choice of preposition is normally determined by\r\nthe \"containing\" object. Another commonly allowed relationship is \"is a part of\"\r\n(that is, componenthood).\r\n<P>\r\n_Exits_: exits allow traversibility between locations that aren\'t related in an\r\nin/on fashion.\r\n<P>\r\n_Openability_: Containers and doors can be opened or closed, limiting the\r\naccessibility of the innards or connection.\r\n<P>\r\n_Lockability_: Prevents openability when locked.\r\n<P>\r\n_Opacity_: Opaque containers cannot be seen into and out of when closed;\r\ntransparent ones can.\r\n<P>\r\n_Light_: For the player character to see and interact, typically at least one\r\nlight source must be in the same room, and visible (not inside closed opaque\r\ncontainers).\r\n<P>\r\nPHYSICAL PROPERTIES\r\n<P>\r\nA number of basic physical properties can be defined for objects that will be\r\nuseful in multiple simulations beyond the simple basic one listed here.\r\n<P>\r\n_Size_: Objects can have a volume which indicates the space they take up in\r\ncontainers, and containers can have a maximum volume. A stretchy container\'s\r\nvolume grows as more objects are put in it. More abstractly, objects could be one\r\nof \"small\", \"medium\", or \"large\", and could simply fit or not in containers based\r\non the maximum size that container allows.\r\n<P>\r\n_Mass_: Objects can also have mass; a container like a table overloaded with too\r\nmuch mass might break; a vehicle with too much mass might not go; a player\r\ncharacter carrying too much mass might drop things or become fatigued. \r\n<P>\r\n_Density_: Object density can be provided or computed as the ratio of mass to\r\nvolume; useful for determining if an object floats.\r\n<P>\r\n_Shape_: Objects can have a representation of shape: either entirely abstract\r\nbased on some canned set of shapes specific to the game (long & skinny, round &\r\nflat, etc.), or things like \"longest dimension\" and \"shortest dimension\". These\r\ncan be used to determine if an object fits in a container, or even if an object\r\nfits through the entrance to a container (e.g. a ship in a bottle). A closed\r\ncontainer could still be \"open\" but with a different entrance shape, e.g.\r\nallowing a player in a cage to throw a shoe between the bars.\r\n<P>\r\n_Material_: Objects can be made of wood, paper, cloth, metal, flesh, water,\r\nglass, etc. The material property can be used to drive other simulations:\r\nmaterial can imply a density allowing mass or volume to be computed from the\r\nother; material can imply flammability for a burnability simulation; material can\r\nimply whether an object can be written on; etc.\r\n<P>\r\nSPATIALITY\r\n<P>\r\n_Uprightness_: Objects could have a \"primary upright\" direction, in which they\r\nnormally rest unless knocked over or intentionally inverted. The abstraction\r\ncould be \"upright\" or \"on its side\", or \"upright\"/\"on its side\"/\"inverted\". Some\r\nobjects, like spheres, might have no sense of uprightness. Containers could have\r\ndifferent behaviors when knocked on their side: a different max volume, e.g.\r\nstuff spills out or it\'s a surface/supporter and thus no longer supports things,\r\na changed ability to contain liquid, a propensity to spontaneously opening when\r\non its side, etc. Picture a table with a platter on which is a bowl of soup and a\r\nclosed wine bottle: knocking over the table, the platter, or the bowl should\r\nresult in spilling the soup.\r\n<P>\r\n_Attachment_: Objects could be attached to one another physically (with glue,\r\ntied together with twine, because they have interlocking pieces), so that, for\r\ninstance, picking one up implies picking up the other. This is something like\r\ncomponenthood, but the objects are equal. Perhaps implemented by making a new\r\nobject with the other two objects as components.\r\n<P>\r\n_Height_: As discussed at the beginning of this article, the height of objects in\r\nrooms could be computed and used to simulate objects being \"out of reach\". \r\nRather than using numeric values, some abstract \"low, medium, high\" could be used\r\ninstead, but a numeric simulation allows stacking any number of containers to\r\nachieve the height.\r\n<P>\r\n_3D coordinates_: A numeric height simulation is 1/3 of the way to characterizing\r\nobjects with explicit 3D locations within a room. This information could be used\r\nto synthesize room descriptions that relate objects to one another, instead of\r\nthe current abstract descriptions. Player movement within the room could be\r\ntracked and used for various ends. But I think this is one for which abstraction\r\nis preferable; description doesn\'t sound that important, and a user interface to\r\nmanipulate object locations seems difficult.\r\n<P>\r\n_Proximity_: One abstract approach representing the other 2D location of objects\r\nwithin rooms is to mark objects as being in proximity to each other. Proximity\r\ncould be transitive, so objects form proximity groups, all of which objects are\r\nnear each other. Normally proximity isn\'t important since player characters can\r\nwalk around to manipulate any object in the room, but some declarative proximity\r\nhas been seen in games to deal with players sitting in chairs or tied up. A\r\nproximity simulation can handle the case of limited mobility--what the player can\r\nreach when, say, standing on a table. At the same time, it offers other features;\r\nplayers could push objects near other objects, changing proximities. So, say,\r\nonly objects that can be brought into proximity could be attached with\r\n_Attachment_. If player characters must be proximate to objects they are\r\nmanipulating, actions involving more than one object will require the player be\r\nable to make those objects proximate to one another. The groupings could be\r\nmentioned in the room desc\r\nription, providing structure to large content lists. With _Proximity_ and\r\n_Height_, the classic \"push a chair next to the shelf and stand on it\" puzzle\r\ncould be a full simulation, admitting alternative solutions.\r\n<P>\r\n_Room_Continuity_: Rooms could also keep track of their relationship to each\r\nother, either with a 3D coordinate system or with additional proximity\r\ninformation for shared walls. Players could then forge new connections between\r\nrooms by destroying or tunneling through walls. This has been experimented with\r\nin graphics 3D games, but is problematic by making it difficult to control where\r\nthe player can go.\r\n<P>\r\n_Flying_: Objects which are flying or levitating do not contribute mass to their\r\nparent container, and do not become wet from liquids in that container.\r\n<P>\r\nSENSING\r\n<P>\r\nMost IF to date has a simple model of sensing: objects are \'in scope\' or not,\r\nallowing reference to by the parser and being \'visible\' to the player. Closed\r\ncontainers block lines of scope. Special handling is used for objects in\r\ntransparent closed containers.\r\n<P>\r\nSophisticated sense passing attempts to introduce a more careful simulation of\r\nwhat you can observe versus what you can touch/reach. \r\n<P>\r\n_Propagation_: \"Sense data\", in the form of light and sound energy, needs to\r\npropagate in and out of containers, and possibly through exits to other rooms.\r\nSupport for artificial propation, such as microphones & speaker pairs, or\r\nsecurity cameras & monitors, are a natural extension. Text generated might want\r\nto refer to the propogation: \"On the monitor, you see ...\" and \"From the north,\r\nyou hear ...\"\r\n<P>\r\n_Active vs. Passive_: Active sensing refers to the player taking steps to\r\nobserve, as with the command LOOK or LISTEN. Active sensing includes handling\r\ncomplex description routines for rooms and allowing LOOK WEST to show information\r\nabout the contents of adjacent rooms. Passive sensing refers to the player\r\nhappening to observe something without any action; this typically means the\r\nconsequences direct & indirect of actions taken by the player, independent events\r\nby NPCs, and \"random messages\" for atmosphere.\r\n<P>\r\nThe implementation strategies for active and passive sensing are somewhat\r\ndifferent, but for consistent results both need to behave similarly. If it is too\r\ndark for the player to perceive a character when looking, then the player\r\nshouldn\'t see the character walking around. More accurately, active sensing may\r\nhave better perception than passive sensing, but it shouldn\'t be worse. Properly\r\nimplementing passive sensing is rather complicated, however, since every possible\r\noutput message needs to get appropriately tested for visibility and audibility,\r\nwhich can be complicated by the introduction of microphones and amplifiers,\r\ncameras and monitors, and similar things. Appropriate testing can be complicated\r\nif an event causes both noise and visuals, since the player might see the even,\r\nhear the event, or both. This is more easily done in MUDs (multi-user text\r\nadventures), which already have to deal with different players perceiving or not\r\nperceiving events, and so authors are more used to having to cope with these\r\npossibilities.\r\n<P>\r\n_Unified Sensing_: One approach to the challenge of handling the four major\r\nsenses--vision, sound, smell, and touch--is to write a single system which can\r\npropagate any sense at all, and customize it for each case. The general\r\nsimulation must be moderately flexible, and abstractions applied must be\r\nappropriate to all senses (or, at least, a superset of the appropriate senses).\r\nThis is the approach taken by Tads 3.\r\n<P>\r\nAn alternative approach is to consider each sense separately and try to find\r\nentirely different abstractions that make them as different as possible. This\r\nwill presumably open up more interesting possible actions and interactions and\r\ngameplay, although it is a lot more work and might be hard to keep the senses\r\ninteracting and coordinated.\r\n<P>\r\n_Sight & Light_: The primary sense humans experience, and the one which provides\r\nus with the most information at the highest rate, is vision. Simulated vision can\r\nallow seeing objects at a distance if there is \"line of sight\" between them,\r\nallow providing less descriptive information about objects seen at a distance,\r\nallow varying levels of ambient lighting, and also provide less descriptive\r\ninformation about objects seen in low light.  Light propagates much as sight\r\ndoes, although in addition to containers being opaque or transparent, a container\r\ncan also be translucent, allowing light to pass through but blurring it so that\r\nno image is transmitted. Some objects are self-lit and need no lighting (e.g. an\r\nalarm clock in the dark). Images seen in mirrors could be reflected, with \'right\'\r\nand \'left\' and written text reversed.\r\n<P>\r\nVision is the only human sense that relies on some other ambient quality\r\nreflecting off objects to perceive them. This is already leveraged in the basic\r\n_Light_ simulation.\r\n<P>\r\n_Sound_: Hearing is the second most significant sense. Containers can be\r\nsound-proof or not, independent of light transparency. Sound could travel from\r\nroom to room, going around corners.\r\n<P>\r\nWe tend to see things visually only by actively looking for them, although motion\r\ndraws our eye and encourages looking. By contrast, we heard things all the time\r\nwithout trying, although we may not listen. Sound may be a good candidate for\r\n\"edge-triggering\": for introducing the notion of sustained, multi-turn heard\r\nsounds, which are automatically described the first time they are heard, and then\r\nonly mentioned again when the sound stops (or possibly every three turns or some\r\nsuch to help remind the player). An sustained ambient sound heard across multiple\r\nrooms could be described as \"getting louder\" and \"getting softer\" by keeping\r\ntrack of which sounds the player character is currently hearing.\r\n<P>\r\n_Touch_: Touch is a crucial sense for IF because it corresponds directly to\r\nmanipulation; players can only take items which they can touch. But this mapping\r\nneed not be strict in both directions; using containers with specific mouth sizes\r\nas discussed in _Size_, it could be possible to touch something through a narrow\r\nopening without being able to take it.\r\n<P>\r\nTouch is unique compared to sight and sound in that it requires physical contact;\r\nthere is no interaction at a distance, even within a single room.\r\n<P>\r\n_Smell_: Smell can be implemented somewhat like sight and sound, with reduced\r\nscent at a distance or through partially-odor-blocking containers. Smells might\r\nmix together rather than be perceived separately; see _Mixing_ and the section on\r\ngases.\r\n<P>\r\nOdor is relatively unique compared to the other senses because it lingers. One\r\nimplementation might be to have odor-producing objects create \'scent\' objects in\r\nthe area where they are, which slowly decay if the odor-producing object is moved\r\naway or otherwise stops producing odors. A similar \"edge-triggered\" scheme as in\r\n_Sound_ might be appropriate for giving feedback to the player about smells and\r\ntheir changes over time.\r\n<P>\r\n_Recording_: Objects which are capable of recording sense data, such as audio\r\ncameras, tape recorders, and video cameras, can be implemented in a sense-passing\r\nsystem, saving away some representation of the sense data for future examination.\r\nVideo cameras and tape recorders, which record an extended period of time, would\r\nneed good _Passive_Sensing_ support so that a given event might be recorded *and*\r\nperceived directly by the player. Since the future state of objects might change,\r\nit is most feasible to record the states as pure text; e.g. the photograph stores\r\nthe description of what you see when you look at the photograph.\r\n<P>\r\n_Character-Relative_Observation_:  In games with more than one player character,\r\ndifferent characters may perceive the world differently in a simulated manner.\r\nFor example, one character could be blind or another deaf. Even more likely are\r\nthe introduction of characters with superior senses: a character who can always\r\nhear things clearly no matter how quiet, a character with extra-sharp vision who\r\ncan see things clearly at a distance, or a character who can see in the dark. New\r\n\"senses\" could be introduced, such as the ability to see \'invisible\' creatures.\r\nHandling all of these cases basically only requires printing appropriate messages\r\nwhen characters perceive things through reduced senses; but this is a basic\r\nrequirement of supporting sound-proof but transparent containers, or\r\nnon-sound-proof opaque containers. Even in games with only one player character,\r\n_Character-Relative_Observation_ can be used to differentiate _NPC_Sensing_.\r\n<P>\r\nIt is possible to treat language as if it were \"sense data\" in a similar way;\r\ncharacters who understand a language see the text translated into the language\r\nthe game is written in, and characters who do not see the \"original language\"\r\ntext or simply some-randomly generated gibberish.\r\n<P>\r\nThere are problematic interactions with _Recording_. Recording a single text\r\nrepresentation of the sense data makes it impossible to print text that is\r\nadjusted to the sense of a particular character. Deferring text generation until\r\nthe recording is examined will break due to the state of objects having changed\r\nsince the recording was made. The ideal solution is to make copies of all the\r\nobjects and global variables which might be involved in generating the\r\ndescription; however, determining which objects those might be is difficult,\r\nsince some objects may rely on arbitrary other objects for printing sense\r\ninformation.\r\n<P>\r\nA single player character can himself become effectively different player\r\ncharacters in the face of _Recording_. For example, taking a photograph of the\r\nmysterious stranger results in a photograph whose description refers to \"the\r\nmysterious stranger\"; if the player later becomes friends with the mysterious\r\nstranger and starts referring to him by name as \"Bob\", it will be odd if\r\nexamining the photograph still refers to \"the mysterious stranger\" rather than\r\n\"Bob\".\r\n<P>\r\n_NPC_Sensing_: In addition to sense-passing information around to the player\r\ncharacter and to any recording devices, NPCs might also want to do passive\r\nsensing. One use of this is simply to still generate immediate text for the\r\nplayer: \"The radio crackles to life, and Bob says, \'Boss, the dame just walked in\r\nthe front door.\'\" The other use is to provide information to NPC AI routines that\r\nallow them to react. The information represents state changes in the world\r\nprogrammatically. For example, you might distribute an event \"object Trophy\r\nentered object Table due to action of object Player\" that requires visual\r\nperception. Some NPCs will see this and others will not. Using such a scheme\r\n*without* sophisticated sense-passing is still an improvement over current\r\naction-based NPC schemes; an NPC who wants to react to the trophy being placed on\r\nthe table must intercept every possible interaction that leads to it (which\r\nbecomes effectively impossible with sufficiently complex simulations\r\n, such as the case of a trophy in a box on the table, and we burn the box), or\r\ninstead must simply poll every turn and test to see if the trophy happens to be\r\non the table now. Using events allows the NPC to understand how and why something\r\nhappened.\r\n<P>\r\n_Color_: Light can be modelled as colored--for example, as a combination of the\r\nadditive primary colors red, green, and blue--and the colors of observed objects\r\ncould change under different lighting conventions. As in \"Savoir-Faire\" (Short,\r\n2002), _Mixing_ liquids and powders of different colors can create a blended\r\ncolor, for example combinations of the subtractive primary colors cyan, magenta,\r\nand yellow.\r\n<P>\r\n_Information_Copying_: A variation on recording is to allow the duplication of\r\ninformation content found in drawings, pictures, printed or written texts, or\r\nengravings. Characters can draw freehand, trace existing drawings, copy\r\ndocuments, or making rubbings of engravings. In each case, a new object is\r\ncreated which preserves the \"information content\" of the object, which would\r\npresumably be stored in a separate property on the object.\r\n<P>\r\nDIVISIBILITY\r\n<P>\r\n_Discrete_Divisiblity_: Some objects are made naturally of components which are\r\nassembled into pieces and can be disassembled back into them. Others might be\r\nable to be disassembled violently (breaking off table legs or chopping off\r\ncharacters arms) but into planned, well-named parts. Or an object might be able\r\nto be \'destroyed\' breaking it into pieces using a destruction simulation: rather\r\nthan having pre-defined parts, the size and mass and material type of the object\r\nis used to create collection of new \"broken pieces\" of the original object\r\n(possibly named \"piece of X\").\r\n<P>\r\n_Irreversible_Continuous_Divisibility_: Some objects may be able to be split into\r\narbitrary sized pieces, e.g. cutting a rope or slicing a loaf of bread. These\r\npieces cannot generally be reassembled. (You might tie the two pieces of rope\r\nback together, but that\'s really no different than tying to unrelated pieces of\r\nrope together, which is a separate simulation issue.)\r\n<P>\r\n_Reversible_Continuous_Divisibly_: Some objects are inherently composed of\r\ntoo-many-to-count small components that are fluid-like, such as soup and sand.\r\nThese objects should be able to be divided arbitrarily and remerged arbitrarily.\r\n<P>\r\n_Noticeable_Individuals_: Sometimes a collection of objects doesn\'t really\r\n\"behave\" like a single object in the fluid sense above, but for other reasons we\r\nwant to treat it as a single object, yet we want the player to notice and\r\ninteract with individuals. Thus we might have a collection of books or crowd of\r\npeople, of which some representative individuals might be examinable and\r\nmanipulable, while we want to treat the entire collection as if it were a mass.\r\n<P>\r\nLIQUIDS\r\n<P>\r\nLiquids need some notion of amount; if mass and volume are both defined, the two\r\nshould be strictly linked based on the amount. (Dividing and merging them\r\nindependently could introduce rounding errors that cause them to diverge.) A\r\nnumber of games have implemented various kinds of divisible flowable liquids, for\r\nexample Ivan Cockrum\'s \"Sunset Over Savannah\" () and \"Savoir-Faire\".\r\n<P>\r\n_Fluid_Flow_: Liquids need to be continuously divisible, so you can pull some\r\namount out of the liquid and put it in another container. Liquids should flow\r\nfrom one container to another, so if you put too much liquid in a container, it\r\nspills out into the parent container. There are a number of possible commands for\r\nplayers to move liquids from place to place: \"POUR x INTO y\" pours an unknown\r\namount or all of it; \"FILL x WITH y\" pours liquid until x is full, if possible;\r\n\"EMPTY x INTO y dumps all contents of x into y\";.