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Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 16:01:03 -0500
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Subject: Re: How do you work?
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Darren Holmes wrote:

> Hello,
> I'm interested in hearing how you work on your IF.
> Do you sit down and work out the plot and puzzles on paper then do your
> coding, or do you get ideas as you go?
> Or do you do a little bit of both, revising your written ideas as you go or
> changing your code in mid-stream?
> I'm sure there's advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

Of course, the short answer is "I don't," given the fact that I've played
around with Inform for several years, now, and haven't actually created a game.

However, what little work I've done uses the approaches that come from the
"recreational programming" I've done outside of IF:  Specifically, I write up a
synopsis of what I want to do, a list of interesting things I think need to be
included, and jump into coding, usually handling the overall layout (which I
assume would be the equivalent of rooms and the map) first.  The reason I
single out the rooms (and I have done this much a few times) as going first is
that it gives you the opportunity to walk through your "world" early on in
development, which gives a nice sense of accomplishment, I think.

An indication of that sense of accomplishment, by the way:  I teach a graduate
course in programming languages at my local university, and I use Inform to
illustrate certain object-oriented programming concepts.  I then typically
assign a series of short assignments, starting with the creation of a few
rooms.  I have never seen graduate computer science students so excited as when
they hand in that particular assignment--because they got instant feedback by
being able to walk around in their new "game."


