Rule-Based Programming in Interactive Fiction

http://eblong.com/zarf/essays/rule-based-if/index.html

by krs • 17 years ago

47 6 17 years ago

adsyoung2• 17 years ago

Anyone else here been following Chris Crawford's adventures into interactive fiction in trying to get away from the rule based approaches?

dhs• 17 years ago

I did, and he didn't.

I think Crawford has two problems:

1. He's not a good storyteller.

2. Stories you tell using a computer need to be rule-based if the computation is expected to have a (controlled/authored) effect on the story's meaning (i.e. if the computer acts as more than a "projector").

What I find ironic is that he ended up making "Balance of Power - 21st Century" [1], posted lots of progress reports to his forums detailing all his experiments with numerical calculations to affect the play state, and then the finished game was all about voting for or against countries and tallying up. No storytelling to speak of, no characters you'd care about whatsoever. I believe that Crawford is an obsessed man who tragically misunderstood what a story is.

[1] http://storytron.com/play-bop2k.php

adsyoung2• 17 years ago

I agree. Even if he is right in his approach, he could really do with being teamed up with someone who has a personality as strong as his and is much better at the aesthetic and fun part.

The sad thing about BOP2K is that for all the potentially clever things going on behind the scenes, you could probably re-write it with a handful of simple rules and random generators and 99% of users could not tell the difference.

My biggest concern with his approach has always been that ultimately it will just feel like you are randomly poking the world to try and make something interesting happen.The chance of an interesting narrative developing is some where in the realm of winning the lottery.

Add on top of that the chance that it will ever be in form that people actually enjoy and want.

I do applaud the man's passion, a lot of his ideas and willingness to try it though. I hope one day someone picks up his books and surprises us all by making it, or some form of it, work.

almost• 17 years ago

Slightly off topic but I quite fancy playing some sort of text adventure again. Anyone got suggestions for a good one to start with?

knightrider• 17 years ago

Notepad

jcl• 17 years ago

I've not played a text adventure in years, but it seems like these might be a good start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XYZZY_Awards_by_categor...

Rule-Based Programming in Interactive Fiction

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