HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: thoni@ida.liu.se (Thomas Nilsson)
Subject: Re: More on scoring in text adventures
Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 12:14:59 GMT

dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) writes:

>...  If you (the player) can just wander around
>anywhere and do anything then *yeah*, it's more realisitc, but it's
>also *plotless* and, some will surely aruge, *pointless*.

[stuff deleted]

>The problem here is that the author really has to code N complete
>adventures, where N is the number of possible paths that can be taken.

This is not necessarily the case. It is very easy to confuse the two
very different types of movement that occurs during the playing of an
adventure game. One (which is the easy part) is the purely physical or
geographical movement through the map with all its details (objects).
We tend to stick to this when we talk about paths in the game.

But the more interesting movement is through the plot, which can be
viewed as the movement through time and events. This type of movement
is much more interesting because *this* is what makes up the story.

So like a book author the adventure author should create a world as a
stage for the events that makes up the story he is going to tell. Thus
the locations of the game need not be, or rather, shouldn't be mixed
up with the events that are taking place there.

This leads to a methodology that likes like:

- define your world losely, in concept, in time a.s.o
- describe your story as a sequence of events and from this find what
  the main settings and vital locations are
- design and detail the geography of your world

The main idea here is of course to place your story in the locations
necessary for its progress, not the other way around.

Doing this will, I think, give you the best of two worlds, Dave, the
player may freely explore the immediate surroundings until the
conditions arise for the next scene of your plot to carry or sweep the
hero (sorry, player!) forward in the story.

Agreed, this is much more work, both defining a world, a story and
find the good triggering mechanisms. But, what good adventures we
would get....

/Thomas
--
Little languages go a long way...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Nilsson				Phone Int.: (+46) 13 12 11 67
Stenbrotsgatan 57			Phone Nat.: 013 - 12 11 67
S-582 47  LINKOPING			Email:	thoni@softlab.se
SWEDEN						Thomas_Nilsson@augs.se
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky rec.arts.int-fiction:640 rec.games.programmer:3431
From: schwarts@cps.msu.edu (Steven Eric Schwartz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer
Subject: Programming text adventures
Date: 14 Aug 92 18:50:22 GMT
Reply-To: schwarts@cps.msu.edu (Steven Eric Schwartz)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Originator: schwarts@atlantic.cps.msu.edu

Can someone point me in a direction where I can find programs to write text
adventures on an Apple? Something in C would be best, to make portability the
easiest (grammar?).


-- 
Steven Eric Schwartz            "It's not safe out here. It's wonderous, with
(schwarts@cps.msu.edu)           treasures to satiate desires both subtle and
125 East Wilson Hall-MSU         gross.  But it's not for the timid."
East Lansing, Michigan  48825                           - Q, "Q Who"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer
From: roarf@stud.cs.uit.no (Roar Foshaug)
Subject: Re: Victory conditions (was: Alternatives to score in text adventures)
Organization: University of Tromsoe, Norway
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 18:11:49 GMT

In article <BsyArv.89z@news.udel.edu>, helie@bach.udel.edu (Ray) writes:
|> In article <BsxDH9.Mvn@rice.edu> amitp@owlnet.rice.edu ( Amit ) writes:
|> 
|> " In a game, though, it's nice to explore everything --- if you were trying to
|>   encourage people _not_ to explore everything, then why spend time writing
|>   those "side dishes"?  "
|> 
|> Wouldn't the point of "side dishes" (SD's) be to make the world seem more 
|> three-dimensional and realistic?  In real life, you can do whatever 
|> you want, and not everything you do is going to get you closer to 
|> solving a particular problem.  
|> 
|> Without SD's, then everything that you are possibly allowed to do 
|> leads you towards the solution or goal, and where's the challenge of that?
|> You know you're doing the right thing, simply because you're allowed
|> to do it.
|> 
|> Personally, I think many games suffer from a lack of SD's which would
|> give the player a more realistic feel of a complete world.  More thought
|> would have to be given to what the right thing to do is -- you wouldn't
|> be so sure just because you were allowed to do it.
|> 
|> 
|> Ray  8-)
|> 
|> 

Agreed. That is what I think too. An adventure game can in fact be viewed as
a role-playing game, and to make the world three-dimensional as Ray calls
it there should be "side dishes". That means that objects should have
different uses, there should be hints and clues that do not nescessarily
lead you forward towards the completion of the game.  If such things are
well implemented you will want to play the game over and over again just to
be 'in that world'. The "side dishes" then represent undiscovered land
more than means for getting to the end.

Such simple things as being able to use the space shuttle key to open the
bottle of water when dying of thirst in the desert will bring 'depth' to
a game. 

Roar

-- 
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
Xref: sparky rec.arts.int-fiction:615 rec.games.programmer:3362
From: forbes@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (Scott Forbes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Alternatives to score in text adventures
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:53:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbfsb.1992Aug12.215318.3239
Organization: Usenet Sports Programming Network

greg@Quotron.COM (Greg "Maddog" Knauss) writes:
>dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) writes:
>>Interestingly enough,
>>Adventure did *not* reqiure you to get all the points to win.  Did 
>>Zork?  Did most Infocoms?  I really don't remember.
>
>As far as I can remember, all Infocoms had score and they all required
>you get get all the points to finish the game.

...Nnot quite.  Planetfall, for example, had a number of alternate endings
depending on whether or not you solved certain puzzles -- but you could
"win" (reach the primary goal of saving the planet's population) without
completing some of these puzzles.

Also, it was possible to win Zork II without getting all the points,
depending on certain semi-random actions of the Wizard.

Spoilers ahead for Infocom games:

In Planetfall you could "win" without restoring the Planetary Defense
computers and/or without repairing Communications, but in either case
you would not be rescued from the planet after saving its population
(and would never get to see Ensign Twelfth Class Blather, either :-) ).

In Zork II, if the Wizard cast the "filch" spell on your character,
you would lose one or more treasures and would subsequently be unable
to give them to the demon (which prevented you from scoring all the
points).

Another interesting scoring system was that of Zork III, which had a
seven-point score; you received a point each time you had the opportunity
to obtain one of the seven items required to win the game, regardless
of whether or not you actually got the item.  Your score was then a
measure of how many puzzles you'd *seen*, not how many you'd solved
(and in some cases, how many puzzles you had screwed up beyond hope --
some of Zork III's puzzles led to "you cannot win" outcomes, such as
killing the hooded figure or giving up the book or staff).


-- Scott

P.S.:  The rec.games.int-fiction CFV is in David Lawrence's hands,
and voting should begin shortly....
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: garys@netcom.com (Gary Stollman)
Subject: need to know where Infocom games are...
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 04:42:19 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Summary: need info on sites carrying any Infocom games
Keywords: infocom


I would like to know if there are any sites I can telnet to that have the
Zil interpreter along with most, if not all, of the Infocom games...I used
to play Zork on the mainframe at MIT back in the old Apranet days, but now
that this thing has every site on the face of the earth on it, I expect
there must be some site, if not MIT? that has them...Thanks for any info!

	Gary

-- 
Gary Stollman    Internet: garys@netcom.com     GEnie: G.STOLLMAN
-----------------------------------------------------------------
          The world is your playground.  Keep it clean! 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Organization: The Leader Desslok School of Diplomacy
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 02:03:09 EDT
From: Norman St. John Polevaulter <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Anyone done anything with ALAN?

It's an adventure game creator available for Amiga and Sun only, through
a mail-server. I've been fiddling around with it and it looks quite capable
(and flexible enough to cover areas where it isn't capable enough, through
clever programming.) However, the documentation is a bit, um, skimpy on
examples and so... if anyone's ever actually made a game with this thing,
I'd be very grateful to see some source code. Right now I'm trying to throw
together an include file full of common verbs and source would be VERY
helpful to me, and probably to anyone else on the net using ALAN (if there
is anyone else, that is!)

[Your blood pressure just went up.]       Mark Sachs IS: mbs110@psuvm.psu.edu
       DISCLAIMER: If it ain't money, Penn State doesn't care about it.
   "Ladies and gentlemen, I've suffered for my music! Now it's your turn!"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: johnf@apollo.hp.com (John Francis)
Subject: Re: Points
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 18:54:15 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <BszLq4.Dv8.2@cs.cmu.edu> pww+@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Peter Weyhrauch) writes:
>Hi, all.
>
>I'm curious to hear from the people who find points to be a good
>way to get satisfaction out of a game.  Why are points important
>to you?
>
>As a counter position, I consider points unnecessary.  When I watch
>a movie, I don't keep track of the "score," I just enjoy what actually
>happens.  Similarly, I would hope that a well designed game would give
>me joy to play, not joy to watch my point tally go up.

You seem to be missing the main difference between a movie and a game -
interaction.  you don't need a `score' for a movie because there isn't
anything you, the watcher, can do to influence the flow of action.

Playing a well-designed game is indeed a joy in itself.  Even then,
however, I feel a score serves a purpose.  Games like those from Infocom
require the solver to perform actions which are not immediately obvious.
A score provides a communication channel from the game designer to the
player, letting the player know that the particular strange action just
performed was not only one that the game designer anticipated, but also
is the action that was intended.  Without that, it is sometimes impossible
to tell when you have really completely solved a puzzle.
Admittedly there are other mechanisms to achieve the same end, but the
score is a convenient, well-accepted technique.   Yes, it is artificial,
but so are most of the alternative proposals I have seen.

