It's the first volume in a set of books about the history
of keyboards, text entry, the user experience of working
with text on various then-newfangled devices.
I learned a lot, which might kind of surprise you; I'd already
learned plenty about the history of
this technology and that technology.
But focusing on text brings you to some weird corners.
E.g., in the very-early days of typewriters, a typist
couldn't see what they'd typed; the marks were under the paper,
hidden by the typewriter mechanism. You might say "Well, any
serious typist learns to touch-type at some point;
but I dunno if I could work up the resolve to learn touch typing
if I couldn't see my work when I was starting out.
I learned about Linotype spacebands. A linotype lets a typesetter
make a line-of-type by typing text, laying out an array of letterform
molds. But this tool, for book and newspaper publishers, supports
full-justified text. It did that by changing the spacing between words;
not so hard if they're just blips of light on a computer screen, but
tricky when they're pieces of metal sitting in a track.
It turns out that while the letter-pieces were flat, spaces were
spacebands,
tall subtly-slanted wedges.
|..____⚺____⚺___⚺__⚺___.|
When you'd entered a line of text, the machine would push down on the
wedges, forcing apart the words until those words hit the edges of the
track.
|_____ _____ ____ ___ ___|
V V V V
They fit snugly enough such that when hot lead was poured over the track,
it probably didn't leak past those wedges.
I learned something about the history of the telegraph, surprising
since I studied that pretty hard while coming up with ideas for that
Telegraph Hill puzzle hunt. I learned about some of the also-ran
devices that were devised, false starts towards usability. Many people
saw that electricity could be used for communication. Someone at point
A closes an electrical circuit; this causes something to
happen at point B, far away but also on that electric circuit.
But what should happen? It shouldn't require too much power; you'd have
to drive that much power through the circuit. (Modern folks
might think "why not run a little trickle of power through the circuit
and use it to trigger a transistor to something more powerful at
the receiving end?" but of course this is all before transistors.)
I read about the efforts Francisco Salva Campillo, who had the idea
of using
twitching
severed frogs' legs at the receiving end to indicate when the
circuit was closed. I'm really glad I didn't
try to write a puzzle around that.
So far, so good. Onward to Volume №2.
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It's a survey of puzzles: word puzzles, logic puzzles, physical puzzles, jigsaw—you get the idea.
I'm not really in the target demographic for a survey; I already knew most of this stuff from, y'know,
participating in puzzle events for the past not-quite-twenty years. Sure, the author has a unique set
of opinions; but I've encountered most of those opinions piecemeal while talking with other puzzle nerds
for the past not-quite-twenty years. So why did I read this targeted-elsewhere book? OK, remember
back in 2020 I helped run the MIT Mystery
Hunt, including a pancake Pictionary event, and one of the participants had a TV crew with him?
That participant was the book's author, A.J. Jacobs. I don't know a
ton about him, but apparently he roped some TV outfit into covering some of his more eye-catching book research.
It turns out he's kind of a big deal. You remember some years back, some guy spent a year trying to follow
all the rules of the bible? Same guy. So: kinda famous.
I'm quite grateful that he attended the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt. He didn't say a ton about it; that's appropriate,
since he was aiming for a survey of the whole world of puzzling and was writing a book carry-able without help from
a forklift. Why am I grateful? Because he was willing to work on that puzzle that used surgery videos as puzzle data.
A lot of folks couldn't bring themselves to look at that puzzle; I certainly couldn't. I remember making sure
that its videos were hooked up correctly by peeking at them between my fingers… hoo boy. Jacobs was willing
to work on that puzzle; and when he chose a sample MIT Mystery Hunt puzzle to include in his book, he chose
"Bobcat" by the same author (but much less disturbing).
So the author dove in deep to the world of the MIT Mystery Hunt, participating, solving puzzles… and then wrote
a little about it for this book. It kinda makes you wonder what ended up "on the cutting room floor." And that sums up
what I thought about other sections of the book. He has a chapter about chess puzzles. Wow, he interviewed Garry Frickin' Kasparov
for his chapter about chess problems… uhm, but while I bet it was an interesting conversation, not a lot of it made
it into the book. (Or maybe most of the interview made it into the book except for the part where hypothetically
Kasparov said "I have a bus to catch, I can give you five minutes"?) Uhm, it's cool that someone wants to write
a breezy, readable survey of puzzling aimed at the layperson; it's cool that someone writing about chess problems talked
to Kasparov; it's just kinda jarring that they're the same book, I guess?
I was mulling this over while talking with someone who recently read The Dawn of Everything, a book which
compares how various cultures solved various problems historically. And that book is 700 pages, and it's a lot.
And maybe it would have been a kindness to readers to pick one problem that various cultures solved various ways
and write one much shorter book about that problem. Or maybe if there had been an editor who was willing to lay down
the law and say "This book is all very well, but ⅔ of it has got to go." So, like, I get it that if this guy
wants to write a book that appeals to his large existing audience, he's gotta keep it short, keep it breezy.
