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Message: 3033

Author: andrewbroad

Date: 08/10/2002

Subject: Re: Should a JSW game be Branching or Linear?

 

soa1000 wrote:

>
> andrewbroad wrote:
>
> > [Monstrum's] linear nature is a welcome departure from the
> > branching factor of most JSW games
>
> Linear JSW games are dangerous terrain. I made Time Hole linear for
> reasons I can't fully explain, but mainly I wasn't as into genuine
> rambling as I am now. Fortunately I got over that when I made Soul
> Miner, which is greatly superior as a game.

I wasn't suggesting that /all/ JSW games should be linear, but the
occasional linear one such as JSW: The Lord of the Rings or Monstrum!
is good to get away from a high branching factor from time to time.

Too much branching can be frustrating, especially in an unfamiliar
game, and especially when there are a lot of one-way exits and
suchlike monstrosities.

I currently believe that the happy medium between tediously linear and
frustratingly branching is to organise a JSW game into clusters and
subclusters, with minimal connections between rooms in different
clusters. I also try to avoid one-way exits in my JSW games, or at
least mark them clearly! ;-)

For example, the only way to move between rooms in separate clusters
might be to have a room full of teleporters, as in "The Wood Between
The Worlds" in The Magician's Nephew (I'm planning to do seven JSW
games based on C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, ideally a game a
year from 2003-2009).

I'm not keen on JSW128 games with more than 64 rooms, because it's
more than I like to play in one sitting on a real Spectrum with no
save facility, and it tends to exacerbate the high branching factor.

> Mmmm,. Speaking of endings, Willy's New Hat sticks in my mind as
> the only JSW game which doesn't end conventionally.

Willy's New Hat was the game I meant when I wrongly said JSW III two
days ago! :-o

> Back when I was producing a game based on Marilyn Manson's
> "triptych" of albums,

Seeing as you've just mentioned it in public, do you want me to
include it as a future game on my List of MM/JSW Games?

How would The Golden Age Of Grotesque affect your plans for a game
based on the Holy Wood triptych? Is it separate from the Antichrist
Superstar/Mechanical Animals/Holy Wood series?

--
Andrew Broad
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/list.html

 

 

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