IF ITALIA - Il sito Italiano sull'Interactive Fiction
INTERVISTA
Lucian, why do you write IF at all?
Lucian Smith Because it's fun! It's neat to get feedback from people
about your own work, too. Being able to immerse someone else in a world
of my own devising, and letting them discover its secrets is very
tantalizing. It's been rewarding.
It An aestethical pleasure, then.
Lucian nods.
It Interactive Fiction has a very limited audience in Italy. The
creation of a newsgroup has boosted a little the interest around it,
but it's clear from the posts we get that most people just don't know
what it is. How would you describe IF to the total newcomer?
LS - As I've heard you mention before, it's often best to try to
relate IF to something they're familiar with. This can vary on a
case-by-case basis. For someone who's played graphical adventures,
your problem is an easy one--"It's just like that, only all text." For
someone who's only read books, it's a bit tougher, but books would
still be where you would start. "It's a story where you play the main
character. You type things in, and the game tells you what happens."
If they've played RPG's (role-playing games), you could say, "It's like
an RPG where the computer is the GM (game master)." But the best way,
of course, is to sit down with them and play some with them. I'd
probably start by sitting at the computer myself, and translating what
they want to do into "IF-ese"--that subset of language that IF uses to
communicate between the player and the program. Learning IF-ese is
probably the biggest hurdle for new players to overcome--and the
biggest challenge for game designers. If someone can be there for a
newbie to help, that's probably best, although sample transcripts (like
Infocom used to include with their games) also help.
It - What are the steps to the creation of a work of IF? Do you
improvise, or make a detailed plan ? Do you spend more energy on the
prose or on the code?
LS - For large works, it's probably best to have a more detailed
plan than I did, but for a competition-sized game (playable in two
hours or less), it worked well. Basically, I had a rough idea of what
I wanted on each level--maybe a paragraph's-worth of text. Then I
started coding it up. As I went along, there was a combination of
improvising and sticking with the plan. The overall goal of each level
never changed, but the specifics did, as I found better ways to do
things, or a better way to present ideas, or whatever. As far as
energy on prose vs. code goes... It's a very different type of energy,
and you can work on one while resting from working on the other. For
example, I had an NPC ('Stranger') in Edifice that had a *lot* of
dialogue. It got very tiring after a while trying to come up with yet
another thing for him to say. To take a break, I would work on
quashing bugs in other parts of the code, or starting up new levels.
Sometimes, though, they flow into each other. When I wanted to have
the text change depending on the situation, I had to write both code
and prose at the same time, and make sure the code made the prose flow
well, regardless of the situation. At those times, you really feel
like you're straddling some kind of chasm; mashing the two halves of
your brain together until they mix. When it works, it's a fun
experience.
It - What are the major influences on your works? Cinema, fiction,
everyday situations?
LS - The direct influence on 'Edifice' was a short film I saw in
grade school. It was a cartoon showing all of human history, as played
out on successively higher levels of a large Edifice. The other
conceptual influence on Edifice was the computer game, "Civilization",
though only quite broadly. The strongest influence on the game*play*
was... other IF games. I tried to make the game respond to stuff the
way I would want any of the other IF games I've played respond. It's
hard to pinpoint any one game directly, but I think there's probably
some connection between the scene in 'So Far' where you talk with some
people who don't speak English and level 2 of Edifice. I was so
disappointed you couldn't figure out what they were saying! Generally
prose-wise, there are a variety of authors I've read, and it's hard to
pinpoint any one influence over another. Likewise with story flow from
the movies I've seen. Everyday situations... yeah, I'm sure they
influence me, too. But again, it's hard to pick any one thing out.
