I have to disagree with that. When it’s done well a sudden transition of style can be beautiful (e.g. Savoir-Faire slowly changes from an “interactive search for loot” in the author’s words to having an complicated plot and backstory), and I agree that the mechanics of a game should start out simple, but playing a work like your example would just make me feel like the author didn’t know how to write an introduction.
Okay. Why don’t you write it, then? Why not write the game you want to see? Then, when it’s finished, pit it against other games in the contest. If you’re game and story mechanics are better than the rest, then that’s a good way of showing it.
Anyway, why I should care about the frog king? Who is this guy? Why would I care about the apple? Does it have a gold coin in it? A trip to Vegas? Where did I get the magic wand? How do I know how to use it? How do I know that ‘Pudlo’ is all I need to chant? Was that written somewhere? Did someone hand this to me, or telepathically send it into my mind? Is there an omniscient narrator, like the Stanley Parable? I’m just not seeing it, yet.
Oops – missed this when writing my questions. That explains it. He’s not only a villain, somehow, because he took a bite of an apple that was sitting on a table, put there by god knows who, but because he flat out tells me. The best villains are the ones that look you in the eye and say, “You know what, I’m the villain of this game.” That would be pretty ominous, indeed, because it would inform the protagonist that he or she is fictional. The rest of the game would have to be an existential search for the meaning of life in a fictional world where frog kings steal your apples. And drink your milk shake, I bet, too.
Why does there even have to be an introduction?
Let’s say that the description is simply this: “Znarduk, the evil frog king, has locked you up in his castle dungeon, but what he doesn’t know is that you’re a clever wizard.”
First of all anyone out looking to download a romantic space adventure, will not even download the game. They think castles are boring.
Secondly, the player has to swallow, and also not only agree with, but also be intrigued by, the following facts at face value:
There are sentient frogs.
There’s a frog king.
His name is Znarduk.
Znarduk lives in a castle.
He has locked you up in his dungeon.
You’re a clever wizard.
It’s either getting intrigued and excited over all of that, or liking apples.
I don’t even like apples, but I can pretend that I do. Learning that there’s a frog king becomes a little easier to swallow, because he’s just another word for “apple thief”, so he could be an elephant emperor for all you care.
…and that’s another point: People won’t care about the story. The story is just scenery to winning the game. They don’t know why you as the author hate Znarduk so much, or that he stands for your dislike of monarchy. At the end of the game, when it comes to stabbing Znarduk to reclaim your apple, they’ll just type “kill frog” because they won’t bother learning how to spell “Znarduk”. PewDiePie is an extreme example of a player. You can’t get a player interested in something, unless you get in his way in his hunt for game progress.
This guy’s on another planet…
It works. The player doesn’t care about anything the frog king says, because what matters is that he stole “your” apple. “Fine - there’s frog kings. Now give me back my apple!”
I care what the frog king says. If it shouldn’t matter to the player, why put it in at all? Why not just have the frog king say “Eerk gerk aadfgra derRF!” if it doesn’t matter? And why would I want the apple back once this creature has taken a bite out of it? What’s my motivation? I don’t know what kind of strange aquatic diseases this thing has. I don’t trust the apple, either. Who put it on the table? Why do I want it at all? Shouldn’t escape, maybe the keys to the cell, or whatever, be the thing to look for, rather than a dubious looking apple?
Yes, you could have the frog king say “Eerk gerk aadfgra derRF!” too, but I was showing ways to introduce story elements only if you wanted to introduce them at all.
Okay, so maybe the frog king just takes the apple from you just because he likes to see you suffer - I didn’t dwell too much on that example.
The player goes for the apple because it’s the first thing he sees, and the simplest action that would satisfy some kind of basic need. He doesn’t know that he’s trapped in a cell, or even that there’s a door out of the room. We only mention that once it becomes relevant. It’s not a good way to describe a room, but it’s a way for me to demonstrate how to introduce things in a compelling way. If we just introduced the frog king as “This is the castle of the frog king.” then the player wouldn’t care. He’s only interested in apples and getting out, and hoping NOT to have to deal with any weird kings that he couldn’t care less about. You have to involve the player in the plot - not tell it to him.
Like I said, that guy can have it. More power to him. Enjoy it.
So the protagonist is a monkey. Or a robot. Wasn’t there a game like this?
Nope, not interested in apples at all. I’m just not involved in the plot, because the game has a strange apple obsession. The whole time I play it, I’m wondering if it’s some sort of Easter egg, to win an iPhone, or something.
