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And that is one oif the reasons Make it Good is the best IF.
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Aug 26, 2016 07:31
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Wolpertinger posted:I'm not sure I agree with the hard and fast rule that all Choice Of games submitted must let you pick race, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation regardless of the setting or the premise, and that your cast needs to be as close to 50/50 male/female as possible and have as diverse of a cast as possible unless you're literally in the ancient past where africans might not be found in feudal japan, and if you are in a historical setting where sexism might be a thing you should be able to genderflip the sexism. Well, that's one of the criticisms I level at Heroes Rise, that Sergi feels like he's just ticking boxes. Unfortunately, the official forums love those games precisely for that reason. I can't believe that they say these are the guidelines when Heroes Rise is maybe their flagship series - a game where you spend no real time superheroing, where you make choices about how you feel and not how you're going to act, and where NPCs do almost all of the heavy-lifting and where many of the choices you do make are 'gotcha' type things. I don't think there's anything wrong with most CYOA games letting people choose whatever they want - binary, non-binary, whatever - but it does come at a bit of a cost. I've played some Hosted Games where there are options where you pick your race, your eye color, your hair color, and so on... These choices are meaningless. The player doesn't need to pick green eyes over blue eyes unless it's actually going to matter. All this does is slow down the story and the decisions that're actually going to matter. Meaningless things like that - essentially protagonist set dressing - are things you can just let the player imagine. Of course, I also think sexual orientation is irrelevant too - if you're going to do romance, just let the player romance whoever (that's the one thing Dragon Age 2 did right!) The rules are interesting though, because Choice of Robots has a binary protagonist - male or female, nothing else. Of course, Choice of Robots is probably the best thing they've published. Writing my own game has been a very interesting experience. I know I hit a lot of inclusive things but it was the result of design work concerning a global story where the races and genders of these characters matter with how they've been treated, what their expectations are, and things like that. I can't imagine switching any of that because they'd be completely different people! Of course, if it's a fantastical setting where those things don't matter, sure, switch genders or whatever based on player choice. I'll just shrug and say okay but it means that the characters become that little bit more lifeless. However, the stats I used really don't matter and it's more about decisions made. Sure, there are stat-checks, but the way this design document indicates that stats rule all and should determine endings and all stats should be equal... it rubs me the wrong way. Sort of like how 'every ending must be awesome'. Which is also something Choice of Robots disregards (death at the earliest possible point ending). I was also surprised that there's no common mistake ruling on, say, Schrodinger's Choices. That is, a choice where the situation actually changes based on what you pick. This is something Heroes Rise did with your sidekick (they may or may not be the antagonist in disguise [yes, really] based on who you choose) and it's something I've seen in other games. The moment games start doing this is the moment I check out because it basically means there's no rules. Seeing opposition to this summed up as 'purist IF' was somewhat mystifying because I'd long expected that people would want to move away from how, say, the Goosebump books presented things. If you go to Page 31, Grandma is normal, but if you go to Page 76 then she's been a vampire monster from the start! edit: I can't believe I'm saying this - but it's one of the things that Starcraft 2 did well because while the facts of the world changed based on whether or not you sided with the Protoss, what it did was altered the themes and feel of the mini plot arcs. A story about standing strong in the face of overly zealous purifier aliens becomes a darker story about the futility of thinking you can save everyone. Unfortunately, I can't really see how expanding this kind of Schrodinger's Narrative to a more-detailed work or story arc (are there any examples?) simply due to how much you need to change to make it work. SC2 got away with it by having it be, like, two-mission mini arcs. Megazver posted:I mean, it's the guidelines for the poo poo they publish. So yeah, must and needs. Witcher 3 absolutely nailed that, though. Of course, that's because the choices were more far-reaching than just 'Does Geralt do A or B?' I think I saw a video that summed up a lot of Geralt's choices as basically being whether Geralt chooses to continue his life as a Witcher, which he enjoys but has some existential doubts about, or whether to try and let go of the past and embrace something different which might be better for him. It works really well when you think about Yennifer and Triss but also with his relationship to Ciri. It's absolutely not a story you could tell with a generic protagonist because it relies on so many pre-existing things to work. It needs Geralt to be, essentially, a father, to have had a number of tumultuous relationships, and to be known as a legend and, ultimately, to be a relic of the past. It's not a story that could work, in my opinion, if Geralt was a woman or gay or young because it's so caught up in what it means to be masculine and needing to step aside for the next generation. I can never praise Witcher 3's story enough because for all the monster killing, it's really just a story of an old man having to come to terms with the fact that his daughter is an independent woman who should make her own decisions. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Aug 26, 2016 |
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Aug 26, 2016 09:30
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Milky Moor posted:I can never praise Witcher 3's story enough because for all the monster killing, it's really just a story of an old man having to come to terms with the fact that his daughter is an independent woman who should make her own decisions. Not just that, though -- it's that you genuinely don't know the consequences of your decisions ahead of time most of the time. Just like real life!
