[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Interactive fiction equation

[Mike Rozak]

John Nicholas wrote:
> I like theory and equations a lot - my degree is in math. However, I
> just don't buy this "freedom of choice equates to fun" thing. I'm all
> for freedom of choice in the real world, but that's not because I
> think it is pleasurable.

I was more thinking that freedom of choice helps immersion, which is 
something that that people seem to want, especially gamers. (Note: There are 
consequences to freedom-of-choice that also hurt immersion, such as the 
inability to create movie-quality eye-candy.)


> Tetris is a fun game. There are not that many good moves, and the
> long-term effects of a choice of one good move over another are not
> large. Dance Dance Revolution has even fewer choices and it is still
> fun. Progress Quest is a lot more fun than it ought to be. The
> sensation of becoming more skillful is completely ignored in your
> tradeoffs.

I approached the problem thinking about how to interact with fiction (a 
story). You're right that I didn't pay much attention to the game aspects. 
Maybe another term needs to be added, or maybe it's part of enjoyment, E(c). 
Or maybe it's a completely different model that's incompatible.

Random comment about Tetris and DDR - When you play, you quickly learn what 
moves are and aren't possible, so P(y|d)A(c') is 0. (Conversely, P(y|d)A(c') 
is very high in text IF, and moderately high in text MUDs.) There is no time 
delay (from cutscenes), so A(c,t) is 0. It's just a matter of Sigma(E(c) + 
ki). Which ends up being a fairly useless equation.... But Tetris is one of 
the prime examples for story-free gameplay.