fractalnavel

[that may be another repeated title]

as in last october, the latest version of geneforge (3) has made its way onto the windows platform.  i don't know what it is about these retro-gui games.  the story ?  i like if (interactive fiction), but i tire of the text-based interface, always wishing for something graphical.  but maybe that would be like turning a book into a movie, too much can get lost in translation.  still, it would be nice to see the old infocom games turned into interactive graphic novels, at least, perhaps even using this retro approach.  and then there's the original game “adventure” (aka “colossal caves”, wiht various mods), which would be very cool in a modern gui, since it is not a rectangular grid layout (like zork, and its progentitor as well).  these are still some of the best stories out there, awesome - and infuriating - puzzles, etc. 

now, most of the latest game engines also have tools to let users create add-ons (and entire worlds?).  that might be the way to go.  it's a tech exercise, not creativity, since the old stories would just be translated.  it would have to be a 3-d design environment for some classics; simpler 2-d (they call that perspective stuff “3-d”, but it's not) for others would do, and even simpler rectilinear grid tools for most.  i would like to see adventure done in a “descent”-like environment.  i only played the original “doom”, but even that was only a non-grid 2-d layout (although a very nice one).  true 3-d: the world can twist around itself, and a 2-d map won't do.  not just multiple “levels” which can be flattened, or even multiple connected levels which overlay each other, but that's getting close.  “rooms” need to be able to arbitrarily wander through space (or, as in some games/simulators, there are no rooms - think flight/space variations).

more fun: think other-dimensional games.  cool.  4- or 5- dimensional, etc. ?  what about adding an actual time dimension ?  not just as a storyline device.  multiple time dimensions ? non-integer dimensionality ? (not just fractals, but a continuum of dimensions.)  the “amber” (zelazny) novels had a sort of continuum of multiverses that would be cool to model.  what about “true“ 2-d - as in a “flatland” game ? which is kinda-sorta the logic the 2-d games follow already.

anywho [sic], the maker(s) of geneforge also provides a game authoring engine that could well lend itself to some of the infocom works.  something to think about.  there could very well be a market in reviving the infocom stable in a modern incarnation.  i wonder who owns the rights to that ?  but the audience is completely different now.

yeah, there are even some interesting mmorpg's these days.  most are rather planar, even when they support true 3-d.  i suspect this is mainly because a lot of 3-d can be a drain both in execution performance, and in imagination.  and even much of the 3-d that is done is still made out of large planar surfaces.  the only one i ever messed with was “anarchy online”, briefly, because it's largely free.  then there's the text-based ones (the old mud's and m* whatever's) tha could use translation into gui.  for me, though, the multiplayer aspect isn't what i'm after.  although it might be more fun if it was people i knew.  but that's another post.

freeness is essential ;-)  and geneforge has a good chunk the game as playable “demo”.  so i play.

better end this before i really veer off into representations of life, etc. ;-)