Insideadrift Issue #40 December, 2009
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The Craft of the Adventure
The Craft of the Adventure Five articles on the design of adventure games Second edition 1 Intro duction :: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::2 2 In The Beginning ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: ::: 3 3 Bill of Player's Rights : ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: :7 4 A Narrative... ::: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :: 12 5 ...AtWar With a Crossword : : :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: :: 21 6 Varnish and Veneer : ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::32 1 1 Intro duction 1 Intro duction Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful ob jects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us mo dern art. {Tom Stoppard, Artist Descending A Staircase Making b o oks is a skilled trade, like making clo cks. { Jean de la Bruy ere 1645-1696 If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards. {J.R.R.Tolkien 1892-1973 Designing an adventure game is b oth an art and a craft. Whereas art cannot be taught, only commented up on, craft at least can be handed down: but the tricks of the trade do not make an elegant narrative, only a catalogue. This small collection of essays is just such a string of grits of wisdom and half-baked critical opinions, whichmaywell leave the reader feeling unsatis ed. One can only say to such a reader that any book claiming to reveal the secret of how to paint, or to write novels, should be recycled at once into something more genuinely artistic, say a papier-mach e sculpture. If there is any theme here, it is that standards count: not just of comp etent co ding, but of writing. -
Mémoire FX Surinx Lire La Peur Dans Leur Jeu. Exploration Du Potentiel
https://lib.uliege.be https://matheo.uliege.be Lire la peur dans leur jeu. Exploration du potentiel effrayant du texte dans le jeu vidéo Auteur : Surinx, François-Xavier Promoteur(s) : Dozo, Björn-Olav Faculté : Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres Diplôme : Master en langues et lettres françaises et romanes, orientation générale, à finalité spécialisée en analyse et création de savoirs critiques Année académique : 2019-2020 URI/URL : http://hdl.handle.net/2268.2/10602 Avertissement à l'attention des usagers : Tous les documents placés en accès ouvert sur le site le site MatheO sont protégés par le droit d'auteur. Conformément aux principes énoncés par la "Budapest Open Access Initiative"(BOAI, 2002), l'utilisateur du site peut lire, télécharger, copier, transmettre, imprimer, chercher ou faire un lien vers le texte intégral de ces documents, les disséquer pour les indexer, s'en servir de données pour un logiciel, ou s'en servir à toute autre fin légale (ou prévue par la réglementation relative au droit d'auteur). Toute utilisation du document à des fins commerciales est strictement interdite. Par ailleurs, l'utilisateur s'engage à respecter les droits moraux de l'auteur, principalement le droit à l'intégrité de l'oeuvre et le droit de paternité et ce dans toute utilisation que l'utilisateur entreprend. Ainsi, à titre d'exemple, lorsqu'il reproduira un document par extrait ou dans son intégralité, l'utilisateur citera de manière complète les sources telles que mentionnées ci-dessus. Toute utilisation non explicitement autorisée ci-avant (telle que par exemple, la modification du document ou son résumé) nécessite l'autorisation préalable et expresse des auteurs ou de leurs ayants droit. -
14. Riddle Machines: the History and Nature of Interactive Fiction
Nick Montfort Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction 14. Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction Nick Montfort Introduction The genre that has also been labeled "text adventure" and "text game" is stereotypically thought to offer dungeons, dragons, and the ability for readers to choose their own adventure. While there may be dragons here, interactive fiction (abbreviated "IF") also offers utopias, revenge plays, horrors, parables, intrigues, and codework, and pieces in this form resound with and rework Gilgamesh, Shakespeare, and Eliot as well as Tolkien. The reader types in phrases to participate in a dialogue with the system, commanding a character with writing. Beneath this surface conversation, and determining what the computer narrates, there is the machinery of a simulated world, capable of drawing the reader into imagining new perspectives and understanding strange systems. Interactive fiction works can be challenging for literary readers, even those interested in other sorts of electronic literature, because of the text-based interface and because of the way in which these works require detailed exploration, mapping, and solution. Works in this form are often less visually rewarding, and the rewards they do offer are only attained with time and effort. But text-based interactive fiction has provided some of the most the intricate and compelling literary simulations yet developed. Understanding how interactive fiction works, and how it has developed over the past three decades, is an essential part of the puzzle of literary computing. Characteristics of interactive fiction Formally, a work of interactive fiction (often called a "game," even if it does not exhibit the typical qualities of a game) is an interactive computer program. -