I guess I'm just so accustomed to mass-audience books being kinda sloppy, it's jarring to see something
so rigorous and yet targeted to mass-audience.
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It's a history of text-centric computer games structured
as 50 essays about 50 games, choosing one game published
each year 1971-2020. It's pretty interesting. It took me
a long time to get through this book. When I was reading,
it went quickly. But I kept wandering off play the games
it described.
E.g., the book only mentions the game
Ditch Day Drifter
in passing, but I figured it might be the closest
I could ever get to participating in Caltech's Ditch Day.
And maybe the game felt more like something you'd find
in Zork's Great Underground Empire than in Pasadena, but
it was still pretty good. And there's a few hours gone
to play a game that was a few sentences in the book.
In recent years, a lot of text games have been something like
computer-enhanced Choose Your Own Adventure books; except
they've concentrated on storytelling. The original
CYOA books couldn't have much story; each book
was kinda short; and whenever the reader made a choice,
the book needed a whole set of pages reflecting
the outcome of that choice. So maybe each version of
the story, you were just reading eight pages.
But thanks to computers' nigh-infinite storage, a "book"
can hold a lot. And maybe a book doesn't need
totally-distinct "pages" to reflect the effects of choices.
Maybe in one scene, the reader's presented with a choice:
Adopt Chunko the Wonder-dog?
- [ Yes, give Chunko a home ]
- [ No, I have enough problems ]
Depending on which button the reader chooses to tap, different
things might happen. But maybe the author doesn't need to write
totally-different stuff. In a dramatic confrontation with
the sinister Master of Horridness, the author might write a little
paragraph:
Chunko the Wonder-dog barks at the sinister Master of Horridness.
"Bark! Bark, bark!" The Master of Horridness hisses and clutches
his cape closer.
The author can specify that if the reader adopted Chunko, that paragraph
should appear; but not otherwise. It's a little flourish
that might give the reader warm fuzzies, but doesn't require writing two
versions of the whole narrative.
These games have caught the eyes of writers who want to use them
for actual storytelling. And so they write these games: you, the
reader can make choices about how the story will go, guiding the
protagonist. And so you're trying to "win" by working towards a
compelling story, navigating the path of narrative. To jump
nimbly as Mario,
you must master timing; to choose wisely
in a 16-chapter genre mystery
story, understand that your prime suspect in chapter three
is a red herring, with maybe a 50-50 chance of surviving the
next four chapters.
Anyhow, I've been reading/playing a lot of these games. When I slowed
down, I'd go back to reading 50 Years of Text Games,
make it about three pages further—and them,
bam, I read something that made me return to the games.
For example, after I played a few too many romance games with a
billionaire/prince love interest, I got pretty sick of them.
The billionaire would whisk my character off on a private jet
flight to Rome for a plate of penne; and I, the reader, was
supposed to ignore the whole climate-change implications of private
jet flights and think
This character has earned a life of luxury by dint of their sweetness,
and if the glaciers must melt to drive this point home, so be it..
It made me want to re-word the
classic @dril tweet
Food: 200 CO2 lbs.
Data: 150
Housing: 800
Monthly pasta jaunts: 3600 CO2 lbs.
Utility: 150
someone who is good at the ecology please help me, my planet is burning
After I played one two many games with that plotline, I avoided
anything else with "billionaire" in the title or blurb.
When I saw the blurb for the game
Elite Status: Platinum Concierge
"How far would you go to make a billionaire's dreams come true?"
I noped out of there in a hurry.
But then I was reading 50 Years of Text Games again, and
Emily Short came up again, and I decided to seek out some works.
And it turns out she co-wrote that Elite Status: Platinum Concierge game.
So I played that game after all. And it was good;
she didn't treat billionaires as over-the-top wish-fulfillment machines.
That story had some gnarly choices.
Writers want to exercise writerly techniques.
Some literary devices don't mesh well with games. In a plain ol' book,
an author might build suspense by revealing information to the reader
unknown to the protagonist. Perhaps a chapter shows the sinister Master of
Horridness making evil plans with his minions, the Horrid Horde.
Oh no, the protagonist is unaware of this looming menace!
In a game, this feels weird. The reader gets this "inside info," and
then makes choices on behalf of the protagonist, who's unaware.
You're heading out for a walk. Want to wear your motorcycle helmet?
- [ Yes, oddly. I would. ]
- [ No, don't be ridiculous. ]
You, the reader, might choose differently if you watched the Master of
Horridness planning to drop a piano from some rooftop: oddly, a helmet
seems like a good idea, hmmm. But how to explain
why the protagonist donned the helmet? Unconscious psychic powers?
Monumental good luck? Aliens?
Things get weirder when you combine story, game, and capitalism.
The book 50 Years of Text Games covers both art-for-art's-sake
highfalutin' works and commercial games. These days, a lot of the
commercial text-y choose-y games are free-to-play, but make money by
charging the reader for extras.
