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Последовательность на протяжении всего сеттинга чрезвычайно помогает убедить игрока в том, что NPC существуют независимо от любой конкретной загадки. Некий персонаж, который проявляется во множестве разных ситуаций (как Флойд в ''Planetfall'') предоставляет значительно больше возможностей для развития и раскрытия характера персонажа, нежели толпа разномастных созданий, одно на каждую загадку. Как и с объектами, хорошо прописанный NPC должен иметь больше одной функции в игре, и эти функции должны иметь смысл в контексте личности и мотиваций этого NPC. В ''Cristminster'' эрудиция, страсть к исследованиям и доброта профессора Вайдерспина очень последовательно проявляются в тех загадках, в которых он фигурирует, и результатом становится интересный и эмоционально привлекательный персонаж.
A more complicated example of continuity appears in Jigsaw, where the character of Black starts out as an impossible yet oddly helpful annoyance, and gradually reveals playful, vulnerable, and even amorous sides over the course of sixteen episodes. Perhaps only love can explain why Black allows the protagonist to interfere, time and time again, with his/her attempts to change history! In any case, the development of Black's character across such a variety of roles is an impressive feat. If it works, it does so because of the multifaceted personality and conflicted motives that are brought out in Black's reactions and dialogue -- continuity through an explicit admission of discontinuity, perhaps. The beauty of the NPC illusion is that, when well-done, it can hide enormous limitations in the interactivity of the character. Inform and TADS only allow the player to converse after a fashion, by probing the NPC with single-word input ("ask Einstein about relativity"). Even with this limitation, it's patently unrealistic to expect a piece of code to be able to hold forth about every irrelevant topic the player could bring up. At the very least, though, a well-developed NPC should be able to react to basic conversational input about the elements of the present situation, and about his/her background. The default response for unknown input can itself convey character; consider "Fiona treats you to a lengthy and brilliant conversation about , which unfortunately leaves you no closer to getting out of the prison cell" versus "Fiona just grunts and goes back to reading her paper". Customized responses to social actions such as "kiss","hit", and "give" are also essential to the fully individualized NPC. Are there workable models for more complex and responsive NPC's? While it's unreasonable to expect an intelligence like 2001's HAL to emerge from a 400 kilobyte game, I think that the increasing desire of authors to create interactive games with literary elements may result in games where the NPC, instead of being a mere accessory to a lock-and-key puzzle ("Hercules, lift stone"; "give mouse to cat"), actually is the puzzle. I have in mind a very interesting class of NPC created on DhalgrenMOO by the character "Calkins." (Those with Telnet access may log on to Dhalgren at dhalgren.english.uwashington.edu 7777, then "connect Guest" and "help type of automaton is a psychological maze. The rooms are the NPC's moods, such as "angry" and "interested", and the passages are the player's commands such as "hug NPC","feed NPC" and "ignore NPC". The automaton's description changes with its mood, and each command is echoed by a response, which may or may not help the player figure out exactly what impact the command has had. As a specific example, allow me to present my own creation, the automaton "Kim" (currently on display at DhalgrenMOO; type "@go #1603" to join her). This is a transcript of one of many possible interactions with her; the command and response syntax should be familiar to adventure-game players. "Trismegistos" is my character; the automaton's responses are displayed to all players in the room (including the person interacting with it) in the third person, which makes for some inconsistencies in grammar. <blockquote>> look at kim {initial description} <br> A short, craggy, thirtyish shag-cut blonde, wearing black Keds and a sleeveless blue greasemonkey coverall with her name stitched above the ciggy pocket. Kinda tough, kinda tender, she could be your best buddy or your worst nightmare. > smile kim <br> Trismegistos catches Kim's attention by trying to smile. She smiles right back at Trismegistos, half-mockingly. > l at kim {description for new mood} <br> Kim looks back at you, half amused. She seems relaxed. > talk kim <br> Trismegistos's conversation interests Kim. She crosses her arms and smiles at Trismegistos, listening. > l at kim <br> Kim smiles at you. "Whatcha lookin'at?" > sing kim <br> Trismegistos sings, and Kim sings along, loudly and off-key, smiling. > l at kim <br> Kim smiles at you. "Whatcha lookin'at?" > talk kim <br> Trismegistos'продолжение следуетs conversation grabs Kim.She listens, smiling, and laughs at all Trismegistos's jokes. > hit kim <br> Trismegistos hits Kim, who hits him back, playfully. > kiss kim <br> Trismegistos's kiss cools Kim down some. She looks at Trismegistos warily, trying to figure him out. > l at kim {back to initial} <br> A short, craggy, thirtyish shag-cut blonde, wearing black Keds and a sleeveless blue greasemonkey coverall with her name stitched above the ciggy pocket. Kinda tough, kinda tender, she could be your best buddy or your worst nightmare.