Google time! Snuckles appears to be:
- A combination of the words snuggle, hug and tickle
- A minor character in Spyro the Dragon
- Someone on Facebook who thinks they’re a sexy Pokemon and seems more and more strange the more posts I read, OK, clicking off that now
Can you clarify which you meant?
EDIT: Wait, 1 is the only verb, so I guess it’s that one. Hmmm, this throws an interesting light onto my relationship with the Frog King. Wait, this isn’t another verbose gay porn game like Blue Lacuna, is it?
Yes, please do. Also, is there a beta coming out soon? Can I be a beta tester? I have to tell you ahead of time, I might criticize the hell out of it, because I’m already anti-apples. So it’s a bias. I’ll work through it, though.
I think it’s meant as a neologism-portmanteau of “snicker” and “chuckle”. It’ll probably be a new verb in the game’s vocabulary, which you need to note in the otherwise irrelevant text as the way to get out of the cell!
Andreas, if I don’t want to play a game involving frog kings and apples in the first place, throwing them in randomly for a semblance of plot isn’t going to make me more interested in it. It’s going to make me find another game. There are certainly enough to choose from on the IFDB that don’t involve frog kings. And I think I’ve only ever played one IF where the story was arguably “just scenery to winning the game”: the 350 point version of Colossal Cave Adventure, the very first IF written. Even Zork had a plot if you played all the way to the end. And one could argue that Adventure had a story as well, told through the room descriptions and items, which was central to winning.
No, in fact the game would be post-post-modernism, and just have the word “Snuckle” in one room, and then “Moon” in another. It’s the whole angle of asking, what am I doing here? And if I don’t know what I’m doing here, how will I know when I’m done doing it?
Of course when you arrive at the castle gates, you find them locked, and you quickly learn that the only one who has the key to the gates, is the frog king what’s-his-name.
…and if you don’t even want to get out of the cell at all, then enjoy spending the game forever locked in a featureless cell.
Living things are predictable, human beings are even more predictable, and IF players are perhaps the most predictable of them all. The first thing they ever do in a new location, is to type “t all” (or “take all” if we’re talking basic Inform). …and living things likes to gather food, so that’s two basic needs in one go. The player will take the apple. He can’t resist it. He knows that the apple is edible, so he will attempt to eat it. It’s the one thing he can accomplish in the world at the moment. If you put someone or something in the way of both his interaction needs and his virtual food needs, you’ll get an angry player. An angry player is a motivated player. This goes for every story ever told: You put the player with a fair maiden, and just as you two are about to have sex, you have some weirdo take her away to his remote castle. Basic sex need denied - player motivation created.
You would try to eat the apple, or at least try to take it, and after that then you’d figure that as there’s nothing in this location, you’d better get that door open so you’d be able to explore other locations. As the creator provides for your needs, you learn the plot along the way. That’s why the amnesia plot is so common: You don’t want to dump the whole story on the player at once, because he won’t care and he won’t remember any of it.
I really don’t think there’s anything inherently weird about liking the simulation aspect of IF, being interested in the world model above all, and wanting the text to be as transparent to that as possible. It’s not the way most IF tends to be written and probably isn’t the prevailing taste of the community (and I don’t write that way myself), but I can see the appeal.
The OP might enjoy the IF of Øyvind Thorsby, if he hasn’t tried it already – Thorsby thinks that too much prose and especially examining get in the way of IF pacing, and tries to do away with them. (And these are both pretty good games, in my view.)
Also maybe Dangerous Curves – I haven’t played in a long time and can’t remember how the prose style is, but as I recall it meticulously models many objects, rooms, etc. that most games wouldn’t bother with, in search of a very specific kind of simulationist realism.
Sunset Over Savannah also does some great things in that line but it’s a bit more lyrical in the writing, so probably not ideal.
Earlier in the thread I said the ongoing discussion made me want apples. I would like to retract that statement.
That is actually a good modern plot for an existential puzzle. I like those kinds of games.
Plots aren’t as relevant to the player as they are for the creator. If a game opens with plot exposition, I often just skip through it if I can, because I’m here to play a game - not listen to stories. I’ve had over a 100 plots told to me over the years, and at this point they’re all the same gray mush, that’s actually just telling you: “Go here - do this.” Why is the end goal usually even set from the beginning?
I agree. Get rid of all those plots. I think it would be a better world if people around the world would just spun around in circles all day, and then lay on the grass, looking up at the world as it spins literally around their heads and, say, “Snuckle”. (Or, “Moon.” It would be random!)
Welcome to Satori. 
Do they validate parking?