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From: goetz@cs.buffalo.edu (Phil Goetz)
Subject: Re: When should "all" be allowed?
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References: <2ldjflINNm8t@life.ai.mit.edu> <JAMIE.94Mar7191503@kauri.vuw.ac.nz> <)> <2lfld2INN76@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 19:46:04 GMT
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In article <2lfld2INN76@life.ai.mit.edu>, David Baggett <dmb@ai.mit.edu> wrote:
>If you type "examine all" in the first room of my current game, you get
>literally a dozen screenfulls of description.  You *do not want* to do
>this.  Furthermore, I *do not want* this to happen, because it destroys any
>feeling of exploration the player would normally get from examing things in
>turn.  Players have no qualms destroying their own game experience along
>the way to solving the puzzles!  As the designer I want players to slow
>down and actually *read* the text, *feel* what's going on, and *understand*
>the point of the work.  (This is not the same as saying that I want the
>experience to be tedious -- surely there is a happy medium between no
>immersion and frustratingly realistic immersion.)

This is the fascist school of literature, exemplified by educational
stories which intersperse plot with informative stuff that the
kids skim over.  If your game is basically puzzle solving, I'm going
to want to solve the puzzles, and anything that slows me down is a
nuisance.

>There seems to be an "anything should be allowed" sentiment here lately.
>As I've tried to show before, this is in direct conflict with having an
>actual plot (in the literary sense).  For there to be a real plot, the
>designer must occassionally impose certain constraints on the player's
>behavior.  "All" tends to screw this up: having "all" work with "examine,"
>for example, allows players to wander around typing "examine all" in every
>location, thereby instantly overturning every rock, looking behind every
>mirror -- automatically zeroing in on exactly the important details the
>designer wants the player to *discover*.

I have yet to find a game where we are supposed to "discover" things
through reasoning rather than through simply examining everything
we encounter.  This is such deeply-ingrained behavior that if you
ever do write a game where I don't have to examine everything,
you should state that at the start of the game.

>The lack of realism here isn't bad in and of itself, but the consequence is
>that the player is not immersed in the game. "Examine all" destroys the
>feeling that you, the player, are actually *there*, and not just solving
>little puzzles.

The only thing "examine all" destroys for me is the tedium of typing
"x door.  x cheez door. x stamp.  x postcard. read postcard. x bed.
look under bed. look behind bed. move bed. push bed."  If that doesn't
destroy the feeling of being there, I don't know what does.

If you _are_ just solving little puzzles (which we are), then
you shouldn't try to cover that up by making it tedious.

>Again, I'm interested in hearing whether anyone can make a case that "all"
>should be allowed for something other than inventory mainpulation.
>
>Dave Baggett

The customer is always right.  If I want to use "all", and you can
provide it, then do so.

<<< smiley mode ON >>>

In fact, I think ALL should be used as a verb, so "all rock"
will result in

ask rock: The rock has nothing to say.
eat rock: You would chip a tooth.
examine rock:  It's a rock.
feel rock:  It has sharp edges.
hit rock: Ouch!
lick rock: It feels rough to your tongue.
weigh rock: It's about a pound.
drop rock: OK.
throw rock: You don't have it.

Then, of course, we would solve the adventure via repeated use of

ALL ALL

;)

Phil goetz@cs.buffalo.edu

Chaos is the source of complexity.
