Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!jvnc.net!darwin.sura.net!wupost!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!canterbury.ac.nz!huia!greg
From: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Subject: Re: Searching for a sense of wonder
Message-ID: <BxsFFy.4Dt@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz>
Nntp-Posting-Host: huia.canterbury.ac.nz
Reply-To: greg@huia.canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing)
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
References: <1992Nov13.140109.7455@starbase.trincoll.edu> <1e4hprINNkle@life.ai.mit.edu> <1e5mvtINNnlp@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> <1992Nov15.155951.3262@starbase.trincoll.edu>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:40:46 GMT
Lines: 38

Some thoughts following from some thoughts expressed here recently...

Realistic vs. fantastic settings: Seems to me it doesn't matter
as long as there is a certain amount of internal consistency.
A universe where anything can happen doesn't make for good stories.
There need to be some restrictions, and those restrictions have to
be logical. In this regard, a fantasy-based adventure is probably
harder to create because there is more for the author to invent.

Using the computer better: One way is to make the games less linear,
less preprogrammed. In a typical adventure game, the player can't
do anything useful that the author hasn't thought of in advance.
Most puzzles have a single "right" solution which must
be deduced or guessed, and nothing else can possibly work.

E.g. getting through a locked door typically involves finding the
right key to unlock it.

In real life, faced with a locked door, there are many courses of
action available such as picking the lock, kicking the door,
removing the hinge pins, attacking it with an axe, etc. which are
perfectly feasible ways of addressing the problem.

I'd like to see an adventure system that *really* allowed you to
use your intellect to find novel solutions to problems, rather
than pre-arranged solutions to puzzles.

Such a game becomes more of a simulation, of course, and opens
up a whole canning factory of worms, as the discussions about
"naive physics" etc. show!

It would certainly deserve the title "interactive", though...

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, Canterbury Univ., Christchurch, New Zealand
Internet: greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz	+--------------------------------------
Spearnet: greg@nz.ac.canterbury.cosc	| A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a
Telecom:  +64 3 667 001 x6367  		| wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan Inc.

