Have you ever had a parser game idea that was too linear?

Authoring General Design Discussions
21

ParserScribe, I did a series of pretty linear railroad-ride games, but I never started out thinking, I’m gonna make a rails game. I always started with, I have a big notion, it has a lot of branches. I actually have some branch ideas other guys haven’t done yet. This is going to be great.

I wish you luck, getting some bushy branches in there. It was my old era that tolerated non-bushy branches of storytelling.

Rob Wheeler

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Dan Fabulich,
I agree that Michael Gentry’s Anchorhead is an incredible accomplishment.

| and my complaints about it notwithstanding, any IF author should consider themselves proud to make a game that good.

Yes, I agree.

  • \Anchorhead combined three factors that I claim don’t combine well together:

    1. Big, branchy map: You can explore anywhere at any time.
    1. No guidance: There’s no way to know where the current puzzle is; you just have to guess. ( Xbox/PS5/PC has figured this out, it seems like. But only in games in the last two years.)

#2: Linear puzzle progression: You can only work on one puzzle at a time. This is a huge misjudgment, yes.

    • You can have a linear puzzle progression in a simple, linear map. No need to guide people toward the current puzzle, because it’s right there in front of you.
    • You can have a big, branchy map with a big, branchy puzzle-dependency chart. (That way, you can trust that if you’re facing a puzzle, you can probably solve it.)
    • You can have a linear puzzle progression in a big, branchy map, but then, I think you should provide the player clear hints about what to work on next.

Yeah the last one, number 3, is what I attempt to do and like to play. The fancy game developers have figured this one out a few years ago, but they don’t do it consistently as if they understand this is the formula.

Rob

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23

One tool in the author’s inventory that should not be overlooked is delivering part of the story in an entirely deterministic way while giving the player the illusion of freedom. Though it seems to only come up in the context of choice fiction, parser authors have been known to do the same. For example, in Photopia the player will invariably see one of two rooms before the other because whether the player goes north or south, the author has rigged the outcome behind the scenes. Of course, the casual player is unlikely to ever discover this. More significantly, even among people in the know Photopia is one of the most beloved parser works of all time, and this is despite the fact that it laid bare the fact that player freedom is considerably constrained by the author.

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