Gold Machine

3 responses to “Gold Microphone: Challenge, Mimesis, And Parsercraft (Trinity)”

1. 

   Eric Nyman

   July 10, 2024 at 11:19 pm

   Hi Drew, glad to see the podcast back and going strong! Unfortunate that you have to put the “Gold Microphone” name to rest–you’re a far superior example of a human being than to whom it is most associated.

   I’m really enjoying your reflection on the Craft of Adventure. Having played significant IF in the 1980s as a child (starting with Scott Adams games on a TI 994A, then later Infocom once my father could afford an Apple IIc), I had not thought much about the genre for a good while until I attended college in the late 1990s and discovered the wonders of the internet. Naturally, I decided to look up information about IF and was astonished to find that not only was its memory quite intact, but that the community was going strong with new games equaling or even surpassing Infocom quality.

   I still remember where I was in the University computer laboratory when I first discovered Graham Nelson’s Craft of Adventure series and recall reading it much more distinctly than my textbooks and classroom studies (of which said internet use provided a welcome distraction!). I was amazed to find such scholarly work on the history of IF, and not even having to pay a penny for the enjoyment! It took me back mentally to an earlier time of carefree enjoyment of IF as an escape from an often unpleasant reality, as well as expressed much more eloquently than I could why I adore IF as a medium.

   One minor quibble would be with the idea that mimesis refers only to realism of setting. My understanding is that it reflects the player’s entire experience of feeling “present” in the game world, as opposed to simply “playing a game”–that the player feels they are truly inhabiting the world and that the divide between human and machine breaks down for a time, if only in the imagination. If I misunderstood your words, I apologize, but I simply wanted to clarify what seemed imprecise.

   That being said, I agree it’s a debatable proposition whether this is a desirable quality in a game or not. Certainly different players play IF for different reasons, and having one’s assumptions of the concept of what constitutes a “good” game (as regards plot, pacing, setting, NPCs, puzzles, etc.) challenged is part of what keeps me coming back to the genre. I enjoy seeing new and distinctive takes on what IF is and can be, even if it’s not always to my personal preference.

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   1. 

      Drew Cook

      July 11, 2024 at 9:02 am

      Thanks for your thoughtful reply! My (admittedly underdeveloped) preference for “credible figures of life” over “realism” is meant to imply that “mimetic” and “real” are not perfect synonyms. Rather, credibility or internal consistency is what is valued in those discussions. I also failed to develop my thought that historical realities seem more credible because are they fixed and real, even though something need not be nonfiction to be credible.

      Giner-Sorolla repeatedly states that interactive fiction as a medium should aspire to be more like traditional (literary?) fiction, and that mimetic rupture renders this impossible. My impression is that emulating a credible experience of fiction in its old, paper and ink sense is an assumed “good” for Giner-Sorolla. In one place, he characterizes mimetic breaks in terms of their “primitive, anti-fictional approach.” I think negation of “game-ness” is a hoped-for consequence of credibility and consistency, but a desire for interactive fiction to be more art and less game was a prime mover in many of those craft discussions of the late nineties and aughts.

      The essay says a great deal more than this, which I probably ought to have spelled out, too.

      Thanks again for your note. I imagine we have many similar memories regarding those old, classic games.

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2. 

   Eric Nyman

   July 11, 2024 at 2:17 pm

   Thanks for clarifying. I agree about IF aspiring to the standards of literature, and also that it should strive to be something different, and thus more. It is a unique and distinct “art form” (for lack of a better term) with its own strengths and weaknesses vis-a-vis novels/short stories etc.

   It was appropriate that you cited Photopia, as it’s opening lines regarding “Let’s tell a story together” perfectly encapsulates what makes IF different, and in my opinion, the best form of entertainment/”art”. Its release year was 1998, but that does little to impact your statement about the game and its importance. Like so many things that are famous for being the first of anything, it was not the first of its kind–“puzzleless” IF– as such existed a couple years prior.

   I look forward to your further exploration of and expounding upon this topic, especially as you have a unique perspective with regards to your literary background.

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