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These Heterogenous Tasks
Personal blog · heterogenoustasks.wordpress.comgamesdesign
These Heterogenous Tasks is a personal blog at heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com about games and design. Since 2015, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 7 times, most often “Standard patterns in choice-based games (2015)”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for its posts on the structure of interactive fiction and choice-based games, such as "Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games". It is cited alongside other analyses of branching narratives.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Haphazard thoughts on game design and narrative.
Most-linked posts?
- Standard patterns in choice-based games (2015)5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-06-15
What Hacker News says?
Looks great, time to add it to my bookmarks. Anyone has other sites like these to share? - Domain-driven design, design patterns, and antipatterns https://deviq.com/ - Refactoring and Design Patterns https://refactoring.guru/ - Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/standard-...
Comment linking /2015/01/26/standard-patterns-in-choice-based-games/
on “Patterns.dev”Submitted Standard patterns in choice-based games (2015) as a story · 254 points
HN discussionInteresting, so many analyses of these structures! One more that I don't think was reachable from the article is on the blog These Heterogenous Tasks: https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/standard-...
Comment linking /2015/01/26/standard-patterns-in-choice-based-games/
on “Maps reveal the structures of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books”Submitted Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games(2015) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIn the interactive fiction world, where a great deal of effort has been put into complex, responsive storylines, a common structure is the "branch-and-bottleneck" -- allowing a variety of paths through a particular area, but all of the paths bunch back together into a single path at the end, with possibly a few major flags enduring for the rest of the narrative. As this article mentions, enforcing some structure on…
Comment linking /2015/01/26/standard-patterns-in-choice-based-games/
on “Analysing the AI of Super Mario 64”Submitted The Interdependent Ludic Institute of Tlön’s GOTY 201Xa as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFrancis Galton was Darwin's cousin. Reading the Origin of Species he became convinced of evolution. He believed that “what Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.” He was also into statistics and measurement. There is an interesting story of him measuring an African (Khoikhoi) women's impressive derriere without touching her using a sextant from a distance. Women’s b…
Comment linking /2015/09/26/footnote-francis-galton-genocide-and-the-butt-sextant/
on “The Art of Travel (1872)”