Graham Nelson Quotes

• If you're setting a game during the Cuban Missile Crisis, look through a library. find out what people were wearing, what other issues were in the news, how houses were furnished, what cars were being driven. Especially include things which now seem foreign.

  Graham Nelson

  Games, Issues, People

  60 Copy quote

• For a fortnight nobody at all emailed me, or posted a follow-up. Doesn't anyone care, I thought? It turned out my newsreader was broken, and hadn't posted at all.

  Graham Nelson

  Broken Heart, Care, Fortnight

  52 Copy quote

• At the end of April I archived 'Curses' and Inform, and announced them on the newsgroups.

  Graham Nelson

  April, Ends, Curse

  7 Copy quote

• What I would pay much more attention to are the few points where the player can inadvertently make a career decision. Most players end up back-tracking, though some actually enjoy this.

  Graham Nelson

  Player, Careers, Decision

  4 Copy quote

• Then in my early teens, when the home computer bubble was blowing, I had one of the first, an Acorn Atom, and used to write primitive adventures on that.

  Graham Nelson

  Home, Writing, Adventure

  10 Copy quote

• The time has mainly gone on getting Inform into a decent shape for public use. I suppose the plot of 'Curses' makes a sequel conceivable when compared with, say, the plot of 'Hamlet' but none is planned.

  Graham Nelson

  Plot, Gone, Use

  4 Copy quote

• The most frequent complaint is that it's hard. True. it's a hard game to win Also, many people ask me how to use the secret debugging commands, apparently under the impression that I'll tell them.

  Graham Nelson

  Winning, Games, People

  13 Copy quote

• The 'interactive fiction' format hasn't changed in any fundamental way since the early 1970s, in the same way that the format of the novel hasn't since 1700.

  Graham Nelson

  Fiction, Fundamentals, Way

  7 Copy quote

• Players very widely disagree with me about what's hard and what's easy. and in a way, 'I won, but it was a fight' is the best compliment a game can receive.

  Graham Nelson

  Fighting, Player, Games

  8 Copy quote

• This means keeping many trails open at once, inevitably requiring a fairly 'parallel' plot. This plot should be discovered rather than announced, so show, don't tell.

  Graham Nelson

  Mean, Plot, Should

  6 Copy quote

• I'm rather pleased with the new manuals. I see Inform now as a gauche young adult, having got past the stage of growing out of his shoes every few months.

  Graham Nelson

  Past, Shoes, Adults

  7 Copy quote

• I try to make puzzles range all the way from easy to hard, and to leave many open at once.

  Graham Nelson

  Trying, Way, Easy

  4 Copy quote

• I like to employ a form of repetition, in which the same elements recur but in different and unexpected ways. rather than being discarded as soon as they are understood or passed over.

  Graham Nelson

  Different, Elements, Way

  8 Copy quote

• I don't really believe in 'directions' in art; the rope twists as you follow it, that's all.

  Graham Nelson

  Art, Believe, Twists

  14 Copy quote

• Writing a really general parser is a major but different undertaking, by far the hardest points being sensitivity to context and resolution of ambiguity.

  Graham Nelson

  Writing, Different, Resolution

  7 Copy quote

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