Re: Starving your players (was Re: Instant Death)


16 Mar 95 17:47:58 GMT

gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (Gareth Rees) writes:

>I get very annoyed by games that start out with the requirement to find
>food quickly or die. It seems to me that the authors are sufficiently
>desperate for puzzles to solve that they cast all ideas of realism
>aside. In real life, people can go for very long periods (some months)
>without food. In temperate climates, it is possible to survive for a
>few days without drinking any water at all.

I've sort of wondered if this starve-the-player thing is also
something approximating historical momentum. The first major IF game I
can think of to implement sleeping, drinking and eating using various
timers was Enchanter. And I sort of got the sense that they might have
been thinking "hey - this is a cool feature!" and then really
overdoing it by having the player expire miserably if s/he doesn't get
something to eat or drink within a certain period of time, etc. And
then hundreds of other games followed suit out of habit.

Of course, I could be totally out to lunch on this one.

*** You haven't eaten enough lunch. You have died ***

- Neil K.

-- 
  49N 16' 123W 7'  /  Vancouver, BC, Canada  /  n_k_guy@sfu.ca