Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!sunic!aun.uninett.no!nuug!nntp.uio.no!news
From: rivero@sol.cie.unizar.es (Alejandro Rivero)
Subject: Porting sequential books to if-books
Message-ID: <1993Jan18.184204.8334@ulrik.uio.no>
Sender: news@ulrik.uio.no (Mr News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: sol.cie.unizar.es
Reply-To: rivero@sol.cie.unizar.es
Organization: Department of Theoretical Physics. University of Zaragoza
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1993 18:42:04 GMT
Lines: 34

I would raise a question to the newsgroup: which is for you the best method to port
a book (or a sequential plot) into a if-program?

We need first to put the player into the book. So we can:

-to choose a main actor and emulate it
-use some trick to conmute between diferent actors (as in The Guide)
-introduce a new player/actor in the scene.

Comments? Other possibilities?

Then we must to remake the plot, must we?

This is usually done by introducing puzzles/tricks not in the original book.
(where by usual I mean it is the method in the guide, in Don Quixote and in The Hobbit)
Is this the best aproach? I think not, because it asumes you have read the book
(this happens to be a good guess in Hobbit, about a 75% with Adams and a really bad
guess in El Quijote).

Then comes the time ordering of events. Must the book be followed or not? And
what about books with no ordering (I put Rayuela as example)? Or plots with
use time-disorder to get some artistic effect? Can we use/translate such effects?

Sure you have come along this and other problems, and probably with solutions
or work-arounds. Lets theorize!

-Alejandro Rivero