It - One of the features of IF which has always impressed me is the
untold agreement to systematically avoid "politically uncorrect"
themes. Nobody ever shows his own beliefs regarding politics, for
instance. Most IF authors are from the US. Yet nobody seems to be
interested in silly things such as the death penalty, racism,
pollution, weapons addiction, violence addiction, though you seem to
have some problems on these very topics in the US. Why do you think
this happens? (If you think this happens)
LS - Well, IF is, firstly, an entertainment medium. Your first job
is to entertain, and you have to do that well before you can do
anything else. That being said--*after* you've sucked in the player,
you can slip in your 'message' behind the lines. If you do it well
enough, the player either won't mind or won't notice. And this has
happened in some works. Trinity and A Mind Forever Voyaging are two
obvious examples. Photopia deals with some serious issues. Losing
Your Grip likewise. But in all of them, the thrust of the game is not,
"Here is what I think about this issue, here are my arguments, and you
should agree with me." They just tell their story. And if you're
going to put a 'message' in a game, that's the only way to do it, I
think. And that, in turn, is why you don't see it that often--it's
secondary. The main point is to make a fun game. If you accomplish
that, you don't need to do more. It's probably not the best place to
make those kinds of statements anyway. And if you do, you endanger
losing your audience--even if they agree with you! They probably are
playing mostly for entertainment, and for escapism. Not much point in
escaping to more of the same.
It - What is your opinion on implementing branching plots in a game?
Do you think they add to the game? Or do you think that unity of
action, time and setting is sacred?
LS - Each branch of a branching plot is, in essence, a new game.
One that any one player may or may not find. My basic view is that
when you branch your storyline, you're creating two possibilities for
your player to find--and that you should be satisfied if they only ever
find one of them. Here I diverge from others I've read who say that
branching storylines add replayability to the game. I believe most
people are not going to replay a game just to see if they can get a new
ending--though those people certainly do exist. Rather, you're
tailoring the game for a wider variety of people (if you do it right).
So if, say, you have a brute-force method of solving a puzzle or
getting through a particular situation, an intellectual method of doing
the same, or a relationship-based method, you'll get a wider variety of
people who can solve the puzzle, based on their personality type. If
you branch the storyline completely at that point, you would do well to
consider the likely personality who would pick each branch, and write
the rest to suit them. However: This is a lot of work. For myself, I would rather spend the energy making just one main storyline that anyone could appreciate than making a few that different people could appreciate. But it is valid, and maybe I'll feel like taking on that challenge some day.
It - Speaking of challenges...
Lucian grins.
It - I'd like to ask you about two features of IF which seems to
offer potential margin of improvement. One is the "limitless
boundaries" effect. The definition is Adam Cadre's, who, in an
interview with us defined it as he trick of making the player believe
the world he can explore is huge, while it's just big.
It - The second aspect is NPC interaction which is in my opinion the
weakest point of IF. NPC, even the best of them, tend to hang around
like mummies. You can almost spot their silly smiles, when playing.
What are the possible steps towards an advancement in those two
fields?
LS - The conversation the first came from was from a discussion on
ifMUD, at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?IntFicMudDiscussion. The trick, we
found, is to make the player *believe* there are limitless
possibilities, where in actuality there are only a few things they can
do. And there are some techniques we found that can help accomplish
this, some of which we speculate about. And I'm sure there are more
undiscovered or at least unnamed yet that we'll see more of in the
future. One method I've seen since that discussion was in Adam Cadre's
'Photopia', where the geography is 'plastic': You can say you want to
go in any direction, and the game will let you, but before you get
there, it lays down the geography it wants you to see. It's a
magician's trick: "Pick a card, any card"--only you force them to pick
the six of clubs, without them realizing it. I was amazed when I saw
it. I really want to apply that technique to something else, and I
have no idea how. But it's a great motif, and has a lot of potential,
I think.
LS - For NPC's--The short answer is that if I knew the answer, I'd
be a rich man. Or someone else would be rich having stolen my idea ;-)
But I think those NPCs that do best are the ones that limit the
player's input in some manner, and then manage to respond uniquely to
anything the player can throw at them--within that limited framework.
In many games, the limitation is to a menu-based conversation system.
For some players, though, that's *too* limiting. In my own game, the
limitation was simple--you could only use those words you had already
heard the NPC use. (Even within that limitation, though, the scope of
possible input was somewhat staggering. Mostly it was a lot of
gruntwork that enabled him to respond with reasonable realism.) It
also can help if the NPC has a life of their own--wandering around the
map, interacting with things along the way. You have to be careful
here, though, not to *increase* the player's expectations of what the
NPC can and will do. That's a losing battle. It's not really the raw
number of things that the NPC should respond to, it's the *combination*
of things. If the NPC responds the same way to 'NPC, TELL ME ABOUT
CHARLES' before and after you tell the NPC something startling about
Charles, you've just decreased the realism of the NPC. In the end, I'm
afraid the best answer is just: Do lots and lots of work. Even with a
limited scope to begin with, the exponential nature of combinatorial
states will get you every time.
