Passing comment on the latest SPAG

SPAG #54 is out, and is really interesting — there’s a great mix of content, and I continue to be glad that Jimmy Maher is seeking out material beyond just reviews. I especially like reading about game design and creation processes, so the issue with the comp winner interviews is always a favorite with me.

I was a little surprised, or taken aback, or something, by one piece of David Monath’s review of Blue Lacuna (though there was lots else that I did agree with). His comments (as his review warns) are maybe a little spoilery, so I will put them after the cut-tag:

Unscientific survey

I almost posted about this a few weeks ago, but then didn’t really like the way the post came out, so killed it. But Chris’ post over here made me realize I’m still curious, if anyone feels like answering:

What is the biggest thing getting in the way of finishing and releasing your favorite WIP?

(In my case: I need to finish and release Alabaster before I go back to working on the older, bigger piece that relies on the same conversation extension. Which I guess could loosely be translated “lack of focus” or “bad habit of thinking that I can whip out small projects in between working on big ones”.)

Random fact

Because apparently someone’s dream version of me refused to answer this question:

I pronounce Galatea “gal-uh-TEE-uh”.

This is an anglicized, not a classical pronunciation. Also, not binding on anyone else.

More on Graphics in Alabaster

So I’ve been working more on the Alabaster graphics — really the main thing that is still left before release.

(Re my complaints back here, I think I have fixed the very worst speed hangup with optimizations in my own code, and then David Kinder has awesomely put in some work that will lead to the acceleration of all Glulx games produced by I7. Graham and I have discussed some further optimizations in the way I7 handles relations that might streamline the behavior of the underlying conversation library yet further, but that will have to wait until later builds of Inform. I am hopeful that the result will be something that remains usably fast even for fairly large games. As I suspected, that involves approaching the problem at all three levels — terps, I7, and the individual library.)

Anyway, about the graphics, I’ve been thinking more about what graphics should do in this game, and about what I like in successful uses of graphics in other IF.

Alabaster Graphics and Collage

The remaining significant work on Alabaster consists of building the graphical status line on the left side of the screen. My original idea was that this image should give hints about Snow White’s current state of mind (or your state of mind about her), by showing her with different expressions. Daniel Allington, who is contributing the line drawings we’re using, offered a considerably more interesting suggestion:

What if there were just half-a-dozen freehand line drawings that were then collaged in different ways? (eg. zoomed in, zoomed out, combined with other images, superimposed, folded in on themselves, washed-out, erased, over-written, etc.) Cropping the same images in different ways to achieve the 1×4 ratio would be another way of using them to contribute to the storytelling. I like the way that collaging and re-collaging can create continuity – a bit like the illustrations in City of Secrets, incidentally.

I really liked this idea that the status line would be procedurally developed and dynamic in the same way that the conversation itself is. Besides, this idea allows for considerably more movement and change in the window than if we were sticking only to literal-minded facial portrayals. So I’ve been working on some code to place, zoom, and superimpose the images that Daniel sends my way.

There’s a lot of work still to go in order to get the diversity of effects I really want to see here, and a certain amount has to be done by creating effects in Photoshop rather than applying them procedurally in Glulx (given the narrowish set of graphical tools Glulx provides), but it’s coming along.

EnvComp

The EnvComp games are now available (both of them):

Dead Like Ants by C. E. J. Pacian (TADS 3)
La Seine by Derek Sutcliffe (ZCode)

The comp premise is that the player is in some kind of strange or unusual environment, which is a cool conceit. I’m not a judge, but discussion is allowed during this comp, so a few (only mildly spoilery) remarks after the cut:

Homer in Silicon

My fuller analysis of Emerald City Confidential is now up.

Interactive Dioramas

A couple of months ago this possible IF exchange popped into my head:

> EXAMINE CLOTHES
They’re… well, I suppose that depends. Are you male or female? >> F

You’re wearing …

The original context was that I was imagining a piece of historical IF with a meticulously-rendered environment; and part of the point would be to call the player’s attention to the ways in which, in that environment and culture, a person’s surroundings would be affected by gender, social status, and other features. So it would be better to collect protagonist data during the game (to highlight where and how it matters) rather than all at once at the beginning (leaving the effects obscure afterward).

It wouldn’t be too hard to code, I don’t think: you’d probably want to start with placeholder objects, like “generic clothing”, and then swap in the specific objects as soon as the player tried to interact with the placeholder.

I doubt I’ll have time or occasion to use this idea in the near future, so I just thought I’d throw it out there, along with a question: are there other interactive styles or approaches that would be especially useful for educational interactive non-fiction (as distinct from conventional IF)? (Another possibility that comes to mind would be footnoted IN-F, with source references appearing in a separate pane whenever the player encountered something.)

It makes me happy

that IFDB has a tag for wacky uncle games.

Types of Action and Types of Agency

I’ve been thinking again about actions and how they’re expressed, and how the communication of an action relates to player agency.

Let’s say, for now, that agency is the player’s ability to affect the world and story, and it depends, in turn, on whether the player can form a reasonable guess about the results of an action before taking that action. If the player cannot guess or does not care where the action will lead, there is no agency; the player is providing the energy for forward motion but is not meaningfully steering the work.

The thing is, different kinds of actions are themselves susceptible to different degrees of agency. We’ve been moving slowly (and with varying degrees of success) away from having all IF commands be of the sort appropriate to physical action.

Hypothesis

If we consider the types of agency involved in different kinds of action in the real world, we will be able to come up with better ways for the player to command non-physical actions.