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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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