Re: That's not important - leave it alone.


28 Dec 1995 02:35:07 GMT

In article <4bspgt$4h6@grid.direct.ca>, Neil K. Guy <nkg@grid.direct.ca> wrote:

> 1) Don't implement unimportant objects mentioned in descriptions. I
>really don't like this. Reading "I don't know the word 'kumquat.'" or
>"You don't need the word 'turnip' to solve this game." over and over
>gets pretty tiresome.

This is so annoying that Brenda Laurel cites it as a favorite example of
"computer programs with brain-damage" in _Computers as Theatre_ (which
isn't even about interactive fiction). I think it's a hideous faux pas in
text adventures. If the talking part of the game uses vocabulary, the
listening part should handle that vocabulary. Otherwise the (already poor)
illusion that the reader's dealing with some kind of agent is completely
shattered.

>2) Tell the player outright to ignore the object - implement it as a basic
>decoration. "That's not important; leave it alone." I don't like this
>either - it's rather rude and shatters any illusion of reality for me.

This is lame, because the "not important" message can at the very least be
made interesting or amusing. When done well, this is fine (IMHO).

>3) Don't implement any objects at all. So you go into a grocery store
>and it's totally empty - there isn't anything there.

This overlaps a bit with #1. Also dreadful. I think IF requires something
of a naturalistic bent (describe everything in detail --- not just the
things that are directly relevant to the action), because it purports to
simulate a world.

>[4]) Make things inaccessible.

For buildings lining a street (your example), this may be the best
approach. But what's wrong with something between #3 and #4? Just
simplify the world so that you're simulating only an approximtion of a city
block. Perhaps you'll have three storefronts, whereas a real city block
might have eight. You only have to simulate enough for the reader to
suspend disbelief; besides, too much detail can be daunting.

>So how to deal with this? How do you build up a convincing simulation
>without bogging the player down in frustrating detail?

You want to have enough simulation for the reader to feel as though he's
really there. I don't think you have to go very deep to get this feeling.
But this is secondary to the requirement that the game understand the words
it uses to describe things --- that's an entirely different issue.

>Spoiler mode on. From now on irrelevant decoration items will be
>identified as such.

Not being a puzzle IF guy, I don't like this much. I see nothing wrong
with putting such "spoilers" in all over the place. And the technique
you've used here:

>You pull at the locked door. Somehow you get the feeling it's not that
>important, really, and give up.

is a basic and generally very effective one (IMHO) --- you inject thoughts
into the player/reader's mind via intuition.

Dave Baggett
__
dmb@ai.mit.edu
"Mr. Price: Please don't try to make things nice! The wrong notes are *right*."
--- Charles Ives (note to copyist on the autograph score of The Fourth of July)