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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: "Intro to Text Adventures" help topic?
Message-ID: <GDCt3B.BoB@world.std.com>
Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 01:49:58 GMT
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Stephen Granade  <sgranade@phy.duke.edu> wrote:
>The one I have used in the past (at least for "Losing Your Grip") is
>the one up on the competition page at
>http://www.textfire.com/comp01/if.html.

Can I just say that the first two example commands are rather odd?

   >GET THE SPIRAL
   >RAISE THE STOOL

Since the example commands don't explain what they mean, I would
hope for self-explanatory examples; hence I'd suggest something
which one would easily imagine getting (a spiral WHAT?), and
something which one could easily imagine having a reason to lift
(and 'RAISE' is not default Inform vocabulary, dunno about TADS)...
e.g. I'd suggest, say,

    >GET THE HAMMER
    >MOVE THE RUG

I also note that my default test to see whether I should bother
trying to use orders with an NPC used to be "NPC, HELLO", but I only
discovered this past comp that "HELLO" is not a default verb in
Inform, and thus is infrequently implemented, so it perhaps should
not be the first example order.  Similarly, few games implement
"FOLLOW ME".  How about "DOROTHY, GIVE ME THE SLIPPERS"?

SeanB
