Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!yale.edu!nigel.msen.com!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ddsw1!chinet!jorn
From: jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)
Subject: TADS romance ideas continued
Message-ID: <C42H9C.MFu@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1993 04:17:35 GMT
Lines: 75

Here's some (untested) TADS code for our first three rooms:
==============================

#include <adv.t>
#include <std.t>

startroom: room
   sdesc = "Living room"
   ldesc = "You're in a large, comfortable room where lots of people are happily partying.  There's a big table with amazing piles of tasty food and drink.  To the north is a dim doorway.  To the west is an enclosed garden."
   north = makeout
   west = garden
;

makeout: room
   sdesc = "Makeout room"
   ldesc = "It's pleasantly dim here, lit by a small, flickering fireplace, but you seem to be alone.  There's a rumpled couch as big as a bed, and a feeling in the air that relaxes and excites you.  To the south, the party continues effervescing.  To the west are french doors to a garden."
   south = startroom
   southwest = garden
;

garden: room
   sdesc = "Garden (of love)"
   ldesc = "You're in a walled courtyard garden that could easily have looked just so in 12th century Italy.  Paper lanterns hold softly glowing candles.  There's a simple wooden bench.  The air is balmy and smells of fruits and flowers.  You can see the stars overhead.  To the east is a cheery party, to the northeast are french doors leading into a dimly lit room."
   east = startroom
   northeast = makeout
;

==================================================

I'm still absorbing the TADS docs, trying to see how ambitious we might 
be about agents' behavior.

I really want to do this, hopefully as a collective creative experiment.  
I'm feeling more hopeful that TADS is plenty rich enough to do lots of 
interesting romantic plot-twists. (Kudos to Michael Roberts for a clean 
piece of design!  Has anyone ever heard of a programming-for-storytellers 
*course* being offered using TADS or the like?  It seems like a winning 
idea...)

I speed-read a romance novel ("This Calder Sky" by Janet Dailey) a few 
days ago, to get some perspective, because I noticed myself slipping back 
into autonomous-romance-simulation mode.  (A few years back I spent a lot 
of time thinking about a microworld called "PoserWorld" where critters 
dissembled and deceived, to win the most attractive mate, but it was only 
partially relevant to the romance-novel problem.  I was looking at the 
ecology then, more than the drama.)

I'm now trying to find opportunities for *puzzle-type problems* to make 
the romance more adventure-like, and Dailey suggested two possibilities:

1) Love thwarted by evil guardians, so you have to sneak past them and 
solve lock-type obstacle-puzzles.

2) A kind of arcade-game of moving thru the stages of seduction as fast 
as you can without going too fast (the Pole-Position model! ;^)

Surprisingly (to me), Dailey has the heroine *raped* by the hero in 
chapter two, but he's such a stud she loves him for it.  (Clarence 
Thomas's fantasy-life could do no worse...?)

Going thru my quotes-file with this goal in mind, I came up with these 
game-complications:

3) Raise attractiveness (as a game strategy)

4) Look for love in the right places (singles bar?  church?)

5) Detect jerks beneath attractive exteriors

6) Play matchmaker (a meta-game)

7) Outcompete rivals

jorn@chinet.chi.il.us  (Jorn Barger)

