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From: kjfair@midway.uchicago.edu (Kenneth Fair)
Subject: Re: Puzzles, problem-solving, and IF
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Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 03:10:51 GMT
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In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.960407143502.18615A-100000@xp.psych.nyu.edu>,
Roger Giner-Sorolla <giner@xp.psych.nyu.edu> wrote:

> I think Ken Fair's response in this thread is exactly the idea I wanted 
>to develop in my follow-up to my initial post.  That is, given that an IF 
>game must involve problem-solving, how do we make the puzzles more 
>believable, so that they help to maintain the suspension of disbelief that 
>the "fiction" part of IF requires?

I would only add one thing.  I've recently been playing a non-IF
Myst-like adventure game called Shivers (by Sierra).  The setting is
a museum of oddities created by an eccentric professor.  It has lots
of puzzles that might seem otherwise grafted on, but in this case,
they fit with the storyline (the professor wanted his museum guests
to solve various puzzles to be able to see certain things).  Instead
of crafting the puzzles to fit the storyline, they crafted the
storyline to fit the puzzles.  (And generally did a credible job of it.)

I just wanted to mention this as a second, perhaps unspokenly assumed,
way of grafting puzzles to storyline to create a seamless whole.

--
KEN FAIR - U. Chicago Law  | Power Mac! | Net since '90 | Net.cop
kjfair@midway.uchicago.edu | CABAL(tm) Member | I'm w/in McQ - R U?
        Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man
        doesn't have to experience it.  --Max Frisch