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Aug 26, 2016 11:07
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After playing Device 6 i wanted to play a real text adventure for the first time so played Lost Pig and LOVED it.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:33
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Lost Pig was an excellent choice. If you like short and comedic, I'm also a fan of Violet. Although the comedy's a different style to Lost Pig, so.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:55
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potatocubed posted:Lost Pig was an excellent choice. I finished Violet and i liked it, the puzzles were great but the writing was too drat twee. Garden State-levels of cuteness. I think i might try a serious one next, to cleanse the palette.
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Sep 22, 2016 23:58
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Superluminal Vagrant Twin is fantastic.
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Sep 23, 2016 08:41
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Milky Moor posted:I can't believe that they say these are the guidelines when Heroes Rise is maybe their flagship series - a game where you spend no real time superheroing, where you make choices about how you feel and not how you're going to act, and where NPCs do almost all of the heavy-lifting and where many of the choices you do make are 'gotcha' type things. For what it's worth, you're talking about a game that's over four years old and this document was just posted. I started writing for them years ago and back then I never saw most of this.
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Sep 25, 2016 22:35
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IF Comp 2016 is live.
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Oct 2, 2016 09:50
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I played and rated a random selection so I feel my duty is done. I liked To The Wolves and the one about tripping balls at Burning Man, despite feeling nothing for disdain for Burning Man as a concept. Which other ones are people enjoying?
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Oct 6, 2016 11:30
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Ugh, its mostly bad CYOA stuff. I wish they had separated it out into 'crappy CYOA stories' and 'actual interactive fiction'. I'm sure some of the games are more than: read a page or two worth of text and then click the hyperlink at the bottom. But that's not really what I'm looking for with a text adventure, usually there would be a gem or two in the newest IFcomp, but now its all random no puzzle stories.
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Oct 7, 2016 01:42
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What's a good app for doing text adventures on an Android phone? Everyone talks about FROTZ but it's not on the store or anything.
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Oct 7, 2016 03:44
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This medium has devolved into utter crap. Back in my day we had to type stuff. CYOA games are not text adventures and should have a seperate competition. This contest has become a shameful mockery. I guess it's too difficult to program one for most people! I will enter next year and show them all how it's done. Is there a list out there with the entries that are actual text adventures? So that I don't have to wade through poo poo to find a real game.
