Archive for August 2005  Statistics in interactive fiction  
Leave a comment  I refer here to Negotis: Book 1, from the
IntroComp 2005, and Emily Short’s review:  I’m fine with the
idea that there are many ways to solve a puzzle, some of which
lead to better results than others: that’s deterministic, and on
careful replaying I could get a good result on my own. There’s a
kind of fun in this, if I’m in the right mood. But I see no fun
in optimizing the success of a runthrough by saving and
restoring until I happen to get the dice roll to come out in my
favor.  There is lurking here the awkward relationship to
variable simulationism that has always been in IF. Text
naturally comes off as a discrete medium compared to a graphical
game; the character might be standing in room X, not exactly 200
pixels to the right and 500 pixels forward from the entrance.
Failure in a discrete medium invites a limited range of
responses compared to a graphical one (where the player may be
able to choose to run away in a multitude