Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: pww+@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Peter Weyhrauch)
Subject: re:hints and How Do You Author?
Message-ID: <Bz14zw.3Fy.2@cs.cmu.edu>
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Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1992 06:07:06 GMT
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Hi, all.

M. Sean Molley writes on the 9th:

> The hint system envisioned by the gentleman from Project Oz would be
> nearly impossible (IMO) unless you had a very small number of puzzles
> (like Deadline does).

> Sean

One meaning of this is that it is a lot of work to provide within-game
hints for each puzzle.  I.e., just a large amount of work times a
large number of puzzles makes this a prohibitive amount of work for
any given story.  You are right that it is a lot of effort.  Whether
or not it is too much, I think, has to be decided by the author.

But I am interested to know if you meant something different: the
interactions among within-game hints for different puzzles might
become too complicated to understand, and thus actually would not be
possible.  If you did mean this, I want to hear more.

...

On a (semi)related note, I have a question about how authors invent
their interactive fictions.  Do they (you?) say:

"Hum ... Here is a bunch of neat puzzles I have thought up.  How can I
put them into some kind of coherent story?"

or 

"Ah, here is a really cool story-line.  Let me see what sorts of
puzzles fit into the story."

or 

"Wow, I just thought of a really cool story that has a lot of puzzles
naturally fitting into it.  I can't wait!"

or 

"Hmmm... here is a vague situation that might make a good theme for an
interactive fiction.  I think I'll sort of brainstorm a bit on the
possible storylines and puzzles that could fit in here."

or (most likely)

something completely different?

	Peter