</blockquote> Note that the same command can have different effects, depending on which mood she's in. (I wouldn't advise hitting her when she's not in a good mood!) Note also that these are only three of her eight moods. Characters with "mood mazes" have many possible uses in a game. Some moods may provide vital information; other moods may make the character more receptive to requests for help. Moods might also be triggered by giving or showing certain objects to the NPC, or asking her about certain things, or bringing other NPC's into the room ... The possibilities for creating intricate social situations are nearly endless. I can't help but suspect that character-based puzzles may have taken on a stigma from early attempts like the seduction puzzles in "Softporn." (Yes, Kim can also be seduced; but the direct approach won't work, and the actual experience may be less fun than getting there...) This stigma is unfortunate, because pornography is not the only fictional genre that can be adapted into an IF game via social and psychological, rather than physical, problem-solving. Imagine games centered on courtly intrigues, political maneuvering, or the machinations of the psychological thriller! Concepts like "Dangerous Liaisons: An Interactive Intrigue" could go a long way to attract players who are put off by conventional, scavenger-hunt type puzzles, and want a more literary experience. == The Three Faces of "You" — Player and Protagonists == Computerized interactive fiction is a discourse between the game program and the game player, mediated by the player's character (PC). By convention, the program addresses the player in second person declarative as if he or she were the character ("You are standing in a field in front of a white house"), while the player addresses the game program in a sort of pidgin second person imperative, as if the program were the character ("examine house";"go west"). The origins of both sides of this curious dialogue are plainly traceable. The program's voice echoes a human referee in a role-playing game informing the players of events in the imaginary world, while the player's lines resemble commands in a text-based operating system ("copy file to b:\","cd if-archive"), their choppiness dictated by the simplemindedness of the parser. Although bizarre by conventional literary standards, this convention has proved surprisingly robust in IF games over the years. A few games have experimented with third- or first-person narration, but none have inspired a real tradition. Perhaps it's more satisfying, in an interactive nature game, to have your situation narrated directly to you by the (Dungeon) Master's voice, as opposed to the narrative detachment of first or third person. But the problem with second-person narrative, and perhaps a reason why literary fiction writers generally avoid it, is this: it is easy to define who is speaking in first person, or who is being spoken of in third person, but it's not so easy to see who is being spoken to in second. In effect, second person confounds the reader with the protagonist. What's more, in a narrative that is at the same time a fiction and a game, the protagonist's identity fractures even further, into three distinct persons... # The Reader/Player. <br> This is you, the real human being sitting at your computer playing the game. Your goal is to amass points, finish up, and have a good time along the way. You command all the reality-warping conveniences of the game program: save, restore, undo. You know when an item is important, because it is described as a separate object rather than as part of the scenery; you know when an action is important, because you get points for doing it. # The Game Protagonist. <br> This is you, a nameless cipher of a person who just loves picking up objects and toting them around, because you Never Can Tell when they'll come in handy. Your goal is to fiddle around with all these objects in any way you possibly can, so you can explore your environment as thoroughly as possible and amass all the really important objects, so you can get to the really important places. Strange urges guide you -- whispered warnings from disastrous alternate universes your player "undid", oracular impulses to pick up the can opener in the kitchen because it's the only thing you really '''feel''' is important there. # The Story Protagonist. <br> This is you, Jane Doe, an unassuming college sophomore who has stumbled upon a sinister plot to destroy the world. Or maybe you're John Doe, a cigar-chomping private investigator with calloused knuckles and a callous attitude, who has stumbled upon a sinister plot to destroy the world. Or maybe you're Jhin-Dho, a half-elven sorcerer's apprentice who has ... Anyway, your goal is to stop the villains while staying alive, though it's a bit odd that you keep picking up stray objects without knowing why, and they always prove to be useful later on... Early adventure games did not bother much with defining the story protagonist. The result (at least in my experience) is an entertaining kind of imaginative romp in which the blank hero takes on the identity of the sweatshirted person at the keyboard, running around the dungeon in tennis shoes, playing the game from within. In fact, the appearance of the Zork games' Adventurer in the "Enchanter" series comes off as an amusing surprise, precisely because most players never thought of Zork's protagonist as a character in his own right. Actually, the "hero-is-you" approach has an honorable precedent in imaginative fiction. Ever since Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee visited King Arthur's court, everyday slobs have explored strange and fantastic worlds. And what better way to encourage involvement than to write the player in as the hero? But the limitations of the blank hero are equally obvious, once you've played enough adventure games. Without any distinct identity, the player has only the motivations of the game protagonist as a guide, and "get the