Re: About "Christminster" (long and dull)


13 Aug 1995 03:07:11 GMT

Gareth Rees (gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:

<much fascinating detail about Christminster omitted>

: (1) What hope is there for interesting interaction with other characters
: in a game? (2) How do other IF authors manage to cope with the
: complexity of plotting, writing and programming something as large and
: interlocking as an adventure game?

Whew.

That's a lot to chew on, Gareth. I know I'm constantly rethinking my
approach to designing the game I'm currently working on, specifically
realizing that I need to do a *lot* of work on the NPCs. MacWesleyan
had about the most boring NPCs imaginable (I didn't feel capable of really

making them interesting, so instead I left them intentionally blank
and focused on the puzzles). But I really want this next game to feel more
like an adventure and less like a game, which means the NPCs really
have to feel like characters, not just puzzles in human form.

It's a hell of a lot of work, and I don't really want to think about
it, but it's going to have to be done.

As for plot complexity, flow charts have helped me quite a bit, but I
still run into problems, especially now as I tie up the last few loose
ends of plot. I have one object that I've tried placing in about six
different rooms so far, all to try to encourage the player to take one
route before another, so that they can be coerced into arriving at
certain scenes in roughly the right order, without cutting down their
freedom to mvoe too much. I have another object that's used for two
purposes, one of which unfortunately destroys it, and I'm currently
torn between preventing you from getting to puzzle B before puzzle A, or
just giving an alternate solution for puzzle A in case you've used it first
for puzzle B.

I should also say that I'm trying to keep the game from easily getting
into an unsolvable state. This is a hell of a lot harder than I
expected, it turns out, since players have to be able to fail at puzzles (often
more than once) without utterly screwing themselves, which is
somewhat tricky to manage.

Anyway, I have to go play Christminster some more now. How am I ever
going to get this game out the door if other people keep coming out
with new games that give me new ideas?

I'm suddenly feeling an unexpected empathy for Whizzard.