Interactive Fiction

1
Interactive Fiction

• A beginners guide

2
IF Overview

• Text-only input/output
• Uses the game master voice
• 2nd Person Present Tense
• Tight integration of story and puzzle
• Usually some plot interaction
• Player moves around, acquires/discards objects
• Simple, but empowering

3
Choosing a Topic

• Show us something new
• Common mistakes
• Overly familiar settings
• Hollywood Clichés
• Do something fantastic its cheap!
• Show dont tell Make the player feel it!

4
Interaction Design

• Story Who Is the player?
• Involved participant
• Spectator
• Setting What does it Contribute?
• White House Game
• find objects for souvenirs
• uncover a plot stop it

5
Non-Player Characters

• Problematic!!
• Lots of dialog lots of typing
• Impact of player actions?
• Impact of time/order?
• ...Avoid excessive dialog.

6
Building An IF Game

• Using Inform

7
The Inform Language

• Allows you to create worlds where
• Players
• Perform Actions...
• on Objects...
• that have State
• ... motivating changes in the narrative

8
The Inform Designer

• Builds unique objects
• Designs custom behaviors
• Hats
• wearable, can contain things
• Books
• readable, stackable
• Boxes
• contains things, closeable

9
Limited, Built-in Simulation

• Movement, Location, Containment
• Easy to leverage
• Player
• contains things, has location
• Objects
• contain things, have locations
• can be closed/opened
• can be locked/unlocked

10
Other Objects

• Clothes (put on/off)
• Items (turn on/off)
• ...Complex gameplay?
• Build it
  yourself!!

11
Dynamics of IF Programming

• Object Interactions

12
Declarative Implementation

• Define new objects with custom abilities
• Declare results of actions taken upon them
• Example Shoes
• Define as clothing
• State of laces (tied, untied)
• Create actions (tie and untie)
• Add code to prevent walking w/untied laces

13
A Shoe Puzzle?

• Laces separate
• Barefoot player
• No laces shoes fall off
• Uncrossable area (toxic spill?)
• ...Find laces shoes, tie, cross. Voila!

14
The Big Secret

• Nearly every puzzle locked door or container
• Work with this, not against it!
• Find the right level of abstraction
• Abstract enough to be interesting?
• Abstract enough to be challenging?
• Irritating or unsolvable?

15
IF Design Problems

• Common Issues

16
The Shoe Puzzle

• Three cases
• Uncrossable area, findable, unlaced shoes
• solved when shoes and laces are found
• Uncrossable area, clear shoes are needed,
  buildable shoes
• forces a paradigm shift introduce early
• Uncrossable area, isnt clear shoes are needed,
  buildable shoes
• good luck

17
Simulation Better or Worse?

• Defining lace-ness of other objects
• String
• Roots from the ground
• Hair
• ...Is this a good idea?

18
Issue 1 Transparency

• Natural or Intrinsic properties of objects
• Roots as shoe laces?
• Somewhat realistic, not very transparent
• ... unless you can demonstrate this solution
  path
• before the player finds the shoes ...

19
Issue 2 Complexity

• Choose constrained objects
• Two 8 squares of cardboard, 4 plastic rings
• Some plates leather book straps
• Newspaper paste
• Twine Tarot cards

20
Issue 3 Nonlinearity

• Non-linear play time/space planning
• Shoes, Paint, Water, Fire
• Constraints can feel arbitrary
• Order is important
• Watch out for new/unexpected solutions

21
Otherwise Known As

• The N2 Problem
• One new object many new interactions
• Which interactions to allow?
• Which to restrict?
• How to constrain the interaction
• ... without making the player feel
  powerless?

22
Conventional Wisdom

• IF Design advice

23
Gameplay and Flow

• Challenging/Engaging the player
• Too linear too easy
• Too many possibilities confusing, frustrating
• Balance
• obstacles
• options
• cues

24
Complexity Demons

• Pay attention to the complexity
• Write out your story BEFORE building it
• Make decisions based on feasibility
• Believability more important than reality
• You cant think of everything
• But reasonable actions should generate a
  reasonable response

25
Plot Clocks

• What does the player get, and when?
• FLOW charts
• Show how events occur in time
• Sequentially, Parallel, Arbitrary order
• Interlocking components?

26
Specifics

• Dont make too many objects
• Map out object interactions
• Map out availability of objects over time
• Limit mobility of objects
• certain objects dont last past certain areas
• others just dont move at all
• Remove objects at certain points

27
Remember

• IF is not a simulation, its an interface
• Designers simulation of player playing
• Players simulation of objects presented
• Good IF
• Intuitive and Transparent
• Appropriately Abstract

28
Last But Not Least

• Debugging is not testing!
• You should play your game often, just to track
  object behavior and interaction
• But you cannot test the gameplay yourself
• Find objective testers
• ... and test often!!

29
Thanks!!!

• Sean Barrett IF Genius.
• also game design genius
• see www.silverspaceship.com

30
Resources

• IF Comp http//www.ifcomp.org/
• Sean Barrett Heroes
• http//www.nothings.org/games/if/
• Emily Short Metamorphoses http//emshort.home.min
  dspring.com/
• Andrew Plotkin Shade
• http//www.eblong.com/zarf/if.html
• Parsifal IF Links
• http//www.firthworks.com/roger/parsifal/