Search found 317 matches

by Mr Creosote
Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:29 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Synopsis - what to aim for?
Replies: 24
Views: 8064

Re: Synopsis - what to aim for?

The synopsis is just one piece of the whole picture, though, is it? If a game is humorous, it would have the appropriate theme tagged to it (which a serious take on the same subject won't). Information like "simple 'verb noun' parser" is verifyable information which can easily be included in an ...
by Mr Creosote
Tue Sep 14, 2010 2:35 pm
Forum: Site feedback & announcements
Topic: Synopsis - what to aim for?
Replies: 24
Views: 8064

Re: Synopsis - what to aim for?

I wouldn't include what you call the 'personal angle'. This goes very much into review territory. Maybe game length, ok, but fun? That's very subjective. What will you do if one user submits a synopsis (which doesn't appear 'signed' on the site) saying a game is great and another user submits the ...
by Mr Creosote
Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:19 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Get Lamp
Replies: 44
Views: 237496

Re: Get Lamp

Samwise: That's not very controversial with me. I agree with most of what you've written. On the whole, I was actually rather (positively) surprised how balanced the documentary was in this respect. There were people saying 'IF' is just a marketing term, there were people not just defending, but ...
by Mr Creosote
Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:07 am
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Get Lamp
Replies: 44
Views: 237496

Re: Get Lamp

Well, I don't want to get ahead too much on the discussion Jacob and I had which he's planning to publish, but I'd be interested in this:
Overall, the DVD did remind me that I do have an inherent distaste for the term "interactive fiction".
Could you elaborate? I've got a few feelings about this ...
by Mr Creosote
Tue Sep 07, 2010 9:26 am
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Get Lamp
Replies: 44
Views: 237496

Re: Get Lamp

My favourite bit is the one on the second disk which "spoils every game ever made" (it doesn't actually spoil any noteworthy game, apart from one instance, I'd say the games aren't identifyable from what the people are talking about there): "You get into the time machine, but then, you've got this ...
by Mr Creosote
Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:17 am
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days
Replies: 2
Views: 5386

Re: Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days

Chris Hülsbek didn't really talk much in that podcast. He was 'just there', dropping the occasional line and once again announcing the new CD 'Sound of Games' which he collaborated on. The reason was that he had been a guest on there a couple of times before already:

http://www.spieleveteranen.de ...
by Mr Creosote
Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:37 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days
Replies: 2
Views: 5386

Bob Bates talking about his Infocom and Legend days

He was recently featured in a podcast , telling some stories (among other things) about his never made Robin Hood game ("I couldn't figure out how to say: 'You take an arrow from the quiver.' - 'Which arrow do you mean: The first arrow, the second arrow, the twentieth arrow...'"), his never made The ...
by Mr Creosote
Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:05 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Starting guides for various platforms
Replies: 29
Views: 110841

Re: Starting guides for various platforms

The more serious question is rather whether you want to maintain the status quo or improve on it.
Erm.... how would I go about accomplishing that? :) I'm largely unfamiliar with r.a.i-f these days, as I stopped using it about ten years ago.
I think this is going off topic a little too much ;) The ...
by Mr Creosote
Thu Aug 26, 2010 2:05 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Starting guides for various platforms
Replies: 29
Views: 110841

Re: Starting guides for various platforms

All I can say, then, is: Please clearly state your host platform assumptions. There is nothing more frustrating than being lead to assume a guide will be generic, but then, following the links, recognising it's useless.

I don't see much overlapping between them and our users
Well, there's me ...
by Mr Creosote
Thu Aug 26, 2010 1:50 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Starting guides for various platforms
Replies: 29
Views: 110841

Re: Starting guides for various platforms

Here's the deal: I have written a brief emulator section which is really just a carry-over from the old site. Hence it doesn't cover more than a fraction of the available target platforms. As for the host platforms, I've just gone with the Windows emulators, in order to reach a wide audience.
Wide ...
by Mr Creosote
Thu Aug 26, 2010 11:41 am
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Starting guides for various platforms
Replies: 29
Views: 110841

Re: Starting guides for various platforms

Again, I can write such guides for a number of the most common platforms. For the more esoteric ones, I don't have the knowledge. So I'll need some assistance in order not to come across as closed-minded.
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here. What I was trying to get at (using my ...
by Mr Creosote
Thu Aug 26, 2010 9:34 am
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Starting guides for various platforms
Replies: 29
Views: 110841

Re: Starting guides for various platforms

As I said - this will be OK as long as you provide such instructions for various host platforms. Otherwise, you'll just look close-minded.
by Mr Creosote
Wed Aug 25, 2010 4:39 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Starting guides for various platforms
Replies: 29
Views: 110841

Re: Starting guides for various platforms

"load up BASIC from disk, then load the program and run it, or execute the binary command file using the TRSDOS interface"
There you've got your first comprehensive guide already ;)

On a more serious note, for modern-age games, it's mostly trivial as Sam says. A pointer to some one-for-all ...
by Mr Creosote
Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:42 pm
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Gameshelf video episode #8 - Modern Interactive Fiction
Replies: 8
Views: 7210

Re: Gameshelf video episode #8 - Modern Interactive Fiction

You lead me to see your point quite cleverly - making me believe I came up with the analogy myself :D

I have written two games in Inform 7 so far and it's really much more 'traditional' than the marketing department would want you to believe once you get to the complicated details of the game logic ...
by Mr Creosote
Wed Aug 25, 2010 11:41 am
Forum: Off-topic
Topic: Gameshelf video episode #8 - Modern Interactive Fiction
Replies: 8
Views: 7210

Re: Gameshelf video episode #8 - Modern Interactive Fiction

Fully agreed about Parchment. I'm not trying to badmouth the project itself, just the people who believe it will save the world from starvation, desease and everything ;)

Re. the parser question: Again, agreed. However, what irks me that certain people nowadays interpret this whole question as a ...