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Oct 7, 2016 06:29
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John F Bennett posted:This medium has devolved into utter crap. Back in my day we had to type stuff. CYOA games are not text adventures and should have a seperate competition. This contest has become a shameful mockery. Eh, it depends. I can't say something like Choice of Robots isn't amazing IF with a straight face. However, the purist in me does think there should be a separation between parser IF and CYOA IF. Now, something that comes from the Twine arena? Like the stuff by Porpentine, like Cyberqueen? The stuff that people tell me demonstrates how great Twine can be? Then we can start talking about things that aren't really IF. 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. 4/5 stars on IFDB, called "a masterpiece" with "excellent writing" with no choices that actually change things but that's okay because it is "deconstructing" the "power fantasy". Yeah. When I think IF, I definitely think 'power fantasy'. I can't help but read a lot of Twine things which are - sort of like Sergi's Heroes Rise stuff - made by people who don't really know the history of the medium, which I know sounds horribly elitist of me. But I'm also yet to play a Twine game I'd call truly great, too, because I think the 'click on hyperlinks with no idea what moves forward or what leads into a loop' mechanic is loving terrible. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 7, 2016 07:16
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Milky Moor posted:Eh, it depends. I can't say something like Choice of Robots isn't amazing IF with a straight face. However, the purist in me does think there should be a separation between parser IF and CYOA IF. I weirdly agree with your twine argument, because off the top of my head I can't name a Twine game that didn't seem convoluted
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Oct 7, 2016 08:01
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:I weirdly agree with your twine argument, because off the top of my head I can't name a Twine game that didn't seem convoluted I really liked the one where you turn into a demon, and I think The Uncle Who Works At Nintendo is Twine, too - the latter, though, basically works on the fact that's it convoluted and requires multiple playthroughs to have any idea what choices to make when and the former makes it really clear when a choice moves stuff forward or not. But both of those always seem pretty different to most Twine games that get recommended to me. Like With Those We Love Alive which I can only really describe as a mishmash of random imagery and hyperlinks while I was supposed to be serving in a royal court? Or something?
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Oct 7, 2016 08:20
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rumble in the bunghole posted:What's a good app for doing text adventures on an Android phone? Everyone talks about FROTZ but it's not on the store or anything. I'm using something called 'Text Fiction'. It's not spectacular, but it works.
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Oct 7, 2016 08:27
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John F Bennett posted:
If only there were some kind of description or file format listing under each entry which described which platform v  v16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds: Short game approx 10-15min with quite a few endings. The hint system at the end is useful which doesn't always show up in Twine. A realistic take on how vampire hunting might work out in modern times minus carrying tons of swords/guns and secret castles. All I Do is Dream I feel like the creator gave up half into the intro. Skip. Cactus Blue Motel I liked Arcane Intern from last time so I had good idea what to expect this time around. Very atmospheric but I ended up getting stuck since one of the NPCs went missing. Oh well. This is My Memory of First Heartbreak, Which I Can't Quite Piece Back Together I got one ending and I just kinda zoned out right after. Not sure if there's more to the story or not. Unique art style. To The Wolves Reminds me of a fairy tale but is oddly paced. The intro and middle are fine but the ending feels rushed. I may replay this to see if there's more of the story I haven't explored yet.
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Oct 7, 2016 12:22
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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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Twine is, like, fine. It lowers the bar on who can submit something but that's, like, also fine. The poo poo will get flushed down the drain, anyway, and we'll get an extra couple of good games out of it. If you only want parser, just play the games made on parser platforms. Last year's Twine-based Birdland placed fourth in the Comp and won a bunch of XYZZYs and I thought it was fantastic. Porcupine's schtick is creating weird worldbuilding through evocative imagery. Not every game works for me - I am not a big fan of oh-so-edgy mood pieces either - but I did enjoy With Those We Love Alive and Ruiness, for example. I think you might like Ultra Business Tycoon III. It's pretty game-y and it's amusing and it has puzzles, even though it's a Twine game. Personally I prefer the kind of limited parser games CEJ Pacian and Chandler Groover make. It's a promising direction for IF to head in.
