CYOA and IF

[Felix_Larsson]

@Felix

Yes, neither DNA nor other real things work according to prototypes. But prototypes were never meant to be conceived as out there. They are conceptual or even mental thingies, that real things can be more or less like unto. That’s the very purpose of a prototype theory of concepts (or semantics).
That way protoype theory dispenses with both real inherent essences and any essential conditions for belonging to a given class of things. Everything belongs to every class to a greater or smaller degree – the more like a certain prototype concept (that no real thing needs to be exactly like) the more it belongs to the class defined by similarity to that prototype.

@Laroquod

If it has no existence in reality then of what use could it possibly be, besides as a way for a person who uses it to exclude something from some arena it should probably not be excluded from? I suspect the theory’s logic and its motives. Why do we need to know something that isn’t true, anyway? And why do we need to cloak what is bascially prejudice in scientific terms? So we can all figure out a way to be in agreement? But we don’t need to all be in agreement, and anyway, I don’t want to live in that world. If we all could agree on what is a story and what is a game then that would mean that all of the experiments have ended. The whole point of half of the art innovations that ever were, was to challenge the pre-existing definitions of what it means to make art in that medium. It’s a good thiing those innovations were always introduced into a milieu of disagreement and uncertainty, else they might have been entirely ignored as categorically invalid.

That’s the trouble with thinking in categories. It is only useful for one thing: exclusion.

Granted, but exclusion in turn is useful for any number of things.

As I see it, there can be all kinds of similarities and all kinds of differences between a certain thing correctly categorizeable as a a story and a certain thing correctly categorizable as a game, and a few of these are relevant for a given purpose, a few of them are relevant for another purpose, and so on. (And, again as far as I can see, there is nothing to prevent some things to be correctly categorized as both games and stories at the same time.)

So it all boils down to what purpose one wants one’s categorizations (i.e. one’s exclusions and inclusions) to serve. Some exclusions, no doubt, serve very suspect purposes, indeed; but often, I’m equally sure, they are not particularly morally objectionable; and for some purposes (like medical treatment, say), surely, it would be downright wrong not to include only some things or persons and exclude others.

As for prototype theory, as far as I know, it is an attempt at an empirical theory about on what grounds people actually do categorize things: it proposes that categorization is done by means of similarity to one’s conception of a prototypical member of a given class, rather than by strict definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions for class membership. Prototype theory may well be false for all or some concepts – I’m not a champion of it, particularly. But I can’t see that it follows from this theory that people can’t perfectly reasonably categorize things by means of slightly or widely different prototypes. Nor that it follows from it that people can’t conceive of new interesting ways to categorize things (i.e. seeing previously ignored similarities and differences between things) or of inventing things that fall outside, in between, or transcends any given categories.

Further, if there are no real essences inhering in the nature of things, and if reality doesn’t in some other way by itself fall into a certain number of more or less neat categories quite regardless of human or other interests, then what alternative is there to our imposing categories on reality guided by our own interests? If reality as such, in and by itself, draws no distinctions between stories, games, and plays – or between carburators, unemployment, and daffodils –, and people shouldn’t draw those distinctions unless they exist in reality, then we couldn’t say or even think anything about anything, could we?

[Laroquod]

@Felix

@Laroquod

If it has no existence in reality then of what use could it possibly be, besides as a way for a person who uses it to exclude something from some arena it should probably not be excluded from? I suspect the theory’s logic and its motives. Why do we need to know something that isn’t true, anyway? And why do we need to cloak what is bascially prejudice in scientific terms? So we can all figure out a way to be in agreement? But we don’t need to all be in agreement, and anyway, I don’t want to live in that world. If we all could agree on what is a story and what is a game then that would mean that all of the experiments have ended. The whole point of half of the art innovations that ever were, was to challenge the pre-existing definitions of what it means to make art in that medium. It’s a good thiing those innovations were always introduced into a milieu of disagreement and uncertainty, else they might have been entirely ignored as categorically invalid.