items, solve the puzzles, get the treasure" quickly grows stale when repeated from game to game. Recognizing this, game writers in the early 1980's began to present stronger plots and identify their story protagonists more distinctively. Sweatshirt and sneakers gave way to wizards' robes, detectives' fedoras, 18th century crinolines. But as the story protagonist took firmer shape, the motives and behaviors of the game protagonist lingered on, like a kleptomanic doppelganger. Even today, few IF games have managed to present a protagonist whose actions are completely defined by his or her own character, rather than by the objects-and-puzzles intrigues of the game. (Exceptions tend to fall within the mystery genre; but then again, linear mystery novels themselves have a long tradition of balancing realistic characterization with the game-like rules of the whodunit.) Writing up a blank protagonist is easy enough, and a sensitive writer will try to avoid accidental assumptions such as "You wake up with a stubbly chin" (not applicable to both genders) or "You turn white as a sheet" (not applicable to all complexions). A writer who wants to write a definite character, though, has to think in entirely different terms. Will the character be given only an identity, or a fully developed personality as well? Most IF games present the story protagonist more in terms of social roles and motivations, than in terms of strong personality traits. For example, in Christminster, you are Christabel Spencer, a young, properly-brought-up British woman whose brother, a college professor, has mysteriously vanished. Christminster does an exceptionally job of outlining Christabel's role as a woman by limiting her actions (she can't enter chapel bareheaded) and through the NPCs' dialogue (the villains and the Master are condescending, while young Edward sees her as a confidante). Motivationally, too, Christabel's actions are clearly determined. She needs to explore the college, so that she can complete her brother's researches and eventually find out what happened to him. Even the one necessary act of vandalism she commits as the beginning of the game can be explained as an attempt to enter the college, although the text could bring this out a bit more clearly. Christabel's role in the fiction is much more clearly defined than her personality. She is by turns stoic (when attempting to cry on demand) and squeamish (at the sight of a skeleton), proper (when entering chapel) and improper (when commiting various acts of theft, wiretapping and trespass). Her constant traits are those inherited from the game protagonist: inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness. The variety of her other traits, too, can mostly be chalked up to the demands and necessary limitations of a number of different puzzles. But it's not clear to me that straitjacketing the story protagonist with a definite personality is always a good idea. While the reader/player can usually identify with a person of a different gender, ethnicity, social role, or time period, it's harder to project one's self into an entirely different set of personality traits. Such a protagonist would be experienced more as a "he" or "she" than as an "I", robbing the second-person narrative of its potency; and character identification would suffer at the expense of character definition. A basic tenet of social psychology -- the "fundamental attribution error" -- can be stated thus: we are reluctant to accept our own actions as indicative of our personality traits, and eager to attribute the actions of others to their personality traits. In part, this is because we see ourselves exercising many different traits in different situations. We are deferent to superiors, authoritative to underlings; courageous in areas of our expertise, hesitant in things we know little of; cheerfully unafraid of spiders, but repelled by the sound of crinkling styrofoam. (Well, I am, anyway.) Christabel's apparent inconsistency of personality, then, may actually be helpful in getting the player to identify with her. What's more important to writing vivid story protagonists, in my view, is consistently bringing out the character's role in relation to the external world, and setting his or her actions up to reflect clearly defined motivations. I'll close by covering two special problems, and offering partial solutions: one in which the player's task can result in a less believable story protagonist, and one in which the game protagonist's task can also undermine the story. === Save, Restore, Undo. === Some might argue that an IF game is made more "realistic" by disallowing the ability to restore games or undo moves, but I disagree. The ability to undo is no less realistic than the ability to restart the game, and a good deal more convenient. Given that a restartable game can always be played with knowledge from a previous, failed "incarnation," the task of the player is not literally to live or die as the protagonist would, but to maneuver the protagonist so as to "write" the optimal narrative that the game author has hidden within the program, in which the protagonist does everything right and achieves a happy ending. (This process brings to mind a toy from my childhood called "Chip-Away" — a rather literal-minded take on Michelangelo's famous dictum that the statue is hidden within the block of marble. The makers of "Chip-Away" embedded a white plastic statue within a block of white soap, and the young "sculptor" was provided with hammer and chisel...) All the same, the finished account of the protagonist's efforts will look odd if it shows signs of having been produced this way. Practically speaking, this means that the player should in theory be able to complete the