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Oct 7, 2016 13:53
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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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Megazver posted:Twine is, like, fine. It lowers the bar on who can submit something but that's, like, also fine. The poo poo will get flushed down the drain, anyway, and we'll get an extra couple of good games out of it. If you only want parser, just play the games made on parser platforms. Last year's Twine-based Birdland placed fourth in the Comp and won a bunch of XYZZYs and I thought it was fantastic. I forgot Birdland was twine
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Oct 7, 2016 19:10
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Alder posted:To The Wolves Reminds me of a fairy tale but is oddly paced. The intro and middle are fine but the ending feels rushed. I may replay this to see if there's more of the story I haven't explored yet. Oh, hey, I wrote To the Wolves. I'm glad you liked it Thank you for the feedback on the pacing, it was tough balancing it out. Learning experience!Did any other goons end up entering?
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Oct 8, 2016 21:43
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mycelia posted:
Sure, twenty years ago exactly. First code I ever compiled. Back then we called inform c-like and twine html.
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Oct 12, 2016 22:06
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mycelia posted:Oh, hey, I wrote To the Wolves. I'm glad you liked it Nice, I did like the prose since it didn't feel awkward at all. Uh, I've been thinking of entering for the last 2-3 yrs? I found IF back in HS but never got around learning Inform7.
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Oct 12, 2016 22:37
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I was going to enter, but my project was waaaaaay too ambitious for the time I had. My plan is to have something ready for the Spring Thing instead.
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Oct 12, 2016 23:18
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Alder posted:Nice, I did like the prose since it didn't feel awkward at all. Aaron Reed's book about learning Inform is pretty good. Megazver fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Oct 13, 2016 |
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Oct 13, 2016 13:25
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Megazver posted:Aaron Reed's books about learning Inform is pretty good. Ordered
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Oct 13, 2016 16:49
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I've been on a bit of an Inkle binge and am craving good CYOA recommendations! I tried a few Choice Of demos, but they left a bit of a meh impression. I don't really know how to properly phrase my concerns, but they felt more like a dating sim (with dating substituted for given game's topic) than a cool story/fun game.
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Nov 15, 2016 11:02
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Lichtenstein posted:I've been on a bit of an Inkle binge and am craving good CYOA recommendations! Actually, choice of robots is really good imo. If you haven't played Birdland do so, it's great.
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Nov 15, 2016 11:18
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Being able to make your character whatever gender and date whoever you want is house style, yeah. It's mandatory in their guidelines for games they'd publish. They remind me of Bioware in that regard. Maybe give Choice of the Deathless a try, it's pretty good. This isn't quite a CYOA, but I think you'll enjoy Superluminal Vagrant Twin. It's parser, but it's restricted parser with like five commands and it's a cool sandbox-y space captain simulator.
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Nov 15, 2016 11:24
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Lichtenstein posted:I've been on a bit of an Inkle binge and am craving good CYOA recommendations! I'm a huge fan of Choice of the Deathless. And the Kindle books it's based on. (Max Gladstone, if you're interested.) In a more traditional IF vein, I also love Counterfeit Monkey.
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Nov 15, 2016 11:27
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potatocubed posted:I'm a huge fan of Choice of the Deathless. And the Kindle books it's based on. (Max Gladstone, if you're interested.) Seconding Counterfeit Monkey
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Nov 15, 2016 11:32
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Lichtenstein posted:I've been on a bit of an Inkle binge and am craving good CYOA recommendations! Choice of Robots is actually quite good. Choice of Alexandria is also impressive, but for different reasons. There are a lot of Choice Of titles that don't quite succeed and I think part of that is due to the guidelines (and the wishes of the typical userbase). I generally play everything they put on Steam, though. I don't like self-promotion but I'm actually on track to releasing a Hosted Game in the near future (through review successfully, just doing art and such now), which I wanted to hew closer to a story with choices than choices with a story, if that makes sense. edit: Which ones have you tried? I'm happy to recommend the ones I liked (and finished) and the ones I played (but didn't finish). Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Nov 15, 2016 |
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Nov 15, 2016 11:51
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Counterfeit Monkey is excellent, but Lichtenstein asked for CYOA and CM is, like, full parser and they might not be ready to Go Full Parser.
