Talk:Building a New Interactive Fiction System

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A couple of quick notes: First, I hate text where Random Words are Capitalized for No Good Reason. I don't know about everyone else, but I find capital letters to act as speed bumps when I'm reading something; they really slow me down. Wiki's typically use CamelCase as a way to generate quick links, but this wiki doesn't seem to support that.

Second, the first section of the page seems to confuse the concept of a world model with it's implementation. It starts with fairly good definition, but then gets derailed. Allow me to paraphrase Graham Nelson's definition from DM4:

[A world model] is a self-contained summary of the concepts and systematic organising principles used by [an interactive fiction system] to present the illusion of describing a physically real environment, with which the protagonist of a game interacts. All details of implementation [should be] ignored and [implementation details] either avoided or explained. While many of the rules are standard to all world models used for interactive fiction, some are not, and [the author should] remark on some of the more interesting cases. [One possible breakdown of a world model is] as follows: 1. Substance; 2. Containment; 3. Space; 4. Sense; 5. Time; 6. Action.

At this point, I would not discuss the rules that typically go into the six sub-sections that Graham lists. Remember, the point is not to create a world model, but to discuss the 'hows' and 'whys' of creating one.

-- Samwyse 06:36, 12 Feb 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Wiki links here are done with double square brackets, which I happen to like. Camel case gets annoying when you do things like time and stuff.

Since I created this article, I should probably set the tone. I'll review what's there and make changes soon.

--David Cornelson 10:53, 12 Feb 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Hi, I've added a link in the article to an idea for a Wiki Based Interactive Fiction System. I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have on this.

--Thomas Strohmann 14:58, 12 Feb 2005 (Central Standard Time)

I should have said: "Wiki's typically use CamelCase as a way to generate quick links, but this wiki doesn't seem to support that, so that's one less reason to use caps in the middle of a sentence."

As for my other point, if I get the time I'd like to make some massive edits: move a few paragraphs into their own pages, add a pointer to DM4, etc. And let me try to be clear here: I like most of the text, just not the way it's organized. I find that to be a common problem with the stuff I write; if I'm writing more than a couple of paragraphs, I initially just dump words on a page and then spend more time rearranging them than I did writing them.

Overall, this wiki looks like A Good Thing.

--Samwyse 08:03, 13 Feb 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Sorry, I'm a bit new to Wikis and have a bad habit of capitilizing Random Stuff. About the article, I know it's not too good. Just my thoughts.

~Dabreegster


Minor nitpick, I wouldn't classify the Magnetic Scrolls interpreter as primitive, its a 68k cpu emulator, thats a lot more sophisticated than AdvSys, AGT, Hugo etc.

Stu 20:17, 1 March 2006 (EST)


I also made FORTAVM. It isn't finish yet, but can you make a comment of it? Also, World Models can be made to work in any programming language or virtual machine, depending on some things (one model might not be good for one programming language or virtual machine, for example). Also, programming languages can be invented for different type of systems as well (such as Z-machine or FORTAVM). And then there is also systems like old computers (ZX Spectrum, Apple II, etc) that you need a emulator if you don't have that computer, and there is a few for handheld devices as well (such as GameBoy Advance, if you don't have one you can also use an emulator on your computer, as long as the game has a license that allows that). --Zzo38 17:19, 29 September 2008 (PDT)