The following is an interview between me (lpsmith) and Stephen Granade (Sargent) about his game "Losing Your Grip". The 'meat' of the interview is in the left-hand column, and people's comings and goings as well as comments they made on a 'channel' called #peanut-gallery are in the right-hand column. Also, at one point the interview moves to yet another channel called #spoilers. This has been whited out so you won't accidentally read it, so if you want to read it, simply highlight the seemingly-blank area after '[spoilers]'. Enjoy!
If you want a transcript without the #peanut-gallery chat, you can go here.
| lpsmith asks, "OK, shall we begin?" | |
| BoingBall says, "Why not." | |
| Sargent exclaims, "Wait, wait, I'm still studying! I'm not ready for a quiz!" | |
| Jota asks (of Sargent), "Where were you on the night of Jan 23, 1947?" | |
| Sargent says, "Oh, sorry. Channeled one of my students for a moment." | |
| lpsmith says (to Sarge), "You had a week's extension. No excuses." | |
| lpsmith says, "OK, a few ground rules." | |
| Sargent says (to lpsmith), "Wait, I thought this was about "Losing Your Grip", not "Common Ground"" | |
| lpsmith says, "First, this isn't exactly like the old Saudade interviews, which were cut-n-paste fests." | |
| lpsmith says, "Heh." | |
| lpsmith says, "These are more 'live'--though we've chatted about general topics." | |
| Jota asks, "No festing here?" | |
| BoingBall asks, "What about festering?" | <davec> davec has disconnected from daveMUD. |
| <davec> davec has connected to daveMUD. | |
| lpsmith says, "Also, I'd like the format to be more 'talk-show' like--if you have a question, raise your hand, and I'll call on you--even during the interview." | |
| Jota asks, "Can we start fights onstage?" | |
| Doe says (to Jota), "hehehe" | |
| lpsmith says (to Jota), "I have in my notes "Wait here for talk show joke."" | |
| lpsmith says, "If you have chatty/snarky things to say, use #peanut-gallery, though." | |
| BoingBall exclaims (at Jota), "You didn't raise your hand!" | <andyf> Zrblm. |
| Sargent says, "And remember -- I'll be monitoring this channel." | |
| Jota asks, "Can we start fights onstage?" | |
| HairBrain says, "I like snark, especially in my cocoa." | |
| BoingBall says, "We can always start meta-fights here on #peanut." | |
| Jota asks, "But is it a boojum?" | |
| Doe says, "shucks" | |
| andyf climbs up the ladder and enters the room. | |
| Ryan says, "#sargent-sux He's not in this channel, though." | |
| lpsmith says, "I've muted #peanut-gallery, so if discussion there is relevant to the interview bit, raise your hand and bring it over." | Doe says (to Ryan), "hehe" |
| Sargent says, "And actually, I'll be leaving as well for better concentration." | |
| <PloverGuest> PloverGuest has connected to daveMUD. | |
| BoingBall asks, "Does it have to be hands, or can we raise something else?" | |
| Jota exclaims, "Woohoo! He's gone!" | |
| <trikiw> trikiw has connected to daveMUD. | |
| andyf asks, "Wait, this is the LYG interview, innit?" | |
| Marvin has joined the channel. | |
| <PloverGuest> PloverGuest has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Doe says (to andyf), "yup" | |
| andyf says, "I haven't finished the game yet, so I'll duck out." | |
| Jota says (to SF), "No, that's in the Carousel." | |
| BoingBall says, "Aw, damn. Now we can't say stuff about Marvin." | |
| lpsmith says, "If you're talking and have something more to say, append your statement with elipses (...)." | andyf goes home. |
| <andyf> Wait a minute! This isn't a robot-brain transfer facility! It's just a vacant lot filled with watermelons! | |
| Jota says, "This is the Snarky Comments About the LYG Integerview." | |
| trikiw climbs up the ladder and enters the room. | |
| Sargent asks (of lpsmith), "A side note: does that apply to me, or would you rather I say END when I'm done?" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Anyone want to make a 'ground rules' type sign for latecomers?" | |
| lpsmith says (to Sarge), "Pick one, but let me know which you pick ;-)" | |
| Jota nods, "Not a bad idea." | Ryan prefers his rules whole. |
| lpsmith says (to Jota), "Thanks." | |
| Sargent says, "I'll go with saying END when I'm done, since I'll probably forget ellipses." | BoingBall asks, "He nodded it? What, in morse code?" |
| lpsmith nods. | <PloverGuest> PloverGuest has connected to daveMUD. |
| Ryan says, "He should say, 'GRIP LOST' when he's done." | |
| PloverGuest materializes. | |
| lpsmith says (to Plover), "Greetings ;-)" | |
| PloverGuest exclaims, "Hello!" | |
| lpsmith asks (of PG), "You want a regular character before we start?" | |
| PloverGuest says, "I was looking for the IF book club meeting." | |
| lpsmith says, "This is it." | |
| lpsmith says, "We were just starting." | |
| Jota says (to Plover), "You've been found by it." | |
| PloverGuest says, "Yes, I would." | |
| lpsmith asks (of PG), "What name do you want?" | BoingBall asks, "Someone logging this with #peanut?" |
| K says, "Yes." | |
| BoingBall says, "Good." | |
| Doe says, "that shoots down my plans to be nasty" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Should we invite Anita for recap?" | BoingBall says, "Not mine. Heh heh heh." |
| Sargent says, "Sure." | Doe says, "hehe" |
| PloverGuest goes home. | |
| <PloverGuest> PloverGuest has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Anita materializes. | |
| <Lionheart> Lionheart has connected to daveMUD. | |
| BoingBall asks, "Is Alex's absence deliberate here?" | |
| Jota says, "Just don't mention pbex ahgf." | Lionheart climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Lionheart says, "Thank you." | |
| Lionheart says, "plate" | Doe says, "pbex ahgf" |
| lpsmith says (to Lion), "No prob." | |
| Lionheart says, "plate bookies" | |
| lpsmith exclaims, "OK, here we go!" | |
| Lionheart picks up the Sentient Plate of Cookies and feels its thousands of tiny legs scrambling frantically in the air. | |
| Lionheart sets the Sentient Plate of Cookies down on the ground. | |
| lpsmith says (to Lion), "Shh ;-)" | |
| Lionheart says, "Oh, I say everything I type." | |
| Doe says (to Lion), "talk on #peanut-gallery" | |
| BoingBall says (to Lion), "Well, we see what you're doing, yeah." | trikiw has joined the channel. |
| Doe says, "nothing happened when I mentioned pbex ahgf, btw" | |
| The Sentient Plate of Cookies raises a cookie and waves it around. | |
| lpsmith and Sargent (aka Stephen Granade) step over to the dias. A spotlight illuminates them. | |
| Sentient Plate of Cookies disappears. | |
| Sargent blinks in the sudden glare. | Ryan says, "Arr." |
| Jota asks, "Dias or dais?" | |
| Ryan says, "SPoC had a question to ask Sargent." | |
| BoingBall asks, "SPoC?" | |
| lpsmith says, "Er, one more thing: Here There Be Spoilers for Grip. You have been warned." | Doe says (to Boing), "has pointy ears" |
| lpsmith asks (of Sarge), "OK, let's start by telling us a bit about yourself. You're a graduate student, right?" | BoingBall has disconnected. |
| BoingBall goes home. | |
| Sargent says, "Yes. I'm in the physics graduate program at Duke, and have been since 1995." | |
| Sargent says, "If I'm lucky, I'll graduate sometime in the next year or so with a Ph.D. in physics." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "So you wrote Grip while at Duke?" | BoingBall asks, "Urf. Could someone @teleport me to the grill?" |
| Sargent says, "Yes and no." | BoingBall materializes. |
| Sargent says, "The first post I made to rec.arts.int-fiction which referred to Losing Your Grip, albeit indirectly, was in 1993." | BoingBall says, "Thanks." |
| Sargent says, "(references available upon request)" | Jota says, "No prob. Though you were here." |
| Jota says, "s/Though/Thought/" | |
| Sargent says, "At that time, Kevin Wilson of Once and Future/Avalon fame was pushing his planned IF company, Vertigo Software." | BoingBall says, "Was. Then wasn't. Now am again." |
| Sargent says, "I talked to him about having Vertigo do something with Losing Your Grip. He was excited about it." | Doe says, "hmmm, news to me" |
| Sargent says, "We e-mailed back and forth, discussing the game. And then the whole thing fell through." | |
| Sargent says, "I got far enough to plan out the first fit and set the overall structure of the game, but nothing more than that." | |
| lpsmith nods. | |
| Sargent says, "The first year of physics graduate school, as with a lot of other graduate programs, is time-intensive. I was working around 100 hours a week, with no time for IF." | Doe asks, "are lpsmith and Sarge wearing makeup?" |
| Sargent says, "The second year, however, I had a lot more free time. So I re-started work on Grip." | trikiw says, "they usually do" |
| Sargent says, "I mapped out the rest of Grip over six months, then spent a year coding and beta-testing." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Doe says (to trikiw), "aha, thought it was for the camera" |
| Jota says, "They borrow it from Caoif." | |
| BoingBall asks, "END?" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Was the final form of the game much different than you had envisioned it in '94?" | HairBrain says (to BB), "It's nigh." |
| Ryan says, "#belated Boingball You meant 'Was, Not Was'." | |
| LoneCleric goes home. | |
| <LoneCleric> LoneCleric has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Jota says (to BoB), "Translation: 'I have finished this answer; feel free to ask another question now.'" | |
| Sargent says, "In parts. Originally I was going to have a *lot* more chapters (which weren't fits at the time)." | BoingBall says, "Oh. Sorry, I thought... never mind." |
| Sargent says, "And the player's actions were going to have a significant impact on the flow of the story." | HairBrain boggles. |
| Sargent says, "The exponential combinations of objects quickly squelched that." | |
| lpsmith nods. | BoingBall asks (of Ryan), "?" |
| Ryan says, "Forget it." | |
| <Jaybird> Jaybird has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Doe says (to Jota), "belated hehe" | |
| Sargent says, "The other big difference was that the story I was telling evolved a lot between when I started and when I finished designing." | |
| Sargent says, "By the end I found a completely different story had emerged, one which I didn't realize I was telling at first." | |
| Sargent says, "But the overall structure of reality vs interior life was there from the beginning." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "So you always had the idea of the chapter/interlude motif?" | BoingBall says, "He could just whisper it to lpsmith, or something." |
| <Jaybird> Jaybird has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Doe says (to Boing), "well lps wanted elipses but I don't think (..) is any better" | |
| Sargent says, "Yes. I wanted to contrast the exterior events going on around the character with the interior landscape, and I wanted the line between the two to become blurred over time." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Jota doesn't mind END. |
| lpsmith asks, "In the final game, the 'reality' bits were all relatively short. Did you ever have bigger plans for those scenes?" | BoingBall says, "I don't have a _problem_ with it, I just think it would probably look better to someone reading this later on, say." |
| Doe says, "emote only minds her END." | |
| HairBrain says, "Yeah? Well I only mind yer MOM." | |
| Doe says, "er, emote = Doe" | |
| Sargent says, "I did at first, but I found they were uninteresting compared to what was going on inside. Originally the player was going to leave the clinic, go back to a "normal" life, but keep having these flashbacks." | |
| lpsmith nods. | Jota says, "Admittedly, <END> might be better." |
