HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: antecedents to IF (was Re: IF Theory Article)
Date: 21 Jan 93 23:02:24 GMT
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci

If I recall correctly, Harlan Ellison's short story
"The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" was written
in about a dozen sections that could be read in any order.
There didn't seem to be much point to this ability, however;
it didn't make the reading interactive.

Phil
goetz@cs.buffalo.edu
From: aigdi@castle.ed.ac.uk (Gavin Inglis)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Meehan's TALE-SPIN
Date: 23 Jan 93 15:04:48 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

For the next three months or so, I will be engaged on a partial
reconstruction of James Meehan's TALE-SPIN program from an IF
perspective. I would very much like to hear from anyone who is or has
been engaged in the same activity.

Thank you.
-- 
Gav                     |           I hate clever signatures.
<aigdi@uk.ac.ed.castle> |                              
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: Eastgate@world.std.com (Mark Bernstein)
Subject: Re: Portal
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 22:52:13 GMT

PORTAL, by Rob Swigart, was in fact a very early example of hypertext
fiction. It was published by Activision, marketed as a game (an error,
IMHO), and is now, regrettably, out of print. 

Swigart continues to work in interactive fiction and poetry, and we hope
to include one of his recent hypertextual poems in an upcoming issue of
the Eastgate Quarterly.

Mark Bernstein
Eastgate Systems, Inc.   134 Main Street   Watertown MA 02172 USA
voice: (800) 562-1638 in USA   +1(617) 924-9044
Eastgate@world.std.com    Compuserve: 76146,262    AppleLink:Eastgate 

-- 
Mark Bernstein
Eastgate Systems, Inc.   134 Main Street   Watertown MA 02172 USA
voice: (800) 562-1638 in USA   +1(617) 924-9044
Eastgate@world.std.com    Compuserve: 76146,262    AppleLink:Eastgate
From: ccocsme@prism.gatech.EDU (StatMan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: User-Selected Difficulty levels
Date: 28 Jan 93 03:21:34 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <728105947snx@hinrg.starconn.com> mroberts@hinrg.starconn.com (Mike Roberts) writes:
>In article <81904@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccocsme@prism.gatech.EDU writes:
>
> >   I am currently developing a TADS text adventure
>
>Great!  The more the merrier!
>

 Wow! From Mike Roberts himself :-)

> > I thought about letting the user enter the difficulty level he/she
> > wants. I would let it be confined to easy/medium/hard.

[ about Indian Jones and solving via different paths ]

>One thing I've found when designing adventures is that it's not obvious
>how hard players are going to find your puzzles, because your perspective
>the level you designate as "easy" is actually really hard.
>
> >  I then wondered if I should let the player fully "win" the
> > game at easier levels, or have the game leave the player
>

  I agree with this. For example, my plan was to be fairly obvious in
solving puzzels on the easy level. The next level, would need an additional
object to solve the puzzle. Finally, on the hardest level, there
would be an additional object/problem to solve to solve the original
puzzle. In addition, the method used to solve the puzzle will not
work in easier levels. (I hope that makes sense...)

>
>Let them win at any level, but make it clear at the outset that several
>levels of difficulty are available.
>

  I think what I plan is to have three different endings, with each 
is more along in story. ie, the easy levels ends a point A. The medium
level ends at point B via point A. The hard level ends at point C, via
point B via A. Point C is the 'full' and 'happiest' ending.

>--
>Mike Roberts                               mroberts@hinrg.starconn.com

Marty Esterman
ccocsme@prism.gatech.edu

-- 
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore..."  ---  Dorothy Gale
                         -------------------------------------------------
Marty Esterman           | It is not computers that I fear. It is the lack
ccocsme@prism.gatech.edu | of them that I fear. -- Isaac Asimov  1920-1992
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Cray Communications, Alex McL")
Subject: Re: REQUEST: RePosting of INFOCOM Walkthrus?
Reply-To: amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 09:23:00 +0000


Repost the infocom walk throughs?
Crumbs how big were they? Some of us are at
the ends of _phone__lines_ since we have left 
college. "Infocom walkthroughs" sounds like lotsa K.