It - The law of big numbers (if you call it like this in english).
I agree with you on the 'plastic geography' thing, It was indeed a
wonderful playing experience.
It - What are your future projects, if you wish to tell us?
LS - Well, there's a larger project I've considered for a while
that's still percolating in my head. And then there's an idea I have
that I'd like to put together in time for the yearly IF competition
(www.ifcompetition.org). One of the main ideas behind both, acutally,
is that you play a variety of characters throughout. Actually,
speaking of literary influences, the inspiration for this idea started
back in early High School, when I read Anna Karenina. It was the first
book I had read (where I noticed, at least), that showed you things
from a shifting limited third-person perspective. One chapter would be
from the perspective of Anna, another from Lenin, and back and forth,
and so on. There was even one particularly interesting chapter from
the perspective of Lenin's dog! I'd like to do the same in an IF
game. In my larger work, the plan is to do it more like Tolstoy, and
shift the player around as the story progresses. In the second, I'd
like to do just one scene you replay from the perspective of each
character in it. It's an idea many have had, but, to my knowledge,
none have yet attempted--probably because there are some fiendish
problems associated with it. But I have some ideas, and we'll see how
they pan out--or if they pan out. It may turn out that I'll have to
drop it like the many before me. But I'm hopeful. The other problem,
of course, it simply time--I haven't had the kind of free time I had a
couple years ago when writing Edifice. But the goal is to start soon,
keep it relatively simple, and see how it works out.
It - Do you think there is a commercial future for IF?
LS - I think there's at least a limited commercial niche IF could
fill. CMP (Cascade Mountain Publishing; www.cascadepublishing.com) is
the first to try in the post-graphical game era, and they're doing OK.
We'll see if they can make their business model work. The 'net
provides a wonderful opportunity for direct sales, and without having
to go through a distributor, there may be some potential there. Another
commercial possibility I see is that IF authors may be able to parlay
their IF-writing experience into a paying job. Game companies are an
obvious choice, but there may be other possibilities we haven't tried
ye. inally, I think IF will always have the commercial potential to
allow a hobbyist to continue their hobby. Shareware is always an
option, and even freeware--since it can be free for authors to make the
game, they can write IF till the cows come home, and never make--or
lose--a dime. I'd say IF has definitely carved out a niche for
itself. We'll see how that niche changes in the coming years, but I
believe it will never go away--just change shape, maybe.
It - I recently had a look at your works on "patterns" in IF, and I
appreciated it, although I was not always sure if I understood what was
being discussed. Could you explain breifly to our public what the whole
thing is about?
LS - OK. A little back story first...
LS - A while back, Marnix Klooster read a programming book about
patterns. He thought it was neat, and posted to rec.arts.int-fiction
about them, and started up a section of a public web board about
patterns as found in IF. (He put up the posts there, too:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?InteractiveFictionPatternsThread) I knew
nothing about patterns, but what Marnix said about them was neat, and I
jumped in.
LS - Now, more back-story about patterns:
LS - Patterns were 'invented' by an architect named Christopher
Alexander. In a nutshell, they were a way of formulating architectural
principles he had found in the course of his work. For reasons that
are not entirely clear (to me, at least), some programmers read the
book and thought, "Hey, we can do this with programming, too!". The
movement, by this time, has probably gathered a lot more steam in
programming circles than in architectural circles, but I'm drifting
from my story.
It - Yes :)
Lucian grins.
LS - To get back to the point: Christopher Alexander defined a
pattern as "a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a
certain context, a problem, and a solution". What Marnix and I and a
few others tried to do is use that methodology to pin down some
concepts that can be useful to people writing IF.
LS - The pattern I wrote that most closely adheres to the classic
pattern format is http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?IntFicHints The other
patterns I've worked on are listed at
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?InteractiveFictionPatterns The project has
kind of languished in recent years, but the information up there I
think is still useful. And maybe at some point, I'll try to go back
and update some of the old ones and come up with some newer ones.
It - There is, I think, a shared opinion in the IF community that
your best achievment in IF up to now is the famous language puzzle from
"The Edifice". Do you agree with this, or did you get more satisfaction
from elsewhere in your works?