| Doe says (to Hair), "funny I argue with my MOM like crazy" | |
| Sargent says, "That structure was too sprawling, though, and I kept losing focus. So I trimmed it back, so as not to steal attention from what I thought was important about the story." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "In broad strokes (and if you don't mind giving too much away), what *was* the story you found yourself telling? And what did you think it was originally?" | |
| Sargent says, "I don't want to say What It All Means -- story by authorial fiat isn't nearly as interesting to me as hearing what people come up with on their own." | |
| lpsmith says, "Naturally." | |
| Sargent says, "But originally I thought the story I was telling was, "Person who has lead the unexplored life is forced to review the past."" | |
| Sargent says, "And the more I worked on it, and the more I learned about Terry, the more I realized that the family relationships, and relationships in general, were what were underpinning the story." | |
| lpsmith nods. | |
| Sargent says, "That's not to say that it's all about relationships. You can play through Grip and view it as a skewed story about puzzles. That's certainly fine by me." | <mcp> "The dog ate my cell phone." |
| lpsmith grins. | |
| Sargent says, "And the relationship imagery is not as pervasive as in, say, So Far." | |
| Sargent says, "But the relationship between the father and Terry, between Terry and Terry's mind, etc. etc., is what drove the story for me." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Would you say that the relationship motif is completely abset from Fit 4?" | mcp climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "No." | |
| Sargent says, "And that's probably going to be my most controversial answer. :)" | |
| lpsmith grins. | |
| Sargent says, "The focus in that fit is puzzles, but in my mind there were links to the relationship motif." | mcp enters the discussion very belatedly |
| Sargent says, "Clearly I could have made those links more obvious. Had I to do it over, I think I would tweak that fit somewhat, for that reason and for others." | |
| Sargent says, "But even as it stands, Fit 4 involves relationships to a certain degree." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "In overall themes, or in specific puzzles? Or both?" | |
| Sargent says, "In overall themes more than in specific puzzles. The math-oriented fit especially has abstract puzzles which don't tie into the plot, per se." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith nods. | |
| lpsmith asks, "Now, Losing Your Grip was not your first work of IF. What would you say you had learned from your previous games?" | |
| Sargent says, "Don't kill the player with laser beams or exploding boats." | |
| lpsmith laughs. | |
| Doe says, "hehe" | trikiw exclaims, "hey! those are great ideas!" |
| BoingBall has disconnected. | |
| BoingBall goes home. | |
| Sargent says, "My first publically released game, "Waystation," was very much the work of someone who said, "Hey, I like text adventures. I'll write one!"" | |
| Sargent says, "I put very little thought into design aspects." | BoingBall materializes. |
| mcp says, "EsplodingBoatComp" | |
| Jota says, "Huh, I guess *someone* doesn't like the Maze of Doom... :)" | |
| Doe says (to trikiw), "sounds like they've already been used :-)" | |
| Sargent says, ""Undertow" involved a lot more thought. I wanted to write a locked-room mystery, but didn't want to set it in a room. So it ended up on a boat, which is larger but still "locked"." | PerrySimm says, "Don't forget you can raise your hand with questions if you have any." |
| BoingBall asks (of Perry), "I think I will forget. What are you going to do about it?" | |
| Sargent says, "But I didn't beta-test it. I was entering it in the 1995 competition, and I thought you weren't supposed to give it to beta-testers." | Ryan says, "Sentient Plate of Cookies tried that and got @teleported away. So I'm scared to." |
| Doe says (to Perry), "but I was taught to raise my hand when I have to... nevermind" | |
| lpsmith says, "Whoops ;-)" | HairBrain's eyes widen. |
| Sargent says, "The result was a very bug-ridden game. Very, very bug-ridden game." | mcp asks, "'sentient plate of cookies'?" |
| Sargent says, "Mike Kinyon, the Platonic ideal of a beta-tester, sent me a ten-page list of bugs after voting closed that year. Whoops, heh heh." | |
| lpsmith says, "Wow." | BoingBall says (to mcp), "You missed it." |
| mcp says (to bb), "aye :-(" | |
| Ryan says, "I'm holding it now, because if I drop it, it might get removed again." | |
| BoingBall says, "It was teleported away after Lionbrain fiddling with it." | |
| Sargent says, "I also learned that you're going to make design decisions which people don't like." | |
| Sargent says, "For instance, Gareth Rees, in his review of Undertow, expressed frustration that I didn't let you pick up the gun that one of the characters left lying around." | BoingBall says, "s/fiddling/fiddled." |
| Jota asks (of Ryan), "Perhaps you can ask the question on its behalf?" | |
| Sargent says, "I had a very good reason for doing that -- namely, time constraints -- but it did annoy a lot of people." | |
| Sargent says, "It really made me think about the misdirection involved in IF. I'm working on an essay about that for r.a.i-f, so look for more from me on this subject." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| Doe raises hand. | |
| lpsmith asks, "Time constraints as in time you had to write the game?" | Ryan says (to Jota), "Well, 'do you prefer chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies' isn't really something I'm curious about. :)" |
| BoingBall says (to Doe), "Woohoo, go for it." | |
| <Gunther> Gunther has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "Yes. I decided to enter the competition about two months before the deadline, and that summer I was newly married and working at NASA before coming to Duke. So the game was very very rushed." | Gunther climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "And I spent a lot of time learning about yachts, time which I probably should have spent coding and debugging." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | BoingBall says (to Gunther), "Hey" |
| lpsmith asks, "We have a question from our studio audience. Doe?" | Gunther says, "oh damn, forgot about this." |
| Sargent listens intently. | Gunther says, "i was seeing sleepy hollow" |
| BoingBall asks, "So did I, and turned up right at the start. How about that?" | |
| Doe asks, "Since you've been writing IF for awhile, what is the thing that has most changed about HOW you write IF now? And do you find it easier now?" | <inky> inky has connected to daveMUD. |
| Sargent says, "What's most changed is that I think more about what I'm doing." | inky climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| HairBrain flails an appendage. | |
| Sargent says, "Part of that is because of my job with About.com. I write an article a week, and I get bored writing just game reviews and previews. So I tend to wander off into random byways of IF theory." | |
| Sargent says, "After three years of that, I've found myself much more aware of what effect I'm likely to have if I make a certain design decision." | |
| Sargent says, "Is it easier? Well, the coding aspect is. I've been working with TADS since 1992, and I know the language pretty well." | |
| Sargent says, "However, I keep wanting to try new things with my games, so as it gets easier, I make it harder on myself." | |
| Sargent says, "Have I made a puzzle game before? Well, let's try graphics, then. Hey, I've never tried a pure story game -- I think I'll make one." | |
| Sargent says, "And that makes things harder. Character flaw or good idea? You be the judge." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Now, your About job was post-Grip, right?" | BoingBall says (to Hair), "Looks like you've missed it." |
| HairBrain says, "Don't get your knickers in a knot just yet." | |
| Doe says, "Well, that wasn't too hard." | |
| Sargent says, "They overlapped slightly. I started work with About in the spring of 1997, at which point Grip was being beta-tested. I wanted to release Grip in mid-1997, but my beta-testers could only slog through the game so fast, and the competition distracted everyone. So I ended up releasing Grip in January of 1998." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | BoingBall says, "Good question." |
| Jota says, "Clearly, lps has gagged HB." | |
| lpsmith takes the microphone over to another section of the bar, where HairBrain has a question. | BoingBall says, "Ah, no." |
| HairBrain asks (of Sarge), "What sort of misdirection were you referring to way back there about three screens ago?" | Jota says, "Just like the rest o-- I mean, uh.." |
| lpsmith grins. | |
| Sargent asks, "If I deny I said anything, can I get away with not answering?" | |
| lpsmith laughs. | |
| Sargent exclaims, "Alternatively, look over there! A three-headed monkey!" | |
| BoingBall says, "Heh." | |
| Sargent says, "Anyway. When you get down to it, interactive fiction is a very limiting medium." | |
| Sargent says, "You get this > prompt which says, in effect, "Type anything you want and tell me what to do. I'll understand."" | |
| HairBrain asks, "How to lead the player, then?" | |
| Sargent says, "Right." | |
| Sargent says, "Because that prompt is lying." | Jarb has joined the channel. |
| Sargent says, "The game only understands a small subset of commands, and then only if they fit a certain syntax." | Gunther says, "I saw that line before" |
| Jarb says, "woo goo" | |
| HairBrain exclaims, "And that damn prompt SHALL HANG FOR IT!" | |
| BoingBall asks (of Gunther), "Hmm?" | |
| Sargent says, "The trick is to train players to follow that convention. When you follow the convention, you don't feel as constrained." | Gunther asks, "he wrote that in his latest article, no?" |
| Doe says (to Gunther), "(tm)" | |
| Sargent says, "As a designer, I don't want you poking around the edges of the game, where the story and simulation break down." | katre says (to gun), "yup" |
| Sargent says, "So I have to distract you. In that respect, IF is a lot like magic. If you look too closely, you can see the wires." | mcp exclaims, "he's quoting himself without attribution!" |
| Doe says, "hehe" | |
| BoingBall says, "Hee." | |
| Sargent says, "While in some games seeing the wires is the whole point, most of the time you don't want that to happen." | Jota says, "Perhaps he'll put himself in his bibliography." |
| Sargent says, "That's what I meant by misdirection. I want you to look where I want you to look, so you'll have the experience I was planning for." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | BoingBall says, "The trick is to remove the prompt altogether. No problem." |
| inky raises a hand. | |
| lpsmith says, "I've said things like that before--you want to limit the player's expectations, and then fully realize those expectations." | Jota wonders whose hand. |
| Gunther says, ">BEHAND INKY" | |
| Doe says, "hehe" | |
| Sargent says, "I fully agree with that. (END)" | |
| lpsmith asks (of inky), "Yes?" | inky says, "any hand I can, buddy" |
| HairBrain says, "@tel hand=air" | |
| inky asks, "since the > prompt promises much more than it can deliver, would you say there's a better IF interface possible?" | |
| Gunther raises inky's hand. | HairBrain says, " |
| Sargent says, "Mmm, I'm not sure I'd say "better". It's more a question of different interfaces for different purposes." | |
| Sargent says, "You can remove the ambiguity completely by utilizing command menus. As in LucasArts games, have the player construct a command using objects and commands from a menu." | Doe says, "gag" |