Please try and find them from an ftp site or 
ftpmail-server.

Of course if they were small then go ahead and 
repost...

(Now some twenty people will try to be helpful 
 and repost them all :-)


>>>>>>>>>>>>>-----insert standard disclaimer here-----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Alex McLintock BEng  (work phone 0923 258440) (fax 0923 258218)
amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk  <---- text, and cix binmail 
alexmc@case.co.uk               <---- uuencoded binaries
From: goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Disch's _Amnesia_
Date: 21 Jan 93 23:15:34 GMT
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci

In article <1993Jan20.214755.1@hamp.hampshire.edu> tallison@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:
>
>	I recently came across an interview with Thomas M. Disch (in
>Larry McCafferty's _Across the Wounded Galaxies_) in which Disch
>discusses working on an Infocom game called _Amnesia_.  I was
>extremely intrigued, as this is the first I had ever heard of any
>major SF author becoming directly involved with interactive fiction.
>(Please let me know if there are others I'm not thinking of- for 
>example, what degree of control did Pohl have over the _Gateway_ game,
> or Zelazny with _Nine Princes in Amber_?)

Ray Bradbury and Tellarium made _Fahrenheit 451_ for the Apple //,
though it was not much like the book.

>	I don't remember seeing _Amnesia_ on any of Infocom's old
>product lists.  Does anyone know if it was ever released? Has
>it been reissued in the Lost Treasures of Infocom series?
>Has anyone played it?  I'd appreciate any info, comments, or
>reviews of the game, and even if it wasn't ever released, Disch's
>comments in the interview about his experience writing interactive
> fiction are worth looking at for inspiration or consideration.
>
>				-Tavis Allison

_Amnesia_ was released by Electronic Arts around 1986.
I thought it was really, really, bad.  There were three big reasons for
this:
	1.  The map is enormous - like 2000 locations.  Visiting them
all is very tedious.
	2.  You continually die of thirst or hunger, and need to sleep.
All your time is taken up searching for food, water, and a place to
sleep, so that in one day of game time (around 40 moves)
you can only explore about 5 of the 2000 locations.
	3.  Whenever anything interesting happens, you don't have any
control, but revert to being a reader of a non-interactive novel while
pages of description roll past you.  Your character may even respond
in these descriptions, without your consent!  _That_ certainly kills
any sense of involvement for me!

I never finished the game.

Phil
goetz@cs.buffalo.edu
From: rees@csa.bu.edu (David Rees)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Disch's _Amnesia_
Date: 22 Jan 93 21:04:33 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Originator: rees@csa


     I don't know about Zelazny's involvment with the Amber game, but I believe
that I read somewhere that some of the other games put out by Trillium were written by the authors.  DragonWorld, Rendezvous with Rama, and possibly Farenheit 451 had some pretty major contributions from the author of the 
original novel. (I'm pretty sure of this, but may be wrong).  Unfortunately, perhaps because of this, these games tend to be more of a computerized version of 
the novel rather than a hard collection of puzzles.  Some people prefer that, but not I.
Xref: sparky rec.arts.int-fiction:1282 rec.games.int-fiction:1225 comp.sys.mac.games:14982
From: ccocsme@prism.gatech.EDU (StatMan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.int-fiction,comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: User-Selected Difficulty levels
Date: 26 Jan 93 18:27:57 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.int-fiction
Distribution: usa
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

Howdy,
  I am currently developing a TADS text adventure, and came up
with an interesting problem. How difficult should I make it? Then,
I thought about letting the user enter the difficulty level he/she
wants. I would let it be confined to easy/medium/hard. I dont
think the development would be that hard. Mainly,  the differences
between the difficulty levels would be limited to the availibilty
of needed items, methods for solving certain puzzels, and the
addition/subration of "clues" in the description text.

I then wondered if I should let the player fully "win" the
game at easier levels, or have the game leave the player
with information that there was more to look foward to in
the next level.

