Action at a Distance

Things happen. People have to know about them. What shall we do about this? My Product Definition Personality chooses things to do based on some sense of risk or interest or perhaps just a feeling of a gap in the product and our knowledge of it. The technical term for this sense is “whim”. Today PDP sees that we can wander in the dungeon, and display messages, and even receive things that we step on. PDP senses an issue relating to these simple behaviors: action at a distance. Let’s put it in terms of a game feature. PDP says: Some places in the floor are traps. They can be active or inactive. When I.A. Dot steps on a trap, something bad will happen: typically she takes damage or is poisoned or the like. We’re concerned about that but it’s not our current concern. There are other items in the dungeon that can enable or disable traps. One example: there is a big tempting switch in the room. When Dot touches it, it changes position, stepping through three or four states. One of those…