| HairBrain says, "(or rather, old LucasArts games)" | |
| mcp asks, "meatspace?" | |
| Sargent says, "That delivers exactly what it promises, but means you can't hide actions you want the player to take. You have to design for that." | BoingBall asks (of Doe), "Are you alright?" |
| Doe says (to Boing), "I'll recover, thanks" | |
| lpsmith says (to Sarge), "Or, rather, hide the actions you want the players to discover for themselves." | |
| Sargent says (to lpsmith), "Right." | BoingBall says, "If you're going to throw up... do it over there." |
| mcp says, "an alternate interface to the command line is an Interesting Idea, i'd say" | |
| Sargent says, "I think a menu-style interface hasn't caught on in IF because people just slap those menus on a standard piece of IF." | BoingBall says, "Where Gunther is." |
| Gunther says, "F U" | |
| Doe says (to Boing), "or might do it on that severed hand inky raised" | |
| Sargent says, "You have to design to your interface. If you're going to use menus, write a game which works *with* that interface." | Jota asks, "Is this where we bring up that office game from a few comps back?" |
| BoingBall says, "The Resident had that kind of system" | |
| Sargent says, "Note that I'm not advocating that you hide commands. "Guess the verb" is a Bad Thing." | Gunther says, "also Promoted!" |
| BoingBall has disconnected. | |
| BoingBall goes home. | |
| HairBrain says (to mcp), "[Snipped URL--ed]" | |
| mcp asks, "HRS?" | |
| Sargent says, "But there are advantages to both approaches. Your game needs to use those strengths while minimizing the weaknesses of the interface." | Doe says, "emote gags again." |
| Sargent says, "Beyond that, I'm not sure. The > prompt works well for us, albeit with a steep learning curve." | Jota says (to mcp), "No, 'Promoted!'." |
| Sargent says, "END" | Doe says, "hehe" |
| lpsmith asks, "Getting back to Grip: Tell us a bit about your concept of the PC. What did you want to define, and what did you want to leave it up to the player to define?" | BoingBall materializes. |
| inky says, "yeah, this strip is so great" | |
| Sargent says, "I've called Terry the most sharply drawn generic adventurer ever." | inky asks, "how many games really couldn't give you a list of all the game verbs at the start?" |
| inky says, "because you could do any of those as an icon system" | |
| mcp says, "oh. also, wow. also, multiple topics" | |
| Jota asks, "ODYSSEUS?" | |
| BoingBall asks, "He was a sailor, wasn't he?" | |
| inky says, "spider&web, I guess" | |
| Jota asks, "S&W?" | |
| Gunther says, "Verb!" | |
| inky says, "heh" | |
| <Sargent> "You're the guy who runs into the 7-11 to get a pack of cigarettes for Satan." | |
| <Sargent> "I don't get it. Won't the baby asprin grow up some day?" | |
| lpsmith blinks. | Jota says, "In S&W, it could be known from the start, but having it staring at you from a menu would ruin the game. IMO." |
| Gunther says, "also, the UseComp entry I've yet to announce" | |
| Sargent says, "Sorry, I seem to be unable to connect to my home computer." | inky says, "Use!" |
| lpsmith says, "Arr." | BoingBall says, "It works in games you write for it, dammit." |
| HairBrain says (to Jota), "The interface could be gradually unveiled." | |
| Sargent says, "So I'm now on through another computer." | |
| lpsmith says, "Lucky for us ;-)" | |
| HairBrain says, "Wow, that was fast." | (from Gunther) Sargent drove all the way... (etc) |
| Sargent says, "Getting back to the question." | BoingBall asks (of Sargent), "Hey! Thought you'd @muted the channel?" |
| Sargent says, "Certain things about Terry had to be well-defined." | Jota says, "Sarge should've put the question in a sack object, so he wouldn't have to go back to where he left it." |
| mcp says, "@set me = spy" | |
| Gunther says, "I spoofed" | |
| BoingBall asks, "Or can you talk on muted channels?" | |
| Sargent says, "After all, the game dealt so much with Terry's past. I couldn't leave Terry a cipher." | |
| lpsmith nods. | HairBrain says, "For instance, in Day of the Tentacle the right code to a safe only becomes available on the menus after you've learned it, even if you've played the game before and know what it is." |
| Sargent says, "At the same time, when I started this project in 1993, it wasn't clear how well people would like a game with a defined PC." | |
| Sargent asks, "Would people be willing to role-play to the extent required?" | Jota asks, "But it's not on the menu, is it?" |
| Jota says, "It's just tha the OPEN verb from the menu only works if you know the combo, and fails otherwise." | |
| Sargent says, "I hedged my bets. While we know Terry is a smoker, has trouble committing to things, needs help quitting smoking, the rest of Terry's life is left up to the player." | HairBrain says, "When you try to open the safe you get a menu of random numbers." |
| <PloverGuest> PloverGuest has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "I went back and forth while working on Grip. At times I would add a lot of definition to Terry's life, then go back and remove it." | Jota hmms, and must have forgotten that part. |
| <Ender> Ender has connected to daveMUD. | |
| HairBrain says, "Hurr, wait. Maybe not." | |
| Jota asks, "A conversational menu, I take it?" | |
| Sargent says, "I wanted players to understand Terry's motivations, but this was a game about exploration. It wouldn't work if you knew what Terry has to discover throughout the game." | PloverGuest climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| BoingBall realises he's actually heard very little of the interview. | |
| Ender climbs up the ladder and enters the room. | |
| trikiw goes home. | |
| <trikiw> trikiw has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Doe says (to Boing), "gee, I wonder why" | |
| Sargent asks, "So I tried to have you discover things along with Terry, and do so without facing the dreaded amnesia problem of IF: how do you tell the player what the character should, by all rights, already know?" | |
| Sargent says, "END" | HairBrain says (to Jota), "That's what I thought, but maybe not anyway." |
| lpsmith asks, "So if you were to start writing the same game today, might you define Terry more explicitly, given the grown appreciation for well-defined PC's?" | <Grocible> Grocible has connected to daveMUD. |
| Sargent says, "Probably not. I'd be less concerned about the issue, but I still would want players of all backgrounds to identify with Terry." | |
| Sargent says, "And I'd still want players to discover Terry's life along with Terry." | BoingBall has disconnected. |
| BoingBall goes home. | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "So you think that it's easier to identify with a less-defined protagonist?" | Grocible climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "Each time you define an aspect of the protagonist, you risk alienating players." | |
| Sargent says, ""I'd *never* play a mass murderer!" people say." | |
| Sargent says, "To a lesser extent, you run that risk with each decision you make." | Jota says, "I refuse to play any game where I know for certain the player is *not* a mass murderer." |
| Sargent says, "I wouldn't say it's easier to identify with a less-defined protagonist, since at some point you end up with a character with *no* identity. Players tend to view a protagonist like that as an avatar, not a character." | |
| Sargent says, "They play the game *through* the protagonist, not as the protagonist." | Doe asks (of Jota), "who was the mass murderer in Banana then?" |
| Jota asks, "Also, why are Mass murderers any worse than NY murderers, Calif murderers, or Wahs murderers?" | |
| Jota says (to Does), "It's entirely possible that the PC in Banana could be a mass murderer. You never know." | |
| Gunther says, "GROAN" | |
| Sargent says, "So I think you have to decide what effect you want. If you need a defined protagonist, hey, go for it. You can make all sorts of normally-nasty people be sympathetic. Authors have been doing it for years." | Jearl says, "they have that weird accent." |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "People seemed to like Varicella ;-) Does that bely your statement, or do you see something else at work there? Or do you think Adam *did* alienate players with his choices about the protagonist?" | |
| Gunther says, "he certainly alienated me." | |
| Gunther says, "sorry" | |
| lpsmith says (to Gunther), "No, 'sokay" | |
| Sargent says, "I think players were alienated by Primo." | |
| PollBoy hollers, "lpsmith has changed the poll! You spend as much time 'changing the poll' as the next girl, but this really isn't the time." | Gunther says, "doing set" |
| Sargent says, "You don't have to have sympathy with characters. The recent movie 'Payback' is a good example to my mind -- I didn't like Mel Gibson's character, but yet I enjoyed the movie." | Jota says, "Also, set." |
| Jearl says, "hey, an actual poll?! crazy talk." | |
| Sargent says, "In part that was because both "Payback" and "Varicella" use the same trick: make the other characters around the protagonist even more evil." | |
| Sargent says, "And Adam's writing is such that Primo can be a sympathetic character." | |
| Sargent says, "I don't think this is a counter-example to my claim; I think it's validation that you can flaunt my semi-rule by using the same kind of tricks authors of traditional fiction use." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Jota asks, "Marvin prefers wooden PCs?" |
| Jearl says, "pinocchio will be a real PC someday." | |
| HairBrain says (to Jota), "Didn't you see the [WIP] Pinocchio-- damn you." | |
| lpsmith asks, "Would you say that there's more at stake with a protagonist of IF than a protagonist of regular fiction?" | |
| lpsmith asks, "i.e. A reader can accept more differences of the protagonist than a 'player'?" | Doe says, "wood, now stakes, vampire Mud" |
| Sargent says, "For many people, yes." | |
| Sargent says, "There are a lot of IF players who won't play if they don't like what's going on." | |
| Sargent says, "You can use that to good effect. There's a moment in Trinity I'm thinking of, but I'll hold back to avoid spoilers." | |
| lpsmith says, "Hmmm." | |
| lpsmith says, "Let's go to #spoilers, then." | Gunther says, "he's right. robert jordan's characters infuriate me." |
| katre says (to gun), "ym 'chatacter'" | |
| Sargent asks, "Everyone on #spoilers who wants to hear this?" | |
| Doe says, "yeah, I don't want to be there" | |
| Sargent says, "'@joinc spoilers' if not." | |
| Jota says, "Everyone unidle, at least." | katre says, "also, I can't spel" |
| lpsmith says, "It'll be in the transcript for idlers." | |
| [spoilers] Sargent says, "I think I can go ahead now." | |
| [spoilers] Sargent says, "I'm thinking of the scene with the skink." | |
| [spoilers] Sargent says, "You're forced to ask yourself, is the skink's life worth less than your goal." | Doe says, "might replay Trinity someday" |
| [spoilers] Sargent asks, "Can you in good conscience kill this innocent creature to save the world?" | Doe says, "and I forget it now" |
| mcp says, "i disliked it, myslef (trinity)" | |
| Gunther asks, "but first you have to ask: what the hell is a skink?" | |
| Jota asks, "Am I the only one who felt worse about the L than the S?" | |
| [spoilers] Sargent says, "I know Infocom got a number of letters from people who just wouldn't do it. They quit the game and stopped playing it rather than continue at that price." | mcp asks, "the L? the S?" |
| mcp says, "ah" | |
| Jota doesn't want to spoil on this channel. | |
| mcp says, "DISCLAIMER: no REAL cute furry animals were harmed in the making of this game" | |
