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I'm old-school, Scott Adams and Infocom all the way. I played some of the Legend games, but they really didn't do it for me, and the simple noun-verb parsers other engines used drove me up the wall. I think my favourite game from that era was Trinity. I've never really got into the newer stuff. Some of it's honestly interesting, like Galatea or Slouching, but a lot was just pretentious at best. This was probably ten years ago or so, and my attitude toward experimental media has become much more positive. I still don't understand what people see in Photopia, though.
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Mar 15, 2016 06:12
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 23:56 |
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I think my issues ultimately come down to my perception of the genre's purpose. Like I noted, I cut my teeth hunting and pecking at Scott Adams adventures, and grew up on Infocom games which... let's face it, mainly used the term Interactive Fiction in the loosest sense possible. They were adventure games, and the titles that tried to have more than a cursory plotline felt very confining and awkwardly narrated. Ones with a graphical component tended to fare better with me, though I hated Journey and Companions of Xanth. I suspect that it's because I really don't turn on for the fictional aspect of IF. I really don't care for what sometimes feels like a turn-based quicktime event to get the next few paragraphs, or pressing X to progress a JRPG's dialogue. My interaction feels superfluous, and requiring it feels manipulative. I'd get more out of a linear transcript. At the same time, I enjoy walking simulators... so god knows what's going on in my head. Perhaps I just need a thicker illusion of not being guided down the narrative corridor that's part and parcel of playing a game with a defined end-point.
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Mar 15, 2016 18:19
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Milky Moor posted:If edgy grotesque pornography and repetitive scenes of vomiting, urinating or making GBS threads yourself isn't your cup of tea, don't click the link. I knew that URL looked familiar. The shift from typed parsers to Twine reminds me of when Sierra dropped its own in favour of a mouse-driven interface. Playing guess-the-synonym was an unnecessary complication, and an artifact of outdated software. It also makes me think of the shift from Infocom-style adventure games to interactive fiction. If you're essentially telling a story, or engaging in a conversation, you don't really need anything more than a few hotspots to click on. I imagine there's a lot of people who'd love to write the next Photopia or Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die. Twine is easy. It's also just as easy to gently caress up with as a first go at Inform. I like once-aliendovecote's stuff for its weird imagery and use of the medium, as well as other projects like Uncle, but I think most people using it are barely beyond the level of 'Hello, World!' or myfirstwebsite.htm, or those godawful FMV adventure games from when CD-ROM was young. Sometimes that's 'ironic' or playful awfulness, but mostly it's using the internet as a fridge door for fingerpainting, or tossing a rough draft out as published.
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Oct 7, 2016 13:09
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That was a half-formed thought on my part, at best. I'm bad for those, especially in the morning. There are definitely some IF ideas that work very well with a Twine-like interface. On the other hand, I don't think something like Slouching Toward Bethlehem would work as well as it does without more parser-driven player agency, let alone something as complex as Varicella. I just finished playing Vesp. I'm not sure whether to soak myself in turpentine, paint myself with honey, or spend the Thanksgiving weekend cooped up with Alistair Reynolds novels. I think I need an adult.
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Oct 7, 2016 15:30
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