[Divunal-author]syntax and ambiguity

[Glyph Lefkowitz]

I've been wandering around the map quite a bit lately, and I thought I'd
share this authoring observations with the community at large:

When you're making a manipulable object, keep in mind not only what you
want the object to do, but how this behavior is to be invoked.  The best
way to test this is to ask lots of people to play-test your objects.

This leads me to the inference that we require more play-testers, but I'm
sure a release on Freshmeat and a note on the web-page to that effect will
resolve that problem :-)

I tend to idolize Infocom's series of games because I grew up with them --
however, I've succeeded too far in my goals to re-create the flavor of
those games.  We have copied some of the flaws, too.  Luckily, we have the
time to *fix* these flaws before we release.

The flaw I am talking about is "fighting with the parser".  This is
universally the most complained-about facet of Infocom's interactive
fiction archive.  (Oh, I was supposed to TURN THE SPLENDIFEROUS DARK CYAN
KNOB TO THE RIGHT not OPEN BLUE DOOR, etcetera...)  To some degree, our
parser is easier to use because it presents a more consistent interface
(to those willing to read the documentation and pay attention to it).  On
the other hand, specific puzzles are sometimes difficult to navigate.

In the "Smoking Room" [rikyu; library] there is a Lion's Head that must be
*turned*.  It cannot be pushed, pulled, or twisted.  Also, it cannot be
referred to as the "head", only as the "lion's head", nor as 'lion'.  All
of these things should be enabled if it is to be an interesting,
interactive puzzle.

Especially, verbs which aren't "quite right" should cause things to
happen.  If a user were to try and push or pull or touch the lion's head,
something slightly unusual should happen to let them know it's possible to
do something with it (that it's a 'special' object in some way.)  Also,
things like 'push' and 'pull', which are pretty close to the mark, should
give you've-almost-got-it messages such as, "As you attempt to pull on the
lion's head, you notice that it gives slightly and almost imperceptibly to
the left."  (Try to vary those messages a bit, too, so they don't try four
different things and notice that the head has moved a mile and a half to
the left, but always by the same increment.)  Depending on the intended
difficulty level of the puzzle, you may want to put in some additional
hint info there too.  (You notice the head [twists/turns] slightly to the
[left/right].)

Finally, give the user feedback when they do something, especially solving
a puzzle.  If it's likely to have been a hard puzzle with a lot of
brain-work and some trial and error, don't be afraid to be emphatic.  (In
the formerly seamless wall, a door swings open, leading into an abyssal
darkness!)

Another good example of this is something Tenth recently changed.  The
cockroach (occasionally present in the Demo center) had a "wind" verb.
Players tried to 'unlock' the roach with the key, so he made that wind the
roach once, and give the players a descriptive message.  The action of
"unlocking", in this case, would probably be the same as winding the roach
just once, so that's what he made it do, along with some helpful hints to 
the user.

I think that listing verbs would be a very bad idea, and except for the
first few, players should be mostly "in the dark", but this does mean that
the onus is on us, as authors, to make sure that if the players try the
right thing, it works.  So grab those thesuaruses, everybody.  More
importantly, have your areas tested by actual players ... if anyone wants
to start bringing playtesters on board, now would be a good time.

Thanks for listening...

----
The Tao is like a glob pattern:             It is masked but always present.
used but never used up.                     I don't know who built to it.
It is like the extern void:                 It came before the first kernel.
filled with infinite possibilities.         [glyph@twistedmatrix.com]