| [spoilers] Sargent says, "That's a powerful decision, and it's not one you find in traditional fiction. I can keep reading and not take responsibility for what's going on." | |
| Lionheart says, "It's like they always say, you can't to save the world without pushing a few old ladies down some stairs..." | |
| [spoilers] Sargent says, "Unless someone has comments on my example, we can go off channel now." | |
| Lionheart says, "To probably misquote another game." | Doe says (to Jota), "I could unjoin this channel" |
| lpsmith says, "OK, we're back." | <davec> davec has disconnected from daveMUD. |
| <davec> davec has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Gunther says, "or mute it" | |
| Doe says, "nevermind" | |
| Sargent says, "To sum up for those of you who didn't go to #spoilers: IF can force you to make a hard choice, and you take responsibility for that decision." | |
| Sargent says, "You can't sit back and passively accept what's going on. (END)" | |
| lpsmith goes out into the audience again. "Gunther, I believe you had a question?" | |
| Gunther says, "yeah" | |
| Gunther asks, "The LYG feelies are exceptionally well done. How long did they take you and how much of the work was done by Misty?" | Gunther says, "(also, how do you feel about this interviewer NOT REGISTERING? EH?)" |
| Sargent says, "The only credit I can take for the feelies is saying, 'Um, er, I guess I want a manual. And a bit of newspaper would be nice.'" | (from inky) Gunther says "And how much by slave laborers in India?" |
| Sargent says, "Misty, for those of you who don't know, is my wife. She's a graphics designer by training." | Doe says (to Gunther), "hehehe (unregistered)" |
| Gunther says, "register... it's worth it" | |
| Sargent says, "We spent two weeks off-and-on figuring out what we could do with the little amount of money we had to spend." | |
| lpsmith asks (of Sarge), "When was this?" | |
| Sargent says, "This was the summer of 1997." | |
| Gunther says, "YM '69" | |
| Sargent laughs. | |
| Sargent says, "She was working at Kinko's at the time, so we got an employee discount on materials and printing. That's really the only way we could afford to do what we did." | |
| Gunther asks, "How much did you spend, and did you break even (if you want to anser that, that is)?" | |
| Gunther says, "answer, even" | |
| Sargent says, "I put together the text of the manual and she typeset it. She came up with the idea of a two-color cover on cardstock." | |
| Sargent says, "And figured out how to make the newspaper." | |
| lpsmith says (to Gunther), "Wait for END, remember." | |
| Sargent says, "She also did some research on what drug company literature looked for, for the brochure that's included." | |
| Sargent says, "It ended up costing about $3 or $4 per package, which amazed me. I thought it'd be a lot more." | |
| Sargent says, "So the registration fee covered that and shipping easily, and left enough for us to go out to eat a couple of times." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| Gunther says, "thanks" | |
| Sargent says, "You bet." | |
| Sargent says, "As a side note: she no longer works at Kinko's, so it'd cost a lot more for us to do that now. :)" | inky says, "moral: if you want to succeed in IF, your SO has to work at kinko's" |
| Doe says, "hehe" | |
| <michaeleesawley> michaeleesawley has connected to daveMUD. | |
| inky says, "I bet Infocom was buddy-buddy with mr. kinko himself" | |
| Jota asks, "What, we can't just all borrow Misty?" | |
| lpsmith asks, "OK, let's talk a bit about the design of Grip. You have your basic idea of chapters and interludes, and some idea of what the story is going to be about. How did the puzzles come in? Part and parcel of the story, or separately?" | |
| Sargent says, "Yes." | Doe says, "hehe" |
| (From lpsmith) Sargent says, "END." | |
| Sargent laughs. | Gunther says, "" |
| mcp asks, "any guesses as to how to break up the name 'michaeleesawley'?" | |
| Sargent asks, "Actually, in that case, wouldn't I need to say 'It's deliberate'?" | Doe says, "m l s" |
| lpsmith chuckles. | Gunther says, "michael "e e" sawley" |
| inky asks, "he's an electrical engineer?" | |
| <Miseri> Plugh, Plugh, Barney McGrue, Plover, Dimwit, Frob! | |
| Gunther says, "no, like e e cummings" | |
| Sargent says, "A lot of the puzzles grew out of the story. I'm especially proud of the third fit's puzzles. I think they flow from the story very well." | Doe says (to Gunther), "might be right, it is all lower case" |
| Miseri climbs up the ladder and enters the room. | |
| inky says, "i am michael ee sawley i am not punctuated and my name is very longish" | |
| Gunther says, "of course, e e cummings' tombstone is all uppercase" | |
| inky says, "heh" | |
| Gunther says, "not a joke" | |
| Sargent says, "And I think I did a good job of making the puzzles in the first interlude fit in the story. Magnus Olsson, who was one of my beta-testers, called the interlude his idea of what nearly-puzzleless IF should be like." | Miseri says, "ah, right." |
| Sargent says, "Then there's the math side of Fit 4...." | |
| lpsmith says, "Heh." | Doe says (to Gunther), "that's weird" |
| Sargent says, "I was sitting in a colloquium one day my first year at Duke. The speaker was talking about visualizing four dimensions." | |
| Sargent says, "And I suddenly thought, hey, a hypercube. I bet you could make a nice puzzle out of that." | |
| Sargent says, "I coded up the granite cube puzzle and left it sitting on my hard drive." | Doe says, "but it broke the drive, I'm smarter now" |
| Sargent says, "When I started putting together Fit 4, about a year later, I realized it would fit with what I was trying to do." | |
| lpsmith says, "(side note: The granite cube puzzle was nominated for 'best puzzle' at the '98 XYZZYies.)" | |
| Sargent says, "The matruska doll puzzle was another example. A friend of mine actually came up with that years ago. When I found myself doing the other side of Fit 4, I realized it would fit with what I was wanting to do." | |
| Sargent says, "So those puzzles existed separate from the story, really." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | <Thrax> "Bother," said Pooh. "Eeyore, load the photon torpedoes." |
| inky raises his hand. | Thrax climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| lpsmith asks, "I know you answered on raif already, but what *was* the idea behind that doll puzzle?" | |
| Thrax says, "Howdy. Sorry I'm late." | |
| Sargent says (to inky), "I'll answer lps's question quick." | Doe says, "I notice inky specified it is his hand." |
| inky says (to Doe), "can't be too careful" | |
| Sargent says, "One of the themes of Fit 4 is putting yourself back together." | Doe says, "hehe" |
| Sargent says, "And that's what the dolls were about." | |
| Sargent says, "You begin that puzzle with each copy of you separate, and each doll separate as well." | |
| Sargent says, "You have to unthread the doll copies from the copies of yourself and put them back together: only doll copies inside of doll copies, and each copy of yourself holding the smaller copies." | |
| Sargent asks, "Does that make things any clearer?" | |
| lpsmith says, "Heh. Maybe ;-)" | |
| lpsmith asks, "And someone came up with this idea independently?" | |
| Sargent grins. | |
| Sargent says, "You're taking two interleaved things and separating them." | |
| Sargent says, "Yes, Nick came up with this on his own." | |
| Thrax says, "Got a question, but I'll run a long recap first." | |
| Sargent says, "We both worked on an LPMUD (no relation to you, lps) together, and he also wanted to implement a combat system based on rock-scissors-paper. He was one clever fellow." | |
| lpsmith asks, "Complete with copies of yourself and stuff?" | |
| Sargent says, "Yes, complete with copies of yourself. I can take no credit for that puzzle." | |
| Sargent says, "(and say so in the credits section)" | |
| lpsmith says, "Wow." | inky says (to Thrax), "chatter mostly on channel" |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "We have another studio-audience question: Inky?" | |
| inky asks, "why the branches in fits 2 and 4?" | Ender has joined the channel. |
| Sargent says, "I'd been toying with the idea of games that branched out and either kept spreading or came back together ever since I discovered r.a.i-f in '91 or '92." | Ender says, "For a rock-scissors-paper combat system, see The Adventures of Baron Manchausen. |
| Sargent says, "Grip seemed like a good place to try it." | Gunther asks, "where?" |
| Gunther asks, "or do you mean the movie?" | |
| Ender says, "Pen-and-paper RPG. Of a sort." | |
| Sargent says, "I tried two separate approaches in Grip. In Fit 2, the player isn't necessarily supposed to know there are two different branches." | Ender says, "Published by Hogshead Games." |
| Sargent says, "Whichever branch the player sees, that's the story that player experiences." | |
| Sargent says, "Fit 4's branching is supposed to be obvious. You're supposed to realize that your answers to Jefrey & Marie's questions determine where you go." | |
| Sargent says, "So one of the branchings is hidden; the other, obvious." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "What was the goal of the Fit 2's branching? Or was it simply an experiment?" | Jarb asks, "Why is he talking about branches? What do trees have to do with IF?" |
| Sargent says, "It was me having my cake and saving it for later, too." | Gunther says, "sycamora tree, d00d" |
| Miseri says, "Mm. Baron Munchausen (sp?) ... my mom was telling me about the Baron Munchausen Syndrome once ... it's this thing where a parent will abuse a child to draw attention to herself or himself." | |
| Jarb says, "I could see, in a sort of way, bushes, but trees, no." | |
| inky says, "that's munchausen by proxy" | |
| Sargent says, "Originally there was just the hospital scene." | michaeleesawley climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "But the more I worked on it, the more I realized I wanted to tell." | inky says, "munchausen is when you injure yourself to get attention" |
| Ryan says (to Jarb), "TSD." | |
| Sargent says, "The hospital fit kept getting bigger and bigger, with more and more detail." | Miseri says, "well, something like that." |
| Sargent says, "The only way I could keep all that material was to have the hospital fit fission into two fits." | Jarb asks, "I thought that was Masochism?" |
| Sargent says, "There's a lot of overlap between the two, but definite differences. You learn different things about Terry depending on which way you go." | inky says, "that's when you enjoy it" |
| Gunther says, "except for the attention part" | |
| inky says, "munchausen is when you pretend like you don't know how you're getting hurt" | |
| Sargent says, "It's not 'just' an experiment in that I didn't do it just because it'd be neat. That was part of my motivation, but far from the overriding one." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "So what was the overriding motivation, then?" | Miseri asks, "It was disturbing. But why Munchausen?" |
| Doe says, "to make lots of money" | |
| Thrax says (to Sargent), "Can you say more about the dark sphere, specifically its role in the plot? One thing that puzzled me was that one fit 4 disposed of it, but the other didn't." | Gunther says, "munchhausen made stuff up to draw attention to himself" |
| inky says, "munchausen because he makes up stories" | |
| inky says, "yeah" | |
| lpsmith says (to Thrax), "Er, wait a bit." | |
