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Wow, this one's popped up again... curiously enough not too long after I started again with Inform 6. I've already written a post about it which I won't reproduce here, but suffice to say that it's easier to handle and write in than 5 (particularly, I think, for non-programmers) but is also much more powerful. It's interesting to see a language created by people who are writers of both literature and software.
The problem I found that I had with writing actual pieces of work - as opposed to little vignettes, or rooms with one ridiculously detailed implementation of, say, smoking a cigarette - is that I'm rubbish at creating puzzles and putting in "game" elements. It just doesn't come naturally to me. I love creating environments and characters, I just don't really care that much for making them into challenges for players. This was always the problem that I had with writing scenarios for pencil-and-paper RPGs as well; maybe I should look back and see how I got round that. Even then, though, the games that I ran were always more notable for the background detail and my improvising around the actions of the PCs, rather than any really tricksy puzzles and situations set up beforehand, and it's pretty hard to improvise with a static text adventure.
I was thinking that maybe I could just work on finishing environments rather than producing actual games, so that people who enjoy the sort of things I do could explore them. This would tie into the "sandbox games" thread here I suppose.
nb: I saw some pieces about Hotel Dusk but I was rather put off by one review which had started off with very positive expectations but had huge criticisms of the interface and the actual process of play; it made the game sound like an endless procession of doorknob-rattling and trying to touch things for no good reason. I'd be interested to hear how you enjoy it as you go along.
Will take a look at Book and Volume as well. Personally I recommend anything by Emily Short (whose stuff I particularly like, and who was one of the developers of Inform 6 too)... pretty much anything ranked five stars on Baf's Guide is guaranteed to be good, though I'm struggling to remember the exact names. There's one really excellent sci-fi one where you play the part of... hell, I don't want to spoiler it... ah yes, Spider And Web. Almost perfect in its genre. Graham Nelson writes some terrific stuff, like Jigsaw, but I'm not embarrassed to say that I find that his puzzles are often too hard (or too inobvious) for me, and reduce the enjoyment I get from the story. I don't like using solutions. |
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