\r\n<P>\r\nLiquid entering a container might flow back into its children, for example if\r\nfilling a bucket which also contains an open jar. This might always happen--a\r\nsimple abstraction--or be based upon the height of the liquid and the height of\r\nthe inner container.\r\n<P>\r\n_Mixing_: If there is more than one liquid in a container, the two should\r\nprobably mix into a single entity, one which presumably tracks the original two\r\nliquids so it knows what its components are. If a particular mixture has an\r\nidentifiable name, you may want to turn mixtures of the right type into that new\r\ntype.\r\n<P>\r\n_Liquid/Dry_Interaction_: Submersion in liquid should cause dry objects to become\r\n\"wet\"; this can happen when a dry object is moved into a liquid or into a\r\ncontainer containing liquid, or if liquid is added to the container the dry\r\nobject is in. The consequence of wetness varies for different objects, possibly\r\nbased on _Material_. Many objects may simply be wet--traces of moisture on them.\r\nAbsorbent objects like cloth can soak up liquid to some limit; the limit could be\r\nexplicitly per object or based on the material type. Powders can interact and mix\r\nwith each other using the _Fluid_Flow_ simulation but then dissolve when mixed\r\nwith \"wet\" liquids. Wet objects can slowly dry over time.\r\n<P>\r\n_Permeability_: In addition to spilling if knocked over (e.g. with\r\n_Uprightness_), containers could have a slow leak which causes their liquid\r\ncontents to leak out over time. Leaked liquid flows out using the _Fluid_Flow_\r\nsimulation. The leak could occur at different heights of the container; a leak at\r\nthe bottom leaks everything, but a higher leak only leaks liquid if the volume is\r\nabove the \"leak-volume\".\r\n<P>\r\nContainers might also be permeable in the opposite direction; liquid might flow\r\ninto an otherwise empty container if submerged, a variant of the _Fluid_Flow_\r\nmodel.\r\n<P>\r\n_Floating_: Objects can float on the surface of liquids if their density is less\r\nthan that of the liquid. Containers can compute their effective density\r\ndynamically, so as a container becomes loaded down, it eventually sinks (causing\r\nit to become flooded as well).\r\n<P>\r\n_Flame/Liquid_Interaction_: Liquids can extinguish flames, or be heated and\r\nboiled, evaporating the liquid (but leaving behind any dry powder components from\r\n#29).\r\n<P>\r\n_Reactive_Chemistry_: Although mixing is easily implemented, reactive chemistry\r\nis more complicated. Powders dissolve in liquids; solutions combined with each\r\nother might precipitate out a solid; acids neutralize bases; magnesium reacts\r\nwith water exothermally. However, creating these as *realistic* simulations is\r\npresumably impossible; although chemistry is effectively purely a consequence of\r\nsimpler atomic behaviors, simulating atoms and getting chemical behaviors is\r\ninfeasible. Instead, chemical behaviors must be explicitly codified and\r\nprocessed, using appropriate abstractions.\r\n<P>\r\nGASES\r\n<P>\r\nGases can be viewed as special kinds of fluids that flow and mix in a similar way\r\nto liquids. However, they don\'t get things \"wet\", and they don\'t tend to stay\r\ninside open containers.\r\n<P>\r\n_Gas_Flow_: Each room or container has a \"gaseous medium\", typically air. If a\r\ncontainer is air-tight, it can have its own unique gaseous medium. If not, all\r\ncontainers hierarchically connect would have the same medium. Mixing happens as\r\nwith liquids, assuming one doesn\'t want to distinguish gases which would rise or\r\nsink. Wind could induce mixing or even blow gases from room to room. _Sound_\r\nwould not travel through a vacuum.\r\n<P>\r\n_Smoke_: Gas-like phenomena such as smoke and fog are opaque and could reduce\r\nvisibility for sight lines that pass through them.\r\n<P>\r\n_Gas/Smell_Interaction_: Smells should behave in ways related to gases, since\r\nthey are generally airborne. Air-tight containers should be smell-tight; if a\r\nwind blows smoke from one room to another, it should also blow smells from one\r\nroom to another.\r\ninteraction with smell\r\n<P>\r\n_Gas_Temperature_: The ambient temperature perceived by the player character is\r\nthe temperature of the gas around her. Gases of different temperatures that are\r\nmixed will also be averaged. Cold solid objects may slowly absorb heat from gases\r\npresent, while hot objects will slowly heat them. This can interact with liquids\r\nand especially wet objects, causing wet objects to dry faster.\r\n<P>\r\nDAMAGE\r\n<P>\r\nObjects can be permanently affected physically without involving chemical\r\nreactions. Many such transformations are irreversible, and since they change the\r\nobject from its pristine, natural state, perhaps an appropriate term would be\r\n_Deformations_. For example, objects which are \"destroyed\" could fragment into\r\npieces, as discussed in _Discrete Divisibility_.\r\n<P>\r\n_Defacement_: e.g. denting, scarring, or marking. Some deformations do not in any\r\nway significantly impact that functioning of an object. Hitting something with a\r\nhammer might dent or slightly bend it, without impairing its\r\nliquid-tightness--perhaps it could slightly reduce its capacity. Scraping\r\nsomething with a sharp object might leave a s car. You might be able to write on\r\npaper and other materials using markers, or spray graffiti on objects with a\r\nspray can.\r\n<P>\r\n_Disablement_: Attempts to dent or scar an object could penetrate it or otherwise\r\nviolate its integrity, causing dysfunction. A liquid-tight container could leak,\r\nmachinery stop working, clothing become unable to be worn, or \r\n<P>\r\n_Combat_: Violent interactions with objects, resulting in defacement or\r\ndisablement, could be driven by a combat system much like one would use for\r\ncharacter vs. character combat. The object\'s material or other representation of\r\nfragility could interact with the \"weapon\" type to determine the mode of damage;\r\nthen a representation of the object\'s *functionality* could determine whether\r\nsuch damage leads to defacement or disablement.\r\n<P>\r\n_Blunt/Cutting_: Two major mode of violent interaction are cutting and blunt\r\nforce. (A possible third: stabbing.) Properties like density and mass could\r\ndetermine the effectiveness of blunt assaults, whereas some sort of \'sharpness\'\r\nproperty could determine the effectiveness of cutting. For example,  cutting\r\nbutter divides it; blunt assault deforms and defaces it. One might also\r\ndistinguish blade-like cutting from cutting that cannot deeply penetrate due to\r\nthe wrong shape; it would presumably be hard to use a sharp piece of glass to cut\r\nbutter, rather than merely scar it with a cut.\r\n<P>\r\n_Burning_: Burning is a fairly complex activity suitable for much more complex\r\nsimulation. Objects can slowly burn over time, changing material state (becoming\r\nmore fragile and less able to support weight) and fragmenting into pieces as they\r\ngo. Fire can propagate between objects in contact or _Proximity_. Burning most\r\nobjects, of course, would require the presence of air (or a certain amount of\r\noxygen) and would create _Smoke_.\r\n<P>\r\nMECHANISMS\r\n<P>\r\n_Machinery_: Often a very small, localized simulation is the only way to\r\nimplement a piece of machinery which needs to have specific, complex behaviors.\r\nAt the simple end of the spectrum lies the microwave oven with a timer in\r\n\"Lurking Horror\" (Lebling); at the more complex end the Enigma machine in\r\n\"Curses\" (Nelson). Simpler machines are typically \"off\" or \"on\"; simulation comes\r\ninto play when the machine has many states, and more than a few are meaningful.\r\n<P>\r\n_Constructs_: A number of commercial non-IF computer games allow level designers\r\nto combine \"triggers\" which the player sets off (e.g. buttons or hidden\r\ndetectors) with \"reactors\" which react when triggered in various ways (opening a\r\ndoor or spawning a new enemy). The trigger-reactor interaction is generally a\r\nsimulation; some systems deepen the simulation by introducing \"multiplexers\" that\r\nstimulate multiple reactors, or \"logic gates\" that require multiple triggers\r\nbefore they trigger the reactor down the line. Such approaches aren\'t generally\r\nused in IF since the \"level designer\" can more easily create that sort of logic\r\ndirectly in code. However, this technique can be used to allow the *player* to\r\nconstruct new sorts of machines, as in the spy gadgets in \"Spider & Web\"\r\n(Plotkin).\r\n<P>\r\nMAGIC\r\n<P>\r\nI\'ve pointed out that the power of general purpose simulation is limited by the\r\nneed for having many objects that participate in the simulation. One way of\r\nleveraging simulation is to introduce magic that can consistently affect most or\r\nall objects in the game. This strategy is exemplified by Emily Short\'s games\r\n\"Metamorphoses\" (2000) and \"Savoir-Faire\".\r\n<P>\r\n_Transformation_: Transformation allows changing object properties which are not\r\nnormally variable. In \"Metamorphoses\", most objects possess three physical\r\nproperties: size, shape, and material. Two magical machines are provided, one\r\nwhich can change the size of an object, and the other which changes its material\r\nnature. The puzzles in the game are keyed to the physical properties of the\r\nobject, rather than specific objects; players are free to transform any object of\r\nthe appropriate shape so as to create the object needed for a particular puzzle.\r\nA more classic example is the FROTZ spell in the Infocom \"Enchanter\" series\r\n(Lebling & Blank), which uses changes the attribute used by the _Light_\r\nsimulation to make arbitrary objects light sources.\r\n<P>\r\n_Manipulation_: Manipulation allows changing the state of objects that *is*\r\nnaturally variable, but under conditions where it cannot normally be done.\r\n\"Savoir-Faire\" introduces a concept of \"magic linking\" which allows objects to be\r\nmanipulated in ways they *could* be manipulated if they are linked to objects\r\nwhich do allow such manipulation. The REZROV spell from \"Enchanter\" allows\r\nopening objects which are openable even if they are locked, but does not allow\r\nopening objects which are not naturally openable.\r\n<P>\r\nEXTENDING THE PLAYER CHARACTER\r\n<P>\r\nIF\'s model of the player and the player character is extremely simple. This is\r\nprobably for the best, since it makes the player\'s interaction simpler and more\r\ncomprehensible. But there are certainly numerous areas for improvement.\r\n<P>\r\n_Modelling_Player_Character_Knowledge_: It is possible to keep careful track of\r\nwhat things the player character knows, and integrate this information with the\r\nparser to disambiguate or to offer implicit interactions. For example, Emily\r\nShort\'s \"Locksmith\" library keeps track of what keys the player has used\r\nsuccesfully and automatically unlocks locks using the appropriate key if known.\r\n<P>\r\n_Inventory_: IF systems use a very simple abstract inventory system for objects\r\ncarried by the player character, rather than trying to keep track of whether each\r\nobject is in the player\'s left hand, right hand, or the crook of the right elbow.\r\nSome people are occasionally critical about the lack of realism, although this is\r\nexplained away with an implicit. But there are in other possibilities, such as\r\nabstract notion of there being at most one or two \"ready\" objects. Non-ready\r\nobjects cannot be constrained to be _Upright_--attempting to carry an open\r\ncontainer of liquid is impossible if it is not \"ready\". [Heroes\' thief / Zarf\'s\r\nrock climber example?]\r\n<P>\r\n_Hands_: One could also implement full-fledged hands. The act of taking an object\r\nrequires moving the hand into proximity with it--the hand has a size and might\r\nnot be able to reach into a given container--then _Attaching_ the hand to it, and\r\nmoving the composite object back out of any containers (the composite might be\r\neven larger and not fit anymore; the container could intentionally lock and\r\n\"handcuff\" the player). The hand and body would be connected in much the same way\r\nyou would implement the connection between the two ends of a piece of rope.\r\n<P>\r\n== CHALLENGES ==\r\n<P>\r\nRope\r\n<P>\r\nRope is a notoriously difficult thing to implement in IF, because it is flexible\r\nin so many ways and players expect that flexibility. With a number of the above\r\nsystems at hand, implementing rope in all of its glory becomes more\r\nplausible--although this might be too much flexibility to put in the hands of the\r\nplayer for solving puzzles.\r\n<P>\r\n_Attachment_ makes it plausible to tie one end of a rope to an object. If the\r\nrope is implemented to have two ends which can be in adjacent rooms, attachment\r\nwill \"automatically\" pull a tied object along with the end of the rope. Use of\r\ncontainer-mouth sizes or shapes on exits could prevent the dragging of objects\r\nthrough inappropriate boundaries. A very short rope could use the _Proximity_\r\nsimulation to keep both ends near each other. _Irreversible Continuous\r\nDivisibility_ allows cutting the rope into fragments; _Attachment_ might be used\r\nto tie the pieces back together. A proper _Burning_ simulation might allow the\r\nrope to be used as a fuse.\r\n<P>\r\nOf course, there are still significant issues to address, such as implementing\r\nhaving the rope ends being in different rooms and pulling each other around,\r\npreventing closeable containers from closing on the rope, and coping with the\r\nparsing problem of referring to the ends of the rope when both are present. But\r\none would hope that the existence of the other simulations would make it much\r\nmore tractable.\r\n<P>\r\nLadders\r\n<P>\r\nLadders might be able to follow as a natural extension of the _Height_\r\nsimulation--one can stand on the ladder and it changes your height, and you could\r\nhave exits which are only accessible from certain heights, and only if the player\r\nhas _Proximity_ to them.  Perhaps _Uprightness_ could be used to deal with the\r\nladder being vertical or not, although clearly some information about where it\r\n*can* be placed is needed. Ladders are very dramatically shaped--an extreme ratio\r\nbetween longest and shortest dimension--and sophisticated shape simulations might\r\nexhibit the appropriate behaviors for fitting a ladder through specifically\r\nshaped exits or vehicles.',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 03:36:55',1,10,8616),(18,'The Narrative and Crossword Get Friendly &mdash; on The Use and Deployment of Puzzles',30,'The Narrative and Crossword Get Friendly\r\n -- on The Use and Deployment of Puzzles\r\n<pre>\r\nContents\r\nIntroduction\r\n A Thought\r\n The Role of Puzzles\r\nThinking Like A Player\r\n Hunter-Gathering\r\n Research\r\n Simulation\r\n Intuition\r\nThinking Like an Author\r\n Plot\r\n Geography\r\n Hooks\r\n Sheer Amusement\r\n Rewards\r\nConclusion\r\n Finally\r\n</pre>\r\n-----------------------------------------\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nI - Introduction<br>\r\n=================\r\n<P>\r\nSince I started writing Interactive Fiction four years ago I\'ve spent a fair\r\namount of time not just creating but trying to introduce and explain it to other\r\npeople. The synopsis given always begins the same way: \"You remember those\r\ngamebooks where you choose which paragraph to read?\"\r\n<P>\r\n To most IF devotees (including myself) such a description is toe-curling, and\r\nmassively inaccurate. \"IF,\" we exclaim, \"is nothing like a gamebook. They were\r\ntoys - and this,\" (here our eyes flash with artistic madness), \"THIS is real.\"\r\nThat said, a mathematician (such as myself) might say IF is just a gamebook with\r\na wider parameter space - instead of five options per paragraph there might be\r\nthree hundred. Oh, and with the options not on display. So where does the border\r\nline between the toy and the experience occur?\r\n<P>\r\nA Thought<br>\r\n----------\r\n<P>\r\n I would argue that IF is made what it is by the prompt - the blank chevron\r\nthat waits, blinking and mocking, for the player to have an idea. You can\r\ninteract with it without thinking, of course: you can type \"LOOK\" or \"INVENTORY\",\r\nand indeed do so repeatedly. But to make any progress in the game-world, and in\r\nits story, the player is required at some point to think of something to do;\r\nsomething which is then further constrained by the set-up of the game-world and\r\nthe vocabulary of the parser. It is in this process - in which a player is forced\r\nto think in the context of the world and translate his ideas into a form that can\r\nbe understood - that the sense of immersion, \"mimesis\", the plain old suspension\r\nof disbelief that IF junkies live for, is generated. The important element of\r\nInteractive Fiction is not the ability to decide, it\'s the requirement to\r\nconsider that decision first. She must therefore read the text, closely; picture\r\nthe world it describes, perhaps imagine the character she is playing and so move\r\nherself into the story, losing a little of the chair beneath her  and the screen\r\nin front. What this idea boils down to is simple - if a game\'s parser could\r\nexecute \"WIN GAME\" then something of the magic would be lost.\r\n<P>\r\nThe Role of Puzzles<br>\r\n--------------------\r\n<P>\r\n So how do we, the writers and designers of an IF game, encourage the players\r\nto make this effort? (And it is an effort - so many people introduced to IF get\r\nbored after the first few moves; indeed, so many regular players still do. IF is\r\nperhaps one of the hardest mediums with which to get involved emotionally, simply\r\nbecause it requires more than just an exercise of the eyes or ears). \r\n<P>\r\n The\r\nanswer is two-fold: carrot and stick. Graham Nelson wrote in his seminal essay\r\n\"The Craft of Adventure\" (1995): \"The author of a text adventure has to be\r\nschizophrenic in a way that the author of a novel does not.\" That is, when\r\ndesigning an text game it pays both to think both as a writer and a player. In\r\nthinking as a writer, you need to ensure they cannot help but engage - that they\r\nneed to think at the prompt, that they need to be aware and awake when they are\r\nasked \">\"? by the game. If a lazy player can complete your game simply typing\r\n\"WAIT\" (or more probably, just \"Z\") at every prompt, then what\'s to ensure they\r\nread any of the text at all?\r\n<P>\r\n In thinking as a player, you need to make the game accessible, and rewarding.\r\nYou have to ensure that the thought the player is putting in is worthwhile.\r\nPerhaps more importantly, you have to ensure they believe the thought to be\r\nworthwhile. If you are a writer with a famous name, then this should be easy. If\r\nnot - you may need to bring every skill to bear to prevent players quitting in\r\nthe first three turns of the game.  In this approach - that of enticing\r\nplayers with the promise of reward for the payment of thought - the puzzle is\r\nperhaps the strongest tool you can apply. This two-edged beast glares stoically\r\nat the player through the glass, telling her that if she is capable, and if her\r\nthought is up to its, then she will proceed and be rewarded. A pause for\r\nconsideration, maybe, or a series of frustrated attacks before a problem is\r\ndefeated is then rewarded both in the game - as progress, or perhaps sheer mental\r\nsatisfaction - but also more subtly, by having had the player think herself into\r\nthe world.\r\n<P>\r\n Here we ought to define puzzle. A Tower of Hanoi is a puzzle, so is a maze.\r\nSo is a code, or a complicated system of pulleys. However, puzzles are not\r\nrestricted to little trinket-boxes that one might get in a Christmas cracker\r\nbought from the Science Museum catalogue - they extend to anything for which the\r\ncorrect method of procedure is not immediately visible. Interaction with another\r\ngame character might classify, from the standard (feeding the animal with food,\r\nso that it doesn\'t notice you leaving) to the more cunning (upsetting the\r\ngrandmother with a photograph of her late husband, so that she doesn\'t notice you\r\nleaving). A closed, unlocked, well-hinged door, in a game which understands the\r\nverb OPEN, is not a puzzle. The same door, if found in Carl Muckenhoupt\'s \"The\r\nGostak\" (2001), is a puzzle - because that game is entirely in an invented\r\nlanguage, and finding what the word for OPEN (and indeed, deducing the presence\r\nof a door) is extremely difficult indeed.\r\n<P>\r\n This leaves \"puzzle\" as an unhelpfully wide category. We now proceed to look\r\nmore closely.