Is it a game, is it a puzzle, or is it porn?

I spend a little bit of time — actually, quite a lot — thinking about player motivation. This comes from being a gamemaster whenever my group of friends gets together for D&D or other tabletop role playing game. The players never do what I expect them to do. The story I want to tell isn't always the story they want to be in.

When it comes to interactive fiction it is similar, but trickier. The player is wrestling with the interface, the command lines, the available vocabulary of the game, the room layout, the non-static things in the game, and whatever resources he has been allotted. What he wants to do is not always anticipated by me, the author. What's worse, I have no way of receiving feedback from the game; I cannot tell what commands that players attempted, or where they got stuck. If players don't speak up, I can't tell what to fix.

Sometimes players getting stuck is exactly what I intend. It may seem cruel or uncaring, but it is my philosophy that the player ought to work for the thing he wants in a game. It shouldn't be handed to him. Therefore, the rewards of the game — the sexy content the player wants — shouldn't be given out like candy, but should be hidden behind the "correct" sequence of moves.

But is that always what players want?

Back to the title of the blog: maybe. If it's a game, I am giving the player resources to manage and rules to manage them by. One of those resources is the player's choices. If they choose to spend a choice doing one thing, I do not feel obligated to give them the other choice for free. It is a path; choose which direction to follow. If I view it as a puzzle, then I intend for certain content to be concealed until the right player happens upon the right combination. I leave clues behind and allow the players to find them.

Sometimes what players are looking for is porn. And that is completely contrary to the design goals of games and puzzles. Porn is an uninterrupted buildup of the player's enjoyment. Puzzles get in the way, and make players stop to investigate what went wrong. It is, I feel, more rewarding in the end to find your way there to the end; but not all players want to be challenged in this way.

That's why I have settled on my philosophy: I provide hyperlinks to the bare-bones choices of the story. There is more to it, if the player learns the interface. Simply clicking hyperlinks will not unlock every secret. That's the way I like it.