[arg_discuss] ARGs/Interactive Fiction

[Ian Millington]

Hmmm... I don't buy it. Slidey blocks, cyphers and library-hunting
aren't the only puzzles.

Working out what to say to a character to get them to take action.
Finding out back-story  that opens up new areas of play. Discovering
that an in game character will meet the players. Finding the name of a
new character. Anything that holds up progression until the players do
something works the same way.

And in fact, for our purposes they can be worse - these kind of
'puzzles' are highly knowledge based. If team B have the benefit of
knowing what team A discovered, they can use that to push forward the
story faster (and with less challenge) than otherwise. For example,
team A spend a week writing back and forth to a particularly nervous
character who finally reveals that they are being coerced by their
boss, Mr B. Someone in team B starts the week saying 'What's Mr B up
to?'

Story-developements are as easy to spring as combination locks. A rose
by any other name would feel as thorny.

Ian.