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nII - Thinking Like A Player<br>\r\n============================\r\n<P>\r\n Magicians have long known that the way to cover a trick is with a careful\r\npatter, distracting and involving the audience on the one hand whilst the other\r\nis frantically rooting around in a pocket for the right playing card. Similarly,\r\nthey\'ve known that the easiest way to invent a new trick isn\'t to invent a new\r\nmathematical device, or a new black-velvet-box-with-string, but simply to dress\r\nup the same trick in different patter. An audience with no knowledge of magic may\r\nwell never realise that five cards tricks are all the same, and indeed, that they\r\nare the same as the appearance of a lit cigarette behind the magician\'s ear or of\r\na new Fiat Punto in his garage.\r\n<P>\r\n And conversely: someone who does know how the trick works (say, the magician\r\nhimself) will categorise all these seemingly-different variants by the underlying\r\nmechanism behind them, rather than as \"card tricks\" or \"cigarette tricks\". In\r\nviewing the player\'s approach to the puzzles, we need the same idea: rather than\r\nthinking of \"puzzles involving mazes\", \"puzzles involving keys\" and \"puzzles\r\ninvolving the Archbishop of Canterbury\"; the important issue is the mechanism by\r\nwhich the puzzle works. Here the metaphor with magic breaks - whereas the\r\nmechanism of a card-trick might be a sleight of hand or mathematical device, in a\r\ntext game the mechanism by which the puzzle works is the mechanism by which the\r\nplayer works the puzzle. That is, the way the player (ideally, not counting for\r\nluck) is supposed to solve the problem. So; the problem of finding a gold key for\r\na gold door is the same puzzle as finding cheese for a hungry mouse - both rely\r\non an obvious connection, and the finding of an object the player will guess is\r\npresent even before he sees it. On the other hand, finding a full-length mirror\r\nbehind which to hide when slipping past a vampire, is a very different puzzle\r\nindeed.\r\n<P>\r\nHunter-Gathering<br>\r\n-----------------\r\n<P>\r\n Every puzzle game for time in memorial has had a fork under a table, a diary\r\nunder a bed or a handkerchief in a handbag. Generally speaking, authors of games\r\ndon\'t like to leave every important object in plain view, just lying around; they\r\nprefer instead to stack them tidily away. Before this was easily possible (in the\r\nearly Cambridge games published by Acornsoft and Topologika, for instance) they\r\nwould still trouble to hide things in convoluted maps (the woods at the start of\r\n\"Colossal Cave\") or full-blown mazes (\"Crobe\", \"Fyleet\", \"Zork\", etc). Is this\r\nsquirrel-like instinct of designers a true puzzle?\r\n<P>\r\n The answer is sometimes, and usually only then in retrospect. When a player\r\nransacks a house top to bottom it\'s usually done with the aim of ruthless\r\nefficiency rather than cunning. Many old-school players (my brother is one of\r\nthese) will enter rooms, examine all available nouns, then look under, open,\r\nbreak and kiss everything; only then leaning back to steeple their fingers and\r\nthink. [FOOTNOTE: Players such as these are completely lost when dropped into a\r\ndeeply implemented game. I have yet to convince my brother to play J. D. Berry\'s\r\nexcellent Art Show winner \"Ribbons\"; but I imagine he\'ll be there for a full hour\r\nbefore moving onto the second room. I hate to think how long it would be before\r\nhe realises there is only one after all].\r\n<P>\r\n This is a perfectly valid method of solution for what is a perfectly valid\r\ndesign choice. Some exponents claim that \"LOOK UNDER\" is now outdated, but in\r\nfact it serves a clear function. A player, if trapped into a small enough set of\r\nlocations, will read every description twice and take his inventory every turn.\r\nBy hiding things (say, the key to leave the first room of the game), you force\r\nthe player to familiarise himself with what is available (say, his identity and\r\nhis initial inventory items). You can be reasonably sure that a player who has\r\nhunted every nook and cranny for his sister\'s diary will have found the hairpin\r\nwith which to pick the lock, and indeed, may even have put on the reading glasses\r\nhe\'s carrying before the tome is open. Further, if later on he finds an ice-cube\r\ncontaining something he needs (a particle of guilty conscience, perhaps, in the\r\nstyle of Meretzky and Adam\'s \"Hitch-hiker\'s Guide to the Galaxy\"), then you can\r\nreliably expect him to think very quickly of the blow-drier on the dresser, just\r\nby the bottles of spot-\r\ncream.\r\n<P>\r\n And just as one room, or one collection of objects can be made familiar, so\r\ncan the game map itself; if you force the poor player to traipse backwards and\r\nforwards for a while, so that in later scenes of the game it will be quite\r\nalright to require him to trace a route with step-perfect accuracy. If your game\r\nis going to have a car chase later on, it seems only fair to allow him to learn\r\nthe street map. Since your player may not realise this will be important, it\r\nseems only fair to force him to do so, too. On an immersion level, a good use of\r\nsearching rewards the player with a wider vista, a deeper visual model and the\r\ncertainty of where to find a telephone.  A really good use will do so without\r\nthe player noticing.\r\n <p>\r\n The problem is, players are wise to this sort of thing, and quickly resent\r\nany attempt to make them type repetitive things. Hiding an important object\r\namongst several identical containers (say, a tree in a forest) is unlikely to win\r\nrespect, just as hiding an important room in a tangled maze with no map or clue\r\nas to the goal is widely considered a fatal mistake. Indeed, if you start a game\r\nwith a large map or inventory, many players will turn off on seeing the first\r\nchoice of direction. Nelson\'s seminal 1994 game \"Curses\" audaciously opens with\r\naround twelve rooms and expects us to draw a map; by contrast all of Plotkin\'s\r\ngames, with the possible exception of \"A Change in the Weather\" (1995), begin\r\nwith the player chained to the spot, or at least moving in a straight line (not\r\nthat \"Weather\" is a loose and unshackled game).\r\n<P>\r\n To get around this, you either want the player not to notice what you\'re\r\ndoing, or to be convinced that it will be worth it. The first can be achieved by\r\nincluding one large, complex, possible insoluble-at-the-\r\ntime puzzle in plain view, in the middle of a room which needs to be ransacked.\r\nThe player, in between staring and restaring at the chess problem before him,\r\nwill hopefully find the pawn under the rug. In \"Curses\", the author can be sure\r\nthat, eventually, a frustrated and bumbling player will find the four-leaf-\r\nclover which is waiting for him, almost from the very beginning of the game.\r\n<P>\r\n The other method is aided by a strict (and possibly \"metaphysical\") control\r\nof how much ransacking the player must do. Plotkin\'s \"Shade\" (2000) opens with a\r\nsearch for plane tickets, which will always be in the last place of three you\r\nlook - enough to achieve its effect (a bit of irritation, a bit of\r\nfamiliarisation, and a lot of contextualisation ready to be attacked in the\r\ngame\'s later phases) - but not enough to outstay its welcome. Similarly, an\r\nold-school player of \"My Angel\" (Ingold, 2000) will find the knife in the\r\nhay-barn long before more careless players tread on it underwater, several\r\nlocations further on.\r\n<P>\r\n A nice touch to reward the player and elicit some forgiveness for having them\r\nrunning around like children, is to give your treasure hunt an elegant solution.\r\nThe jigsaw-piece in the pyramid in \"Jigsaw\" (Nelson, 1995) will be found by most,\r\nbut found quickly by those who have ever done a real jigsaw. A player - or one\r\nwho notices, anyway - will be pleased to find the diary under the pillow, the\r\nwatch in the magpie\'s nest, or the new car in the avaricious magician\'s garage.\r\nEven if she only found an object by typing every permutation of verb and noun she\r\ncould summon up, it will at least feel more worthwhile if there was a good reason\r\nfor it to be there.\r\n<P>\r\nResearch<br>\r\n---------\r\n<P>\r\n Just as most puzzle games have a hidden key, most will also have a\r\ncombination lock. Here the \"object to be found\" is non-physical and stored in the\r\nplayer\'s head rather than his hands. The canonical example of a research puzzle\r\nis a magic potion; where the right books and cross-references yield a list of\r\nrandom objects which can be boiled up to create infinite youth (\"Christminster\",\r\nRees, 1995), deep sleep (\"The Mulldoon Legacy\", Ingold, 1999) or violent\r\nexplosions (\"Trinity\", Moriarty, 1986). This is a much cleaner and more efficient\r\n(and perhaps, more prone to bit-error) type of hunting puzzle; but works in\r\nessentially the same way.\r\n<P>\r\n However, there is room for much more, as research offers a perfect\r\nopportunity for the author to sit the player on his knee and tell him a story,\r\nand furthermore, to force him to listen - or more importantly, force him to ask.\r\nA locked door will act as an infallible ice-breaker with the Palace Guard (who\r\nmay prove to be a fascinating, deep and humorous fellow). The need for a password\r\nto begin that conversation will have the player happily reading every volume in\r\nthe British Library (so long as you\'ve convince him the puzzle is still fair).\r\nAlong the way he may need to understand the crazy indexing system - but no doubt\r\nthere\'s a book that will tell him how. And if that book drops information on the\r\nweird old man who built the library, his alchemical secrets and the tragic fate\r\nof his sister, then so much the better. Indeed, it could be argued that this kind\r\nof retrospective, detective-like story-telling is what Interactive Fiction does\r\nbest. \"Curses\" constructs its story entirely by in footnotes, in the form of\r\nbiographies and diary entries. A measure of the skill here is that, of course,\r\nthe \"Vol. II\" label on the book \"History of the Meldrews\" cannot help but raise a\r\nsmile in anyone who has played the game. Similarly, games often have players\r\nexploring places long abandoned or emptied; partly because it means less\r\ncharacters to code, partly because the player can then fill in the plot from\r\nresearched snippets.\r\n<P>\r\n Actual research-based puzzles tend to fall into three sub-categories:\r\nBookword, Librarian and Genus. A Bookworm problem is the direct equivalent of a\r\nsmash-every-cabinet hunt: the player is given eight books and not allowed out\r\nuntil he knows Chinese. This can obviously be pretty unfair - and pretty tedious\r\n- and is probably best avoided unless the contents of the eight books are very\r\ninteresting, or very funny, as of themselves. A much better way of posing the\r\nsame problem is the Librarian approach, which is the same, except that the game\r\ndoesn\'t put the books on the table but has them neatly on the shelf, with the\r\nplayer left to find them. The crux of the difference is the additional thought\r\ninvolved - it\'s no longer just enough to read a book, you have to think of which\r\nbook to read first. The player must choose a title, or a chapter number, or a\r\ntopic on which to interrogate a character; and in finding the right topics to\r\napproach she will immerse herself just that little bit more, paying more\r\nattention to what is said. Essentially, you may have a better chance of making\r\nthe player care about the rambling old man\'s comments on the safe if she has\r\nrealised, of her own accord, that they may contain a clue as to the combination.\r\nIt\'s about striking a balance between the game telling the player what is\r\navailable for her to find, and the player feeling as though they have discovered\r\nsomething on their own.\r\n<P>\r\n Finally, Genius (or more properly, Genius!), is reserved for those research\r\npuzzles which take the Librarian model to its intuitive climax, by requiring the\r\nplayer to work out, through a leap of logic, what topic to research in the first\r\nplace. All the best examples of this are in \"Curses\": the romance novel problem\r\nor the prayer book, for example (though finding the English Bible in\r\n\"Christminster\" also qualifies). These are puzzles where that elusive starting\r\npoint of information is clued subtly and cunningly, and in solving it the player\r\nwill feel a great rush of satisfaction. A good research puzzle can be hugely\r\nrewarding, both in terms of plot-progression and immersion, and sheer\r\ncrossword-puzzle entertainment; with the bonus of allowing you to wheedle your\r\nfiction even further into a player\'s mind. Although the \"CONSULT\" verb appears to\r\nbe going out of fashion somewhat, in favour of the more direct but more difficult\r\nto code \"ASK ABOUT\"; the effect is still much the same.\r\n<P>\r\nSimulation<br>\r\n-----------\r\n<P>\r\n Simulation is an inherent feature of the IF medium; any game is a narrative\r\nat war with a crossword inside a VR boxing ring. To some extent it could be\r\nargued that any and all manipulations of objects are simulated (indeed, that this\r\nis true by construction) - but by this argument, gamebooks are also simulated in\r\na specific case-by-case way: so this section will reserve the term for those\r\ninteractions which the game can process in a generic fashion. From the player\'s\r\npoint of view, this therefore covers those interactions where some general rule\r\nthat the player learns in one set of circumstances (say, a light source allows\r\nyou to see) is still applicable in a different but comparable set. To give a\r\nconcrete example, a microwave is not simulated if the only thing that can be\r\nheated is a microwave meal (anything else meeting with a \"Why would you do that?\"\r\nmessage, say); and is simulated if a player can heat more or less anything - cups\r\nof water, maybe, or plastic rods. A decent simulation should also allow the\r\nplayer to blow himself up (or at least, be warned specifically not to) by filling\r\nit with metal trinkets.\r\n<P>\r\n The standard IF simulations are quite familiar: takeable objects and the\r\nplayer\'s inventory, systems of containers and supporting objects which can nest\r\n(an arrow in an apple on a terrified boy\'s head), and also the opening, closing\r\nand locking of doors. Geographical simulation loosely covers the compass\r\ndirections and vertical motion, though what goes up will not come down and north\r\nneed not be inverse to south. Within locations there is little geography - the\r\nconcept of \"next to\" is extremely rare (the boy is not by the tree, even if the\r\narrowhead is contained in the bark). Later versions of languages may well extend\r\nthese - Mike Robert\'s TADS will handle sound-passing in its third release - and\r\nmany code-\r\nsnippets of Inform exists handling moveable people, pourable liquids, even\r\nwriteable notepads.\r\n<P>\r\n The current default behaviour (doors, for instance) has the advantage of\r\nbeing common knowledge, taken for granted by experienced players and picked up\r\nquickly by the novices. (Though perhaps a few are frustrated that \"PUT KEY IN\r\nKEYHOLE\" is rarely a way to unlock doors). However, most games at some point\r\nextend the simulation in some way - with magic spells or microwaves, robots or\r\nwrist-watches. By doing so, a whole new avenue of puzzle development becomes\r\navailable.\r\n<P>\r\n These usually take the form of strategy puzzles - in which the result and\r\nprocess are clear, but the ordering of steps becomes important. The most simple\r\nsimulated problem is the Tower of Hanoi (the irritating children\'s toy involving\r\nstacked discs on pegs) - where the goal is stated (move stack from peg A to peg\r\nB), the governing mechanics are clear (one disc moved at a time, larger discs\r\nalways below smaller); but the problem is to apply the correct move at each\r\nstage. Chess problems are a similar idea, though much more complex in nature. IF\r\ntakes this concept and codifies it into the manipulations of containment,\r\nvisibility, gravity and so forth. Most also make use of timers - the simulation\r\nof events occurring outside of a players control. \"A Change in the Weather\"\r\nsimulates a thunder-storm into an extremely evil timing puzzle. \"Metamorphoses\"\r\n(Short, 2000) simulates a variety of substances and the ability to morph objects\r\nbetween them, and then has puzzles which require fragility, or density, or\r\nflammability in the object produced. Although this game does not, it could be\r\neasily extended to a full strategic challenge, in which a player must balance his\r\nhoop-shaped resources against the need for glass objects, and so forth, and not\r\nburn everything in one go, say. Cadre\'s \"Varicella\" (1999) takes this idea to an\r\nextreme, in a game in which the simulated actions of several people in a palace\r\nare tightly interwoven, with the player attempting to thread a manipulation of\r\nhis own through the mesh. This codifying process, however (unlike the abstracted\r\nbusiness of research problems) has a very real effect on a player\'s sense of\r\nimmersion into the game, arising from the fact that - unlike reading about topics\r\nin textbooks - her very actions are now subject to new rules and forces which the\r\nplayer may not be aware of.\r\n<P>\r\n The player entering an IF game will start with some hazy expectations of what\r\nis simulated and what is not. She will expect, for example, to be able to carry\r\nsmall things around with her, though she may not be sure whether she can carry an\r\nunlimited number, or an unlimited weight. She will most likely not expect to be\r\ntold which hand she\'s carrying things in, or which pocket, and will probably\r\nbecome annoyed if told her hands are too full to push door handles if she\'s\r\ncarrying two items (even if this may be true in real life). To say the simulation\r\nshould be as accurate as possible is quite simply untrue; player\'s automatically\r\nexpect a level of simplification on entering the text game world. No novice will\r\nexpect to have to type \"BLINK\" every four moves. However, they may be (and, I\r\nfind, often are) surprised to find \"WALK OVER TO DESK\" is not understood. The\r\nsame trend persists in experienced players - the best example being in\r\nconversation with game characters: players will not bat an eyelid (i.e. blink) if\r\nasking the same question elicits a word-for-word repeat of the response, for the\r\nsimple reason that this is what games have done time immemorial. Further, most\r\nplayers will not complain when a poison gas puzzle cannot be solved by typing\r\n\"HOLD MY BREATH\" (there being no \"breath\" object in the game-world), but\r\nconversely if this is the only solution players are likely to be irate and demand\r\nto know how they were supposed to think of something so outlandish. \r\n<P>\r\n What we\r\nhave here is the Interactive Fiction version of Chekov\'s gun; the old principle\r\nthat if a gun is to be fired in Act III, make sure it is visible on the\r\nmantle-piece in Act I. If a puzzle relies on the player knowing that waving a gun\r\naround will make characters react, then you\'d better show him early on that\r\ncharacters can see what he\'s waving. Further, they\'d better react to everything\r\nelse as well - no good them seeing a bloodied murder weapon if they don\'t see\r\ntheir wife who\'s been killed by it.\r\n<P>\r\n The two important things then are consistency, and re-education. Consistency\r\nconsolidates the player\'s world-model; if it breaks in a few places most players\r\nwill believe they\'ve encountered a bug, if it breaks in almost every place then\r\nmost player\'s won\'t believe it\'s simulated at all, and will not expect it work\r\nelsewhere. If you want the player to know how your game-world operates (what\r\nliquids can do, what fire can do, so forth) then you must be prepared to make\r\nsure it does everything one would expect. This doesn\'t mean every fire has to\r\npotentially devour the entire game-map; but it does mean every sheet of paper\r\nstuck into it won\'t be described as \"Unlikely to do anything\". \"Everything one\r\nwould expect\" means \"Everything one would expect on the basis of what has already\r\noccurred,\" not \"on the basis of the real world.\" The real world is neither here\r\nnor there.\r\n<P>\r\n Re-education is the subtler point, and one not commonly implemented, except\r\nin platform games. The popular \"Tomb Raider\" series of games, published by Eidos,\r\nintroduces the various jumps, rolls and runs the heroine can perform in a series\r\nof simple, obvious challenges on a \"exercise course\" level. This serves to allow\r\nthe player to practise, not just the act of performing a manoeuvre (which is not\r\nrelevant in a text-game, unless it is a typing tutor), but also the process of\r\ngauging distances and timings. Similarly, an IF game which extends the simulation\r\nshould give the player a series of simple manipulations to perform so that they\r\nlearn how the simulation works in various conditions; how liquids respond to\r\nheat, whether some objects float, if flame spreads to nearby objects. If the\r\nplayer must produce a noisy distraction in the endgame, then make sure, earlier\r\non, he inadvertently knocked over a vase and brought the housemaid running. If a\r\ncharacter will reveal more information on repeated interrogation (maybe if the\r\nplayer now knows more about the topic himself and so \"phrases the question\r\ndifferently\"), then make sure the player is forced to ask the same question\r\nrepeatedly at some point, even if you employ a simple, pointed \"Perhaps he\'s not\r\nletting on all that he knows.