October 16, 2008 – 11:51 am
Had a couple requests to implement cars in IF. This uses an object called a “vehicle.”
Look at this code:
The Parking Lot is a room. “Main Street is to the north.”
The Maserati GranTurismo is a vehicle in the parking lot. The description is “Nice. This baby will hit 60 mph in 5.2 seconds and is capable of a maximum speed of 178 mile per hour.” Understand “car” as Maserati GranTurismo.
Main Street is north of the parking lot.
To get into the vehicle, the player types “get in maserati”. Note something new at the end of the description of the Maserati object: a sentence that allows the player to also use the word car instead of having to type maserati.
To drive vehicles, the player types in directions as they normally would.
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October 16, 2008 – 11:40 am
I had two questions about how a note could be attached to something and not show up in the room description. Here is a simple solution:
The Foyer is a room.
The window is in the foyer. The description is “Upon closer examination, there is a small note written on the window.”
The note is scenery and part of the window. The description is “The note reads: Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
If you do not want the window to show up either, do this (just make sure to mention it in the room description):
The Foyer is a room. “This small room is illuminated by light coming through a lone window.”
The window is scenery in the foyer. The description is “Upon closer examination, there is a small note written on the window.”
The note is scenery and part of the window. The description is “The note reads: Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
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October 13, 2008 – 8:40 am
Here is the Interactive Fiction Project Assignment and requirements for this semester:
if-project-fall-2008
October 12, 2008 – 10:26 pm
A thoughtful observation from Jess Sanner on trends in games:
It seems as though a great majority of video games are stuck in a world of Me Vs You or Me VS AI and this is very dangerous and stifles creativity. It’s time to move past the point of a game being to simply win or “beat the computer” but rather, to foster an interactive storytelling that can intertwine naturally with human emotion. Isn’t that truly the point anyway? Are video games in their most organic definition not another form or extension of fiction with which a player ( or reader) can interact? This is why they are so different from more traditional games or stories They inspire more accurate emotions within a person because they actually become part of the story.
As we see an emergence and subsequent rise of movement technology I feel that these thoughts will weigh more on our society’s gamers. When players are truly “holding” the gun there will be more of a direct mind and emotion connection and hopefully developers will take this as a way to integrate human body language naturally with game violence. A whole new level of interactivity could be explored on a level that is honest, authentic and in great depth.
Brendan Finn also has some interesting thoughts:
I want it to alter the story depending on my actions.The players actions must define the story, amplyfying the game mechanics and giving purpose to the player. I want control over the fate of the character in a non-linear fashion, as I am the active participant of the story. I believe a strong narrative is very important to a game, the players must interact with the narrative. Both the dialogue and cutscenes are used to help convey the story more now then ever in video games. Cutscenes and dialogue which break the game into segments coincide to shape the outcome.
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October 3, 2008 – 10:44 am
A new media accounting of projected war costs
GOOD: The Hidden Cost of War
October 1, 2008 – 11:02 pm
This morning I demo’ed two short works of IF: Nine Points and The Legend of Grammy’s Apple. Both serve as demonstrations and tutorials of how to play and interact with works of interactive fiction (text adventures.) For a more detailed explanation of playing IF, read this useful overview.
After that, we discussed the importance of creating a map of the world in which your stories will occur using something called pen and paper. Then we took our first look at the Inform 7 authoring environment where you will be working to produce your first work of interactive fiction.
We just covered a few basic coding techniques to create “rooms”, the connections between these rooms, simple objects to place within these rooms, and then how to “run” your code to test it.
Next Monday (10/6) I will take us through the code to build a short game to get everyone started.
In the meantime, think about what kind of work you want to create, download and install Inform 7 on your computer, and visit our interactive fiction page (where there are links to games and free interpreters to play these games)
Some short games I recommend to check out are linked in a previous post.
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September 29, 2008 – 10:56 am
On Wednesday (October 1), we will begin discussing our next project: creating a work of interactive fiction with the Inform 7 authoring software. We will go through the Inform 7 interface, basic I7 coding, and view some basic works of interactive fiction.
Inform 7 is freeware and is available for Windows, Mac, and Unix platforms. Find the time to download and install the software on your home computer and/or laptop this coming weekend. Bring your laptop (if you have one) to class on Monday, October 6 ready to work. Those without their own laptops can work on the MacBooks.
Download Inform 7 here.
