Forum:Let's play a game
We all enjoy the Game namespace, don't we? Good old Zork (a game which approximately 2% of the contributors have played the real version of) and crazy old Game (turn to page eleventy-bazillion! Even though this isn't even an adventure gamebook in the first place!) have provided merriment for all. But, previous sentence notwithstanding, many people are put off these Games by various flaws - flaws which are inherent in their very nature - that result in fluctuating levels of quality, and unnecessary resistance to maintenance!
The most serious problems with the Games are that:
- Once they've been sufficiently built up by multiple contributors, any hierarchy that may have been present at the start of the game disintegrates such that it's impossible, given a random page, to tell what the player has done prior to that page.
- Most of the pages can only be reached by passing through another hundred pages, meaning that a particularly crummy page won't ever be weeded out unless you crush it at birth.
- Quite often the story, scenario or whatever ends up contradicting itself, or just plain darting off in another direction for no reason at all.
- Also, nearly every Game has no fulfilling victory condition! Like an unstoppable sea of self-replicating nanobots, they just keep on going with no end in sight.
But now, after minutes of nominally intense thought, I have produced a Game which is completely bereft of all of these inadequacies!
The rules of this new Game are as follows:
- Every page in the Game is linked from the Game's start page, meaning that every page is one click away from another viewer's scrutiny!
- An extra result of the above is that every page has the same probability of being viewed as any other! (How many times have you made a maze01 that's buried so deep within the game itself that it's extremely likely that nobody will ever see it? I know I've had that feeling!)
- Every page must be an ending page!
- Inconsistencies and contradictions are impossible! Not only is every page an ending page, but every page is considered to be a complete story, causally separate from every other page except for the shared premise!
All vey well, but where is this Game, and what is it called? Well, my friends, it has the best name that has ever been concocted for any Game that ever has been and ever will be. Funkier than "3x3 Ice Hockey", less cringe-worthy than "Shrek 2: Beg For Mercy", more imaginative than "Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3", it is: "Pick Up the Phone Booth and Aisle".
It should be noted that this name is not a creation of my own mind, but appropriated from an already existing but sadly non-Wiki game with approximately equal rules! Also, if you pick up the phone booth, you die.
Observe my contribution, and then make your own contributions! --L 05:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Discussion
Doesn't having a category for each game solve this difficulty? (See http://novelas.wikia.com/wiki/Interactive_Fiction ) --Nerd42Talk 19:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
- No, because nobody visits Category pages anyway. --L 10:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
See Also
- PUTPBAA (Shortcut page.)
- Unfocom
- Unlimited Unstory
- Zork 2: Gruel and Unusual Punishment (listed because only one dude seems to have written it, thus explaining its above-par level of quality).