Ron Newcomb's Member Blogs
Did you ever want to ask an NPC "why"? Or "how"? Or "could"? Here's a method for a creator to provide NPCs with answers without necessarily scripting everything beforehand.
If board wargames are the predecessor of strategy videogames, so might pinball precede the action videogame. And so the rise and fall of pinball may foretell something for the action videogame.
In books, dialog is action. In games, dialog is exposition. For genres that lack the human element, here is news.
Adaptable story frequently finds limited prose generation useful. While substituting one MacGuffin or character for another is pretty straightforward, verb conjugation, pronoun choice, and subject-verb agreement can get hairy. Especially on a cell phone.
PAX badge not cover all three days? Want to try something a little different after-hours? OK, how about free snacks? Visit the Seattle Interactive Fiction Group's freeplay room, in the Sheraton hotel.
A videogame satire goes awry, revealing...
Ensuring a correct simulation requires more than checking your math. Try checking your players' behavior.
Writers know that paragraphs have jobs to do -- develop characters, reinforce theme, etc. But for interactive environments, are there more?
Games controlled by a language interface -- interactive fiction, "Maniac Mansion", "Shadowgate" and many other adventure games -- traditionally choose imperatives as the only form of input. But this is button-centric thinking.
Ruleset design doesn't end with gameplay. Without certain needs met, some techniques of interactive plot become very difficult. Case in point: integrating psionics with the second edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
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