Scripts (May 1994)
by Gareth Rees

   A technique I've found useful when writing games is to compose short
   scripts from the game. I sit down at the keyboard and type up a short
   dialogue that I might expect to occur during the game. For example
   (not from a real game): 
   
     Airport
     This cavernous building owes a lot to Richard Rodgers: sweeping
     curves of metal and vast panes of glass give it an airy but rather
     desolate feel. To the north there's a customs desk and to the south
     electric doors lead out to the car park. Near one wall there's a
     solitary bench.
     
     A young woman is sitting on the bench.
     
     > examine bench
     The bench is made of moulded red plastic and looks designed to be
     uncomfortable. There is a gap of about a foot between the bench and
     the wall.
     
     A man carrying a briefcase enters the airport from the south.
     
     > examine man
     He's tall and angular, dressed expensively and wearing sunglasses.
     
     > man, hello
     "Push off!" he says, shoving past you.
     
     The man goes over to the bench and sits down next to the young
     woman. They start talking to each other in low voices.
     
     > hide behind bench
     You creep along the wall as silently as you can. Luckily for you the
     two people on the bench are paying attention only to each other.
     
     The man is saying, "Could you do a big favour for me? It's my
     brother Jeremy, he's flying to America for our mother's birthday,
     and he's forgotten to take her present. I tried to get here in time,
     but I can't find him anywhere. If you see him, could you give this
     to him? You'll know him because he looks like me and he's wearing
     dark glasses like I am."
     
     He hands her a small parcel wrapped in brightly coloured paper, then
     gets up and walks out of the airport to the south.
     
     > i
     You are carrying a pair of glasses.
     
   and so on. I've found this helpful because:
     * It stops me coding anything until I have a puzzle fairly well
       fleshed out in my mind. Too often it's tempting to start coding
       something one way and then discover that later developments need a
       different approach.
     * It makes me think like a player (I try to go into 'player mode'
       when I type the player responses and to include a selection of the
       silly things that I would be liable to type if I were playing the
       game, an aspect not very well illustrated in the example above).
       Often when coding it becomes habit just to fail to deal with
       situations and responses that are tricky to write. Having them
       appear on the script forces me to say to myself "It may be tough
       to code but it'll appear natural in the game and that's worth it."
       I also find it hard to get into the habit of providing interesting
       responses to failed actions, and the script helps with this.
       
   If there's a drawback it's that it becomes very tempting to code the
   game so that the player is forced to follow the script, which doesn't
   make for much of an interesting game.
   
   

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