Tag: Lost Pig

Lost Pig and Shade

Blog post for Admiral Jota, Lost Pig and Andrew Plotkin, Shade

In certain interactive fiction (IF) I find a subtle variation in response time, which I believe is an important aspect of IF.  For example, the Eliza interpreter link off the course syllabus responds instantaneously but with normal human interaction this normally does not occur, people have to think before speaking; whereas with Eliza there is a full response in less a few seconds.  With Lost Pig, I have not checked the source code to this piece of IF, but there is definitely a 1-2 second delay when performing actions.  The computer I am using not slow, nor is the server, it is most likely a delay put into the piece by the author.  This is very peculiar, I wonder if different pieces of IF use different delays based on the actions performed by the characters to make the interactivity seem more realistic?  In addition, I like to keep track of the code types used for each piece of IF we read in class; in this case they are both javascript-does the software used-java, javascript or flash affect interactive fiction differently?  I ask as different functions and capabilities are available in the code bases that may allow some things to occur in java and others in flash.

Admiral Jota, Lost Pig

In Lost Pig, on the top, a “menu-like” bar informs the user of location or subject that is presented in the text on each screen.  In addition, there is also a numerical score on the top right of the bar.  The Grunk character reminds me of an oricish-like figure; in the Release information presented on the first slide the serial number appears to be a date code, 08/04/2006.  When I typed help, the web page had errors so I referred to the e-mail Prof. Sample had sent out for assistance.  Following the help page I moved around exploring the bushes, climbing the wall and eventually ended up burning the forest.  The pig started squealing, Grunk grabbed it, and the game was over.

Andrew Plotkin, Shade

The serial number also appears to be a date code, according to Wikipedia this piece was written in 2000 so the year begins in the beginning of the date code; I miss the help feature as was given to us in Lost Pig.  There is a menu bar like there was in Lost Big, but in this case, only the location is given, there no score.  Incase anyone was curious the hyacinth refers to a plant which are “bulbous herbs formerly placed in the lily family Liliaceae but now regarded as the type genus of the separate family Hyacinthaceae” (Wikipedia).  The “help” option does work in this piece of IF; however, it is not too useful.  After about 30 minutes, trying to figure out what was going on I looked for help and found http://waxy.org/2003/03/shade_and_inter/.  Apparently, I am not alone in my trouble with this piece.  Overall, I prefer the “Lost Pig” type of IF where one can traverse multiple pathways and has more leeway in terms of where one can visit.  I felt like I was in a box in this game and without a substantial help page it makes it difficult to figure out the main idea behind this piece of IF.

Blog #3: Interactive Fiction- Lost Pig

As with the last assignment I tried to go into this assignment without reading the instructions. I fit in with the part of the population that’s all about instant satisfaction– which means the majority of the general public. So, from seeing the short example in class, I thought this would be a somewhat simple and enjoyable assignment. Upon attempting the first IF text, I shortly realized how obnoxious and time consuming it would be actually get to the ending of these stories. After Tuesday’s class when we had played with the story Aisle, I saw that it could be more enjoyable when you put more thought into the actions you wanted the characters to play out. This was especially true when you ask the character to do dangerous or scandalous acts. For instance, in Aisle I asked the main character to push over a shelf and she did, which led to her getting carried out of the store by security. In Lost Pig, the character, Grunk talks to himself in third person and reminds me of the character Dobby from Harry Potter. He, of course, is off looking for his boss’ lost pig. The first step I took was too see what he had in his possession by hitting ‘i’ for inventory and from there the adventure began. I ended up finding the pig, but was stuck down by a glowing room and I wasn’t able to grab the pig. By this point I got frustrated and told myself I would try again later.

My general reaction of these types of texts is that I think it is interesting for someone who has plenty of patience and curiousity. I never really had experience with IFs in the past and I never even had a gaming console when I was growing up. So, the gaming realm as a whole is more foreign to me. I feel as though Aisle is more closely related to the CYOA books because there are those immediate endings sometimes and there are so many different endings. However, there is no real plot just some general information and each time the story ends, you gain a little bit more information, which allows you to navigate through the story a little longer. In that way it is like CYOA books because each time you go through the book, you gain that much more information and you know better than to go to a certain because you might die. I like the concept of the IFs, I just wish I had more time and patience to fiddle with them.