Re: "Serious" IF (was Re: Gareth's competition comments)


Mon, 16 Oct 1995 15:19:03 GMT

Gareth Rees (gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
: > For some reason, this competition has loosed a lot of tongues in this
: > newsgroup. Used to be, everyone bent over backwards to praise authors
: > just for having produced a game. Lately, though, there's been a lot
: > more sniping at games and less constructive criticism, and this latest
: > trend of arguing over what constitutes "real" i-f similarly seems more
: > likely to scare people off from writing games than to encourage them
: > to do so.

I've noticed this myself. Perhaps it's been brought about by the fact that
there's no longer a shortage of quality I-F out there -- as more and more
titles become available, people become more critical. I can't say if this is
an attempt (conscious or not) to weed out the "lesser" works (and remember,
everyone's opinion is different, and cannot simply be classified as "right"
or "wrong) or simply the result of people becoming pickier as the range of
titles expands (possibly because they realize there's finally the potential
for their idea of the "perfect" game to appear).

Personally, on the occasions where I reply to an author (and I haven't
played the competition entries, so I haven't sent commentary there), I prefer
to stick with constructive criticism: "Great game, but here's some suggestions
for improvement in the future," as opposed to "This is just plain wrong."

: But I also think that the best compliment that can be paid to a game is
: to treat it as though it were a serious piece of work rather than a few
: minutes diversion of roughly comparable value to Space Invaders. If
: anyone praised my work just because they wanted to make me happy I would
: feel patronised. I'd much prefer something along these lines:

While it's good that you can recognize what you percieve as limitations in
your own work, I wouldn't advise doing the same to another author for a
simple reason -- the differences of opinions people have. Another author
might not see the points you make in reference to "Christminster" as
flaws or limitations, particularly your criticisms of your NPC's, since
virtually all text adventures to date have these same limitations.

Personally, although the NPC's in my upcoming game aren't even as complex
as in "Christminster" (most of them stay in one place the whole game), I
don't see this as a weakness, since it fits with the story. Instead of
making characters that behave realistically under every circumstance the
player can dream up, I concentrated on developing NPC's that are likeable,
that respond to a player's commands in a typical but enjoyable (at least,
IMHO) manner. I would personally become very defensive if someone chose to
nitpick my game in the manner you've done with yours.

Everyone has differing opinions of the "ideal" game, and what a "real" I-F
experience is like for them. Can't we just accept each quality game for
what it is, rather than dwelling on petty issues?

-- 
C.E. Forman                                      ceforma@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu
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