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| games:le_morte_d_arthur [2025/04/01 18:25] – brad | games:le_morte_d_arthur [2025/04/01 18:32] (current) – brad |
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| If I approach the game on my typical interactive fiction terms, not its own, it's probably an 8.5 or 9 out of 10. Here's what I look for in interactive stories: | If I approach the game on my typical interactive fiction terms, not its own, it's a 9 out of 10 for me. Here's what I look for in interactive stories: |
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| * **Are the interactions fun and/or consonant?** Yes, quite so - sometimes both! The story presents a series of choices, and conversations; many of them "performative"in the sense that as a player you are adding color to the situation rather than steering the action. The story tracks some global traits so that you gradually shape the main character, and while the experience is largely linear it does branch a few times based on these traits. If I have a complaint about these choices, it is that sometimes they are too narrow - the story drifts back and forth a bit on how much control I have over the character of Arthur, and more than once I wished for other options. | * **Are the interactions fun and/or consonant?** Yes, quite so - sometimes both! The story presents a series of choices, and conversations; many of them "performative"in the sense that as a player you are adding color to the situation rather than steering the action. The story tracks some global traits so that you gradually shape the main character, and while the experience is largely linear it does branch a few times based on these traits. If I have a complaint about these choices, it is that sometimes they are too narrow - the story drifts back and forth a bit on how much control I have over the character of Arthur, and more than once I wished for other options. |
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| The conversations with Merlin seem like the most direct attempt to get the player to engage with the theme, but these are also the moments when I felt most constrained by the choices the game put in front of me. In the platonic "holodeck" version of this story, I imagine the reader is mostly railroaded through Arthur's adventures, but the Merlin encounters are more open-ended philosophical debates. I almost wished these would break the fourth wall a bit more and get into the player's head - they often question decisions that the player is railroaded into, rather than the player's choices. Not an easy thing to solve, but very much one of the challenges this work is trying to address! | The conversations with Merlin seem like the most direct attempt to get the player to engage with the theme, but these are also the moments when I felt most constrained by the choices the game put in front of me. In the platonic "holodeck" version of this story, I imagine the reader is mostly railroaded through Arthur's adventures, but the Merlin encounters are more open-ended philosophical debates. I almost wished these would break the fourth wall a bit more and get into the player's head - they often question decisions that the player is railroaded into, rather than the player's choices. Not an easy thing to solve, but very much one of the challenges this work is trying to address! |
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| | So I'm not sure it breaks as much new ground as it wants to, but independent of any question of structural innovation, it is a towering addition to the field. I want it to get the digital equivalent of a finely-bound collector's edition, and a lot more readers. |
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| {{tag>played "played in 2025" "played on web"}} | {{tag>played "played in 2025" "played on web"}} |