Minimum Context

 We're working on an opening sequence. I proposed a couple of short scenes. Other folks came back with scenes that I felt were long and contained too much information. 

As I wrote them, my general principals in approaching the scenes are:

1.  What is the minimum context the player needs in order to understand what is going on? We need the opening sequence to tell us who the main character is, and what his relationship with the other key figures.

2.   It is usually better to provoke the player to ask a question before we answer it. We need to provide a certain minimum amount of context (see above) so the player can ask a question that makes sense. Beyond that, it's better to provoke the question and then answer it later, than to give the player information they haven't asked for yet. This keeps the player engaged -- they pull themselves into the story rather than having story pushed at them.

So long as the player isn't actually confused, let the player wonder why things are happening. 

If we provide more than the minimum context, we don't know which information is the important part. Instead of getting wrapped up in the characters, we're processing information. When we're processing information, we're not asking questions. When we're not asking questions, we're not getting engaged in the story. We're also not getting to the gameplay!

Only resolve a mystery once the resolution is more satisfying than the mystery.

ECGC 2022 How to Take and Give Notes - Alex Epstein

Looks like my talk on how to give and take creative criticism from last year's ECGC is up on YouTube. Has been since August. Who knew?

My dad's passing

My father, Howard Epstein, passed away this afternoon, peacefully, after a long struggle with Parkinson's. 

A boy from Queens, NY, Dad served in the Navy at the tail end of World War II. He used his G.I. Bill to go the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (the "Sciences Po"), coming away a lifelong francophile. 

After a stint as a reporter for the Xenia Daily Gazette (Xenia, OH, is the largest city in the US beginning with "X"), he joined Facts on File, a weekly indexed digest of international news. He became its President, starting up Checkmark Books, an imprint for dictionaries, atlases and encyclopedias, and coincidentally employing many of my friends while I was in high school. He took the company from $2 million a year to $20 million a year, before being unceremoniously fired for trying to protect his staff from layoffs during a merger. 

Dad was a mensch. I'm touched by how many people really loved him. He was a nurturing man, and took care of everyone around him. He was crazy about my mom. He liked sailboats, British roadsters, and old biplanes, though he only owned the one catboat. He appreciated good wine, and made sure his friends got enough of it. He made a hell of a ragout. 

He was working on a book about the French people who saved, or did not save, or hunted, Jewish children during the Nazi occupation of France. 

I've missed him for a while, because Parkinson's steals people from you bit by bit for a long time; his passing was a blessing. He was an atheist, but I'm not, so I get to hope he's in a place where he feels all the love he brought into the world.