| Sargent says, "As I said, I wanted to keep all the nifty plot points I'd been cramming into the hospital fit. I wanted all that information in the game, but not necessarily jammed down the player's throat." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith says (to Thrax), "If you raise you're hand, I'll call on you." | |
| Sargent exclaims, "It's like grade school!" | |
| Thrax says (to lps), "Okay--sorry." | |
| Thrax raises his hand. | |
| lpsmith says (to Thrax), "'sokay." | |
| lpsmith asks (of Sarge), "Hence the 'hiddenness' of it?" | |
| Sargent says, "Yes." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Doe asks, "I wonder if one could do an interview with just yes and no?" |
| lpsmith asks, "So what was your vision of a typical player's reaction to that split?" | Gunther says, "yes" |
| inky says, "no" | |
| Jota says, "no" | |
| Doe says, "hehehe" | |
| inky says, "tango" | |
| Gunther says, "Well, 'yes', 'no' and 'z'" | |
| Jota exclaims, "Darn you, inkington!" | |
| Sargent says, "Many people didn't see the split." | |
| Sargent says, "And then they read r.g.i-f and said, 'Hey! What wheelchair-bound woman are you talking about?'" | |
| Sargent says, "Some people thought it was an interesting choice. Andrew Plotkin said (both privately to me and publicly) he wouldn't have the stamina to make parts of the game that players probably wouldn't see." | |
| lpsmith chuckles. | |
| Sargent says, "Others were annoyed. They felt that they had a right to see all of the game, regardless." | Jota exclaims, "HE OWES US!" |
| Gunther says, "they COULD play it twice, of course" | |
| BoingBall climbs up the ladder and enters the room. | |
| Jota says, "LYG: he game so nice they played it twice." | |
| Sargent says, "I can't say that the latter reaction is wrong. I can say that, while sympathetic to it, that doesn't change my decision." | Gunther says, "I idd" |
| Gunther says, "er, did" | |
| Sargent says, "Would I do it again? Sure." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "So was part of your vision was them learning more from the community's response?" | |
| Sargent says, "Yes. I knew people would ask for hints and realize they were talking at cross-purposes." | |
| lpsmith says, "Huh." | |
| Sargent says, "The gleeful little troublemaker in me jumped up and down, happy with this thought." | inky laughs. |
| Doe exclaims, "Aha!" | |
| (from Thrax) Sargent says, "Giving me massive indigestion." | |
| Gunther says, "excellent" | |
| BoingBall says, "Heh." | |
| Sargent says, "And it let me have my decision both ways. Those who were part of the r.*.i-f community would find out there was more to Fit 2 than originally met the eye." | |
| Sargent says, "At the same time, Grip wasn't written solely for that community. A lot of people who played the game and wrote me didn't read the newsgroups." | <Jarb> Jarb has disconnected from daveMUD. |
| <Jarb> Jarb has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Jarb has left. | Jarb climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "Did those people have a more 'pure' experience? Perhaps. But I'm not unhappy with people having either experience." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Lionheart has joined the channel. |
| lpsmith says, "Interesting." | |
| Doe raises her hand. | Thrax asks, "How did he advertise the game that allowed non-raifers to see it? Anyone know?" |
| lpsmith asks, "Let's go back to Thrax's question (you next, Doe). Thrax?" | |
| Sargent says (to Thrax), "You'll probably need to repeat your question. It's been a while. :)" | Lionheart says, "I wondered who "What old woman?" when I kept hearing about her in Fit 1." |
| inky says, "I believe he got it on, like, winfiles.com" | |
| Thrax says (to Sargent), "Tell us more about the dark sphere--what was its role in the plot? I was confused by one fit 4 disposing of it and the other not." | Jota asks, "Hey baby, wanna GET IT ON like winfiles.com?" |
| Sargent says, "That's due to the first fit being written before the later ones." | inky asks, "before?" |
| BoingBall says (to Jota), "Hee." | |
| Sargent says, "Originally the dark sphere was only a symbol." | |
| Dilbon says, "Um." | Miseri says, "be right back...." |
| Gunther blinks. | |
| Dilbon asks, "Is this ifMUD?" | |
| Dilbon says, "No." | |
| BoingBall says (to Dilbon), "daveMUD. Although I'm not happy about it." | |
| Dilbon says, "Oh. Right." | |
| Sargent says, "And then, in Fit 4, I painted myself into a corner." | |
| Dilbon asks, "When did the location desc change to bnar and grill?" | |
| Sargent says, "The dark sphere is me dropping back five and punting." | |
| lpsmith says, "#peanut-gallery, people." | |
| Gunther says (to dilbon), "shh." | Dilbon has joined the channel. |
| Gunther asks (of sargent), "explain please, for us non-americans?" | |
| Sargent says, "I decided to use an object that was already in the game rather than trying to shoehorn in something which would work with the monkey puzzle." | |
| Sargent says (to Gunther), "I had to regroup because I'd gotten myself in a corner, that's all." | |
| Sargent says (to Gunther), "So I sort of avoided the problem by co-opting the dark sphere to my nefarious purposes." | inky says, "this is a copy of the ifmud bar&grill" |
| Sargent says, "I'd rather not say what the dark sphere is symbolically, though." | inky says, "well, sort of a copy" |
| inky says, "a franchise, more like" | |
| Thrax says (to Sargent), "Gotcha." | |
| Sargent says, "I will say that's not one of my better design decisions in Grip. :)" | HairBrain goes home. |
| <HairBrain> HairBrain has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "You had the monkey puzzle idea before you had the solution?" | |
| Sargent says, "Yes." | |
| Sargent says, "And before someone asks, this predated my time on ifMUD. At that time I didn't know that monkeys would be intrinsically funny." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "So the sphere was *not* supposed to be just 'evil', but you're afraid the monkey puzzle made it seem that way?" | |
| lpsmith laughs. | Gunther asks, "but i wanna know what the sphere is?" |
| Gunther raises hand. | Doe says, "who says monkeys are intrinstically funny? not me" |
| Thrax says, "Tainted memory of your childhood, I'd say." | |
| Sargent says, "I don't want to answer that question, since it gets into what the dark sphere is, or what it symbolizes." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | BoingBall says, "Well, they are. Nyaah." |
| Thrax says, "Or, say, of your father." | |
| lpsmith says, "Heh." | inky says, "my." |
| Jota asks, "Yes, bu tainted by what?" | |
| Sargent says, "(and that wasn't meant to be snarky, by the way.)" | |
| lpsmith says, "We have a couple audience questions. Doe, if you wouldn't mind waiting, Gunther has another question about the sphere." | Jota says, "Also, it's probably a specific memory." |
| Doe says (to lpsmith), "okay" | |
| lpsmith says, "Thanks." | |
| Gunther says, "Is there any specific reason why you don't want to tell? Because I'd really like to know now ;-)" | |
| Sargent says, "Heh." | Thrax says, "Yes--a specific memory. Sludge = tainting force = guilt/anger." |
| BoingBall asks, "Is this interview meant to be of any particular length?" | |
| Sargent says, "In part because I'm ornery. In part because anything I say gets entered into the Canon of Losing Your Grip." | |
| lpsmith says, "And blasted at the enemy." | |
| Sargent says, "I'm very consious of the effect my words can have on how people view my game." | (from inky) Sargent says "in part because it worked real well for the American Pie guy" |
| BoingBall asks, "Or just keep going till the questions run dry?" | |
| Jota says (to BoB), "Long enough to reach the ground." | |
| Thrax says, "Or so I speculate." | |
| Sargent laughs. | |
| Gunther says, "whisper it, then :)" | |
| Sargent says, "Sorry, no exceptions. :)" | |
| lpsmith laughs. | |
| Thrax raises his hand. | |
| Sargent says, "I think one of Grip's strengths is that it can be taken as a straight story, or as a story fraught with symbolism and deeper meaning." | |
| (From Gunther) Thrax says, "Pretty please with sugar topping?" | |
| Sargent says, "I've actually learned a lot about my game from people's discussions. For example, the recent discussions on r.g.i-f between Thrax and lpsmith made me view one part of the game in a new light." | |
| Sargent says, "If I say 'This is what this part of the game means,' I lose that opportunity." | Doe says, "well people can put stuff in their work, they didn't realize they put in" |
| Sargent says, "That's a higher price than I want to pay for people's certainty." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Interesting. What bit, if you don't mind me asking?" | |
| lpsmith says, "(of our discussion)" | |
| Sargent says, "The discussion about Fit 1 and the spheres, in particular." | |
| Sargent says, "And who Frankie is." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith nods. | |
| lpsmith asks, "OK, Another couple questions from the audience. Doe?" | |
| Doe says, "Okay, this question comes from Luc French who is also online in AOL. Since you didn't want to answer about the dark sphere, you probably won't want to answer this." | |
| Sargent laughs. | |
| Doe asks, "Does the head symbolize the player's (protagonist's) conscience?" | Gunther says, "especially not since it's a Luc French question" |
| Sargent says, "If only everyone took that approach, this interview would take a lot less time. :)" | |
| lpsmith laughs. | |
| Doe says, "hehe" | |
| Sargent says, "I won't answer that directly, but I will say lpsmith hit upon a possible answer in his latest discussion." | |
| lpsmith grins. | |
| Doe says (to Sargent), "Good enough." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Gunther says, "grr." |
| Gunther says, "I don't like a mystery" | |
| BoingBall has disconnected. | |
| BoingBall goes home. | |
| lpsmith says, "My interpretation is that >X CONSCIENCE gives a pretty good clue ;-)" | Jota says, "s/hit upon/kicked/" |
| lpsmith asks, "OK, another audience question. Thrax?" | |
| Thrax asks (of Sargent), "On my first time through the game, I didn't deal with the sludge. Later, I figured it out. As far as I can tell, though, the plot turned out the same way. Was there a reason, analytically, for not changing the plot based on that?" | BoingBall climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| inky says, "see, I always assumed the head was Terry's dad" | |
| Thrax asks (of Sargent), "Or did I miss something?" | Lionheart says, "I noticed that noun as well." |
| Sargent says, "Originally not dealing with the sludge, or not dealing with the faeries, was going to have a clear difference in the ending." | Lionheart says, "I asked the head about 'conscience' after the Jiminy Cricket ref, and it acted like I'd already asked about it. I was confused by that." |
| <andyf> Zrblm. | |
| Sargent says, "But I began to be afraid that people would *really* dislike that. 'You mean I can't win just because I didn't do that puzzle at the start?'" | <andyf> Wait a minute! This isn't a robot-brain transfer facility! It's just a vacant lot filled with watermelons! |
| Sargent says, "(And yes, I'm well aware that Grip has a number of puzzles which close off the game without warning. I'm inconsistent like that. :)" | |
| lpsmith asks, "This gets back to your original design for the game, right?" | |
| Sargent says (to lpsmith), "Yes." | |
| Sargent says, "I couldn't find a good way to have the sludge puzzle or faeries puzzle *directly* affect the end." | |
| Gunther says, "just throwing in here that the dog thing is much less unfair than having a slightly "worse" ending" | |
| Gunther says, "er, fair" | |
| Sargent says, "So I fudged. Not doing those puzzles has the possibility of changing some of the text you see in the story." | inky asks, "the dog thing?" |
