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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: etc.

Maybe this is not the age of word adventure games, but classics are never out of date.

When asked which achievements she is most proud of, Emily Short, an award-winning interactive fiction writer, narrative designer and creative director, smiles mockingly: "it's a difficult question to answer because you can always fantasize about making more progress in the future."

As the creative director of British independent studio Failbetter Games, short grew up in Los Angeles and Seattle and has worked on many prestigious games. Her first award-winning work was published in 2000 and was included in the word narrative game "Galatea" by the Library of Congress. other works include the word adventure game "Savoir-Faire" and "Floatpoint".

However, short is probably best known for his series "the fall of London". In the games "the fall of London", "the Sea of No Light" and "No Light Space", short is responsible for the construction of world outlook, plot writing and narrative design, showing a superb writing style and a unique temperament. In June, Failbetter launched the visual novel dating simulation game Mask Of The Rose, a prequel to the London fall trilogy, with short as lead screenwriter and director.

Rose Mask: a visual fiction game that incorporates detective elements into love games, focusing on creating emotional and complex characters and gripping plots, short helped develop Versu, an interactive storytelling platform driven by AI, before joining Failbetter full-time in early 2020. In addition, she works in academia and game media, and has a well-known blog, where she often shares a great deal of experience accumulated during her more than 20 years of career.

Short's husband, Graham A. Nelson, is a lecturer in mathematics at Oxford University and one of the pioneers of interactive narrative design in Britain. The couple have been living in Oxford for the past decade and founded the Oxford and London Interactive Fiction Group in 2014.

"A few years ago I was asked what my proudest achievement was. At that time, I thought it was a community gathering organized here, which helped a group of people find jobs. But during the epidemic, I almost came to a standstill, and I myself was too tired to go on."

"online videoconferencing is now managed by other people around me, so a slightly strange answer may be that although I am no longer doing this work, I am still proud of some community support and organizational work," short said. "

In the field of interactive fiction, short is a true star with both encyclopedic knowledge and motivation to bring people from marginal backgrounds or different subdisciplines into the circle. in a sense, short's support to other creators also reflects the spirit of mutual help in the community of interactive novel creators. In this small group of amateurs, everyone is willing to provide free feedback to other creators.

Short points out that the current atmosphere in the interactive fiction community is partly due to the marginalization of literal adventures in the late 1990s with the explosive growth of home consoles and more visually attractive games.

"word adventure games were considered out of date by many people as early as the late 1990s and early 2000s. But it also has a small group of very loyal fans who gather in a strange little corner of Usenet (a distributed discussion system invented in 1979, which can be seen as the predecessor of BBS). I also taught myself programming to develop word adventure games at that time."

Short has gradually accumulated knowledge and confidence in game design and interactive narrative, thanks in part to that very lovely, generous and critical community. " Every time a creator releases a game, only a few hundred people may be playing it, but about a dozen of them will post in-depth comments. Although the community is very small, we can get a lot of very detailed feedback. At that time, I was a complete amateur. I had not yet entered the game industry, and I had no plans in that respect. I felt more like a scholar. " She smiled. "I spend a lot of time doing things that have nothing to do with my doctorate and won't be approved by my mentor."

Short adds that she and others often discuss deep-seated issues in the interactive novel creator community. "what kind of stories should we tell in the game? in what ways should we tell the story? can we use the game to observe characters or examine morality? as far as game creation is concerned, we can do a lot of theoretical exploration."

Galatea is an early interactive novel game developed by short, inspired by Pygmalion's statue, exploring the way people interact with NPC. Moral topics run through short's new book, the Rose Mask. The story takes place in 1862, a few months after the bat invasion plunged London into a huge underground cave. Players can choose to make personal connections with old and new characters in the "London fall" universe, including falling in love or making friends, while collecting clues and investigating a murder mystery. In the end, you have to accuse who the killer is, and if you accuse another character for two weeks, it will have a special chain reaction. In a sense, the Rose Mask is like an interesting detective novel with simple and beautiful animation, which is very suitable for players to sit on the sofa to pass the time.

"players can interact with the outcome of a murder in a variety of ways, not just finding the culprit. in addition to solving the case, we can also examine some deeper questions, such as why the existing judicial system does not always work properly. What chaos may be caused? how do we deal with it? different endings of the story suggest different answers to this question."

Short revealed that she started writing the screenplay for "Rose Mask" at the height of the epidemic, so she inevitably infiltrated the topic into the game narrative. "at that time, I thought that, in terms of subject matter, no matter what I experienced in real life, it would inevitably infiltrate into the work I was working on in some way and to some extent."

"how do we have an apocalyptic experience together? After all, the world we used to know has become completely abnormal in some ways. It is not only a personal tragedy, but also a common disaster of mankind. How should we support each other to tide over the difficulties and what changes may take place in our relationship? How will institutions, governments and people's beliefs be affected? This is a broad topic, but it gives us an opportunity to think about how each person will behave differently when this happens, and how to contribute to society in different ways. Around these questions we began to create characters and design storylines. "

Failbetter is well aware that players in the London fall series are looking forward to dating certain classic characters and are interested in dating characters they have never met before. " In any type of visual novel or dating simulation game, players can choose multiple branches and storylines. "Rose Mask" is no exception, players are free to choose which character to fall in love with, make friends or develop other relationships. So we have to make sure that the content of the game is very broad, even though it can cause some of the plots to appear disorganized. "

In order to control all the potential outcomes, short carefully designed a murder mystery for the Rose Mask. " But I also have to consider that the murder under the 'London fall' worldview is different from the real case, because the character is resurrected from the dead, which means that the story will develop in a different way. We can use some interesting ways to adjust the player's mood. for example, the player may become attached to the victim before he dies and feel depressed when he is dead and resurrected. "

"the fall of London" is known as the most content-rich and freest written adventure in game history. The game has no main plot, and all the players' choices will lead to countless different stories except the plot structure. Short believes that the most important element in the narrative is "telling the truth".