\" at the end of his first surly reply.\r\n<P>\r\n A well-designed set of simulation puzzles start with those which shift the\r\nplayer\'s expectations of what the game will understand, then consolidate it, and\r\nthen rely on it for more and more complex puzzles exploiting the ways the various\r\nfeatures interact. [FOONOTE: Which is to say, \"Lemmings\" is one of the\r\nbest-designed games of all time.] The characters in \"Christminster\" work on this\r\nprinciple, with the player finding more and different ways throughout to cajole\r\nEdward into helping her, and to use his various skills (or lack of) to further\r\nthe game.  Another branch of simulation arises in sufficiency puzzles, where\r\nthe player looks around the current map, or object list, with the knowledge that\r\nhe must be able to do something, and proceeds to deduce what it is he needs to\r\ndo. This is a solution-method which requires the player to look at the simulation\r\nin its most abstract form: a set of objects available, a limited set of rules,\r\nand the knowledge there is a correct route. Effectively, he is viewing the\r\nsituation as a brief puzzle-tree set within the narrative. An excellent example\r\nof this is the award-winning puzzle from \"Spider and Web\" (Plotkin, 1998)\r\nconcerned with escaping from the chair. The player will not solve this by thought\r\nthrough cause-and-effect, simply because he does not have enough information -\r\nbut rather by looking at the only options available to him, and the knowledge\r\nthat one must be right. It should be noted that requiring a solution by this\r\nmethod has a negative impact on immersion - a player looking at the design of the\r\ngame, and at available information, is not a player emoting. In game such as\r\n\"Spider and Web\", which places a distance between player and player character,\r\nthis isn\'t too much of a problem. Similarly, in wider puzzle-oriented games it\r\nwill not matter either. Games in-between should be careful, though, as otherwise\r\nthey give their protagonists something verging on precognition.\r\n<P>\r\n If the simulated aspect of a game is well-executed it will both extend the\r\ndesign possibilities in unique ways and allow for interesting new puzzles (the\r\nEnchanter trilogy of Infocom introduced magic spells to great effect) but it will\r\nalso increase the player\'s confidence in the author, allowing for more and more\r\nambitious leaps of logic to be expected as the game continues. If the game\r\nremains fair, then players will expect it to remain so and be willing to give you\r\nthe benefit of the doubt on later, harder, problems. This leads finally to a\r\nbranch of problems which can only be described as \"beta-tester puzzles\"; being\r\nthose which the player solves less from a desire to overcome an obstacle and more\r\nfrom a desire to break the game and come out with a permutation which has not\r\nbeen accounted for. A good example is the robot cleaning mouse in \"Starcross\"\r\n(Lebling, published by Infocom 1982) which disappears into a service hatch at\r\nvarious intervals, leaving the curious player to wonder if the room beyond is\r\nactually implemented or not, and devise a nefarious method of entry. These\r\npuzzles can be some of the most satisfying to solve, as the player will feel\r\nquite certain before trying his solution that it should work, but they can also\r\nbe some of the hardest, because there is no direct indication in the game that\r\nthere is a challenge to be attempted at all.\r\n <p>\r\nIntuition<br>\r\n----------\r\n<P>\r\n These are an examples of intuitive puzzles. The definition of an intuitive\r\npuzzle is essentially \"an unfair one\"; as these are the problems in which the\r\nplayer is expected to make a mental leap on the basis of little logic and very\r\nfew, usually obscure clues. They are the black magic of puzzle design;\r\ngame-quitting failures when they miss and immersion-creating moments of true\r\nconnection when they work. There are a hundred examples, and whether they work or\r\nnot often depends on the individual player, and how receptive she is to the\r\nsubtler hints of the authors general mode of thinking. A few have been touched\r\nupon already - the Genius! category of research; the beta-tester mode of\r\nsolution; these both rely on leaps within the player\'s mind.\r\n<P>\r\n A concrete example of a puzzle uniquely in this category: the chipped square\r\nin Plotkin\'s \"So Far\" (1996). Here the player is given an alien object in its\r\nnatural setting with a few clues to its function which are only really\r\ncomprehensible in retrospect, and asked to deduce its operation. It\'s a pretty\r\nsimply object, and a one-word solution, but the important point is that, once\r\nsolved, it all seems clear and natural. The square\'s minimal decorations and its\r\nnotch are transmuted from opacity to transparency in a flash. These are the\r\npuzzles the player can solve at the bus-stop; he can wake up and know that the\r\nidea he has had is right. (It was while waiting for a 42W that I worked out what\r\nthe soft grey brick in \"Zork II\" (Lebling and Blank, 1982) was for, after a three\r\nyear break from the game).\r\n<P>\r\n Hints are crucial to intuitive puzzles; the best are those a player only\r\nrealises are hints once the puzzle is solved and yet somehow plant the seed of\r\nsolution in the player\'s mind. They can be placed in a thousand ways - and\r\nperhaps should be in as many as possible - though elegance is an obvious plus.\r\n\"So Far\" is excellent in its hinting, simply by constructing a logic behind every\r\npuzzle but refusing to present anything but the elements at face-value, leaving\r\nthe player to construct every implication.  This is the same mechanism by\r\nwhich cryptic crosswords work; that the player knows, for certain, when she\'s hit\r\non the solution - though there are several 8 letter words for \"most likely to\r\nlose\", there is only one which is an anagram of \"grounded\". Now, cryptic\r\ncrosswords are solved mainly by working out the way the setter writes clues, and\r\nlearning all his idiosyncrasies. A simpler approach works in text games - the\r\npuzzles in \"So Far\" share a thematic feel (beyond simply being really rather\r\nhard) - so do the puzzles in the author\'s earlier \"A Change in the Weather\". Fans\r\nof Infocom\'s David Lebling admire his tight logic and scientific use of\r\ncause-and-effect in games like \"Starcross\", \"Spellbreaker\" (1985) and \"Zork III\"\r\n(1982); and there is a clear contrast with Brian Moriarty\'s more sprawling works\r\n\"Trinity\" and \"Wishbringer\" (1985). (If nothing else, Lebling would never have\r\nwritten a game designed to be easy).\r\n<P>\r\n The leaps of intuition made by a successful player have a heavy payoff, as\r\nsuddenly instead of the player having to read the mind of the author it seems the\r\nauthor has read the mind of the player. (This is of course not the case, in fact\r\nthe former has occurred, but it\'s a lovely effect to generate). By tuning oneself\r\ninto the author\'s mindset the player becomes more deeply immersed in the patterns\r\nof game-world and story, and by allowing himself to believe in [the existence of]\r\nan underlying logic, the world develops a continuity outside of the players\r\ninteractions and feels all the more real. These are the puzzles which remove the\r\ngame as far from a game-book as is possible - when the action to be taken must be\r\nconstructed almost in its entirety in the player\'s mind before it can be applied\r\nto the game itself.  Often, the best intuitive puzzles are easy ones - where a\r\nplayer walks into an area an immediately types the correct input, without really\r\nknowing how. Many players found the puzzle with the hatchway in \"Spider and Web\"\r\nto work this way; myself I spent about half an hour with permutations of boxes\r\nand wrenches, far overcomplicating the problem. Similarly, I think the best\r\nintuitive puzzle I have ever written myself is at the start of \"All Roads\"\r\n(2001), in which the player\'s hands are tied with rope and the only available\r\nobject is a bottle of wine. Yes, the solution is quite clear - but to produce it\r\nthe player must take the phrase \"bottle of wine\" and apply his knowledge of what\r\nbottles of wine are really like. To do this she must fully visualise the object,\r\nand this situation is elevated from being an inventory listing:\r\n<P>\r\n You are carrying:<br>\r\n  a bottle of wine\r\n<P>\r\n...to a character, holding a bottle between loose and shaking fingers.\r\n<P>\r\n Many good intuitive puzzles work by this method - expecting the player to\r\ntake his knowledge of the real world and assume that the game follows the same\r\nrules.  However, it should be stressed - use intuition with caution. If used\r\ntoo much players may feel utterly adrift, without any help at all. There is a\r\nfine line, and an art, to producing puzzles which can be fairly solved by no\r\nsystematic means at all.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nIII - Thinking Like an Author<br>\r\n==============================\r\n<P>\r\n Just as there is an art to designing puzzles which will linger in a player\'s\r\nmind, there is also an art to codifying them into ropes and rabbits and\r\nrodeo-machines and placing them in the right order to achieve your effect. This\r\nis where the authorial mindset comes in - in planning the structure and plotting\r\nthe order by which you unfold your story and your world. Here the games status as\r\nnarrative and crossword becomes quite pointed, as puzzles can be deployed to aid\r\neither or both. The following sections detail the most important areas of\r\ninfluence.\r\n<P>\r\nPlot<br>\r\n-----\r\n<P>\r\n The most obvious use of puzzles is to slow down plot development, and allow\r\ninteraction to break up the text from a single chunk into a series of responses.\r\nIn an old AGT game, \"Murder at the Folkestone Inn\" (Anne Laughlin, 1993), the\r\nplot occurs entirely in room descriptions, and the player simply moves from one\r\nto the next to experience the story. Most games are more sophisticated than this,\r\nbut the basic idea is perhaps the same. Puzzles can be used as a device to\r\nbullet-point the plot and also have the story react to the player\'s presence in\r\nsome way (fixed or flexible, it doesn\'t matter).\r\n<P>\r\n Gareth Rees remarked in an article on the design of \"Christminster\" that the\r\nmotive for one puzzle - in which the player is trapped in a small room with\r\nProfessor Wilderspin - is to force the player to talk to him, even though this is\r\nnot important to the solution of the problem. This is an example of another trick\r\n- using a puzzle to constrain the player\'s ability to wander away from something\r\nthey should be paying attention to. This can be just an extension of the Research\r\npuzzle idea; just as you can bury a password in a family history book, you can\r\nbury a key in a family graveyard, and either way the player must scavenge through\r\nthe past if he wants to continue, collecting information along the way. It can\r\nalso be more active, having the player confined to an area in which events are\r\noccurring; or indeed, having the player\'s solution to a problem affect the plot\r\nin some way. (Taking care to ensure the outcome does not feel too arbitrary,\r\notherwise the player may start taking his decisions without any thought, just as\r\nhe does in a gamebook.) There will come a point in the game, of course, when the\r\nplot is interesting enough for it\'s own sake that players will be happily rooted\r\nto the spot - however, if they are not, providing them with a point of interest,\r\na point on interaction on which to centre, is a clear way of drawing attention to\r\nanything important around. In a way, this is the Hunting idea again, only now the\r\nsearch the player does not realise he is on is for the story-line itself.\r\n<P>\r\n Interactive Fiction needs this sort of device to pace it, due to the inherent\r\nlack of structure arising from the flexible pace of the player\'s progress. More\r\ncunning ways are available, not using puzzles - a game could keep track of how\r\nwell a player was doing and advance the plot if he is failing to do so, for\r\ninstance. However; puzzles are probably the easiest - and most widely understood\r\n- mechanism to date.\r\n<P>\r\nFinally, puzzles can form the very stuff of your story - making them attractive\r\nto the plot-hungry player and decisive in your game design. The chair problem of\r\n\"Spider and Web\" is a classic example of this, being a moment where the plot\r\nmoves round and become something quite unexpected. Placing this on the end of a\r\npuzzle allows the player to feel that it\'s her achievement, that it\'s her work\r\nwhich has produced the outcome - and allows make the player properly receptive\r\nfor the moment, when it comes. She will be reading more closely after solving a\r\nproblem than whilst simply exploring around.\r\n<P>\r\nGeography<br>\r\n----------\r\n<P>\r\n A player mapping a game uses the same convention that authors do; no open\r\nhallways or expanses of grass and trees sketched in delicate pastel shades, but\r\nrather boxes on a grid with lines for doors, and the occasional frown of\r\nirritation when presented with an up/down connection. Each location is marked out\r\nas a separate object are linked by teleportation walls which could be vertical,\r\nhorizontal, widdershins or inside-out for all a player may care. There are ways\r\nto try to alleviate this - designing maps that fit neatly together, or\r\nimplementing larger rooms in two or more sections to give the sensation of space.\r\nBut the real problem is the lack of connectivity between discrete locations, and\r\nis this best overcome by implementing something which causes the rooms to bond. A\r\ngame may include, for instance, a roaming character who goes from room to room,\r\n(such as the thief from \"Zork\") but this sort of approach is not tailored towards\r\nthe player\'s own actions and so feels less relevant. (Indeed, the thief never\r\nmade \"Zork\" feel like a real world - being more just a source of irritation for\r\nmappers, treasurer-seekers and anyone trying to avoid the grue).\r\n<P>\r\n The solution once again comes down to thought - to placing the idea of\r\nconnectivity into your player\'s mind. If he is told - by the entrance of a thief,\r\nor the presence of a river - that rooms are connected, he will draw a line on his\r\nbox-grid map as required. If, however, he is required to realise that the\r\nsolution of some puzzle relies on a continuity between locations (floating\r\nsomething down the river, or setting a trail of gold coins for the thief), then\r\nthe act of thinking of this connection will implant it firmly into the player\'s\r\nmind. It\'s the same idea again - that forcing a player to visualise rather than\r\ncatalogue the text game world will increase his immersion within it. So - by the\r\nconstruction of puzzles which exploit geographical links - chutes from floor to\r\nceiling, windows looking out over other rooms, pulleys down well-shafts or\r\nattached to mine-buckets - we glue the map together. Indeed, Nelson wrote in \"The\r\nCraft of Adventure\" that a good game map has a river running through it, and this\r\nis true - but note your river could equally well be a conveyor belt, a\r\ndumb-waiter, or anything else which allows remote manipulation of one location\r\nfrom another.\r\n<P>\r\n This also allows for pleasingly devious puzzles. One could have a search for\r\na secret door motivated by a \'hole\' in the game map, which then requires the\r\nplayer to deduce which room is above the missing space and work his way down. A\r\ntime-travel game could allow the players knowledge of the future map to influence\r\nhis explorations in the past. A game based on C. S. Lewis\' \"The Silver Chair\"\r\ncould have players exploring a region which, when viewed from above, spells out a\r\nmessage. And so forth.\r\n<P>\r\nHooks<br>\r\n------\r\n<P>\r\n \"Lemmings\" is one of the best designed games ever, and is also one of the\r\nmost addictive. Why? Because the basic problem is so easily remembered, and so\r\nfrustrating tricky, that it sticks in the head and refuses to leave. So too the\r\nbest IF puzzles, which keep players wanting to play. The \"Lemmings\" addiction\r\nstems from the desire to make \"just one more attempt\" - in the text-game set-up\r\nthis corresponds to problems involving complex machinery and with rich feedback\r\nand a lot to fiddle with (such as the machines in \"Metamorphoses\").\r\n<P>\r\n You can hook the player whilst no longer at the keyboard, too, with a\r\ndifferent kind of problem. If the goal is clear and the set-up quickly committed\r\nto memory, players can be inadvertently solving - and failing to solve - your\r\nproblem as they catch the bus or as they sleep. To construct a good hook, you\r\nneed to ensure your puzzle doesn\'t require too much fiddling about, or\r\nexperimentation; and the solution should be intuitive. Mazes do not fit this\r\ncategory. Perhaps the classic fox-goose-grain-and-boat problem does - but\r\neveryone learns how to solve that at primary school.\r\n<P>\r\n A good type of puzzle for the player to carry around is the \"unfamiliar\r\nobject\" problem - such as the chipped square in \"So Far\" or the grey brick in\r\n\"Zork II\"; which require the player to make a deduction from a small amount of\r\nvery relevant information, and possibly through connections with other things\r\nseen before. However, for a puzzle of this type to truly hook the player your\r\nobject needs to be intriguing, or the world it is in must be. The mundane is no\r\ngood for a hook.\r\n<P>\r\nSheer Amusement<br>\r\n----------------\r\n<P>\r\n \"The Hitch-Hiker\'s Guide to the Galaxy\", written by Steve Meretzky and\r\nDouglas Adams in 1984, contains numerous puzzles whose sole purpose in the game\r\nis that they\'re fun. Not fun-to-solve in the brain-bashing sense, but silly,\r\nwacky and downright weird. The experience of solving the best is akin to\r\nproducing the punchline of a joke, and I have memories of putting up with all the\r\ndifficulties, restarts and dead-ends as a child simply because, when it came down\r\nto it, \"WRAP TOWEL ROUND HEAD\" was a funny way to avoid a carnivore. The puzzle\r\nof Marvin\'s door, involving as it does no tea and tea, is a classic.\r\n<P>\r\n Infocom\'s games were good for this sort of pay-off. Meretzky\'s masterpiece,\r\n\"Leather Goddesses of Phobos\" (1986) contains the infamous T-remover, capable of\r\nproducing rabbis and unangling cream; as well as the black paint with which to\r\nturn a white spot into a fully function teleportational black spot. More\r\nrecently, Neil DeMause\'s \"The Frenetic Five vs. Mr. Redundancy Man\" (1999) had a\r\nside-splitting climactic puzzle.\r\n<P>\r\n Writers have long known that punctuating a piece with humour is an excellent\r\nway to avoid the tedium of a single atmosphere or situation, and to lessen the\r\nsensation of pretentiousness that monotonic works can quickly attain. Comedy\r\ngenerally makes the reader more amenable to the writer, and the occasional\r\nwell-placed witty puzzle will refresh your player a little and prevent them\r\nbecoming too bored or restless. Which bring us to the subject of.\r\n<P>\r\nRewards<br>\r\n--------\r\n<P>\r\n We note, to begin with, that puzzles are often hard to solve.\r\n<P>\r\n Playing \"Curses\", I found one of its weaker moments to be just after solving\r\nthe problem of the garden\'s hedge maze. This is one of the cleverest puzzles the\r\ngame offers; requiring a moment of inspiration followed by a long sequence of\r\nmoves in which to implement it. Upon returning to the site of the maze, once\r\nsuccessful, a new location has opened up - but this is not enough reward in\r\nitself, because the location is not very interesting and there is very little in\r\nit, just one object, of no use until very near the end of the game (the stone\r\nrose), and another locked door.  