Anyway, I'm wondering what the general feeling is about this.
In the text adventures I've played, there hasnt been this ability.

Marty Esterman
ccocsme@prism.gatech.edu
-- 
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore..."  ---  Dorothy Gale
                         -------------------------------------------------
Marty Esterman           | It is not computers that I fear. It is the lack
ccocsme@prism.gatech.edu | of them that I fear. -- Isaac Asimov  1920-1992
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: goetz@acsu.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Disch's _Amnesia_
Date: 25 Jan 93 20:58:10 GMT
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci

In article <1993Jan22.100525.13970@bsu-ucs> 00mjstum@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu (Matthew J. Stum) writes:
>> _Amnesia_ was released by Electronic Arts around 1986.
>> I thought it was really, really, bad.  There were three big reasons for
>> this:
>> 	1.  The map is enormous - like 2000 locations.  Visiting them
>> all is very tedious.
>> 	2.  You continually die of thirst or hunger, and need to sleep.
>> All your time is taken up searching for food, water, and a place to
>> sleep, so that in one day of game time (around 40 moves)
>> you can only explore about 5 of the 2000 locations.
>
>Wait wait wait... you consider 1 & 2 to be _bad_ things?  I think it's _very_
>realistic... otherwise it'd be more fantasy than fiction...

>Matt Stum                    Gwydion ap Myrddin       Ball State University
>00mjstum@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu   Shire of Afonlyn, MK     Muncie, IN  USA

Let me reiterate something I'm sure I've said before:
I don't want reality in my entertainment.  I get reality 24 hrs a day.
I like realism, but only if it is supporting an artificial experience
which is sufficiently more interesting than my real life that I should
devote time to it.  This means that any entertainment MUST be
un-reality-like in some way.  Dispensing with time spent on bodily
functions (at least the boring ones) is the obvious first step.

Phil
goetz@cs.buffalo.edu

P.S.- Aside from bugs, _Amnesia_ was technically well-done.
From: 00mjstum@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu (Matthew J. Stum)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Disch's _Amnesia_
Date: 22 Jan 93 15:05:25 GMT
Organization: Widget Enterprises

> _Amnesia_ was released by Electronic Arts around 1986.
> I thought it was really, really, bad.  There were three big reasons for
> this:
> 	1.  The map is enormous - like 2000 locations.  Visiting them
> all is very tedious.
> 	2.  You continually die of thirst or hunger, and need to sleep.
> All your time is taken up searching for food, water, and a place to
> sleep, so that in one day of game time (around 40 moves)
> you can only explore about 5 of the 2000 locations.

Wait wait wait... you consider 1 & 2 to be _bad_ things?  I think it's _very_
realistic... otherwise it'd be more fantasy than fiction...

> 	3.  Whenever anything interesting happens, you don't have any
> control, but revert to being a reader of a non-interactive novel while
> pages of description roll past you.  Your character may even respond
> in these descriptions, without your consent!  _That_ certainly kills
> any sense of involvement for me!

I will agree with you there though... if you're going to go to the tedious
trouble of staying alive for the "good bits" then I'd at least think you'd
get to have some fun...

-- 
Matt Stum                    Gwydion ap Myrddin       Ball State University
00mjstum@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu   Shire of Afonlyn, MK     Muncie, IN  USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: schweda@iastate.edu (Christopher Schweda)
Subject: REQUEST: RePosting of INFOCOM Walkthrus?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 02:17:00 GMT

Several weeks ago I noticed that someone had posted numerous Infocom
walkthrus to r.a.i-f. I failed to save them then and cannot retrieve them from
my nn newsreader. Could someone please repost the whole batch of
the walkthrus?