"many elements of the classics are timeless and often make me appreciate and awe. For example, from a play by Aristophanes, I might find a line that is very suitable to describe a bad experience on the Internet. It makes me laugh and feel that someone can understand me."

"the distance between me and Aristophanes is more than 2000, which shows that it is possible for media works to span the river of time and connect people of different ages. But at the root of it, the reason why the classics can be handed down forever is precisely because they contain a certain degree of reality. What are your experiences? What does it mean? So even if the creative techniques of ancient works are a little confusing or not easy to understand, as long as they contain certain elements, they are still valuable. "

During the development of Rose Mask, in order to get more creative inspiration, short conducted extensive thematic research in books, podcasts and other fields. She read some novels about Jewish women in the 19th century to construct a "psychological background" for the character Rachel. At the same time, Failbetter invited several consultants who are familiar with the subject. "I think those consultants like the project because they usually can only participate in academic research or non-fiction. We list a series of questions, such as what changes in eating habits might happen if people with this cultural background suddenly live underground."

Short himself was a scholar. After the financial crisis broke out in 2008, she decided to change careers because of the increasing scarcity of academic jobs. With several early interactive novel games, she spent six months trying to gain a foothold in the gaming industry. "I found it easier to find a job than I expected, because a lot of people already know what I've done and are interested in working with me."

It wasn't long before she changed from making games as a hobby to her main job. She has been involved in the development of many works as a freelancer and co-founded LittleTextPeople with Richard Evans in 2011 (later acquired by second Life developer Linden Labs). In 2016, short joined Spirit AI, a company dedicated to studying how academia and games use AI technology.

The Versu engine in Blood & Laurels is very similar to today's ChatGPT technology, but the conversation model at that time was far less mature than it is today, but short has always been most interested in word adventure games. " I kept a small diary of how I tried to get through a game written by Scott Adams on my VIC-20 computer when I was six or seven years old. It wasn't even the first word adventure game I ever played, because my mother was a retired programmer. I saw her play Adventure and Deadline at home, and then I tried to play it myself. "

Short likes to explore the universe created by others. " Unlike books, games let me feel the concept of the development team in my heart. In addition, everything in the game exists for a reason, which is very attractive to me. When you are a child, you may find some parts of the world incomprehensible. In a sense, I think the limited world of word adventure games (everything is part of the puzzle) fascinated me in my childhood. "

By learning to program, short laid the foundation for his career early on. Influenced by her mother, she never worried that women engaged in game development would make some outdated people feel abnormal. "because I'm a girl, I can't do this? I never thought of it that way."

According to short, Failbetter's staff includes four transgender women and four non-dual genders-nearly half of the studio's total staff. " Failbetter has a more balanced and enjoyable culture than most studios. In the gaming industry, women may experience a variety of different experiences, sometimes feel good, and sometimes to a certain extent. Women may not be taken seriously or have to undergo more tests in some things than their male colleagues. "

"I was hired by a company because of my programming experience, but a colleague didn't believe I could do the job. He told me you obviously couldn't do it, and I immediately replied, 'obviously what? because I'm a woman?'"

Failbetter sees overtime as a measure used only in emergencies and has zero tolerance for discrimination and harassment. Short shares another experience in the gaming industry. " In a meeting in the studio, other people kept interrupting me. They talked to me about gender and even deliberately showed a certain sense of superiority, and they felt very uncomfortable at the time. I really don't like interrupting others when they are speaking, but I suddenly realize that I need to change my strategy to interrupt those people, otherwise my voice will never be heard and I will not be able to contribute to this project. If I want to do this job well, I have to be ruder than usual. "

"to my surprise, I've almost never seen anything like this at Failbetter. Over time, the industry as a whole has improved, with more and more women attending big events in the gaming industry."

As an independent company, Failbetter has more freedom than the large studios that are developing 3A games and is willing to provide employees with more time to complete projects. " We are relatively stable, you can patiently develop and polish the game, and choose the right time to release to the public. We have sufficient financial reserves and time, and we can deal with it calmly if we need to adjust the production schedule, and we will never let the project ruin anyone's life. "

Earlier, to help the development team avoid the quagmire of overtime, Failbetter postponed the release date of the Rose Mask from April to June 8. "this means that we have more room to be creative and try to create something extraordinary."

Although short is the chief screenwriter and game director of Rose Mask, she seems reluctant to stand in the limelight.

"I have brought something of my own to this project, but the contributions of others are also very important. In fact, improving the cohesion of the team and allowing everyone to participate actively is also part of the creative process. I often tell my colleagues that I know this game needs to be done, but I am not the right person. To be honest, some of the scenes in the narrative of the Rose Mask made me very excited, but I couldn't design it myself. "

This article is compiled from: https://www.nme.com/ features / gaming-features / boss-level-2023-emily-short-3455197

Original title: Emily Short deserves her flowers

Original author: Charlotte Krol

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