This anticlimax was partly down to the game\'s\r\nwidth - the author had no way of knowing at what point in solving all the other,\r\nunrelated, puzzles I would be - but also partly to the assumption that the player\r\nis grateful for any new object. This is not true. Rather, the player - like the\r\nreader of a novel - is rewarded by those things that spark his imagination. It\r\ncould be a beautifully rendered location (though this may be unlikely in IF as\r\nplayers are not often in it for the prose), an empathetic moment, a twist of plot\r\n- but equally it could be a fresh idea on a thorny problem, a ray of hope, a new\r\nobject with which to toy in interesting ways and experiment. A player of a game\r\nwith puzzles follows both the narrative and the progress of the puzzle-structure\r\n- progress in either is rewarding, but progress in neither is not. A new location\r\nin itself progresses neither, an object with no properties of intrinsic interest\r\n(such as the stone rose) similarly, and the promise of a new puzzle which the\r\nplayer has no idea how to solve or even start is perhaps actively demoralising.\r\n<P>\r\n The problem could be alleviated perhaps by a more vigilant game which cheats\r\nto overcome the width problem, providing different objects upon the solution of\r\nproblems depending on where in the game the player is. In \"The Mulldoon Legacy\"\r\nthere are four \"key\" objects  to collected and then used in sequence; but since\r\nthe methods of acquiring each are somewhat unrelated the game is careful to\r\nprovide the next useful key on solution of any of the four problems: thereby each\r\ntime direct progress is made. A similar device could be employed more subtly -\r\nconsider a magic-based game in which the spell received on a spell scroll is\r\ntailored to where you are stuck, or a game with money in which the level of pay\r\nreceived is measured by what you next need to buy. Rewarding the player is one\r\naspect of design which it is vital to get right, and there is absolutely no\r\nreason not to cheat, if it furthers your goal as an entertainer.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nIV - Conclusion<br>\r\n================\r\n<P>\r\n The principles and mechanisms outlined above do not apply solely to\r\npuzzle-oriented games, such as the much-quoted \"Curses\" and \"Christminster\".\r\nRather they are general principles relating to the way players experience the\r\ninteraction element of a game. As soon as a player is expected to think about the\r\neffect of their actions and manipulations of the game-world, then the game is\r\nasking for input beyond a simple level, and there needs to be a reward\r\naccordingly. Interactive Fiction works are not game-books, they cannot be plotted\r\nout as simple finite trees, which a computer could step through in optimum time.\r\nBut neither are they unaware of their status as simulations and approximations of\r\nboth worlds and stories. The balance between the two states is managed by the\r\nplayers thought process within the world, and so it is the cultivation of that\r\nthought-process which is the mainstay of good design. By asking the player to\r\nthink on what he has learnt, you cause the player to paint between fragments of\r\ninformation and create a continuity and a picture of his own.\r\n<P>\r\n By being aware of the design decisions taken, the path a player will (most\r\nprobably) take, and the way their expectations of the world change as they take\r\nit, an author can make the game far more accessible, far more rewarding and far\r\nmore complete than by simply placing ideas into an arena and letting the player\r\nwalk around them, poking. \r\n<p>\r\nFinally<br>\r\n-------\r\n<P>\r\n To follow T. H. White:\r\n<P>\r\n\"What makes a good puzzle?\" asked the King.\r\n \r\nMerlyn chewed his bear a moment and frowned, before finally announcing:\r\n<P>\r\n\"To make a good puzzle you need some sort of simulation.\r\n<P>\r\nAround the simulation you need to build feedback-rich experimentation.\r\n<P>\r\nAlongside this experimentation, you need complementary information buried in the\r\ngame world.\r\n<P>\r\nRiddled throughout the information should be gaps, patterns and inferences for\r\nthe player to speculate upon.\r\n<P>\r\nAmidst the speculation you should give a suggestion of the author\'s mindset.\r\n<P>\r\nWhilst communicating that mindset, you must be mindful of the rewards of the\r\neventual solution.\r\n<P>\r\nFor the solution you should have a cunning idea.\"\r\n<P>\r\nArthur waited a moment to be sure the wizard had finished, then asked:\r\n<P>\r\n\"Do any but the last have any relevance at all?\"\r\n<P>\r\nMerlyn shook his head.\r\n<P>\r\n\"None whatsoever.\"\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n-- Jon Ingold\r\n<P>',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2006-08-25 12:28:39',1,11,9690),(19,'PC Personality and Puzzleless IF',31,'There\'s a fundamental decision that should be made early in the design of any IF: does the player character (PC) have a personality of his or her own, or not? By that, I mean not simply that the PC has a name and a background, though that should be a start; the Zork model, where the PC has no discernible persona, is widely viewed as inadequate. The question is really whether the PC has ideas and goals that are distinct from those that the player brought into the game. Since, ordinarily, the goals that the player brings in are quite simple, and look something like \"see all the text and surmount all the obstacles,\" it might seem that even the most bare-bones PC will have his or her own objectives.\r\n<P>\r\nIn practice, though, that\'s not the case. More often, in classic IF, the PC\'s motivations supply an initial premise, or perhaps give the player an overall goal (one that, perhaps, explains why the Magic McGuffin acquired at the end has such fascination for the PC)--and at that point the author shoves the player into the game and commands him to start solving puzzles. What follows, in most cases, can be viewed as driven by the PC\'s motivations only if the PC is a cross between a magpie and a Games Magazine subscriber; most puzzle-driven games depend so much on the player picking up everything that isn\'t nailed down, and viewing every locked door as a personal affront, that the only thought that could conceivably animate the PC throughout is \"you never know.\" In a small but growing minority of games, however, the entire course of the story, and everything the player does, can be tied directly to the PC\'s motivations. This is, I argue, an encouraging trend: many of the most interesting experiments in IF have come about because the author took the trouble to convey, and encourage the player to understand and embrace (for purposes of the game), the motivations of the PC. Further development of that trend, one might logically conjecture, could produce even more interesting experiments.\r\n<P>\r\nI. A Brief History of PC Development\r\n<P>\r\nA. Infocom\r\n<P>\r\n(This section contains major spoilers for Beyond Zork, Planetfall and Plundered Hearts, and minor spoilers for Lurking Horror.)\r\n<P>\r\nWhat I have described above as the old paradigm of PC characterization will be readily recognized by most IF veterans, but some examples from the days of Infocom may illustrate the point. In Zork I, the PC has no name, no distinguishing characteristics, and, seemingly, no interest in anything but treasure. (Even that is debatable; nothing in the game indicates that your character is genuinely excited by all this treasure-hunting. It could plausibly be argued that your character secretly longs only for a nice snack, or a good nap, and that the heartless PC is dragging him/her around the map against his/her will. The point is that there isn\'t much evidence either way; the game never stops to say \"You tremble with avarice at the sight of the jeweled trident\" or any such thing.) In Beyond Zork, the PC has an initial goal--finding the Coconut of Quendor. (For the uninitiated: yes, really.) The player is told initially that the Coconut of Quendor resides with the Implementors (the Infocom authors themselves, who regularly made cameo appearances in their games), so the PC\'s initial goal is presumably to find the Implementors, but in practice the puzzles that the player solves to reach that point have no foreseeable connection to that goal. (They include such things as solving a riddle written on the side of a cliff and searching a cellar for a wine bottle in order to obtain a giant onion.) When the player finds the Implementors, the Coconut is snatched away by a nefarious presence, and the goal becomes finding that nefarious presence. (In fact, the Implementors explicitly state as much, lest the player think the game is over.) The same process follows: the player solves a long string of puzzles, and for only a few of them (the last few) could it be said that solving the puzzles has a foreseeable connection to tracking down the enemy. The PC\'s motivation, therefore, serves only as a framing device--or, less charitably, an excuse for the puzzles.\r\n<P>\r\nIn fact, that was true for most of Infocom\'s games, though to varying degrees. The fantasy and science fiction games were more recognizably a set of puzzles with little direct relation to the overall objective, except perhaps a thematic relation (most notably in the cases of Trinity and Zork III). Gathering a set of objects--whether treasures or some sort of recipe for a desired concoction--was particularly popular, since it allowed the PC to indulge his/her magpie impulse, picking up everything in sight, and to regard every barrier as a challenge on the theory that you never know where those objects might hide.\r\n<P>\r\nPlanetfall is a particularly striking example of Infocom\'s general inattention to motivation, as the game\'s premise (you escape a doomed space station and crash-land on a seemingly deserted planet) seems to suggest a variety of actions (calling for help, say, or finding a way off the planet)--and the game suggests, through various red herrings, that those obvious actions are possible when in fact they are not. The real goal, suffice it to say, is wholly unguessable, and the protagonist arguably seeks out the climactic location only because some monsters chase him/her there. Several of Infocom\'s other games--particularly the mysteries--had puzzles that were more closely related to the plot, but even in those the PC had little personality of note; if it could be assumed that the PC was just as interested in solving the mystery as the player was, there was no need at any point for the player to take stock of the PC\'s motivations. Representative in ths respect is Lurking Horror, where the PC, a university student, is given a clear initial motivation, namely finishing a paper; when he discovers that something has gone wrong with his paper and that he might learn more in a certain department, the motivation becomes getting to that department. So far, so good, but various sinister events happen on the way (and more happen when he gets there), and at some undefined point the PC apparently says \"forget the paper--I\'m going to figure out what\'s going on around  here!\" That\'s not entirely impossible, but it does essentially merge the PC with the player, since both apparently have as a goal Understanding Everything In Sight--which conveniently allows the PC to do all sorts of stuff that merely finishing a paper wouldn\'t justify.\r\n<P>\r\nOne notable exception to the general rule, however, was Plundered Hearts, where the PC is a 17th-century girl charged with the tasks of (a) surviving various dangers, (b) rescuing her father from the clutches of an unsavory fellow, (c) defending her own chastity from the wiles of the same fellow, and (d) catching the eye of, rescuing from the same villain, and ultimately marrying a dashing young swain. All of the goals can ultimately be accomplished, naturally, though it\'s sometimes unclear which one the game wants the player to focus on, and it\'s possible to bog down if the player focuses, say, too exclusively on saving the PC\'s skin and insufficiently on bailing the father or the swain out of jams. (Interestingly, multiple endings are possible, and the suboptimal ones correspond roughly to achieving only some of the motivations: in one, the heroine saves herself but abandons her lover and father; in another, she sacrifices herself to save her lover; and in another, she saves her lover but not her father.) Still, having too many motivations represents a refreshing change from having no particular motivation (or having a general goal that has no obvious impact on any particular decision), and the puzzle-solving in Plundered Hearts is usually sufficiently plot-driven that it cannot fairly be reduced to \"go poke around.\" For example, at one point the plot  depends on your gaining admission to a ball, which requires (a) producing your invitation and (b) getting appropriately attired. It\'s not obvious that any of the overall motivations for the game require attendance at the ball, but the game helpfully supplies you with some--\"you haven\'t been to a ball in months!\" A few stretches of the game involve simple exploration--but it\'s exploration of\r\nquite limited environments, and for clearly defined objectives (getting off a drifting ship in one case, finding your father in another).\r\n<P>\r\nThat moment, though, is an exception; the game is relatively restrained about pointing you in the direction of the story it wants to tell (and hence spelling out the PC\'s motivations). At one key point, for example, you take a moment to signal your friends that you need help (even though your need is not, at that point, all that pressing), and your friends conveniently show up just in time later; it\'s possible, as I recall, to simply not think to signal, with the result that the friends don\'t show up later and things go awry. There, for purposes of keeping the story on track, the game might simply have said something like \"Before you do anything else, you should signal your friends,\" a\r\nbit intrusive but helpful for purposes of making sure the PC and the player are on the same general page. It helps that Plundered Hearts isn\'t a particularly long game and the story isn\'t all\r\nthat wildly complex; the player might conceivably do the signaling simply because the opportunity presents itself. A more complicated storyline might demand more such signals about what\r\nthe PC really wants.\r\n<P>\r\nIt\'s also worth noting that the Plundered Hearts PC\'s personality is considerably more vivid than that of any other Infocom PC; there are things, for example, that you won\'t do because it\'s not\r\nin your nature, or because you\'ve been advised against those things. Whether that strong personality is a cause or effect of the overabundance of motivations--or is wholly unrelated--doesn\'t ultimately matter.\r\n<P>\r\nB. Latter-Day IF\r\n<P>\r\n(This section contains major spoilers for Delusions and minor spoilers for Jigsaw, Sunset Over Savannah, Little Blue Men, and Varicella.)\r\n<P>\r\nPlundered Hearts stood as an exception to the general pattern for quite a while, even after commercial IF died out, and it was not until the latter half of the \'90s, when IF authors began to move away from puzzle-solving as IF\'s raison d\'etre, that PC motivation once more became the subject of experiments. An early precursor to that trend came in 1995 with Graham Nelson\'s Jigsaw, a time-travel game that moves the player through a variety of 20th-century scenes, each time chasing a nemesis determined to change history and each time attempting to set history back on course. The larger question of motivation--why is the PC so convinced that history must unfold just as it did?--is not explored as fully as it might be, but everything that the PC needs to do in each self-contained scene proceeds reasonably logically from the objective--which is itself obvious (if the player knows the history that needs to be set right).\r\n<P>\r\nSimilarly cognizant of the problem of PC motivation was C.E. Forman\'s Delusions in 1996, where the PC\'s goals change repeatedly over the course of the game: the initial goal is to test a VR simulation, a subsequent goal is to escape a different simulation, and a final goal involves defeating a certain villain. The transitions between goals are reasonably logical, enough so that that there\'s never a question about what objective the player is pursuing at any given time. For example, the player emerges from one simulation into a suddenly deserted lab (which turns out to be another simulation), and immediately both player and PC have a new goal: to figure out where everyone went, and, when the nature of the problem emerges, to find a way out. When the way out is found, the PC stumbles directly into a conversation involving the villain, and the new motivation is obvious. Perhaps more importantly, however, a fourth goal emerges along the way, namely that the PC wants an explanation of some nagging inconsistencies tugging at the edge of his consciousness. The subtlety with which this particular goal emerges--through various discoveries that initially appear unconnected--makes Delusions noteworthy, as the game manages to encourage the player to solve the problem without spelling things out directly.\r\n<P>\r\nOther recent games have likewise tackled the problem of motivation in innovative ways. In Michael Gentry\'s Little Blue Men, for instance, the PC\'s primary goal is to eliminate things that annoy him--in the game\'s parlance, to become \"frosty\" rather than \"steamed\"--and pursuing that goal single-mindedly (how to do that is usually, though not invariably, clear) sends the story in all sorts of unexpected places. Achieving the PC\'s motivations means, in other words, that the player has to take on a distinctly antisocial mindset--meaning, if not an outright conflict between the player and the PC, at least a bit of tension. The execution isn\'t, alas, quite perfect; there are moments where the player\'s sheer curiosity has to take over from the PC\'s quest to maintain his emotional balance, as the author can\'t quite connect the PC\'s goals with certain bits of puzzle-solving. Ivan Cockrum\'s Sunset Over Savannah is in some ways the obverse of Little Blue Men: the PC has decided that she hates her job and is trying to decide whether to quit, and wanders a beach, encountering various experiences that remind her of her forgotten joie de vivre. The PC\'s sole motivation is to make the decision; the player\'s motivation becomes seeking out the experiences that will help the PC decide. Again, the puzzle-solving strains the model; the player repeatedly compels the PC to do things that simple restlessness would be unlikely to motivate (since a few of them are a bit on the suicidal side). Still, the underlying motivations are unusual, which is worth\r\nnoting in itself, and they keep the player thinking.\r\n<P>\r\nAdam Cadre\'s Varicella, like Little Blue Men, poses the problem of a PC with unattractive motivations; unlike Little Blue Men, though, the story is sufficiently well engineered that the PC\'s motivations consistently drive the plot. The PC is a palace minister aspiring to a recently vacated throne, and scheming to bump off those with precedence in the succession order. The game\'s puzzles all tie directly into one of the various murders--there are no occasions where the PC has to get through a locked door or solve a Towers of Hanoi puzzle in order to obtain some unforeseeable object that will prove useful. (In other words, the author didn\'t just happen to pick a good plot; the\r\ngame is designed in such a way that the player\'s magpie/Mensa member personality rarely, if ever, shows through.) Other games of note in this regard include Stephen Granade\'s Losing Your Grip, in which the PC goes through a lengthy internal odyssey, confronting various inner demons--and while it would be difficult to say that the PC ever has an overall objective, at various times he is given smaller goals that advance the plot in a variety of logical ways. (There are a few exceptions--scenes that seem more akin to a set of puzzles than a stage in the PC\'s odyssey--and, not surprisingly, those scenes were heavily criticized.)\r\n<P>\r\nII. PC Motivations and Game Design\r\n<P>\r\n(This section contains major spoilers for Spider and Web, FailSafe, The Weapon, LASH, and 9:05, and minor spoilers for Enchanter, Sorcerer, My Angel and Photopia.)\r\n<P>\r\nWhat are the implications of all this for the would-be designer? First, shorter is usually better; most of the games that have done a creditable job of accounting for the PC\'s motivations have been relatively short. Most IF puzzles are set-pieces--it isn\'t easy to develop a lot of puzzles that fit seamlessly into a game, unless your story is \"solve the puzzles in your latest Games Magazine.\" The longer the game, and the more puzzles, the more likely it is that the PC will need to solve puzzles that he/she has no obvious reason to solve.