This may be a bit disjointed, as I managed to delete the original post I'm
replying to (my apologies to that post's author). Anyway, I'm commenting
on someone commenting that he didn't like Undertow because [paraphrasing]
a) the game was timed, and b) interaction with characters was so poor.
I can understand your aversion to timed games, and that is a personal
dislike that I can't really fault. However, in my defense, I couldn't
come up with a way to realistically make the game untimed. The game
begins after 10 am, and the Coast Guard is called at about noonish. If
the game wasn't timed, then a player could wait through the afternoon,
into the night, into the next day, etc. etc. without 1) the Coast Guard
showing up, or 2) the murderer getting frantic and doing something stupid
(like blowing up the *Bellerophon*). Realistically, this situation
wouldn't occur--SOMETHING would happen. I had to end the game at a
certain time in order to make the story I was telling even remotely
realistic. I make no apologies for that fact; in my mind the only
debatable choice I made was having the boat explode instead of having the
Coast Guard show up, deus ex machina, and solving everything.
I believe that the second charge leveled at Undertow is the serious flaw
in the game. As I was writing the game, I quickly realized that I
wouldn't be able to handle a huge amount of possible reactions among the
NPCs and the players. I *did* try to add some independent reactions (try
annoying a character by asking them about something repeatedly, or even
pouring a drink over their heads), but I was hampered by the time in which
I had to write the game. At one point I considered having the characters
randomly fight or argue, but that seemed too...well, random. I'm open to
any suggestions as to how to improve this flaw.
On a slightly unrelated tangent, I noticed that several people mentioned
that Zebulon's Will and Undertow both broke no new ground. My question
is, how much new ground do you expect IF authors to break when given three
months to write a game playable in two hours? It's like holding a gun to
Faulkner's head and saying, "Ok, we want you to write a five-page short
story in which you revolutionize fiction. Oh, and do it in six days." I
got into the contest late--I had one week for research, five weeks to
program, and one week to playtest/debug and rewrite, all while working at
a full-time job. Give these restrictions, I can't imagine making bold new
strides in IF. I was just happy enough to come up with a mildly-diverting
game.
Look at the games which were original (or different, if you want to be
nit-picky). For example, Undo and the MST3K game. People complained that
the MST3K game wasn't really IF at all, and said that Undo was too strange
for its own good. In my mind, both of those were games that ventured into
uncharted waters, and got torpedoed for the effort.
Ok, enough soap-boxing. Hopefully this will start some good threads on
r.a.i-f.
Stephen
-- Stephen Granade sgranade@phy.duke.edu Duke University, Dept. of Physics 1-919-660-2549 Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305, USA