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From: uq775@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA (Roger Carbol)
Subject: Re: Just some comments.
Message-ID: <1996Apr7.063714.4943@freenet.victoria.bc.ca>
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Reply-To: uq775@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA (Roger Carbol)
Organization: The Victoria Freenet Association (VIFA), Victoria, B.C., Canada
References: <4k175p$cff@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu> <4k06un$efc@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 06:37:14 GMT
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In a previous article, ceforma@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Christopher E. Forman) says:

>Gerry Kevin Wilson (whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote:

>2) Real puzzles.  Hunting for a pixel that the game recognizes is not a
>   puzzle, just like guessing a specific word in a text adventure is not
>   a puzzle.

This subvertly raises an interesting question: what is a 'real'
puzzle?  What is a 'good' puzzle?

History is full of example where people have solved puzzles through
simple dumb luck, by guessing some combination of elements which had
no rational reason to produce a particularly interesting reaction
at all.

But perhaps part of art is to not necessarily render the world
as it is, but rather, as it SHOULD be.  In the ideal IF world,
every problem would have a somewhat rational, or at least
realizable problem.  There's never a case where:

>You find a door in the closet.  It appears to be locked, but
there is a keyhole.  The hole reminds you of that key you
threw out two weeks ago, when you were cleaning out your
garage.  Guess you'll never get to open that door.  Guess
the entire universe is doomed.  Oh well.


Perhaps this is a part of the escapism of entertainment, which
has reared its head lately in the discussion?

>3) A film-quality script.  Let's face it, if today's games are going to
>   have Hollywood budgets, they need Hollywood-quality (is that an
>   oxymoron?) writing.

I'm an outsider on the 'industry', but I suspect that you're off
by at least an order of magnitude, probably two, with respect
to budget.  Sure, Mortal Kombat II had an opening week comparible
to Jurassic Park, but I don't think this is the norm when speaking
of IF.  There is also the question of volume:  I hereby propose
a law, known hereafter as Carbol's Law (unless someone else
has proposed it first; I honestly don't mean to steal someone
else's idea):  The proportion of Good Art, in a given medium, is
at a given Ratio, called the constant C, to the remainder of the
body of Art in that medium.

By this, I mean:  Sure, there's been lots of Good Movies, but
there has been a hell of a lot of Movies.  Similarly with Books,
Paintings, Operas, IF, interpretive Strip-Tease, and Freeform
Booger Molding.

Perhaps this implies that we should do our best to kidnap
good Authors/Screenwrites/Artists and force them to produce
IF.


Roger Carbol // uq775@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA // x all, everywhere

