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From: gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (G.D. Rees)
Subject: Re: A bill of players' rights
Message-ID: <1993May19.195915.20566@infodev.cam.ac.uk>
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Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
References: <1993May18.223852.18303@infodev.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 19:59:15 GMT
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In article <1993May18.223852.18303@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, gan10@phx.cam.ac.uk 
(Graham Nelson) writes:
|> 
|>     1.  Not to be killed without warning
|> 
|>   At its most basic level, this means that a room with three exits, two of
|> which lead to instant death and the third to treasure, is unreasonable
|> without some hint.  

I wonder why games bother to kill the player at all.  I guess it can add 
something to the atmosphere of tension if you feel that you can be killed 
or hurt at any moment.  But which of these games would you rather play:

    You are on the south side of a chasm.
    >north

    You plunge to your death.
    *** You have died ***

or:

    You are on the south side of a chasm.
    >north
 
    You decide not to throw yourself to your death.

The first game merely annoys the player in a manner that contributes nothing 
to the plot, and if that kind of thing occurs a lot then the player will just 
learn to save more frequently.  The second game also demonstrates that the 
player's guess was wrong, but in a way that allows the player to quickly try 
other guesses instead of having to go back to their last save file and 
re-solve the last couple of problems.  I intuit that the second game is 
likely to hold the player's attention for longer.

I think Colossal Cave had the right idea: when you died, you were merely 
docked a few points and sent back to the start location.

-- 
Gareth Rees <gdr11@phx.cam.ac.uk>
