I'm here plugging away at my first adventure. Mostly design work since I
haven't written a stitch of code (TADS code it will be since I registered.
Figure I might as well use it. 8#) Anyways, I'm working on a few of the
plot snags and suddenly a big problem hit me in the head.
How do you force a IF player to do something without making him realize
he's being forced. Without spoiling my game too much, you make your way
to a tribal area (the prologue). While there you get to see the reason for
the whole game (the catch). In a real piece of fiction, I would have the
main character simply say, "By golly Chief, I'll gladly go out and risk
getting skewered to help you and your tribe even though I've known you for
only 2 hours." and that would be that. But since this is IF, I can't the
force the player on to the next part of the game. Maybe it's the way I
scripted everything -- prologue, middle game, epilogue -- with each major
part being broken down into smaller story elements. But I didn't allow
for a story element to be reentered.
Should I have? Should I allow the player to reenter the maze he just got
out of? Should I allow the player to go back to the town and get drunk?
I hate using the score as a means, I'd rather have a logical consistency
to a player's actions. But how do you do that without having desciptions
like "Sorry, the forest ends abruptly and you can't go any further." etc.
How do all of you experienced IF writers provide decent hooks from one
part of the story to the next?
All for now,
Jean Duteau