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From: mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (John P. Mechalas)
Subject: Re: No Pictures?
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References: <8hFHDWC00awAQdtEZM@andrew.cmu.edu> <NJ.94Jan25231834@birch.cs.berkeley.edu> <2i5a3a$8da@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 02:21:58 GMT
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(possible minor Return to Zork spoilers below)

With all this discussion on pictures vs. no pictures and text vs. GUI, I
am curious as to what the general consensus has been about Return to Zork.
I've been an IF fan for many many years, and have tackeled (though not
always solved) most of the Infocom adventures.  I grew to love the
complex parsers that developed over the years, and I admit that it's
difficult for anything to replace them.

That's why I was so surpsrised by Return to Zork.  Not only was the "text"
removed from the IF gendre, but also the sentence parser as well.  At
first, I hated it:  I kept thinking how all the really weird combinations
of words I like to try are no longer possible.  And how the GUI would
give away all the puzzles.

As it turned out, this was not the case in general.  Although there were
a few puzzles where looking at the icons gave away what I supposed to do
next (the scenes with Boos, for example), or at least *hinted* at what
I should do, more often than not I found myself working just as hard on
the game as I did any other IF at the same difficulty level (I honestly
thought RTZ was too easy, as I was expecting something more along the
lines of Zork Zero, but that's another story).  Also, there were many
times where I actually _missed_ objects or "exits" when looking at the
pictures.

The text world has it's advantages in that you have to visualize the
world, and the objects in it.  But, it's easy (usually) to figure out
what is important and what isn't.  In a picture, especially when as
complex as those in RTZ's, it's easy to simply overlook an item that
blends in to the background.  There's obviously a trade-off here,
but I can't really tell whether there's a net gain or loss.  I still
enjoyed the game, and it still challeneged me.

Yes, some of the puzzles were out of place.  The Dwarven Mines (sheesh!)
comes to mind.  And, there were mazes, too (but at least you could map
them, making them bearable).  But all in all, it was well done.

I was also impressed with the NPC interaction, a step in a new direction
for IF.  Although not terribly complex (and a little bit brain-dead),
it's very well done for a _pioneering_ effort in character interaction.

So, after investing a few hours into the adventure, I found myself liking
it quite a bit.  Yes, it could have been better, but I think that's to
be expected.  Overall, I was very satisfied.

Any other thoughts?


Cheers,
John

--
John Mechalas                                          "I'm not an actor, but
mechalas@gn.ecn.purdue.edu                                 I play one on TV."
Aero Engineering, Purdue University                     #include disclaimer.h