That’s the trouble with thinking in categories. It is only useful for one thing: exclusion.

Granted, but exclusion in turn is useful for any number of things.

I have to admit that’s true. Nicely done.

@Felix

As I see it, there can be all kinds of similarities and all kinds of differences between a certain thing correctly categorizeable as a a story and a certain thing correctly categorizable as a game, and a few of these are relevant for a given purpose, a few of them are relevant for another purpose, and so on. (And, again as far as I can see, there is nothing to prevent some things to be correctly categorized as both games and stories at the same time.)

So it all boils down to what purpose one wants one’s categorizations (i.e. one’s exclusions and inclusions) to serve. Some exclusions, no doubt, serve very suspect purposes, indeed; but often, I’m equally sure, they are not particularly morally objectionable; and for some purposes (like medical treatment, say), surely, it would be downright wrong not to include only some things or persons and exclude others.

You’ve turned the subject to pragmatic issues of life and death. We are talking about labels that are really of no such consequence, so the motivations are much more suspect. Any of the positive things that could be good reasons to exclude A from B do not operate in this realm. But all of the negative reasons do. Take this thread, for example. How did it start?

@Felix

As for prototype theory, as far as I know, it is an attempt at an empirical theory about on what grounds people actually do categorize things: it proposes that categorization is done by means of similarity to one’s conception of a prototypical member of a given class, rather than by strict definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions for class membership. Prototype theory may well be false for all or some concepts – I’m not a champion of it, particularly. But I can’t see that it follows from this theory that people can’t perfectly reasonably categorize things by means of slightly or widely different prototypes. Nor that it follows from it that people can’t conceive of new interesting ways to categorize things (i.e. seeing previously ignored similarities and differences between things) or of inventing things that fall outside, in between, or transcends any given categories.

Further, if there are no real essences inhering in the nature of things, and if reality doesn’t in some other way by itself fall into a certain number of more or less neat categories quite regardless of human or other interests, then what alternative is there to our imposing categories on reality guided by our own interests? If reality as such, in and by itself, draws no distinctions between stories, games, and plays – or between carburators, unemployment, and daffodils –, and people shouldn’t draw those distinctions unless they exist in reality, then we couldn’t say or even think anything about anything, could we?

Excellent. You have found the objection I’ve been waiting to hear that would show people are actually ‘getting it’. Yes it is true that my philosophy taken to its extreme would make communication impossible. The answer to that is pragmatism. We do it because we must. We must be able to separate daffodil-like things from carburetor-like things, or else we couldn’t fix cars. But there is no imperative need to separate stories from games or especially not CYOA story-games from parser story-games. One could do it as a speculative enterprise, but the minute one starts to use one’s cultural category as a hammer against other cultural categories, one has stepped far wrong.

Consider your characterisation of prototype theory, which as I read frames it as a descriptive theory of how humans categorise things (including their biases), rather than as a prescriptive theory of how they should. If that is the case, then I have no problem with it, but in this thread we are seeing attempts to use a descriptive theory in a prescriptive way. ‘Because I categorise these things this way, this whole community should too in its admissions requirements.’ ‘Because people make snap prejudiced judgements for the sake of convenience, we should codify those judgements in our rules and regulations.’

The purpose of all of my objections here is to try to cast Bigby’s Interposing Hand between describing people’s prejudices, which may be ethically neutral, and living according to them, which is not.

Thanks for taking me seriously. 8)

Paul.

[conradcook]

Yeah, it seems IF by its nature – I’m talking in application, not in S. John’s reneged promise capacity – is stop-and-go, while CYOA is branching. Certainly not an iron-clad discriminator, but seems often true.

C.

[Felix_Larsson]

@Laroquod

You’ve turned the subject to pragmatic issues of life and death. We are talking about labels that are really of no such consequence, so the motivations are much more suspect. Any of the positive things that could be good reasons to exclude A from B do not operate in this realm. But all of the negative reasons do. Take this thread, for example. How did it start?

