HI Dark, Well, I've certainly had my fair share of those experiences too, but to be honest a lot of it comes down to the game creator and not really the fault of Adrift, Inform, etc. Thanks to some urging from Ibrahim i've grabbed the manuals for Adrift 4.0, Inform 7, Tads, etc and have been looking into how triditional interactive fiction games are made. Fact of the matter was some of my own views and beliefs about the if languages were wrong because I hadn't touched Inform for a very long time and the language has gotten far more advanced than the last time I looked at it. While I have played Adrift games for a number of years now I really hadn't looked at the generator since the 3.9 days because they went to a shareware license and I wasn't willing to spend the money on it. However, I recently downloaded the demo of the Adrift 4.0 generator and am surprised at how much has changed since 3.9. I actually managed to build a simple Vietnam war game using Adrift, and if I had a licenced copy of the generator I could have made it into a full scaled action adventure game.
However, getting back to the point the thing I've discovered is you can create practically an unlimited number of aliases for objects like gun, machine gun, rifle, etc and that makes the input system much more flexable. If you decide to write your own commands you can make an unlimited number of commands, refrazing the command a few different ways, making it easier to guess the correct verb or item name. Unfortunately, in those situations where you must guess the exact fraze it sounds to me like the developer was just being lazy and didn't want to add any alternative commands or alias to the game. Though, I can say if I do decide to use Inform, Adrift, Tads, whatever I will try and add as many different alternatives to make them easier to play. On 2/19/11, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > I actually thought this was a good idea first off, but obviously you've been > concerned with mota. > > About output I don't mind so long as it isn't screen reader specific, ie, > the game outputs text only to jaws, window eyes etc, but obviously that > won't be the case if your planning something cross platform. > > Sapi auto speach would make life slightly easier I suppose for people not as > used to reading the screen with review cursers as I am, but personally I > don't mind. > > Actually, what I do when I play if games is use both methods, I use win > frotz to output to sapi, and then Hal's virtual curser to reread or check > spellings. > > As regards format though, that's the big question. > > Standard if languages aren't good at creating games with combat or character > stats, so I deffinately agreee on this decision of yours, especially if your > looking at a game with at least some rpg like features rather than just > parza based puzles. > > Lastly, for parza. > > I must admit the reason i don't play if anymore, is simply that I got too > sick of puzles which were either completely obscure and unguessable, or > required a ridiculous sequence of commands which were totally unnatural. > > For instance in the pentori prequal I met a wizard who said "we need you to > save the kingdom" and nothing else. > > After4 a while of abortive attempts I finally had to type "ask about need" > which is just insane. > > A conversation menue with various choices to ask would've been much better. > > Also, if you've only got a basic "use" or "use with" command, you can make > your puzles far more obscure, sinse the player has a limited amount of > possibilities, namely, only what items and stationary objects are around. > > Imagine this puzle for instance, you've just been locked in the amo store of > evil Pirate peetes pirate ship which has in it a barrel of gun pouder. > > In your inventory you have two flint arrow heads. > > in a standard if game you could spend ages mucking about trying to tip the > pouder of the barrel typing "tip barrel" or "empty barrel" or "get all > barrel" (I've been in this situation in several if titles myself), with the > barrel typing "strike" flint or "light pouder" or "rub flint" or goodness > knows what. > > however having a generic use command means you can just use barrel, which > produces "pile of gun pouder" then use flint with other flint to produce a > spark. "use barrel" twice could also be used for part of the puzle where you > need to get in the barrel to protect yourself from the explosion, as opposed > to "enter barrel" "wear barrel" and all the other fun. > > It strikes me English is far too imprecise a language to make good game > controls, ---- especially if your righting from scratch and on't have the in > built redundency which most standard if Parza's have, ---- eg, get and take > doing the same thing. > > I'd deffinately prefer the menue situation, which could also be good for > combat too. > > Beware the grue! > > dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
