Zebulon - some comments (was: Ah Ha! The Results of the First Annual "Iffys".)


9 Oct 1995 22:27:21 GMT

In article <451vgf$lnq@nntp4.u.washington.edu>,
Dan Shiovitz <scythe@u.washington.edu> wrote (about "Uncle Zebulon's Will"):
>Yeah. I would have liked to understand the surrounding world a little better
>though ... someplace where magic was fairly usual, and yet no one thought to
>check out the stuff you find?

Yes, magic is fairly usual in Zebulon's world, but that doesn't mean that
it's very widely understood. In fact, it's dealt with by specialists,
and although ordinary people may come into everyday contact with
and use magical artifacts, very few people understand how they really work.

This is not dissimilar to computers in our world; there are
microprocessors in things like washing machines, but very few
people who own washing machines understand anything about the computer
that controls it.

In our world, uncle Zebulon would probably have been some kind of
amateur inventor, throwing away his money on weird experiments that
don't work very well. Suppose that you had an uncle like that, and
that your non-technical relatives were to go through his belongings
after his death: would you expect them to be able to distinguish
between his useful inventions, potentially valuable computer parts,
and general junk?

Besides, with the exception of Richard (the game's hero), uncle
Zebulon's relatives aren't too bright; in fact, they're rather a
short-sighted, materialistic lot, who aren't very likely to recognize
a magic item if it walked up to them and pinched their noses (which,
as everybody knows, magical items tend to do every now and then), so
maybe it's not so strange that they didn't find out what to do with
the dog.

(Well, actually there's cousin Miriam, who's a second-year student of
Thaumaturgy at a large university and believes she knows everything
about magic, but I had to leave her out of the game due to the
two-hour limit. Maybe she'll make an appearance in the sequel. )

Still, there are some magic items just lying around. I have
explanations for at least some of them, like the wand - for crying out
loud, who needs a wand of vegetable polymorphism?

Another thing I'd like to comment on is the following. Several people
have pointed out that "Zebulon" isn't too inventive as a game, but
is just yet another variation on a much-used theme.

This is intentional. My first idea for a competition entry was much
more inventive and original, involving, among other things, extensive
interaction among three rather autonomous NPC's. I actually worked on
that game for several weeks, but then I realized that it was very
doubtful whether I'd be able to finish it in time. I didn't want to
have to rush out a torso. So, when the idea of "Zebulon" presented
itself, I ditched my first game and started working on it instead.

That meant that I had less than a month to finish "Zebulon". I
definitely didn't want to rush out an inferior product; I'm a bit of a
perfectionist, and take pride in doing a good job. Rather than having
an inventive but shoddily implemented game, I decided to go for a simple
but solid piece of work. This meant keeping puzzles, NPC's and actions
simple enough to avoid any difficult programming problems, and
concentrate on plot, consistency, atmosphere and writing. Also, I
tried not to be too literary; the more flowery the prose, the more
time one has to spend polishing it. Of course, I did get a bit carried
away while writing the endgame (I hope it doesn't strike you as being
too pretentious or overdone)...

One of my aims in writing "Zebulon" was to write a game that I would
like to play myself. Since I knew that tastes differ a lot (which this
discussion has shown with admirable clarity), I didn't really expect
the reception it actually got. In fact, I'm a bit overwhelmed. I have a
few new IF projects going; hopefully, I'll get the time to finish them
within the not too distant future. These games promise to be far more
inventive than "Zebulon"; let's hope you won't be disappointed.

Magnus