Interactive Fiction Foundations of Interactive Game Design Professor Jim Whitehead March 12, 2008...
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Interactive Fiction
Foundations of Interactive Game Design
Professor Jim Whitehead
March 12, 2008
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Game Demo Night
• This Friday► March 14, 5pm-9pm► E2 180 (Simularium)
• Come to this event if you want to demo your game► Bring laptop and/or game on CDROM/USB Drive► RPG Maker and C#/XNA: best if you can bring your own
laptop
Final Class Game Demonstrations
• The best 6-7 student games created this quarter will demo their games in front of the entire class
• Monday, March 17, normal class time• Judges from the games industry will be present• Selected teams will have 5 minutes each to demo
their game• The best game team will win a Nintendo DS for
each team member (limit 2)• A fun, intense event
Final Exam
• Wednesday, March 19, 4pm-7pm► In Media Theater
• Before exam► Create a non-computer game
• Board game
• Puzzle game
• Role playing game
• Children’s game
• Card game► Bring typed, printed rules to exam, plus everything needed to play
the game
• During exam► Play the game with others in exam► Write essay reflecting on the design of your game
Final Exam – Game Details
• The game must have a name• The rules must be typed, and fit on no more that 3 pages (10pt or
larger, multi-column is OK)• Game elements (game pieces, boards, cards, dice, etc.) are not part of
the 2 pages• No restrictions on game media (cardboard, plastic, leather, latex, it's all
OK)• The game must be playable inside the Media Theater while many other
students are also playing their games• A complete game should take less than 30 minutes• The game must not be a drinking game.• Game must be original. No minor variants on existing games. Major
variants of existing games are OK.• Game play must not involve breaking laws or campus regulations (the
"Don't get your professor in trouble" rule)• No flames, uncontrolled liquids, knives, swords, whips, or functional
weapons of any kind
What is interactive fiction?
• A story where the reader/player can interact with the storyworld, and where substantial portions of the information presented to the player are in the form of prose.
► Text adventure: an interactive fiction where the reader/player controls a player character who sets out on out-of-the-ordinary undertakings involving risk or danger.
• Stories progress:► Story presents prose► Reader/player enters a sentence to interact with system► Story reacts to player utterance with more prose (or an error)
Gameplay elements of IF
• Exploration► Traveling through a new, and unknown world
• Mazes► Successfully navigating through non-standard level
geometries
• Puzzles/riddles► Solving the puzzle allows player to continue in the game
• Acquiring items► Gaining treasure, picking up items used to solve puzzles
• Guessing correct verbs/keywords► Learning how to express intent is part of gameplay
Adventure: First Text Adventure
• Adventure (1975)► Some variants called Colossal Cave► First text adventure, precursor to modern role-playing
games► Will Crowther
• Explored caves as a hobby, also played Dungeons & Dragons
► Decided to “write a program that was a re-creation in fantasy of my caving, and also would be a game for the kids, and perhaps [have] some aspects of the Dungeons and Dragons I had been playing.”
• p. 87, Twisty Little Passages, Nick Montfort
Heyday of Interactive Fiction
• Early computers frequently lacked graphics► Interactive Fiction is well suited to this limitation
• Early computers also typically slow► Interactive Fiction doesn’t require much processing
power to play
• Due to this, substantial early interest in interactive fiction
► Peak of popularity in mid-1980’s
Major Publishers• Adventure International
► Scott Adams► The Adams Adventures series
• Infocom► Zork series► Deadline► Hitchiker’s Guide to Galaxy
James Willing, www.rdrop.com/~jimw/WCCF7/AdventureIntl.jpg (1982)
Today
• No commercial activity• A golden age of interactive fiction
► Active non-commercial community► IF is generally of higher quality than at peak► More IF being created now than at commercial peak
• Yearly interactive fiction contest• Substantial scholarly interest
► Nick Montfort, Twisty Little Passages, MIT Press, 2003
• Good tools► Inform (Graham Nelson)
• www.inform-fiction.org/I7/Welcome.html
Interactive Fiction: Pro and Con
• Pro► Gameworld described using text
• Permits greater expressiveness about internal mental states of characters
• Can permit better control over the mood of a scene► Low computational resources, easy to implement
• Well suited to early computers
• Con► Gameworld described using text
• Games that use graphics are more visually interesting• Have pretty screenshots
► No real-time action• More deliberative, turn-based gameplay
► Natural language interface impoverished• Permits much broader range of expression that game understands• Can be very frustrating