| inky asks, "between fits, you mean?" | |
| Gunther says, "yes" | |
| inky says, "m'yah" | |
| Sargent says, "I believe not doing the sludge puzzle alone won't have much of a change, but there are a number of other puzzles you can skip, and they have a cumulative effect." | |
| Sargent says, "I think the end result was too subtle, though." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | inky says, "guess he's just inconsistent that way" |
| Doe says, "gotta go -- later" | |
| Doe goes home. | |
| <Doe> Doe has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Jota thinks he managed to skip a lot of skippable puzzles, accidentally. | |
| lpsmith asks (of Sarge), "Was kicking the head one of those puzzles?" | |
| Sargent exclaims (at Doe), "I didn't mean for you to END!" | |
| lpsmith chuckles. | |
| Sargent says, "I guess I'll be blatant about this part. Kicking the head wasn't a puzzle." | |
| Thrax asks (of Sargent), "Did you consider actually killing the player, or at least ending the story, if the player didn't deal with the sludge or faeries?" | Gunther says, "you don't say" |
| Lionheart says, "Is there? I didn't notice a difference when I played Terry as a jerk and didn't do anything altruistic except help the woman get her books." | |
| (from inky) Sargent says "it was a WAY OF LIFE" | |
| Sargent says (to Thrax), "I'll address that in a sec." | |
| Sargent says, "I wanted to cover all the potential actions the player might take with the head." | |
| Sargent says, "One of them that I thought of was kicking the head. Hey, it's right there in front of you. Perhaps someone would think of doing that." | |
| Sargent asks, "Originally I was going to disallow it. Then I thought, why?" | |
| Sargent says, "So I implemented it." | |
| Sargent says, "Little did I know that roughly 3/4 of players would kick the head, rather than trying to save it." | |
| lpsmith laughs. | |
| Sargent says (to Thrax), "Switching to your question, I did." | inky says, "and the other 1/4 tried to put it in the blender" |
| Thrax exclaims, "Hee!" | |
| Gunther says, "yay" | |
| BoingBall laughs. | |
| Sargent says, "But you can't really die all that much in Grip." | |
| Sargent says, "You can end the story, but you can't die." | Lionheart asks, "Heh. Hey, wait a minute, what blender?" |
| mcp exclaims (at sargent), "BTW, your college basketball team just lost to an unranked opponent. HA ha!" | |
| Jota says (to Lion), "The one on Congratulations." | |
| BoingBall says (to Lionheart), "Oh, never mind." | |
| (from Thrax) Sargent kicks mcp's head. | |
| Sargent says, "And I wanted the player to feel that, if they made it to the end, then Terry's journey was going to unroll to its conclusion." | BoingBall says (to Lion), "It's an IF reference in-joke." |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Wait--the avalanche isn't death for the protagonist?" | Jota says, "Death To My Proagonists" |
| (From Gunther) Sargent says, "er... look for release 5 soon." | Miseri says, "back." |
| Sargent laughs. | |
| Sargent says, "There are some death points in Grip. I think the avalanche is one." | Lionheart says, "I tried to sit on it and wait until it hatched. :) Wrong silly image, I should have been thinking 'soccer ball' instead of 'egg'. :)" |
| Sargent says, "But many of the potential death points just kick you back to reality, so to speak." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Did you have kicking/trying to save the head affect the endgame text in any way?" | |
| Sargent says, "No." | |
| lpsmith nods. | |
| Sargent says, "I thought it was too obscure, even for me. (END)" | inky asks, "can I spoil lyg totally here?" |
| Gunther says, "sure" | |
| BoingBall says, "Go ahead" | |
| Lionheart says, "Maybe #spoilers would be better, though I don't mind." | |
| Jota says, "This is a bookclub affair, after all." | |
| Thrax raises his hand. | Gunther says, "this isan interview where everyone should have finished" |
| Gunther says, "what Jota said" | |
| inky asks, "cool. ok, I heard on the newsgroup that you can't see the full ending with your dad unless you save the faeries or something. is this true?" | |
| Gunther says, "er... ask sargent" | |
| lpsmith asks, "In a post I made, I commented on the changing endgame text. I said something like "If the point is the interplay between the different endings, that point gets lost." Would you agree, or would you say this is something like your choice of hiding half of Fit 2?" | Thrax says, "Yes. Of course, I'm the one who said it. But yes, you don't get the hospital scene." |
| inky asks, "so do you always die on the plains?" | |
| Sargent says, "I would agree with that. If that was the point, then I would have failed at that aspect of the game." | Lionheart says, "Are you sure? I didn't save the faeries and got to the next fit." |
| Sargent says, "To my mind, it's like Fit 2. What people see is the story they experience." | Miseri says, "I'm wondering now whether I finished the game with the optimal ending...." |
| Thrax says, "No--he doesn't hit you if you clench your fist." | |
| Gunther says, "optimum is to relax though" | |
| Sargent says, "That's antithetical to what gamers tend to like. Gamers want to know what effects their pushing on the game world has." | BoingBall asks (of Miseri), "Isn't this a sort of game where that's probable?" |
| Thrax says (to Lionheart), "It doesn't stop your progress, but it changes the endgame." | |
| BoingBall says, "That you didn't" | |
| Lionheart says, "Oh, sorry, I misunderstood." | |
| Gunther says, "reboot... bbiab" | |
| Sargent says, "I honestly don't know how satisfied I am with the end result. I don't have enough feedback from enough people." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "What would *your* reaction be to playing a game like yours, once you found out about the different endings?" | Miseri says, "The hospital scene is the one with the father on his deathbed? I get that, but I didn't save the fairies I don't think." |
| Sargent says, "Somewhat akin to yours. But I'm a gamer." | Thrax says, "I'm pretty sure it depended on that." |
| Thrax says, "I just replayed recently to check." | |
| PollBoy hollers, "lpsmith has changed the poll! My feelings can be best expressed through this bagpipe solo." | |
| Sargent says, "I don't know if I would have admired the effect enough to outweigh any annoyance I'd experienced. I'm too close to the game to tell." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | BoingBall has disconnected. |
| BoingBall goes home. | |
| Jarb goes home. | |
| <Jarb> Jarb has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "(and if you're commenting on #peanut-gallery, I can't see it. Mail me later)" | |
| lpsmith says, "So, you want someone else to do it, so you know how it feels? ;-)" | |
| Sargent exclaims, "Sure!" | |
| lpsmith says, "We have another audience question. Thrax? (assuming an END there...)" | |
| Sargent says, "Yes, sorry. That was an END" | |
| Thrax asks (of Sargent), "If you can avoid canonizing: can you say more about the role of the dog? I.e., what was the idea behind making it the one constant among all the fits?" | |
| Sargent says, "I think I can speak to some of that." | |
| Sargent says, "I wanted a way to tie the story together, something more than the fit/interlude structure." | <Gunther> "If this was four score and seven years ago, I'd bust a cap in your ass, yo!" |
| <Gunther> Gunther has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Gunther has left. | Gunther climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "At the same time, I wanted a companion for Terry on the trip." | |
| Sargent says, "The dog let me fulfill both needs at once." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "Would you say the dog let you fulfil a design decision you alluded to earlier--that of revisiting an unexamined past?" | Thrax says, "What did we all name our dogs? I named it Buster." |
| lpsmith says, "(Er, design goal. Or something.)" | inky says, "I usually name them Rex" |
| <Banichi> Banichi has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Miseri says, "I was wondering the same thing. I named mine Vellum." | |
| Jota says, "Kobi, afer my dog from Nethack." | |
| Ryan says, "I named it Stay." | |
| Sargent says, "Yes. The dog is clearly tied into childhood memories, in ways which are Too Complex To Be Elucidated Without Enforcing My Authorial View." | Gunther says, "something rude, so I could chuckle every time. er, not." |
| PerrySimm says, "(as lpsmith) I named mine Founder." | |
| Lionheart says, "I tried naming it Scraps, then when in conflicted with another noun, I went back and didn't name it at all." | |
| Gunther says, "I like calling it 'dog'" | |
| lpsmith grins. | |
| Sargent says, "I'm actually rather proud of the dog. There's a lot you can do with it, and a lot of commands you can give to the dog." | Jearl says, "I think I called it Buddy." |
| Banichi climbs up the ladder and enters the room. | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Lionheart says, "Which led to a bug later, with Little Buddy asking for the name, I said it was "", and Buddy is saying, "C'mere, !"" |
| lpsmith shuffles his notes. | Thrax asks, "Huh. Did you report that bug to Sarge?" |
| Thrax asks, "And did he strangle you?" | |
| (from inky) Sam Barlow says "I named it Tabby, because I thought it was a cat" | |
| Lionheart says, "Not yet. Got lots of bugs to report besides that one." | |
| Jota cuts the notes, and deals a hand of blackjack. | |
| lpsmith asks, "Going back to puzzles--You told us about a couple puzzles that were separate from the game. Can you walk us through the inspiration/design of a more integrated puzzle? Like, say, the laurel branch and blood?" | Gunther asks, "how long *is* this interview?" |
| Sargent says, "If you don't mind, I'll talk about the faerie puzzles in general." | |
| lpsmith says, "Sure." | Jota says, "So far? Over two hours." |
| Lionheart asks, "Mostly stupid parser errors like >turn left handle - Which handle do you mean, the left handle or the right handle?" | |
| Gunther says, "still" | |
| inky says, "if we all leave, he'll have to stop" | |
| inky says, "so we are IN CONTROL" | |
| Sargent says, "I wanted the faeries in there for symbolic reasons, and wanted them tied to a sub-quest." | Gunther says, "starts @booting everyone" |
| Gunther says, "er, emote" | |
| Sargent says, "Sub-quests typically involve the collection of objects." | |
| Sargent says, "I'd just played Path To Fortune, which has a number of sub-quests which aren't well-integrated. I was very concerned about that." | Gunther asks (of Sargent), "Have there been protests by gay rights groups about the faeries?" |
| Sargent says, "The question I kept asking myself was, "What kind of sub-quest can I have which has more depth than plot coupon collection?"" | inky says, "hee hee" |
| Sargent says, "(Keep in mind that the faerie sub-quest is, at its heart, just plot coupon collecting. But I wanted it to have meaning above and beyond that.)" | Jota | Sargent says, "I think one of Grip's strengths is that it can |
| Jota | be taken as a straight story, or as a story fraught with | |
| Jota | symbolism and deeper meaning." | |
| wavydavy goes home. | |
| <wavydavy> wavydavy has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "I hit upon the idea of the dragon pretty soon. Adam Thornton's gripings aside, dragons have certain mythic overtones, as do faeries." | |
| lpsmith chuckles. | |
| lpsmith says, "(I'm still waiting for a dragon to win best NPC at the XYZZYies. I actually think it relatively likely.)" | Jota says (to Gunther), "Clearly, we should tell them it was a straight story." |
