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Interactive Fiction (IF) has a somewhat deserved reputation for being hard to get into if you’re not already familiar with the medium’s conventions. Facing just a blinking cursor with no or few initial instructions, together with often unhelpful error messages, requires more than the usual amount of effort from the player to climb the initial steep slope of the learning curve. Developers of modern AAA titles like Call of Duty on the other hand can’t afford to exclude any players from buying the game so they have spent considerable effort to make the treshold to enter as low as possible. Could their techniques be adapted to text-based games, making them easier to learn and play for a wider audience? In this presentation we’ll take a look at some of the methods IF has historically used to educate players and the methods AAA first person shooters employ, and discuss what IF and other indie games could learn from them. We’ll also see demonstrations of some of the latest advancements in user interface technology that make these techniques possible.
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THE
APPROACH TO INTERACTIVEFICTION TUTORIALS
Juhana LeinonenPresentation at No Show Conference 2013-09-14
Juhana Leinonen
Finnish software developer
Plays Call of Duty
Avid Interactive Fiction enthusiast
Some of my work
nitku.net/blog/games/nitku.net/blog/gadgets/
vorple-if.com
What is IF?(in the context of this talk)
At End Of Road
You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick
building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the
building and down a gully.
>ENTER BUILDING
Inside Building
You are inside a building, a well house for a large spring.
There are some keys on the ground here.
>TAKE KEYS
Taken.
>
Playing IF is more intuitive thanplaying Call of Duty.
...if the author does it right.
<verb>
LOOKWAITJUMP
<verb> <noun>
TAKE KEYOPEN DOORPUSH BUTTON
<verb> <noun> <preposition> <noun>
UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEYGIVE CARROT TO RABBITASK CAPTAIN ABOUT VOYAGE
to play IF
The Puzzle Box approach
"Learning how to play is the game."
0:27
The Gatekeeper approach
Finding out how to play requires some effort, so onlythe genuinely interested enter the community
The target audience is the existing community
0:26
The Self-Deception approach
"You can type in anything and the game willunderstand!"
The assumption is that the parser is so good that thereis no need for instructions
Which is obviously not true.
The Better Error Messagesapproach
When the player makes a mistake, guide them with ahelpful error message
The biggest problem: you need to make a mistakebefore you get assistance
The Manual approach
Give the player separate instructions
The Tutorial Game approach
Make a game specifically designed to teach how toplay IF
Notable example: The Dreamhold by Andrew Plotkin
De facto tutorial game: Lost Pigby Admiral Jota
games use
Boot Camp
9:37
The first barrier is easy to overcome
14:58
The current goal is always obvious
The player is rewarded for desiredbehavior
Gameplay is completely transparent
Be lenient with mistakes
Tell the player how it works!
Tell the player what to do!
Tell the player where the limits are!
CoD
(Cloak of Darkness)
Areas requiring more research
Biggest problems newcomers are facing?
Effectiveness of tutorials?
Analysis of gameplay transcripts
Juhana Leinonen
87 followers
Follow
Screwdriver set was missing one piece, but it
wasn't the one I needed. Help, I might be
stuck in some weird parallel universe
Juhana Leinonen @JuhanaIF
Doesn't really matter who the next Batman is.
The presence of Superman already taints the
whole concept.
Juhana Leinonen @JuhanaIF
Expand
The Mako Mori Test: 'Pacific Rim' inspires a
Bechdel Test alternative
bookshop.tumblr.com/post/586421889…
Retweeted by Juhana Leinonen
Meredith Yayanos @Theremina
Show Summary
31 Aug
23 Aug
19 Aug
Tweets Follow @JuhanaIF
For further discussion
+Juhana
@JuhanaIF
Videos from Get Lamp by Jason Scott, Call of Duty by Activision (fair use)
Screenshots from Call of Duty (fair use)
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