Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!ieunet!tcdcs!rwallace
From: rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Subject: Re: News on Avalon, help needed.
Message-ID: <1994Apr3.133329.21635@cs.tcd.ie>
Organization: Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin
References: <2niopr$3cb@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 1994 13:33:29 GMT
Lines: 41

(remarks about the need to have puzzles in IF deleted...)

I personally thoroughly dislike the kind of puzzles IF authors put into
their games, would much prefer to have none at all, and these days
usually only play the intro to a game and give up when I hit the first
puzzle rather than waste hours solving it.

However, this is not so much an objection to puzzles per se as to the
kind of ones IF authors usually put in:

- IF puzzles usually only have *one* possible solution; there should be
  many alternatives.

- IF puzzles usually have to be tackled in sequence, so if you run into
  one and are not able to solve it, you're stuck.

- With IF puzzles, if you get it wrong, usually you might as well be
  dead, and you have to restore a saved position and try again.

- IF puzzles usually require very many iterations of trying, failing,
  restoring where necessary, before eventually succeeding.

None of these characteristics is true of either real life or good
literature.  I would like puzzles that admit of many possible solutions,
perhaps depending on my character's attributes (a strong character might
break down a door, a dexterous one might try to pick the lock, an
intuitive one might find the key hidden under the doormat), that don't
totally prevent progress in the game if you get stuck on them, and in
which failure is something you will need to compensate for later rather
than requiring a restore (e.g. failing to find the key at point A should
make the locked door at point B more difficult to get past, but not
impossible).

(Of course, not *all* IF has the negative qualities listed above; this
in my opinion is one of the main things distinguishing good IF from
bad.)

-- 
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie
