Talk:Interactive fiction/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Image placement

I preferred the original placement and size of this image -- on my screen, the image is now right next to the TOC, and the effect is rather ugly. Why do you prefer it where it is now? — Adam Conover † 19:54, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

To Paul Panks

Paul, are you aware that you are breaking Wikipedia policy by repeatedly linking to Westfront PC? See Wikipedia:Don't create articles about yourself. Self-promotion is not acceptable on Wikipedia. This also applies to HLA Adventure and Westfront PC, which are now listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Please stop spamming Wikipedia immediately. — Adam Conover † 02:33, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

Dear Adam,

I was not aware of the self-promotion policy of Wikipedia. I apologize for posting Westfront PC links to the Interactive Fiction page. I do believe, however, that Westfront PC is noteable enough to be included on the list of "Noteable Works of Interactive Fiction". Therefore, my question is: is there a voting process for content on Wikipedia? If I truly believe something is worthy to be included (even if I wrote it), how do I vote for it to be included?

I didn't mean to cause any problems, I just wanted to suggest that I believe at least one of my games belongs on the list of "Noteable works of Interactive Fiction". I understand that Wikipedia is indepedent, so obviously if people vote and see that Westfront PC doesn't belong on such a list of Interactive Fiction, then obviously I must agree with them.

Sincerely,

Paul

Paul -- All decisions on Wikipedia are made by consensus. One can call a vote at any time that one wishes on the discussion page of an article, but the process is most often carried on informally. I personally do not consider any of your games to be notable enough to warrant inclusion on the list, but I will back down if enough wikipedians express support for your games here. However, it is still not appropriate to add content about your own works or yourself (speaking of which, it took me half an hour today to list all your vanity pages on Votes for Deletion), so if you want your own work to be mentioned in any articles you will have to wait for someone else to add it. On another note, thank you for admitting to your mistake and being civil about it. — Adam Conover † 03:50, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)
Possibly it may be better to have a list of IFComp winners, instead, thus sidestepping any blurred lines about the concept of 'notable'? For example, I wouldn't really consider Varicella to be particularly notable. It's good with what it does, but what it does is not particularly extraordinary, and it does not get frequently mentioned as an important example. I'd consider notable to mean either a work which opened up a certain sort of game, or a work which is the best example of a certain type of game, and frequently mentioned to represent it. I'd nominate Shade to be on the list, with Worlds Apart, Arrival, Anchorhead and LASH. I might even propose that we create a separate Text Adventure listing, to refer to old-school (puzzle based) IF.--Fangz 18:48, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
We already have a list of IFComp winners in the Interactive Fiction Competition article, so we don't want to repeat it here. (Also, most of them aren't really that notable.) --Zundark 20:12, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
In that case, it would make more sense to use the XYZZY Best Game winners.Victor Gijsbers 08:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
These are also available at XYZZY Award for Best Game.  Grue  08:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Fangz -- I think that if we start arguing too much about notable games, we're going to get seriously POV around here. Personally, I consider Varicella to be eminently notable -- it's considered to be a high point of the form, and has even had scholarly articles written about it. Also, I believe that Interactive fiction and Text adventures really are synonyms -- remember, we're writing about the medium of interactive fiction, not the genre -- the distinction between old school and new school is one of genre, but they share the same medium. — Adam Conover † 23:32, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

hi

Does anybody know how is called this kind of text based/if games?;

You are in the building.

1. goto west 2. take a key ...


Well, in general they are still called IF/text adventures. If you are asking about the more restrictive catagory[sic] of text games which only alow input from a menu, these are sometimes refered to as "Choose Your Own Adventure" or "CYOA" games, due to the similarity of the interface to that of a series of "adventure books" of the same name published in the 1980s. Iain 17:57, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've also heard "Pick a Path (to) Adventure" and "Multiple Choice Adventure". Alan De Smet 18:22, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! And btw sorry about my bad English...

Those who don't righten bad English should say sorry. "Does anybody know how this kind of text-based/IF game is called?" lysdexia 10:21, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps even "Does anybody know what this kind of text-based/IF game is called?" :) Victor Gijsbers 09:17, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Victor Gijsbers' version above is correct English. BTW, it's great to hear your question, and you shouldn;t worry about speaking English perfectly. Wiki is about sharing and refining information, not about having to speak a language perfectly to participate.

Removing some "Notable works"

To keep the "Notable works of interactive fiction" section from growing without end and ceasing to be useful, I've added brief notes about what makes each game notable. This should also make the section more useful by providing context. Noting games that are "firsts" with particular ideas, gameplay, or technical details is important.

That said, I'm considering removing some. I fail to see anything noteworthy about the "Gateway" games. "So Far" is famous, but I'm at a loss to note why it's noteworthy. Similarlly for "Varicella"; it's famous but doesn't appear to do anything specifically noteworthy. I'm planning on removing them soon. Before I charge ahead, I'd be interested in hearing opposing views; or just document in the article why the game is noteworthy.

-- Alan De Smet 01:28, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I believe Varicella is notable for its complex and detailed game world, and for requiring the player to restart and try again countless times to finish it.

-- Kwi | Talk 09:51, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Well, having to restart a lot of times to finish the game is not really an innovative feature. Grue 10:59, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I yoinked the entries in question. For the convience of anyone who wants to add them back, they follow.
To the specific case of Varicella, indeed, it's well respected for being a complex and detailed game world with lots of interactions. That might be good enough. I've still got nothing for So Far or the Gateway games. Also, I'm at a bit of a loss to note why Photopia is noteworthy, especially in light of A Mind Forever Voyaging. I've seen both cited as the first puzzle-less game. Clearly AMFV is earlier. I took a guess, I gathered that Photopia is a bit more pure in this regard an AMFV.
Oh, I'm planning to add Hitchhiker's Guide on the grounds that it was the first game (overtly) built on pre-existing intellectual property. Is Wishbringer the first game to have a book based on it?
-- Alan De Smet 13:45, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
Photopia is noteworthy because it is more or less the most talked about IF-work, ever. (I'm not sure I agree that it is technically significant, though...) It is also probably one of the most influential works in modern IF.--Fangz 02:31, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)


So Far is generally agreed to have set a high-water mark for modern IF. It would be a huge mistake to leave it unmentioned. It is listed on Stephen Granade's Timeline of IF [1], and is listed on Emily Short's IF Literacy List [2]. Its (contemporary) SPAG review [3] lists numerous ways in which it was innovative.
Seriously, though, I can't believe I'm even citing these sources -- everyone with a broad experience of IF knows that So Far is notable, just as everyone in the literature world knows Moby Dick is notable. And yeah, I can back that up:
So Far is one of those games that everyone is supposed to play. It's the source of numerous jokes and references in other games; it is the longest (and some would say the most serious and most angst-ridden) of Zarf's games, which earns it attention in and of itself. And, written in 1996, it is old enough to stand in the position of a classic in this brief community. -- Emily Short's review. [4]
Proof enough that it IS notable. If you ask why it's notable:
To say that it relies on symbolic vocabulary is to understate the issue. Jigsaw, for instance, relies on symbolic vocabulary as well, especially in the endgame. But Nelson's symbols are isolated and recognizable, and stand out from the landscape in their symbolic significance like a girl in a red dress. 'Note this!' they say. And they are organized with a tidy symmetry, perfect and mathematical, so that the meaning of anything unexplained may be worked out by its relations to other symbols and the oppositions between them. Plotkin's symbolism is merged wholly with the landscape; it *is* the landscape. The pieces are polyvalent and connotative, any given thing suggesting an array of connections and meanings, not denoting a single concept in its purity.
I am not sure whether any subsequent work has approached it in this regard. I am not sure that anyone has tried. - (ibid)
Proof enough for you? ;) — Adam Conover † 03:10, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm being overly sensative, but I fear I may have offended. My apologies if this is the case. I meant no disrespect to So Far, I was just unable to come up with a clear reason for why it was notable. I am but a hobbiest in the medium and my experience not yet as broad as it could be, I may have mis-stepped, my apologies. The reasons you give are pretty compelling. Re-adding So Far would seem logical, ideally with a brief summary stating points you quoted. I'm not sure how I would summarize those points, so I'm not prepared to attempt it myself. Alan De Smet 01:28, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)
Don't worry Alan, you didn't offend. My response was overly sarcastic given the subject. I am a hobbyist too (as all enthusiasts of interactive fiction are -- there are no professionals!), but I have spent a number of years following the community, and to me it seems practically self-evident that So Far is "notable", if not an outright classic. And as I'm sure we all know, it's frustrating to be asked to defend a point which one considers to be obvious. However, that doesn't mean that such points need not be defended! You were absolutely right to request citations showing that So Far is notable, and you responded graciously when I provided them. So no, you did not offend -- you acted entirely appropriately, to which I responded somewhat rudely. My apologies.
(I might suggest, though, that when you make such edits in the future -- removing items from lists and asking for evidence -- you inquire about the evidence before removing the items, as often their presence is the result of a prior consensus which other editors may resent being shaken up. Of course, you should also Edit Boldly -- it's really a judgement call in either case!) — Adam Conover † 18:58, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
I took a stab at summarizing why So Far is notable in the article. I'm not real pleased with my summary, but I think it's important to have something to provide context. I'm hoping that context will discourage drive-by-adding of everyone's pet game. Hopefully someone else can improve my summary. Alan De Smet | Talk 01:28, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Sample transcript

The current sample transcript is pretty lame, I think. It's hokey, and is more about Wikipedia than interactive fiction. I think the article would also benefit more from a transcript from an actual interactive fiction game. How does everyone feel about replacing it with a transcript of "Dungeon" (the public-domain version of Zork)? Adventure is another possibility, but Dungeon more accurately reflects the syntax used by modern IF. — Adam Conover † 19:03, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Dunno, I kinda like it :) Grue 19:26, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree it is fun, but it is a self reference, which theoretically we should be avoiding...Most usefull as a transcript, I suppose, would be something showing how a "typical" puzzle is solved. Iain 11:46, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've never liked the transcipt, so I would be glad to see it go. If Dungeon really is public domain then that's probably a good choice. --Zundark 21:06, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The transcript is a bit goofy but shows several concepts (natural language parsing, a simple puzzle, inventory, "winning") effectively. I doubt a real transcript could do so well, but I'm not against the idea. Alan De Smet | Talk 01:31, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
I laughed when I read it; it's good. But an excerpt from a real game would be good too. Matt 04:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bedlam

Is (recently added) Bedlam really a notable work? I'm an IF fan, and I've never heard of it... I certainly wouldn't think it's more notable than others not mentioned, like Adventureland or Jigsaw. (Now, Slouching Towards Bedlam, on the other hand...) -GregoryWeir 8 July 2005 17:59 (UTC)

In that era, most commercial IF games were ported to multiple systems, so a TRS-80 only game would seem to be of limited significance. Also, the other games on the list include an explanation of why they are significant. ManoaChild 03:28, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Removed. If someone has a good reason why it's notable, they can put it back in. -GregoryWeir 18:03, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

p2pmud

This was just added as a development system. It seems to be very new. Is anybody actually using this? ManoaChild 00:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

No. It was just announced on rec.arts.int-fiction, and no one heard of it before.  Grue  05:37, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Inform or TADS?

Can we have more information on how to choose a game authoring tool that is right for you? It mentions for example Inform and TADS. Is one of those two easier to use or more effective? Or is one more popular or does one have a bigger or more active community of users?--Sonjaaa 07:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Neither is especially easy to use or effective. They're both extremely old, dating to the early '90s if not the '80s. I would suggest you look at some of the more modern tools. Deco 07:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thanks, can you recommend one or two?--Sonjaaa 07:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Umm, that's completely wrong - both are actively developed and easy to use. I prefer Inform because it has excellent documentation and for some reason Inform games are more successful than TADS ones :) TADS 3 is said to be extremely powerful, but unfortunately it's not very well documented.  Grue  07:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I stand corrected. I hadn't heard anything from TADS since 1995, but it seems there in a TADS 3 in the works and a peek at the quick start guide shows a vast improvement since then. I was also going to suggest the ColdC or LambdaMOO engines, which incorporate sophisticated runtime-extensible prototype-based object-oriented languages. They're intended for multiplayer online text-based games, so they don't have TADS or Inform's infrastructure for traditional TAG gameplay, but with the proper infrastructure they can be applied just as well to single-player traditional TAGs. Deco 07:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I wouldn't know about such systems. But current IF development is focused almost solely on Inform, TADS 2 or 3, Adrift, and occasionally Glulxe, Alan, or Hugo. By using such systems, you guarantee that you will be able to do anything that you want to do (in 99.999% of cases) and have access to wide community support, and the assumption that most users would already to familiar with the system.--Fangz 14:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Glulxe is not separate from Inform. Glulx refers to a virtual machine; glulxe is the name of the standard interpreter for that machine; and Inform is the language used to compile games targeted at that virtual machine. The next release of Inform uses glulx as the default target, rather than the Z-machine. --Rpresser 22:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Risorgimento Represso

