Read Online A Game of Murder by Elise M. Stone - Free Book Online Page A

livelihood. If anything happened to it, she’d be unable to work.
    “We’re going to start with a simple gaming system called Twine. With this system, you can create Choose Your Own Adventure style games.”
    A couple of the boys groaned. The loudest one, a skinny kid in a black tee shirt that said “No, I will not fix your computer” on the front, started to close up his laptop.
    Rok pierced him with a look. “You’re disappointed?”
    The skinny kid nodded. “I don’t want to create kid games. I want to write World of Warcraft .”
    Rok smiled. “So do I. But writing an MMRPG as huge and complex as Warcraft is hard. You have to learn the basics first, and writing a simple game will let us focus on what makes a game interesting, how to construct puzzles and challenges, how to develop scoring systems, player capabilities, and lots of other things without needing to worry about language syntax or graphic design or music.”
    “You’re sure we have to write a Choose Your Own Adventure game first?”
    “Very sure.” The tone of his voice permitted no argument.
    The skinny kid lifted the lid of his laptop and sat back. Faith knew he wasn’t convinced when he folded his arms over his chest.
    “Let’s look at a Twine game that was developed for the IFComp—short for Interactive Fiction Competition—which is held every year.” He switched from PowerPoint to a web browser displaying white letters on a black screen. Within the text, some of the words were blue, the standard convention for hyperlinks. “As you can see, turns in the game consist of clicking on one of the links. The game responds to your choice with the next turn.”
    “How lame is that? No graphics at all?” A big kid, who reminded Faith of Dennis from the gamer group, only younger and not quite as far along the path to morbid obesity, let out a big sigh after his complaint.
    Rok shook his head. “Not in this part of the game. Some text adventures start with splash screens at the beginning. We’ll cover images in a little while. With other game development systems for text adventures, there’s a way to incorporate more pictures and even sound, but they’re merely decoration and not part of the game itself.”
    Seeing his audience still had doubts, Rok continued speaking. “Text adventures were some of the original games created for computers. In fact, the first one was simply called Adventure , and many of those who went on to create the games we play today cut their teeth on it, spending hours exploring virtual caves and collecting treasures. Like a novel, the pictures and sounds take place in your mind. A well-written game can keep you engaged for hours.”
    The skinny kid scratched his head.
    Rok tried again. “Let’s walk through a few moves of the game and see how it works.”
    He clicked on the opening display. The screen now showed some simple text:
    You are standing at the bottom of a rocky hillside. Nearby you can hear the tinkling of water. A path leads upwards. You can follow The Path or go back to the Start of the game.
    The Path and Start were in blue, indicating they were hyperlinks.
    “Since we’ve just left the start, let’s click on the link for the path.” Rok followed his words with the action. The screen changed again:
    The sound of water is louder now. You can head toward the water or climb up the hill.
    Rok chose “climb up the hill” and, for the first time, a picture appeared on the screen. It wasn’t much of a picture, a bunch of wildflowers, but Faith saw how adding pictures to each location might make the simple games more interesting.
    “It really is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book!” the young girl squealed with delight. The geeky boys gave her the stink eye.
    “Let’s talk a little about making a game.” Rok perched on the corner of the desk, his left leg dangling a short distance above the floor. “There are three parts involved when you create a game: design, coding, and story. The design is