Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hobbes!jondr
From: jondr@sco.COM (Karen Silkwood's car)
Subject: Re: What words to use and recognize
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 22:48:05 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Dec15.224805.6254@sco.com>
References: <62856@mimsy.umd.edu>
Sender: news@sco.com (News admin)
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avjewe@.umd.edu (Andrew D. Jewell) writes:
>The First Law of Parsing :
>	Any word displayed by the game should be recognized by the parser.

until parsers make great strides i think this is going to remain fairly
impossible.

>The Second Law of Parsing :
>	One should be able to "win" the game using only words displayed
>	by the game.

this is just dumb.  it means you have to give away the solution more or less
implicitly in every game you write.  for example: suppose there's a rope
that you have to swing on to cross a ravine.  why would you ever need to
mention the word "swing" in describing it?  it just gives away the answer.
i'd prefer to let the player think of possible things that you can do with
ropes (tie stuff to them, swing on them, cut them off and use them to fasten
other stuff down...)

>(Yes, I include adverbs. They increase the power and
>flexibility of commands, and don't create any problems that verbs haven't
>already created.)

i think adverbs are a bad idea.  this discussion has already been hashed out
pretty thoroughly on r.a.int-fiction.  how are you going to know that you
have to enter "PULL HARD ON LEVER" instead of just "PULL ON LEVER"?

>>HOW CAN ONE OPEN A BOOK
>One can open gently or strongly.

to me, this just adds a completely unnecessary level of detail to the game.
you're going to be going around asking the game for every possible nuance of
every possible object.  i think this would detract from the experience,
rather than enhance it.

>How can we inform users WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE GAME of the verbs and
>adverbs available to them. To force players to think about the right thing
>to DO while freeing them from thoughts about the right thing to SAY.

i say don't bother.  it's already hard enough guessing which sentence
permutation is accepted without adding another variable to the equation.
i want "slide card through slot" to be enough.  "slide card quickly through
slot" doesn't make for an enjoyable game in my book.

-- 
Jon Drukman (God's personal DJ)                 uunet!sco!jondr   jondr@sco.com
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I was an infinitely hot and dense dot.