As impressed as I was by Risorgimento Represso, I'm not sure it is notable enough to be on the very short list of notable games. Any opinions? -GregoryWeir 21:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't play it, but most likely it's not more notable that Slouching Towards Bedlam, which finished 1st in IFComp 2003. Slouching is notable for being the game with the highest Comp score ever, but I didn't play it as well, so I don't know if it's worth including.  Grue  07:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Removing QuantumLink Serial from list.

I've removed QuantumLink Serial from the list of notable works on the grounds that it isn't IF at all. IF is (by the current definition), "...software containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters." Most notably, QLS wasn't software (it was written on the fly by Tracy Reed). Based on the description from QuantumLink Serial's page, it's more of a collaborative online fiction writing in which people beyond the author offered suggestions and guidance. Alan De Smet | Talk 20:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove Façade from Notable Works list?

Façade (Interactive Story) - The curent definition of IF is "...software containing simulated environments in which players use text commands to control characters." By and large that matches, but the only "control" you engage in using text commands is what dialogue your character will speak. Other actions (moving around the room, looking at things, hugging people) are all mouse controlled. While not strictly in the definition, I suspect most people would be surprised at IF that lacked text output. Facade lacks text output; all output is graphics and audio (primarily dialogue). Facade shared many goals with many works of IF, it's clearly trying to create a simulated environment. It's a fascinating experiment with ramifications for IF (and other types of gameplay). But I'm not sure it's IF. If Facade is IF, why isn't King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown and other early graphic adventure games that used text input? Alan De Smet | Talk 21:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Façade seems to be a ground breaking modern classic, from the reviews I've read. It seems such an important work that maybe we need to bend the rules a bit to accomodate it. --Salix alba (talk) 21:47, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed it. Façade is an important step in computer game development. I suspect it will influence games of many different types for years to come. But it's not IF. If we weaken the definition of IF to let Façade in, we no longer have a useful definition. Alan De Smet | Talk 05:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I support Alan De Smet on this point. — Adam Conover † 14:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Overhauled formatting on sample transcript

A well meaning robot-assisted edit trashed the formatting of the sample transcript. The transcript used "blank" lines that actually had a single space to keep the paragraphs of the transcript in a single block (which is correct). This isn't the first time that this has happened. Relatedly, relatively few IF players these days are looking at monospaced fonts on their screens. Most modern interpreters support the nicities of modern displays, with proportional fonts, anti-aliasing, and the like. Indeed, for many people IF looks a heck of a lot like a page of text, say, a web page. So I formatted the sample transcript as just nicely formatted text, not code. I think it looks more like what you average user sees, it's resistant to accidents like the above. Seems like a win all around. On the down side, the blockquotes I've used for indenting aren't quite accurate. The text is indented a fixed number of spaces. The blockquotes also add errant whitespace above and below. I can't figure out how to get what I want out of Wikipedia's syntax and would appreciate any one else who can fix it. Alan De Smet | Talk 04:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Photopia

The description here says that "Photopia" was highly controversial, but the game's article does not descibe the controvery. Can someone add the nature of the controvery here and at the game's article? BarkingDoc 19:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Notable Works

It looks like there is decent grounds to include the superlatives in the "Notable Works," and I agree that the games should have a description of why they are noteworthy, but it would be very helpful if those citations could be included in the article. Otherwise it looks like POV to the casual reader: the supporting link should appear direct after each statement. BarkingDoc 19:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)