Introduction
Small But Vicious Dog (B/X+WFRP hack), ver0 3 Introduction Welcome to a fantasy world where the men are Baldrick, the dwarves are punk, and the dogs are small but vicious. Welcome to a world of bawds, grave robbers, excisemen and witch-hunters; a place where “Blather , “Flee" and “Mime are legitimate skill choices; and where all material on the insidious threat of Chaos is officially interchangeable between settings. Welcome (back) to the Grim World of Perilous Adventure. Whisper it (that fanboys may not hear and descend a-squealing), but for all the charm of its skewed-familiar 1,th century milieu and the lurking horror of Chaos, Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play was little more than a modcop of classic Dungeons & Dragons . -es, our beloved WF.P was yet another /fix 0102 fantasy heartbreaker, albeit one which had the clout of the biggest name in British gaming behind it. Whole chunks of the system were lightly disguised 010 mechanics adapted to a roll-under d3 system 1, and many setting elements not gleefully ripped off from Tolkien, 5eiber or Moorcock were already established 010 tropes by the time WF.P was published. 2 But that7s ok. Indeed, that7s part of why all right-thinking people 9 Brits, Italians and Poles especially 9 love WF.P. To paraphrase a better man than I: we took an American invention, soaked it in a witches7 brew of Bosch, 0urer and 0or;, Mervyn Peake and Tom Sharpe, Blackadder , The Young Ones , pints of bitter, cheap weed, Iron Maiden and The Damned , and then we played the hell out of it. -
Download Twisty Little Passages: an Approach to Interactive Fiction
TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES: AN APPROACH TO INTERACTIVE FICTION DOWNLOAD FREE BOOK Nick Montfort | 302 pages | 01 Apr 2005 | MIT Press Ltd | 9780262633185 | English | Cambridge, Mass., United States Slashdot Top Deals I got about a quarter of the way into this and had to stop. In Montfort's words, Infocomwhich was founded June 22, by Lebling, Blank, Anderson, and seven other MIT alumni, "began work on the foundation of IF while the plot of ground that it was to be built upon had not been completely surveyed. Slashdot Apparel is back! Genre fiction is a type of literature, and trying to actually seperate one from the other is a fool's errand. I think what you may be getting at is the fact that writing a compelling IF world is literally NP hard. Hitchhiker's Guide project, which began in February and was slated ambitiously to be completed by the following Christmas. Friend Reviews. Instead, what this book really is is a very comprehensive history of the form. There's really not that much meat there; Montfort goes into a detailed history and categorization of riddles that isn't all that relevant to IF. Played them, loved them, but goddam that transparent crystal 3D mze was a killer. Nick Montfort. Montfort then discusses Adventure Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction its precursors including the I Ching and Dungeons and Dragonsand follows this with an examination of mainframe text games developed in response, focusing on the most influential work of that era, Zork. The reviewer's memory of Monty Python's a little weak. -
Search-Based Drama Management in the Interactive Fiction Anchorhead∗
Search-Based Drama Management in the Interactive Fiction Anchorhead∗ Mark J. Nelson and Michael Mateas College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia, USA fmnelson, [email protected] Abstract towards a story that maximizes the evaluation function, tak- ing into account any effect on evaluation the DM actions Drama managers guide a user through a story experience by themselves may have. DM actions might include things such modifying the experience in reaction to the user’s actions. as causing a non-player character to bring up a particular Search-based drama management (SBDM) casts the drama- management problem as a search problem: Given a set of conversation topic, causing certain parts of the world to be- plot points, a set of actions the drama manager can take, and come inaccessible, or leaving items where they’re likely to an evaluation of story quality, search can be used to optimize be found by the player. Search over possible choices of DM the user’s experience. SBDM was first investigated by Peter actions and the possible resultant sequences of plot points Weyhrauch in 1997, but little explored since. We return to (subject to a model of what the user is likely to do) is run at SBDM to investigate algorithmic and authorship issues, in- each step to choose the DM action that maximizes expected cluding the extension of SBDM to different kinds of stories, plot quality. This all takes place in an abstract model, con- especially stories with subplots and multiple endings, and is- nected to the real game by passing messages back and forth, sues of scalability. -
Technical Manual
