Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1993 18:44:03 +0000

Rich Skrenta <skrenta@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> writes:
>> The main disadvantage is that you are giving yourself virtually zero
>> replay or late-entry value.

> I don't think that including some minor, fun things to discover gives
> me "zero replay value".  I watch some movies twice, even though I know
> the ending.

Well, of course I agree.  I guess I shouldn't have said it quite that
way.  What I mean is that the "discovery period," for lack of a better
word, can only occur once.  If what you are playing the game for is to
discover things, then once they are discovered that part of the game
doesn't exist any more.

I already said, repeatedly, that I _prefer_ to play games where I know
everything about how the game works.  So having the Olympia information
leak out doesn't ruin it for me; it makes it much better.  I was just
pointing out that, using the methods you are using, you can't make the
discovery phase last forever for those for whom it is important.

I think you _can_, if you choose, make a replayable game of discovery,
by making the attributes and formulas for each game be randomly
determined.  This is the principle on which rogue is based.  However
I've never seen anyone attempt to design a much more complicated game on
this principle, so I don't know how well it would work.

(To some extent, there are many games that use this principle, at least
in generating maps according to a more-or-less known rule, which the
players can then explore.  But it could in principle be carried to a
much greater extent.)

David desJardins

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 15:51:53 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
skrenta@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Rich Skrenta)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 17:35:19 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 15:51:53 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
skrenta@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Rich Skrenta)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 17:35:19 +0000