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From: cnquinn@cse.unsw.edu.au (Clark Quinn)
Subject: Re: Text Adventures
Message-ID: <1993Sep8.022440.25335@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU>
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Reply-To: cnquinn@cse.unsw.edu.au (Clark Quinn)
Organization: Dept of Comp Sci & Eng, Uni Of NSW, Oz
References: <747111937snx@hinrg.starconn.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 02:24:40 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <747111937snx@hinrg.starconn.com> mroberts@hinrg.starconn.com (Mike Roberts) writes:
 
>I think it's really
>something else going on:  I think the highly standardized command set
>in the Infocom games lets you get accustomed to "Infocom English" --
>that very small subset of English imperative sentence structures that
>Infocom games generally accept.  In this sense, perhaps the Infocom
>games were an early implementation of a limited parser!  In fact, they
>were visibly constrained, in that the documentation for an Infocom game
>always includes a complete list of verbs needed to complete the game.

It's clear that people negotiate meaning and grammar, and it's been
posited that a way to help a user understand what is appropriate
language is for an interface to use the language appropriate for
interactions.  If players want rich textual descriptions, but this is
misleading for the capabilities of the parser, then it can be proposed
that the best interface is two windows, one with rich textual
descriptions, and one that interacts with the user in the pidgin
language that both will understand.

Personally, I find the "text is the only form of fiction" view to be
narrow, and develop (in conjunction with talented students) graphic
environments, *supplemented* with text descriptions (I'm all for
multi-media as a way to engage the full panoply of experience in the
entertaining business of on-line problem-solving that constitutes the
major component of the challenge in adventures).  I will qualify that
statement to say that my goals are cognitive and instructional rather
than primarily entertainment.

-- Clark

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