Re: Annoying Adventure Thingies


25 Apr 1995 03:08:36 GMT

In article <3nf5g9$1138@news.doit.wisc.edu>,
Colm McCarthy <mlkuehl@students.wisc.edu> wrote:
>I'm midway through writing my first adventure game (I'm reluctant to use
>the I-F term!) in ten years, and I have a question.
>
>In this game, in the interest of player enjoyment, I have done away with
>the dark "I can't see anything!" locations, the whiney "I'm Hungry"
>messages and those blasted mazes.
Thank goodness! Enough of these cliches! The time has come for i-f in
general to move onto better things! Well, I never thought darkness was so
bad as long as I could walk through it into another room, but mazes and
hunger/thirst/sleepiness are unnecessary pains (But Save Princeton, though I
didn't care for it in general, had a really cool maze :)

>I've also made it impossible for the player to die, except at the very
>beginning where the player WILL die unless he/she/it fulfills a certain
>task. (REALLY annoying, I know, but necessary to plot development).
Ok, acceptable in this context. I'm not above killing the player if I give
lots of warning first.

>My question is this:
>
>What is considered a fair number of moves before instant death?
It depends on the situation. Assuming the thing comes at the very very start
of the game, and it's not immediately obvious, well, then, let's see. Give
the player about three moves to look around, check his/her inventory, look at
score, etc. Give the player a couple moves to look at objects in the room.
Give the player a couple moves to figure out how to prevent the death. Give
the player a move or two to hit the button or whatever. That sums to hmm..
say 5-8 moves before death? (This assumes it's something pretty simple, like
finding a button and pushing it to stop the elevator from crashing or somesuch.
More complex things need more time.)

>Any help would be much appreciated.
>
>C.A. McCarthy
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