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Nov 15, 2016 11:58
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Choice of the Deathless was actually one of the demos I tried, as I like Gladstone's ideas a lot. The demo wasn't the best sell though, as it basically consisted of: - A lot of setup for the resource management minigame (what with managing sleep and student debt). I don't mind it as context (akin to the journey of 80 Days), but it felt somewhat... Domineering? In like dating sims are ultimately about grinding some dumb numbers? - The game prompting me some three times if I'm sure I'm not gay for some serious Bioware/dating sim vibes, - Kinda one proper vignette to introduce characters and maybe nudge dating sim-esque opinion meters a bit. Still, if you say there are indeed cool necrolawyer cases down the line, I'll probably bite, if only to throw a buck at Gladstone. Replayability aside, how long should I expect it to be? The other one I checked out was the metahuman corp one, which seemed like a fun premise, but it appeared to lean even harder on the "let's crunch some numbers and assess you after a year of performance". Any opinions on it? And do most Choice of games have this Harvest Moon structure, or have I happened to just stumbled onto such examples? Also the reason I got hooked on the CYOAs in the past days is that it they work nice and pleasant on my Android tablet, so I guess that's a consideration. I tried emulating Hadean Lands before and  let me tell you, parser should be left for the PC. I mostly dismissed the genre before, due to the sea of twine dredge and dislike of Failbetter games*.* Which is a shame, as there's a lot of cool ideas and good writing in their vignettes, it's just that everything around it is kind of infuriatingly bad.
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Nov 15, 2016 12:29
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As I recall, the resource management is basically not really a thing in CoD. He might have wanted to do more with it, but ultimately didn't. But yeah, every one of Choice of titles will exhaustively quiz you about genitalia at the start.
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Nov 15, 2016 12:53
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Lichtenstein posted:Choice of the Deathless was actually one of the demos I tried, as I like Gladstone's ideas a lot. The demo wasn't the best sell though, as it basically consisted of: I think that's more a problem of Choice Of's writing guidelines. Based on my perusal of them, it seems like they really like it when numbers affect the player's results and in order to get the best endings you need to have the best numbers. However, some of them (Choice of Robots in particular) throws enough numbers at you that grinding isn't an issue but there are neat outcomes for being critically low or extremely high in certain stats. quote:The other one I checked out was the metahuman corp one, which seemed like a fun premise, but it appeared to lean even harder on the "let's crunch some numbers and assess you after a year of performance". Any opinions on it? And do most Choice of games have this Harvest Moon structure, or have I happened to just stumbled onto such examples? Metahuman Inc? I couldn't get into it to the extent that I didn't make it past the first few scenes. It felt like I had no idea who I was, when I was, or what the world was like (some kind of superhero/magic/kitchen sink pastiche, maybe?) Opening the game with a barrage of questions at a press conference that may or may not affect the numbers I got at the end also felt like a weak beginning. I think I dropped it after the 'interview these three characters you haven't met before for a position you know nothing about'. The punctuation was a problem too, if I remember right. I liked and finished Mecha Ace, Psy High and A Wise Use of Time and it is my belief that Choice of Robots is maybe the best release in the whole CoG stable. I was not a fan of Diabolical, Pendragon Rising or Community College Hero. Stay far away from the Heroes Rise series and Versus (they actually contracted a second one of those?) because they are the peak of the dating-sim-with-numbers cluster (among many other things). Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Nov 15, 2016 |
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Nov 15, 2016 13:49
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IF comp results are in: https://ifcomp.org/comp/2016 The winning game has a very interesting and cool interface. Although I'm still more of a typing person myself.
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Nov 18, 2016 12:52
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Not the one I'd have picked. I think experimentation with interface is important for the future of parser IF, but this particular implementation didn't do much for me and the game itself left me somewhat cold.
Megazver fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Nov 18, 2016 |
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Nov 18, 2016 13:09
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