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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: How do YOU start writing a game?
Message-ID: <erkyrathDxJKtz.BFq@netcom.com>
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Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 00:17:59 GMT
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Carl D. Cravens (ravenpub@southwind.net) wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Sep 1996 04:00:09 GMT, erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) wrote:
> >I find that the "length" of a game is proportional to how much the player
> >has to do in the course of a run through it, beginning to end. So, if I'm
> >understanding your description correctly, your work will be a very short
> >one. Start up -- assume you already know all the clues, whatever they
> >are, from previous runs -- go to the end scene, and I'm done.

> But I have to ask, why the concern about a 'second time through'?  The
> story's been read at that point, the game's been solved.  (I don't see
> IF as being something I'd play a second time...  I could probably run
> through Planetfall in about ten minutes right now.)  I can read a novel,
> then read it again and skip chapter three because I already know what
> goes on there, or I can read chapter three because it's part of the
> story. That's a choice of the player, really.

I was actually thinking of subgoals. (In games with several subgoals.) 
The player may go through one segment of the game several times, trying 
to solve it. When she eventually solves the game, she will be doing that 
first segment for the "second time" (or dozenth). If previously-learned 
information allows her to skip part of the game, I regard that as a 
design flaw.

(Saving and restoring games are a conventional way to short-circuit the 
story. That doesn't bother me. Being able to short-circuit within one 
run-through does.)

> > And nobody ever complains that
> >puzzles are too easy. :-) (As long as they *do* fit in. Gratuitous easy
> >puzzles are annoying; but then so are gratuitous hard puzzles.)

> I disagree with the "nobody ever complains" part... or do you mean just
> individual puzzles.  I thought Infidel was way too easy.  Planetfall was
> fairly easy (am I just getting better at these things?)

Ok, I take that back. But if you emphasize the story over the puzzles, I 
doubt that people will judge the game as being too easy.

> >I'm really only using the word "puzzle" because it's traditional. The
> >point here is not to force the player to stop thinking about the story
> >and start solving a puzzle. It's just to make him interact with the
> >world, as opposed to just walking around and examining things.

> That's my goal.  But I'm having trouble identifying what is a 'puzzle'
> and what is a natural course of action.

There is no difference, if that's the kind of puzzle you want to use. I 
very much like puzzles that are natural courses of action.

> Let's throw out
> 'obvious courses of action' and 'locked doors with obvious keys' and how
> many puzzles are there left?

Well, that's the tricky part. :) I think my own horn has been thoroughly 
enough blown that I can do it myself: the opening scene in _So Far_. I 
intended it to be puzzle-like but very easy (and very few people have 
had trouble with it.) But it's reasonably interactive, I think.

--Z

-- 

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