\r\n<P>\r\nSecond, many of the games that have developed strong PC motivations have been segmented, so that a particular motivation, once accomplished through solving a puzzle or two, gives rise to another motivation that is accompanied by another puzzle. (Of course, if your game\'s so short that there\'s just one puzzle--and everything the PC does has an obvious connection to that puzzle--segmenting is less of a big deal. Enlightenment, by Taro Ogawa, is one example.) Each goal should be relatively immediate, sufficiently so that puzzle-solving has an obvious connection--if there\'s a door to unlock, there should be some good reason for thinking that something interesting to the PC is on the other side of the door. Many games begin this way, typically with some humdrum task--in Lurking Horror it was writing a paper, in Wishbringer it was delivering a letter--but lose motivational focus when the wide middle section of the game comes along. The solution may lie in escaping the clutches of the short, narrow introduction, long, wide middlegame, and short, narrow endgame structure, as it\'s the middlegame that tends to be closest to an unabashed collection of puzzles (whereas the humdrum-task introduction and the my-objective-is-before-me endgame tend to have goals that are directly related to the puzzle-solving). Enchanter and Sorcerer, where the beginning tasks are, respectively, getting into the bad guy\'s castle and getting out of your own Guild Hall (and the endgame objectives are essentially kill-the-bad-guy), are examples. Obviously, the goals also need to be less cosmic than save-the-world (which Infocom was rather fond of but the latter-day IF community has moved away from).\r\n<P>\r\nThird, imputing emotions and thoughts may be necessary to the tell the story you want to tell, if that story is at all complex. Delusions did this to great effect, in part because it was unexpected; a PC without strong reactions to most stimuli had a progressively stronger reaction as it confronted the inconsistency, and it helped convince the player that this was an avenue worth exploring. To be sure, it\'s possible to \"discover\" your own feelings--you could, say, have the PC read a letter that\r\nhe or she has written--but if you\'re already inside the PC\'s head, it seems easiest simply to tell the player what\'s going on in that head, absent some compelling reason not to share that information with the player (as discussed below), Again, the puzzle-oriented roots of IF tend to encourage an emphasis on the objective--but the current state of the art calls for more subjectivity, a less Hemingwayesque persona at the center of it all. The occasionally confusing nature of Plundered Hearts, which, as noted, generally avoided informing the player of the PC\'s thoughts, suggests that less, in this regard, is not necessarily more.\r\n<P>\r\nFourth, emphasizing story and deemphasizing puzzles may make it easier to tie the PC\'s motivations to the course of the game (assuming the story is even vaguely plausible). One of the more striking examples of this was Jon Ingold\'s My Angel, where there are very few puzzles (and what puzzles there are tend to be small-scale and short-term) but the game tells a reasonably complex story. The PC\'s immediate motivations are clear throughout the story, even though he doesn\'t really have a discernible large-scale objective (and there are good reasons for that); the story begins with him following his companion, and each stage of the journey brings up a new objective. There, overcoming whatever obstacles impede the journey tells the story in itself, and there\'s little ambiguity about why the PC continues the journey--and hence the few puzzles feel adequately motivated. (In theory, they could have fit into the story even if they\'d been more numerous and more conventional puzzles, but then you\'d get questions about why exactly this journey seems to lead through so many barriers and require so much riddle-solving. Again, the idea is a _plausible_ story.) Conversely, it\'s hard to tell a convincing story if the character at the center of it remains a cipher.\r\n<P>\r\nIllustrative in this respect is Adam Cadre\'s Photopia, which alternates between fantasy and real-life--and most of the fantasy segments have puzzles associated with them, while the real-life scenes have interaction but no puzzles. Each of the scenes from real life features a different PC, each of which has a reasonably obvious motivation in that scene, and each scene advances the plot in measurable ways. The fantasy bits, on the other hand, have thematic connections to the plot but don\'t (by the very nature of the story) advance the ball, and the puzzle-solving in each of those segments is a mite aimless--even when you know what you\'re trying to do, there\'s no obvious way to go about doing it. There are good reasons in the context of this particular game why the path of the fantasy story would wander, but the contrast is still striking: the progress of the story hinges on clearly motivated non-puzzle interactions on the one side, and on less clearly motivated puzzle-solving on the other. \r\n<P>\r\nMore attention to the PC\'s motivations not only tends to go along with better storytelling, moreover, but also tends to make for better puzzles, for those that still prefer to write puzzle-oriented games. Set pieces, or \"soup can\" puzzles (so named when Russ Bryan commented in a newsgroup discussion of the graphic adventure Seventh Guest, \"what the hell kind of villain thwarts the hero\'s progress with soup cans in the kitchen pantry?\"), have become increasingly disfavored for that very reason: they don\'t fit into the plot, and the PC (usually) has no particular reason to solve them. Likewise, players often complain about puzzles that require suicidal tendencies (as in Sunset Over Savannah) on the theory that the PC should be assumed to be a relatively rational actor. It\'s worth remembering that several of the most innovative puzzles of recent years have turned on well-developed PC motivations. In Andrew Plotkin\'s Spider and Web, for instance, the PC is a captured spy who lies to his interrogator about his movements inside the lab where he is caught. The player, however, does not know that the PC is lying, and hence has no reason to believe that the PC has any reason to conceal anything from the interpreter--and the puzzle that calls for the player to draw that conclusion is a masterstroke. This sort of split between player and PC is difficult to accomplish unless the PC has his/her own goals and motivations, and\r\ncentering the story on the PC motivations, in this case, makes both the story and the puzzle work. PC motivations, and their concealment from the player, play similar roles in Jon Ingold\'s FailSafe and Sean Barrett\'s The Weapon, and in each case the game\'s primary puzzle involved picking up on those motivations.\r\n<P>\r\nFurthermore, some of the most interesting IF experiments of recent years--experiments that have pushed the bounds of IF theory--depended on developing the PC\'s persona and motivations. Spider and Web, FailSafe, and The Weapon are all examples; Paul O\'Brian\'s LASH, where the PC is a robot that eventually rebels against the humans controlling it (and who, naturally, control it in much the way a player controls a PC), is another. (One can read into this device a bit of commentary about how the conventional IF PC resembles an automaton mindlessly picking up objects.) One of the cleverest such experiments is Adam Cadre\'s 9:05, where the PC is a burglar who has broken into a house and killed the occupant--but the player, waking up the next morning in the house, assumes it to be his and takes the PC off to the victim\'s workplace in the victim\'s car (and promptly gets caught). The joke there, obviously, is that the PC has motivations that he doesn\'t get around to sharing with the player, and that the player\'s assumption that the PC has certain motivations (getting to work) turns out to be unwarranted. Many interesting things have yet to be done with the player-PC relationship, and giving the PC a persona--with personality, worldview, and highly specific motivations--open up the possibilities.\r\n<P>\r\nIII. Conclusion\r\n<P>\r\nCharacter development in IF--whether of the PC or of the non-player characters (NPCs)--has long lagged behind puzzle design and other aspects of world-modeling, in part, no doubt, because of the difficulty of coding even vaguely realistic human interactions. While development of a PC doesn\'t depend on coding as such, it\'s arguably true that a game with minimal human interaction (as IF has historically tended to be) tends to need less in the way of PC development; who cares about crafting an intricate PC psychology when the PC has nothing to match wits with? (Technically, of course, the human interactions could be offscreen, or appear in cut scenes, but the tendency, I think,\r\nhas been simply to write barren, austere games.) NPC interaction has matured over the past few years, however; the hybrid conversaton structure (accommodating both menus and general topic selection) that Emily Short has pioneered and that some others have attempted allows for conversation with considerably more depth and range. That, in turn, calls for a more developed PC to hold up an end of those conversations. The newfound emphasis on the storytelling aspects of IF--partly driving and partly resulting from advancements in NPC developement--likewise calls for a PC whose complexity matches that of the narrative. Letting the PC\'s motivations, rather than the player\'s motivations, determine the course of the story is among the challenges that IF developers should look to meet.',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 03:34:03',1,12,4402),(20,'Description as a reflection of the PC\'s identity',32,'LANDSCAPE AND CHARACTER IN IF<br>\r\n=============================<br>\r\n<P>\r\nIf we reduce interactive fiction to its essence, we can view it as a\r\ntriangular relationship between three basic elements: Landscape,\r\nCharacter, and Action. It\'s possible to write IF without objects, plot,\r\nNPCs or myriad other ingredients, but as soon as that first room\r\ndescription appears, it introduces a landscape, just as the first prompt\r\nushers in the concept of Action. [1] I would further argue that the\r\ninteraction between these two elements inevitably creates some concept\r\nof Character. The character that emerges is the being that would perform\r\nthe actions selected when presented with the landscape (and situation)\r\nat hand. Even if that character is not human, not organic, or not even\r\nembodied (an omniscient narrator, for instance, though that voice is\r\nalmost never used in IF because of the form\'s powerful insistence on\r\nconnecting Action with viewpoint), Action must have an agent, and that\r\nagent is what we call the Player Character.\r\n<P>\r\nIn this formulation, the only one of the triumvirate completely under\r\nthe game\'s control is Landscape. Action is entirely in the hands of the\r\nplayer, and Character lies halfway between the two. That last statement\r\nmay require a bit more unpacking. If Character is determined by Action,\r\nwhy isn\'t it entirely in the hands of the player as well? The answer is\r\nthat while Action *does* determine Character, it isn\'t the sole\r\ndetermining factor. The game itself can shape character by statements as\r\nblatant as \"You\'re Tracy Valencia,\" or by something as subtle as\r\na particular word choice in a parser response. However, I would contend\r\nthat while blatant character-shaping statements and even subtle nudges\r\nfrom default responses are far from inevitable in IF, some sense of\r\nlandscape *must* be included in any IF game, and that both the design\r\nand the description of this landscape are extremely powerful factors in\r\ndetermining character. It is my aim in this essay to examine the ways\r\nin which Landscape influences and creates Character, and to raise what I\r\nhope will be some interesting questions about the nature of their\r\ninterrelationship.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nMAP DESIGN<br>\r\n[This section contains minor spoilers for Colossal Cave, Planet Of The\r\nInfinite Minds, Strangers In The Night, and Suspect. It contains\r\nmedium-level spoilers for Lost New York and Stone Cell, and major\r\nspoilers for Shade and 1981.]\r\n<P>\r\nSpace is continuous. The landscape of interactive fiction, however,\r\nconsists of discrete units, connected to each other in various ordinary\r\nand sometimes extraordinary ways. [2] By convention we call these units\r\n\"rooms\", but in fact they can be anything from a tiny subsection of a\r\nroom to an entire town, country, planet, or universe. How does a game\'s\r\nsubdivision of continuous space affect our perception of the character\r\nin that game? Let\'s look at some examples.\r\n<P>\r\nAn illuminating comparison exists between two pieces of IF with urban\r\nsettings: Neil DeMause\'s _Lost New York_ (1996) and Rich Pizor\'s\r\n_Strangers In The Night_ (1999). In the former, the character travels\r\nthrough Manhattan and other areas of New York City during various points\r\nin history. The game frequently compresses neighborhoods, boroughs, and\r\nother such swaths of territory into single rooms, albeit lovingly\r\ndescribed ones:\r\n<P>\r\n   Lower East Side<br>\r\n   The scene around you is one unmatched in any other time and place in\r\n   human history: Acres of identical four- and five-story tenements\r\n   packed cheek-to-jowl with people, people who spill out onto the\r\n   sidewalks and fire escapes in search of a little space, a little air.\r\n   The el tracks continue down the street to the north and south; to the\r\n   east, the tenements seem to stretch on forever, though you\'re pretty\r\n   sure they eventually end at the East River shore.\r\n<P>\r\nWithin each time period, these areas connect to each other directly,\r\neven though they may have been separated by miles in reality.\r\nOccasionally, a \"traveling message\" such as \"You trudge north for close\r\nto a mile, finally arriving at...\" will interpose itself between\r\nlocations, but more often the traveling interval passes instantaneously\r\nand without comment.\r\n<P>\r\n_Strangers In The Night_, on the other hand, painstakingly sets out its\r\ngeneric city map as a street grid, and provides almost no description\r\nfor the lion\'s share of its locations:\r\n<P>\r\n   Broadway and 11th<br>\r\n      You are at the intersection of Broadway and 11th Avenue. To the\r\n   southwest is the security door for your apartment building; the\r\n   Broadway Sineplex (which a few downtown residents still consider an\r\n   amusing name for a movie theatre) lies to the northeast.\r\n<P>\r\n   >n<br>\r\n   Broadway (10th & 11th)\r\n<P>\r\n   >n<br>\r\n   Broadway and 10th<br>\r\n      One of the streetlights is dim here; the shadows that are cast\r\n   against the sidewalk are oddly deformed, giving the corner an\r\n   otherworldly feel.\r\n<P>\r\n   >n<br>\r\n   Broadway (9th & 10th)<br>\r\n      Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm starts blaring it\'s [sic]\r\n   Call of the Wild to the concrete jungle. This is followed a few\r\n   moments later by the sound of figerglass [sic] crunching and safety\r\n   windshields shattering until the alarm ceases.\r\n<P>\r\n   >n<br>\r\n   Broadway and 9th\r\n<P>\r\n   >n<br>\r\n   Broadway (8th & 9th)\r\n<P>\r\n   >n<br>\r\n   8th and Broadway\r\n      Carl Tuck\'s Coffehouse [sic] is to the southeast.\r\n<P>\r\nAt first glance, it might appear that about half the locations contain\r\nroom descriptions. In fact, however, only the first and the last do; the\r\ndim streetlight and the car alarm are random atmospheric messages that\r\ncan pop up in any street location. In fact, the only time a non-random\r\nmessage, or a description of any kind, appears is when the location\r\nadjoins the entrance to a puzzle-solving area, or to the PC\'s home.\r\nThe game\'s city grid is comprised of about 80 locations, all of which\r\nmay well have been compressed into one room in _Lost New York_.\r\n<P>\r\nIt\'s a natural impulse to discuss these choices as they relate to game\r\ndesign, or to talk about their successes and failures in creating\r\nimmersion or facilitating strategy. What may not be so natural is to\r\nthink about how these choices influence the way we think about the\r\nplayer character; I would contend that consciously or not, we perceive\r\nthese two characters differently based on the way the games construct\r\ntheir surroundings. What we know about the PC of _Lost New York_ is that\r\nshe [3] knows New York City well enough to identify its various areas\r\ninstantly, even as they appeared over a hundred years ago. In fact, the\r\ngame\'s easy recognition of areas such as \"The Goats\" and \"Ladies Mile\",\r\nnot to mention the copious historical detail infused into many room\r\ndescriptions, creates a tension between the game\'s identification of the\r\nPC as \"a tourist\" and what we know about her from her subsequent\r\nexperiences. Someone who could wander through New York\'s past with so\r\nmuch information at hand must be intimately familiar with the city,\r\neither through experience or study. Her interest and perception is\r\nmostly broad strokes -- she\'s more interested in generalities of an area\r\nthan in its specific details, and her sense of history is sweeping\r\nrather than finely grained -- but her knowledge is quite comprehensive.\r\nEven if the game had insisted that this was the PC\'s first trip to the\r\ncity, we would have to conclude that she is someone who for whatever\r\nreason has immersed herself in New York City history; how else to\r\nexplain such detailed knowledge in the midst of the extraordinary\r\nexperience of time travel? If the game proved unable or unwilling to\r\naddress and resolve this question, that lacuna could hardly be anything\r\nbut a flaw in the work, just as it would be in a novel where the main\r\ncharacter knows things she shouldn\'t. \r\n<P>\r\nUnlike the PC of _Lost New York_, the character in _Strangers_ has\r\nalmost no interest in ordinary detail, let alone history. He never finds\r\nhimself musing about ironies or architecture as he treads the streets,\r\nand in fact usually notices nothing but the bare identity of the\r\nlocation. Together with the game\'s specification of the PC as a vampire,\r\nthese facts can lead us to a few conclusions about this character. He\r\nsees the city not as human tapestry or even interesting backdrop, but\r\nrather as a sort of maze he must navigate in order to locate prey. The\r\nlack of room descriptions impels us to move quickly from one location to\r\nthe next, replicating the urgency of the character\'s thirst for blood.\r\nHis disinterest in local color might even be seen as an undead disdain\r\nfor the fleeting effluvia of mortal life. The game\'s overall\r\npresentation isn\'t quite strong enough to give this effect full potency,\r\nbut all the same we know quite well that there is a significant\r\ndifference between these two characters. The _Lost New York_ PC, even if\r\nshe *were* a vampire searching the streets for prey, couldn\'t help but\r\nnotice the landscape and be aware of its heritage, while the _Strangers_\r\nPC could be thrust into any time in the city\'s history and would evince\r\na similar disregard for anything but the most minimal details of place. \r\n<P>\r\nOn the other end of the detail spectrum from _Strangers_ is Andrew\r\nPlotkin\'s _Shade_ (2000), where the entirety of the action appears to be\r\ntaking place in the player character\'s studio apartment. In this\r\none-room environment, however, movement is possible, and the game\r\nresponds to this movement not by placing the character in a new room (as\r\nis the case with most IF), but rather by making a series of alterations\r\nto room description and scope for the current room. If the PC is in the\r\ncenter of the apartment, for example, the game first mentions objects\r\nclose at hand, such as the computer desk and stereo, while reserving\r\nmention of the kitchen and bathroom areas for the later parts of the\r\nroom description. When that character moves to the kitchen, however,\r\ntext about the counter, the refrigerator, and such occupies the\r\nbeginning of the room description. The desk and stereo are still visible\r\nfrom that location, and still mentioned, but are only visible, not\r\naccessible for touching or other manipulation until the character\r\nreturns to the center of the apartment.\r\n<P>\r\nWhen _Shade_ was released, this approach to map design was hailed as an\r\ninnovative subversion of the conventional IF map, which it is. It is\r\nalso a fitting choice for characterization purposes. The overlapping,\r\nconnected nature of the apartment landscape makes clear to us that this\r\nis an environment with which the character is intimately familiar, and\r\nthat even while he inhabits one area of it, his awareness of the other\r\nareas does not abate. The map design makes the apartment *belong* to the\r\ncharacter in a way that it would not were it separated into discrete\r\nrooms. This sense of familiarity, of safety, and of enclosure makes the\r\ngame\'s later revelations all the more powerful, as the familiar\r\ndissolves into the strange, and safe enclosure into fatal exposure. \r\n<P>\r\nA similar effect, the subdivision of one room into many separate\r\nlocations, appears in a variety of games, including Infocom\'s _Suspect_\r\n(1984) and Steve Kodat\'s _Stone Cell_ (1999). In the former, it\'s a\r\ngrand ballroom that the game presents as nine separate locations, and\r\nthe effect is to make the room feel enormous. The character in _Suspect_\r\nis a reporter at a party being given in a mansion, and the game\'s map\r\ndesign underscores her sense of awe at the opulent surroundings -- where\r\nthe house\'s owner\'s perception of the ballroom might be closer to that\r\nof the character in _Shade_, the guest\'s mind demands more concrete\r\nconceptual boundaries in order to take in the scope of the area. _Stone\r\nCell_ achieves a different effect by performing the same gridlike\r\nsubdivision on a much smaller room, the eponymous stone cell. Room\r\ndescriptions and common sense tell us that this room is much smaller\r\nthan the ballroom in _Suspect_, so the game\'s partitioning of that\r\nspace, rather than conveying immensity, instead reflects the PC\'s\r\nawareness of the room\'s tiniest details as a result of her imprisonment.