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September 19, 2008 – 1:42 pm
I’m moving the Mapping Space assignment up a few days. Look for the assignment to be downlaodable sometime today.
September 14, 2008 – 11:06 am
Dan Kimerling of TechCrunch has some interesting and arguable ideas on the relationship between Microsoft and future power users. He writes
Another example of Microsoft’s inability to understand younger users, comes in what I can only call their software design philosophy, which I can summarize as “Throw in More Features”. Yet, that seems antithetical to those products which are selling most successfully in the market place, especially to young people. Microsoft Office is the clearest example of this. The myriad number of options buried in Word 2008’s ribbons, will rarely be used by most users. And in Excel 2008, some users might need pivot tables, but vast majority of those that use spreadsheets will never ever need to use them, nor will they ever write a macro, or script in Visual Basic. What is clear from the success of Google Docs and Zoho, especially amongst college age students, is that people want tools that are simultaneously powerful and simple to use. And that is why not only are web based office replacements, which focus on ease of use,facilitating collaborative exchange, and being able to publish in digital environments, but also iWork and Star office, are gaining traction.
(links in original)
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September 13, 2008 – 11:30 am
This is something to look into: SnapPages.
I don’t know a lot about webpage creation tools, such as SnapPages and the product from Google, but it’s well worth the time to play with the software. That’s what we do: play, explore, and wonder at the usefulness.
SnapPages™ provides a suit of tools that make creating your own website a breeze. Each of the tools have been [sic] developed from the ground up to be as simple and easy to use as possible.
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September 11, 2008 – 1:17 pm
Something to keep up with is the EuroITV 2009 conference. Context:
EuroITV2009 is a forum for professionals not only from Europe, but from all over the world who are interested in, work with and do research on all aspects of interactive television. The conference will be held in the lively university town of Leuven, Belgium on 3, 4 and 5 June 2009.
The theme of the 7th European Interactive TV Conference is ‘Networked Television’. Interactive television is becoming one piece in a bigger puzzle of different interconnected devices. This not only has technical implications, but also impacts users and television viewers.
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September 10, 2008 – 9:54 pm
The forms of news assignment is up and ready for download in the course calendar. Download the description and assessment sheet and turn it in with the completed assignment.
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September 9, 2008 – 9:53 pm
Here’s something to follow. A game approach called Superstuct. Here’s the scenario:
This is a game of survival, and we need you to survive.
Super-threats are massively disrupting global society as we know it. There’s an entire generation of homeless people worldwide, as the number of climate refugees tops 250 million. Entrepreneurial chaos and “the axis of biofuel” wreak havoc in the alternative fuel industry. Carbon quotas plummet as food shortages mount. The existing structures of human civilization—from families and language to corporate society and technological infrastructures—just aren’t enough. We need a new set of superstructures to rise above, to take humans to the next stage.
You can help. Tell us your story. Strategize out loud. Superstruct now.
It’s your legacy to the human race.
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September 9, 2008 – 7:03 pm
Jess has found an interesting relationship between Harold and PictoChat:
Today in class we discussed the story Harold and the Purple Crayon. I couldn’t help but make a fairly obvious comparison to the PictoChat Battle Stage in Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii. For those who have yet to play the game the PictoChat stage is based on the DS Lite’s chat interface in which up to 16 people can communicate not only through traditional typed text but also gives the option of chatting through drawn pictures and written words using a Stylis and the DS Lite touch screen in an MS Paint-esque format. The Stage for Super Smash Brothers is simply a blank page in which drawings randomly appear that the player can interact with in ways varying from simply standing on the drawings to one image in which a drawn person blows on characters within the game making them react accordingly. Regardless of the drawing’s actions the player is forced to adapt to whatever appears on the spot. Of course there is some repetition but for the most part the drawings are in a random enough fashion to make the stage challenging and interesting.
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September 9, 2008 – 6:58 pm
David Andrade has a wonderful post on Vannevar Bush:
Hopefully Final Crisis will be as filled with revelations and jaw dropping moments as this piece was. Off the top of my head I related what Vannevar was predicting over 50 years ago to at least five different modern devices of media. For starters, we have the jump drive. While he was describing something most people would attribute as a floppy, that little device has gone the way of the Dodo in recent years. All things circling about his “Memex” concept, the man foresaw modern interactions with computers when the only computer around was a giant room of devices that mimicked what we now call a calculator and even THAT device, I believe, was at least five years down the road.
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