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Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 08:18:35 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: What is IF really?
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I didn't want to be anywhere near this thread, but Jim, here, has said
something worthy of comment.

Jim Nelson wrote:
[...]

>My opinion is your definition concentrates on the interactive and not the
>fiction.  There's no story in Pong or RT, or even Age of Empires.  There
>might be a *set-up* -- the way the old Activision games would add some
>color by writing a history in the manual -- but there's no in-game story.
>

I wonder if this isn't a "major issue" even more than you suggest.  The
difference between Doom and Planetfall is that Planetfall *is* "the
story"--everything of interest happens on-screen to you, the
protagonist--whereas Doom is "a moment."

Yeah, the "moment" of Doom takes a long time, and yeah, there's some
development, but how would you describe the story of Doom?  You'd give
all the *backstory* (which is static fiction, and not part of the game),
and finish it with "...and then a marine came in and saved the day."
Doom is, in the scheme of the story, merely the big finale.

I don't think there's anything I'd call IF for which this (the game
merely "caps off" a static backstory in simple terms) is true.

[...]

