Recently on the intfiction forum someone asked me how to code puzzles in I7. I found that a bit of a stumper, but I cobbled something together, and he liked the answer enough that he suggested I post the reply more permanently on my blog. So I’m doing that, with a little bit of editing and fleshing out.
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Back in 1993 I was tutoring my sister in algebra. Her quizzes and tests were always made of word problems with a running storyline involving many recurring places and characters. I tied the fate of the main characters to how well she did on the previous quiz, so a good performance brought them good fortune.
Unfortunately, one test she completely bombed, and, well, this is a transcription of the quiz she got next. (On behalf of my younger self, I apologize to the people of Argentina, the spirit of Goethe, and hypnotists. [Hi, Conrad.])
ETA: Didn’t anticipate this getting Metafiltered, so I put it someplace with a low bandwidth allowance, and that’s now used up. You can also see it cached and in non-PDF form here.
This is a slightly self-regarding post about the status of various IF-related projects of mine, since people have been emailing to ask. Warning! It’s kind of boring!
So, this has been in the works for a bit, but got officially confirmed today: I’m going to be speaking at the AI summit at GDC, in a panel with Michael Mateas and Dan Kline, on artificial intelligence and storytelling. (Unsurprisingly, I’m talking about conversation; the panel as a whole will also look at things like drama management, narrative pacing, etc.)
Scheduling information isn’t up at the GDC site yet, but is presumably forthcoming; the panel will be sometime March 9-10, 2010, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, CA.
I’m excited to be talking alongside people whose work I’ve admired for a long time, and really looking forward to this event.
Meanwhile, PAX East plans are moving forward, with lots of IF stuff projected; there’s now an ifwiki page, if you want to check out who else is going to be there and what social plans are in the works. And Jeremy Freese and I are going to be making a speaking appearance at MIT the following Monday, as well.
Yes, it will be a full and busy March.
As promised, HiS on Arkham Asylum. (Next time will be less mainstream, I promise.)
Panel acceptances for PAX East are coming out now, and there will definitely be IF content:
Congratulations, your PAX East panel submission of “Storytelling in the
world of interactive fiction” has been accepted. We tentatively have
you scheduled for Friday, March 26th from 5:30pm – 6:30pm in our Wyvern
Theatre…We have the following title and description for your panel:
Storytelling in the world of interactive fiction
Text adventures have been quietly experimenting with narrative gaming
for thirty years. Five authors from the amateur interactive fiction
community discuss the design ideas in their games — reordered
storylines, unreliable narrators, deeply responsive NPCs — and how they
apply to other kinds of games. (Rob Wheeler (mod.), Robb Sherwin, Aaron
Reed, Emily Short, Andrew Plotkin)
Get Lamp is going to be screened later that same Friday evening — 9:30 PM, it looks like..
