Re: Amoral behvaiour in IF
18 Jun 1995 11:30:23 GMT
I also find that the behaviour in Zork etc detracts from the game, because
of the artificiality of the quests you are on. It seems to assume that
your character is 2-dimensional and only after personal profit. Many games
explicitly give you a 'character' (Guild of thieves, LGOP) which
effectively defines what your morality is. HHGTTG was clever in that
changed the sort of tasks you had to perform in line with your changing
character.
My favourite IF was 'The Pawn', for just this reason, in that it revolved
around twisting the normal morality of situations completely (selling your
soul to the devil, killing the knight in shining armour, NOT rescuing the
princess and so on). It very much mad a play on it's own amorality. It
worked because the game was never specific about what was going on, or why
(e.g. what the point of the game was). So much so that I finished it and
still don't know.
Mark