\r\nWhat makes this design particularly effective is that the game initially\r\npresents the cell as one location, then expands it into a grid after the\r\ncharacter sleeps, thus reflecting not only the character\'s growing\r\nfamiliarity with his surroundings but also his growing desire to\r\nscrutinize each detail of the premises in hopes of escape.\r\n<P>\r\nThe opposite effect is available, too, when games compress the extremely\r\nlarge, even the inconceivably large, into a single room description. One\r\nof the more extreme examples of this technique occurs in Alfredo\r\nGarcia\'s _Planet Of The Infinite Minds_ (2000), where the character\r\nmight find himself here:\r\n<P>\r\n   The Beginning of Space<br>\r\n   All around you, distant suns flicker and twinkle. Painfully bright\r\n   points of light seem to appear suddenly from out of the ether, as\r\n   another retracts into obscurity. En masse, the effect renders a\r\n   carnival of vibrant colours and astonishing beauty.\r\n<P>\r\nThe simple fact of the character\'s existence in this location tells us\r\nsomething about that character: that she has transcended humanity,\r\nattaining a sort of bodiless, godlike status. Since the game starts with\r\nthe PC as a simple librarian, its transportation of her to such an\r\nabstract vista carries with it the implication of personal disembodiment\r\nand removal from reality as well. What\'s more, her ability to know that\r\nthe location is \"The Beginning Of Space\" rather than, say, a Christmas\r\ntree festival viewed through a hangover, suggests a metahuman\r\nomnipotence that we must assume has been granted to the character, at\r\nleast temporarily.\r\n<P>\r\nThe connection between map design and character stretches to the deepest\r\nroots of IF, for the majority of _Colossal Cave_\'s (1976) map is named and\r\ndivided in ways that would make sense to a spelunker. From the way that\r\nthe game comfortably names areas of the cave as \"rooms\", and indeed even\r\nthe names of those rooms, which draw on caving vocabulary such as\r\n\"Bedquilt\" and \"Y2\", we can clearly identify that the character in that\r\ngame is an experienced cave explorer. Thus, even in the earliest days of\r\nIF, when games made virtually no overt effort to characterize the PC,\r\ncharacter was already emerging as a function of landscape. The character\r\nin _Colossal Cave_, while unraced, gender-neutral, ageless, nameless,\r\nand faceless, was nonetheless made distinct from the player herself by\r\nthe way he perceived the landscape of the cave, seeing rooms and twisty\r\nlittle passages where a different character might have experienced the\r\narea quite differently.\r\n<P>\r\nIn the hands of a skilled author, the effect of landscape on character\r\ncan make for a portrayal that is very striking indeed. Take, for\r\ninstance, Adam Cadre\'s _1981_ (2001) [4]. The first room description of\r\nthe game is as follows:\r\n<P>\r\n   New Haven, Connecticut<br>\r\n   New Haven. The worst place on earth. The town is dirty and\r\n   industrial, the students are sloppy, everything is horribly\r\n   expensive. And you had to cash in $3600 of your stock to get here.\r\n   But it was necessary. Four years at this place is enough to ravage\r\n   anyone. You have to rescue her, your first true love.\r\n<P>\r\n   Her dormitory lies to the north.\r\n<P>\r\nAlready, we can see a dramatic narrowing of scope occurring. The\r\ncharacter is so unconcerned with the details of his location that he\r\ncompresses an entire town into one unit, dismissing all of it as \"the\r\nworst place on earth.\" Then the broad outlines of location gain sudden,\r\nsharp focus: \"Her dormitory lies to the north.\" The contrast between the\r\nvague, reviled whole of New Haven and the focus on the dormitory, set\r\napart in its own line, suggests to us that the character\'s concentration\r\non his goal is unhealthy, perhaps even obsessive, and moving north\r\nconfirms this suspicion:\r\n<P>\r\n   New Haven, in her dormitory<br>\r\n   You\'re standing in front of her door. It\'s closed. It\'s always\r\n   closed. You\'ve shoved approximately one hundred poems and letters\r\n   under that door. You figure she\'s probably read about half of them.\r\n<P>\r\nScope narrows even further here, from one building to the tiny area in\r\nfront of one of that building\'s doors. The room descriptions certainly\r\nconfirm our impression of the main character\'s unbalanced and obsessive\r\nnature, but even without them, the basic funneling performed by the map\r\ndesign would get the point across admirably. When we discover that the\r\nPC is John Hinckley, Jr., and that the door in question is to Jodie\r\nFoster\'s dorm room at Yale, the revelation is terrifically powerful,\r\nbecause via its map design, the game has already taken us directly into\r\nthe viewpoint of its would-be assassin.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nROOM DESCRIPTIONS<br>\r\n[This section contains minor spoilers for A Change In The Weather,\r\nHeroes, Varicella, and Zork I. It contains medium-level spoilers for\r\nOnce And Future and Wearing The Claw, and major spoilers for Nothing\r\nMore Nothing Less.]\r\n<P>\r\nOf course, in _1981_ it\'s more than just map design that clues us into\r\nthe character -- the room descriptions themselves make it clear that we\r\nare seeing the game\'s landscape as filtered through one individual\'s\r\nhighly idiosyncratic viewpoint. Short, choppy sentences give the text a\r\njittery feel, contributing to the general tone of uneasiness. We know\r\nthe character has some access to wealth because of the \"$3600 of your\r\nstock\" line. We also know the character is either a heterosexual male or\r\na homosexual female from the reference to the true love as \"her.\" [5]\r\nAnd we certainly know how he feels about New Haven.\r\n<P>\r\nCadre is particularly skilled at bringing character across through room\r\ndescription, as in this example, the first room in _Varicella_ (1999):\r\n<P>\r\n   Salon<br>\r\n   You\'ve funneled the lion\'s share of the palace improvements budget --\r\n   and most likely the tiger\'s share as well -- into renovating the\r\n   salon... not that the Philistines you live among are equipped to\r\n   appreciate it. From the plush Quattordici chairs to the handsome\r\n   volumes in the library to the imported Ming tea service to the\r\n   steward you hired to attend to your grooming needs, this is an oasis\r\n   of taste and comfort in what is otherwise a fairly uncomfortable and\r\n   tasteless building. Ah, well. When you become Regent you\'ll have\r\n   greater latitude to redecorate. The arched windows overlook the\r\n   western gardens, while the exit leads east.\r\n<P>\r\nThis description follows several paragraphs of introduction, which\r\nannounce the player character as one Primo Varicella, Palace Minister to\r\na recently deceased king, and Machiavellian schemer for the throne. Even\r\nwithout that introduction, though, this room description would frame the\r\ncharacter aptly. From the \"lion\'s share\" clause we know that the\r\ncharacter is in charge of improvements to a palace, and from the room\r\nname we know that he is in the Salon mentioned in the first sentence;\r\ntherefore we can conclude that he is employed by the palace in which the\r\ngame begins -- a succinct way to bring across Varicella\'s position and\r\noccupation. Moreover, the phrase \"live among\" tells us that he resides\r\nat the palace as well. The \"tiger\'s share\" clause gives us an example of\r\nhis sardonic humor, and the \"Philistines\" reference an example of his\r\nsnobbery. His identification of the chairs and tea service, and the\r\ncontrast to the \"uncomfortable and tasteless\" remainder of the building,\r\ncommunicate clearly that this is a man of very strong preferences, a\r\npersnickety aristocrat whose refined tastes run to the extremely\r\nexpensive. Finally, the character\'s ambitions, and the drive behind\r\nthem, are summarized neatly: \"When you become Regent you\'ll have greater\r\nlatitude to redecorate.\" Just by seeing one room through this\r\ncharacter\'s eyes, we learn all the essential facts about him that will\r\ncarry throughout the game. \r\n<P>\r\nIf there\'s a continuum that measures the degree to which a game\'s\r\nroom descriptions blatantly shape character, it\'s fair to say that\r\n_Varicella_ is probably on the extreme end of it. Does that mean that\r\nthe room descriptions of games on the other end don\'t shape character\r\nat all? Predictably, my answer is no -- the effect is just a bit more\r\nsubtle. To illustrate, let\'s compare descriptions from two different\r\ngames, neither of which has character as its focus. First, from\r\nAndrew Plotkin\'s _A Change In The Weather_ (1996):\r\n<P>\r\n   Rocky Outlook<br>\r\n   A wide angular tongue juts out from the hillside. The park stretches\r\n   off to the north and west, a vast expanse of luminous meadowland,\r\n   patched with the dark emerald of forest. The streams are already\r\n   shadowed in their beds. In the distance, a lake reflects red fire,\r\n   beneath the greater fire that leaps silently on the horizon.\r\n<P>\r\n   A trail leads southwest down the hill, towards the bridge. From where\r\n   you stand, it turns southeast and continues upward, deeply cut into\r\n   the hillside. A narrower trail leads more steeply up to the east.\r\n<P>\r\n_Zork I_ (1981) by Infocom offers a location that is very nearly\r\nanalogous:\r\n<P>\r\n   Rocky Ledge<br>\r\n   You are on a ledge about halfway up the wall of the river canyon. You\r\n   can see from here that the main flow from Aragain Falls twists along\r\n   a passage which it is impossible for you to enter. Below you is the\r\n   canyon bottom. Above you is more cliff, which appears climbable.\r\n<P>\r\nThough their locations may be similar, these two characters are very\r\ndifferent indeed. _Weather\'s_ wanderer takes the entire first paragraph\r\nto describe the area with intense, poetic language. The words don\'t\r\ndirectly narrate the emotions felt by the character, nor impute opinions\r\nlike the descriptions in _Varicella_, but they deploy vivid adjectives\r\nlike \"luminous\" and \"dark emerald\", and powerful metaphors -- the tongue\r\nof rock, the red fire of sunset reflected in a lake, the setting sun as\r\na \"greater fire that leaps silently on the horizon.\" This is a character\r\nwhose soul is moved by the grandeur of a natural landscape. Only after\r\nthis reverent depiction does the character notice practical details: the\r\ntrails and where they lead.\r\n<P>\r\n_Zork\'s_ PC, on the other hand, goes directly for the practical. She\r\nmentions the river\'s passage only in terms of whether she can enter it.\r\nWhat she notices about the cliff is that it is climbable. Though the\r\nnatural scene -- a canyon, a river, a waterfall -- is probably quite\r\nimpressive, the description is almost entirely mechanical. There are no\r\nrapturous sentences about the stark rock of the cliff or the sparkling\r\nriver. Adjectives are almost entirely absent, and where they do exist\r\ntheir purpose is highly prosaic: \"river\" further identifies \"canyon\", as\r\n\"Aragain\" does \"Falls\" and \"canyon\" does \"bottom.\" Other descriptors\r\nexist solely to describe travel options: \"impossible\" and\r\n\"climbable\". Indeed, she sees every element of the scene only in terms\r\nof how it can be manipulated or traversed, and this viewpoint is\r\nconsistent throughout the game, just as the intense description of\r\nnatural phenomena is a constant in _Weather._ Both games\' main focus is\r\npuzzle-solving, but when we compare how their characters each view a\r\nsimilar scene, it becomes clear how different the characters are from\r\neach other.\r\n<P>\r\nComparing the PCs of two different games illuminates important\r\ndifferences between the characters, and the effect is even more potent\r\nwhen several points of view are available within the same game --\r\ninstead of seeing how two different characters view analogous locations,\r\nwe get to see how they view the exact *same* location. Several recent\r\ngames have made use of this technique: J. Robinson Wheeler\'s _Being\r\nAndrew Plotkin_ (2000), Stephen Granade\'s _Common Ground_ (2000) and my\r\nown _LASH_ (2000) among them. The current apex of POV-diversity, though,\r\nprobably belongs to _Heroes_ (2001) by Sean Barrett. This game offers a\r\nminimal landscape of something like a dozen locations, but gives five\r\ndifferent viewpoint options through which to view it. For instance, the\r\nopening location of the game as viewed by a Zork-like adventurer:\r\n<P>\r\n   Temple Way<br>\r\n   The grimy, ramshackle buildings of Oldtown dutifully try to reform\r\n   themselves as you progress east down Temple Way, but nothing besides\r\n   the temple itself makes any real pretense of belonging anywhere other\r\n   than Oldtown. Or rather, nothing besides the temple and Baron\r\n   Sedmon\'s nearby mansion.\r\n<P>\r\na King:\r\n<P>\r\n   Avenue<br>\r\n   This broad avenue leads right into Temple Square, the heart of\r\n   fabulous New Oldtown. Towering over the square to the east you do\r\n   perceive your stark white Temple of Justice, beautiful and\r\n   well-appointed, offering a statement to the neighborhood: this, this\r\n   is what progress is about. Sadly, the buildings around you are\r\n   scarcely up to this new standard; Baron Ventillado\'s house north of\r\n   the square is much more satisfactory. How you hate having to come\r\n   here. This would all be so much simpler if Blackhelm were found dead\r\n   one morning, but it\'s never happened yet, despite your best efforts.\r\n<P>\r\na thief:\r\n<P>\r\n   Shadowy Road<br>\r\n   Sturdy, functional buildings lie in and out of shadow on the road to\r\n   the temple square. Simple architecture, devoid of handholds; closely\r\n   spaced buildings, devoid of alleyways; uncut walls, devoid of\r\n   windows: the builders in this area knew how to encourage amateurs to\r\n   go elsewhere.\r\n<P>\r\na mage:\r\n<P>\r\n   East-West Road<br>\r\n   Randomly arranged paving stones form this street, proceeding east\r\n   towards a more attractive arrangement. The darkened buildings lean\r\n   sloppily over the edge of the street, reducing the energetic\r\n   potential of the strict east-west layout. West the road leads back\r\n   into the seething mess that is Oldtown.\r\n<P>\r\nand finally, a dragon:\r\n<P>\r\n   Open Tunnel<br>\r\n   We were surrounded by the man-things\' structures, structures of dead\r\n   trees and rock and distortions of iron. Beneath us we felt the\r\n   arrangements of stone into a path for man-things\' mobile receptacles.\r\n   We could smell hints of the Crystal along the path to the east.\r\n<P>\r\nWhere the adventurer just sees a temple, the King sees the temple as his\r\nown possession, a symbol of his attempts to renovate and improve the\r\ncity. Where the mage sees leaning buildings distorting the street\'s\r\npristine geometry, the thief sees those same leaning buildings as a\r\nsource of precious shadow. Through the use of a past-tense,\r\nsecond-person plural voice, _Heroes_ renders the dragon\'s viewpoint\r\nquite alien, and emphasizes that dissonance by showing us how the dragon\r\nsees the street: an \"open tunnel\", contrasted with the more irregular\r\nshapes of nature and constructed by contemptible \"man-things.\" _Heroes_\r\ntakes excellent advantage of Landscape\'s ability to reveal Character,\r\nand through its use of multiple viewpoints, it leverages the power of\r\nthe Landscape-Character axis to accomplish something more: the\r\nrevelation of Landscape via accumulated details from a variety of\r\ncharacters. The descriptions coalesce in the player\'s mind to create a\r\npicture of the location that is much more complete than any one\r\nviewpoint could provide, while at the same time establishing distinct\r\nportraits of each viewpoint character. \r\n<P>\r\nOther games have made use of changing room descriptions in order to\r\ndemonstrate change or progression in a single PC, or to give us that\r\ncharacter\'s revised perspective as a situation changes. _Nothing More,\r\nNothing Less_ (2001) by Gilles Duchesne is a case in point. The first\r\npuzzle of this slice-of-life game takes place in a bathroom, initially\r\ndescribed like so:\r\n<P>\r\n   Bathroom<br>\r\n   I\'ve seen bigger bathrooms, but must admit this smaller one suits our\r\n   needs well. There\'s a small sink with a cabinet under it, a mirror, a\r\n   bathtub (equiped [sic] with a shower head and curtain) and a toilet.\r\n<P>\r\nHowever, after the character urinates [6], the toilet clogs and begins\r\nto overflow. Unprompted, the game reprints the room description, which\r\nnow reads as follows:\r\n<P>\r\n   Bathroom<br>\r\n   I\'ve seen bigger bathrooms, but must admit this smaller one suits our\r\n   needs well. There\'s a small sink with a cabinet under it, a mirror, a\r\n   bathtub (equiped with a shower head and curtain) and a toilet.\r\n   Right now, my attention is also grabbed by: the toilet tank.\r\n   Water keeps flowing from the tank, nearing the bowl\'s edge.\r\n<P>\r\nThe room description stays the same, but the game adds a sentence to\r\ndemonstrate that the character\'s attention has become focused on one\r\nparticular aspect of the room: the toilet tank. This sentence serves\r\ngameplay purposes, indicating that the toilet tank is in fact\r\nimplemented and thereby hinting toward the solution of the \"overflowing\r\ntoilet\" puzzle. In addition to this, the attention sentence demonstrates\r\na shift in the character, showing us his revised perspective as well as\r\nthe fact that he\'s quick-witted enough to think immediately of the\r\ntoilet tank in this crisis. The other sentence is typical of IF room\r\ndescriptions, indicating an action currently taking place in the room\r\nand lending urgency to the character\'s desire to solve the puzzle. After\r\nthe character opens the tank, lifts the toilet float, and fixes the\r\nstuck valve to stop the toilet running (alas, too late to prevent water\r\nflowing onto the floor), the game once again reprints the room\r\ndescription, this time altered considerably:\r\n<P>\r\n   Bathroom<br>\r\n   I m now standing barefoot in some icy water. I\'ve seen bigger\r\n   bathrooms, but must admit this smaller one suits our needs well. In\r\n   fact, at this very moment I m terribly glad the floor isn t bigger,\r\n   as it would only mean more water to remove. There\'s a small sink with\r\n   a cabinet under it, a mirror, a bathtub (equiped with a shower head\r\n   and curtain) and a toilet.<br>\r\n   Right now, my attention is also grabbed by: my towel.\r\n<P>\r\nThere are several changes, doing several different sorts of work within\r\nthe description. The first, the \"icy water\" sentence, indicates a change\r\nin the room itself, one that is reflective of situation rather than\r\ncharacter, though of course the way the character chooses to relate this\r\nsituation -- emphasizing discomfort by noting his bare feet and\r\ndescribing the water as \"icy\", conveying a mood of urgency without panic\r\n-- does accomplish some characterization. A later sentence takes a fact\r\nof the bathroom addressed by earlier descriptions (its small size) and\r\nrelates it to the new situation, revealing a practical and rather\r\noptimistic side to the viewpoint character. This sentence also\r\ndemonstrates that the character\'s perspective, while pragmatic, is not\r\nparticularly scientific, since a larger floor wouldn\'t actually mean\r\nmore water to remove, only a greater surface area from which to remove\r\nit. Later, we get a new \"attention\" sentence; the toilet tank is no\r\nlonger in focus, and instead the character is thinking of his towel.\r\nNote that this towel was not mentioned in any of the previous room\r\ndescriptions, because the character had no particular need of it.\r\n_Nothing More, Nothing Less_ makes extensive use of this technique,\r\nheightening realism by filtering not only the general experience of\r\nlandscape through the PC, but also specific points of focus as well.