Point taken. I was trying to argue a very much more general point. I would expect to find the motivations for drawing a hard-and-fast distinction between stories and games (as opposed to a distinction between them for some specific purpose) questionable even when they’re not morally suspect.

@Laroquod

to use a descriptive theory in a prescriptive way

I’m all for keeping Hume’s Gap open.

@Laroquod

Thanks for taking me seriously. 8)

Any time.

[Laroquod]

@Felix

Point taken. I was trying to argue a very much more general point. I would expect to find the motivations for drawing a hard-and-fast distinction between stories and games (as opposed to a distinction between them for some specific purpose) questionable even when they’re not morally suspect.

I see where you were pointing that now. I am not intending to cast moral aspersions on anyone here, so I’m going to agree. Let’s just replace ‘immoral’ with ‘unfair’ – it’s just unnecessarily arbitrary and unfair, is all. To call it immoral is to conclude something about the intentions of the categorisers that probably isn’t there. They are just trying to figure out the world like everyone else — I get that.

Paul.

[peterorme]

Just a thought: what if there were CYOA and parser IF categories, but you didn’t have to categorise, just rate: How good do you think Zombie Exodus is, rated in the parser IF category? How good is it in the cyoa category?

This whole topic has definitely had one effect on me: suddenly I’m saying parser IF, where before I would just have said IF.

Also, as a late comment: my prototypical CYOA works probably are just the Fighting Fantasy books, simply because (being a Swede) these were the ones I was first exposed to.

[Ghalev]

@peterorme

Just a thought: what if there were CYOA and parser IF categories, but you didn’t have to categorise, just rate: How good do you think Zombie Exodus is, rated in the parser IF category? How good is it in the cyoa category?

The answer to the question "How good do you think Zombie Exodus is, rated in the parser IF category?" is “It doesn’t have a parser.” So, exactly the same rating it would have in the “fruit salad,” “midrange sedan” or “mixed martial-arts” categories.

As CYOA, I couldn’t get far because the writing just didn’t work for me. I found it a little dry and rambling (and maybe that makes it perfect as a zombie-themed thing, but I also find zombies dull unless they’re chewing on my plants, which is no fault of Zombie Exodus). It might be a brilliantly designed game but unless the writing engages me, I’ll never know. I’ve been replaying a huge stack of my favorite gamebooks by my favorite CYOA creators lately, though, so that probably stacked the deck against it.

I do intend to try it again (lord knows I started Choice of the Dragon seven or eight times … it seems like the kind of thing I should like) but so far, zzzz. Part of it is: I have trouble with the “read a fuckton of blah-de-blah text in order to figure out who you are before the story can even start” approach. I’d rather see those choices integrated into the action rather than sitting there as this mountainous preface to it. But if the writing were engaging, I wouldn’t mind the preface approach. Ultimately, it’s down to the writing. I can forgive just about any design decision if the writing would only rock, just a little plz and thx.

[namekuseijin]

Metal Gear Solid is interactive and is also fiction. It’s also far better than Zombie whatever.

You should play parser-based games on keyboard rather than complain that non-parser-based games should be IF so that you can play “IF” on your non-keyboard device.

[peterorme]

S. John, just to be clear: that was my point. Deciding whether to vote for any particular game in parser or choice categories will be obvious in the vast majority of cases. And if there are any particular games that happen to fit in both categories somehow, just let them.

[Ghalev]

@peterorme

S. John, just to be clear: that was my point. Deciding whether to vote for any particular game in parser or choice categories will be obvious in the vast majority of cases. And if there are any particular games that happen to fit in both categories somehow, just let them.

I got that, but that it’s easy to tell the difference between a game with a parser and a game without one doesn’t sell me on the value of separating them in this context. Lots of silly things are easy.

