Hi Tom.
that is unfortunately true. Myself, I always find combat and stats gives a
nice measure of how your doing and wht to overcome, plus, as with games like
kerkerkruip can even be a challenge in itself, as well as provide extra
rewards.
To take one example, I remember when I played through the original ff series
gamebook Vault of the vampire with a friend of mine (we played
cooperatively, he read the book, i wrote the charsheet and rolled dice, and
we both debated the choices).
This particular puzzle was a code on a secret lock. To crack the code, you
needed a specific clue that you could only get from a past character. once
you had that clue you then had to substitute letters to find the message
which let you open the lock. This was totally unnecessary to the game, you
could complete the book without it, but if you unlocked the door you found a
suit of armour which hugely boosted your defense rating.
Ironically a remarkably similar puzzles exists in Windhammer from chronicles
of arborell, where taking the right options lets you have a distinct reward.
It's the same with combat, since even where the combat itself is just a dice
rolling fest, it can let you progress a little, especially in an exploration
maze type game. This is why I often find even the very standard eamon style
dungeon crawl games where you basically wander around, fight many monsters
and grab treasure still to be very engaging to play, since they let me
progress and explore, give me the odd small puzzle like a locked door I have
to find the key to, and give me plenty of action to keep the exploring fresh
even when the games' environment is not too enspired.
Then of course a good! combat system can be a challenge in itself, and
provide some really interesting gameplay in terms of random items and
affects etc, which you need to keep on your toes about, ---- Wumpus 200 did
a great job of this, but again the if community really slated that game.
Beware the Grue! (who would be much more fun if it was possible to fight
him).
Dark.
---
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