Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!scsing.switch.ch!univ-lyon1.fr!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!rpi!newsserver.pixel.kodak.com!laidbak!tellab5!chinet!jorn
From: jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)
Subject: Re: How do you write Romantic I-F ?
Message-ID: <C29D39.I5A@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
References: <10640430@MVB.SAIC.COM>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 00:23:32 GMT
Lines: 27

In <10640430@MVB.SAIC.COM> Whitten@Fwva.Saic.Com (David Whitten) writes:
>
>	1) Boy meets Girl
>	2) Boy looses Girl
>	3) Boy gets Girl back
>	4) They live happily ever after.
> 
>How in the world do you write an interactive fiction story based on this
>kind of plot?

Yes!  that's the question... The grossest level would be a LeisureSuit
Larry kind of environment where you had to figure how to make yourself
attractive to the availables who represented ( -to-you) the highest
'mating score'...  Your competitors could be computer-controlled players
making similar choices.

A step up in realism, you have to deal with paradoxes like: the harder
you try, the less attractive you appear!

And one hopes it will be possible to create worlds where *being yourself*
wins you points, and 'attractiveness' has more to do with one's humanity
than her skindeep surface features...

jb



