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Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 09:38:52 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: [CONTENT] Considerations in puzzle design and PC motivation
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Joao Mendes wrote:
> Yahoy, :)
>
> John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com> wrote in
> news:3D95B15C.2060007@csi.com:

No more spoilers!

[...]
> Let me give my own answer, btw: if the door is not locked, there is no
> sufficient motivation for the 'player' to go explore the whole of the town.

This is true.  Except that the game then looks badly implemented.

"Why," I hear you ask.  Because the PC is wandering into places with
unimplemented (the pub) and nonexistant (the office) PCs, and you end
up with a very...Zorkish feel, where you're the only active figure in
the game (for the first scene, at least).

> In my opinion, exploring the town in the beginning of the game adds greatly
> to its enjoyment throughout. However, I feel that there is motivation for
> the PC to explore the town as thoroughly as I did before I made my mind up
> to try and break in (for which I had to resort to the hints provided, BTW).

I think someone else mentioned something like this back at the
beginning of the thread, but it bears repeating:  The nice thing
about having the town "open" at the beginning is that the exploration
is useful later.  It's not the way that "Anchorhead:  The Novel"
would have been written, but it's still not wasted exposition.

> The motivation is simply, if the agent doesn't come to me, I'll go to her.
> Find her where ever she is. Of course, she's not. But hey.

Heh...Well, she's around.  Here and there, as Hamlet mentioned
regarding Polonius...

