The biggest one, I think, is that successfully completing the game will
wrap up the plot elements of the game. In traditional IF, the plot is
advanced by solving puzzles. There are a number of games where you can
get to the end without solving all the puzzles, but it's usually made
clear to you (through the point system or otherwise) that you've missed
something.
In Legend, evidently, that's not the case. I'm not sure yet whether or
not this is a good thing, but it makes more sense now that I know it was
a deliberate choice.
mkinyon@peabody.iusb.indiana.edu (Michael Kinyon) writes:
>I actually wonder whether the purposelessness that pervades L.L. is,
>unlike other IF works, deliberate. Back when I tested the game, it
>bothered me, but because of my familiarity with the rest of the Unkuulian
>universe, I let it go. Upon reflection, I have decided that the seeming
>randomness is, in fact, a commentary on human existence itself: just
>as the flap of a butterfly's wings today affects the weather of the world
>in a week, so too do the meaningless acts of insignificant people affect
>the lives of everyone on a scale beyond individual comprehension.
Well, I can't help thinking there are more effective ways of making this
point. Hitchhikers' and Bureaucracy were two good examples; it's pretty
clear that the random things you're doing are connected by a strong
authorial voice. But the various scenes in Legend felt entirely unconnected.
>[Dave:]
>>}It does disappoint me that people are having trouble sympathizing with JC.
[Back to Michael again]
>Yes, that was a problem I had back in the testing
days. I did not interact
>with him, I did not get to know him, and other than an intellectual
>admiration of his sacrifice, I didn't feel much when he was gone.
>I think other people have brought this up, but the obvious comparison here
>is with Floyd in Planetfall. I spend many turns of game time and hours of
>real time getting to know Floyd, being annoyed when he wouldn't do what
>I wanted, laughing at his ridiculous antics, and so on. By the time he made
>his (supposed) sacrifice, I knew him pretty well, so I was deeply touched.
>I never really knew JC.
I've been thinking about what it is that makes characters really come
alive in IF, and I think it's seeing them in a variety of different
settings. If you just hang around with Floyd in one place, he doesn't
seem all that different from the standard IF character with a few random
phrases to spout. But when you begin to wander around, you see his
reactions to various places and things. (I love the fact that, when you
save a game, Floyd says, "Oh, goody! Are we going to do something
dangerous now?")
Steve Meretzky did this a lot--I'm reminded, for example, of the jester
in Zork Zero. Some of the other Infocom games did it too, although a bit
less effectively. (In "Sherlock," for example, Holmes is sometimes so quiet
that it's easy to forget he's there.)
When actors stay in one place, though, they tend to become part of the
setting--objects that are a little more complicated than furniture, but
not much more alive.
For me, the biggest stumbling block in relating to the characters in
Legend was that I couldn't interact with them; most of the character
development was confined to the text passages.
Consider the following passages from an imaginary game:
______
>e
You enter John's bedroom, a cramped mess of posters and unwashed laundry.
John is here, sitting on his bed. You try to talk to him, but he seems
lost in thought and refuses to pay attention to you. When you noticed the
glazed look in his eyes, you shake him violently, but he sinks back into
his torpor when you stop. Finally, in frustration, you turn to leave.
The movement catches his eye, and he starts. "Sorry. Don't leave. Please, sit
down," he says. As you sit next to him on the bed, you notice that his
breath-and his clothes--smell strongly of alcohol.
______
>e
You enter Jon's bedroom, a cramped mess of posters and unwashed laundry.
John is here, sitting on his bed. He seems lost in thought.
>john, hello
John doesn't seem to hear you. He's lost in a world of his own.
>x john
John's eyes have a glazed, unfocused look.
>shake john
You sieze John by the shoulders and shake him violently. As soon as you
stop, he sinks back into his torpor.
>w
You turn to leave, and the movement catches John's eye and he starts.
"Sorry. Don't leave. Please, sit down," he says.
>sit down
[on the bed]
As you sit next to him on the bed, you notice that his breath--and
his clothes--smell strongly of alcohol.
_______
Now, the two scenes present almost exactly the same information. But for
me, the second is far more effective. In the first example, the player is
_told_ he's frustrated. In the second, he actually gets to feel that
frustration for himself.
And I would say that, in general, the more information you give people in
a block of text, the less opportunity and inclination they will have to
find it out (and feel it) for themselves.
Of course, it's very likely that there were ways of interacting
with the characters in Legend that I didn't think to try. I'll have to go
back with that in mind.
-Jacob