Thursday, August 28, 2008
August 28, 2008: Ferrets
I'm not really all that acquainted with puzzles in IF. In the 2003 game _Erudition Chamber_ (uh, by the way, spoilers start right after this and continue until the divider), which I suppose is one of the better-known litmus tests out there, I was 4-0 Seer, which roughly translates to "Screw this mechanical crap! Down with complicated tinkering!"
It was a bit more complicated than that. I only started out as a Seer because one of the tropiest of tropes, both in static and interactive fiction, is that there is a passage/safe hidden behind the portrait/tapestry. It goes at least as far back as the gothic novel. So basically the minute I saw a tapestry on the wall, I knew what it was for. It didn't matter what was on the tapestry. I'm willing to guess that I was purposeful hunting for Seer-y things on the other three. I did manage to screw up the interpreter by putting the stool on the table, then standing on both.
But. Puzzles. And my point. I don't like fiddly puzzles. I don't like "turn the dial to 36 and type 5321 on the keypad and rotate the lever 43 degrees over the square root of 7" type puzzles.
There are nevertheless puzzles in my game. I'd like to think they're okay. There are no keys in the game so far, so I guess that's a plus. However. There is one thing that I'd love to put in, but just does not fit. Its logical place would be a pet store but I'm not writing an "Escape-the-haunted-pet-store" game. I am talking about ferrets.
~*~*~
You see, ferrets got me fired. If we're being mature we'd probably say it was my own damn fault that I got fired, but I like to deflect the blame. It was the ferrets' fault.
Ferrets are raucous, angry creatures with angry, piercing claws and piercing, beady eyes. They explode upon entering the same 1-mile radius as food. Even if said food is Marshalls crap. Especially - you can smell the stuff from anywhere within said radius.
(Marshalls, incidentally, has an irritating line of pet treats. They come in several flavors, with the same rage-inducing tagline. Your ferret is not a fucking bandit. Giving your ferret corn syrup nuggets will not make it a fucking bandit.)
Now then. The only thing more chaotic than a ferret who sees food is ten ferrets who all see food, and who have been kept in a cage for the better part of the day. Every evening, here is how it went down:
1) Unlock the cage, dodging ferret noses and claws
2) Open the cage
3) Onslaught of ferrets
Once 3) happens, pretty much your only option is to put the ferrets in the back of the cage or in their beds or as far away from the door as possible. There are too many of them for this to be viable for long, and it doesn't leave any hands free to feed them. Oh yes, and I'd be remiss not to mention their clawing and biting. It is a real-life puzzle every evening. I don't know if an IF game has featured a ferret cage. (I mentioned _Erudition Chamber_ above because it mentioned ferrets. I *enjoyed* the repression.) I could see a decent author making it work. And probably not getting fired in the process.
0 comments:
Post a Comment