Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: kennedy@kennedy.bridgewater.ne.hcc.com
Subject: Re: More new topic stuff, (non children related.)
Message-ID: <1994Oct21.211706.27129@hcc.com>
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References: <37vhde$qs1@agate.berkeley.edu> <FLEE.94Oct18081458@simula.cse.psu.edu> <FLEE.94Oct19201710@smalltalk.cse.psu.edu>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 21:17:06 GMT

In <FLEE.94Oct19201710@smalltalk.cse.psu.edu>, flee@cse.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes:
>>"Glastonbury Tor" will have a "concept" inventory; it's necessary to
>>the drag-and-drop interface.
>
>Could you expand on this?  What sort of concepts are in this
>inventory?

A large part of what you have to do in "Glastonbury Tor" involves
asking questions.  Because I am designing the game specifically as an
OS/2 game, I want to do as much as possible in a specifically OS/2-ish
way, and that means drag-and-drop instead of a conventional IF parser.
"Return to Zork" comes surprisingly close to what I have in mind, but
"Glastonbury Tor" is essentially a text game, and the graphics will be
limited to (labelled) icons in folders.  (If, in the future, we want to
use flashier software, it will be in the form of still pictures and
short video clips of live actors to speak NPC dialog; I have no
intention of producing video games.)

Instead of typing "Shopkeeper, tell me about Glastonbury", the user
drags the "Glastonbury" icon from the "Concepts" folder and drops it on
the "Shopkeeper" icon in the "Bookshop" folder (which opens when the
character enters the bookshop), just as instead of typing "Give 1 pound
to the shopkeeper", he drags and drops the "Cash" icon in the
"Inventory" folder.  (The game will either automatically transfer the
right amount of money or pop up a dialog box for the user to type in an
amount.)  Some icons, like "Glastonbury" appear in the "Concepts"
folder at the beginning of the game; others, like "Somerset Zodiac"
might appear the first time the player sees or hears of the
corresponding reality.  As a further extension, double-clicking on the
"Somerset Zodiac" will open a folder containing at least twelve
subordinate icons.

>Let me ask this another way.  What's the shortest interesting game
>that people have played?

"Balances", I think.  The shortest non-trivial game I have ever played
was "Basements and Beasties", an adventure from a book on writing
adventures in TRS-80 BASIC.  I had more fun translating it to PL/I than
playing it.

>>>Does the player have to be a character?  Seriously, this time.
>
>>The player is not a character in the Scott Adams adventures.
>
>Not quite what I meant.  The difference between being a character and
>controlling a character is relatively minor.  In both cases, the game
>is centered around a "player character".
>
>I'm not really sure what I did mean by that question.  Drop this for
>now.  It was a bad idea to ask four unrelated questions in one posting
>anyway. :)

With a sufficiently-advanced technlogy, I suppose we could create a
world of AI's in their own VR.  But I don't expect to see that in my
lifetime, at least not advanced to a point where it is viable as an
artform.

Elsewhere on this newsgroup today someone mentions a game system that
allows player POV to switch characters.  Of course it has already been
done in a limited fashion in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

But the question arises: if the player does not control _some_
character, then what do we mean by "playing"?  Infocomics?

John W. Kennedy - Hoechst Celanese - Team OS/2 - (The OS/2 Hobbit) - TIPA
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