| Gunther says, "ok, now I get it. YAY!!" | |
| Sargent says, "And I really wanted to emphasize the otherworldliness of faeries. Some people tend to view faeries as, literally, little people. My conception of them has always been that they are much more alien than that, and are completely unlike us." | inky also nows gets it and laughs |
| Sargent says, "I ended up pitting two myths against each other. Faeries versus dragons." | inky says, "fight!" |
| Sargent says, "Thank goodness Grip was released before Once and Future, is all I can say about that." | Lionheart asks, "I probably wouldn't have gone back in the house if I didn't see that bottle of karo syrup there, which I didn't end up using. Is there a use for it, in the other ending maybe?" |
| Gunther asks, "is 'dragons' another word for lesbians?" | |
| lpsmith chuckles. | inky says, "whizzard was pissed to see true thomas in this game, let me tell you" |
| Thrax says, "Yeah. The main thing that struck me about the faeries was that they were, frankly, pretty mean." | |
| Sargent asks, "What would the dragon have that the faeries would want? Well, what are the famous characteristics of dragons?" | inky says (to Lion), "I don't remember any role for it in the game" |
| Gunther says, "fire and scales" | |
| Gunther says, "and, er, ..." | |
| Sargent says, "I made a list. Scales, claws, treasure, fire. I started toying with the dragon's fire." | |
| Sargent says, "I decided the faerie wanted the dragon's fire, or a bit of it, captured. I then wanted a way that only a mortal could get the fire, and not a faerie." | <Jaybird> Jaybird has connected to daveMUD. |
| Sargent says, "That's when I hit on the wards. It's an ongoing theme in faerie literature: some object that has magic protection." | Jaybird climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "The king, of course, isn't going to tell you about it. He likes light, but he also likes the idea of crisped children." | Gunther says, "mmm... krispy kids" |
| Sargent says, "That let me bring in a sympathetic outsider, and gave me plot coupons." | Gunther says, "my favourite cereal" |
| Sargent says, "The plot coupons, the wards you had to collect, let me bring in other aspects of mythology. The power of stone and running water, the ash and oak as faerie trees, etc." | Lionheart exclaims, "(laugh) Good for 10 points off your next quest!" |
| Jota says, "I'd like an exra-large order of crisped children. I have a plo coupon for 50% off." | |
| Gunther says, "also, these plot coupins that were 50% off are expi--- DAMN YOU" | |
| Sargent says, "And I tried to tie each aspect to Terry's life somehow." | Thrax exclaims, "50 cents off Krispy Kids when you show these plot coupons!" |
| Thrax says, "Whoops." | |
| lpsmith says, "Huh." | |
| Sargent says, "So the ash circlet needs to be primed by blood, and that leads to Terry's dad." | |
| Sargent says, "Granted, not all of the items are direct tie-ins. The boots, for instance." | |
| Gunther says, "they are for kicking the head" | |
| lpsmith adds to the canon "The boots are Not Symbolic" | |
| Sargent says, "But everything grew out of me wanting to tie things on the one hand to faeries, and on the other hand to Terry's life." | |
| Sargent exclaims (at lpsmith), "Aiee! Stop that!" | Gunther says, ">TIE ROPE TO FAIRY. TIE OTHER END TO TERRY." |
| Jota adds to the canon, 'The Symbolism of the Boots was Subconscious on the Part of the Author'. | |
| Sargent says, "I like the tree puzzle. It let me bring in an element of Terry's life (the bully), involve the dog, and tie it to Terry's dad." | |
| Gunther adds to the canon, "The Dark Sphere is a 'Sphere' rip-off" | Jaybird goes home. |
| <Jaybird> Jaybird has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "That's why I think the puzzles in Fit 3 work like they do. I had all of these elements lying around, and I started playing connect-the-dots with them." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "You mentioned Path To Fortune--were there any other IF games that influenced Grip, whether by example or counter-example?" | |
| Sargent says, "John's Fire Witch, for tight puzzle design." | |
| (From Gunther) CEF says, "It's a total DELUSIONS rip-off!" | Thrax says, "Sargent says, "Well, I took the multilayered plot straight from Space Aliens Laughed at my Cardigan."" |
| Sargent laughs. | Gunther says, "yay" |
| Thrax says, "Er, emote." | |
| inky says, "yay" | |
| Lionheart drops plot coupon. | Ryan asks, "Is that an actual game?" |
| Sargent says, "Path to Fortune, both for the sub-quests and, more positively, for the use of fantasy." | Thrax says, "Yeah." |
| Marvin says, "I have missed the entire interview so far. I'm a big twit." | |
| Ryan says, "Yikes." | |
| Gunther says (to tharx), "yay again" | |
| Sargent says, "Curses, because it made me think that a sprawling game might be okay after all." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | Banichi says (to Marvin), "Me too. I was busy this afternoon." |
| inky says (to Marv), "it's being logged" | |
| Thrax says, "AGT. Appallingly, astoundingly bad. Or so I hear." | |
| Jota asks, "You never played Space Aliens?" | |
| inky says (to Ryan), "there is a trotting krips review of it" | |
| Thrax says, "No. Someday when I'm very, very, very bored, maybe." | |
| Banichi says (to Sarge), "I'm late and not sure if this was covered.." | Ryan says, "Ooh, thanks." |
| Marvin says, "It turns out that if your really, really, tired, and lay down in bed with a quilt covering you, and the light off, what occurs is sleep, not rest. Huh." | |
| Jota says, "No, if you're bored, you'll be wanting a good game." | |
| lpsmith says (to Banichi), "Raise your hand, but go ahead." | inky says, "btw, for newcomers, please raise a hand or something before asking questions" |
| Jota says, "We should play it on Floyd someday." | |
| inky says, "oops, timing" | |
| Thrax says, "Huh. Fancy that." | |
| Thrax asks, "Can Floyd deal with AGT?" | |
| inky says, "I believe so" | |
| Banichi says, "But I became very emotionally involved at the point where the boy is stuck in the duct. It was a tense moment. Everything was happening, timed very well. And things kept getting more tense. The dog with his tail." | inky says, "I fancy thumper would know" |
| Jota thinks i was planned, but doesn't know if it's an exising feaure yet. | |
| Thrax says, "It was even more tense when the dog didn't have his tail." | |
| Gunther says, "ask your parents about that" | |
| Gunther says, "(to jota)" | |
| Gunther says, "ILAC" | Gunther says, "(to jota)" |
| Marvin says, "I'm not planning on asking any questions. This is spoiler-fest for me, 'cos I haven't played the game." | |
| Jota says, "It." | |
| Jota mutters about his D key. | |
| Sargent nods. | Gunther asks, "d?" |
| Banichi says, "And also in the similar situation with the faeries in the cage at the end of fit3. It was excellent to be affected by an if game like this. Just wanted to say that." | Jota says (to Marvin), "Er. Then what are you doing here? Go play, and read the log later." |
| Jota says (to Gunther), "T." | |
| Gunther says, "ah" | |
| Jota says, "Also, I was bitten by a bat." | |
| Sargent says, "Thanks. It's nice to know that some of what I tried to do worked." | Thrax says (to Marvin), "Seriously, spoilers are flying every which way." |
| Sargent says, "Especially since timing and rising tension in IF is hard. :)" | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| Lionheart raises a hand. | |
| lpsmith says, "Let's talk about probably your most devisive decision--the puzzle with getting objects to other scenes. People seem to object most strongly because of the way it gets the game in an unwinnable state invisibly (or nearly so), and thus requires you to replay a whole swath of the game. What do you have to say for yourself? ;-)" | davec goes home. |
| <davec> davec has disconnected from daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "Guilty, your honor." | |
| lpsmith chuckles. | |
| Sargent says, "I might have been blinded by the neatness of the puzzle. It struck me as an ever-so-elegant way of handling the problem of between-fit transport." | Thrax says, "Except for the sunglasses, which weren't so elegant." |
| inky says, "heh" | |
| Thrax says, "I.e., they just kinda appeared in fit 2." | |
| Sargent says, "I know it's not considered a good thing to do, but I feel like keeping you from getting far in either Fit 2 without stuff from Fit 1 mitigates it somewhat." | Lionheart says, "Right." |
| Sargent asks, "You don't find out in Fit 5 that, whoops, wouldn't it be nice to have the rope from Fit 1?" | Jota says (to Thrax), "He needed them, because he was blinded by the puzzle's neatness." |
| lpsmith says, "Heh." | Thrax says (to Jota), "Hee" |
| Sargent says, "I won't reject puzzles that close off the end-game out-of-hand, but in the future I will be more careful with them." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith asks, "In what way would you be more careful?" | Gunther says (to lps), "please raise your hand before you ask." |
| Banichi raises hand | |
| Sargent says, "I'd put in better clues. The dog was supposed to be very upset if you went outside with the backpack instead of giving it to him/her." | |
| Sargent says, "Due to a bug, that didn't happen." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| lpsmith says, "oops." | inky says, "that's why he's in charge, man" |
| lpsmith asks, "We have a couple audience questions. Lionheart, then Banichi. Lionheart?" | Thrax says, "Huh. I thought the dog was upset because it thought I was so cool. I didn't think the backpack had anything to do with it." |
| inky laughs. | |
| Lionheart says, "Maybe that last bit should've gone to spoilers, heh." | |
| Sargent says, "Nah. I think these things go better if I'm not restricted in what elements of the game I can talk about." | |
| Sargent says, "Well, unrestricted except for self-imposed restrictions." | |
| lpsmith nods. | |
| (From Jota) Gunther curses. | |
| lpsmith says, "One of the tenets of the bookclub is that discussion is much better without spoiler-fear." | |
| lpsmith asks (of Lion), "You still have a question?" | Ryan says, "The other tenet is, you don't talk about book club." |
| inky says, "yay" | |
| Gunther says, "YAAAAAY" | |
| katre says, "ha!" | |
| mcp exclaims, "hee!" | |
| Thrax says (to lps), "LH has been idling for a while." | |
| Thrax says (to lps), "Come back to him, maybe." | |
| Lionheart says, "I thought the experience with faeries coming up again in fit 4 the way it did was well done." | mcp says, "BOOK CLUB: a new movie starring edward norton and brad pitt ..." |
| lpsmith says (to Thax), "Heh." | |
| Thrax says (to LH), "Oops. Sorry." | Banichi says (to Ryan), "Oh, I forgot, there was a problem with the cookies where the 'tell *' action had %n in the osuccess. It printed 'Banichi Banichi tell the cookies...' I changed it this morning." |
| Ryan says (to mcp), "It doesn't sound quite as exciting as FIGHT CLUB." | |
| Lionheart says, "You spoke of wanting to have the players decisions influence the outcome of the story later on, and I think that was a good example of how it could be done, though that wasn't an optional scene." | Gunther says, "until they get to the necronomicon part" |
| Sargent exclaims, "Thanks!" | Ryan says (to Banichi), "Oh, thanks. :)" |
| Thrax asks, "Wait. Faeries in fit 4? Where?" | |
| Lionheart says, "In one version of fit 4, I should say." | inky says, "on the bridge in the emotional fit" |
| Gunther says, "the homosexual... ah, forget it" | |
| Jota only played one of he fits 4. | |
| inky says, "I had forgotten about that" | |
| Jota has to get around o the other... | |