Lucian chuckles.
It - Hit your pride, eh? :)
LS - My only real *game* so far has been 'Edifice', so we're on
pretty limited ground to begin with.
It - Yes, but I personally appreciated many other things in
Edifice.
LS - I will say that I was surprised at the level of intensity of
people's reaction to the Language puzzle. Oddly, I was in the unique
position of having written it, but of not really knowing how people
could 'solve' it, as it were.
LS - To put it another way, while I could envision a 'walkthrough'
for any of the other puzzles in the game, I couldn't envision a good
walkthrough for the Language puzzle. You just played around with it
for a while, and then you either got it or you didn't.
It - Yes
LS - At the same time, the focus on that puzzle had been so intense,
that I was quite surprised when Edifice also won the 'Best Puzzles'
XYZZY award for that year. The 'Best Puzzle' award I had expected, but
not that one. So, as far as feedback went, I got a lot more about that
one puzzle than all the rest combined.
LS - In the end: Yes, I think the Language puzzle was by best
contribution to the genre as a whole. But it was nice to know people
had appreciated the rest of the puzzles as well. And the biggest
feedback about those, in general, was how they were integrated into the
setting so well. No tacked-on puzzles, where you had to solve a
sliding-box to get the key, or whatever.
LS - And, as far as personal satisfaction goes, I'm probably equally
pleased with both, if only because it'll be easier to recreate the same
type of general puzzles in other games, while I doubt I'd be able to
pull off another Language one. Unless I get some brilliant idea
somewhere. But, then again, it probably wouldn't be the one I'd expect
if I did. So the general ones are things I can aspire to, while the
Language one feels more, to me, like a fluke.
It - There is a little group of italians trying just now to learn
inform. I read posts on this topic this very day on our ng. Since you
write yourself in this language, is there something particular you
would like to suggest to would-be inform programmers? Things to avoid,
features to exploit, something like this.
LS - Hmmm...
LS - Well, there's the classic: "Don't move items inside an
'objectloop(x in y)' construct.
LS - -It looks like the new Infix feature will be incredibly
useful--but there are still bugs to be worked out of the system. Don't
assume that every bug you come across is in the library, of course, but
don't rule it out, either.
LS - -Keep the copy of the DM handy. And keep an electronic copy
around, as well, so you can do searches for key phrases.
LS - -Likewise, keep copies of other people's source code around,
and search it for how they used things.
It - (The best method for me, so far...)
LS - -Don't feel stupid when you have to post a question to the
newsgroup. And, I think, don't worry about posting broken english on
raif--especially with code questions, it's usually not too hard to
figure out what you mean, and how to answer it. raif is a friendly
group, and if we really can't figure out what you're saying, we'll ask
for clarification.
LS - -Finally, read a lot about game design and Inform code, but
don't let that overwhelm you. Don't read so much *about* games that
you forget to actually *create* them. (At least, that tends to be *my*
biggest problem. ;-)
It - And now, as a sparkling end-question, a simple one. Which is
your all-time favourite game?
LS - Hey, that's mean! ;-)
It - Yes, that's simpla *and* mean
Lucian laughs.
LS - Well, I'm gonna be mean right back, and cheat. Breaking this
into different categories...
It - Hey!
LS - My favorite game from the '96 competition was Tapestry.
LS - My favorite from the '98 one was Photopia.
LS - In '97, my own game was in there, so I'm biased ;-)
LS - My favorite modern game would have to be, still, So Far. My
very first contribution to IF was invisiclue-style hints for that game,
I loved it so much. Although Bad Machine is pretty close.
LS - And I hope that's good enough, because I simply can't choose
from the classic bunch. They're all fun. Though perhaps my favorite
because it was unique was Plundered Hearts. (Though there were other
favorites for different reasons.)
It - I haven't played that.
LS - It's a great game. I expected it to be way cheesy, and it was
a blast.
It - That's exactly the kind of bias I have towards that game.
LS - And that may be why I liked it so much. My expectations were
so low, all that could happen was that it could be better!
Interestingly, it's also the one that I've played (and there are still
many I haven't) where the puzzles were most seamlessly integrated into
the story. So maybe I have an affinity for that type of game.
It - Goodnight and thanks to you.
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©2000 Simone Zanella e ©2000 IF Italia. E' vietata la riproduzione.