Thanks,
Chris Schweda
--
schweda@iastate.edu

chris.schweda@um.cc.umich.edu
---

Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: jacobw@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jacob Solomon Weinstein)
Subject: Re: Disch's _Amnesia_
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 18:43:28 GMT

tallison@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:
>	I recently came across an interview with Thomas M. Disch (in
>Larry McCafferty's _Across the Wounded Galaxies_) in which Disch
>discusses working on an Infocom game called _Amnesia_.  I was
>extremely intrigued, as this is the first I had ever heard of any
>major SF author becoming directly involved with interactive fiction.
>(Please let me know if there are others I'm not thinking of- for 
>example, what degree of control did Pohl have over the _Gateway_ game,
> or Zelazny with _Nine Princes in Amber_?)

To quote from the "About The Author" blurb from Suspended: "Michael
Berlyn is a writer whose books include _The Integrated Man_ and _Crystal
Phoenix_ from Bantam books. He is the author of Suspend, Infidel,
and Cutthroats, all from Infocom." Of course, I don't know if he's
a MAJOR s.f. author...
From: sbsm_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Stu Bushman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Disch's _Amnesia_
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:53:58 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <1993Jan20.214755.1@hamp.hampshire.edu> tallison@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:

>	I don't remember seeing _Amnesia_ on any of Infocom's old
>product lists.  Does anyone know if it was ever released? Has

That's because Infocom didn't release it...It was released by Electronic
Arts several years ago under the name Thomas Disch's Amnesia...A very 
weird IF game it was, but my original disks crashed, and I lost the 
documentation when I moved so I gave up playing it...
I figured it was not meant to be 8}
Stu
sbsm_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: rivero@sol.cie.unizar.es (Alejandro Rivero)
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Reply-To: rivero@sol.cie.unizar.es
Organization: Department of Theoretical Physics. University of Zaragoza
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 12:07:28 GMT


>Sophisticated parser? Eliza? Most versions of Eliza are very
>simple-minded indeed and don't actually do any parsing, just pattern
>matching.

It seems that some phrases sond sound in engish as in spanish. .
"sohisticated parser" was meant to de despective, the point being that
you can implement eliza style by using some decent parser program (by example 
it could be done in a if-programing language).
From: mroberts@hinrg.starconn.com (Mike Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: User-Selected Difficulty levels
Date: 27 Jan 93 03:39:07 GMT
Organization: High Energy Software, Palo Alto, California

In article <81904@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccocsme@prism.gatech.EDU writes:

 >   I am currently developing a TADS text adventure

Great!  The more the merrier!

 > I thought about letting the user enter the difficulty level he/she
 > wants. I would let it be confined to easy/medium/hard.
 > Anyway, I'm wondering what the general feeling is about this.
 > In the text adventures I've played, there hasnt been this ability.

One game you might want to look at is "Indiana Jones and the Fate of
Atlantis" (LucasArts).  It doesn't have varying difficulty levels
exactly, but it has three "paths" that you can take through the game.
Each path goes through essentially the same territory and hits roughly
the same major puzzles, but the solutions and sub-puzzles are different.
You could do the same thing with difficulty levels -- provide different
solutions to the puzzles for each level.

One thing I've found when designing adventures is that it's not obvious
how hard players are going to find your puzzles, because your perspective
is so different from that of your players.  So, players might think that
the level you designate as "easy" is actually really hard.

 >  I then wondered if I should let the player fully "win" the
 > game at easier levels, or have the game leave the player
 > with information that there was more to look foward to in
 > the next level.

Let them win at any level, but make it clear at the outset that several
levels of difficulty are available.

--
Mike Roberts                               mroberts@hinrg.starconn.com
High Energy Software                       415 493 2430 (Voice)
PO Box 50422, Palo Alto, CA 94303          415 493 2420 (BBS)

Paradise is a place exactly like where you are right now, only
much, much better.
   --- Laurie Anderson
From: roger@oit.itd.umich.edu (Roger Espinosa)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Disch's _Amnesia_
Date: 22 Jan 1993 17:52:29 GMT
Organization: Instructional Technology Laboratory, University of Michigan
NNTP-Posting-Host: helen.oit.itd.umich.edu
Summary: About those text passages...


How do people *really* feel about text passages that indicate something
has happened, but without any real interactivity from the user (reader)?

