September 14, 2010 Archives

I'll discuss your "game plan" assignment with you individually. The rest of the time, you'll have free for experimenting with Inform 7.

Come with a plan for your Inform 7 project. (You may post your plan on your blog or, if you want to keep your story a secret, you can just show it to me on your iPad.)

1. What are three IF games that inspired you (other than the ones we played in class)?
2. What is the setting and genre for your game? (For setting, draw a rough map, showing the locations of important objects. For genre, that would be "horror" or "adventure" or "romance" or maybe "wordplay" or "devious puzzles.")
3. Who is your PC? (What will happen when the player types "examine me" or "inventory"?)
4. What are some specific, concrete actions your will PC do?
   
1. Good: "Construct a cannon, using raw materials found in the environment (charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter to make gunpowder; diamonds for bullets, a section of bamboo for the gun barrel, a strip of cloth from your clothes for a fuse) and "Break into a museum. put sleeping powder in the guard's coffee, and steal a painting." are specific goals tied to actions we can simulate.
2. Too Boring: "Get out of bed, eat breakfast, and wash your face" are certainly things to simulate, but they're not exactly exciting, in terms of a story -- unless there's an infra-red-eyed security bot loose in the house, or your character will go insane if he touches anything red, and the game involves making sure you avoid all red objects. Would that be any fun? It would probably depend on the writing.)
   
3. Too Abstract: "Get your crush to fall in love with you" is too abstract.  (You might instead "evade a guard dog and an overprotective father in order to deliver a love note to your crush," which will lead to a cutscene that shows you've won your crush's heart.)
   
5. What is a transcript showing the opening of your game, and the first few moves?
6. How will the player figure out what to do?
7. How will the game get harder, and how will you reward the player in order to encourage him/her to stick with your game?
8. How will your game end? (Is it a "win" or "lose" situation, or are there simply multiple endings?)
9. If you run short on time, what is one part of your plan you can cut?
10. If you have the time, what is one optional thing you'd like to do?

Workshop.

By now, the map should be mostly complete, the starting location and the first few rooms (or puzzles or whatever division seems to make sense) should be fairly well fleshed out.

Our goal for today is to end up with at least a brief game you can start testing out on users.