Agency is generally considered to refer to the degree of control the player has over the story: the ending, the plot, and what happens generally. However, when we measure agency, by asking players how much control they had over the story and the endings, we find that what people experience as agency isn’t what we defined as agency.
In other words, agency isn’t what we thought it was.
THE ASCOT
I’m marking _The Ascot_ down as a puzzle game because, although it had a story, the story was mainly in service to the puzzle, which was of an (unusually clever) get-the-right-ending type. Its reviews suffered because, people believed, it wasn’t “proper” IF, allowing only “yes” or “no” as commands or “the parser would explode,” ending the game; and presumably its scores suffered too.
If you’ve been following the theorizing here on OneWetSneaker, you’ve heard me hammering away at the fact that Comp scores tend overwhelmingly to follow immersiveness ratings. But that’s not always true: sometimes a game completely pigs out when it comes to immersiveness, but scores much better.
Yon Astounding Castle of some sort, for example, was rated at 3.75 for immersiveness; but it scored an astounding 5.34 — which *is* astounding for a game with such a low immersiveness rating. How did YAC do it? (more…)
In general, I don’t much like puzzle IF. Nevertheless, I am a big fan of this game. This puzzle is so nifty, so creative, and so cool that I was really looking forward to it placing well in the Comp. Also I appreciated the author for implementing ‘nab.’ Instead, it got a 5.76, putting it in ninth place out of 24: not even in the top third.
Partly that’s because we had a very good Comp this year. Even so: as an end product, it was a better work of IF than the higher-scoring _Earl Grey_, and as an inspired work it was much better than _Snow Quest_ — all due respect to those authors.
Really, it should have done better. Why didn’t it? (more…)
I’ve come up with a predictive model for Comp scores. It’s accurate to well within my margin of error, except for two games, and these I can account for.
It’s based on three variables, namely Immersion, Puzzle Design, and Playability. The coefficients for these, respectively, are: .6, .2, and .2. If you’re good at linear algebra and you want to out-face me on the variable coefficients (or indeed on variable selection), email me and I’ll send you the data set.
The model is:
60% (Immersion) + 20% (Puzzle Design) + 20% (Playability)
= Comp Score
This graph represents the games of this IF Comp, cumulatively rated by quality, according to the data I’ve collected so far. This ranking predicts how well the games will do in the Comp — sort of. There are two problems.
Immersiveness is certainly *not* the product of playability and emotional salience — not if this survey is measuring what it’s supposed to measure.
Also, a prediction from eyeballing the data: _Duel In the Snow_’s going to do pretty well this year.
I’ve been going through the foreign language reviews, looking for cultural differences and so on. There are a few things that stand out: The Russians didn’t like _The Duel That Spanned the Ages_, considering it cheesy science-fiction. Which it is; but it seems they’re not tuned in to how difficult it is to do action in IF.
Both the Russians and the Hispanics (actually there’s only one Hispanic reviewer that I saw) showed a clear preference for highly narrative works, and were dismissive of simulator-based adventure-style games, like Spelunker’s Quest. (more…)
Can a work be good but unpopular?
Most of us think so. Victor G. has recently raised the shades of Homer and James Joyce to defend this notion. But it raises questions about how we can measure a work’s goodness.
The IF Comp is great, because it allows us to rate works against one another. We know then how good a certain work is, in the Comp-playing public eye. But if we conceed to Victor that a work can be good, but unpopular, then all bets are off: especially if we also accept that a work can be popular, but bad.
Now, I’ll make an ugly little confession: I really don’t care for _Ulysses._ Not much for the _Illiad_, either, although bits of it I quite enjoy. Maybe I’ll change my opinion when I’m an old man; presuming I should be so lucky. (more…)
I’ve recently gone through the online reviews of IF Comp 09 games, looking for commonalities and patterned differences in what people like about IF. What I found is counter-intuitive; or at least, contrary to the prevailing wisdom.
Admittedly, my method required a lot of gisting. So, I’d like to collect more numerical data. Then when we get the scores, we can sort through this to see what the strongest influences are. And that means we can tell IF authors with specificity how to write games you’ll like better.
Take the survey and tell us what you like in IF.
If you’d like to pass along the link, you may find this one more convenient, as it won’t break under cut-n-paste:
http://tinyurl.com/y8m5oxo