| Thrax says, "Oh, right." | |
| Sargent nods. | Gunther says, "that wasn't a question" |
| Lionheart asks, "Would you like to comment on some of the other ways you wanted to have player decisions change the course of the plot?" | Jota says, "That was." |
| Lionheart sits down. | (from Thrax) Lionheart gasps for breath. |
| Sargent says, "I'm not sure quite how to answer that, as most of the clear-cut ways of influencing the plot went out the window early." | |
| Sargent says, "I was going to have player decisions shuttle them to all sorts of different Fits." | Jota says (to Lionheart), "If you're making an extended statement/question, it helps to end each statement with '...' to indicate that you're not done yet, so Sarge can tell when to start answering." |
| lpsmith asks, "Like the two ways of getting to Fit 2?" | |
| Sargent says (to lpsmith), "Right." | |
| Sargent says, "My first plan was to have 2^(n-1) fits each time: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, too darn many..." | |
| lpsmith exclaims, "Yi!" | inky says, "wowzers" |
| Sargent says, "You can see why this idea went away quickly." | Lionheart says, "Thanks, I'll remember that, Jota." |
| Sargent says, "I think in the end the story I wanted to tell didn't allow for the extreme player influence I had first envisioned." | Thrax says, "Whoa. 'Losing Your Grip: The First 4-meg Story File.'" |
| Sargent says, "Not the most satisfactory answer, I'm sure. :)" | |
| Sargent says, "END" | inky says, "although maybe you could do 1,2,4,2,1" |
| inky says, "or something" | |
| lpsmith asks, "One more audience question: Banichi?" | Jota enjoyed fits 1, 2a, 3b, 3d, 4a, 4b, 4c, 4g, 4h, 5b, 5f, 5g, 5h, 5k, 5l, 5m, and 5p best. |
| inky says, "hee hee" | |
| Banichi says, "I raised my hand during the talk about the sack, fit1 and the dog. I wanted to say that I did not know the dog was supposed to be more reactive about the sack. That makes sense now that I heard that." | Gunther says, "6bb sucked, kind of" |
| Lionheart smiles. | |
| Jota says, "Also, 34DD." | |
| Sargent says, "It would have made even more sense had it worked. :)" | Gunther says, "also, 69,105XYZZY" |
| lpsmith asks (of Sarge), "Did that bug creep into later releases, or was it always there?" | (from Banichi) Sarge says, "Then I started realizing how many engineers I'd need on the project to complete all those fits in time.. and gave up on the idea. |
| Sargent says, "I'm not sure, to be honest. I haven't gone through my CVS files to see." | |
| Lionheart says, "It did work for me in version 4." | |
| Sargent says, "(It's a localized bug. In some situations it happens; in others it doesn't.)" | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| inky raises his hand. | |
| lpsmith asks (of inky), "Yes?" | |
| Banichi exclaims (at Sarge), "You use cvs for source control of your games? Yay!" | |
| lpsmith says, "Er, assuming Banichi's done and stuff." | |
| Banichi says (to lps), "Yes, END" | |
| inky asks, "you mention CVS -- so you use a full source control enviroment for programming?" | |
| Sargent says, "I did for Grip." | Gunther finally announces the end of UseComp |
| Lionheart says, "But I didn't see it until I accidentally stumpled across the solution to the jacket puzzle." | |
| Banichi says, "I use cvs for all of my work. And I don't like to work at jobs that don't use some kind of source control." | |
| Sargent says, "On Magnus's recommendation I got the OS/2 (and later Windows) version of the Unix CVS system." | |
| Sargent says, "I haven't used it as much for smaller projects." | Thrax says (to LH), "Dang. My hair is all rumbled." |
| Sargent says, "But for something of Grip's magnitude, it was a life-saver." | |
| Gunther asks, "quickie question: where from?" | |
| Sargent says (to Gunther), "It's been three years since I did that. I'd have to hunt for it again." | |
| inky says, "so it really did help then. huh." | |
| Sargent says (to inky), "In about five instances it let me figure out where I'd introduced a stealthy bug in the game." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| Gunther says, "http://www.sourcegear.com/CVS" | |
| lpsmith shuffles through his notes again. | |
| lpsmith says, "Hmm, I seem to be done." | |
| lpsmith asks, "Well, are there any other questions from the audience?" | Jota asks, "Can't we delay the end for 15 more minutes?" |
| Thrax says, "One." | |
| lpsmith says (to Thrax), "Go for it." | <Lennier> Lennier has connected to daveMUD. |
| Jota asks, "Just to make the three hour mark?" | |
| inky asks, "and make a round three hours?" | |
| inky says, "heh" | |
| Thrax asks (of Sargent), "Any particular lessons you learned from Grip, other than that writing long games is a hell of a challenge?" | Lennier climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Sargent says, "One, I doubt I'll write another game that long." | |
| (From Gunther) Sargent says, "Never, ever implement KICK" | |
| Sargent laughs. | |
| lpsmith chuckles. | Lennier has joined the channel. |
| Sargent says, "For one thing, I have less free time than I had then. If I tried to write Grip now, it'd take me two or three years to code instead of one." | Gunther says, "pretender sux anyway" |
| Sargent says, "For another, I think the potential payoff is less. In some ways you can do more in a short game, and more quickly." | Ender has tons of free time, and its taken him 2-3 years to code a comp-length game... |
| Sargent says, "And you don't put your eggs in one basket." | |
| Sargent says, "Two, if you do write a game that long, focus, focus, focus! Grip feels like a much tighter game than it is because of all the extraneous stuff I threw away." | Jota says, ">KICK BASKET" |
| Lennier says, "I suppose I shouldn't admit that I've never got past the opening scene in LYG." | |
| Sargent says, "It's why I think people found Fit 4 so out-of-place: because they didn't see how it fit in." | |
| Sargent says, "Three, get a good set of beta-testers, and listen to them." | Jota says, "'"Noooo!" yells Sargent, as his eggs crack with the sound of breaking eggshells.'" |
| Sargent says, "And budget a *lot* of time for that. I didn't realize how long it'd take everyone but Mike Kinyon to get through the game." | Gunther says, "tsd" |
| Ryan sets the Sentient Plate of Cookies down on the ground. | |
| inky says, "heh" | Jota says (to Lennier), "Er, then you should probably not be here." |
| Lennier says, "Budget on some people never even figuring out what it's all about, and quitting in frustration after 5 minutes. :)" | |
| Jota says, "Major spoilage." | |
| Sargent says, "Four, write quickly. The longer you take, the bigger the difference between the quality of the beginning and the end." | |
| Sargent says, "It's what I call the Avalon effect." | Lennier says (to jota), "Nah, I don't care about spoilers. I'm not going to figure it out on my own." |
| Jota says, "There'll be a log avaiable, when you finish playing." | |
| lpsmith laughs. | Jota shrugs. |
| Sargent says, "Five, don't make a game of this magnitude your first IF project." | |
| Thrax nods. | Ryan asks, "Has he been asked the 'what would you do differently' question yet?" |
| Sargent says, "You don't want to be learning how to program and write IF in something like this. Again, I think Kevin Wilson ran into a lot of this, resulting in Avalon's continual delays." | |
| Gunther asks (of sargent), "couldn't you have told me that 2 years earlier?" | |
| Sargent laughs. | Lennier exclaims, "shivers. Not the dreaded Avalon effect!" |
| <Jaybird> Jaybird has connected to daveMUD. | |
| Sargent says, "That's about it, really. END" | |
| Thrax nods again. | |
| lpsmith asks, "So, some stuff you cut would have made Fit 4 more clearly in-context?" | |
| Lionheart hands Sargent a sheaf of bug reports. | |
| (From Thrax) Sargent throws the sheaf of bug reports back at Lionheart and runs away. | Jota says (to Ryan), "Not sure." |
| Ryan says, "See, I went and had dinner in the middle, so I missed a bit. :)" | |
| The Sentient Plate of Cookies raises a cookie in the air. | |
| Sargent says (to lpsmith), "Not really. I can't blame people's reactions to Fit 4 on me getting rid of stuff." | |
| Sargent says (to lpsmith), "I failed to make the connections clear enough, or to prepare the player for what was coming." | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| The Sentient Plate of Cookies says, "Sargent, do you prefer chocolate-chip or peanut butter cookies?" | |
| Sargent says, "Chocolate chip." | |
| Banichi says, "If I may speak out-of-turn.. I didn't find fit4 to be that out of context. It had the overtones of the feelings as a child. With the father and also with the bully and the tree. And, of course, the gray man at the end." | |
| inky says (to Ban), "that's fit 3" | |
| Sargent says (to Banichi), "There were a number of people who thought it fit. And zarf had a field day with the math side." | |
| Banichi says (to inky), "Oops. hehe, nevermind." | |
| Sargent says (to Banichi), "Whoops, inky's right." | Thrax asks, "Did the fit fit?" |
| Banichi says, "yeah, yeah, ok, I'll just talk to the cookies." | inky says, "if the fit fits, fit it" |
| inky says, "'cause the pie ain't listenin'" | |
| lpsmith chuckles. | |
| lpsmith asks (of Sarge), "'field day'?" | |
| lpsmith asks (of Sarge), "Like, good or bad?" | Lennier asks, "Dumb comment: Are there LYG hints available, and where?" |
| Sargent says, "Like, good." | |
| Gunther loses his grippe. | |
| Thrax hurtles to justice at lightning speed. | <Thrax> Stop telling everybody you live in a gated community. No matter how you try to dress it up, it's still jail. |
| Gunther says, "yes. if you register." | |
| Jota has to admit he liked the math version of four best of the fis he played. | |
| mcp says, "there's a walkthru available in the /solutions directory at gmd" | |
| Sargent says, "His comment to me was, (paraphrasing), "I reached that fit and thought, did you write this personally for me?"" | |
| lpsmith grins. | Lennier says (to mcp), "I was afraid of that. I guess I won't finish it, then." |
| Lennier says (to mcp), "Ah. A walkthru. That's cool." | |
| Gunther says, "register it, you cheap bastard :)" | |
| Sargent says, "END" | |
| inky says, "nice." | <Thrax> "Bother," said Pooh. "Eeyore, load the photon torpedoes." |
| lpsmith exclaims, "Well, if there are no more questions, let's all thank Sargent for agreeing to be here!" | Thrax climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Jearl applauds. | |
| Jota says, "Thank you, Mr. Sargent." | Thrax says, "Phone." |
| Lennier applauds | |
| inky says, "yay sarge" | |
| Sargent exclaims, "You bet. It's been fun!" | |
| Thrax applauds. | |
| Gunther applauds! | |
| mcp applauds | |
| Banichi applauds! | |
| Sargent says, "And now I must hurtle to dinner." | |
| Sargent exclaims, "G'night, everyone!" | |
| inky says, "byebye. thanks for being here" | |
| Gunther waves! | Sargent goes home. |
| <Sargent> "You're the guy who runs into the 7-11 to get a pack of cigarettes for Satan." | |
| Lennier waves! | |
| Jota says, "Yay." | Jaybird climbs up the ladder and enters the room. |
| Gunther walks into a wall. | Ryan departs, climbing back down the ladder to the rooftop below. |
| lpsmith says, "And thanks to everyone else, who arrived, and special thanks to those that had questions." | |
Results from the first poll (I forgot to log the second. Oops!):
User Do you like more-defined or less-defined protags? davec more defined Gunther I like my protagonists well-done Jearl depends on the story, but I'd say 'more'. lpsmith I gotta go with more-defined. Jota Yes, please. Ryan I prefer more-defined.This line last updated June 23rd, 1998 AD