Re: Ah Ha! The Results of the First Annual "Iffys".


09 Oct 1995 14:57:23 GMT

In article <453s8s$feq@alcor.usc.edu> jweinste@alcor.usc.edu (Jacob Solomon Weinstein) writes:

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From: jweinste@alcor.usc.edu (Jacob Solomon Weinstein)
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Date: 6 Oct 1995 11:24:28 -0700
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carl@fox.earthweb.com (Carl Muckenhoupt) writes about Toonesia and The One:

>I'd put both of them in the category of "could have been written in AGT with
>no appreciable decline in quality".

Umm--what do you mean by that? It sounds like a pretty harsh criticism,
but I'm not familir with AGT. Did I not use the TADS parser effectively?

It's not the parser. (AGT's parser is inferior to that of TADS, but that
isn't what I meant.) It's the way the world is built. I like detail. I
like background objects that are fully fleshed-out. I like doodads with
lots of parts that can be poked at individually. I like characters that do
more that just stand there, waiting to respond to your actions. These are all
things that AGT handles clumsily, if at all. Neither Toonesia nor The One
gave us much beyond Rooms containing Objects.

(NB: I have never tried writing in AGT, so I may be judging it harshly. My
observations are based on playing numerous AGT games. Since AGT is reputed
to be a system that's easy for non-programmers to use, it may be that it's
used primarily by people who don't want to take advantage of its more
advanced features. Assuming it has any.)

By the way, I'm reconsidering my judgement on The One. Based on reading
other peoples' comments, I think I missed most of the game by winning it
too quickly. Basically, I hooked the Big One on my first attempt at
fishing, then started over and tried with suboptimal gear to see if
anything special would happen. I only got two results: my bait would
disappear or I would catch a scrawny little fish. I certainly didn't
reel in any junk. How is it done?