Thoughts on Beyond Zork's Design
albtraum
basically), and years later I finished it using hints when I got it as
part of the Lost Treasures of Infocom collection.
My main memory of the game in the 80s and 90s is of respect for the
colorful, creative world of the game and the descriptions - mixed with
unbelievable frustration at its design.
Here I am like 15 years later, and I just spent maybe ten hours over
the course of a week trying to beat the game without hints - a task
which should have been easy, since I theoretically should have been
able to remember the puzzle solutions from 15 years ago. I should have
breezed through it on the strength of my half-remembering the
walkthrough, like I recently did with Stationfall.
Not a chance. While it's filled with great writing, great ideas, and
memorable locations and characters, Beyond Zork is not fun to play.
Even by the standards of mid-80s text games, Beyond Zork is fun in
small sections but overall an excruciatingly irritating playing
experience. It's full of
1) sudden, pointless death,
2) astonishingly obscure puzzles,
3) many, many limited-use items,
4) locations which can only be visited once or twice
5) randomly generated location maps and item placement
6) countless instances where a player can make the game unwinnable
with a single, seemingly normal action such as using a healing herb on
himself.
7) a game world that is very difficult to travel across
8) several puzzles that require the character to die or destroy an
object, then restore, in order to even begin to figure out the
solutions.
numbers 1 and 5 are functions of the game's pseudo-RPG design, and I
would be willing to overlook them, if the rest of the design choices
weren't so frustrating.
So I guess my questions are:
1) Am I the only one who had this frustrated reaction to the game? (I
mean, just thinking that I as a player was expected to solve, without
hints, any of the puzzles involving the organ grinder and his hurdy-
gurdy, makes me almost blind with rage)
2) How would you improve the design of Beyond Zork, if you had the
chance?
3) Would it be possible to make a truly successful text game that was
also a leveling-up-type RPG? How would you go about it?
4) Beyond Zork is a more "realistic" world-simulator than most Infocom
games -- there are multiple solutions to puzzles, items can be bought
and sold, it's pretty non-linear, there are a lot of NPCs, etc. -- but
does that make it a good IF game? I'm thinking of the discussions
about (I hate to use the term) IF "mimesis" that I've read.
Victor Gijsbers
> 3) Would it be possible to make a truly successful text game that was
> also a leveling-up-type RPG? How would you go about it?
I have been working on just that for, oh, a few days now.
It is essential to know why you are using leveling-up-type RPG elements
and to know why you are using interactive fiction elements, and to tie
those two design consideration together, somehow.
For my work-in-progress (which has the working title Idols of War) the
answer to the first question is that I want to have truly tactical
combat, that is, combat which can only be won through the cunning use of
skills, manoeuvres and limited resources. All design decisions are made
with this objective in mind.
Now the IF-like aspects of the game will be used to (1) give greater
flexibility to what can be done with the scenery of the game world, and
(2) explore the relation between the player characters and the gods
which grant him his powers. The first directly feeds into the
RPG-aspects by changing the tactical situations the character gets
involved in. The second serves a double goal: to contextualise the
combats, putting them into a narrative form and allowing me to undermine
the ideology of the leveling-up-type RPG*; and to feed into the tactics
itself by basically being the experience system.
I hope that by having clear design goals for both subsystems and by
tying them tightly together I can make a truly successful text game that
is also a leveling-up type RPG.
But right now, all you can do is use two combat moves and four special
abilities in an attempt to defeat one goblin and one troll. :P
Regards,
Victor
*It did need something like that to fit into the Gijsbers-corpus, right?
I do doubt whether I can improve on the subversion of my unplayable
pen & paper RPG Vampires:
http://lilith.gotdns.org/~victor/writings/0058vampires.pdf . Except by
making a playable game, which seems to count as an improvement for some
people. ;)
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> memorable locations and characters, Beyond Zork is not fun to play.
I agree with your assessment on every point of fact (your number-
points, for example) but I differ on the resulting opinion. I find
Beyond Zork highly enjoyable and since first playing it on my own just
a few years ago, I've re-played it three times just for the sheer fun
of it. Only Leather Goddesses competes with it for enjoyment, as far
as my own tastes go (although Wishbringer pulls up close on the
strength of atmosphere, and the Adams stuff for sparkle).
In some cases I love the game despite the flaws that frustrate you. In
some other cases I love the game because of those features you regard
as flaws. Such is the nature of the beast, I suspect. We all play for
slightly different kicks, I suppose :)
> 8) several puzzles that require the character to die or destroy an
> object, then restore, in order to even begin to figure out the
> solutions.
I admire the wickedness in that, but I tend to admire wickedness in
any form. Similarly, I admire the riddle in Leather Goddesses, which
seems deliberately built around the same idea: the riddle itself makes
more sense and becomes more soluble after repeated deaths in failing
to answer it correctly. I call it genius, although genius of a sort
I'm not interested in emulating or even building on. In my own work
I'm something of a softy, which may be why wickedness tickles me so.
> 1) Am I the only one who had this frustrated reaction to the game?
There are certainly others who have and who haven't. The game stumped
me hard at two or three points, and I did resort to hints to get
through them after trying each for a couple of weeks on my own. At no
point, however, did I feel frustrated by the process. I'm fairly sure
that neither your response nor mine are unique.
> (I mean, just thinking that I as a player was expected to solve, without
> hints, any of the puzzles involving the organ grinder and his hurdy-
> gurdy, makes me almost blind with rage)
The hurdy-gurdy is tough, but I found the Monkey Grinder himself to be
clearly and easily clued.
Speaking of hints: I wonder if some of your frustration may arise from
Infocom deliberately designing games to sell hint books in the later
years. Not that I'm accusing, but I've often wondered :)
> 2) How would you improve the design of Beyond Zork, if you had the
> chance?
My taste leans toward easy games that reward diligence and exploration
with constant progress. To that end, I'd leave Beyond Zork's design
intact but add more opportunities to find clues (possibly tied to some
"frustration detectors" in the code). Beyond that, I don't think I'd
mess with it ... Even the sham RPG elements (which are really just
parts of puzzles and not an honest attempt at a hybrid game at all,
IMO) are a charming sham to me, so I'd leave all that intact.
I might give the old sailor one or two extra cryptic lines to reward
diligent experimental questioning. They wouldn't be those extra clues
I spoke of; I'd leave him cryptic 'cause I think he's a hoot :)
I might add another use for the giant onion, just because I love the
image of the PC rolling that thing around the landscape.
> 3) Would it be possible to make a truly successful text game that was
> also a leveling-up-type RPG? How would you go about it?
That depends a lot on what standards you're using to judge something
"truly successful." But for my own tastes: sure, very possible.
> 4) Beyond Zork is a more "realistic" world-simulator than most Infocom
> games -- there are multiple solutions to puzzles, items can be bought
> and sold, it's pretty non-linear, there are a lot of NPCs, etc. -- but
> does that make it a good IF game?
Speaking, again, only of my own tastes: I think good writing makes it
a good IF game. It think only good writing can EVER make any IF game
good. Coding hides the seams in the illusion, design determines the
progression and flow, but ultimately I think these games sink or swim
on the writing ... If the writing is good I will forgive pretty much
anything else. If the writing is dull or poor, I won't even stick
around to find out about the rest. The writing grabs me and the
writing keeps me. The rest is just speedbumps.
Andrew Owen
enjoyable. It is not as forgiving as modern IF, but then the same can be
said of other classics.
> 1) sudden, pointless death
HitchHiker
> 2) astonishingly obscure puzzles,
HitchHiker
> 3) many, many limited-use items,
HitchHiker
> 4) locations which can only be visited once or twice
HitchHiker
> 5) randomly generated location maps and item placement
I like this aspect. The whole idea is that you would get a slightly
different experience every time you play and, well you do.
> 6) countless instances where a player can make the game unwinnable
> with a single, seemingly normal action such as using a healing herb on
> himself.
HitchHiker
> 7) a game world that is very difficult to travel across
I really don't know what you're talking about here. There are multiple
ways of travelling across the place. Pointing the Sayonara at yourself,
flying there on the pterodactyl (I always named him since typing
pterodactyl over and over can be frustrating -- unsurprisingly I named
him Terry). Walking can be quite effective too.
> 8) several puzzles that require the character to die or destroy an
> object, then restore, in order to even begin to figure out the
> solutions.
HitchHiker. Actually I think the puzzles in Beyond Zork are more intuitive.
> numbers 1 and 5 are functions of the game's pseudo-RPG design
I disagree entirely. Number one is the way games were written back then
and number five is an attempt to increase the long term playability of
the game (it worked - I still play it).
> 1) Am I the only one who had this frustrated reaction to the game?
Probably not.
> 2) How would you improve the design of Beyond Zork, if you had the
> chance?
It's fine as it is. I wish Zork Zero had used the same engine instead of
Z6 as I found it unwieldy by comparisson.
> 3) Would it be possible to make a truly successful text game that was
> also a leveling-up-type RPG? How would you go about it?
The RPG elements in Beyond Zork are really just a novelty since, with
the exception of some really unbalanced settings, it should be possible
to complete the game regardless of the attributes you select. I'm not
sure they add much to the game, and for a new title I wouldn't bother
(or if I did I wouldn't make them visible to the player).
> 4) Beyond Zork is a more "realistic" world-simulator than most Infocom
> games -- there are multiple solutions to puzzles, items can be bought
> and sold, it's pretty non-linear, there are a lot of NPCs, etc. -- but
> does that make it a good IF game? I'm thinking of the discussions
> about (I hate to use the term) IF "mimesis" that I've read.
It's a good game. I think there are other Infocom titles with more
realistic world models, but the one in Beyond Zork is well suited to the
game. That's the trick -- your simluation only needs to be sufficient to
keep the player involved.
albtraum
> I completed Beyond Zork when it came out. I found it thoroughly
> enjoyable. It is not as forgiving as modern IF, but then the same can be
> said of other classics.
>
> > 7) a game world that is very difficult to travel across
>
> I really don't know what you're talking about here. There are multiple
> ways of travelling across the place. Pointing the Sayonara at yourself,
> flying there on the pterodactyl (I always named him since typing
> pterodactyl over and over can be frustrating -- unsurprisingly I named
> him Terry). Walking can be quite effective too.
>
I agree that multiple ways of travelling were designed into the
game... but then for some reason the designer made them all only work
a few times. You need the pterodactyl to get into and out of the
castle, right? That means that you can use the pterodactyl as a
shortcut from place to place precisely _once_. Same with going to the
ethereal plane - it has, I think, three uses and then you're screwed.
Last week I spent most of my playing time laboriously typing the 50 or
so turns it takes to get back and forth from one side of the jungle to
the other via cable car, etc.
As for your other points mentioning that hitchhiker's guide had all
those aspects - I agree with most of those, but I think the crucial
difference is that hitchhiker's was much shorter, had way fewer
objects, places and people, and was much more linear.
What I mean by linear is yes, you die a lot in the Vogon ship, but
unless you figure out the right things to do, you'll never get any
further. In Beyond Zork, you can get a wand five turns into the game,
point it at a couple of things, and then cheerfully make progress in
the game for weeks before finding out that you needed that wand to
save the world and that you've been wasting your time. Same with, for
example, spellbreaker - it's rough, but you know when you're making
progress and when you're not. You either get the next cube and
continue, or you don't. In Beyond Zork, when I point a wand at a baby
hungus, I have no way of knowing if that is helping or hurting me
until I find out far, far later that for some reason I was supposed to
be sadistic to the baby hungus, or whatever.
And as for hitchhiker's being shorter -- when you inevitably have to
restore, hitchhiker's takes about ten minutes to get through if you
type fast. That's not that bad, and I think gamers forgave the game
its cruelty because of it. In Beyond Zork it takes about as much or
more effort just to get your guy out of the wine cellar and to the top
of the lighthouse as it did to play the entire hitchhiker's game - so
to me personally, Beyond Zork's cruelty was much more frustrating than
hitchhiker's. When you increase the size and complexity of a game, you
have to add to the ease of the player's getting around the game world.
I think Meretzky for example understood this - he could design very
cruel puzzles at times, but in his larger games, most places could be
visited any number of times, and the games are easy to get around in
spite of the map's size (think of the way you can cycle through the
circles repeatedly in LGOP versus Beyond Zork's single-use
pterodactyl, or the elegance of Stationfall or Zork Zero's maps and
the various ways you could get around compared to Beyond Zork's
punishing maze of a map and limited transportation options).
Default User
> As a child, I didn't get far in Beyond Zork (just the wine cellar,
> basically), and years later I finished it using hints when I got it as
> part of the Lost Treasures of Infocom collection.
>
> My main memory of the game in the 80s and 90s is of respect for the
> colorful, creative world of the game and the descriptions - mixed with
> unbelievable frustration at its design.
I played it originally without even the documentation to help (yeah,
some guy gave it to me). It took some effort, but I thought it went
pretty smoothly for 99% of it.
> Here I am like 15 years later, and I just spent maybe ten hours over
> the course of a week trying to beat the game without hints - a task
> which should have been easy, since I theoretically should have been
> able to remember the puzzle solutions from 15 years ago. I should have
> breezed through it on the strength of my half-remembering the
> walkthrough, like I recently did with Stationfall.
I also replayed it fairly recently. I remembered everything pretty
well, including the solution to the one puzzle that I didn't solve had
read later in a walkthrough.
> Not a chance. While it's filled with great writing, great ideas, and
> memorable locations and characters, Beyond Zork is not fun to play.
> Even by the standards of mid-80s text games, Beyond Zork is fun in
> small sections but overall an excruciatingly irritating playing
> experience. It's full of
I disagree with many of your points.
> 1) sudden, pointless death,
It was an RPG-like system, and there was generally an escape path from
attack if you paid attention to the map.
> 2) astonishingly obscure puzzles,
I didn't think most of the puzzles were particularly difficult, and
most were pretty well integrated. The only one that was a stumper was
the helmet, which I ended up working around.
> 3) many, many limited-use items,
I kind of like that. "What the heck will this thing be for?" Adds to
the fun I think.
> 4) locations which can only be visited once or twice
Not all that unusual for Infocom or most IF of the time.
> 5) randomly generated location maps and item placement
That I wasn't a big fan of, but it didn't really make that big of a
difference.
> 6) countless instances where a player can make the game unwinnable
> with a single, seemingly normal action such as using a healing herb on
> himself.
It can be annoying, but that usually became obvious soon enough. When
you find the wounded animal, then, "oh, the weed was for him. Restore."
Unless you're obsessed with being able to play through without ever
backtracking to a previous state, then it really wasn't that big of a
deal.
> 7) a game world that is very difficult to travel across
I'm not sure what this means. There were places that you couldn't get
to without solving puzzles.
> 8) several puzzles that require the character to die or destroy an
> object, then restore, in order to even begin to figure out the
> solutions.
Well, I think the "fairness" thing is just way overblown. That's the
way games worked back then, and it never really bothered me.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Andreas Davour
> I completed Beyond Zork when it came out. I found it thoroughly
> enjoyable. It is not as forgiving as modern IF, but then the same can
> be said of other classics.
>> 1) sudden, pointless death
>
> HitchHiker
[HitchHiker mentioned a few times more]
The thing is, HitchHiker is also a very crappy game. I thought so when I
first played it, and still think. It's not one of the high points of
Infocom and if it wasnt for the peculiar popularity of the late
Mr.Addams it would have been forgotten by now.
Some may disagree.
/Andreas
--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
Busman1215
> making a playable game, which seems to count as an improvement for some
> people. ;)
I just want say that I will be waiting to see your RPG IF, Victor. I
have love for both IF in general and the pen and paper RPG.
Unfortunately, I'm a rookie in both fields and I'm studying both of
them at the same time. Someday, I hope to build some amateur RPG IFs.
I've found one old-and-free RPG IF so far. Some of you might be
interested in it. The name is Eamon and its information can be found
at http://www.eamonag.org
Busman1215
Greg Boettcher
> have love for both IF in general and the pen and paper RPG.
> Unfortunately, I'm a rookie in both fields and I'm studying both of
> them at the same time. Someday, I hope to build some amateur RPG IFs.
>
> I've found one old-and-free RPG IF so far. Some of you might be
> interested in it. The name is Eamon and its information can be found
> athttp://www.eamonag.org
You should play Necrotic Drift and/or Fallacy of Dawn.
Greg
Andrew Owen
him three times by blowing it and if you get on the saddle right after
healing him you get a 4th trip for free.
Victor Gijsbers
> You should play Necrotic Drift and/or Fallacy of Dawn.
Good tips. I somehow never came around to them, but will try to mend my
ways.
Regards,
Victor
Daphne Brinkerhoff
exception.
Right, but you need to use two of those trips for the castle, like
Albatraum said. So that really only gives you two uses (if you get on
right after healing), or one (if you don't) for the general purpose of
"getting around the map". Plus, unless you already have the rose, you
are limited in what the pterodactyl can do anyway -- or you have to
wait around for the winds to change on their own (my usual method),
but that is boring and not very conducive to great game-play.
--
Daphne
Victor Gijsbers
> I just want say that I will be waiting to see your RPG IF, Victor. I
> have love for both IF in general and the pen and paper RPG.
Well, _everyone_ is eagerly awaiting my RPG-IF hybrid! After all, it's
going to include such ever-popular IF elements as random combat,
disabled undo and limited saves - a sure way to earn a lot of praise in
this community!
Now all that stands between me and dozens of XYZZYs is my intention not
to implement any hunger puzzles, light puzzles, mazes and dragons.
Regards,
Victor
PS. On a more serious note, you might want to try out Reliques of
Tolti-Aph. Expect it to be one of those highly unfair and far too
difficult 1st edition D&D scenario's, and you're sure to have a lot of fun.
Deathworks
Personally, I have mixed feelings about RPG IF. On the one hand, IF is
the one computer game genre closest to pen and paper RPGs, bar none.
The high flexibility and possibilties for diverse interaction with the
world are kind of the defining factor of both of them. Therefore, I
always considered IF to be the only genre that could really capture
pen and paper RPG.
However, at the same time I don't think the levelling aspect is that
good a candidate for involvement in IF. The problem is, once you get
away from hack and slash dungeoneering, in RPGs you usually have
adventures which see the characters maybe gain one level at the end at
most. While you could perceivably turn an entire campaign into a
single piece of IF, the sheer size of it would probably overwhelm you
- and the player.
The most perfect solution, which is currently not available, would be
kind of an IF system similar to the Cardwirth RPG system: You create
your characters, put them together as a party and then engage in an
adventure (called scenario). Scenarios themselves are complete in
themselves (although they can pass on information by marking the
player characters with invisible markers), each one a stand-alone
adventure (or a part of a campaign if you wish). Between adventures,
you are at the inn where you can select which scenario to play next,
while during a given scenario, you either finish it, or abort it, in
the latter case seeing your characters returned to the state they had
BEFORE you started playing the scenario. Needless to say that new
scenarios can be added to the library and the game comes with a
scenario editor.
However, as far as I know, there is no current IF interpreter which
would offer you such capabilities or even the possibility to exchange
data between save files (which you could then use in order to simulate
such a relationship). So, while I find the concept interesting, I am
not too sure about what results you can actually achieve.
Anyhow, good luck.
Deathworks
Victor Gijsbers
> However, at the same time I don't think the levelling aspect is that
> good a candidate for involvement in IF. The problem is, once you get
> away from hack and slash dungeoneering, in RPGs you usually have
> adventures which see the characters maybe gain one level at the end at
> most. While you could perceivably turn an entire campaign into a
> single piece of IF, the sheer size of it would probably overwhelm you
> - and the player.
I'm not sure I see the problem. I understand the role of levelling up in
hack and slash dungeoneering games: it is a reward for daring and smart
behaviour, and functionally the reward consists of allowing you access
to new tactical options. (It would be wrong to say that levelling up
makes you _stronger_: since you are going to face tougher opponents when
you are higher level, you are actually just as strong as you used to
be.) In a computer-based game, it can in addition function as the key to
new areas.
But once you get away from hack and slash dungeoneering - which I'm not
going to do in the game I'm working on, by the way - what is the role of
levelling up? And indeed, none of the non-dungeoneering pen & paper
games I have been playing have a level up mechanism. (They sometimes
have mechanisms that superficially look like leveling up, but these
always have quite different roles.)
Regards,
Victor
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> However, as far as I know, there is no current IF interpreter which
> would offer you such capabilities or even the possibility to exchange
> data between save files (which you could then use in order to simulate
> such a relationship).
The I7 documentation (in 19.10) makes a passing reference to Glulx
games being able (at least potentially) to save information from one
game to pass along to a game's sequel. It doesn't go into _how,_
though, so I'm assuming it's a potential that's either untapped or un-
implemented or only-in-theory or just beyond the scope of I7 at the
moment.
albtraum
Personally, I think a better goal for IF which wanted to describe your
character growing in power might be to forget about leveling and
strive for a Zelda or Metroid-type setup, where instead of gaining XP,
your character gains new "tactical options" or ability to interact
with the world in new ways through completing certain tasks which
might or might not involve defeating certain enemies.
Actually, that's how a lot of classical IF worked... and I suppose
that's the lasting appeal of the spell-casting system from the
Enchanter series -- it's an elegant way for an IF character to be
rewarded with new, portable abilities at key points throughout the
adventure, and what's more it uses language, which is a nice
reflection of the medium.
One of the frustrating things (to me) about Beyond Zork is that it's a
mix, and without painstaking trial and error you are never sure if the
enemy you're facing should best defeated by brute force, puzzle-
solving, magic items, or a combination of methods. Maybe that's more
realistic, or gives more player choice, or whatever, but I kept trying
to kill the Monkey Grinder with my sword and got ticked off when I
found out it was a puzzle and not a fight.
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> character growing in power might be to forget about leveling and
> strive for a Zelda or Metroid-type setup, where instead of gaining XP,
> your character gains new "tactical options" or ability to interact
> with the world in new ways through completing certain tasks which
> might or might not involve defeating certain enemies.
I agree. Although leveling-up works just fine for a hacking-through-
the-monsters type game.
> Actually, that's how a lot of classical IF worked...
And how many pen-and-paper RPGs work as well. With the exception of
Dungeons & Dragons (which, understandably, cleaves to its own
traditions) and its immediate knockoffs, leveling-up was abandoned by
pen-and-paper RPG designers many years ago (before Beyond Zork was
ever released), and there are a lot of pen-and-paper RPGs with systems
that would adapt well to IF.
That said, my own principal IF project right now is RPG-related (set
in a world I designed in my day job as an RPG writer), but for my own
part I'm not porting over mechanisms at all - just concepts and
settings. While (as a player) I love the idea of a good hybrid game,
as a designer I'm enjoying and embracing the distinct character of IF
(since I already spend enough hours of the week writing to RPG
assumptions, it's a fun diversion to have a project where I get to
ignore them) ;)
Emily Short
> However, as far as I know, there is no current IF interpreter which
> would offer you such capabilities or even the possibility to exchange
> data between save files (which you could then use in order to simulate
> such a relationship). So, while I find the concept interesting, I am
> not too sure about what results you can actually achieve.
The Eamon system used to do this, I think. (Maybe still does? The
description here
http://www.eamonag.org/pages/eamon_IF.htm
makes it sound as though Eamon games are still being produced.)
A little closer to home, Inform 7 will allow you to use external files
(which can be passed between games) if you compile to Glulx. The
feature is relatively recent, so I don't know of any games other than
my own little test projects that make active use of it, but it's a
possibility.
I haven't looked, but I would imagine that TADS 3 also has some
features that would let you do this as well.
I'm not quite so sure about the design merits of an RPG-esque system,
but the technical possibility is there.
Mike Snyder
>> However, as far as I know, there is no current IF interpreter which
>> would offer you such capabilities or even the possibility to exchange
>> data between save files (which you could then use in order to simulate
>> such a relationship). So, while I find the concept interesting, I am
>> not too sure about what results you can actually achieve.
>
>news:1190817312....@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> I haven't looked, but I would imagine that TADS 3 also has some
> features that would let you do this as well.
Hugo as well. You don't trade save-game files, but you can put whatever
information you like in custom data files that can be shared among games
that are designed to use it.
---- Mike.
Emily Short
wrote:
> The I7 documentation (in 19.10) makes a passing reference to Glulx
> games being able (at least potentially) to save information from one
> game to pass along to a game's sequel. It doesn't go into _how,_
> though, so I'm assuming it's a potential that's either untapped or un-
> implemented or only-in-theory or just beyond the scope of I7 at the
> moment.
It's not only-in-theory at all -- check out the Figures, Sounds, and
Files chapter, specifically the sections on Files.
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> > games being able (at least potentially) to save information from one
> > game to pass along to a game's sequel. It doesn't go into _how,_
> > though, so I'm assuming it's a potential that's either untapped or un-
> > implemented or only-in-theory or just beyond the scope of I7 at the
> > moment.
>
> It's not only-in-theory at all -- check out the Figures, Sounds, and
> Files chapter, specifically the sections on Files.
Aha, thanks very much!
As ever, my own ignorance of I7 should never be taken as a slight on
the excellent documentation ... Just too much to keep in my teensy
noggin at once :)
Emily Short
Now I look at more closely at the numbering, it looks like you *are*
seeing this part of the documentation, but not understanding how the
saving of player information might be done with the existing features.
The deal is, essentially, that at some point in the game you would
need to write out results to a file (perhaps when the game ends in
death or victory). The example "Labyrinth of Bones" shows a simple way
of recording some information about player deaths, though you might
want to store quite a lot more/else, depending on the kind of scenario
you were writing. (That would be up to you to determine.)
Then at the startup of the next/another game, you would need to load
in this file; the example "Alien Invasion Part 23" shows how you might
read a new file at the start of play in order to do some setup of the
new game.
The particular details of what to save about the character, and how to
restore it, would have to depend on the system you were using. But the
file reading/writing ability is there, as is the ability to mark a
file as "locked".
In theory, this means that two games running simultaneously on the
same system could read and write the same file, locking the version
when writing so that they would avoid corruption problems. The
applications of this are probably limited, though I am sort of curious
what would happen if someone attempted a two-player game that came as
two story file modules, one for each player, with some (probably
limited) communication of world state via the external file.
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> Now I look at more closely at the numbering, it looks like you *are*
> seeing this part of the documentation, but not understanding how the
> saving of player information might be done with the existing features.
That happens a lot with me in certain chapters. :) I've actually
considered writing an index to the docs just to force myself to
explore them more completely (I'm bad at many things, but I'm a
crackerjack indexer). At this point I figure it's wiser to wait 'til
there's a more final release, though.
> In theory, this means that two games running simultaneously on the
> same system could read and write the same file, locking the version
> when writing so that they would avoid corruption problems. The
> applications of this are probably limited, though I am sort of curious
> what would happen if someone attempted a two-player game that came as
> two story file modules, one for each player, with some (probably
> limited) communication of world state via the external file.
Oooh, yeah, like those old TSR double-gamebooks where two characters
are bopping around the same world more-or-less independently of the
other, but able to find treasures before the other one can get to 'em
(etc).
If someone makes one of those, I'd totally talk my wife into trying it
out. She'd still love me. That's how sweet she is.
Mark Tilford
>
> One of the frustrating things (to me) about Beyond Zork is that it's a
> mix, and without painstaking trial and error you are never sure if the
> enemy you're facing should best defeated by brute force, puzzle-
> solving, magic items, or a combination of methods. Maybe that's more
> realistic, or gives more player choice, or whatever, but I kept trying
> to kill the Monkey Grinder with my sword and got ticked off when I
> found out it was a puzzle and not a fight.
>
Actually, if you're strong enough, you can kill the monkey grinder with
ordinary weapons.
Adam Thornton
Victor Gijsbers <vic...@lilith.gotdns.org> wrote:
>I'm not sure I see the problem. I understand the role of levelling up in
>hack and slash dungeoneering games: it is a reward for daring and smart
>behaviour, and functionally the reward consists of allowing you access
>to new tactical options. (It would be wrong to say that levelling up
>makes you _stronger_: since you are going to face tougher opponents when
>you are higher level, you are actually just as strong as you used to
>be.) In a computer-based game, it can in addition function as the key to
>new areas.
Fundamentally, isn't the point of self-improvement--whether increasing
STR through weight training, or learning a new computer language, or
practicing your smoooove seduction skills--to allow yourself access to
new tactical options?
The level-up increments are much smaller In Real Life, but that's a
game function of keeping the mechanics manageable.
Adam
albtraum
!!!!
!!!????
Now see, this just adds more grist to my mill! *GRIND GRIND* Either
someone can be killed, or he can be puzzled... making me guess which
through a suicidal series of deadly attempts, and then finding out in
the end that I was wrong, is just depressing.
albtraum
>
> Fundamentally, isn't the point of self-improvement--whether increasing
> STR through weight training, or learning a new computer language, or
> practicing your smoooove seduction skills--to allow yourself access to
> new tactical options?
>
> Adam
Right you are... and according to The Sims, that's how you get
promotions. Lord, I only wish there were a green bar above my head
that increased for ever hour I sit in front of the computer...
Victor Gijsbers
> Fundamentally, isn't the point of self-improvement--whether increasing
> STR through weight training, or learning a new computer language, or
> practicing your smoooove seduction skills--to allow yourself access to
> new tactical options?
I believe the most interesting part of self-improvement do not have
their final effect in anything we could describe as 'tactical'. In the
end, we strive after wisdom, not skills - right?
Regards,
Victor
Jon Hendry
wrote:
> I agree. Although leveling-up works just fine for a hacking-through-
> the-monsters type game.
True, but part of the point of leveling up is that you can use the
newly-gained abilities or proficiencies in the future.
If there's no way to use what you've gained, then it kinda defeats the
purpose.
In a long RPG game like Planescape:Torment, or the Baldur's Gate
series, it makes sense to use levels. In a short standalone game, it
probably makes more sense to use another form of scorekeeping, and use
magic items or technological artifacts to add to the player's
abilities during the game.
Adam Thornton
New and improved tactics may open up new strategies. Or so I'm told.
Adam
Busman1215
Thanks for the tips! I thought all RPG IFs were only the ones I saw in
Baf's Guide's RPG genre.
Busman1215
Victor Gijsbers
> In a long RPG game like Planescape:Torment, or the Baldur's Gate
> series, it makes sense to use levels. In a short standalone game, it
> probably makes more sense to use another form of scorekeeping, and use
> magic items or technological artifacts to add to the player's
> abilities during the game.
Do you think that making use of levels - or in fact, any of the
trappings of D&D - made a lot of sense for Planescape: Torment? I have
always felt that the underlying system was quite inappropriate for what
this game did - which was something utterly different from what other
RPGs have done. Of course, it succeeded marvellously in spite of this,
and remains my favourite game of all time.
Regards,
Victor
Deathworks
Oh boy, there is a major misunderstanding here thanks to the examples
I used. While my examples for sake of brevity centered on systems
using levels (which are not that rare in pen and paper RPGs and are
standard for most of the so-called computer RPGs, probably thanks to
Enterbrain/ASCII), my intent when taking about "levelling" was to
refer to any character improvement system on the game meta level. To
clarify:
Your character finds a locket with a picture of a beautiful girl. This
locket is an improvement, but it is completely ingame.
Your character gains a level. This is more on a meta level focusing on
your stats and other things that are used in the modelling of the game
world.
Your character gains 3 CP in GURPS. Again, CP are not an ingame
concept but part of the meta level, of the statistics. Additionally,
you can just as easily add all the CP of your character and divide the
resulting ranges into levels. Sure, it is in many ways more flexible
than discreet levels, but it is the same kind of concept. That is why
I call that "levelling" as well.
I don't intend to start a flame war about the potential benefits or
problems of level systems vs. non-level systems. We could go on for
ages without any convincing solution.
Returning to what is my favorite example for this, Cardwirth, for
instance, shows that level systems can be used in order to make the
rules subtle. In Cardwirth, you don't know your attributes, but there
are many things that give you a feeling of what your characters can do
and at what they excel. Gaining a level is also not announced that
bigly, although it does have one visible effect that your choices
during combat are increased at certain levels. By depriving you of the
choice of improving skills/attributes directly, Cardwirth also removes
the concept of skills/attributes from your awareness. Having a game
report blatantly that "your skill in armor smithing has increased by
1" definitely puts a burden on the model world. Thus, when talking
about computer implementations, things get even more difficult as
there are some aspects you don't have with pen and paper. Again, I
don't mean to say that non-level systems are bad, I just want to
express that the answer isn't always that easy.
As for the question of how an RPG-esque IF system could be
interesting, please allow me, to yet again, refer to Cardwirth (I
admit that I am really impressed by many of its features and its
closeness to digital novels rather than RPGs also puts it closer to IF
in many regards).
In Cardwirth, you control an adventurer party of up to 6 characters
you have created yourself. After choosing the name, sex (male,
female), age group (child, youth, adult, old), general style
(effectively warrior, rogue, wizard, priest), you are presented with
about 20 pairs of excluding character traits, like for instance
"raised in the city - raised in the country side", "optimist -
pessimist". For each of these pair, you are free to decide whether you
choose one (and only one, of course) of the traits listed, or whether
you choose to have neither. So, you could say your character is a
pessimist, or she is an optimisit, or she is neither an optimist nor a
pessimist. All the information, except for the name, is stored in the
same marker the scenarios use for "writing your history", although the
information marks are made invisible by starting their names with
underscores.
During play, a scenario can freely check for the presence or absence
of any mark it wishes and change its behavior accordingly. Given the
orientation towards adventure parties, this is most often used to
determine conversation roles with the cynic comments given to the
character with the most cynical personality, for instance.
These markers are also used for putting together campaigns. A campaign
made up of a few short scenarios that really impressed me was aimed at
a party of exactly 2 characters (the scenario ensured that that
condition was met) and while describing a series of somewhat dreamlike/
Alice-in-Wonderland-like incidents, it mainly told the story of the
developing first love between the characters (provided the player
wanted to allow them to develop that way). Don't worry, it didn't have
any adult content.
Now comes where having free PCs came in handy: When I played it, I
simply had a party of two female child characters. Probably not the
situation the author had originally thought of , but it did work out
fine, and I really liked the result.
IIRC, you received three markers in that campaign: One character was
marked as "being cared for", while the other was marked as "caring
for". The different terms were used because the story had one focus
character, while the other character was effectively handled as an
NPC. In addition, one of the characters was marked as "scared of
cockroaches" during the first scenario.
A short gag scenario which is not related with the campaign does check
for the two markers for the relationship and when it found them had a
bonus incident featuring the two characters.
So, the advantages of such a multi-adventure system would be that the
player could use their choice of character with the character
developing a history that can influence the options available to the
character as well as what situations she can get in (for instance,
some successful marks included "a learned cook" or "owning a boat").
It can also be used to have the character earn a reputation. Quite a
number of Cardwirth scenarios have a good probability to present you
with a moral dilemma (well, if you simply attack anything that moves,
you won't see much of that, of course) and you get marked differently
according to what choice you make. One scenario I remember only shady
featured the party being hired (Cardwirth very much handles the party
as some kind of mercenaries - trouble shooters to be hired) to get rid
of a zombie problem in a small village. If you investigate thoroughly
and do not hastily act, you will find out that the source of the
zombies is a girl who had died as a child and then, not really
understanding that she was dead risen as what would be called a lich
in AD&D (there was some background that she had a lot of magical
potential). Having risen from the grave, she was somehow physically
trapped in an underground chamber (I don't remember the details), but
subconsciously, she caused the dead from the cemetary to rise and come
to her where she was playing with them (she actually has no real
concept of death). I do remember the scene where you come upon her in
a large underground chamber with dozens of undead (zombies and ghosts)
- and she is having them pray and sing praise to the Lord!
So, the potential lies in the development of the main character as a
recurring thing the player can more easily identify with (think Floyd
in Stationfall).
However, the penalties are also hefty: Designing scenarios is more
work since you need to ensure compatibility with various choices.
Extreme interpretations of the main character may instead make the
player disregard your scenario saying "But she isn't that kind of
person!". Finally, the recurring main character is much more suited to
be more of an outsider of the action. While that is not much of a
problem for most of the classic text adventures where you are usually
a person thrown into a situation - an explorer in a cave, a journalist
or whatever, games that focus on the relationship between the player
character and the NPCs are a bit more difficult as you can't freely
change the past of the character.
Still, I believe that there is quite some potential in the approach.
As for the Inform 7/Glulgx file implementations, I had a look over
them, and it seems that they are seriously handicapped at the moment:
You can't save/read tables of literal text and when you read literal
text, you get it as a single block. Since there are no easily accessed
string manipulations, a system with a freedom similar to that of
Cardwirth is unlikely to be implementable (using numerals is only an
option if you always have the same markers so you can convert back and
forth; otherwise literals are the obvious choice).
Well, at least these are my impressions.
Deathworks
Adam Thornton
Victor Gijsbers <vic...@lilith.gotdns.org> wrote:
>Do you think that making use of levels - or in fact, any of the
>trappings of D&D - made a lot of sense for Planescape: Torment? I have
>always felt that the underlying system was quite inappropriate for what
>this game did - which was something utterly different from what other
>RPGs have done. Of course, it succeeded marvellously in spite of this,
>and remains my favourite game of all time.
Planescape *was* all about the subversion of expectations. Telling a
story like that within the constraints of a 2E dungeon crawl was simply
doing the same thing at the metanarrative level. Perhaps it succeeded
marvellously *because* of that rather than *in spite* of that.
Put another way: Planescape: Torment would have been less intriguing if
it hadn't had the set of constraints that come with, well, a straight-up
2E D&D game (such as Gygaxian Alignment) to continually push against.
Adam
Default User
You are too easily depressed. Having more than one way to get past an
obstacle is relatively common. Generally in BeyondZork it was pretty
clear early in a conflict when you were outclassed combat-wise. That
was the time to retreat or restore.
I feel like you use a lot of strawman arguments that don't really
reflect how the game worked. The fact that if you up all your physical
stats and get the best armor/weapons/potions that you can defeat the
grinder in a different way is relatively unimportant.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Nathan
> 8) several puzzles that require the character to die or destroy an
> object, then restore, in order to even begin to figure out the
> solutions.
I first played Beyond Zork as a kid. I think my story is a triumph of
Infocom's copy protection techniques. You see, I had a pirate copy.
I played for many months, somewhat impressed with the novelty of
the randomization, the RPG elements, the function keys, etc. But I
didn't seem to come anywhere near solving much of anything. There
was a monkey grinder I couldn't do anything with, a minx whose
purpose was obscure, Christmas tree monsters I couldn't get past,
etc. I couldn't even recover the wine bottle without spending far too
many skill points on dexterity.
Much later, when I no longer had the disk, I read some hints or
walkthough somewhere that made me realize there were whole
layers of gameplay here that I had never glimpsed. I was upset; I
thought most of these puzzles ridiculously unfair. Of course, not
having actually paid for the game, I had no real right to complain.
When I finally bought Masterpieces and read the manual I
discovered the truth: some of these puzzles that no one would
ever have any reason to even think in the direction that solves them
are actually subtly clued in "The Lore and Legends of Quendor".
Of course I had no idea what to do; I hadn't paid for the information.
Andrew Plotkin
> albtraum wrote:
>
> > 8) several puzzles that require the character to die or destroy an
> > object, then restore, in order to even begin to figure out the
> > solutions.
>
> I first played Beyond Zork as a kid. I think my story is a triumph of
>
> When I finally bought Masterpieces and read the manual I
> discovered the truth: some of these puzzles that no one would
> ever have any reason to even think in the direction that solves them
> are actually subtly clued in "The Lore and Legends of Quendor".
> Of course I had no idea what to do; I hadn't paid for the information.
So, when you pirated the game, the protection mechanism didn't make
you want to buy a real copy. It made you think the game was no fun.
That's not a triumph; it's a failure.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a
warrant, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because of
the Fourth Amendment.
Mike Snyder
news:fdh2hr$o63$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> So, when you pirated the game, the protection mechanism didn't make
> you want to buy a real copy. It made you think the game was no fun.
>
> That's not a triumph; it's a failure.
Well, not if the goal was to make sure anybody who pirated the game couldn't
enjoy it...
---- Mike.
Andrew Plotkin
Why should that be the goal? It doesn't make Infocom money.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
You don't become a tyranny by committing torture. If you plan for torture,
argue in favor of torture, set up legal justifications for torturing
someday, then the moral rot has *already* set in.
Mike Snyder
> In rec.arts.int-fiction, Mike Snyder <wy...@prowler-pro.com> wrote:
>> "Andrew Plotkin" <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
>> news:fdh2hr$o63$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>> > So, when you pirated the game, the protection mechanism didn't make
>> > you want to buy a real copy. It made you think the game was no fun.
>> >
>> > That's not a triumph; it's a failure.
>>
>> Well, not if the goal was to make sure anybody who pirated the game
>> couldn't
>> enjoy it...
>
> Why should that be the goal? It doesn't make Infocom money.
I don't think copy protection is always about converting piracy into sales.
Maybe sometimes you (being some hypothetical publisher) just want to keep
people from using a copy they haven't paid for -- or at least get no benefit
from using it. It depends on your way of thinking. If you think it's highly
unlikely that a person using a pirated copy would buy it anyway, then maybe
you just want to make it hard to enjoy. If you think there's a way to make
the game enjoyable and playable but still entice the person to buy a real
copy (which, in my thinking, is a far more difficult thing to do, given that
a happy pirate has no *need* to buy -- and if they do, then it's probably
piracy for demonstration/evaluation), then maybe that's the route you take.
Infocom.... who knows. It was hypothetical anyway.
---- Mike.
Andrew Plotkin
> "Andrew Plotkin" <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
> news:fdh5ib$bqt$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> > In rec.arts.int-fiction, Mike Snyder <wy...@prowler-pro.com> wrote:
> >> "Andrew Plotkin" <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
> >> news:fdh2hr$o63$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> >> > So, when you pirated the game, the protection mechanism didn't make
> >> > you want to buy a real copy. It made you think the game was no fun.
> >> >
> >> > That's not a triumph; it's a failure.
> >>
> >> Well, not if the goal was to make sure anybody who pirated the game
> >> couldn't
> >> enjoy it...
> >
> > Why should that be the goal? It doesn't make Infocom money.
>
> I don't think copy protection is always about converting piracy into sales.
> Maybe sometimes you (being some hypothetical publisher) just want to keep
> people from using a copy they haven't paid for -- or at least get no benefit
> from using it. It depends on your way of thinking.
What I should have added was that -- as described, anyway -- the
experience didn't discourage piracy *either*. It didn't imply "you're
having no fun because you pirated the game"; it implied "stealing the
game worked fine, you just picked a lousy game. Try again."
Intending that someone fail to enjoy something isn't a goal. It's
leverage. The company should at least have an idea that they're
levering towards an outcome that benefits them.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
9/11 did change everything. Since 9/12, the biggest threat to American
society has been the American president. I'd call that a change.
Adam Thornton
Mike Snyder <wy...@prowler-pro.com> wrote:
>I don't think copy protection is always about converting piracy into sales.
>Maybe sometimes you (being some hypothetical publisher) just want to keep
>people from using a copy they haven't paid for -- or at least get no benefit
>from using it. It depends on your way of thinking. If you think it's highly
>unlikely that a person using a pirated copy would buy it anyway, then maybe
>you just want to make it hard to enjoy. If you think there's a way to make
>the game enjoyable and playable but still entice the person to buy a real
>copy (which, in my thinking, is a far more difficult thing to do, given that
>a happy pirate has no *need* to buy -- and if they do, then it's probably
>piracy for demonstration/evaluation), then maybe that's the route you take.
Chris Crawford goes on at some length about this.
He's still inordinately proud of the fact that, in one of his 1980s
games, not only did he have some sort of disk-format protection, but he
also included a logic-bomb check that would ensure that if your game did
not pass the checksum early on, you would always lose in the last couple
turns.
He points out with glee that no one ever found and removed that bomb,
and thus all the copies of whatever game this was available from
abandonware sites are unwinnable.
This caused me to think "maybe it was never found because no one ever
bothered to finish the game," and also "Chris Crawford is a jerk."
But it gives him something to giggle schoolgirlishly about, so, I guess
that's a win.
Adam
Mike Snyder
>
> What I should have added was that -- as described, anyway -- the
> experience didn't discourage piracy *either*. It didn't imply "you're
> having no fun because you pirated the game"; it implied "stealing the
> game worked fine, you just picked a lousy game. Try again."
>
> Intending that someone fail to enjoy something isn't a goal. It's
> leverage. The company should at least have an idea that they're
> levering towards an outcome that benefits them.
Maybe it was leverage applied to a goal that wasn't fully thought out, or
with a goal that failed or backfired.
This was a pretty common practice in the 80's, right? I remember being
required to enter certain words from certain pages in the manual into
certain games (Sierra games come to mind) before starting. So maybe it was
similar copy protection applied in a different way (and without misleading a
person into thinking the pirated copy ran okay but just wasn't fun).
---- Mike.
Default User
> "Andrew Plotkin" <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
> news:fdh5ib$bqt$1...@reader1.panix.com... >In rec.arts.int-fiction,
> Mike Snyder <wy...@prowler-pro.com> wrote: >>"Andrew Plotkin"
> <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message
> > > news:fdh2hr$o63$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> >>> So, when you pirated the game, the protection mechanism didn't
> make >>> you want to buy a real copy. It made you think the game was
> no fun.
> > > >
> >>> That's not a triumph; it's a failure.
> > >
> > > Well, not if the goal was to make sure anybody who pirated the
> > > game couldn't enjoy it...
> >
> > Why should that be the goal? It doesn't make Infocom money.
>
> I don't think copy protection is always about converting piracy into
> sales. Maybe sometimes you (being some hypothetical publisher) just
> want to keep people from using a copy they haven't paid for -- or at
> least get no benefit from using it. It depends on your way of
> thinking. If you think it's highly unlikely that a person using a
> pirated copy would buy it anyway, then maybe you just want to make it
> hard to enjoy. If you think there's a way to make the game enjoyable
> and playable but still entice the person to buy a real copy (which,
> in my thinking, is a far more difficult thing to do, given that a
> happy pirate has no need to buy -- and if they do, then it's probably
> piracy for demonstration/evaluation), then maybe that's the route you
> take.
I guess the difference is that the BZ player doesn't know why the game
sucks. If it had the "fairy" pop up and say, "Information about that
could be found in your Guide to Quendor" or something, then you'd know
what the deal was.
Mike Snyder
news:sbkts4-...@quicksilver.fsf.net...
> In article <ybVKi.35$JF5...@newsfe19.lga>,
> Mike Snyder <wy...@prowler-pro.com> wrote:
>>I don't think copy protection is always about converting piracy into
>>sales.
>>Maybe sometimes you (being some hypothetical publisher) just want to keep
>>people from using a copy they haven't paid for -- or at least get no
>>benefit
>>from using it. It depends on your way of thinking.
>
>
> He's still inordinately proud of the fact that, in one of his 1980s
> games, not only did he have some sort of disk-format protection, but he
> also included a logic-bomb check that would ensure that if your game did
> not pass the checksum early on, you would always lose in the last couple
> turns.
Wow. And this is kind of what I was getting at when I first jumped in on
this. Back then, would publishers have thought how best to keep their games
in a good light even if pirated, or would they have just tried to punish or
hinder people who *did* play a pirated copy? Are software publishing
goals/motives more sophisticated now than they were 20 years ago? I can
totally see early game designers being more interested in ruining the fun
for people who didn't pay, than in planning ahead to make people *want* to
pay instead of pirate. In shareware I wrote years ago, I'm sure it was more
of the former and less of the latter for me.
---- Mike.
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
Z-machine, Infocom's very platform for delivery of a one-time-compile fits
all machines forever more, which guarantees these virtual machines' initial
state snapshots (story files) to be valuable collectors items which still
run to this day on everything from a dog poo upward, are not sufficient to
play games whose lives are limited by whether the company trades or not.
In other words, the future-proof nature of the story file format is
completely and utterly destroyed by the company's need to stay in business.
Of course, now that Infocom has gone and the documentation is electronic,
piracy is easier than it was when it was on paper, but Infocom has
basically shot itself in the foot for the future that is now. For now,
everyone playing these story files will, needlessly and frustratingly, need
these documentation to proceed in the playing of the games. If you've
still got paper, that's what you'll use. http://infodoc.plover.net/ seems
to have gone for a spin; everyone who has the Masterpieces CD or LTOI will
use incomplete/inadequate documentation accompanying their media, filling
in the rest from, for instance, the IF archive.
As for me: the piracy features are nothing more than a
grit-teeth-and-peak-at-walkthrough provacation. The documentation in PDF
format on the Masterpieces CD is essentially unusable; they did a pretty
lousy OCR job and a lot of the text is still images that even modern-day
OCR struggles with. I have to look for a walkthrough which provides the
necessary information (I.E., a walkthrough suitable for use by pirates)
whenever I play a game requiring the breaking of the antipiracy measures.
Infodoc's limited number of text files for VI users was also handy. I do
use deprotection patches wherever possible (anyone got patches for
Starcross and/or is there any chance of engineering the textual
documentation into the zcode somehow so as to make them genuinely
collectable?). It's a crying shame, of course, because I'm a legal owner
of their text games. They are, after all, great.
Level 9 used lenslock at one point. It was not a smart move back then but
it is in any event easy to circumvent using the level9 interpreter. The
other game protection features are word-from-the-manual challenges easily
bypassed using the current level9 interpreter program that can do the
save/restore operations directly. In this respect, Infocom must be
congratulated for making antipiracy features that simply aren't trivial to
get around and have lasting effects to this day (I used txd to find the
solutions to certain protections myself in games not already deprotected,
but it's hardly fun); there is subtle genius in recognising the other, more
corporate uses for packaging and instructional material besides adding to
the gameplay experience ... though I'm quite sure it wasn't until much
later that they really started to get disagreeably complacent about it (see
Ballyhoo's hintbook, for instance, on a certain term meaning ticket).
Cheers,
Sabahattin
--
Please DO NOT reply to sender.
Sabahattin Gucukoglu <mail<at>sabahattin<dash>gucukoglu<dot>com>
Address harvesters, snag this: fee...@yamta.org
Phone: +44 20 88008915
Mobile: +44 7986 053399
http://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/
Andrew Owen
> He points out with glee that no one ever found and removed that bomb,
> and thus all the copies of whatever game this was available from
> abandonware sites are unwinnable.
>
> This caused me to think "maybe it was never found because no one ever
> bothered to finish the game," and also "Chris Crawford is a jerk."
I gather Chris is rather unpopular in the IF community for his comments
on IF. However, if people are busy ripping off your work then it must
have some merit or why would they bother. And if you can do something to
prevent those who do so from benefiting then surely that's fair enough.
Besides, I've yet to see a convincing rebuke to Chris's comments on the
limitations of IF. I don't think he's cracked the nut either, but at
least he admits that meaningful interactive story is hard.
Jake Wildstrom
Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I guess the difference is that the BZ player doesn't know why the game
>sucks. If it had the "fairy" pop up and say, "Information about that
>could be found in your Guide to Quendor" or something, then you'd know
>what the deal was.
Funny you should mention it.
>EXAMINE MONKEY GRINDER
He appears to be in excellent condition.
A marketing nymph appears on your keyboard. "You'll find a drawing
of the monkey grinder in your Beyond Zork package. Bye!"
Similar responses for the minx and the Christmas tree monsters.
-Jake
Adam Thornton
>Adam Thornton wrote:
>I gather Chris is rather unpopular in the IF community for his comments
>on IF. However, if people are busy ripping off your work then it must
>have some merit or why would they bother. And if you can do something to
>prevent those who do so from benefiting then surely that's fair enough.
>Besides, I've yet to see a convincing rebuke to Chris's comments on the
>limitations of IF. I don't think he's cracked the nut either, but at
>least he admits that meaningful interactive story is hard.
Um, in this case, I'm not actually saying *anything* about the madness
that is the Erasmatron. I'm saying that being gleeful twenty years on
about your copy protection--long, *long* after the games can have any
significant financial return--is jerkish behavior.
Also probably too subtle; so maybe people did get all the way through,
and lose, but figured it was because the game was hard, rather than
because they were FEELTHY PIRATES.
I also don't think you can claim that anything that is ripped off is
meritorious. I mean, there are Asian pirate printings of Britney Spears
albums, right?
Adam
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> >sucks. If it had the "fairy" pop up and say, "Information about that
> >could be found in your Guide to Quendor" or something, then you'd know
> >what the deal was.
>
> Funny you should mention it.
>
> >EXAMINE MONKEY GRINDER
> He appears to be in excellent condition.
> A marketing nymph appears on your keyboard. "You'll find a drawing
> of the monkey grinder in your Beyond Zork package. Bye!"
>
> Similar responses for the minx and the Christmas tree monsters.
They did it in other games, too. In Plundered Hearts, the clue-
important bank note (showing LaFond's finger on the globe) is referred
to in the game in a very obvious "you'd better go look at that" way.
And in Leather Goddesses of Phobos, for another example, the hideous
maze is basically the same kind of copy protection (elevated to the
level of KWEEPA), and they do, in-game, nudge you toward the feelies.
For my own part, I found it made a (non-pirated) copy of the game a
bit more enjoyable because the feelies and docs weren't just props to
impress you when you opened the package, they were integral ...
physical clues that could be examined and considered without typing
EXAMINE. The Leather Goddesses maze felt more like raw copy
protection, but things like the Lore and Legends of Quendor and the
Plundered Hearts bank-note felt like you were getting a piece of the
world, AND getting to use it in some constructive way beyond simply a
happy browse.
But then again, I'm an "RTFM" kinda guy, or at least I aspire to
attempt to sometimes be, when I think to.
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> [...] run to this day on everything from a dog poo upward, are not sufficient to
> play games whose lives are limited by whether the company trades or not.
> In other words, the future-proof nature of the story file format is
> completely and utterly destroyed by the company's need to stay in business.
> Of course, now that Infocom has gone and the documentation is electronic,
> piracy is easier than it was when it was on paper, but Infocom has
> basically shot itself in the foot for the future that is now. For now,
> everyone playing these story files will, needlessly and frustratingly, need
> these documentation to proceed in the playing of the games.
I'm digging deep into the fog of memory, here, but I remember one
other kind of "protecting" scheme gauranteed to become more
troublesome as years pass. At least, I think I remember it and I'm
sure someone will correct me if I've dreamed it.
I think it was an old adventure game, semi-graphical. Maybe a very
early Leisure Suit Larry title?
It wasn't copy-protection but rather naughty protection. Like LGOP,
the program would ask your age. Unlike LGOP, it wouldn't trust that
you were telling the truth. To prove you were of age, it asked a
series of trivia questions designed to weed out youngsters ... stuff
about Nixon, things like that, that only someone over 18 would have
any reason to recall or care about. You could get a certain number of
them wrong, but if you got too many wrong it would assume you were an
underage poser and boot you to the street.
So now a legitimate 20-year old gamer opening that game up in DOSBox
or whatever would need to have Wikipedia or something open in another
window :)
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <5m2mt4F...@mid.individual.net>,
> Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >I guess the difference is that the BZ player doesn't know why the game
> >sucks. If it had the "fairy" pop up and say, "Information about that
> >could be found in your Guide to Quendor" or something, then you'd know
> >what the deal was.
>
> Funny you should mention it.
>
> >EXAMINE MONKEY GRINDER
> He appears to be in excellent condition.
> A marketing nymph appears on your keyboard. "You'll find a drawing
> of the monkey grinder in your Beyond Zork package. Bye!"
That makes my whole grump pretty darn hypothetical, doesn't it...
Call it "alternate history". :)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
"Bush has kept America safe from terrorism since 9/11." Too bad his
job was to keep America safe *on* 9/11.
Victor Gijsbers
>> [...] run to this day on everything from a dog poo upward, are not sufficient to
>> play games whose lives are limited by whether the company trades or not.
>> In other words, the future-proof nature of the story file format is
>> completely and utterly destroyed by the company's need to stay in business.
>> Of course, now that Infocom has gone and the documentation is electronic,
>> piracy is easier than it was when it was on paper, but Infocom has
>> basically shot itself in the foot for the future that is now. For now,
>> everyone playing these story files will, needlessly and frustratingly, need
>> these documentation to proceed in the playing of the games.
>
> I'm digging deep into the fog of memory, here, but I remember one
> other kind of "protecting" scheme gauranteed to become more
> troublesome as years pass. At least, I think I remember it and I'm
> sure someone will correct me if I've dreamed it.
>
> I think it was an old adventure game, semi-graphical. Maybe a very
> early Leisure Suit Larry title?
Absolutely, it was Leisure Suit Larry 1. However, there was a way to
circumvent it - somthing like pressing [Alt] + [X][X][X], I think, but
you'd have to look that up.
Regards,
Victor
-NOSPAM- @hotmail.com J. J. Lawless
<sj...@io.com> wrote:
>And how many pen-and-paper RPGs work as well. With the exception of
>Dungeons & Dragons (which, understandably, cleaves to its own
>traditions)
Funny you should mention that now, when the publisher of D&D is busy
throwing out D&D traditions wholesale for their feeble new edition.
-J
Default User
> In article <5m2mt4F...@mid.individual.net>,
> Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I guess the difference is that the BZ player doesn't know why the
> > game sucks. If it had the "fairy" pop up and say, "Information
> > about that could be found in your Guide to Quendor" or something,
> > then you'd know what the deal was.
>
> Funny you should mention it.
>
> >EXAMINE MONKEY GRINDER
> He appears to be in excellent condition.
> A marketing nymph appears on your keyboard. "You'll find a drawing
> of the monkey grinder in your Beyond Zork package. Bye!"
I guess I need to play it again.
Default User
> In rec.games.int-fiction, Jake Wildstrom
> <dwil...@erdos.math.louisville.edu> wrote:
> > In article <5m2mt4F...@mid.individual.net>,
> > Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > I guess the difference is that the BZ player doesn't know why the
> > > game sucks. If it had the "fairy" pop up and say, "Information
> > > about that could be found in your Guide to Quendor" or something,
> > > then you'd know what the deal was.
> >
> > Funny you should mention it.
> >
> > >EXAMINE MONKEY GRINDER
> > He appears to be in excellent condition.
> > A marketing nymph appears on your keyboard. "You'll find a
> > drawing of the monkey grinder in your Beyond Zork package. Bye!"
>
> That makes my whole grump pretty darn hypothetical, doesn't it...
I know what you mean.
> Call it "alternate history". :)
This is not soc.history.what-if.
Andrew Plotkin
> Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> >
> > That makes my whole grump pretty darn hypothetical, doesn't it...
>
> I know what you mean.
>
> > Call it "alternate history". :)
>
> This is not soc.history.what-if.
But what if it were?
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't shipped you to Syria for interrogation, it's
for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're innocent.
Cumberland Games & Diversions
> > This is not soc.history.what-if.
>
> But what if it were?
"History in this model diverges on this point: There was never a
CORNERSTONE database product."
Default User
> In rec.arts.int-fiction, Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> > >
> > > That makes my whole grump pretty darn hypothetical, doesn't it...
> >
> > I know what you mean.
> >
> > > Call it "alternate history". :)
> >
> > This is not soc.history.what-if.
>
> But what if it were?
Then I wouldn't be posting this message.
Glenn P.,
> ...just thinking that I as a player was expected to solve, without
> hints, any of the puzzles involving the organ grinder and his hurdy-
> gurdy, makes me almost blind with rage)...
You, Sirrah, are playing a pirated version of "Beyond Zork"!
The original game came with "feelies" -- physical items -- among which were
(if I recall correctly) at least two booklets, one of which told you about
all sorts of things -- it was a kind of "mini-encyclopedia" about the game
world -- and I very clearly remember that said that the monkey grinder was
illiterate (giving a percentage of illiterate monkey-grinders which was
greater than 100%, in order better to make their point).
I suppose it's possible that the game is legitimate and you've simply lost
the feelies -- but I can't imagine you'd have forgetten that they even
EXISTED, nor how IMPORTANT they are to winning the game. (This was Infocom's
not-quite-so-subtle version of "copy protection". You could copy the disk
itself as freely as you pleased, but only the original box came with the
fun -- and very necessary -- documentation!)
-- _____ %%%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128UserD...@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%%%
{~._.~} -----------------------------------------------------------------
_( Y )_ "Handsome, pretty, handsome Dr. Smith! He make nose wiggle!"
(:_~*~_:) -----------------------------------------------------------------
(_)-(_) The Lady Of The Green Mist (From "Lost In Space")
:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::
Default User
> On 23-Sep-07 at 3:22am -0700, <toh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ...just thinking that I as a player was expected to solve, without
> > hints, any of the puzzles involving the organ grinder and his
> hurdy- > gurdy, makes me almost blind with rage)...
>
> You, Sirrah, are playing a pirated version of "Beyond Zork"!
>
> The original game came with "feelies" -- physical items -- among
> which were (if I recall correctly) at least two booklets, one of
> which told you about all sorts of things -- it was a kind of
> "mini-encyclopedia" about the game world -- and I very clearly
> remember that said that the monkey grinder was illiterate (giving a
> percentage of illiterate monkey-grinders which was greater than 100%,
> in order better to make their point).
The fact that the grinder was illiterate was a fairly obscure clue to
the puzzle. Not only that, you had to figure out at some point to let
the grinder attack until he'd taken care of the fairy.
I, personally, don't consider any of that to be bad. Just tough. Most
of the games in those days cost a fair amount of money, relatively
speaking. I expected to work on them for weeks, restoring and even
restarting many times. Breezing through and solving each puzzle easily
would have pissed me off.
albtraum
I think what pushed it over the top for me was that the entire game is
_written_, so figuring out what the monkey grinder can "read" is sort
of a mental moebius strip. It's a puzzle that actually might have
worked better in a graphic adventure.
This also goes for the game's multiple "color perception" puzzles. The
reader is meant to figure out from written descriptions that his
virtual character has gone colorblind? Yikes. That's one of the
puzzles that led me to make the original post. A wizard-of-oz-type
switch from color to black-and-white is an interesting puzzle for a
graphic adventure. For a text game, I think it's asking too much of
the player's powers of visualization.
And glenn p. - duh, dude. I've been dealin' with feelies since '84 or
so. Nevertheless, Beyond Zork's clues were, to me, extra rough on the
player, because of the triple or quadruple uncertainty the player
faces every time he sees an opponent: should I a) kill it? b)
outpuzzle it using only in-game clues? c) outpuzzle it using common
sense? (e.g., the slug) d) outpuzzle it using the documentation? e)
waste a limited-use magic wand on it, not knowing if I'll need that
wand for a mandatory puzzle in the future? f) run away? That huge
spectrum of uncertainty makes the game less fun to play, in my opinion.
Default User
> On Oct 2, 3:16 am, "Default User" <defaultuse...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Glenn P., wrote:
> > > On 23-Sep-07 at 3:22am -0700, <toh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > ...just thinking that I as a player was expected to solve,
> > > without > hints, any of the puzzles involving the organ grinder
> > > and his hurdy- > gurdy, makes me almost blind with rage)...
> >
> > > You, Sirrah, are playing a pirated version of "Beyond Zork"!
> >
> > > The original game came with "feelies" -- physical items -- among
> > > which were (if I recall correctly) at least two booklets, one of
> > > which told you about all sorts of things -- it was a kind of
> > > "mini-encyclopedia" about the game world -- and I very clearly
> > > remember that said that the monkey grinder was illiterate (giving
> > > a percentage of illiterate monkey-grinders which was greater than
> > > 100%, in order better to make their point).
> >
> > The fact that the grinder was illiterate was a fairly obscure clue
> > to the puzzle. Not only that, you had to figure out at some point
> > to let the grinder attack until he'd taken care of the fairy.
> I think what pushed it over the top for me was that the entire game is
> _written_, so figuring out what the monkey grinder can "read" is sort
> of a mental moebius strip. It's a puzzle that actually might have
> worked better in a graphic adventure.
Each player's personal experience differs. We spent some time on a
futile attempt to teach the Grinder to read. That was actually my
buddy's idea. In the end, I think we just gave him stuff to see what
would happen, and "solved" it hurray.
That's what I meant by obscure. If someone actually solved the puzzle
from the clue, hats off to you. I ended up not needing it.
> This also goes for the game's multiple "color perception" puzzles. The
> reader is meant to figure out from written descriptions that his
> virtual character has gone colorblind? Yikes. That's one of the
> puzzles that led me to make the original post. A wizard-of-oz-type
> switch from color to black-and-white is an interesting puzzle for a
> graphic adventure. For a text game, I think it's asking too much of
> the player's powers of visualization.
Again, that wasn't much of a puzzle for me. Noticing that the colors
changed was fairly obvious, and once you'd been through and realized
that a color choice was necessary, then it was fairly straight-forward.
I thought the butterfly was a lot more challenging.
As far as puzzles go, I just didn't thing BZ was all that tough. There
was a lot to do, and some coordination challenges, plus the level
system to deal with. However, I thought on the whole that any of the
Enchanter series were harder.
John W. Kennedy
And any /real/ Infocom fan had known how to defeat a Christmas-tree
monster for years....
--
John W. Kennedy
"Sweet, was Christ crucified to create this chat?"
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"
avrom
> There are spoilers in this whole dang thread. This post is no
> exception.
>
> On Sep 25, 2:38 am, Andrew Owen <cheve...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The pterodactyl isn't single use. If you wear the whistle you can summon
> > him three times by blowing it and if you get on the saddle right after
> > healing him you get a 4th trip for free.
>
> Right, but you need to use two of those trips for the castle, like
> Albatraum said. So that really only gives you two uses (if you get on
> right after healing), or one (if you don't) for the general purpose of
> "getting around the map". Plus, unless you already have the rose, you
> are limited in what the pterodactyl can do anyway -- or you have to
> wait around for the winds to change on their own (my usual method),
> but that is boring and not very conducive to great game-play.
At any rate, I'm inclined to think that the real point isn't exactly
how many times you can use the pterodactyl, but rather that it (and
any non-annoying method of transport) is:
a) limited at all, and
b) required to solve certain puzzles.
Unless you're of the save-and-restore-is-great school (and I recognize
that some people are), the limited-use nature of so many of the items,
combined with the fact that *some* of those uses are absolutely
required, pretty heavily discourages using them.
It's as if, in a standard RPG, the GM passed out a limited-use handy
magic item as part of a standard treasure hoard, and then threw a
situation at the players three months later that was unbeatable
without charges remaining on the magic item. Once the players realized
they were playing with a GM like that, if they didn't walk out in
disgust, they'd be *really* hesitant to touch limited-use items from
then on.
OTOH, although I don't like when any sort of game does this, I'm
inclined to cut BZ some slack just because of its age. That sort of
"cruelty" was just plain standard practice in pre-Player's Bill of
Rights IF. Yes, it's especially bad in BZ and HHG, but it's everywhere
in Infocom's stuff. "Frotz me", anyone?
Default User
> On Sep 25, 5:50 am, Daphne Brinkerhoff <cend...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > There are spoilers in this whole dang thread. This post is no
> > exception.
> >
> > On Sep 25, 2:38 am, Andrew Owen <cheve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The pterodactyl isn't single use. If you wear the whistle you can
> > > summon him three times by blowing it and if you get on the saddle
> > > right after healing him you get a 4th trip for free.
> >
> > Right, but you need to use two of those trips for the castle, like
> > Albatraum said. So that really only gives you two uses (if you get
> > on right after healing), or one (if you don't) for the general
> > purpose of "getting around the map". Plus, unless you already have
> > the rose, you are limited in what the pterodactyl can do anyway --
> > or you have to wait around for the winds to change on their own (my
> > usual method), but that is boring and not very conducive to great
> > game-play.
>
>
> At any rate, I'm inclined to think that the real point isn't exactly
> how many times you can use the pterodactyl, but rather that it (and
> any non-annoying method of transport) is:
>
> a) limited at all, and
> b) required to solve certain puzzles.
>
> Unless you're of the save-and-restore-is-great school (and I recognize
> that some people are), the limited-use nature of so many of the items,
> combined with the fact that some of those uses are absolutely
> required, pretty heavily discourages using them.
>
> It's as if, in a standard RPG, the GM passed out a limited-use handy
> magic item as part of a standard treasure hoard, and then threw a
> situation at the players three months later that was unbeatable
> without charges remaining on the magic item. Once the players realized
> they were playing with a GM like that, if they didn't walk out in
> disgust, they'd be really hesitant to touch limited-use items from
> then on.
I think this is silly in the extreme. I mean, the pterodactyly let you
know right off the bat that it was limited in use. Therefore there had
to be a specific reason for it. Games have been traditionally and
continue to be populated with one-use items, which in effect is what
that is (counting the trip to and from the castle as one use). You get
an extra flight or two just as a bonus to help you out in non-necessary
situations.
albtraum
Games "continue to be populated with one-use items"? Er, just a couple
of years after "Beyond Zork", the most popular adventure games would
entirely do away with one-use items, and most adventure games today
follow that philosophy.
In fact, one of the reasons that BZ's limited-use design irritates me
so much is that the game's author then went on soon afterward to work
on Lucasarts' can't-die games.
Default User
Please learn to trim quotes. In particular, remove signatures (the
parts following "-- ". A good newsreader would do that for you. You use
Google, which doesn't help you there, but there's no reason you can't
do that on your own.
> Games "continue to be populated with one-use items"? Er, just a couple
> of years after "Beyond Zork", the most popular adventure games would
> entirely do away with one-use items, and most adventure games today
> follow that philosophy.
I certainly didn't notice that being anything like a hard rule in games
I've played. Regardless, it was certainly in keeping with the times.
> In fact, one of the reasons that BZ's limited-use design irritates me
> so much is that the game's author then went on soon afterward to work
> on Lucasarts' can't-die games.
I have no experience with those games, but I don't really care. As I've
said, I think the whole can't die, uber-fair, no-this-and-that moment
is kind of boring. Those old games used to kind of sing. Adventure in
them was, well, adventurous.
You don't like them, that's fine. Just know that not everyone is on
that bandwagon.
albtraum
>
> I have no experience with those games, but I don't really care. As I've
> said, I think the whole can't die, uber-fair, no-this-and-that moment
> is kind of boring. Those old games used to kind of sing. Adventure in
> them was, well, adventurous.
>
> You don't like them, that's fine. Just know that not everyone is on
> that bandwagon.
>
> Brian
You have no experience with any adventure game where you aren't
penalized with death or restoring every time you try to use an item?
You're sure?
Not even Myst? Grim Fandango? The Broken Sword series?
Eric the Unready?
You see the last 20 years of adventure game development as a
"bandwagon" that you've chosen not to get on? Seriously?
Default User
>
> >
> > I have no experience with those games, but I don't really care. As
> > I've said, I think the whole can't die, uber-fair, no-this-and-that
> > moment is kind of boring. Those old games used to kind of sing.
> > Adventure in them was, well, adventurous.
> >
> > You don't like them, that's fine. Just know that not everyone is on
> > that bandwagon.
> You have no experience with any adventure game where you aren't
> penalized with death or restoring every time you try to use an item?
Is that what I said? You mentioned some specific ones from LucasArts. I
haven't played them. I have played some of the products of the authors
here.
> You're sure?
Yeah, I'm not that far gone into senility.
> Not even Myst? Grim Fandango? The Broken Sword series?
Nope. I had started to buy Myst at one point, but something I read
about it or in the promotional material made me stop. As text-adventure
commercial products started to fade away, I switched to MUD gaming. I
was heavy into EOTL, to the point of becoming a "wizard", or game area
writer.
> Eric the Unready?
No.
> You see the last 20 years of adventure game development as a
> "bandwagon" that you've chosen not to get on? Seriously?
You may not believe it, but it's true. Understand that I don't mind if
people create games that way, but I'm just not all that worried about
it if they don't.
Besides, I don't believe that games really have dispensed with
limited-use items. What, no keys unless they open every lock plus
bottles of beer too?
avrom
> Besides, I don't believe that games really have dispensed with
> limited-use items. What, no keys unless they open every lock plus
> bottles of beer too?
A key that opens exactly one lock in a game is extremely different
from the limited-use items in Beyond Zork. They're equivalent to a key
that opens several locks in the game, but:
a) Is consumed when first used, and
b) Is *required* to enter a single area through one of the doors
(while all other areas accessible through the key have well-hidden or
inconvenient alternate entrances).
That's a save-and-restore puzzle. A key that opens a single door, but
is not lost when you try it on others, is not.
Similarly, it's not like you can only use up the limited-use items in
BZ by applying them in required situations. People who use them to
solve puzzles that can be solved other ways (let alone for convenience
in traversing the game map) are likely to find themselves in an
unwinnable state.
Infocom's answer to this was "save early, save often." But most people
don't like repeating 450 moves of a game because they just realized
that they put it in an unwinnable state 450 moves ago, and I think
they have a point.
(This doesn't mean there are no good "cruel" games, but I'm inclined
to think those games are good despite, not because of, their cruelty.)
Default User
> Similarly, it's not like you can only use up the limited-use items in
> BZ by applying them in required situations. People who use them to
> solve puzzles that can be solved other ways (let alone for convenience
> in traversing the game map) are likely to find themselves in an
> unwinnable state.
Other than the transport ones, and if someone used them up out of
laziness then that's their fault, there weren't many like that.
> Infocom's answer to this was "save early, save often." But most people
> don't like repeating 450 moves of a game because they just realized
> that they put it in an unwinnable state 450 moves ago, and I think
> they have a point.
Really the only one that comes to mind is the Grinder/fairy puzzle. The
rest are common sense. If you save the pterodactyl and it tells you can
use it only three more times, don't use it flying around places you can
walk. Figure out what you really need it for.
> (This doesn't mean there are no good "cruel" games, but I'm inclined
> to think those games are good despite, not because of, their cruelty.)
I just don't consider Beyond Zork to be overly cruel. Really.
Adam Thornton
And don't forget that you got 4 or 8 saves, period. At least on the
Apple. Well, I guess you could have used other diskettes for additional
saves, but somehow I never did.
Adam
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
> (This doesn't mean there are no good "cruel" games, but I'm inclined
> to think those games are good despite, not because of, their cruelty.)
Nah! All Things Devours is cruel, but bloody brilliant. It wouldn't be
brilliant if it weren't for its cruelty, part of which revolves around
realising how the whole time travel parallel thing works. How many times
do you have to blow up Boston, Ma before it's not worth the save file
anymore? Why, many, many times! ;-)
Most Infocom games were at the same level of "Cruelty"; they saw games as
reflections of reality. If you blew an object's usefulness - well, that
was just life. Tough, really. Just be glad for save and restore. After
all, wasn't that what they were there for - getting out of sticky messes?
IF congeniality, on the whole, is a new invention in that regard.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
--
Please DO NOT reply to sender.
Sabahattin Gucukoglu <mail<at>sabahattin<dash>gucukoglu<dot>com>
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Andrew Plotkin
>
> Most Infocom games were at the same level of "Cruelty"; they saw games as
> reflections of reality. If you blew an object's usefulness - well, that
> was just life. Tough, really. Just be glad for save and restore.
And save and restore are also reflections of reality?
And when a game *doesn't* let you blow an object that you'll need
later, it's usually cast in a form that doesn't violate realism. The
game is designed so that the realistic outcome of the situation
doesn't make it unwinnable.
I don't think that your rationale holds up at all. It was a design
convention of the 80s, that's all.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't thrown you in military prison
without trial, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not
because of the Fifth Amendment.
Adam Thornton
I'm sure that just meant "Boston, Massachusetts" but I'm totally
thinking of the end of _White Heat_ here.
Top o' the world, Ma!
Adam
Default User
> Default User wrote:
> > Now, the other one mentioned, using the weed on yourself (oddly
> > never occurred to me) that's a bit more problematic. Of course, the
> > wounded not-a-bird is pretty obvious from initial exploration, so
> > applying healing potions should have been relatively
> > straightforward.
>
> I didn't discover the spenseweed at Edge of Storms, likely because I
> didn't have the manual. By the time I first encountered the weed, at
> Glare, I had learned that you run away to heal. When I learned
> what it was for, a one-use healing item didn't seem so useful.
> Although with the EAT WEED bug it's pretty useful against the ghoul.
Never ran into that.
> > It's been a little while, so I can't readily catalog all the ways of
> > putting Beyond Zork into an unwinnable state. I'm sure there are
> > some that are more unfair that I'm not thinking of (or never ran
> > into, like the weed).
>
> Getting past the corbies can be pretty unfair, unless you cheat with
> the rug.
I'm not familiar with that work around. The key selection was a bit
unfair, you didn't know you were going to make a color choice until
you'd been through once. But of course, you'd save before ever taking a
ride on that tornado.
> I think the time limit on the truffles is harsh.
That one didn't cause too much problem because I didn't figure out how
to get the helmet anyway :)
> Someone else has already mentioned it, but if you don't let the monkey
> grinder kill the nymph you're stuck (again barring cheating).
Right, but since almost everyone will see him do that the first time
you encounter him, all you have to do is remember.
Mark Tilford
>
>
> avrom wrote:
>
>
>> Similarly, it's not like you can only use up the limited-use items in
>> BZ by applying them in required situations. People who use them to
>> solve puzzles that can be solved other ways (let alone for convenience
>> in traversing the game map) are likely to find themselves in an
>> unwinnable state.
>
> Other than the transport ones, and if someone used them up out of
> laziness then that's their fault, there weren't many like that.
>
>> Infocom's answer to this was "save early, save often." But most people
>> don't like repeating 450 moves of a game because they just realized
>> that they put it in an unwinnable state 450 moves ago, and I think
>> they have a point.
>
> Really the only one that comes to mind is the Grinder/fairy puzzle. The
> rest are common sense. If you save the pterodactyl and it tells you can
> use it only three more times, don't use it flying around places you can
> walk. Figure out what you really need it for.
>
No, with the grinder, you can get the correct actions passively (if you
just wander into the area early. You have to know the game pretty well
to mess that up.
The hungus puzzle is nastier, because you can usually mess that up as
soon as you get to it, and you will likely think you've found the
correct solution.
avrom
> All Things Devours is cruel, but bloody brilliant. It wouldn't be
> brilliant if it weren't for its cruelty, part of which revolves around
> realising how the whole time travel parallel thing works. How many times
> do you have to blow up Boston, Ma before it's not worth the save file
> anymore? Why, many, many times! ;-)
All Things Devours is a very unusual case because, in terms of actual
move count, it's very, very short. You'll never "realize you put the
game in an unwinnable state 450 moves ago" (as I wrote) because there
*just aren't 450 moves*. What are there, maybe 100 moves in the
longest possible game? It's meant to be played over, and over, and
over again, and because it's so short, that's not an onerous
expectation on the player.
Varicella is similar (it even has a little backstory put in to
*explain* why you're restarting so much), although it's just long
enough to sort of push it. Of course, the text there is *exquisite*
(unlike in, say, BZ), so repeating even a fair number of moves is a
pleasure even when you're not solving new puzzles. I still would have
liked it even more if it were a bit less save/restore-ish.
Mark Tilford
>
>> In fact, one of the reasons that BZ's limited-use design irritates me
>> so much is that the game's author then went on soon afterward to work
>> on Lucasarts' can't-die games.
>
> I have no experience with those games, but I don't really care. As I've
> said, I think the whole can't die, uber-fair, no-this-and-that moment
> is kind of boring. Those old games used to kind of sing. Adventure in
> them was, well, adventurous.
>
> You don't like them, that's fine. Just know that not everyone is on
> that bandwagon.
>
In text adventures, you can quickly play through large parts; replaying
graphical adventures will be noticably slower.