Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: news.duke.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!enews.sgi.com!coop.net!world!buzzard
From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Works that should NOT be done as IF  [Humour] (well, a weak attempt at humour in any case)
Message-ID: <G2v2ts.6qt@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 02:27:25 GMT
References: <39ea0f90.10594098@news.bright.net> <8sq85g$nt0$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk> <972143357.225568@rexx.com> <39f327b3.6028098@news.bright.net>
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Jonadab the Unsightly One <jonadab@bright.net> wrote:
>Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
>>[attribution lost]
>> > OTOH, I would *love* to see a work of IF written entirely in Seussian
>> > style. Making things like inventory lists rhyme could be a pain, of
>> > course.
>>
>> I thought about doing this once. Then I realized that I wasn't clever
>> enough, not by an order of magnitude.
>
>That means anybody who manages it for next
>year's comp gets bragging rights for at least a year, doesn't it?
>So, um, go ahead, somebody...

One of the things I'd like to work on in the world of commercial
computer games is synthetic generation of text by NPCs.  For
a while I've been considering the idea of writing a rhyming
text adventure as a step towards solving some of the problems,
since things like inventory lists are some an example of a computer
synthesizing real sentences that communicate something.

It would have to be pretty small, and I'd tackle it by modifying
a compiler/interpreter setup to support a special kind of string
which encodes three things: the english text, the metrical pattern
of the text, and a phoneme coding of the last syllables for
rhyming.  Things which return names or such would return a
number of alternatives and a controller would tree walk to find
solutions.

I'm not sure I'm up to modifying Tads3 though, and
the interpreter system I was developing is on indefinite hold
right now.

Sean