That said, selling me on the value of it is irrelevant, since it’s not up to me. But I think it’s a terrible notion.

[capmikee]

@Laroquod

We must be able to separate daffodil-like things from carburetor-like things, or else we couldn’t fix cars.

[punkasaurus]

As far as the game vs. literature thing…

Even in the case of CYOA, some may be written in such a way that the reader feels like s/he is trying to “win” by having the protagonist achieve his or her goals, and others may be told like stories that you can read over and over again, and see how it might turn out.

The former would be more like a game, and the latter would be more like literature.

Just like IF where you type things in, though, the two can be blurred, and what one person goes through with the goal of achieving a certain end, another person could go through thinking “well, this would be an interesting thing to do.”

I think it’s more the term “interactive fiction” is too vague. CYOA is interactive fiction, but it’s not generally what most of us mean when we say interactive fiction. The term “text adventure” could be used, but that could apply to CYOA games as well. There isn’t a widely-used term that refers only to electronic interactive fiction games where commands are typed in. If there were, then I think the XYZZYs would specifically be listed as being for that type of interactive fiction.

There should be CYOA competitions, but I don’t see CYOA as similar enough to other IF to be fairly compared. The difference between the way the two are played seems drastic enough that personal preference could play a huge part in a lot of peoples’ decisions without them realizing it. I would hate to see a parser IF game or a CYOA game that deserved to win, fail to do so because it’s competing against what something too different.

[Ghalev]

@punkasaurus

The former would be more like a game, and the latter would be more like literature.

Heh. I’m writing one of the latter right now, and if I do my job right, it will be less like literature than just about anything mankind has yet made out of words

[Dannii]

There isn’t a widely-used term that refers only to electronic interactive fiction games where commands are typed in. If there were, then I think the XYZZYs would specifically be listed as being for that type of interactive fiction.

There is: Interactive Fiction.

For the XYZZYs the (long term) question is whether the awards should be for Interactive Fiction or interactive fiction. The immediate question is how to solve the problem of popularity voting.

[Biep]

@ChrisC

@maga

@Peter Pears

(I play games every week that have no win/lose conditions.)

Out of curiosity, what sorts of games are these?

He’s married.

[Biep]

@matt w

Bounty Hunter: Shootout at the Saloon from my parents’ attic, which is an interesting case study in how you can drain all the awesomeness from something by adding complexity.

But the added complexity that turned rock-paper-scissors into Ace of Aces definitely increased the awsomeness of the game.

[Biep]

@conradcook

Can we have games without interaction?

Look at a child enthousiastically “into” a children’s program at the radio or television. It will go along, sing, do (reaction), as the program demands (action), but there is no full loop, because the program does not react to the child acting. Yet the child, at least, is definitely playing.

[peterorme]

I’m always preaching this: interactivity (as a sort of activity) does not require that ALL things included in that activity are interactive objects.

An interactive object is in my definition any object that engages in all three parts of the cybernetic loop (Wiener): input, processing, output. Or things that “listen, think and speak” (Chris Crawford).

You can still interact with a football if you want to, or a cheese, or whatever, but that does not make it interactive. Even if it’s a very exciting piece of cheese (or book, etc) and it sparks all kinds of marvellous ideas in your head, it STILL doesn’t mean it’s an interactive book (or cheese). When it starts doing some processing, or starts displaying “a non-trivial traversal function” (Aarseth) - that’s when it starts to get interactive.

IMHO.

[ChrisC (Chris Conley)]

@peterorme

I’m always preaching this: interactivity (as a sort of activity) does not require that ALL things included in that activity are interactive objects.

Hmm. It looks like we’re bumping into a lack of separation between words here; I think we need two different verbs, “interacting” and …something else, because we’re talking about two different concepts. Like, you can talk to a painting, but you can’t converse with one.

[Ghalev]

@ChrisC

Like, you can talk to a painting, but you can’t converse with one.

Excellently put, sir.