
Rule-Based Programming in Interactive Fiction - krs
http://eblong.com/zarf/essays/rule-based-if/index.html
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almost
Slightly off topic but I quite fancy playing some sort of text adventure
again. Anyone got suggestions for a good one to start with?

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jcl
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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XYZZY_Awards_by_category#Best_game)

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

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dhs
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>

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adsyoung
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.

