thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (04/25/89)
So where is Story space? I have an experimental use for it. Has any one read the Interactive fiction novel Portal? It came out in computer form first and then paper form. I can't remember the authors name. does anyone know if there is an email address for him on any system. Does anyone have any adventure game stacks which could be used in stack form and could have the text and graphics compiled into a more traditional paper based form. Any other suggestions? Thanks. Thom
fischer@arisia.Xerox.COM (Ronald A. Fischer) (04/28/89)
An interesting attempt, but no cigar. The portal computer "novel" just contains a way to explore minor side points out of the track of a highly linear storyline. Its also slow because you're required to play it from floppy disk. In my opinion there was no enhancement of the story by this presentation technique. You're shown what is supposed to be the user interface (downgraded 20th century version) of the world network. There are various nodes which specialize in topics like health, history, technology, etc. Each has an icon. Clicking the icon opens a list browser which shows topics. As the story progresses new information is "dumped" into the various nodes and you wander among them them. I found this annoying because the basic storyline is completely linear. It also stopped dumping information and left me stranded at one point in the story. Since there are no obvious means for "advancing" or rules for doing so it was unclear (aside from a bug) what might have caused this. In summary: the portal computer "novel" is a flawed repackaging of a regular novel and I don't advise buying it. (ron)
shani@TAURUS.BITNET (05/01/89)
In article <28896@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gilles > Does anyone have any adventure game stacks which could be used in stack form > and could have the text and graphics compiled into a more traditional paper > based form. Any other suggestions? > > Thanks. > > Thom Well, the idea of using HyperCard to create adventure games did cross my mind (I thought of writing the private-eye type, and to title the series: "Murder, she klicked!" :-) ). HC seem to be the perfect tool for this and well, If it has a market then maybe I should try! :-) Only problem is that I don't like those adventure games... Don't you think that playing AD&D is better? O.S. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ God is not dead... ...He just stopped working for TSR ------------------------------------------------------------------------