(i) It is much more difficult to read prose on a computer terminal
than it is to read prose on paper;
(ii) adventure games develop their story very slowly by comparison with
ordinary fiction, and every effort needs to be made to ensure that
it's no slower than it absolutely needs to be, and long
descriptive passages are unhelpful in this regard;
(iii) the prose in a game consists in the main of detailed descriptions
of objects, rooms and actions, the sort of descriptions that in
ordinary fiction would be dull and distracting from the plot; and
(iv) players are conditioned to regard everything that's mentioned in a
description as essential in some way, or at least worthy of
investigation in case it should be significant.
For example, in "Curses" you definitely need to be aware that not
everything casually mentioned in a room description is just descriptive
scenery:
Old Furniture
Scruffy old furniture is piled up here: armchairs with springs
coming out, umbrella stands, a badly scratched cupboard, a table
with one leg missing... You try to remember why you keep all this
rubbish, and fail. Anyway the attic continues to the southeast.
>examine armchairs
That's not something you need to refer to in the course of this
game.
>examine umbrella stands
That's not something you need to refer to in the course of this
game.
>examine table
That's not something you need to refer to in the course of this
game.
>examine cupboard
You peer at the scratched cupboard, which is open and contains a
bird whistle, a gift-wrapped parcel and a guaranteed-unbreakable
medicine bottle with a child-proof lock (which is closed and
contains a red tablet).
But consider the poor player who finishes "Curses" and then embarks upon
"The Sound of One Hand Clapping" by Erica Sadun:
Windswept Field
You are standing amidst the tall grasses in a windswept field. Above
the sky is blue. A small kill winds its way around granite boulders
down the mountain. Purple and white peaks surround you on all
sides, as does the forest. Within the greens of the summer mountain
are the brown scores where loggers were and will be again. Blue
herons pass occasionally overhead and gentle deer stop -- to eat the
summer berries or drink from the kill water. Small frogs jump in and
out of the kill and insects skim over the top, never breaking the
surface. There are grey and silvery fish darting below the sun
bleached rocks. You are surrounded on all sides by wild bushes. A
narrow thorny gap lies to the west.
:examine grasses
That's just scenery.
:examine sky
That's just scenery.
:examine kill
I don't understand.
:examine boulders
I see no boulders here.
:examine peaks
That's just scenery.
:examine trees
I don't know the word "trees".
:examine blue herons
I see no blue herons here.
:examine gentle deer
I don't know the word "gentle".
:examine summer berries
I don't know the word "summer".
:examine frogs
That's just scenery.
:examine insects
That's just scenery.
:examine fish
I don't understand.
:examine bushes
That's just scenery.
[A "kill" (as is reasonably clear from the context) is an American
dialect word for "stream", from the Dutch. The author explains that "the
windswept field is a real place; this is Grog Kill, NY".]
I don't want to pick on this game, because it's generally of good
quality, but it seems to me that the puzzle-solving nature of adventure
games makes such long room descriptions unwise. A player can never
afford to relax and treat them as just "elegant prose", because they
might conceal subtle hints.
What do the readers of rec.arts.int-fiction think about this issue? My
own feeling is that it's sufficiently difficult to produce clear, sharp,
crisp, accurate, terse, lively prose for all the functional text in an
advanture game that it's not worth trying to write beautiful descriptive
passage that the player is likely either to skip and hurry on towards
the next puzzle, or else scour for clues and then discard when none are
found.
-- Gareth Rees