Re: Instant Death


10 Mar 1995 12:57:26 -0800

Neil wrote:

Here's an example from Veritas:

>look
Stairwell, 4th floor
You are in the fourth floor stairwell of G Entry. North leads to
your room (G-43); stairs lead down.

Your roommate follows you.

>south
You tumble over the railing of the stairwell and plummet four stories,
landing with a thud on the cold, hard marble floor. You have broken
your neck in several places.

***** You're toast, pal! *****

In 2 turns you have achieved a score of 0 out of 400. This makes you a
high school applicant.

I reply:

1) As author of VERITAS, no offense taken.
2) I wrote this little bit on a whim, trying to liven up the game with
some descriptive prose that I thought few would find (until now :) ).
Since TADS offers undo, I felt that some players would appreciate the
death scene, undo, and then move on--I never figured that it would annoy
anyone so much. Sorry.

3) BTW, in VERITAS you can kill yourself without warning in 2 or 3 more
places, all with a (hopefully) entertaining death description; an
immediate undo should solve any harm done.

My $0.02,
Jim!
jreese@leland.stanford.edu