Category: interactive fiction

IF Discussion, Live Online

One of the things to come out of discussion at the first Oxford-London Meetup was the idea that it would be nice to have occasional scheduled discussion of IF on ifMUD. The MUD is always on and at least someone is almost always around, but much of the conversation is more general-interest. People also suggested that a) it would be nice to have a context for that discussion that was not exclusively about creation techniques, since so much of the existing mud conversation and intfiction discussion is so focused; and that b) it would be a good idea to provide some focus to these meetings by pre-announcing a topic to cover, so that people can think about examples to discuss.

I’m going to try this as a monthly Saturday thing. Sundays on ifMUD are used for weekly ClubFloyd meetings, and I don’t want to conflict with that. If you’re not familiar, ClubFloyd does group playthroughs of IF, often including recent comp winners or XYZZY nominees, and posts the transcripts. It’s been going on since 2007 and is by now a venerable institution, though attendance rotates quite a bit. If we can hit anything like ClubFloyd’s vitality and general usefulness, I will consider this idea a big success.

Saturday March 1, I will hang about at 8 PM GMT (= 3 PM Eastern, 12 noon Pacific) on the channel #theoryclub on ifMUD. (If you’re not familiar with the mud, see these instructions on how to get started: you will need to get an account, then @joinc #theoryclub to be able to see the conversation.)

Because this is something I’ve been thinking about a fair amount lately, I propose that the first session be on interiority, the inner life of characters. Some things we may discuss: What games do this particularly well? What mechanics are used, and to what effect? What aspects of interiority are not handled well in IF? Are there other possibilities we haven’t looked at? Are there experiences you’d like as a player that you’ve never encountered?

I’m open to suggestions for other topics as well — please feel free to propose future ideas.

Oxford/London IF meetup

A couple of months ago I ran a poll to see whether people might like to have an IF meetup group in southern England, and if so whether they preferred Oxford or London. Then I went to a conference, then got a really really bad cold, then the holidays were upon us and it seemed like a bad time to add extra things to anyone’s calendar.

But! Now that’s past, I’m eager to get this rolling. The feedback about location was decidedly mixed — lots of people who could only make one of those options — so I’m going to try for alternating locations. And because Oxford is where I am and it’s easier to start here, I’ve proposed a first meetup for Feb 2, in Oxford, at the Jam Factory Restaurant. We can meet, chat, talk about what kinds of things we’d like this group to do. I will bring a copy of Blood and Laurels, my next game, for people to look at if they are interested. Please feel free to bring your WIPs or favorite games as well.

If you hate the time, the choice of day of the week, the relative lack of advance notice, I’m happy to factor all those things into future plans about what we’re doing — I just wanted to get something rolling after that hiatus.

Want to RSVP? Want to join the group to get announcements of future events? The site is here.

Edited to add: we now have space and time for a London meeting as well, Feb 18 at 7 PM. Signup at the same link.

Design Notes for Comp Games

The IF Comp is now over — full results and stat breakdown here — and a number of authors have been posting post-mortems and notes about their thoughts while writing. I love reading these things, as they’re often revealing insights into people’s processes.

They are, of course, spoilery by their nature, so read with care.

Coloratura (and see also earlier posts for details on specific aspects of the design)
Solarium
Moquette, plus a second post about technical features
Machine of Death
Threediopolis
Tex Bonaventure (specifically the final puzzle)
Impostor Syndrome
Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder
The House at the End of Rosewood Street

#PRACTICE2013

Practice 2013 got off to an excellent start with a talk about breaking competitions. This is an area I know basically nothing about, so it was fascinating to hear about the issues involved: subjective vs (supposedly) objective methods of scoring bboy battles, cultural concerns around commercialization vs retaining a “raw” (and thus more authentic) battle experience, gender issues, and the degree to which bboy performances resist being made more accessible.

Several people in the audience compared bboy competitions to Street Fighter matches, but I’m not a very competitive player of video games.

I am, however, very interested both in playing and in attempting to create virtuosic games — pieces that inspire awe and surprise because they accomplish something that one would assume was impossible. I sometimes feel a bit guilty about this taste because skill is not the only criterion of quality, and because I do not want games culture to be as exclusionary as breaking culture appears to be. Talking only about high-end craft can make it seem like one is only interested in showing off or placing people in hierarchies of skill.

Still, watching the breaking battle after tonight’s talk reminded me of the human value of virtuosity. Because those dancers were amazing. Watching them was exciting and surprising and funny and joyous.

Admittedly I may be the only person on earth who yells “Holy shit!” when I see some really awesome parsing taking place.