story without using any information gained from fatal dead-ends. An obvious violation: hiding a magic word at the bottom of a (full) well so that you see it just before you drown, and pass it on to your next game-incarnation. A less obvious violation: the fatal trial-and-error puzzle. Consider four identical doors, one leading onwards, one concealing a lethal explosive. In the story that would result from solving this puzzle, it would be much more satisfying to the story reader and the game player if there was some way to tell which door hides the ticking bomb, rather than having success come only from a lucky guess. The clue may be difficult enough so that the player opts for the brute-force, save-restore-undo method (who would think to "listen to north door"?), but at least it is there to explain the story protagonist's actions in a fictionally satisfying way. Even though real-life survival may often depend on dumb luck, fiction can only get away with so many strokes of fortune before suspicion sets in. === Examine All. Get All. === In the same way that save/restore/undo can lead a story protagonist to act in strange ways, the demands of the game protagonist can often intrude into the story. Most jarringly, the game protagonist finds it useful to pick up all objects that the program indicates can be picked up, when the story protagonist might have no real reason to, say, take an apple peeler out of someone's kitchen. Let's look at the two ends of this problem. On the picking-up end, there is the cue that the game author sends the game protagonist when presenting a room with a usable object in it: <blockquote>This is a well-stocked, modern and efficient kitchen, done up in an avocado-green color scheme. On the table you see a battery-powered flashlight. An apple peeler is lying on the counter.</blockquote> The well-trained game protagonist will, of course, pick up both these objects and take them along. But the story protagonist? If he or she is anticipating doing some exploring, it would make sense to pick up the flashlight -- but why the apple peeler? And in terms of the story, what is so darned attractive about the apple peeler, as opposed to all the other objects subsumed in the description of the "well-stocked kitchen": the pots, pans, knives, can opener, oven gloves, and so forth? On the putting-things-down end, there is the recent trend towards allowing near-infinite carrying capacity via a container -- rucksack, purse, or what have you. Understandably so, since realistic constraints on inventory make for an annoying game where much of the action consists of running about trying to remember where you dropped that screwdriver. And yet, the person who is reading the story has to wonder occasionally at the verisimilitude of a character who casually totes around a portable yard-sale of forty-odd objects, as happens at the end of "Jigsaw." (What's even more annoying about ''"Jigsaw"'''s cluttered rucksack, only one or two of these objects have any use outside the episode in which they were found. Yet the faithful game-protagonist hangs on to the green cloth cap, the stale piece of corn bread, the mandolin because "you never know..." A shame, because the time-travel theme could easily have provided some cosmological excuse to prevent the export of objects from their own time period. The challenge then could have been to find some way of getting around this rule in order to solve the later puzzles, as in the later stages of ''Uncle Zebulon's Will'' where the protagonist has to smuggle objects past the watchful demon...) These challenges to the fictional integrity of the protagonist's actions may not have an easy answer, and I don't think they should necessarily be answered at the expense of anyone's convenience. In the kitchen, for example, I don't think the answer is to code up a whole lot of useless pots and pans. Hiding the apple peeler is also futile, since the good game protagonist knows to search every nook and cranny before moving on. The action to be simulated here is the protagonist coming across a Very Important Unpeeled Apple in the course of the adventure and thinking, "Oooh ... there might be an apple peeler back in the kitchen!" Cuing reminiscences explicitly would give away the solution to the puzzle, of course. It might be possible to force the player to go back to the kitchen and explicitly type "look for peeler" in order for the apple peeler to appear. Or, to forbid that the apple peeler be taken until the apple has been encountered, with messages to the effect of "What on earth do you need that thing for?" I suspect, though, that clever game players will figure their own way around these devices, commanding protagonists to search for every likely object in a location, and looking for hints to a new puzzle by going back and trying to pick up every "forbidden" object they've encountered. Perhaps a workable compromise would be to design games so that most of what you need to solve a given problem is available relatively nearby, apart from obviously useful tools or strange artifacts that can be taken from scene to scene. Alternatively, you could place very realistic limits on what can be carried around, but automate the process of remembering where objects are, as with the "objects" command in Inform. Even the process of going back and getting them could be automated, possibly with a "walk-to" routine that checks to see if there is a free path from the current location to the known object's location, and expending the requisite number of game turns to get the object, while taking only a second of the player's time. ''Roger Giner-SorollaNew York University, New York, NYDept. of Psychology (Social/Personality)''
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