From: dmb@case.ai.mit.edu (David Baggett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Length of Descriptions in Adventure Game
Date: 30 Sep 92 19:25:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: life.28625
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

In article <1992Sep30.142417.1716@netcom.com> jrs@netcom.com (John Switzer) writes:
>In article <37210@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu> let@insect.cis.ufl.edu (Luis E. Torres) writes:
>>The problem is, the few friends I've shown the test version to say the
>>descriptions are too long. Each description is, on average, about 16 to 20
>>lines on an 80-character PC screen. This is also true of most person
>>descriptions.
>
>Consider it this way - you're writing an interactive novel, which means 
>that there is the added dimension of the gamers' involvement. The gamer
>wants to explore and do things, and these people 
>think the descriptions are too long, then they are.

I don't think it's so simple.  You're answer assumes the original
poster is a poor writer, and that that's the reason for the "excessive"
length.  This may not be the case.

The game I'm currently working on has a similar "problem."  It all
depends on how much you want to pander to the "weekend gamer" versus
trying something new with the genre.  The game universe I'm creating
right now is complex, because I'm trying to create as realistic a world
as possible *within the context of the game*.  This may be interpreted
as "information overload" but the fact is that some interactions in the
game setting are complex enough that not giving the player at least a
few screens of test would leave things incredibly vauge and confusing.
I think that would be unfair and amazingly frustrating.

A concrete example: if you play Enchanter and then play Unnkulian 1,
you'll find that the information density (i.e., number of words per
object) is greater in UU1.  This comes as no surprise considering that
Enchanter runs in 48K and UU1 runs in a couple hundred K.  An early
example of the lameness caused by such a restrictive memory limit is
(paraphrase) "You're in a shack.  There's an oven here."  What kind of
a room description is *that*?  Answer: a minimialist one, and because
the game had to be tiny.  But what *kind* of shack was it?   Was a
brisk breeze blowing through?  Did it smell funny?  Was it well-light?
Were there any lights at all, for that matter?  This kind of information
creates vivid pictures in the player's mind.  Almost everyone who's
played Crowther and Woods' Colossal Cave remembers the letters written
in fire.  Not coincidentally, this was one of the longest scene
descritptions in the game, and it methodically address every sense --
the bright light and the lava below, the heat, the rumbling, etc.

Other examples:  examine <whatever> -> "You see nothing interesting."
Also lame, but again unavoidable within the confines of 8-bit
machines.  One should really never do that these days -- there's no
reason.  Anything that can be examined should give at least *some*
interesting message.  This furthers the illusion that the game
understands the player and that the world is "real."

It should be obvious that Infocom achieved extremely impressive results
with Zil; their games a generally well fleshed out.  But to accept
their at-times-necessarily minimalist approach as "the only right way
to do it" is just reactionry, I think.  We now have megabytes to play
with.  Why not use the extra memory to make IF games more like
interactive novels, which, though I loved Infocom's games, I never
really considered them to be.  An interactive novel may have pages
and pages of text that you just read.  People who don't object to
reading in general shouldn't have a problem with this.  And of course
you need the "interactive" part, but there's no danger of losing that
these days.  Most games so far have been far more interactive than they
have been novels.

>20 lines might be an acceptable length for a description for an involved
>room, but it definitely is too long for most people descriptions. 

No such metric is reasonable, IMHO.  Avoid wordiness, write with
strength (i.e., no unnecessary passives, use active verbs often, etc.),
and be sure you know what you're aiming to say before you write
anything down.  If you do this your IF work may take longer to get
through but shouldn't be any more tedious to the player than an Infocom
game is when compared to a Sierra (i.e., graphics) game.  (Oh God, I
have to *read* stuff to play this game?  Boot up Strike Commander.)

(For the IMHO-imparied: IMHO)

Dave Baggett
--
dmb@ai.mit.edu           MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory                  
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