I think it's interesting how Robb makes the conscious decision to buck IF trends and not give his NPCs "short descriptions," so that instead of catering to the school of IF where every room description is supposed to look like it's a page out of a book, you have stuff like "Ned is here."

This approach is refreshingly honest because the game don't feel compelled to hide the fact that it's a text adventure. It's like, yeah, I [i]can[/i] still tell a good story and present this world without covering up my NPCs with flowery descriptions. Plus, it does a good job of conveying the immediacy of actual social interaction.

Despite these good reasons to do it, I still think it's a somewhat brave stance to take since you won't find it in that many games in this day and age. Hell, I agree with it yet I still find myself filling out that short_desc property in my games.

RE: Cutthroats. I never got very far in that game since I never could make it to the second (?) meeting on time. I think cruel timing in that game (and others like it) make NPCs seem more robotic than lifelike, but I agree that scripts like that can go far in making NPCs seem more real.

I should play that game again, though, since I was pretty young and stupid the last time I tried.

I replied to this over email, but perhaps there's something to be gained by posting it here, too:

Very well-written piece, Robb. I'm glad that was the subject you chose, as you are definitely leading the way in terms of NPC interaction in text games. Though I did find it funny that you said "words are all we have", when in fact you yourself use pictures, and in some cases even music, in an attempt to bring characters to life. THAT'LL BE OUR SECRET.

I would add that, for me, interesting conversations are not enough to bring enough depth to a character to want to bother doing anything but "lawmowing" (great term!) the conversation options to get to the next scene. What is key for me is that the character must also DO things that don't have anything to do with you.

The best NPCs I ever saw were in Infocom's "Cutthroats". Not because they had great dialogue, but because they would talk to you, and then tell you to meet them somewhere at a certain time, and then leave, and then go do other things, and then meet you on time, but not a minute before. At that point, I'll listen to what they have to say.

Thank you for your time.

http://nickm.com/post/2011/03/the-if-theory-reader-arrives/

Let me quote Nick Montfort, from his weblog up there:

[quote="Nick Montfort"]Almost a decade after the project began, the IF Theory Reader is finally here, thanks to the hard work of editors Kevin Jackson-Mead and J. Robinson Wheeler. The book has been published by Transcript On Press and has made it out in time for PAX-East, where Kevin’s group The People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction will be hosting a hospitality suite.

There are 438 pages in this book, which can be downloaded as a PDF for free or purchased as a paperback for a mere $13.26.[/quote]

I downloaded it as a PDF and put it on my Kindle, yaaay. (Nobody is trying to make money off this. The print link is in case you want a hard copy.) I wrote a chapter on NPC Dialogue, so if you are interested in reading something I wrote recently, there ya go.