how 'real' should a game be?
timsim
How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement the sun
rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
eating and drinking to survive?
Along these same lines, to what level of detail should actions be
implemented? Should the player say open door or must they turn the knob
then pull door?
Along THESE same lines, assuming you wanted to keep your game fairly clear
of much humor, especially the in-jokes and references to the game or its
author, would it be ok to use some humor or just avoid it altogether?
Example: player types 'pick nose'. Your game is a dark game with real dying
etc. Should you allow a reply such as 'Using the pinky of your right hand,
you deftly extract that annoying booger."? My gut instinct is to avoid the
throw away jokes and cheap humor if your game's theme is on the darker side.
Tim
I wonder why no one has replied to my other post about TADS. I've been
having maaaaany problems. I also posted in another IF group
(rec.games.int-fiction) three times and no one ever replied. Maybe the
other one is just for players, not programmers.
Gareth Rees
> Would a player be annoyed if they typed 'drop bottle' and it broke?
I think so -- "drop X" is just an adventure game shorthand for "put X on
the floor". Inform by default converts the latter to the former. Why
require people to type the extra words? (Anyway, "Advent" already has a
puzzle involving a object that breaks if it's dropped.)
> Along these same lines, to what level of detail should actions be
> implemented? Should the player say open door or must they turn the
> knob then pull door?
None of the above. If the player walks south and there's a door in the
way, the game should open the door for them. It should really also
unlock the door if it's locked and the player has previously unlocked it
and is carrying the appropriate key.
As a game designer, you should be trying to make your game enjoyable for
the player. One aspect of that is not making the game boring because
simple actions have to be carried out over and over again. Another
aspect is not having too many puzzles that are well known, that have
appeared in many previous games. Players should be able to concentrate
their efforts on exploring the plot and tackling the original and
interesting puzzles.
For example, many old games have the "inventory management" puzzle. The
protagonist can carry a limited number of items, but any item may be
required in any location. So the player has to be continually taking
and dropping items, remembering where items have been left, and perhaps
establishing caches, moving the caches about so they're convenient and
so on. This might be interesting the first time you come across it, but
it's dull the second time and utterly tedious thereafter. So most
modern games avoid this puzzle by providing a rucksack or whatever and
automatically retrieving items from it and putting items away in it.
I think the same reasoning applies to "open door" and "drop bottle" --
is it going to be fun for the player to have to type "unlock door with
key. turn handle. pull handle. south" every time they want to go south?
I think not. Is it going to be fun for the player to have to type
"place bottle carefully on the floor" every time they want to put it
down? I think not.
Fun is much more important than realism.
--
Gareth Rees
Aquarius
>Just thought I'd ask a question.
>
>How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
>typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement the sun
>rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
>eating and drinking to survive?
Personally, I think too much realism gets in the way; if the bottle is
essential later on, then dropping it and having it smash without any
warning that that was likely to happen would annoy me quite intensely.
Eating and drinking to stay alive work as much the same thing, IMO;
unless they're integral to the experience, they're merely a bolt-on
irritant. I like the Inform trick of having things automatically shift
into and out of a rucksack or bag when your hands get full, too, so I
don't have to worry about it.
(ObRelevant: has anyone implemented a similar style carrier in TADS?)
Aquarius
--
The ampersand keels over! You can tell by the plus
symbols streaming from the wound in the round bit at
the top that it must be stone dead
-- Iain Merrick on nethack, rec.arts.int-fiction.
Adam Atkinson
>is it going to be fun for the player to have to type "unlock door with
>key. turn handle. pull handle. south" every time they want to go south?
>I think not.
Whilst I like Planetfall, I could live without the "slide card through
lock" bits.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
Eschew obfuscation!
Jake Wildstrom
Gareth Rees <gar...@cre.canon.co.uk> wrote:
>timsim <tim...@gateway.net> wrote:
>> Would a player be annoyed if they typed 'drop bottle' and it broke?
>
>the floor". Inform by default converts the latter to the former. Why
>require people to type the extra words? (Anyway, "Advent" already has a
>puzzle involving a object that breaks if it's dropped.)
I'd agree with that--and I thought that puzzle in Advent was so unfair.
Usually, drop doesn't mean "hold several feet above the floor and release" in
gaming terminology, but rather, set down on the floor/table/counter/whatever.
There would I suppose be exceptions. Obviously, if you're on a tiny platform
over a pit, or hanging from one hand on a tree branch, "drop" doesn't have this
meaning, but usually it would.
>> Along these same lines, to what level of detail should actions be
>> implemented? Should the player say open door or must they turn the
>> knob then pull door?
>
>None of the above. If the player walks south and there's a door in the
>way, the game should open the door for them. It should really also
>unlock the door if it's locked and the player has previously unlocked it
>and is carrying the appropriate key.
Basically, you want the player's commands to the game to be the same as the
commands the player might make to a slightly unintelligent person capable of
dealing with simple situations. For instance, you wouldn't say to such a
person: "turn that knob, then pull the door, then walk through the hole where
the door used to be." Doing so would be offensive to even the least capable
member of humanity. By the same token, however, you can't give the computer the
command "SOLVE THE 7-DISC TOWER OF HANOI", as that skips over an element which,
to the great multitude of people, would be unclear (granted, any author who
includes a 7-disc tower of Hanoi should rethink their design concept). I think
the point might be that the computer should react in the same way as most
people would. If I put a random person in a room with a door on the south wall,
(and a compass, I suppose) and a table in the next room, and told you to "get
the bottle of wine then go south then drop the bottle", how often do you think
my subject would complain about not being able to go that way and smash the
bottle?
+--First Church of Briantology--Order of the Holy Quaternion--+
| A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into |
| theorems. -Paul Erdos |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jake Wildstrom |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Jim Aikin
>
> How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
> typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement the sun
> rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
> eating and drinking to survive?
Absolute realism is not even remotely achievable in text-based IF (and
not in any other kind, either -- great graphics are only realistic if
you don't try to touch or manipulate anything you see). Every game
contains a number of fairly serious compromises. If you THINK the game
is realistic, that only means the author has cleverly made the right
compromises.
Assuming you want to create a fairly rich experience, you can include
arbitrary numbers of scenery objects that are there for no purpose other
than to allow 'x rutabaga', 'taste rutabaga', 'smell rutabaga', and so
on. This may seem to add to the realism. The difficulty, I've
discovered, is that your players will inconsiderately try to actually
SOLVE puzzles using the damn rutabaga, and get frustrated when they
can't pick it up. In trying to make my game more realistic, then, I
ended up creating more roadblocks for the player -- that is, in some
sense it became LESS realistic.
I don't know the answer to this one. If the rutabaga is in the room
description, having the game constantly respond "That's not something
you need to refer to in the course of this game" isn't very realistic
either. If the rutabaga isn't in the room description, you've written an
impoverished room description in an effort to make the game more
realistic, which makes no sense whatever.
> Along THESE same lines, assuming you wanted to keep your game fairly clear
> of much humor, especially the in-jokes and references to the game or its
> author, would it be ok to use some humor or just avoid it altogether?
> Example: player types 'pick nose'. Your game is a dark game with real dying
> etc. Should you allow a reply such as 'Using the pinky of your right hand,
> you deftly extract that annoying booger."? My gut instinct is to avoid the
> throw away jokes and cheap humor if your game's theme is on the darker side.
Right. Consistency of tone is important in any kind of fiction.
--Jim Aikin
timsim
genre that cause one to instinctively avoid things that have been overdone
and things that are cute only the first time they are done and then get
veeery old thereafter.
So, maybe a good implementation of a door would be:
> go south
The door is locked. (if player hasn't got the right key)
> go south
You enter such-and-such building......(if player has correct key)
So the general rule would be to make things as automatic as possible,
assuming the player would always know to use a key for a locked door, with
exceptions being the real puzzles or blocks that needed special commands.
Thanks for the input.
Tim
Aquarius <aqua...@kryogenix.albatross.co.uk> wrote in message
news:37d4197...@news.albatross.co.uk...
> timsim spoo'd forth the following:
>
> >Just thought I'd ask a question.
> >
> >How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if
they
> >typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement the sun
> >rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
> >eating and drinking to survive?
>
Adam Cadre
> of much humor, especially the in-jokes and references to the game or its
> author, would it be ok to use some humor or just avoid it altogether?
If you're skilled enough to be able to gracefully incorporate a bit of
humor into a serious work, then it's okay. If not, not. But that's true
for pretty much every aspect of writing. There are no hard and fast
rules: if you're good enough, you can pull off just about anything. But
some things are quite difficult to do well.
> Example: player types 'pick nose'. Your game is a dark game with real dying
> etc. Should you allow a reply such as 'Using the pinky of your right hand,
> you deftly extract that annoying booger."?
This should be avoided, yes. Not because it breaks tone, but because it
isn't funny.
> My gut instinct is to avoid the throw away jokes and cheap humor if
> your game's theme is on the darker side.
Of course, one could make the case that life is generally a fairly dark
experience, punctuated by throwaway jokes and cheap humor.
Again, there are no rules here -- you have to decide for yourself what
will work on a case-by-case basis. The beautiful, elegiac film THE SWEET
HEREAFTER is fairly somber, but there is a joke at the end that is both
funny and conveys a great deal of information about the theme as a whole
and one character in particular. Leaving it out would by quite a loss.
-----
Adam Cadre, Sammamish, WA
http://adamcadre.ac
Stephen Granade
> I like the Inform trick of having things automatically shift
> into and out of a rucksack or bag when your hands get full, too, so I
> don't have to worry about it.
> (ObRelevant: has anyone implemented a similar style carrier in TADS?)
Yes. Check out sack.t, which implements just such an object. It is in
the tads/examples directory; if it's not listed under sack.t, take a
look at srgmods.zip.
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade | Interested in adventure games?
sgra...@phy.duke.edu | Visit About.com's IF Page
Duke University, Physics Dept | http://interactfiction.about.com
Eric Mayer
wrote:
>Just thought I'd ask a question.
>
>How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
>typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement the sun
>rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
>eating and drinking to survive?
>
I've recently been trying to finish up my first, very simple IF game.
I say "trying" because every day, when I think I'm done, some new,
minor, possibility occurs to me so I go in and add another tiny
detail. (Well, that probably makes it sound more detailed than it
actuall is, but it seems like that's what I've been doing...)
Anyway, this isn't such a problem with regular fiction writing. There
the writer really just gets to choose the level of detail wanted in a
given scene. So if you mention in passing that so and so has a shelf
full of knick knacks including a teapot and a stuffed ferret, that's
it. Unfortunately, in IF the reader might decide to examine the
stuffed ferret more closely, or pick it up, and if its picked up then
the reader might want to try and open it, or put it in the teapot, etc
etc. So in IF the reader gets to make requests as it were but still,
at some point it is up to the writer to decide on a level of detail -
and hope that it is a level most readers find reasonable. At least
that's how it strikes me. I'm used to writing non-IF.
I wonder if anybody here is familiar with Alfred Korzybski and his
General Semantics? Something of a crank was Alfred but also very
profound in many ways and one of the things he liked to talk about was
how the language abstracts things to different levels. That is, every
object, every orange, say, is unique, but we couldn't function if we
had to use a unique word for everything so we generalize. So at one
general level an "orange" is a roundish orange fruit, but that not
only doesn't account for variations in oranges but doesn't even
account for what's under the orange rind, for the pips inside if you
peel the skin off and cut the orange open, let alone the molecules
that make up the object. I think he might've found descriptions in IF
kind of interesting.
--
Eric Mayer
http://home.epix.net/~maywrite
T Raymond
>Personally, I think too much realism gets in the way; if the bottle is
>essential later on, then dropping it and having it smash without any
>warning that that was likely to happen would annoy me quite intensely.
>Eating and drinking to stay alive work as much the same thing, IMO;
>unless they're integral to the experience, they're merely a bolt-on
>into and out of a rucksack or bag when your hands get full, too, so I
>don't have to worry about it.
>(ObRelevant: has anyone implemented a similar style carrier in TADS?)
I believe in the TASD example directory at your nearest IF archive
mirror there is a file called sack.t or sack.zip that does something
like this. :)
Tom
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tom Raymond adk @ usa.net
"The original professional ameteur."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
BrenBarn
>way, the game should open the door for them. It should really also
>unlock the door if it's locked and the player has previously unlocked it
>and is carrying the appropriate key.
right key, even if he hasn't unlocked it before.
>Fun is much more important than realism.
I agree. I also think that the author's vision (if I can use that word
without sounding pretentious :-) is more important than an accurate
reproduction of reality.
From,
Brendan B. B. (Bren...@aol.com)
(Name in header has spam-blocker, use the address above instead.)
"Do not follow where the path may lead;
go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail."
--Author Unknown
BrenBarn
>the point might be that the computer should react in the same way as most
>people would. If I put a random person in a room with a door on the south
>wall,
>(and a compass, I suppose) and a table in the next room, and told you to "get
>the bottle of wine then go south then drop the bottle", how often do you
>think
>my subject would complain about not being able to go that way and smash the
>bottle?
were in a bedroom, and an open door led to a kitchen in which a bottle was
plainly visible, and I told that person to "get bottle," they could probably
figure it out.
BrenBarn
>arbitrary numbers of scenery objects that are there for no purpose other
>than to allow 'x rutabaga', 'taste rutabaga', 'smell rutabaga', and so
>on. This may seem to add to the realism. The difficulty, I've
>discovered, is that your players will inconsiderately try to actually
>SOLVE puzzles using the damn rutabaga, and get frustrated when they
>can't pick it up. In trying to make my game more realistic, then, I
>ended up creating more roadblocks for the player -- that is, in some
>sense it became LESS realistic.
an overall increase in realism. In real life, not all available items are
useful during the time-span that you have them. It adds a sort of
"red-herring" aspect to the game. (I suppose that some players would feel
cheated if they didn't get some use out of every object, but you can't win 'em
all.)
>I don't know the answer to this one. If the rutabaga is in the room
>description, having the game constantly respond "That's not something
>you need to refer to in the course of this game" isn't very realistic
>either. If the rutabaga isn't in the room description, you've written an
>impoverished room description in an effort to make the game more
>realistic, which makes no sense whatever.
The solution I use is usually a combination of: A) Make the rutabaga a
separate, carryable object, just like any other movable object, except that it
has no use in the game. This enables the player to take it and examine it just
as he would in real life, but not to use it for anything; B) Combine the
rutabaga with all the other "scenery" objects in the room, and make this
collection a single object which, when examined, gives a description of all of
them together. If the player tries to pick any of them up, he can be told that
he "doesn't need that."
BrenBarn
>essential later on, then dropping it and having it smash without any
>warning that that was likely to happen would annoy me quite intensely.
through its pedantic nature, makes the game harder) is irritating. In fact, I
don't believe that ANY situation should leave the player unable to win. But
that's a whole 'nother discussion.
Gene Wirchenko
>In article <siogffn...@cre.canon.co.uk>,
>Gareth Rees <gar...@cre.canon.co.uk> wrote:
>>timsim <tim...@gateway.net> wrote:
>>> Would a player be annoyed if they typed 'drop bottle' and it broke?
>>
>>I think so -- "drop X" is just an adventure game shorthand for "put X on
>>the floor". Inform by default converts the latter to the former. Why
>>require people to type the extra words? (Anyway, "Advent" already has a
>>puzzle involving a object that breaks if it's dropped.)
>
>I'd agree with that--and I thought that puzzle in Advent was so unfair.
>Usually, drop doesn't mean "hold several feet above the floor and release" in
>gaming terminology, but rather, set down on the floor/table/counter/whatever.
>There would I suppose be exceptions. Obviously, if you're on a tiny platform
>over a pit, or hanging from one hand on a tree branch, "drop" doesn't have this
>meaning, but usually it would.
Come on! ADVENT defined much of the terminology! I liked the
puzzle myself.
That was a very simple puzzle. The pillow was nearby.
What I don't like is that I can't think of a one word term in
English for put down but NOT drop. I keep coming up with verb
preposition pairs:
put down
set down
put ... on
etc.
[snip]
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> member of humanity. By the same token, however, you can't give the computer the
> command "SOLVE THE 7-DISC TOWER OF HANOI", as that skips over an element which,
> to the great multitude of people, would be unclear (granted, any author who
> includes a 7-disc tower of Hanoi should rethink their design concept).
Absolutely. 7-disc towers of Hanoi are incredibly mundane. If
you're contemplating putting a tower of Hanoi in your game, it
should at least have a completely outrageous number of discs.
256 comes readily to mind. Then if the player attempts to
solve it himself, you increment player.boredom each move, and
once player.boredom hits 100 or so you kill the player off.
That way the player HAS to find the clever solution for getting
it solved, such as teaching the AI robot how to solve the
thing, or whatever.
Either that or put in a three-disc tower of Hanoi and let
the player solve it by hand.
> I think
> the point might be that the computer should react in the same way as most
> people would. If I put a random person in a room with a door on the south wall,
> (and a compass, I suppose) and a table in the next room, and told you to "get
> the bottle of wine then go south then drop the bottle", how often do you think
> my subject would complain about not being able to go that way and smash the
> bottle?
I don't think Inform's parser will drop the bottle if the "go south"
fails.
"His eye twitches involuntarily." -- Calvin
"Can't we play something else?" -- Hobbes
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Assuming you want to create a fairly rich experience, you can include
> arbitrary numbers of scenery objects that are there for no purpose other
> than to allow 'x rutabaga', 'taste rutabaga', 'smell rutabaga', and so
> on. This may seem to add to the realism. The difficulty, I've
> discovered, is that your players will inconsiderately try to actually
> SOLVE puzzles using the damn rutabaga, and get frustrated when they
> can't pick it up. In trying to make my game more realistic, then, I
> ended up creating more roadblocks for the player -- that is, in some
> sense it became LESS realistic.
>
> I don't know the answer to this one. If the rutabaga is in the room
> description, having the game constantly respond "That's not something
> you need to refer to in the course of this game" isn't very realistic
> either. If the rutabaga isn't in the room description, you've written an
> impoverished room description in an effort to make the game more
> realistic, which makes no sense whatever.
Try making the rutabega a real object that the player can tote around
at will. If it makes SENSE as a solution to any given puzzle,
implement it as an alternate solution, or at least come up with
some plausible and interesting way for it to fail. (The old man
bites into the rutabega, gasps, and spits out a mouthful. "What are
you trying to do to me? I hate that stuff." He throws the rutabega
back, and you're not quite sure whether he's throwing it to you or
at you. In any case, you catch it.)
Gene Wirchenko
>>If the player walks south and there's a door in the
>>way, the game should open the door for them. It should really also
>>unlock the door if it's locked and the player has previously unlocked it
>>and is carrying the appropriate key.
> I agree. But I think it should ALWAYS unlock it if the player has the
>right key, even if he hasn't unlocked it before.
That might be fine in one IF piece or even many or most, but it
might not work in another. Maybe part of the problem in the second
case is that the key isn't recognizable as one right away.
>>Fun is much more important than realism.
> I agree. I also think that the author's vision (if I can use that word
>without sounding pretentious :-) is more important than an accurate
>reproduction of reality.
Yes, and his vision may or may not jive with the mechanics you
say/think you want.
MFischer5
>implemented? Should the player say open door or must they turn the knob
>then pull door?
My theory is that any sequence which I get bored with in my own game - and
particularly those which I invent "magic words" to bypass - are probably going
to be poorly received by others.
If after 10 passes of needing multiple commands to get through a single door, I
find myself pulling out my hair in frustration, chances are the players will
too. In fact, they might actually get frustrated in half that time (or less) as
they are less interested than you are in what a programming feat it was to MAKE
a door that requires multiple commands to get through.
I think you get away with more detail for a select number interesting things
that the player is only required to do once.
Of course, having never actually FINISHED anything, this is still just a
theory.
Kathleen (who does seem to have a pet peeve over uncooperative doors)
Irene Callaci
wrote:
>bren...@aol.comRemove (BrenBarn) wrote:
>
>>>If the player walks south and there's a door in the
>>>way, the game should open the door for them. It should really also
>>>unlock the door if it's locked and the player has previously unlocked it
>>>and is carrying the appropriate key.
>> I agree. But I think it should ALWAYS unlock it if the player has the
>>right key, even if he hasn't unlocked it before.
>
> That might be fine in one IF piece or even many or most, but it
>might not work in another. Maybe part of the problem in the second
>case is that the key isn't recognizable as one right away.
I'm struggling with this at the moment, so I'll ask everyone's
opinion: in general, I agree that doors should be unlocked if
the player character has the key. But what if the "key" is a
set of lockpicks? Should the door be unlocked automatically
under those circumstances? Also, should UNLOCK THE DOOR and
PICK THE LOCK both work? Opinions gratefully accepted.
irene
John W. Kennedy
>
> wil...@mit.edu (Jake Wildstrom) wrote:
>
> > member of humanity. By the same token, however, you can't give the computer the
> > command "SOLVE THE 7-DISC TOWER OF HANOI", as that skips over an element which,
> > to the great multitude of people, would be unclear (granted, any author who
> > includes a 7-disc tower of Hanoi should rethink their design concept).
>
> Absolutely. 7-disc towers of Hanoi are incredibly mundane. If
> you're contemplating putting a tower of Hanoi in your game, it
> should at least have a completely outrageous number of discs.
> 256 comes readily to mind.
Errr.... That problem cannot be solved in the lifetime of the
universe. Not even by your hypothetical A.I. robot.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
T Raymond
>I'm struggling with this at the moment, so I'll ask everyone's
>opinion: in general, I agree that doors should be unlocked if
>the player character has the key. But what if the "key" is a
>set of lockpicks? Should the door be unlocked automatically
>under those circumstances? Also, should UNLOCK THE DOOR and
>PICK THE LOCK both work? Opinions gratefully accepted.
Well as a player of RPG games, I'd say no. Because while anybody could
unlock a door, not everybody could pick a lock. Although I suppose if
your player character was defined as that sort of person, and had
lockpicks, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to code the unlock so
that if picks were presend AND the key was not, you'd get something
like:
"Having no key, you whip out your handly lock picks and tension wrench
and make quick work of the lock..."
Just because I don't know anyone who would pick a lock if they had the
key, although I suppose just to see if one could would be a valid
reason. *shrug*
S.Challands
> >Personally, I think too much realism gets in the way; if the bottle is
> >essential later on, then dropping it and having it smash without any
> >warning that that was likely to happen would annoy me quite intensely.
> I agree that this type of "counterproductive realism" (i.e., realism that,
> through its pedantic nature, makes the game harder) is irritating. In fact, I
> don't believe that ANY situation should leave the player unable to win. But
> that's a whole 'nother discussion.
Having a bottle that smashes if you are careless isn't too unreasonable,
IMHO. Dropping a bottle would be careless, and normally if you drop it
then tough. But since most players are thinking more along the lines of
"put down" when they use "drop" then I believe it should be assumed that
unless they say otherwise the player does not simply let go of the bottle
and see it smash on the ground. "Throw", OTOH, should quite obviously
break the bottle, and if anyone gets annoyed by that then tough.
If you think that "drop" meaning "put down" is too lazy then some sort of
warning should at least be given to the player the first time they try it.
And of course there might be quite valid reasons at times why using "drop"
would break the bottle without warning.
Simon Challands
Kathleen M. Fischer
>
> I'm struggling with this at the moment, so I'll ask everyone's
> opinion: in general, I agree that doors should be unlocked if
> the player character has the key. But what if the "key" is a
> set of lockpicks? Should the door be unlocked automatically
> under those circumstances? Also, should UNLOCK THE DOOR and
> PICK THE LOCK both work? Opinions gratefully accepted.
I'd say that it depends on whether the lockpicks and knowledge
of their use "comes with" the PC. If the PC is burgler, and she
starts the game in the dead of night wearing a black catsuit with
an inventory of a flashlight, a rope, a toolbox full of stuff,
and a set of lockpicks, then one would presume that she would
know enough to use them on the door without further prodding.
If the PC is just Jane Adventurer and she found them in inside an
empty box of chinese food outside the quickie-mart, then I would think
the player should have to explicity declare their use. That might
also hold for a PC that would understand their use (say, a garage
mechanic), but for which locating the lockpicks is somewhat of
quest for the player (found in the glove compartment of a
co-workers car)
As for using them, I might try:
UNLOCK DOOR WITH LOCKPICKS
OPEN DOOR WITH LOCKPICKS
PICK LOCK WITH LOCKPICKS (but only if I could also type X LOCK)
Kathleen ($0.02(US))
--
*******************************************************************
* Kathleen M. Fischer *
* kfis...@greenhouse.nospam.gov (nospam = l l n l) *
** "Don't stop to stomp ants while the elephants are stampeding" **
Matthew T. Russotto
John W. Kennedy <rri...@ibm.net> wrote:
}>
}> Absolutely. 7-disc towers of Hanoi are incredibly mundane. If
}> you're contemplating putting a tower of Hanoi in your game, it
}> should at least have a completely outrageous number of discs.
}> 256 comes readily to mind.
}
}Errr.... That problem cannot be solved in the lifetime of the
}universe. Not even by your hypothetical A.I. robot.
The robot need merely realize the problem _is_ solvable, point out that
the actual physical disk-moving in no way changes this, and then move
all the disks over at once.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Jake Wildstrom
Kathleen M. Fischer <kfis...@greenhouse.nospam.gov> wrote:
>I'd say that it depends on whether the lockpicks and knowledge
>of their use "comes with" the PC. If the PC is burgler, and she
>starts the game in the dead of night wearing a black catsuit with
>an inventory of a flashlight, a rope, a toolbox full of stuff,
>and a set of lockpicks, then one would presume that she would
>know enough to use them on the door without further prodding.
I'd disagree, personally. Unlocking doors is an action most of us don't give
thought to; lockpicking and similar methods are skills, and even for an
accomplished burglar, it wouldn't be something you just "do automatically".
Besides, why assume that, if you have lockpicks, opening a door is simply
picking the lock? You could also smash a window and reach the inside latch.
Or unscrew the hinges if they're on the right side. Or card or slide or whack
at it with a pipe wrench. Some of these are better methods than others.
What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that you shouldn't demand that the game
provide _skilled_ actions automagically. Maybe these responses will be
adequate:
For anyone, with key--
>S
(unlocking the front door)
Foyer
room description goes here
For Jane Adventurer, without key--
>S
The door's locked, and you don't have the right key.
For Q. Random Hacker, without key--
>S
The door's locked, and you don't have the right key. Not that you ever let that
stop you before.
which would, I think, give a hint that the door _can_ be compromised, but that
you're going to have to ask specifically.
Jim Aikin
>
> What I don't like is that I can't think of a one word term in
> English for put down but NOT drop. I keep coming up with verb
> preposition pairs:
> put down
> set down
> put ... on
There's always 'release'. Or, if you're feeling metaphysical, 'forgo'.
'cede' is perhaps too much of a metaphorical stretch, and 'punt' is
worse than 'drop'. If you want a one-word synonym, both 'put' and 'set'
can be used without ambiguity (as in 'put bottle'), even though they're
not precisely grammatical.
--Jim Aikin
x_oh...@my-deja.com
>Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
>> wil...@mit.edu (Jake Wildstrom) wrote:
>> > to the great multitude of people, would be unclear (granted, any author who
>> > includes a 7-disc tower of Hanoi should rethink their design concept).
>> you're contemplating putting a tower of Hanoi in your game, it
>> should at least have a completely outrageous number of discs.
>> 256 comes readily to mind.
>Errr.... That problem cannot be solved in the lifetime of the
>universe. Not even by your hypothetical A.I. robot.
Actually I have a towers of Hanoi puzzle designed for a large tower .. 16 discs is enough to be effectively unsolveable.
It was ...er .. inspired by the Zork Zero tower, where a false move would result in the puzzle ^)&)&) becoming unsoveable, requiring the player to restart.
NOT fun, especially when one _had_ to repeat it ...
--OH.
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
R. Alan Monroe
>As for using them, I might try:
>UNLOCK DOOR WITH LOCKPICKS
>OPEN DOOR WITH LOCKPICKS
>PICK LOCK WITH LOCKPICKS (but only if I could also type X LOCK)
Or even:
>USE LOCKPICK
What do you want to use it on?
>DOOR
A little slower than the traditional key, but you manage to get it
unlocked and opened.
Have fun
Alan
BrenBarn
>>>way, the game should open the door for them. It should really also
>>>unlock the door if it's locked and the player has previously unlocked it
>>>and is carrying the appropriate key.
>> I agree. But I think it should ALWAYS unlock it if the player has the
>>right key, even if he hasn't unlocked it before.
>
> That might be fine in one IF piece or even many or most, but it
>might not work in another. Maybe part of the problem in the second
>case is that the key isn't recognizable as one right away.
decided that I'd rather not complicate things. I'm not suggesting that any of
rules of this kind be inviolable or unalterable, just that they should be
standard, in cases where the author has no specific design for a certain aspect
of the game.
>>I also think that the author's vision (if I can use that word
>>without sounding pretentious :-) is more important than an accurate
>>reproduction of reality.
>
> Yes, and his vision may or may not jive with the mechanics you
>say/think you want.
Right. Like I said above. Sorry if I sounded too high-and-mighty in the
original message. :-)
BrenBarn
>opinion: in general, I agree that doors should be unlocked if
>the player character has the key. But what if the "key" is a
>set of lockpicks? Should the door be unlocked automatically
>under those circumstances? Also, should UNLOCK THE DOOR and
>PICK THE LOCK both work? Opinions gratefully accepted.
specified), the right key should automatically work. For special cases like
lockpicks, or things that aren't really "locks" in the normal sense (like if
you had to put a golden idol on a trapdoor to open), the author should provide
whatever special handling he or she desires.
BrenBarn
>
>>S
>(unlocking the front door)
>
>Foyer
>room description goes here
>
>For Jane Adventurer, without key--
>
>>S
>The door's locked, and you don't have the right key.
>
>For Q. Random Hacker, without key--
>
>>S
>The door's locked, and you don't have the right key. Not that you ever let
>that
>stop you before.
>
>which would, I think, give a hint that the door _can_ be compromised, but
>that
>you're going to have to ask specifically.
standard. The reason is that it adds the smallest impediment to the player's
movement. I think that the normal case should be that the player can go
anywhere easily; the refinement comes in making it harder.
BrenBarn
>the actual physical disk-moving in no way changes this, and then move
>all the disks over at once.
BrenBarn
>IMHO. Dropping a bottle would be careless, and normally if you drop it
>then tough. But since most players are thinking more along the lines of
>"put down" when they use "drop" then I believe it should be assumed that
>unless they say otherwise the player does not simply let go of the bottle
>and see it smash on the ground. "Throw", OTOH, should quite obviously
>break the bottle, and if anyone gets annoyed by that then tough.
>
>If you think that "drop" meaning "put down" is too lazy then some sort of
>warning should at least be given to the player the first time they try it.
>And of course there might be quite valid reasons at times why using "drop"
>would break the bottle without warning.
"drop bottle", or even "throw bottle", just out of sheer boredom, if I'm stuck
on a puzzle. I'd be extremely aggravated if such a whimsical command were to
lock me out of victory.
As I said, though, I don't think ANYTHING should EVER lock ANYONE out of
victory. But as I also said, that's another story. . .
Aquarius
>>The robot need merely realize the problem _is_ solvable, point out that
>>the actual physical disk-moving in no way changes this, and then move
>>all the disks over at once.
> :-D Hilarious! Sly, too.
Apart from the fact that *I* know that the tower is solvable, no
matter how many discs there are, so who needs a hypothetical AI robot?
:)
This does bring up the whole idea of "automatic actions" -- elsewhere
in the thread people are talking about automatically opening doors if
you've got the key and so on. Is it reasonable to suggest that the
game can perform an action manually if (a) you've already done it once
manually to prove that you know what to do, and (b) nothing has
changed regarding this action since the last time (no pile-in in front
of the door :) This could presumably apply to anything that you need
to do repetitively? Or am I taking too much out of the player's hands
in favour of a rolling demo of some IF?
Aquarius
--
And I may safely write it now
And you may safely read
-- G.K.Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday
Gene Wirchenko
>Gene Wirchenko wrote:
>>
>> What I don't like is that I can't think of a one word term in
>> English for put down but NOT drop. I keep coming up with verb
>> preposition pairs:
>> put down
>> set down
>> put ... on
>
>There's always 'release'. Or, if you're feeling metaphysical, 'forgo'.
Not bad, but
>release bottle
You release the bottle. Now that you are no longer holding
said bottle, gravity ravishes it. The bottle falls to the
floor and breaks. Gravity laughs.
I wonder if there is anything in English. Well, there is "leave", but
that doesn't seem natural to me. It isn't the right action as I
wouldn't be leaving the bottle until I move.
>'cede' is perhaps too much of a metaphorical stretch, and 'punt' is
>worse than 'drop'. If you want a one-word synonym, both 'put' and 'set'
>can be used without ambiguity (as in 'put bottle'), even though they're
>not precisely grammatical.
Well, then it's guess the verb/verbiage.
Life is great when worrying about one-word synonyms for "drop" is
a big concern.
Gene Wirchenko
[snip]
>> That might be fine in one IF piece or even many or most, but it
>>might not work in another. Maybe part of the problem in the second
>>case is that the key isn't recognizable as one right away.
> I agree. I considered adding a pro quo to my original statement, but I
>decided that I'd rather not complicate things. I'm not suggesting that any of
>rules of this kind be inviolable or unalterable, just that they should be
>standard, in cases where the author has no specific design for a certain aspect
>of the game.
Sorry, it's a religious issue. I feel just as strongly about the
other way. I don't like things being done for me. If the door
automatically opens, then I don't know it was locked. You could get
into descriptions of actions:
>n
The door is locked. You unlock it with the red key, open
it, and walk through.
but that's starting to get lengthy. Then there's:
Should you automatically close the door?
Should you automatically relock the door?
>>>I also think that the author's vision (if I can use that word
>>>without sounding pretentious :-) is more important than an accurate
>>>reproduction of reality.
>>
>> Yes, and his vision may or may not jive with the mechanics you
>>say/think you want.
> Right. Like I said above. Sorry if I sounded too high-and-mighty in the
>original message. :-)
Appropriate for religious issues, but make sure you are wearing a
robe, have a long white bread, and...
Gareth Rees
> How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if
> they typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement
> the sun rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons?
Since you only have a limited budget of time and motivation when writing
a game, it's important to apply that budget where it does most good.
The quest for more "realism" has no end, so there comes a point where
it's better to spend time on other aspects of the game.
--
Gareth Rees
karen
BrenBarn <bren...@aol.comRemove> wrote in message
news:19990907232959...@ng-fc1.aol.com...
> Well, IMownHO, it is unreasonable. Sometimes I might try things like
> "drop bottle", or even "throw bottle", just out of sheer boredom, if I'm
stuck
> on a puzzle. I'd be extremely aggravated if such a whimsical command were
to
> lock me out of victory.
> As I said, though, I don't think ANYTHING should EVER lock ANYONE out
of
> victory. But as I also said, that's another story. . .
Point accepted about drop, but if you were silly enough to throw anything
brittle without good reason then it serves you right if it breaks......
J R Partington
>Just thought I'd ask a question.
>
>How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
>typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement the sun
>eating and drinking to survive?
>
All these things can be made into puzzles (e.g. Avon, the Shakespeare
game, moved you between Twelfth-Night, the Ides of March, and a
Midsummer Night's Dream, with various effects as time passes). I can
think of several games where time passes in a significant way, or
where food and drink are needed. You can put in local colour that
means nothing (which is all right, within limits), but local colour
tends to give rise to puzzles fairly soon, if your imagination is
(over)active.
JRP
---
In Shakespeare's play The Comedy of Venice Titania sleepwalks after
the death of Sir Toby Belch, who cries out for a horse.
Jesse Welton
Gene Wirchenko <ge...@shuswap.net> wrote:
>bren...@aol.comRemove (BrenBarn) wrote:
>
>> Right. Like I said above. Sorry if I sounded too high-and-mighty in the
>>original message. :-)
>
> Appropriate for religious issues, but make sure you are wearing a
>robe, have a long white bread, and...
I'm afraid I have to disagree. White bread is EVIL!
-Jesse "Down With White Bread" Welton
Eh? Oh, wait, you said a *long* white bread. If you're talking about
something like a French sourdough, the objection is withdrawn.
okbl...@my-deja.com
aqua...@kryogenix.albatross.co.uk wrote:
>
> This does bring up the whole idea of "automatic actions" -- elsewhere
> in the thread people are talking about automatically opening doors if
> you've got the key and so on. Is it reasonable to suggest that the
> game can perform an action manually if (a) you've already done it once
> manually to prove that you know what to do, and (b) nothing has
> changed regarding this action since the last time (no pile-in in front
> of the door :) This could presumably apply to anything that you need
> to do repetitively? Or am I taking too much out of the player's hands
> in favour of a rolling demo of some IF?
I agree with you on this one.
--
[ok]
Jake Wildstrom
timsim <tim...@gateway.net> wrote:
>Is it overkill to implement the sun
>rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
>eating and drinking to survive?
Sunrises and sunsets are great for mood. _Enchanter_ and _AMFV_, for instance,
make you fairly conscious of what time of day it is. The others happen and
change more slowly, and unless your game takes place on a massive time scale
there's no good reason to implement such things. OTOH, in spite of the fact
that not a lot of time passes in game time, Andrew Plotkin's _So Far_ is rich
in weather, seasons, and general envirmonmental conditions.
Along the previous lines, what games can people think of that, in an average
player's experience, will actually have the most "game time" pass? A lot of
games (i.e. Zork) don't give you much of an idea of the passage of time, while
others make it clear. Incidentally, by "passage of time", I'm referring to time
passed in the protagonist's experience--e.g. time travel (Curses, Jigsaw) and
simulation (AMFV) don't count. Offhand, the ones I'd recognize as having a
clear time scope, from Infocom, are:
AMFV (unlimited; an "average" game might be 4-5 days?)
Ballyhoo (one day)
Cutthroats (two days)
Deadline (one day)
Enchanter (4-5 days? eventually your food runs out)
Lurking Horror (one day)
Moonmist (one day)
Planetfall (9 days)
Stationfall (6 days?)
Suspect (one day)
Wishbringer (one day)
so it seems that in the Infocom arena, Planetfall's the longest game with a
sense of "game time".
Anyone else have comments? Other games which give the player a clear concept
of time passing? Note that not all of the above implement clocks--Ballyhoo,
Enchanter, and Lurking Horror don't. What do people think is the upper limit on
"game time" length?
I'd be intersted in knowing about games with more game time than Planetfall.
The problem IMO is that if there's that much "game time" the player has to be
doing something with it all. Even in Planetfall, hitting the 9-day mark is
only possible if you waste a _lot_ of time.
Avrom Faderman
Jake Wildstrom wrote in message <7r6nnm$j...@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>...
>In article <7r0ong$fi4$1...@news.laserlink.net>,
>timsim <tim...@gateway.net> wrote:
>Along the previous lines, what games can people think of that, in an
average
>player's experience, will actually have the most "game time" pass? A lot of
>games (i.e. Zork) don't give you much of an idea of the passage of time,
while
>others make it clear. Incidentally, by "passage of time", I'm referring to
time
>passed in the protagonist's experience--e.g. time travel (Curses, Jigsaw)
and
>simulation (AMFV) don't count. Offhand, the ones I'd recognize as having a
>clear time scope, from Infocom, are:
I assume that "Photopia," which takes place over ~9 years, doesn't count
either, since the player doesn't experience all that time.
What about games with short "cut scenes" that briefly describe several years
passing in the life of the character? I'm not sure I recall correctly, but
I *think* Leather Goddesses of Phobos had such a scene (something about your
being a galley slave for 18 years and eventually escaping, to find yourself
back at...[GAME LOCATION]), and I'm pretty sure something did.
Best,
Avrom
Mark J. Tilford
>timsim spoo'd forth the following:
>(ObRelevant: has anyone implemented a similar style carrier in TADS?)
>
Yes, in Small World.
--
-----------------------
Mark Jeffrey Tilford
til...@cco.caltech.edu
Avrom Faderman
BrenBarn wrote in message <19990907232959...@ng-fc1.aol.com>...
>>Having a bottle that smashes if you are careless isn't too unreasonable,
>>IMHO. Dropping a bottle would be careless, and normally if you drop it
>>then tough. But since most players are thinking more along the lines of
>>"put down" when they use "drop" then I believe it should be assumed that
>>unless they say otherwise the player does not simply let go of the bottle
>>and see it smash on the ground. "Throw", OTOH, should quite obviously
>>break the bottle, and if anyone gets annoyed by that then tough.
>>
>>If you think that "drop" meaning "put down" is too lazy then some sort of
>>warning should at least be given to the player the first time they try it.
>>And of course there might be quite valid reasons at times why using "drop"
>>would break the bottle without warning.
>"drop bottle", or even "throw bottle", just out of sheer boredom, if I'm
stuck
>on a puzzle. I'd be extremely aggravated if such a whimsical command were
to
>lock me out of victory.
This, as long as the author didn't do something !@$*% like disable UNDO,
wouldn't annoy me.
I often try that sort of thing whimsically too, but then I often try >KILL
DRAGON WITH ENCOUNTER BAT whimsically as well, with the full *expectation*
that that will lock me out of victory. I'd simply undo and be fine.
If I threw a bottle in a game, and it broke, and nothing obviously good came
of it, and I can't think of any reason that something *non*-obviously good
might have come of it, I'll undo just to be on the safe side (in case I need
the bottle later). Wouldn't faze me in the least.
Of course, I was moderately annoyed with the undo puzzles in the original
Detective. I guess what I want from an action that will lock me out of
victory is *both* of the following two things:
1) Fair reason in advance to believe that the action might do so (like
"kill dragon with pillow" or "throw ming vase" but not "enter restaurant")
2) Reasonably immediate confirmation afterward that the action *did* so
(such as the action destroying an item with no obvious benefit)
Best,
Avrom
Arcum Dagsson
<kar...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> BrenBarn <bren...@aol.comRemove> wrote in message
> news:19990907232959...@ng-fc1.aol.com...
> > Well, IMownHO, it is unreasonable. Sometimes I might try things like
> > "drop bottle", or even "throw bottle", just out of sheer boredom, if I'm
> stuck
> > on a puzzle. I'd be extremely aggravated if such a whimsical command were
> to
> > lock me out of victory.
> > As I said, though, I don't think ANYTHING should EVER lock ANYONE out
> of
> > victory. But as I also said, that's another story. . .
>
> Point accepted about drop, but if you were silly enough to throw anything
> brittle without good reason then it serves you right if it breaks......
I tend to think of drop as being the same, in if, as put ____ on floor, so
I would expect to see something along this line:
>drop bottle
You carefully set the bottle down.
as far as throwing it, I believe that irreversable actions should need
confirmation, as such:
>throw bottle at art
Are you sure? That bottle looks awfully fragile...
Also, under pressure to solve a puzzle, I think all of us tend to do silly
things, hoping for a solution...
--Arcum Dagsson
--
"I looked into your eyes, and my world came tumbling down..."
"Everyone was acting normal, so I tried to look nonchalant..."
"You can't have that! That snorkel's been like a snorkel to me..."
Arcum Dagsson
bren...@aol.comRemove (BrenBarn) wrote:
> >If the player walks south and there's a door in the
> >way, the game should open the door for them. It should really also
> >unlock the door if it's locked and the player has previously unlocked it
> >and is carrying the appropriate key.
> I agree. But I think it should ALWAYS unlock it if the player has the
> right key, even if he hasn't unlocked it before.
>
IMHO, automatically unlocking and opening a door for you is a bit much.
I have no problem with the game automatically opening a door for me, nor
the game automatically picking the right key, but automatically unlocking
the door when you discover that it's locked seems a bit much...
My preferred door experience would be something along these lines:
You are in a courtyard overlooking the rose garden. To the west is a path
leading further in, and to the north stands the back door to your brothers
estate.
>n
(first opening the door)
Alas, upon turning the handle, you find the door locked.
>unlock door
You fumble around on your keyring until you find the silver key your
brother left you, and unlock the door.
The back door is now open. Leaves twirl behind you...
And, yes, the keyring from Anchorhead was a feature I very much liked, and
would love to see come to other games...
Gene Wirchenko
>In article <37d5f40e...@news.shuswap.net>,
>Gene Wirchenko <ge...@shuswap.net> wrote:
>>bren...@aol.comRemove (BrenBarn) wrote:
>>
>>> Right. Like I said above. Sorry if I sounded too high-and-mighty in the
>>>original message. :-)
>>
>> Appropriate for religious issues, but make sure you are wearing a
>>robe, have a long white bread, and...
>
>I'm afraid I have to disagree. White bread is EVIL!
I meant to type "beard"! Honest!
There is a piece of white bread here.
>x bread
You feel waves of evil pushing at you.
>get bread
Endangering your very soul, you pick up the bread.
>make ball with bread
You rip out the center of the piece of white bread and mush
it into a ball.
>drop ball
You drop the ball. It falls to the floor and then bounces.
It hits your sword hand and you accidentally stab yourself.
You have died.
>Eh? Oh, wait, you said a *long* white bread. If you're talking about
>something like a French sourdough, the objection is withdrawn.
As long as it isn't that doughy garbage.
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> >The robot need merely realize the problem _is_ solvable, point out that
> >the actual physical disk-moving in no way changes this, and then move
> >all the disks over at once.
> :-D Hilarious! Sly, too.
Unless, of course, you give your robot a Genuine People
Personality...
"His eye twitches involuntarily." -- Calvin
"Can't we play something else?" -- Hobbes
Aris Katsaris
Arcum Dagsson <Arcum_Dags...@roly-poly.spam-h*ads.at.hotmail.com>
wrote in message
news:Arcum_Dagsson.s.p.a...@ppp022.max4.las-vegas.nv.skylink
.net...
That's what UNDO and SAVE/RESTORE are for.
Aris Katsaris
BrenBarn
That's what I was suggesting. What did you think I meant by "it should
ALWAYS unlock it if the player has the right key"?
BrenBarn
> The door is locked. You unlock it with the red key, open
> it, and walk through.
>but that's starting to get lengthy.
>N
(first opening the door)
(first unlocking the door)
(with the red key)
You are in the new room, etc.
>Should you automatically close the door?
Not unless the player could suffer some setback by leaving it open. In
most traditional games, doors are used only once, and then become irrelevant.
It's quite possible, however, to conceive of a game where leaving a door open
might have drastic consequences. In such a case, I would give a message like:
"You close the door behind you, wary of the pursuing wolf pack."
> Should you automatically relock the door?
Same as above.
> Appropriate for religious issues, but make sure you are wearing a
>robe, have a long white bread, and...
I have no long white bread. I prefer whole wheat. :-)
Lucian Paul Smith
: >N
: (first opening the door)
: (first unlocking the door)
: (with the red key)
: You are in the new room, etc.
Let's not go overboard here.
>N
(first opening the door)
(first unlocking the door)
(with the red key)
(removing the red key from the backpack)
(putting the bottle of electrolytes in the backpack to make room)
(spilling the bottle all over the chemistry notes)
(pulling the chemistry notes out of the backpack so they'll dry)
(putting the galvanometer in the backpack to make room)
(putting one foot in front of the other)
(whilst whistling a happy tune)
(Bach's Toccata and Fugue in G minor)
You are now in a new room. You forget why you wanted to be here now.
-Lucian
okbl...@my-deja.com
lps...@rice.edu (Lucian Paul Smith) wrote:
>
> Let's not go overboard here.
>
> >N
> (first opening the door)
> (first unlocking the door)
> (with the red key)
> (removing the red key from the backpack)
> (putting the bottle of electrolytes in the backpack to make room)
> (spilling the bottle all over the chemistry notes)
> (pulling the chemistry notes out of the backpack so they'll dry)
> (putting the galvanometer in the backpack to make room)
> (putting one foot in front of the other)
> (whilst whistling a happy tune)
> (Bach's Toccata and Fugue in G minor)
I'm gonna disagree with this because it seems to be brought up every
time someone suggests more "automatic" movement in IF. For me, this
would be perfectly valid, if awkward.
> N
Your hands are full, so you put the bottle of electrolytes in your
backpack and accidentally spill it on your chemistry notes. Deftly
placing the galvanometer you're carrying in your other hand in your
backpack, you withdraw the papers and wave them around so that they'll
dry.
You then withdraw the red key from your backpack and open the door,
entering the room while whistling Bach's peppy Toccata and Fugue in G
minor.
Now, is *this* really any better?
>N
The door's locked.
>UNLOCK DOOR
With what?
>THE RED KEY
That's in your backpack.
>GET RED KEY FROM BACKPACK
Sorry, your hands are full. (You're carrying a bottle of electrolytes
and a galvanometer.)
>PUT BOTTLE IN BACKPACK
You put the bottle in the backpack but accidentally spill it all over
your chemistry notes.
You grab the red key.
>TAKE NOTES OUT OF BACKPACK
Sorry, your hands are full, sucker! (You're carrying a red key and a
galvanometer.)
>PUT GALVANOMETER IN BACKPACK
Done.
>TAKE NOTES OUT OF BACKPACK
You take the notes out and hope they dry in time for the cram session
tonight.
>N
The door's locked.
>UNLOCK THE GODDAMN DOOR WITH THE RED KEY, YOU JERK!
Right. Got it.
>N
Shouldn't you be whistling?
>*&!@#*&!@^(
It seems to me that the goal should be eliminating things that aren't
interesting to the player. Let's say certain elements of the above are
necessary to the story--because if they're not, the automatic approach
is unnecessary tedium and the latter approach is sadism--then why not
just do something like this?
>N
The door to the lab is locked, but you remember that Professor
Burnsworth gave you the red key to use after hours. Reaching in your
backpack to get the key, you accidentally spill the bottle of
electrolytes on your notes. Acting quickly you set the galvanometer down
and grab your notes so that they aren't completely ruined.
Frustrated, you grab the red key, unlock the door and throw it back into
your backpack. Grabbing the galvanometer you decide to try to find a
closed container for the electrolytes in the lab.
You're in the lab. You hear a whistling.
>LISTEN
It's you. For some reason, you're whistling Bach's Toccata and Fugure in
G minor. Now *where* did you hear *that*?
Is my life as a player going to be enriched by having to juggle the
items? I don't think so. If you want to give the player the option of
*not* spilling the bottle, then it's important to do so. But I don't
think that we need to subject the player to pointless activity in IF any
more than we need to read fiction about pointless activity.
In a horror story, the unlocking and opening of a door can be critical,
so you may want to stretch it out--but probably, for best results, you
probably want to be careful about *where* you do so.
I have yet to play a game of IF that erred generically on the side of
doing *too much* for me. Even ones that are poorly paced with
plot elements unwinidng all of a sudden end up making you do things like
fiddle with doorknobs.
Dennis Matheson
>Just thought I'd ask a question.
>
>How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
>typed 'drop bottle' and it broke?
Just to point out that this is a puzzle in Original Adventure. If you
drop the Ming Vase without taking another action first, the vase breaks.
--
"You can't run away forever; but there's nothing wrong with getting a good
head start." --- Jim Steinman
Dennis Matheson --- den...@mountaindiver.com
Hike, Dive, Ski, Climb --- http://www.mountaindiver.com
BrenBarn
>(first opening the door)
>(first unlocking the door)
>(with the red key)
>(removing the red key from the backpack)
>(putting the bottle of electrolytes in the backpack to make room)
>(spilling the bottle all over the chemistry notes)
>(pulling the chemistry notes out of the backpack so they'll dry)
>(putting the galvanometer in the backpack to make room)
>(putting one foot in front of the other)
>(whilst whistling a happy tune)
>(Bach's Toccata and Fugue in G minor)
>
the bare bones:
>N
(Unlocking and opening the door.)
This would work in most cases, because (as I said in another post) most
doors become irrelevant to the game once they have been opened once, so the
player doesn't really need to know what key he used. (Of course, if you have a
series of doors which all use the same key, and the player knows they all use
the same key, he might want to know. But then again, if he has the key, it
should automatically be used for him, so maybe he doesn't need to know after
all. . . :-)
Aris Katsaris
Avrom Faderman <fade...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:aSBB3.184$QV.3...@typhoon-sf.pbi.net...
>
> I assume that "Photopia," which takes place over ~9 years, doesn't count
> either, since the player doesn't experience all that time.
Isn't it closer to 13-14 years? What's the oldest age we see Alley as (he
says vaguely to avoid spoilers)?
Aris Katsaris
Avrom Faderman
Aris Katsaris wrote in message <7rdr2u$3da$1...@newssrv.otenet.gr>...
Oops. I think you're right. I'd forgotten about the *youngest* age we see
Alley as.
Best,
Avrom
TenthStone
>>>N
>>(first opening the door)
>>(first unlocking the door)
>>(with the red key)
>>(removing the red key from the backpack)
>>(putting the bottle of electrolytes in the backpack to make room)
>>(spilling the bottle all over the chemistry notes)
>>(pulling the chemistry notes out of the backpack so they'll dry)
>>(putting the galvanometer in the backpack to make room)
>>(putting one foot in front of the other)
>>(whilst whistling a happy tune)
>>(Bach's Toccata and Fugue in G minor)
>>
>>You are now in a new room. You forget why you wanted to be here now.
> Point taken. :-) Maybe what we need to do is just cut everything down to
>the bare bones:
>>N
>(Unlocking and opening the door.)
Funky. This is almost exactly the message that Pianosa puts out in a
situation like this (it leaves out the period).
----------------
The Imperturbable TenthStone
mcc...@erols.com tenth...@hotmail.com mcc...@gsgis.k12.va.us
Kevin Forchione
going to want one, you know!
--Kevin
TenthStone <mcc...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:37db2e0d...@news.erols.com...
Muke
> What I don't like is that I can't think of a one word term in
> English for put down but NOT drop. I keep coming up with verb
> preposition pairs:
> put down
> set down
> put ... on
> etc.
Try "discard".
"Leave" sounds better except, like someone else said, it doesn't really
mean much when you don't immediately go anywhere.
*Muke!
--
Muke, turtle. http://i.am/muke ICQ: 1936556
"Pretend there's nothing past this line." -Unknown
L. Ross Raszewski
>ge...@shuswap.net wrote:
>> What I don't like is that I can't think of a one word term in
>> English for put down but NOT drop. I keep coming up with verb
>> preposition pairs:
>> put down
>> set down
>> put ... on
>> etc.
>
>Try "discard".
>
I've always taken 'discard' to have the connotation of 'throw away',
which would, I think, lead to the same sort of ambiguity problem
Gene Wirchenko
>ge...@shuswap.net wrote:
>> What I don't like is that I can't think of a one word term in
>> English for put down but NOT drop. I keep coming up with verb
>> preposition pairs:
>> put down
>> set down
>> put ... on
>> etc.
>
>Try "discard".
Great! Thank you.
>"Leave" sounds better except, like someone else said, it doesn't really
>mean much when you don't immediately go anywhere.
I said that.
okbl...@my-deja.com
lrasz...@loyola.edu (L. Ross Raszewski) wrote:
>
> I've always taken 'discard' to have the connotation of 'throw away',
> which would, I think, lead to the same sort of ambiguity problem
>ABANDON LANTERN
The lantern cries.
"Use me up and throw me away, why don't you?"
>FORSAKE KEY
The key raises its arms to the heavens and weeps, "Why hast thou
forsaken me?"
>DISCARD CAN
The can lectures you on recycling.
>DISMISS COINS
The coins salute before leaving on their three-day pass.
Etc.
--
[ok]
Russell Wallace
> Absolutely. 7-disc towers of Hanoi are incredibly mundane. If
> you're contemplating putting a tower of Hanoi in your game, it
> should at least have a completely outrageous number of discs.
> 256 comes readily to mind. Then if the player attempts to
> solve it himself, you increment player.boredom each move, and
> once player.boredom hits 100 or so you kill the player off.
> That way the player HAS to find the clever solution for getting
> it solved, such as teaching the AI robot how to solve the
> thing, or whatever.
You know, that actually inspires me with an idea for a puzzle...
**
> ROBOT, SOLVE PUZZLE
The robot starts moving the discs.
Time passes...
Eventually, the robot moves the last disc. The Hanoi puzzle is solved.
Dark
It is completely dark. All of the stars have burned out. The universe
has reached a state of maximum entropy.
You see a robot and a Tower of Hanoi puzzle (solved).
> ROBOT, BUILD TIME MACHINE
"I'm feeling too depressed. The first ten million years were the
worst. The second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten
million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a
decline."
**
Now, I wonder how you'd solve that one?
--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
Russell Wallace
mano...@iol.ie
Russell Wallace
>
> Just thought I'd ask a question.
>
> How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
> rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
> eating and drinking to survive?
Be careful about what you do in the name of realism. Your last sentence
reminds me of one of the Infocom games, I think it was Enchanter:
Early in the game, you starve to death in about 20 minutes of game time
unless you eat. You have no food with you. (Apparently, not only did
the council of wizards send an apprentice to do an archmage's job, they
didn't even see fit to provide you with a packed lunch.) Despite being
apparently free to wander around in a rather large countryside, there's
only one object in the world that's edible, which is a loaf of bread
inside a house. (No other habitation, no edible plants, nothing.)
Despite the bread being apparently fresh, the house owner is nowhere in
sight, and doesn't show up no matter how long you hang around, nor is
there anything else in the house. Once you eat the bread, you never get
hungry again.
Yep, really realistic.
Drop, as has already been discussed, should in most circumstances be
treated as a synonym for "put down". As for the other things on your
list: I'd say, do them only if they'll contribute something specific to
the game. (Atmosphere is fine, doesn't have to be a puzzle.) But I
wouldn't do them just for the sake of it.
> Along these same lines, to what level of detail should actions be
> implemented? Should the player say open door or must they turn the knob
> then pull door?
In real life, I don't have to consciously think about such things, I
just decide to go through a door and the requisite knob-turning etc.
gets done automatically. It should work the same way in games.
> Along THESE same lines, assuming you wanted to keep your game fairly clear
> of much humor, especially the in-jokes and references to the game or its
> author, would it be ok to use some humor or just avoid it altogether?
> Example: player types 'pick nose'. Your game is a dark game with real dying
> etc. Should you allow a reply such as 'Using the pinky of your right hand,
> you deftly extract that annoying booger."? My gut instinct is to avoid the
> throw away jokes and cheap humor if your game's theme is on the darker side.
I agree, keep a consistent atmosphere.
Peter Seebach
>You know, that actually inspires me with an idea for a puzzle...
>> ROBOT, SOLVE PUZZLE
>The robot starts moving the discs.
>Time passes...
>
>Eventually, the robot moves the last disc. The Hanoi puzzle is solved.
>
>Dark
>It is completely dark. All of the stars have burned out. The universe
>has reached a state of maximum entropy.
>
>You see a robot and a Tower of Hanoi puzzle (solved).
>
>> ROBOT, BUILD TIME MACHINE
>
>"I'm feeling too depressed. The first ten million years were the
>worst. The second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten
>million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a
>decline."
>Now, I wonder how you'd solve that one?
[using *'s instead of >'s to disambiguate quoting]
* ROBOT, CHEAT
The robot gleefully moves an entire stack of disks from one peg to another.
Or, if you want to be verbose
* ROBOT, MOVE ALL DISKS FROM PEG 1 TO PEG 3.
Or perhaps
* ROBOT, TAKE ALL DISKS
* ROBOT, PUT ALL DISKS ON PEG 3
-s
--
Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/
Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
Adam Atkinson
>As for the other things on your
>list: I'd say, do them only if they'll contribute something specific to
>the game. (Atmosphere is fine, doesn't have to be a puzzle.) But I
>wouldn't do them just for the sake of it.
Ultima V had night and day, and so on, and I thought it worked quite
well. You were able to walk around at any time, but visiting shops
during the night wasn't useful. IIRC shopkeepers even went to the inn
during lunch hours. Atmosphere-wise I thought this was quite cute.
Did Ultima VI maintain this? I'm not sure that it did.
--
Adam Atkinson (gh...@mistral.co.uk)
Volemo er verde!
NeilsElia
>
> How real should an IF/adventure game be? Would a player be annoyed if they
> typed 'drop bottle' and it broke? Is it overkill to implement the sun
> rising and setting and periodic storms and even seasons? What about the
> eating and drinking to survive?
>
I've been out of IF for a long time-I won't go into the reasons, but I am glad
I am back again. Your questions are interesting. I think you should implement
as many things as you feel comfortable implementing, providing you don't make
the gameplay too difficult in the process.
ie...you mentioned should one have to turn the knob to open a door. To me that
would make gameplay tedious, unless you intended to have the knob be part of
some puzzle---I don't mind the added text for example....
open door
---turning the knob---the door opens.
or
open door
-----trying your keys----the door remains locked.
drop bottle, and it broke---for some reason I seem to remember something like
that happening before.
I think I have babbled enough, my point is only this, don't make the game so
realistic it becomes tedious---
When a player has to type every little command for something which is
understood, that is tedious.