So after you read that scene in which the protagonist has a tense
conversation (replete with fleeting glances and significant pauses)
with Cragfield the brooding, good-looking local landholder,
you might see the choice:
See that same conversation again, but from Cragfield's point of view,
including exclusive interior monologue and innermost thoughts?
If you choose Yes, you'll spend 10 gems, available at your device's
app store for perhaps a dollar. And thus you'll get to find out that
Cragfield is secretly obsessed with you and also with
memories of some mysterious figure in his
tragic backstory.
(Well, you probably already guessed that if you've ever read a genre
romance story. Presumably, spending 10 gems on the scene also yields
some more-specific insight.)
Later on, perhaps you can choose to have the protagonist flirt outrageously
with Cragfield, despite the offputting demeanor. Why would
the protagonist think flirting would work? Extreme good luck?
It might feel as though the protagonist somehow deserves good luck,
since you, the reader, spent a dollar.
But within the context of the story, it still feels strange.
Another literary trope: If the protagonist makes a bad decision early on,
that's strong character motivation: They feel responsible; they
want to fix the problem
they created. If I'm reading a plain ol' novel and the main character makes
a stupid decision, maybe I notice at the time, but probably I don't.
I probably just
ride along, enjoying the book. Later, when consequences emerge, I might
think Aw, too bad that happened. Welp, better get to work fixing that.
In these games, on the other hand,
I'm paying pretty close attention to the
main character's choices. Often, I'm doing the choosing. If asked to choose
between three bad ideas, I don't just nod my head and ride along. I notice
I'm being set up. My eyes narrow; my hackles rise.
As motivation, it works in novels; but it backfires in these novel-adjacent
games.
It can work. In stories or in games, maybe that character's bad decision
doesn't just steer the plot. Maybe it shines a light on some aspect of
their personality. I've seen this work well in comedies and a tragedy.
A character in a tragedy or comedy might have some exaggerated trait:
a tragic flaw or funny quirk. In the
Episode app game
Competitive Edge, the main character is hilariously hyper-competitive
and arrogant. The reader often faces choices that might be summarized:
How do you reply to your rival's question?
- [ Over-the-top confident answer ]
- [ Over-the-top competitive answer ]
- [ Over-the-top narcissistic answer ]
The consequences of these choices are bad for the character, but darned
funny for the reader. Later in the story, a meanie character
manipulates the main character into an obvious trap; the reader sees it
happening, but grins and goes along with it, well-trained by previous
rewards. (OK, I grinned and
went along with it. Your mileage may vary.)
When nudging the player to grin along with bad choices, consistency matters.
In the Choices App
game The Cursed Heart, at the story's start, we establish that
the main character is overly trusting. Midway through the game, the main
character misplaces their trust and falls for an obvious trick. It feels
stupid: before this, the reader has been presented with choices,
and can steer the main character away from traps. When I played I thought,
Thanks to my paranoi expert guidance, the main character has
overcome their naiveté. I'd only induced some momentary aberrations,
but the game didn't make that clear until that jarring forced misstep.
The Choice of Games game
"Tally Ho!" makes it safe to make bad choices, even if the main character
isn't absurdly flawed. This game is a comedy in the style of P.G. Wodehouse;
as such, it's about the upper classes in England. It's possible
for the main character to face consequences for bad decisions, but quite
unlikely. Meanwhile, the effects of failure can be pretty
funny, sometimes funnier than success.
I mentioned the Choice of Games game "Elite Status: Platinum Concierge,"
in which you're something like a personal assistant to a few billionaires.
In this game, you face situations with no good choices, only choosing
who to harm. In this game, it works; it's a tragedy, and you expect a
character in a tragedy to face terrible choices.
When one of these book-ish games works well, it feels like the player and the author[s] are
telling a story together. When it doesn't work well, it gets clunky.
When a heist game rewards you for making good choices with a bigger
heist take, that's all very well. But then you have to second-guess
your choices: do they make sense? Do they make sense in the context
of a cinematic heist story? Should you knock out that palace guard
by clonking him on the head? In real life, no; you shouldn't concuss
someone.
In a heist story… maybe? How realistic is this heist story?
Maybe the story is light and glib, knocking guards out is totally cool,
everybody guaranteed to be all recovered in the next scene. Maybe the
story's more realistic and you should be worried about concussions.
If you choose to handcuff the guard instead of knocking him out, will
the game penalize you, lower your score for making a choice that doesn't
fit the mood, taking things too seriously?
How well do you understand the story that the game's author wants to tell?
Are you sure you want to be part of it?
Oh… the book? Right, that's what I'm supposed to
be writing about. Yeah, I recommend it. It talks about the games;
talks about changes in what each, uhm, artistic movement? Sure, let's
say artistic movement. The book talks about what each successive
artistic movement has tried to accomplish. It's interesting.
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