siege.txt

gistfile1.txt

  Most of all, we focused on keeping the player from breaking the illusion of reality
we were projecting. There were players out there who thought of nothing else, who took
every game as a challenge to outsmart the designers and do exactly that---break our
game. It didn't take long before we developed a siege mentality. Everything became
about containing players in their all-out assault on the bones of our alternate
reality. They wanted, deeply and viscerally, to break our world, and we needed to make
it bulletproof.
  What if the player walks by and doesn't talk to the old man? No one opens the gate
until the talking takes place.
  What if the player collects all the boulders in the world and makes a giant pile and
climbs over the wall? Ask Lisa.
  What if the player decides they don't like the princess? Make the princess really
nice so this doesn't happen.
  What if the player finds all the gloves in the world and takes them back to the store
and sells them and the income is enough to buy a Sword of Nullification? A large supply
of gloves depresses the local glove market, so the glove sale yields diminishing
returns. Also let's reconsider the Sword of Nullification.
[..]
  What if the player uses a wand of cold to freeze the sacred pool? Note: Sacred pool
immune to cold.
[..]
  What if the player drops the chalice into the lava? Chalice disappears, but we spawn
another chalice at the altar.
  What if the player does it again? There are infinite chalices.
[..]
  What if the player kills the princess? We make her immortal.
  What if the player kills the lady-in-waiting? We make her immortal.
  Why doesn't the player stay home and let the immortal princess and lady-in-waiting
kill every single monster in the dungeon? Because the artists didn't make any combat
animations for them.
  What if the player puts a bag of holding inside a bag of holding? What if he turns
it inside out? Cuts it open? Sets it on fire? Quit fucking around.
  What if the EXACTLY WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE ARE WE DEALING WITH HERE?

(Austin Grossman, "YOU", Chapter 30)