Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: rbryan@netcom.com (Russ Bryan)
Subject: Re: Gratuitous objects
Message-ID: <rbryanCxIJMz.6EH@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <36ids8$gk0@dewey.cc.utexas.edu> <3750a3INNiks@life.ai.mit.edu> <375480$4gl@nntp.interaccess.com> <37c6a6INNi6@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 14:44:59 GMT
Lines: 68

>Excellent example!  I've never come close to finishing Curses, because I
>get stuck and don't have the time to spend weeks on it.  Here is an
>important work (one that certainly seems to have merit) that I have missed
>much of simply because the puzzles are in my way, and because there is no
>walkthrough available.  If I can't finish a work in a few full-time days
>(optionally with a walkthrough), I'm pretty much forced to ignore it.  You
>can say all you want about making time for things, but standard IF works
>seem to expect weeks or months of play.  This is far too much; this is what
>I hope to change in my own works.

>If Curses is just a game, I suppose I don't care.  But if it is something
>more (i.e., has something to *say*), then I care, and don't think the
>"game" part should be getting in my way.  If you want to take the moral
>high ground, and argue that I don't "deserve" to finish the game unless I
>give the puzzles a "fair try", well fine.  But that is most definitely a
>cloistered "art is for artists" attitude --- one that I personally think is
>directly contrary to the whole purpose of art, which is to say something
>that everyone (not just the "in crowd") can deeply identify with.

What I consider insidious is our pompous belief that we have transcended 
the game and made interactive fiction into an art.  What egos we have!  
IF as art has appeared once, in A Mind Forever Voyaging.  Not one of the 
games that any of us have written could stand up without the puzzles.  
Not ONE.  "I just read this great book called Trinity, where you walk 
through mushrooms to travel through time, and... yeah, I said 
mushrooms... why are you looking at me like that?"

Why do you fear the game within interactive fiction?  Actually, my 
comment above was a little incorrect.  IF can be an art, but it must be 
an art within its own rules.  You can't judge sculpture by the rules of 
art on canvas; you can't judge interactive fiction by the rules of 
ordinary fiction.  They are different beasts.  What makes Curses a work 
of art is the ability to work through puzzles and get to more of the 
story, creating the connections the way YOU want them to.  A hint system 
destroys that aspect of IF.

Everyone figures out the solution to a puzzle in a different way, taking 
our own individual experiences with clues provided by the game to reach a 
solution.  No two of us will use the exact same reasoning to, for 
example, open the childproof bottle in Curses -- there are four ways of 
doing it!  Enter the on-line hint system, and suddenly you are seeing the 
solutions to puzzles using not only someone else's reasoning, but the 
AUTHOR'S reasoning.

If you want your work to be considered a piece of IF artwork, an on-line 
hint system is not the way to do it.  If I glanced at the back of Munch's 
"The Scream," would I find the artist's interpretation of his own work?  
Do sculptures feature a small "What this means" plaque at their base?  My 
fascination with interactive fiction has always been the process -- the 
subtle mental links which form in my mind to create the overall 
impression of a solution.  That's what makes it so lasting for me.  Most 
of my friends have agreed to play a game or two which I provide them 
with, and I often will give them the hints (LTOI) to help them along.  
One of my friends has become as fanatical as I have, and he is the only 
one who did not take the hints.

Hint systems may improve distribution to novices in the short run, but it 
won't create a lasting impression.  If you're interested in getting new 
people interested in the genre, don't give them a hard game and hold 
their hand.  Give them an EASY game, and let them explore, learn, and 
discover for themselves.  That is the essence of interactive fiction as art.


-- 

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