IntroComp and Hooks

In a post explaining the purpose of IntroComp, Stephen Granade wrote

I think IntroComp has benefit beyond people turning specific intros into games. Neil deMause started the competition because so many games’ openings were terrible, and he wanted people to think more about how they hook players.

In practice, it feels as though IntroComp is used this way less than I’d like. Many of the entries turn out to be alpha-tests of one kind or another: the author is showing us an unfinished system that doesn’t have its narrative in any kind of shape, because he wants to know whether the mechanics work or whether the setting strikes people as interesting.

It would be useful if IntroComp were more of a referendum on Writing a Good Hook, because we need some more of that. IF hooks have to accomplish two separate things:

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Some impressions on Introcomp

I tried the IntroComp 08 games and was turned off by most of them on the first playing (and wrote up notes about why). Later I felt guilty about that and gave several a second try. So the comments for some of these are divided into first impressions and second impressions. Sometimes the second impressions are warmer.

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Scaffolding and Scene-based Design

One of the things I find useful in developing a very plot-oriented piece of IF is to leverage the scenes mechanism as much as possible, designing as follows. I’m not sure this really qualifies as advice so much as some personal experience that may or may not suit others’ writing styles — people tend to approach IF design in different ways. Still, FWIW:

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Further reading on narrative construction

After recent RAIF discussion and the Gamasutra article on Far Cry 2, the rest of the world is also talking more on the question of how narrative can be constructed in games — out of what pieces, and in what sense it can be narrative.

A lot of the discussion comes back to traditional issues we’ve seen before: people re-discovering, for instance, the conflict between freedom, agency, and story. A lot of the techniques suggested (sandboxes where the player has to make his own story; branching narratives; narratives constructed in partial reaction to the player’s behavior, by some sort of drama manager) have already been floated a bunch of times.

For myself, I actually feel like I’ve talked out this topic for the time being, but it’s interesting seeing what everyone else is saying.