(gasping from information overload)

Thanks for adding your thoughts to the deluge of stuff that's hit the blogoverse about the conference. There's a lot to talk about here -- is there any way to make individual sections commentable? -- and I'm glad to see more impressions from someone I trust about how it turned out.

Just because it makes me happy, one more blog link about the conference:
http://www.stillnotcool.com/2004_03_01_arch.html#107871408841888180

Laurie Taylor was referring to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's "smooth and striated space," from the book _A Thousand Plateaus_, in her paper.

I think you're wrong about text games, given the mini-renaissance they're experiencing as "interactive fiction" -- in fact, this scene might end up being the model for non-corporate game development, if the industry turns out the way I hope it will -- but I can see why you might feel that the medium was dead.

I have a lot more to say about the alleged difference between "narratology" and "ludology," and "fun" versus "rules," but this isn't the time or place for it (as some but not most of the game-studies crowd seems to perceive, academic blogging has none of the benefits of publication, but it still carries some of the risks). For now, I'll just say that I think the real difference being expressed in this pair of distinctions is between *aesthetics* and *sociology* (and thus between cultural interpretation and social functionalism).

We'll talk/write/exchange more electrons on this topic in the future, I'm sure.

Thanks for your detailed account of the conference...

I would second what Roger wrote about text games. Just because we're in a post-commercial game doesn't mean that the genre is dead. Today's players, who are used to text messaging real people, are much less tolerant of the "stupid" parser that only understands a certain rigid syntax... but one of the best things about text games is that the tools are freely available and well-documented. The genre doesn't require armies of graphic designers, lighting designers, costume designers, mo-cap actors, voice actors, etc.... your ability as a writer is the main limiting factor (though it's writing in an environment with unusual constraints).

I do think that the disappearance of in-game corpses may have had something to do with Will Crowther's desire to conserve resources and focus on the task at hand. When the axe-throwing dwarves die, there isn't first a corpse object that later disappears; the death happens in a simple text message, and there is no data object that represents a dead dwarf. The text message explains what happens to the body so that the player won't be surprised when the game rejects further attempts to interact with the dwarf (now that it's dead). So the lack of corpse objects is actually not incidental Will Crowther's programming style... Woods doesn't seem to have felt the same need to conserve resources, so I'm assuming that conservation of that sort wasn't strictly necessary.

The brass latnern doesn't need to be assembled in the game... you just turn it on. Later, the "batteries" need to be replaced from a vending machine located in a maze deep underground... but the Cave Research Foundation manual and the book The Longest Cave both spend considerable time discussing the various ways in which one's lantern must be cared for and tweaked. One of the first objects in the game is a bottle, that can be filled with water or oil; but Crowther doesn't seem to have created any puzzles with that object. That is, the classic lantern has two chambers, one with water above and one containing chunks of carbide below. When drops of water fall onto the carbide, a flammable gas results. The caving books are full of tips on how to dispose of used carbide (which continues to exude gas and can therefore explode if put in an airtight container), what do to if your lantern gets clogged, what to do if you run out of water (urine is good enough), etc.

I meant to present some of these lantern related issues just to give the audience a sense of how caving, as it was practiced in the mid 70s, was full of object manipulation and inventory management puzzles, not just endless mapping. None of those possible lantern puzzles are actually in the game, but later works of IF have developed fiendishly complicated in-game objects. Perhaps the most complicated one so far is the enigma machine featured in Graham Nelson's "Jigsaw"...

As per your thoughts about the potential for detailed visual information to overwhelm, you might check out Espen Aarsth's Cybertext (in the chapter that explicates "Deadline").

Adam Cadre has blogged some related thoughts:

http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/10910.html

Once again, thanks for your detailed post.

As suggested, the post is now ten mini-posts, all of which are commentable. Good suggestion! I had been thinking of using pound tags, but I think this is better.