\r\nFinally, once the toilet is plunged and the water toweled and mopped,\r\nthe PC has showered, and his feline nemesis has entered the room, the\r\nbathroom\'s description changes to this:\r\n<P>\r\n   Bathroom<br>\r\n   This a bathroom, of which I ve seen more than enough in the last\r\n   minutes. Come to think of it, I ve seen enough of it for the whole\r\n   day. And the presence of that hairy pest doesn\'t improve my morale.\r\n   Azrael licks one of his paws, while keeping an eye on me.\r\n<P>\r\nThe character\'s perspective on the bathroom has changed once more,\r\nmarking the end of his progression from bland interest, through urgent\r\nfocus, and resting finally at mild exasperation. The emotional registers\r\naren\'t extreme, but the room descriptions convey very clearly the\r\nchanges taking place within the character as a response to the changes\r\nthat occur around him. In games like this, Landscape does even more\r\nshaping of Character than usual by virtue of its changing prose. \r\n<P>\r\nA final aspect of how Landscape reveals Character lies in the concept of\r\nelision: what rooms does the game *avoid* describing, and how do those\r\ngaps influence our understanding of the character? Many games take the\r\ncharacter, via non-interactive cut-scenes, or even simple transitions,\r\nthrough landscape that we never get to see from the PC\'s perspective. My\r\nexperiences as an author have taught me about this phenomenon; in my\r\nfirst game, _Wearing The Claw_ (1996), I elided an entire sea voyage. In\r\npractical terms, I made this choice because I didn\'t have the time,\r\nenergy, or skill to implement the journey as an interactive experience,\r\nbut its absence from the game couldn\'t help but affect the PC\'s\r\ncharacterization. His reluctance to relate the details had to be\r\nexplained somehow, so I made him someone who is deeply intimidated by\r\nthe ocean, someone who would want to block out the experience of being\r\nat sea as much as possible:\r\n<P>\r\n   Soon you find yourself at sea for the first time in your life, and\r\n   you learn that the rocking and swaying of a small boat on a choppy\r\n   sea does little to relax you. Nausea swells and recedes like the the\r\n   [sic] waves beneath you, and though the journey to the isle of the\r\n   Goergs takes little more than an hour, it ends none too soon for you.\r\n<P>\r\nI\'m not willing to make the claim that elision *always* contributes to\r\ncharacterization -- sometimes cuts are in place just to serve a story\'s\r\nstructure, leaving things unimplemented even though the character\r\ncertainly would notice them. However, there are times that what isn\'t\r\ndescribed is just as important as what is. These sorts of gaps are\r\nparticularly noticeable when they contrast with the player\'s\r\nexpectations, as happens from time to time in Kevin Wilson\'s _Once And\r\nFuture_ (1998). One particularly memorable absence in that game is the\r\nmatter of the cat: late in the game, Frank Leandro (the PC) is required\r\nto obtain a bit of cat hair for a magical recipe, and conveniently\r\nenough happens across a stray cat who sheds a bit into his hand and\r\nrides his shoulder for a while. A while later, that cat jumps into the\r\nchimney of a boarded-up house (chasing a bird) and disappears. Frank has\r\na sword that cuts through anything, but the game forbids him from\r\ncutting through the boards to find the cat, saying \"You could, but\r\nthere\'s not much point to it.\" So however much the player may want to\r\nmake sure that the kitty is okay, she is constrained by Frank\'s\r\ndisinterest; the inside of the house isn\'t part of the map, because\r\nFrank doesn\'t see the point of exploring it.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nA PC-CENTRIC VIEW OF INTERACTIVE FICTION<br>\r\n[This section contains minor spoilers for The Beetmonger\'s Journal, \r\nmedium-level spoilers for Hamlet, and major spoilers for Photopia.]\r\n<P>\r\nIt\'s possible that objections may arise to some of the points I make\r\nabove, on the grounds that what I ascribe to character could just as\r\neasily be seen as a particular author\'s writing style, a game\'s depth of\r\nimplementation, or even the formal constraints of IF itself. It\'s quite\r\ntrue that I\'m taking a PC-centric view -- this is how I experience\r\ninteractive fiction, and it\'s easy to feel that it\'s simply how the form\r\n*works*, but I certainly acknowledge that there are other, equally valid\r\napproaches. It\'s also true that the PC is not the only possible point of\r\nview within a work of Interactive Fiction. In _The Beetmonger\'s Journal_\r\n(2001) by Scott Starkey, for instance, some very nifty POV-jumping\r\noccurs in sections where the PC is the hero of some stories being read\r\nby the frame characters -- from time to time those characters are\r\ninterrupted in their reading, and we get a small cut-scene from their\r\npoint of view.\r\n<P>\r\nHowever, what I would argue for is the extreme difficulty of\r\ndisconnecting the point-of-view from the Player Character at the point\r\nof action. The IF prompt implies a certain kind of remote control: the\r\nplayer is to type in an action which will then be executed within the\r\ngame. Invariably, this action is performed by the PC. Indeed, this is\r\nthe very definition of Player Character. Similarly, landscape\r\ndescriptions, especially when that landscape is available for traversal\r\nand manipulation from the game prompt, almost cannot help but be\r\nfiltered through the PC, because all the knowledge conveyed in them is\r\navailable for use at the point of action. If room description were to\r\nconvey something that the PC couldn\'t possibly know, such as the color\r\nof an object when the character is blind, the result would be severe\r\ncognitive dissonance for the player. If we type \"OPEN BLUE DOOR\" and the\r\nblind PC is able to do so, we must conclude that the PC is not blind\r\nafter all -- that\'s how powerful the connection is between Character and\r\nAction. Because Landscape, Character, and Action are so intimately\r\nconnected, it\'s quite difficult to avoid making Landscape a function of\r\nCharacter, especially as the two get nearer and nearer to Action.\r\n<P>\r\nGiven this PC-centric take on IF, it\'s worth asking what possibilities\r\nreveal themselves as open or closed in its light. We\'ve already seen\r\nsome of what\'s opened, from _Heroes\'_ cumulative place-building to\r\n_Shade\'s_ resonant evocation of the familiar, and no doubt future games\r\nwill continue to explore the power of the Landscape-Character axis.\r\nConversely, one element that seems rather alarmingly curtailed is the\r\npossibility of dramatic irony. For instance, imagine Shakespeare\'s\r\n_Hamlet_ as an IF game, in which the player controls Hamlet, but is\r\nallowed (as a reader) to see Polonius stepping behind the arras in the\r\nqueen\'s bedroom. In order to retain the dramatic irony of the scene,\r\nHamlet must stab the arras and inadvertently kill Polonius, but why\r\nwould the player order him to do so, knowing what Hamlet doesn\'t? In\r\nother words, how can the player be allowed to know things that the\r\ncharacter doesn\'t if that knowledge is expected to facilitate dramatic\r\nirony? The only answer I can think of is to force the PC\'s actions, to\r\nmake Hamlet stab Polonius no matter what the player orders, but as soon\r\nas that happens, the interactivity drops out of the IF game, and thus\r\nAction is removed from the equation. I\'m not prepared to contend that\r\nthis sort of dramatic irony is impossible, but the game that solves this\r\nproblem will be a major breakthrough. \r\n<P>\r\nThe work that\'s probably come the closest to this grail is Adam Cadre\'s\r\njustly revered _Photopia_ (1998). Thanks to its fragmentation of the\r\nnarrative line and its array of POV characters, when the climactic scene\r\narrives, we know all the awful freight of what\'s about to happen. We\r\nalso can\'t stop it -- in order to achieve its dramatic irony, _Photopia_\r\nmust remove our power to act. There\'s an argument to be made that this\r\nsort of moment becomes even more powerful in interactive fiction, the\r\nuseless prompt underscoring the inevitability of the character\'s tragic\r\nfate. That\'s as may be, but it doesn\'t change the fact that PC and\r\nAction are still inextricably connected, and the only way the PC can be\r\nmade to do something inevitable is to remove control from the player.\r\nPhotopia cleverly makes the inevitable moment a car accident, thus\r\ngiving the PC only a split-second to react (and thus providing a\r\nplausible context for lack of choice) and making his default desires\r\nidentical to the player\'s desires (STOP THE CAR!), but in the final\r\nanalysis, the moment is still achieved by removing control from the\r\nplayer, and indeed the great majority of the criticism directed towards\r\n_Photopia_ has been of its non-interactivity. \r\n<P>\r\nIf Action is to retain its place in the IF triangle, Landscape and\r\nCharacter must remain inextricably connected. Their powerful bond to\r\neach other creates many exciting possibilities for the development of\r\nboth, possibilities that have begun to be exploited in the last several\r\nyears, and which no doubt will continue to yield opportunities for\r\ndevelopment. What\'s also true is that noticing this connection and its\r\npotential still only scratches the surface of character development and\r\nlandscape exposition in IF. Character can be revealed not just through\r\nlandscape, but through objects, plot, direct narrative, and many other\r\ndevices. In turn, while character is the primary lens for landscape,\r\nthat landscape can alter greatly from the passage of time, from plot\r\nevents, from NPC actions, or hundreds of other vectors, and each change\r\nto character and landscape deepens both. We\'ve only just started finding\r\nthe techniques, and it\'s a heady feeling. We\'re at the beginning of an\r\nart form -- there\'s much more undiscovered territory to explore.\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n[1] A note about terms here: First, I should note that by \"interactive\r\nfiction\", I refer to text IF. Some of the points here are certainly\r\napplicable to graphical or mixed-media IF as well, but some may not be.\r\nSecondly, the general concepts of Landscape, Character, and Action\r\naren\'t meant to be taken too literally. IF could be (and in many cases\r\nhas been) created with a map of entirely abstract locations, or one\r\nlocation, or location descriptions that consist entirely of describing\r\nwhat\'s absent. Similarly, actions might involve no actual action (WAIT,\r\nfor example, or THINK), and a character can be anything from an intrepid\r\nadventurer to an ear of corn. However, I would contend that these\r\nelements are present in some form in all IF -- indeed, the absence of\r\nthese elements (such as the absence of landscape in _Eliza_) removes the\r\nwork from what might reasonably be called interactive fiction.\r\n<P>\r\n[2] This trait isn\'t entirely restricted to text games, but while no\r\ntext game offers continuous space, some graphical games, such as _Half-\r\nLife_ and _Zork: Grand Inquisitor_, do in fact offer a continuous,\r\nunbroken environment through which the PC travels. In that case, map\r\ndesign becomes a much less powerful factor in fixing Character, and in\r\nfact it might be argued that in those cases, the term \"map design\" has\r\nmore or less lost its meaning, and might be better called \"level design\"\r\nor something similar.\r\n<P>\r\n[3] The subject of how description influences our perception of PC\r\ngender could occupy another entire essay, and is out of scope for this\r\none. Consequently, in the case of games that don\'t explicitly specify the\r\ngender of the PC, I\'ll rather arbitrarily select one, trying to hit a\r\nmore or less even ratio between the two. \r\n<P>\r\n[4] _1981_ is credited to the pseudonymous A.D. Mcmlxxxi, and Cadre has\r\nnever claimed credit for it. In private correspondence, he explained\r\nthat this is because the game was a bit of a rush job, not polished\r\nenough for something he would put his own name on. He agreed to be\r\ncredited for the game in this essay on the condition that I put in a\r\nnote explaining that he \"wasn\'t actually *trying* or anything with that\r\none.\" That _1981_ is the game Cadre produces when he isn\'t even breaking\r\na sweat is a testament to his skill as an author.\r\n<P>\r\n[5] Or a bisexual of either sex, it probably should be said.\r\n<P>\r\n[6] This is one of the very few times that excretion has appeared in an\r\nIF game without being a function of rather dodgy toilet humor. Instead,\r\nthe game plays it completely straight -- just another element in its\r\nrealistic scenario.',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-25 17:25:28',1,12,7200),(21,'Theory of the Ask/Tell Paradigm',33,'2 Theory of the Ask/Tell Paradigm \r\n<P>\r\nHow do we, as people, choose what we are going to say to another person? For the purposes of this article, I will cite four different forms of the human conversation model and relate these to topic-based conversations. It is important to realize that each of these four forms of conversation is used in life to serve different needs, just as each of these forms of conversation is used in a game to serve different needs. \r\n<P>\r\n2.1 The Librarian \r\n<P>\r\nThe vast majority of IF games use this model. It is a response-only model where the NPC will respond to the player only if spoken to but otherwise does not initiate conversation. In life, this is a model we see in service staff, such as a librarian who does her duties and answers questions but otherwise minds her own business. The advantage of this model is that it is fairly easy to implement. This model has the disadvantage of only being player driven. Creative writing can temper the effect to some degree, but an NPC that simply answers questions isn\'t really much of a conversationalist. \r\n<P>\r\n2.2 The Rambling Idiot \r\n<P>\r\nIn life, this conversation model is most often used by people who have just met. Particularly with strangers of whom nothing is known, there is little to do in a conversation than to make some random generic statement such as \"How about them Yankees?\" or \"Nice weather we\'ve been having.\" In a perfect world these little generic bits of conversation will lead to a more personal level of discussion (\"The Yankees haven\'t played this bad since my freshman year of college.\" Or \"Yes, this is great golfing weather!\") but until the other person has \"bitten,\" we are just fishing for a conversation. \r\n<P>\r\nIn IF, the advantage of this model is that NPCs can initiate conversation on their own and do not have to wait for the player to address them. However, if used alone, this model has the disadvantage of not \"flowing\" from one topic to another. Normal conversation tends to progress in a chain of related subjects (\"You followed the Yankees in college? What school did you go to?\" or \"You like to golf? So does my brother.\"). Without this relation between topics, the randomness of conversational blurbs makes people (or NPCs) appear to ramble as though intoxicated. This could be exactly what the developer is looking for in a character, but for a \"normal\" NPC, this model alone leaves something to be desired. \r\n<P>\r\n2.3 The Lecturing Professor \r\n<P>\r\nIn life, we use this third form of conversation when we have something specific to say. A lecturer in a classroom, for example, has specific points that must be made. As the lecture progresses, the points are made one by one until the lecture is concluded. It is possible that the students will keep quiet and the lecture will occur exactly as written on the lecturer\'s note cards. It is equally possible that members of the audience will ask questions. \r\n<P>\r\nWhen a lecturer answers a question, it can possibly be about related information that would not otherwise have been covered in the lecture. The question could also cover lecture material prematurely, in which case those points need not be made again as the lecture continues. \r\n<P>\r\nIn IF, this third model is ideal for ensuring that necessary information gets conveyed to the player. It is perhaps the most useful technique for writing NPC conversation \"scenes\" in a story, since it conveys the appropriate information, yet allows the player to be as interactive (or not) as he/she desires. \r\n<P>\r\nOne small disadvantage of this model is that the technique isn\'t truly \"drivable\" by the player. That is, there is a predetermined outcome that will come to pass regardless of what the player does. This is most likely what is desired in an IF story anyway; however, this model simply doesn\'t work well for \"conversation\" games with multiple endings and \"decision trees.\" For art to more closely imitate life, another model is needed... \r\n<P>\r\n2.4 The Conversationalist \r\n<P>\r\nThis final conversation model is the logical continuation of the \"Rambling Idiot\" model discussed previously. In life, when we communicate with other people, we key into what is being said and keep a running pool of things to Ask/Tell which are related to the conversation. Each statement can have several related topics which, in turn, have their own related topics. Together, these weave chains of interweaving topics (or a \"Topic Web\") which the player can navigate and be prompted with reasonable, natural statements/questions from the NPC. As an example, let\'s continue with one of the conversation statements covered previously: \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n \"You like to golf?  So does my brother.\" \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nAn NPC can be programmed to respond to this statement with a number of related statements, each response having its own set of related topics: \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n \"Well, miniature golf. I worked at \r\n \'Golf World\' after high school.\" \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nor \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n \"Sure I like golf, but not as much as I \r\n do water skiing.  I do that every \r\n weekend.\"\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nor \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n \"Not my brother, he hates golf with a \r\n passion.  He got hit in the head with a \r\n golf ball as a child.\" \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nor \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n \"I think I know your brother.  Isn\'t \r\n he on the debate team?\" \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nObviously the advantage to this system is that it allows for complex conversations seen in games such as \"Best of Three\" that can be driven equally by the NPC and the PC together. As an additional advantage, the concept of related topics is particularly well-suited to support a menu. The menu in turn addresses a disadvantage with the Ask/Tell paradigm as a whole: the difficulty of leading the player in the appropriate direction. \r\n<P>\r\nBy its very nature, the Ask/Tell paradigm doesn\'t limit what the player can try to say. This openness of Ask/Tell is both a positive and a negative. It gives the player freedom since there need be no rhyme or reason to what is said to an NPC. The player can play the \"rambling idiot\" all he wants, but most players will look for clues when trying to determine what to say next. Without a menu, strong hints need to be made. One way to accomplish this would be through protagonist thoughts, but this technique grows more difficult as the number of conversation branches increases. For the four options above, several lines of text must be added: \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n \"You like to golf?  So does my brother.\"\r\n<P>\r\n You begin to tell about your tenure at \r\n \"Golf World\" but hesitate at the \r\n mention of her brother whom you know from \r\n debate.  He always reminded you of your own \r\n brother who, oddly enough, hated golf.  You \r\n two always had a great time skiing though. \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nAs with any Ask/Tell system, this puts a fair burden on the shoulders of the author to make adequate suggestions about what the player might say next. Hopefully, with a bit of luck the player will read the above and consider one or more of the following: \r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n >Tell girl about golf world <br>\r\n >Tell girl about brother<br>\r\n >Ask girl about brother<br>\r\n >Tell girl about skiing<br>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\n<P>\r\nUse of a menu system lightens this burden somewhat for both the author and player. This intertwining of menus and Ask/Tell has an additional advantage. Unlike non-Ask/Tell based menu systems, the player is not bound to choose one of these menu items. A menu used in conjunction with Ask/Tell can be exited and the player can \"change the subject\" by choosing another, non-related topic to Ask or Tell in the conventional manner. \r\n<P>\r\nThe ease of a menu combined with the power of the command. Now that\'s flexibility!',0,'2005-01-24 03:31:35','2005-01-24 05:20:50',4,13,1282),