Inventors + Authors = G-R-E-A-T Games

         Another innovation from James Judge

Seems to be my month for ideas, and it is one that could please a
lot of people. Let me tell you a story...

One day walking down Maidstone high street on the way to get an
ink cart for my printer I wander by the bus stops and was glared
menacingly by an green orangutan advertising Sunkist. Thinking how
cruel it was dyeing the poor creatures fur (OK, I know it was done
(at least I HOPE it was done) by computers, but it shows that I'm
a caring fool) I thought how to incorporate a green monkey into a
game. Then I thought 'why bother, I'm never going to write a game
unless TGC or MAGT really appeals to me and so I left it at that.

A couple of weeks later I had a great idea and asked for the
opinion of STAC guru Jean Childs. She said it was a great idea and
so I thought about it more.

Then, a couple of weeks after that, I 'phoned Sue and asked how
she was getting on with her game. After saying that she had left
it too long and was going to need some intensive re-learning of
all the code that she had put in she said that she didn't design
the game, it was someone else's brain-child.

That then led me to think of the idea by the authors of Cortizone
(a STAC game) to pool together ideas from the SynTax readership
and then, no matter how surreal and disjointed it all got, try and
write a game based on the rooms designed by the readers.

Finally I thought I might as well put my idea onto disk and see
what the adventuring community has got to say on the subject.
Knowing the usual response it will be very little, but we can but
try.

I see adventurers as being in a lot of different camps. There are
those who just adventure, playing games all day and maybe writing
the odd review (I fall into this category). Then there are those
who adventure but they also write. One slight problem is that they
haven't got good ideas and so, even with the best of intentions,
produce games that have got hackneyed plots and are not very
thrilling at all and so they don't succeed. Then there are the
adventurers who play games, write games and can come up with damn
decent plots and ideas (Jean Childs, Simon Avery, Sue, Peter
Hague).

Looking at those three main camps we can see which camp don't do
much for adventure writing, but they feel entitled to slag them
off (and we've got the right to!). The unfortunate thing is that
there may be repressed talent there - the standard players may
have great ideas for a game but can't get around the programming
aspect and so there are loads of potential games out there not
being written.

Then looking at the other two writing camps. One can't do plots
and the second can, but they can't have good ideas every five
minutes. What they need is someone to come up with a viable
storyline that is good and gives enough scope for them to put
their programming skills on.

So what do we do? Let the ideas and programming go to waste? Oh
no. What we do is ask for people to send up a brief outline of a
game that they have got in mind and then if there is a programmer
out there who likes the sound of it they can get in contact and
finally, hopeful, create a game out of it - satisfying them both.

As Jean pointed out to me the two people (it could be more, but I
envisage that that would get large and unruly) would be of a
like-mind so they should meld together.

I'm not saying this idea is good or bad, it is for the programmers
and creators to make it work or not, I'm just putting the idea
forward.

If you like the idea why don't you put your idea forward and see
what comes of it - for all we know you may have the next Obscure
Naturalist in your head and there may just be a programmer out
there who can bring this idea to life.

@~I think this is an excellent idea. Coding Andrew and Tom Craig's
@~game, The Second Pit, has been good fun for me and it should be
@~finished soon (plug, plug). I had just finished writing Oklib
@~and wanted to have a go at TADS, but I'd used up all my ideas in
@~Oklib. The next day, Andrew writes to me saying, do you know
@~anyone who'd like to code a game? Do I ever?! Talking to various
@~SynTax readers, I know several of you have plot ideas bubbling
@~away but no inclination to sit and program the game. If you have
@~a synopsis on disk, send it in and I'll print it to see if
@~anyone is interested in doing the programming.