Trinity had some of these; as did Leather Goddesses of Phobos, and *I*
didn't mind them. They seem (to me) to be the only way to deal with 
changes in emotion or "state of mind" -- the other interactivity seems
to effect only the state of the world. Dialogue between characters
has always felt entirely unreal to me -- until playing "Fate of Atlantis"
recently, but *that* way is almost totally canned (but still, more
enjoyable that the standard "Herb looks at you quizically.")

Any opinions?

Roger
From: rusty@groan.Berkeley.EDU (Rusty Wright)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Classic Infocom Mumblings
Date: 20 Jan 93 22:46:29
Organization: Computer Center, UC Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: groan.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk's message of Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:58:00 +0000

In article <memo.841541@cix.compulink.co.uk> amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Cray Communications, Alex McL") writes:

   Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
   From: amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Cray Communications, Alex McL")
   Subject: Re: Classic Infocom Mumblings
   Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:58:00 +0000

   After some five years since first playing Hitchhiker,
   LeatherGoddesses, and Zork, I am *finally* writting my own
   adventure. (in the classic infocom style).

   I would like some help with features that you think ought to go
   into a good parser. and of course any other suggestions you may
   have will be gratefully received.

   PS the code is crap at the moment. I am just doodling.

You could use COOL and the important part of the code would already be
done for you.  It has several nice features; one is that it's
interactive; while you're playing/in it you can build in it, so you
can test it and so forth.  Another nice thing is that it's networked
and can be multi-user so you could have several people working on it
at the same time, if you wanted.  And it's truly object oriented with
multiple inheritence.  For example, you can have a generic Container
object, which might not have any limits on how many things it could
contain or their sizes, then you could have children of that; they
could limit the types of what goes in them, total weight, total size,
etc.  You could make a Container that can move about and that players
can enter and see out of (e.g., a car).
From: pw0l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Paul Christopher Workman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Plot Vs. Interactivity
Date: 25 Jan 93 15:52:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.8fN9ZMu00WBM8_8Ig0
	<8988@news.duke.edu>
Organization: University Libraries - Technical Service, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

>Again, it's very hard for me to think of an example of a plot with essentially
>1) independently thinking
>2) independently acting
>characters going through "plots" with 
>3) independent results
> 
>but still remain within a plot structure thought up in advance by one person
>and still require enough
> 
>4) co-dependent participation/cooperation/competition (I like the first
2 bette
r) 
>that it makes sense to have multiple people playing!

One could design a puzzle-oriented game, in which (1) several different
methods can be used to get to a particular point in the game (eg, you
could get to the secret laboratory either from the secret passageway
in the bookcase or by asking the imprisoned evil scientist for the keys
after bribing the guard), and (2) some or perhaps most puzzles require
the cooperation of two or more players (eg, one player twists the
candleholder, causing the bookcase secret door across the room to swing
open, and another player shoves a chair into the secret doorway to
stop the bookcase from closing so you can get through).  You'd need some
sort of common goal to provide competition.  You'd probably also need
inter-player conflict (eg, one player could kill another.  Then you
might get situations where one group of players spends their money
on spelunking gear to retrieve the chalice at the bottom of the cave,
but another group spends their money on guns to kill the first group
when they come out of the cave!).  I think that this sort of game would
end up being closer to a MUD set in a predefined, unalterable universe,
than to IF as built from the available authoring systems (from what I've
heard.  I haven't tried building one yet.).

This sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but it is just ducking the
fundamental problem of interactivity vs plot.  The phrase "plot structure"
above helps show the conflict: the interactivity destroys any pre-designed
plot structure.

So now it is necessary to come up with a new definition of plot, one
which doesn't require a specific plot structure to get the required
effect that the author wants.  The key is the author's desired effect;
a book with two different effects due to plot changes, is really two
different books.  The new definition of plot should be intuitively
equivalent to the current one; that is, they should "feel" the same,
I think -- at least this might give us a clue as to how to proceed.

--paul
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction