Limited vocabulary for better gameplay?
Gadget
Some If I played years ago didn't just have a limited vocabulary: they
had a FIXED vocabulary, which was well known to the player. So you
just knew exactly what verbs you could enter at the keyboard. Now with
Infocom it became expected of a game to accept near-English sentences
and an almost unlimited amount of synonyms. But what if those old
games had the right idea? I mean: there is a lot to be said for a
limited set of verbs. It is up to the author to make creative use of
them in a way that makes sense. Kind of like in a videogame such as
Zelda: you have a set of skills that you can use creatively to solve
puzzles. You always know what skills you have and the puzzles are very
elegant because of this: there is a true consistency in the design.
Probably the realism of an IF would take a hit, but I bet the gameplay
and puzzles could benefit greatly with such streamlining.
Does any of this make any sense to anyone else?
-------------
It's a bird...
It's a plane...
No, it's... Gadget?
-------------------
To send mail remove SPAMBLOCK from adress.
Muffy St. Bernard
>
> I just had a thought [And the crowd goes wild],
>
> Some If I played years ago didn't just have a limited vocabulary: they
> had a FIXED vocabulary, which was well known to the player. So you
> just knew exactly what verbs you could enter at the keyboard. Now with
> Infocom it became expected of a game to accept near-English sentences
> and an almost unlimited amount of synonyms. But what if those old
> games had the right idea? I mean: there is a lot to be said for a
> limited set of verbs. It is up to the author to make creative use of
> them in a way that makes sense. Kind of like in a videogame such as
> Zelda: you have a set of skills that you can use creatively to solve
> puzzles. You always know what skills you have and the puzzles are very
> elegant because of this: there is a true consistency in the design.
>
> Probably the realism of an IF would take a hit, but I bet the gameplay
> and puzzles could benefit greatly with such streamlining.
>
> Does any of this make any sense to anyone else?
As someone who hated solving puzzles and mainly played IF for the joy
of exploring and seeing the plot advance, I appreciated having the
limited vocabulary spelled out to me. I remember more than one game
("Asylum" comes to mind) that, when you typed "Help" or pressed a
particular function key, would print out a list of all the verbs and
nouns...and it was STILL hard to finish the game.
I was thinking about this at 3am this morning when my cat decided she
wanted to run around the apartment yowling ("for fun"). It occurred to
me that there is a lot of pressure, for IF writers, to actually try to
exceed the creativity, complexity, and realism of Infocom games.
Meanwhile, those games were made by people with very specialized
talents, lots of experience, lots of feedback from others...and they
were getting paid for their time!
I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing...just, wow.
Muffy.
Gadget
<muffys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> As someone who hated solving puzzles and mainly played IF for the joy
>of exploring and seeing the plot advance, I appreciated having the
>limited vocabulary spelled out to me. I remember more than one game
>("Asylum" comes to mind) that, when you typed "Help" or pressed a
>particular function key, would print out a list of all the verbs and
>nouns...and it was STILL hard to finish the game.
Well, I don't think the puzzles would be easier to solve... There just
wouldn't be any 'guess the verb'.
Andrew Plotkin
> On Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:14:43 -0400, "Muffy St. Bernard"
> <muffys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> As someone who hated solving puzzles and mainly played IF for the joy
>>of exploring and seeing the plot advance, I appreciated having the
>>limited vocabulary spelled out to me. I remember more than one game
>>("Asylum" comes to mind) that, when you typed "Help" or pressed a
>>particular function key, would print out a list of all the verbs and
>>nouns...and it was STILL hard to finish the game.
> Well, I don't think the puzzles would be easier to solve... There just
> wouldn't be any 'guess the verb'.
When I've played games that explicitly listed the full vocabulary --
the Spellcasting *01 games had such an interface -- then *every*
puzzle became a guess-the-verb puzzle. I've got a list of objects;
I've got a list of verbs; let's try every combination and see what
produces a result.
Once a brute-force solution presents itself to me, my enjoyment of the
game is pretty much done for.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Carl Muckenhoupt
certainly it can be a good thing in certain types of game. For example,
in my review of Russel Wallace's "Cave Adventure" (an old-school cave
crawl with a two-word parser), I said "It's actually one of the nicer
games of its type, if only because the command set is small and well-
defined enough that the solutions follow naturally."
The command set has a profound effect on the feel of the game. The
smaller the command set, the more obvious it is to the player that the
options are limited. This discourages thinking about situations as if
they were real and encourages thinking about them in terms of the
framework of the game. If you ask me, games like this feel more toy-
like, and coming up with commands feels more like programming a computer.
Which is defienitely not a bad thing, if that matches the author's aims.
Dennis G. Jerz
> had a FIXED vocabulary, which was well known to the player. So you
> just knew exactly what verbs you could enter at the keyboard.
Another option would be to carefully design puzzles, situations, and provide
specialized "close but no cigar" messages so that the player knows what to
do. For example:
>light fire
You can hardly do that without matches.
It seems to me that the problem you mention could be solved by user testing
(for implementing synonyms, if not actually enabling alternate solutions) or
a simple help message. I personally like it when in-game NPCs give hints,
like the angel and devil from "Curses." Or, in Galatea, when the Galatea
suggests, "You might try talking to me," thus hinting that conversation is a
big part of that game.
> Probably the realism of an IF would take a hit, but I bet the gameplay
> and puzzles could benefit greatly with such streamlining.
If you reduce the vocabulary to the point where the player might just as
well choose actions from a menu, then, IMHO, you're taking away at least
some of the fun. I'm not generally a fan of conversation menus, but the
writing in Photopia is engaging enough, and Cadre does something interesting
with menus during Alley's dream sequence, so I felt the menus weren't
cop-outs.
You could always implement the verb "use", but I think that would eliminate
some of the ah-hah moments that were the occasions for some of my favorite
moments of IF.
--
Dennis G. Jerz, Ph.D.; (715)836-2431
Dept. of English; U Wisc.-Eau Claire
419 Hibbard, Eau Claire, WI 54702
------------------------------------
Literacy Weblog: www.uwec.edu/jerzdg
"Gadget" <gad...@SPAMBLOCKhaha.demon.nl> wrote in message
news:e55aoto44i8r2hl1c...@4ax.com...
Nikita
> [...]
> For
> example, in my review of Russel Wallace's "Cave Adventure"
> [...]
Hey! is that *THE* Russel Wallace?
--
P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs
on Algernons grave in the bak yard.
Pope Jeremy I, KSC
> and puzzles could benefit greatly with such streamlining.
> Does any of this make any sense to anyone else?
Yes, in a way. I suppose it depends what effect you're going for when
designing a game. If you want tight puzzles and you prefer what Graham
Nelson would call the crossword side of IF, then a limited vocabulary
would have its advantages. However, if you would like to acheve a
reasonable degree of mimesis(tm), then a large vocabulary is the way
to go.
This is not to say the a limited vocabulary game could not have the
effect of "sucking you in" that a large vocabulary game would have. It
can just acheve the effect in a different way. For example, Zelda (a
Nintendo Video Game), doesn't exactly create an convincing simulation
of the real world, but it still take over your sences, since the Zelda
world operates according to its own consistent rules. The droning
music dosnen't hurt either.
On the other side, a video game like Resident Evil "sucks you in"
using a different tactic: by using graphics and character behaviors
that reasonably simulate the real thing. The zombies in the game
almost flawlessly simulate real zombies. I should know. I work with
several.
I think IF analogs of these are clear. A game like Zork or Pirate
Adventure dosent really simulate the real world, but nonetheless
"sucks you in". Then, there are games like Lost New York that try to
create mimesis by utilizing a large vocabulary and otherwise trying to
establish a simulacrum of the actual, concrete world.
Both styles can be effective in creating an engrosing game playing
experiance.
Pope Jeremy I, KSC
Gadget
wrote:
>When I've played games that explicitly listed the full vocabulary --
>the Spellcasting *01 games had such an interface -- then *every*
>puzzle became a guess-the-verb puzzle. I've got a list of objects;
>I've got a list of verbs; let's try every combination and see what
>produces a result.
>
>Once a brute-force solution presents itself to me, my enjoyment of the
>game is pretty much done for.
>
Yes, I know what you mean. But that's a design issue, isn't it? If the
puzzle is just to 'use the correct verb' then it isn't a good puzzle,
don't you think?
If a puzzle takes multiple steps to solve to reach a goal you can, I
think, let the player prove he understands the puzzle.
Andrew Plotkin
> On 23 Aug 2001 16:26:12 GMT, Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>
> wrote:
>>When I've played games that explicitly listed the full vocabulary --
>>the Spellcasting *01 games had such an interface -- then *every*
>>puzzle became a guess-the-verb puzzle. I've got a list of objects;
>>I've got a list of verbs; let's try every combination and see what
>>produces a result.
>>
>>Once a brute-force solution presents itself to me, my enjoyment of the
>>game is pretty much done for.
>
> Yes, I know what you mean. But that's a design issue, isn't it? If the
> puzzle is just to 'use the correct verb' then it isn't a good puzzle,
> don't you think?
No, I don't agree. In many of my favorite puzzles, understanding a
novel or creative use of the item is the challenge (or understanding
the item at all, if it's something unfamiliar). But demonstrating this
understanding might be just one command. Indeed, I have a preference
(when appropriate) to have the game fill in the details once that one
command has been demonstrated -- there's no need to make the player
walk through a mechanical series of commands once he's proven he's
gotten the point.
Gadget
wrote:
> there's no need to make the player
>walk through a mechanical series of commands once he's proven he's
>gotten the point.
>
You really hated the Babelfish puzzle, didn't you?
Stuart Allen
> When I've played games that explicitly listed the full vocabulary --
> the Spellcasting *01 games had such an interface -- then *every*
> puzzle became a guess-the-verb puzzle. I've got a list of objects;
> I've got a list of verbs; let's try every combination and see what
> produces a result.
>
> Once a brute-force solution presents itself to me, my enjoyment of the
> game is pretty much done for.
So how is this different to any other game where the player is presented
with a known set of possible moves? Can you imagine sitting a person down
at a chess board and not telling them exactly how all the pieces can move
before they start? Perhaps in the near future when IF becomes more popular
than chess they will introduce new secret moves for the Bishop that only
a few people know about.
Regards,
Stuart
Adam Thornton
Stuart Allen <stu...@jacl.animats.net> wrote:
>So how is this different to any other game where the player is presented
>with a known set of possible moves? Can you imagine sitting a person down
>at a chess board and not telling them exactly how all the pieces can move
>before they start? Perhaps in the near future when IF becomes more popular
>than chess they will introduce new secret moves for the Bishop that only
>a few people know about.
You have given away the gimmick of my former IF-Comp 2001 Entry,
"Textfire Zugzwang++." Damn you, Stuart Allen! Damn you to hell! Now
I must go delete it from my hard drive, burn my notes, and shoot all of
my beta-testers.
Waaaaah,
Adam
Brad O'Donnell
> Some If I played years ago didn't just have a limited vocabulary: they
> had a FIXED vocabulary, which was well known to the player.
As a player, I really like this method. There's nothing worse to me
than guess-the-verb and its variants (implicit nouns, hunt-the-pixel.
I especially hate implicit nouns, if their associated objects are
essential).
The closest thing to a brute-force method I've ever used in (text) games
providing complete verb/noun lists was to read through the list to see
if it helped. Fun through combinatorics is not my cup of tea: if the
solution is KISS ANTELOPE, there better be a good reason, or I'm not
gonna think much of the author.
--
Brad O'Donnell
mattF
> Some If I played years ago didn't just have a limited vocabulary: they
> had a FIXED vocabulary....
I'm put in mind of the old Lucasfilm games, such as Zack McKracken,
which managed to pull this off very neatly in a graphic format without
losing any of the challenge. However, these games were graphic. In
text-only IF, which thrives off the player's imagination, this would
be a major retrograde step.
Most IF games tend to gravitate around the standard verbs anyway, but
it's the knowledge that that may not be the end of your options that
helps to spin that illusion of total freedom. Some of my favourite
games would have been either impossible or just plain ruined with a
spelt-out set of commands. I can't imagine 'Spider and web' with a
dictated 1980's interface.
EXAMINE LOOK GET SHOOT YES NO (SPOILER!!)
Not to mention the delight in trying something obscure and discovering
that it works. Why give away all the hidden goodies on the spot?
I'm not saying your game will be crap if you choose to follow this
idea you've had, simply that, since you'll be effectively chosing to
limit and age your game by a decade or so, it will only be able to go
so far in the modern player's mind before hitting the roof of the cage
you've built for it.
-MattF
Sanguis Minimus Corpus Animus
Carl Muckenhoupt
lust_fo...@hotmail.com says...
> I can't imagine 'Spider and web' with a
> dictated 1980's interface.
Funny you should say this. I've often thought that 'Spider and Web' is
one of the few works of modern IF that seems suited to a graphical
adaptation with a point-and-click interface. Something with a Myst-style
smart cursor, say, and inventory objects that can be clicked on things,
including each other. That's an even more limited interface than a verb
menu, and yet most of the puzzles could be translated directly.
Gadget
wrote:
>I'm not saying your game will be crap if you choose to follow this
>idea you've had, simply that, since you'll be effectively chosing to
>limit and age your game by a decade or so, it will only be able to go
>so far in the modern player's mind before hitting the roof of the cage
>you've built for it.
In a game, there is always a cage, if you will. There are always
limits. Some should be concealed to give you the proper illusion. Some
should be well known to the player to make the game fair.
Also: I don't see how listing verbs would age the game. I'm not
talking three letter verb-noun commands... The game could still be
Infocom-standard in its grammar. Just with the verbs known to you.
John Colagioia
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote in message news:<9m3ar4$d9g$1...@news.panix.com>...
[...]
> > Once a brute-force solution presents itself to me, my enjoyment of the
> > game is pretty much done for.
> So how is this different to any other game where the player is presented
> with a known set of possible moves? Can you imagine sitting a person down
> at a chess board and not telling them exactly how all the pieces can move
> before they start? Perhaps in the near future when IF becomes more popular
> than chess they will introduce new secret moves for the Bishop that only
> a few people know about.
How do you know this already hasn't happened...?
More seriously, chess is a bit different than IF. The chess equivalent of listing the verbs
would be to give every chess player a copy of some "famous chess moves" book, and ONLY let them
choose attacks and defenses listed in that book.
You can still play the game, and some people (possibly even many people) may even enjoy it
more, but it changes the nature of the game, significantly enough that it wouldn't really be
"chess" anymore. Not that IF-with-verblist would be different than IF-without-verblist, but
the game would be significantly different in both cases.
For the record, I hate those games, simply because, when I hit a dead end, I start taking the
brute force approach. "attack bag?" No? How about "close bag"? Still no. What if I "drop
bag"? No good. "eat bag"? Lather, rinse, repeat, until I happen on the right verb/noun
combination or I start cursing the author.
Oh, and not to mention games where there are verbs which might literally spoil the game.
Consider what "The Meteor, The Stone And A Long Glass Of Sherbet" would have felt like if you
were given a list up-front telling you that "cast (spell name)" was a verb, which could be
abbreviated to just the name of the spell...and games which (somehow) use dynamically-generated
verbs (perhaps for some sort of language-barrier problem) are right out.
Again, a fine game can be written within these constraints. I just prefer games without them.
mattF
>
> Funny you should say this. I've often thought that 'Spider and Web' is
> one of the few works of modern IF that seems suited to a graphical
> adaptation with a point-and-click interface.
Ah, no, i meant a puny vic-20 text format, not a hip post-c64 graphic
whatsit.
Interesting tangent, actually... I'm trying to picture certain IF
games being converted to a modern-day graphic format...
Hunter, in darkness: "I can't see a f****n thing." - Gamestar
I0: "I can't see a f****n thing. Friggen censorship." - Gameguy
Galatea: "Profound and enjoyable, but one has to question the wisdom
of Westwood studio's FMV casting of Michael Biehn in a wig as the
central character." - Gameperson
Heroine's Mantle: "Michael Biehn AGAIN?? God damnit!" - GameTyrant
The Incredibly Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane: "This would be
really cool without graphics." - Gamegame
Daryl McCullough
I don't agree with that...
S
P
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S
F
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S
P
I
D
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R
A
N
D
W
E
B
A major point of Spider and Web is that the textual descriptions
are lies. I don't know how you could simulate that with a graphical
point-and-click interface.
--
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
Carl Muckenhoupt
With images that are lies, of course. Or even, where appropriate, with
words; point-and-click input does not preclude textual output (or, for
that matter, speech). Final Fantasy VII pulls a similar trick (an
interactive flashback that later turns out to be untrue) in a graphical
environment, so it's not impossible. For that matter, the mechanism for
the flashback in S&W (some sort of mind probe) is not as basically text-
like as the one in FF7 (a character telling a story).
The voice-activated switch is a more serious problem. I don't see any
good way to adapt that action to a GUI, especially when it comes to the
crucial scene where it's actually used. That's why I said *most* of the
puzzles could be translated easily. But hey, other than the game's one
defining moment...
Passenger Pigeon
Muckenhoupt <ca...@wurb.com> wrote:
> With images that are lies, of course. Or even, where appropriate, with
> words; point-and-click input does not preclude textual output (or, for
> that matter, speech). Final Fantasy VII pulls a similar trick (an
> interactive flashback that later turns out to be untrue) in a graphical
> environment, so it's not impossible. For that matter, the mechanism for
> the flashback in S&W (some sort of mind probe) is not as basically text-
> like as the one in FF7 (a character telling a story).
>
> The voice-activated switch is a more serious problem. I don't see any
> good way to adapt that action to a GUI, especially when it comes to the
> crucial scene where it's actually used. That's why I said *most* of the
> puzzles could be translated easily. But hey, other than the game's one
> defining moment..
heh. the voice-activated switch was also the one point I got hung up on
designing a movie version of Spider and Web in my head.
well, not the voice-activated switch itself, but the problem that the
audience has no idea what tools the agent is carrying, and how they can
be applied. the codeword for the voice switch is merely the worst
example of this.
I still think it would make a really good movie, though.
--
William Burke, passenge...@hotmail.com contrariwise
Before you presume my rationality, I'm a Theatre major, Music minor.
I don't represent UCSC; it represents me. Go Slugs!
http://www.passengerpigeon.net (not com, not org)
Daryl McCullough
>
>In article <MPG.15f07e9d7...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>, Carl
>Muckenhoupt <ca...@wurb.com> wrote:
>
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>heh. the voice-activated switch was also the one point I got hung up on
>designing a movie version of Spider and Web in my head.
>
>well, not the voice-activated switch itself, but the problem that the
>audience has no idea what tools the agent is carrying, and how they can
>be applied. the codeword for the voice switch is merely the worst
>example of this.
>
>
>I still think it would make a really good movie, though.
Absolutely! I think it could be fairly low-budget, too.
Maybe Zarf could pitch the idea to the director of _Memento_.
Michael Kinyon
> Now I must go delete [Textfire Zugzwang++] from my hard
> drive, burn my notes, and shoot all of my beta-testers.
Oh dear. Well, I guess that will legitimately get
me out of my teaching responsibilities for the
semester.
MK
--
Michael K. Kinyon | email: mki...@wmich.edu
Department of Mathematics | http://unix.cc.wmich.edu/~mkinyon/
Western Michigan University | phone: (616) 387-1417
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5248 USA | fax: (616) 387-4530
marksimo
> For the record, I hate those games, simply because, when I hit a dead end,
I start taking the
> brute force approach. "attack bag?" No? How about "close bag"? Still
no. What if I "drop
> bag"? No good. "eat bag"? Lather, rinse, repeat, until I happen on the
right verb/noun
> combination or I start cursing the author.
Personally, I don't find that brute forcing things detracts from my
enjoyment of a game. (speaking from the graphic point and click adventures
I've played. Especially the Lucasarts ones, like Monkey Island) I find that
I don't resort to brute forcing unless I am completely stuck. It is a last
resort. And I assume that most players approach these games the same way, in
the sense that they won't, the first time they play the game, begin to test
every combination of actions with objects/objects with other objects.
So long as the solution seems logical, and it isn't solved completely by
accident the first time I come across it, I don't mind that I stumbled
across the answer in my brute forcing desperation. If I think "Ah-ha, why
didn't I think of that?" afterwards, I'd say the puzzle was designed well.
If I think "What the heck?" after I solve a problem, then it's lousy
design... I admit, though, lots of graphic adventures end up with "what the
heck" solutions. Perhaps it takes better puzzle design and structuring so
that this does not happen.
Personally, I don't see the difference between brute forcing a puzzle and
consulting a walkthrough or asking for hints.
Just my semi-coherent ramblings, I'm not even sure if I completely agree
with what I say, after I re-read what I wrote... ah well. :)
Matthew W. Miller
wrote:
>On Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:14:43 -0400, "Muffy St. Bernard"
><muffys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>As someone who hated solving puzzles and mainly played IF for the joy of
>>exploring and seeing the plot advance, I appreciated having the limited
>>vocabulary spelled out to me.
>wouldn't be any 'guess the verb'.
Right. Instead there'd be 'guess the noun', like there is all through
Dare to Dream.
--
Matthew W. Miller -- mwmi...@columbus.rr.com
Gadget
erm, why? If the nouns correspond with their visible description,
there is no guessing.
Branko Collin
Most text adventure games list the nouns you can use when you enter
'look'.
Try it! You might like it! ;-)
--
Real Men Don't Need Anaesthetics
Branko Collin
wrote:
>> For the record, I hate those games, simply because, when I hit
>> a dead end, I start taking the brute force approach. "attack
>> bag?" No? How about "close bag"? Still no. What if I "drop
>> bag"? No good. "eat bag"? Lather, rinse, repeat, until I
>> happen on the right verb/noun combination or I start cursing
>> the author.
>
>Personally, I don't find that brute forcing things detracts from my
>enjoyment of a game.
[...]
>Personally, I don't see the difference between brute forcing a puzzle and
>consulting a walkthrough or asking for hints.
I agree. The brute force method can be a last approach before you give
up. A one but last, even, as I do not like to use hints or
walkthroughs, afraid that I might stumble onto spoilers.
ally.mon
> On 23 Aug 2001 21:20:10 -0700, lust_fo...@hotmail.com (mattF)
> wrote:
>
> >I'm not saying your game will be crap if you choose to follow this
> >idea you've had, simply that, since you'll be effectively chosing to
> >limit and age your game by a decade or so, it will only be able to go
> >so far in the modern player's mind before hitting the roof of the cage
> >you've built for it.
>
> In a game, there is always a cage, if you will. There are always
> limits. Some should be concealed to give you the proper illusion. Some
> should be well known to the player to make the game fair.
>
> Also: I don't see how listing verbs would age the game. I'm not
> talking three letter verb-noun commands... The game could still be
> Infocom-standard in its grammar. Just with the verbs known to you.
What about limiting the *required* vocabulary to a known subset,
but implementing alternative constructions for those who want parsers
to understand as much natural language as possible?
(Alright, that's basically the way it's being done; except that the
instructions don't usually say "These are all the verbs you need.")
I hate having to come up with obscure verbs (though that's almost
never the case); my active vocabulary may be a tad smaller than a
native speaker's. But it makes me feel good if I can "put the x down
on the floor", or "caress" or "incinerate" or "write with" it. Gives
me a sense of completeness.
Making the *required* verbs known to the player may be a good idea
in some cases. Just where does "required" end? You may be able to
"touch" or "think about" or "write on" an item, or to "hug" or
"comfort" an NPC, but it might not be *neccessary*--not neccessary
to reach the endgame, that is, taking the straightest route from
Beginning to End.
Would you include those verbs in the "verbs list"? Would including
them feel like "see, this is an arty game, so be sure to MEDITATE ON
everything"?
Would leaving them out discourage players from trying them anyway?
Wouldn't that sort of hurt a game that doesn't *focus* on the
"required" actions, or on the "mechanical" puzzles it uses as an,
uhm, story-structuring aid?
~ally.mon
Carl Muckenhoupt
kitty...@web.de says...
>
> What about limiting the *required* vocabulary to a known subset,
> but implementing alternative constructions for those who want parsers
> to understand as much natural language as possible?
"The Mulldoon Legacy" does this. And yes, I've found myself consulting
the verb list when stuck.
Carl Muckenhoupt
>
> Most text adventure games list the nouns you can use when you enter
> 'look'.
Hmm... no, I don't think that's true. The following is fairly common:
>LOOK
Machine Room
You are surrounded by vast machines covered with
blinking lights. A control panel is visible on
one of the more imposing machines.
>EXAMINE PANEL
The panel holds a red button, a green button, a
lever, and an LED display.
I wouldn't call this "guess-the-noun", though. The only times I've ever
really had to "guess-the-noun" (aside from joke games like Textfire's
"Flowers for Algernon") are in games that say things like "You can make
out something at the bottom of the river."
Jon Ingold
> I wouldn't call this "guess-the-noun", though. The only times I've
ever
> really had to "guess-the-noun" (aside from joke games like Textfire's
> "Flowers for Algernon") are in games that say things like "You can
make
> out something at the bottom of the river."
Raises guilty hand?
Jon
Jon Ingold
Carl Muckenhoupt <ca...@wurb.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.15f2ecb73...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
I figured: (1) include a verb list, because then no-one can complain
about guess-the-verb, or at any rate, not too badly; and (2) make it
really, really, really big.
Jon
Aris Katsaris
Branko Collin <col...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3b88dfd...@news.xs4all.nl...
And most text adventure games don't use any verb that isn't listed in
a standard dictionary... They are *still* considered guess-the-verb
though.
I've already once called "Shade" a guess-the-noun game... It struck
me as one in places atleast with the sensitive triggers and all...
When you have a truly *huge* list of nouns/objects to manipulate then
even having only one verb ('USE') doesn't help much...
Aris Katsaris
Branko Collin
<kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
>
>Branko Collin <col...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
>news:3b88dfd...@news.xs4all.nl...
>> On Sun, 26 Aug 2001 10:18:32 GMT, mwmi...@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W.
>> Miller) wrote:
>> >
>> >Right. Instead there'd be 'guess the noun', like there is all through
>> >Dare to Dream.
>>
>> Most text adventure games list the nouns you can use when you enter
>> 'look'.
>
>And most text adventure games don't use any verb that isn't listed in
>a standard dictionary... They are *still* considered guess-the-verb
>though.
A standard dictionary lists thousands of verbs. And those are only a
fraction of all verbs available. Not the mention verbing, which seems
to be very popular in for instance the USA.
As a non-native speaker of English I was completely nonplussed by
clothes in early text adventures. Until I found out that I should not
'wear' and 'unwear/drop' or 'put on' and 'take off' them, but that I
should don and doff them. A little brute force would have saved me a
lot of unnecessary frustration there.
>I've already once called "Shade" a guess-the-noun game... It struck
>me as one in places atleast with the sensitive triggers and all...
>
>When you have a truly *huge* list of nouns/objects to manipulate then
>even having only one verb ('USE') doesn't help much...
I cannot talk about every game available, because I have not played
them. Most adventure games I have played so far all seem to follow a
pattern. You are in a room. There are somewhere between one and five
objects in the room which you can manipulate, and through searching
the room or manipulating the objects you uncover a couple more
objects. Then you go to the next room, discover between one and five
more objects, et cetera.
Even with a limited vocabulary, the number of operations you can
perform in a game is (# of verbs time # of nouns =) a lot. So I do not
think it really matters wether you have a lot of objects or only a
few, because in most games, even 'a few' means adding a lot of
complexity. That is not a problem per se, as our brains are equiped to
deal with some complexity. However, if the number of verbs is
unlimited (because you basically do not know them), then that can
become too much complexity to handle very quickly.
Aris Katsaris
>
> As a non-native speaker of English I was completely nonplussed by
> clothes in early text adventures. Until I found out that I should not
> 'wear' and 'unwear/drop' or 'put on' and 'take off' them, but that I
> should don and doff them. A little brute force would have saved me a
> lot of unnecessary frustration there.
Those were just rotten games, then. The problem wasn't the inability
to apply brute force, it was the inability of the program to understand a
verb... The problem wasn't that *you* didn't try "don", the problem was
the *game* didn't understand "wear".
The problem was then that the vocabulary of the game *was* limited.
Not that it wasn't.
> I cannot talk about every game available, because I have not played
> them. Most adventure games I have played so far all seem to follow a
> pattern. You are in a room. There are somewhere between one and five
> objects in the room which you can manipulate, and through searching
> the room or manipulating the objects you uncover a couple more
> objects. Then you go to the next room, discover between one and five
> more objects, et cetera.
Okay and there may be 50 rooms with 5 items each.
"USE something WITH something" can be guess-the-noun just as
easily as another game can be guess-the-verb.
> However, if the number of verbs is
> unlimited (because you basically do not know them), then that can
> become too much complexity to handle very quickly.
An unlimited number of verbs would (in good games) not have *you*
need to know them, because the *game* should understand them and
you could use any synonym for the action you want.
Aris Katsaris
Gadget
<kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
>Okay and there may be 50 rooms with 5 items each.
>"USE something WITH something" can be guess-the-noun just as
>easily as another game can be guess-the-verb.
>
The point is: if you have a lighter and want to light a candle with
it, USE LIGHTER ON CANDLE makes perfect sense. If the way you can use
an object is so obscure that you have to think of far fetched verbs,
the puzzle is badly designed. Then there should have been hints that
point you towards using the object correctly.
I mean: you can place a Chaboozle in a Froblomatron and expect the
player to chew the Chabloozle and blow bubbles with it into the
Vremargamatic, but if you don't supply enough hints that this is the
desired action, you have a guess the verb problem. If properly
designed, you can handle the mentioned Chaboozle/Vremargamatic puzzle
with a very straightforward set of commands.
John Colagioia
[...]
> > However, if the number of verbs is
> > unlimited (because you basically do not know them), then that can
> > become too much complexity to handle very quickly.
> An unlimited number of verbs would (in good games) not have *you*
> need to know them, because the *game* should understand them and
> you could use any synonym for the action you want.
I would venture to say, too, that some mileage might be gained by clever use
of "generic" verbs. That is, verbs like "use," which would be aware of the
state of objects, and therefore pick "the most obvious thing" to do with the
object.
For anyone thinking of this, consider two points. First, do not eliminate
the other verbs. Nobody wants to play a game that runs, "Use X. Use Y. Use X
with Y. Go North. Use Z with X." I hope not, at any rate. Second, be
careful about what is "the obvious thing." Remember that, in Windows,
double-clicking "does the obvious thing." And, yet, people are surprised at
the results often enough to be statistically important...
What I would suggest for such a verb would be some extra programming to
eliminate all possibilities before accepting "use." That is, if the only
verb available to a gun is "shoot," and there is only one character in the
room, then "use gun" should shoot that character. However, if we can also
"clean the gun," or if there is more than one character capable of being a
target, then the action should fail, explaining that more detail is
necessary.
But I agree with Mr. Katsaris. If the game doesn't make it apparent what
you're supposed to be doing, then the author is at fault, rather than the
player or genre. Reducing the verb list merely ignores that responsibility
by enumerating the possibilities.
Matthew W. Miller
>mwmi...@columbus.rr.com (Matthew W. Miller) wrote:
>>>"Muffy St. Bernard" <muffys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>I appreciated having the limited vocabulary spelled out to me.
>>>Well, I don't think the puzzles would be easier to solve... There just
>>>wouldn't be any 'guess the verb'.
>>Right. Instead there'd be 'guess the noun', like there is all through
>>Dare to Dream.
>Most text adventure games list the nouns you can use when you enter
>'look'.
Dare to Dream isn't a text adventure. ("So why are you talking about it
here, huh?!" roars the peanut gallery.) Well, I guess I'll switch gears
over to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure, then.
If the mention of the title isn't ringing any bells, I'm referring
to the graphic adventure game that Epic Megagames released in 1993. The
extremely dumbed-down interface means that the solution to every single
puzzle involves using an inventory item on a screen hotspot, so you get
all the worst aspects of a klutzy inventory system (click backpack item to
open inventory, click item, read terminally lame description, click OK...)
*and* hunting pixels. It gets really dull-- then when you realize *how*
dull it's getting and start systematically using every inventory item on
every hotspot you can find, it gets even duller! Quite an achievement.
Joe Rheaume
There's way too much guess-the-noun in diku-based MUDs. Someone should
adapt their IF language and compiler for writing MUDs.
Joe Rheaume, Scary Bug.
Oh no! You just walked into the slathering fangs of a lurking grue!