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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: IF Genres [WAS:May I suggest a convention?]
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Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 07:13:04 GMT
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Bill Hoggett (mas.supplies@easynet.co.uk) wrote:
> On 27-Oct-96, Laurel Halbany <mythago@agora.rdrop.com> wrote:

> >Matthew Amster-Burton <mamster@u.washington.edu> wrote:

> >>Is anyone else getting sick of traditional sci-fi/fantasy games?

> >Yes. Unless their theme is an exceedingly clever and interestingly new
> >one, I'm bored.

> OK, and we can also eliminate Detective/Murder Mysteries, Horror and
> Time Travel games as they have all been done to death in the last few
> years.

> Put aside the puzzle-less i-f and the programming genre as they are
> too gimmicky to appeal to the average gamer and, errr... have I left
> anything out ?

> Now, where's my copy of Doom...

One of the goals of "A Change in the Weather" was to have a non-genre 
story, and it certainly wasn't puzzle-free. (A fantasy element crept in, 
eventually -- one fantasy element -- but it's hardly high fantasy.)

Is puzzle-less a genre? Couldn't a non-puzzle-based IF story be written 
in an SF setting, or a fantasy setting? (Maybe not a mystery setting, 
since a mystery is a puzzle by definition.)

Anyway, there's also situation comedy, historical fiction, romance, spy 
thrillers, political satire, ancient Norse eddas, teenage coming-of-age 
stories, road movies....

Show some imagination here, people. And don't limit what we're doing with 
categories. For two years we've had one category, "Great Stuff." I like 
the results.

--Z

-- 

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