36 ◾ Game Magic
3.4.1 The Text-Based Rituals of Hadean Lands
e insight that rituals can double as puzzles is at the heart of another
piece of contemporary interactive ction: acclaimed author Andrew
Plotkin’s work in progress, Hadean Lands. In this experimental interac-
tive ction, players perform alchemical rituals on an abandoned magical
spaceship. Plotkin’s approach to magic is partially inuenced by my own
ideas about magic systems as delivered at the M.I.T. Gambit Game Lab in
April 2010. Plotkin explains:
e rst notions for *this* game came to me during a lecture that
Je Howard gave at MIT’s game design lab. Je was visiting from
Dakota State University, where he teaches, and he was talking about
the use of magic in videogames. ...