One of the exciting outcomes from trying to learn Inform 7 has been learning new way to think about a game’s construction. One aspect of that is purely technical, i.e., “ah, I wonder how they did that?” or “what a cool way to do x”. It isn’t just that, though. I like thinking about the ways a tactic or design enables storytelling…
spoilers
The artwork for An Admirer features a large, pink heart graced by four smaller hearts at the corners of the frame. Superimposed over it is the text “An Admirer.” The letters are white, outlined with a thin, black line. At first glance, they seem nearly whimsical or romantic: perhaps they belong on the front of a winningly off-kilter valentine. I say “nearly whimsical,” because there is something sharp about them, like an evil witch’s handwriting in an old point-and-click game.
This is to say nothing of the background, which is a photograph of a thick snarl of segmented worms.
Having made this first impression, the game itself advises us that we can leave when we want. How reassuring!
There is no end except for the one you make by typing QUIT or Q.
There’s more to it than that, though. The final ending of an Inform 7 game (referred to as the “victorious” one programmatically) is generally thought of as a win state, though naturally “winning” can be a very ambiguous thing. This is a game that cannot be won.
Or lost, I suppose, though we seem to be witnessing a process of losing.
One last round of introductions!
An Admirer
An Interactive Fiction by Amanda Walker
Release 1 / Serial number 241030 / Inform 7 build 6M62 (I6/v6.34 lib 6/12N)
Hello!
I think it’s important to recognize that, while yes, in speed IF some things defaults will be left alone, it can also be true that defaults can be effective in the right context. For instance, “An Interactive Fiction,” is a default headline or subtitle. It’s also a fortunate innocuousness, situated where it is before the arresting “Hello!” that greets us.
That “Hello!” is off-putting rather than friendly, both because of what comes before but also because it is a violation of the standard or familiar: parser games almost always begin in this way:
- An introductory blurb about Krill, the spacecraft, etc. Some kind of setup. (optional)
- Banner text (name, author, compiler info, etc)
- Room name (in bold)
- Room description
Our greeter violates conventions, they/it push things out of the way, they/it jump in line. The “hello” is not just for show, either. The speaker gets angry if they/it can’t get a reply.
>frob
It hurts me that you don’t even greet me. It makes me angry.
At first, I thought this greeter was some kind of toxic, online man. That’s about my own online experiences and not some analysis of the author, to be clear. I continued to hear the voice of the admirer as male, even after it seemed that this wasn’t just some everyday–though still awful–real-world creep. It seems consumption or possession is the speaker’s primary interest:
We should talk about how you’ll make it up to me. How unless you do I’ll take your breath and wear your skin. How I’ll take everything that is you and make it me.
But it’s complicated! There’s also the matter of “how you’ll make it up to me” which implies history or a need for vengeance. Is this a ghost’s generalized hatred of the living? Or something more specific? In any case, there is a good deal of unnerving text about breath, skin, the heart, all genre appropriate.
The idea of a “vaguely proximal narrator,” a speaker who is observing the protagonist in some way, is attractive and repulsive. The Princess of Forsaken Denizen might come to mind, but I’m thinking of a more indeterminate situation like that of An Admirer. The narrator sees, but is not seen. Or even known. That’s a common state of affairs in fiction, but it becomes uncomfortable if relations between protagonist and narrator reach an uncanny level of specificity. That is, the narrator possesses intimate knowledge and speaks as if an intimate, but there is no corresponding intimacy (or even human regard).
While I’ve discussed estrangement and strangeness in my reviews, those other games feature protagonists who are in states of estrangement or “strangeness.” Even though it seems that the admirer hopes to turn the protagonist into a stranger of sorts, this is fundamentally different. The admirer is the real stranger here: invisible, uninvited, intrusive. A mention of keyboard and screen has a fourth-wall implication, yes, but it also calls me back to the idea of toxic online discourse. In what ways is the protagonist seen by the presence?
>desire
Like a pain in the heart although I don’t have a heart but I can hear yours beating and I need need need to get closer to it. Like when you type, talking to me and it’s like the beat of your heart and I’m so hungry for it.
I had an unpleasant experience of feeling surveilled from a kind of supernatural panopticon. From where is this entity looking, and what do they see? Is the protagonist ever alone? What has this being seen already? Looking past implications of consumption, absorption, or possession, what I felt most deeply was anxiety over the loss of privacy and boundaries, the dissolution of what separates everything that is the protagonist from everything else. That house is no home!
Design-wise, I was excited by the possibilities of the interface, which I have described elsewhere as “evil Eliza.” A design like this could leave a lot of head space for writing potent and alarming sentences like the ones found here. I also thought–happy coincidence or not–that some default responses were effective, since this work felt a bit off-kilter, parser wise, with some pattern-recognition type inputs accepted. It left me wondering how and if Standard Rules responses might be used to good effect.
I wonder if there will be a post-release? I would definitely check one out.
thanks for making it regardless, I enjoyed thinking about it as player/author.