Technical Manual for The Lurking Horror If you've never played Infocom's TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION I: ABOUT THE Sample Transcript and Map interactive fiction before, you should Section I: About The Lurking LURK.ING HORROR This transcript is not from The Lurking read this entire instruction manual. If Horror Horror, but it does show many of the you're an experienced lnfocom game Preface to the Story Preface to the Story Page 3 In The Lurking Horror, you are a usual things you can do in the story. It player, you may only want to read About the Author 3 student at G.U.E. Tech. You have shows a few simple puzzles and their Section I: About The Lurking Horror. solutions, and it will give you a good Sample Transcript and Map 3 braved a snowstorm to get to the Computer Center and finish work on idea of how Infocom's interactive Section II: About lnfocom's an assignment. But the snowstorm has fiction works. The player's commands Interactive Fiction turned into a raging blizzard, and has appear in capital letters after each An Overview: What is trapped you in a complex of buildings prompt (> ). The map shows the layout interactive fiction? 6 late at night. You are not alone, of the rooms in the sample transcript as Starting and Stopping 6 fortunately ... or perhaps, you might have drawn it. •"Booting up" unfortunately. •Saving and restoring •Quitting and restarting TOP OF STt>.IP..'3 Communicating with lnfocom's interactive fiction 8 About the Author D Dave Lebling was born in •Basic sentences Washington, D.C., in a hospital that •Complex sentences u •Talking to characters in the story was torn down soon thereafter. -
Guide 2020 Games from Spain
GUIDE GAMES 2020 FROM SPAIN Message from the CEO of ICEX Spain Trade and Investment Dear reader, We are proud to present the new edition of our “Guide to Games from Spain”, a publication which provides a complete picture of Spain’s videogame industry and highlights its values and its talent. This publication is your ultimate guide to the industry, with companies of various sizes and profiles, including developers, publishers and services providers with active projects in 2020. GAMES Games from Spain is the umbrella brand created and supported by ICEX Spain Trade and Investment to promote the Spanish videogame industry around the globe. You are cordially invited to visit us at our stands at leading global events, such us Game Con- nection America or Gamescom, to see how Spanish videogames are playing in the best global production league. Looking forward to seeing you soon, ICEX María Peña SPAIN TRADE AND INVESTMENT ICT AND DIGITAL CONTENT DEPARTMENT +34 913 491 871 [email protected] www.icex.es GOBIERNO MINISTERIO DE ESPAÑA DE INDUSTRIA, COMERCIO Y TURISMO EUROPEAN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND A WAY TO MAKE EUROPE GENERAL INDEX ICEX | DISCOVER GAMES FROM SPAIN 6 SPANISH VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY IN FIGURES 8 INDEX 10 DEVELOPERS 18 PUBLISHERS 262 SERVICES 288 DISCOVER www.gamesfromspain.com GAMES FROM SPAIN Silvia Barraclough Head of Videogames Animation and VR/AR ICEX, Spain Trade and Investment in collaboration with [email protected] DEV, the Spanish association for the development and +34 913 491 871 publication of games and entertainment software, is proud to present its Guide to Games from Spain 2020, the perfect way to discover Spanish games and com- panies at a glance. -
Video Game Collection MS 17 00 Game This Collection Includes Early Game Systems and Games As Well As Computer Games
Finding Aid Report Video Game Collection MS 17_00 Game This collection includes early game systems and games as well as computer games. Many of these materials were given to the WPI Archives in 2005 and 2006, around the time Gordon Library hosted a Video Game traveling exhibit from Stanford University. As well as MS 17, which is a general video game collection, there are other game collections in the Archives, with other MS numbers. Container List Container Folder Date Title None Series I - Atari Systems & Games MS 17_01 Game This collection includes video game systems, related equipment, and video games. The following games do not work, per IQP group 2009-2010: Asteroids (1 of 2), Battlezone, Berzerk, Big Bird's Egg Catch, Chopper Command, Frogger, Laser Blast, Maze Craze, Missile Command, RealSports Football, Seaquest, Stampede, Video Olympics Container List Container Folder Date Title Box 1 Atari Video Game Console & Controllers 2 Original Atari Video Game Consoles with 4 of the original joystick controllers Box 2 Atari Electronic Ware This box includes miscellaneous electronic equipment for the Atari videogame system. Includes: 2 Original joystick controllers, 2 TAC-2 Totally Accurate controllers, 1 Red Command controller, Atari 5200 Series Controller, 2 Pong Paddle Controllers, a TV/Antenna Converter, and a power converter. Box 3 Atari Video Games This box includes all Atari video games in the WPI collection: Air Sea Battle, Asteroids (2), Backgammon, Battlezone, Berzerk (2), Big Bird's Egg Catch, Breakout, Casino, Cookie Monster Munch, Chopper Command, Combat, Defender, Donkey Kong, E.T., Frogger, Haunted House, Sneak'n Peek, Surround, Street Racer, Video Chess Box 4 AtariVideo Games This box includes the following videogames for Atari: Word Zapper, Towering Inferno, Football, Stampede, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ms. -
Aeternum: the Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies Volume 6, Issue 2 © December 2019
Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies Volume 6, Issue 2 © December 2019 Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies Volume 6, Issue 2 Editorial ii-iv Gothic Games GWYNETH PEATY Articles 1-15 Bending Memory: Gothicising nostalgia in Bendy and the Ink Machine KATHARINE HAWKINS 16-30 Homecomings: The haunted house in two interactive horror narratives ERIKA KVISTAD 31-48 Playing with Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game: A transmedial Gothic experience HILARY WHEATON 49-60 Beyond the Walls of Bloodborne: Gothic tropes and Lovecraftian games VITOR CASTELOES GAMA and MARCELO VELLOSO GARCIA Book Reviews 61-63 Twenty-First-Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Maisha Wester and Xavier Aldana Reyes. (2019) 64-65 New Music for Old Rituals. Tracy Fahey. (2018) i Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies Volume 6, Issue 2 © December 2019 EDITORIAL GWYNETH PEATY Curtin University Gothic Games Video games have called upon the Gothic since the earliest years of digital gaming. This is most obvious in games that remediate classic literature. From the text-based adventure Dracula (CRL 1986) and the dubious side-scrolling action of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Bandai 1988), to more recent examples such as Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome (MagicIndie 2012) and The Wanderer: Frankenstein's Creature (La Belle Games 2019), video game creators have consistently adopted and adapted Gothic characters, tropes, and narratives. In some cases the works of a specific author have been used as the foundation of a game space, as in The Dark Eye (Inscape 1995), a point-and-click game based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. -
AD&D® 2Nd Edition Van Richten's Guides
AD&D® 2nd Edition Van Richten's Guides Table of Contents Van Richten's Guide to Vampires Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts Van Richten's Guide to Created Van Richten's Guide to Ghosts Van Richten's Guide to Liches Van Richten's Guide to Ancient Dead Van Richten's Guide to Fiends Van Richten's Guide to Vistany Van Richten's Guide to Witches file:///E|/Roleplaying/handbooks/TSR/VR Guides/index.htm (1 of 2) [10/03/2001 10:02:09 AM] AD&D® 2nd Edition Van Richten's Guides file:///E|/Roleplaying/handbooks/TSR/VR Guides/index.htm (2 of 2) [10/03/2001 10:02:09 AM] Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts - Introduction Previous Next Contents Cover < tr align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> file:///E|/Roleplaying/handbooks/TSR/VR Guides/vr01_00.htm (1 of 2) [10/03/2001 10:02:15 AM] Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts - Introduction Previous Next Up file:///E|/Roleplaying/handbooks/TSR/VR Guides/vr01_00.htm (2 of 2) [10/03/2001 10:02:15 AM] Van Richten's Guide to Vampires - Introduction Previous Next Contents Cover Vampires But first on Earth as vampyr sent Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent. Then ghastly haunt thy native place And suck the blood of all thy race. - Lord Byron Introduction My name is Dr. Rudolph Van Richten. By my background I am a scholar and a doctor. As I was growing up in Darkon, I believed it was my destiny to heal people, to treat sicknesses of the body with the herbal cures I learned from my grandmother. -
IF Theory Reader
IF Theory Reader edited by Kevin Jackson-Mead J. Robinson Wheeler > Transcript On Press Boston, MA All authors of articles in this book retain their own copyrights. Neither the editors nor the publisher make any copyright claims. Version 1, March 2011. Version 2, April 2011. Please send corrections to [email protected]. Contents Preface Crimes Against Mimesis 1 Roger S. G. Sorolla Theory Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction 25 Nick Montfort Characterizing, If Not Defining, Interactive Fiction 59 Andrew Plotkin not that you may remember time: Interactive Fiction, Stream-of-Consciousness Writing, and Free Will 67 Mark Silcox 2 Brief Dada Angels 89 Ryan Stevens, writing as Rybread Celsius Object Relations 91 Graham Nelson IF as Argument 101 Duncan Stevens The Success of Genre in Interactive Fiction 111 Neil Yorke-Smith Parser at the Threshold: Lovecraftian Horror in Interactive Fiction 129 Michael Gentry Distinguishing Between Game Design and Analysis: One View 135 Gareth Rees Natural Language, Semantic Analysis, and Interactive Fiction 141 Graham Nelson Afterword: Five Years Later 189 Graham Nelson Craft Challenges of a Broad Geography 203 Emily Short Thinking Into the Box: On the Use and Deployment of Puzzles 229 Jon Ingold PC Personality and Motivations 249 Duncan Stevens Landscape and Character in IF 261 Paul O’Brian Hint Development for IF 279 Lucian Smith Descriptions Constructed 291 Stephen Granade Mapping the Tale: Scene Description in IF 299 J. Robinson Wheeler Repetition of Text in Interactive Fiction 317 Jason Dyer NPC Dialogue Writing 325 Robb Sherwin NPC Conversation Systems 331 Emily Short History 10 Years of IF: 1994–2004 359 Duncan Stevens The Evolution of Short Works: From Sprawling Cave Crawls to Tiny Experiments 369 Stephen Granade History of Italian IF 379 Francesco Cordella Racontons une histoire ensemble: History and Characteristics of French IF 389 Hugo Labrande Preface This is a book for which people in the interactive fiction community have been waiting for quite some time.