From: roarf@stud.cs.uit.no (Roar Foshaug)
Subject: Re: Alternatives to score in text adventures
Organization: University of Tromsoe, Norway
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 14:08:44 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.160321.24522@wam.umd.edu>, dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) writes:
|> 
|> Making the game scored creates quite a few subtle problems.  One is the
|> question of whether or not you should be able to finish the game
|> without getting the maximum possible score....

What about games with alternative paths towards the goal state? 
A good adventure game should offer different ways of doing things,
and what then about score calculations? 

I don't think explicit scores are such a good idea. The motivation to
go on playing should come from the game itself as hints about how close
you are to solving a problem or eventually finishing the game. Note also
that 'score' can be viewed differently from a number in the upper right
corner of the screen. When the player finds an item that can be used for
protection, weapon, gives skills, has a value, that is also a score. For
the gold-hungry, a good motivation is to find gold. For others, the $$$
<insert favourite money-name> is the means to getting better equipment.
etc.

I also feel that the explicit score may come in the way of real problem
solving : "Oops, there I got ten points, does that mean this thing has
a usage, etc etc". The problem is of course that I don't know the strategy
the programmer uses for handing out scores. Result is that the user may end
up using more brain circuitry figuring out the score-giving strategy in
search of hints than actually applying logic to the gaming situation,
like "hmm, this is a screwdriver; what else can it be used to but
screwing? hmm, hmm...".

     Screwing screws, that is...   :-)


If you absolutely want scores and your game contains several paths,
you must space the scores out on the different paths, so finishing the game
along one (of several) path selections gives 100 % score. To spread the 100 %
over _all_ paths is a bad idea, as you can then finish the game with
far less, and the score looses all meaning. Pointless is a word that comes
to mind... :-)

Of course, by placing scores along the different paths so each path through
the game ends up with 100% opens the possibility for the user to get
more than 100% by moving "sideways" and covering several paths. But
so what? 

The score strategy should at any rate be available in text form so the
user knows how it works.


The one reason I see to use scores is that it simplifies the
implementation. It is reasonably simple to attach scores to objects and
actions (saying magic words). It is far less simple to have a game responding
with subtle, and not-so-subtle, hints about advances. For the game to be
able to hand out such messages, the interface between the user and the
game must be more 'detailed' or 'fine-grained' in that the game must understand
more complex commands and produce responses. That leads us to creating a
more complex command parser (my favourite subject, btw :-), and also the
structure on the 'inside' of the game. I have not come up with all solutions
myself, but like speculating on these problems...


|> 
|> Thoughts?
|> 

Many...  :-)

|> Dave Baggett
|> dmb@wam.umd.edu

-- 
Roar Foshaug                                      (roarf@stud.cs.uit.no)
Department of Computer Science
University of Tromsoe                             'oe' is '\o{}' in Tex
N-9000 TROMSOE, NORWAY                            'OE' is '\O{}' in Tex