Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
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From: ceforma@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Christopher E. Forman)
Subject: Re: Lamps in IF (was Re: How do I keep the dang lantern lit?)
Message-ID: <1995Sep10.173032.18068@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 17:30:32 GMT
References: <42ipaj$n8r@calvino.alaska.net> <42ksku$7fp@igor.rutgers.edu> <owls-
Organization: Illinois State University
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J. I. Drasner (owls@interport.net) wrote:
: Just out of curiosity, does anyone else feel that this aspect of a game is
: really unnecessary? Zork II (for some reason, one of my all-time
[SNIP]
: mean-spirited to me that a player should be penalized for taking too long
: to finish. I mean, where's the pleasure in FINALLY FINALLY figuring out a
: puzzle if the damn lamp goes out right afterward?

Well, I suppose it's a bit unfair, but if you did away with these kinds of
time limits, you'd also have to do away with ALL timers, since there would
always be the possibility of not finishing the puzzles in time.

Examples of this include: The earthquake in Zork III, the reliquary puzzle
in Beyond Zork, the flamingo in Zork Zero, the icicle in Trinity, simulation
mode in AMFV, the 12-hour limits in Deadline, Witness, and Moonmist, and the
list goes on and on.

Sometimes it's crucial to the plot to have a time limit (as in the Infocom
mysteries) -- the player can't have _forever_ to find out who did it, can he?
As for items such as the lamp in Zork, it'd be preferable to include some
method of recharging it.  With more unique items, though, this can't always
be the case.
-- 
C.E. Forman                                      ceforma@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu
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