Re: New features in IF.


Fri, 27 Oct 1995 05:13:35 EDT

In article <46pavr$ose@uwm.edu>, alp@miller.cs.uwm.edu (Alfredo Liu-Perez) says:
> Here are two features that may be interesting to have in some IF games:
>1. A way of going to any part of the game instantly and play from that
> point on. In books we can read some chapters ahead, or go to a
> page where our favorite quotation is. I've wanted to play parts of
> some IF games after the games has been over, but without keeping
> saved files I'd have to play the game again until I reach the part I
> liked.

A neat idea, and there's certainly no particular reason why this couldn't
be done (except that it's more work for the authors, which means it'll
never happen. <grin>) I'd suggest that upon winning the game, it would
provide a secret password which could be used at the beginning to jump
to various stages. Some action games do this -- for example, upon winning
one of the Super Mario Brothers games you're given a save-game which
starts you off equipped with all the super-k00l equipment and secret stuff.
It's a nice touch that extends game playability.

>2. A way for the player to participate in conversation between NPCs. For
> example. NPC1 is talking to NPC2 and we want the player to be able to
> get in the conversation.
> One solution is to have a system that pauses for a specified amount of
> time after NPC1 said something to NPC2, giving the player the chance
> to say something before NPC2 does, before NPC2 replies to NPC1.

This has been done, pretty much. The solution is just to have one person
speak each "turn." After every turn the player can interrupt or just
hang back and wait to see where the conversation goes. I recall several
scenes like this in Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide.

'Course, interrupting the set pieces in that game usually got you shushed
by the other characters...

>FORD, WHAT ABOUT THE EARTH?
"Quiet, Arthur," mutters Ford. "Wait until the exposition is over."

:-)

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