Programmer
Labmag - Faculty Of Science, University Of Lisbon
Lisboa - Portugal
Unlike other games based on gameplay and graphics (for example sports games), in Interactive Fiction the main goal is focused on narrative of the game and puzzle solving.The interface is simple, usually it is text-only but it might contain pictures, animations and videos. In these classes of games the player embodies a character and interacts with its environment through text commands.This kind of communication between the player and the game may cause some problems, for example, forcing the player to memorize a certain amount of words to be able to interact with the environment, or the player get lost in the game because of its size, after attempt several text commands and none of them help. Despite the players encounter problems like those, they are not alone, even interactive fiction authors are confronted with them when they try to create their own narratives. Most of the tools available to develop these games are oriented to people with programming skills thereby reducing the target audience.In order to solve this problems we propose FIGN (Ficção Interactiva com Gestor de Narrativas), a pack of software tools designed to the development of Interactive Fiction Text Games incorporated with a Drama Management. With FIGN the author does not need any programming skill in order to create his own games. Using FIGN the author mark his story with plot points which will help the drama manager to guide the player through the story. The author also define a set of actions to make sure the drama manager can guide the player through the story, for example, giving hints or items, denying zones, resulting in an improved gaming experience.