Re: Limitations of Inform and TADS?


Mon, 06 Nov 1995 09:04:31 -0500

On Sun, 5 Nov 1995 11:03:59 -0500, "Andrew C. Plotkin" <erkyrath+@CMU.EDU> wrote:
>I disagree. There *are* graphical adventures that make you think as
>much as the average text adventure. (I won't say the *best* text
>adventures.) Myst and Buried in Time have been large commercial
>successes, and they have the very familiar styles of puzzles we've
>seen since Colossal Caves. (And they don't do mapping for you.)

Okay, there are a few... but the majority of what I've seen don't stand
up to text adventures for enjoyment for me.

>Mind you, people were the same twenty years ago. The blossoming of
>graphical games comes from the expansion of the computer market beyond
>technophiles, crossed with the increased graphical capability of
>machines.

True. I also think that enjoying textual IF requires a certain mind-set
which has nothing to do with any of the things mentioned so far... it's
just one of those things you like or you don't like. I know plenty of
people who were hooked on Bard's Tale, King's Quest, etc. that tried
"that Zork thing" and really hated it. I wonder how much of an
inability to deal with getting "stuck" turns people off. One can't
tailor a game to the individual and different people will get stuck on
different things... get stuck on enough puzzles at once and the game
grinds to a halt. That's the point that I'm most likely to lose
interest. If someone with less interest in IF than I have hits this
point in the first couple games they try, they probably aren't going to
try any more. (I'm anxious to get back to Trinity... I started it
twice about a year apart on the Amiga, but got stuck in about the same
place. I'm asking for some Lost Treasure for Christmas.)

>> The point-n-click interface was created for those who either aren't
>> smart enough or don't have the patience to deal with a command line...
>
>Now I disagree again. (As a Mac user and programmer.)

Rash generalization, I know. Some smart folks do have a preference for
GUI's... but you're on a Mac and not Windoze. As a power user and
programmer, I can't stand how Windows tries very hard to hide things
from the user, making it hard to know what's really going on behind that
desktop. But if you take a look at the general trend in PC/Windows
software, you'll notice that the common denominator is getting lower and
lower. (And the hardware requirement gets higher and higher. :)

--
Carl (ravenpub@southwind.net)
* Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.