intfiction.org

I may have came across a discovery today: what I like the most about playing games is exploring and learning about a virtual environment, and what I think I like the most in story is a well-developed setting.

I'm just wondering what you're thoughts on setting in IF is. I personally really like being immersed in a very detailed fictional environment, and I think I've read some posts on this forum that say something similar.

So just how important is setting in IF? Are there games in this medium that tell good stories where setting isn't the central focus? I know I have a similar attitude when exploring MUDs: I like to really explore the backstory and think about the environment. How much pleasure does manipulating the environment bring to you when you play IF? Or what about exploring various rooms? What do you think about those old classic text-based adventure games where story isn't exactly the focus, but you read most of the story from the manual, and then explore the environment while manipulating objects to solve puzzles in different rooms? Do you suppose the old way of telling the story and introducing the player to the environment via means of the manual is dead now, or do people still attach similar readmes in their games sometimes?

I think this kind of correlates with my interests in history and the huge adventure romps I read in high fantasy and space operas. I've never been a very competitive gamer, but something about thinking about a really interesting setting, both whole you're playing the game and when you're taking a break, really appeals to me and my sensibilities.

In one sense, IF began with setting: before there were any puzzles, before there was a plot, before there was even a dwarf or a pirate, there was a cave. In another sense also, setting is the sine qua non of IF: at least in Inform 7 (I don't know about other languages) the only line of code which is absolutely necessary is a line which defines a room. There can be no action without a place in which it can occur.

To me, exploring a world is a very important part of the experience. Being an old-timer (I guess the proper term is probably old fart) I have no problem playing a game without much in the way of NPCs, and while I like some element of plot I can also live with a more free-form game. Without setting, however, its difficult for a game to capture my attention.

Robert Rothman

Setting is the core of most of what I love about IF, too. That said, the phrase "very detailed" is a tricky sort of thing. A surgically-targeted small set of details can bring a world to bursting with evocative awesomeness, while a truckload of lah-de-dah detail can be a finger-drumming bore. The best details evoke, connect to each other in unexpected and telling ways, and inspire vistas between data-points without literally plodding across them.

Setting is king, but detail is a power tool. Like any other power tool, in the wrong hands it's just a disaster.

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Games, Fonts, and Font-Toys For Gamers - http://www.cumberlandgames.com

One way of looking at setting is to borrow a term from conventional fiction: In IF, to a very considerable extent, the player is the protagonist and the setting itself is the antagonist. The villain, if you will. The setting as a whole is likely to be a much more effective antagonist than an individual NPC. The latter, even in games with well-developed villains, tend to be rather one-dimensional. The setting can be far more effective in thwarting the protagonist's ambitions, because the setting is everywhere.

Beyond that, the fact that in IF one has to traverse a rather limited set of locations gives each location a sense of importance. In conventional fiction, on the other hand, the lead character can walk halfway across Europe or spend a lifetime in the court at Versailles without the setting ever becoming the main point of interest.

--JA

It never occurred to me to make the connection, but this is also why I love the movie Tron. The plot is ridiculous, the characters are instantly forgettable, but the setting is amazing.

Well, that and the soundtrack.

Actually, there were always dwarves.

I'm curious what you think of the new Tron movie.

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David Griffith

This is also what I loved about it, especially the creativity and inventiveness.

Not strictly true, IMO. The only line of code which is absolutely necessary in i7 is a line which defines something that is *internally* referred to at least once as a 'room'. It does not ever have to be referred to externally as a room, nor does it actually have to literally represent an actual room or a literal 'place'. All it necessarily represents is the printing of a starting title (and/or paragraph) after which more events can be printed. The relationship 'in' is not even necessarily implied between the starting paragraph and the events that follow — this relationship can easily be dispensed with in the text. There is no intrinsic reason to confine one's thinking purely to the ideas expressed in the internal names of variables and classes. Those ideas don't actually mean anything — they're just labels on bits of data in memory.

This is why I maintain that 'setting', per se, is irrelevant to a study of the foundational structure of IF. What is undeniably relevant is the presentation of a complex of interrelated concepts to explore, which may include (but are not limited to) representations of an interaccessible group of physical places. The sense of exploration is indispensible, I agree — but not necessarily via a 'setting'.


Heh. I was wondering the same. It seems difficult to describe the sequel accurately aftering cornering oneself into hyperbole regarding the failings of the much-superior-all-around original. 87

Paul.

Even this isn't literally true: the source code for my IF Demo Fair project begins thus:



which I believe prevents the room name from ever showing up anywhere in the output. [UPDATED: pasted in the extension inclusions, because some of the code needs Undo Output Control.]

But it is true that to define a settingless IF like this in Inform 7, you have to go against the grain a bit.