Rule Based Characterisation in Varicella

According to Janet Murray (From Additive to Expressive Form, 1997), the four essential properties of digital environments are that they “are procedural, participatory, spatial, and encyclopedic” (71). By procedural Murray means that digital environments are rule based, and that certain commands will elicit certain responses from the digital environment based on these rules. By participatory she means that the reader, or interactor, induces certain behaviours from the digital environment based on their input. Spatial and encyclopedic refer to the extensive, almost limitless, amount of information available in digital environments and the way that this is organised. In terms of Adam Cadre’s 1999 interactive fiction Varicella, the procedural and participatory aspects of the digital text work as both a limit on the potentially encyclopedic nature of the environment, and as a form of characterisation, as the rules written into the game limit the interactions available and provide a picture of the player-character’s personality.

In Varicella, the reader plays as the title character, “Primo Varicella, Palace Minister at the Palazzo del Piemonte”. Varicella is an unlikeable character – vain, rude and secretive. He is on a quest to gain the title of regent to Prince Charles after the King dies of a mysterious illness. Varicella must work against several other characters, and against the clock to achieve his goal. The player moves Varicella around the palace with written directional commands, and is able to interact with other characters within the building. It is through the procedural rules of these interactions that much of the characterisation of Varicella occurs.

Rules about what Varicella tells others serve to limit the conversational possibilities, and paint a picture of the player-character’s personality. Often Varicella will ignore commands to tell others his plans, or to give others information, such as telling them about the King’s untimely death. An example of one such interaction shows the procedural rules around these interactions and their impact on the reader’s understanding of the player-character as secretive and unpleasant:

 

>tell guard about the king

You are scarcely about to divulge your secrets to a lowly guard.

 

Varicella is also characterised as vain, and the rules around what the player is able to do with his clothing emphasise this aspect of his character. When the player types in “inventory”, the response is a short list of what Varicella is carrying, followed by a long and descriptive list of what he is wearing, including “a hat that is all the rage in Paris this season”. When the player attempts to interact with these items of clothing, they are greeted with a reminder of the player-character’s vanity:

 

>take off hat

It took you an hour and ten minutes this morning to finish attiring yourself. You are scarcely about to let a fit of pique prompt you to undo all that work.

 

The procedural rules of Varicella limit what the player is able do with the player-character within the world of the game. These procedural limits serve the dual purpose of limiting the extensive possibilities when interacting with the digital world, and effectively characterising the player-character as vain, secretive and unpleasant.