-- 
John Francis                                johnf@apollo.hp.com
The world can be divided into two classes :-
 those who divide people into two classes, and those who don't.
Xref: sparky rec.arts.int-fiction:642 rec.games.programmer:3452
From: steppe@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Top Changwatchai)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Alternatives to score in text adventures
Date: 16 Aug 92 11:05:38 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.int-fiction
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

If a game is going to be scored, then your option (5) is closest to how I
would handle information puzzles.  That is, award points for when the info
is used.  When the player is solving a particular puzzle for the first time,
she or he will want to have to go around collecting and assembling clues.
However, the seventeenth time around, he won't be as keen to go to the 83th
story of the skyscraper to reprogram the city's power grid to defeat the
alarm system to get into the office to pick the desk lock with a sharpened
kazoo just to find a scrap of paper with the code word "ululating."  By then,
"realism" (in terms of forcing the character to "discover" information before
using it) starts to interfere with game enjoyment.  You don't even really need
to come up with clever comments ("ESP") to enforce this realism (although
these comments don't hurt, either).

In fact, some adventures are better off without a scoring system at all.
Take _Monkey's_Island_, for instance.  It's an animated adventure that's
packed with features that emphasize the storyline and humor, rather than game
mechanics.  Not only does it not have a score, but it's also impossible (as
nearly as I can tell) to do something that you can't recover from.  Even
falling off a cliff or sinking your ship isn't fatal.  And once you figure out
a puzzle (say, threading your way through a complicated maze), the game then
skips over that puzzle when you return (i.e., you don't have to go back through
the maze when it's obvious that there's nothing more to be found there, and
that the route is already mapped).

Since playing MI, I've been thinking about whether a scoring system is
necessary for text adventures, which boast more elaborate puzzles and
situations.  Probably a non-numeric scoring system is better, with a small
number of ranks which indicate how well you're doing.

Incidentally, the less linear the game (I feel) the more challenging and fun
it is to play, as well as design.

Top


Xref: sparky rec.arts.int-fiction:610 rec.games.programmer:3351
From: greg@Quotron.COM (Greg "Maddog" Knauss)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Alternatives to score in text adventures
Date: 12 Aug 92 17:51:12 GMT
Organization: Quotron System, Inc.

dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) writes:

>Adventure (Colossal Cave) set the precedent that text adventures should
>be scored games.  Its "x out y points -- this makes you a ____" format
>appears in almost all its successors, and I wonder if that's just 
>because we've all been following a trend somewhat blindly.

I think it's been included because people expect it.  The only reason
I pay any attention to a score is because it tells me how far along I
am.

>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.  Interestingly enough,
>Adventure did *not* reqiure you to get all the points to win.  Did 
>Zork?  Did most Infocoms?  I really don't remember.

As far as I can remember, all Infocoms had score and they all required
you get get all the points to finish the game.
	Which, thinking about it, is pretty silly.  A score that requires
you to get all its points to finish ceases to be a score and becomes a
counter.  Or a percentage.

>I've been toying with the idea of replacing the score counter with a
>percentage.  The percentage would give the player a rough idea of how
>much of the whole game he/she has seen (just like current page number
>in a novel).  This could be based on number of locations visited vs.
>the total number of locations, number of items seen versus total number
>of items, etc.

I did a percentage on a game I wrote eons ago and the only reason I didn't
stick with it afterwards was because it seems even more artificial than
a score.  As a programmer, my problem with the whole score/percentage/
page-count-until-the-end thing is that it removes the player from the
reality of the game.  Not may cave explorers can look above them and tell
that they're 75% of the way to their destination.
	But as a player, I _want_ a score.  It tells me if I'm actually
making any progress and is vital for the psychological reasons you
mentioned.
	Maybe you could compromise, especially with a game in the
UU universe.  A "Cheez Prohgrez-o-matik" or a battery that runs down as
you make progress and only as you make progress.  Something that's part
of the game's universe -- nothing too distracting -- but that tells the
player what he wants to know.
--
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Greg "Maddog" Knauss               "Aieee!"              greg@duke.quotron.com
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: pww+@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Peter Weyhrauch)
Subject: Points
Originator: pww@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 18:51:40 GMT

Hi, all.

I'm curious to hear from the people who find points to be a good
way to get satisfaction out of a game.  Why are points important
to you?

As a counter position, I consider points unnecessary.  When I watch
a movie, I don't keep track of the "score," I just enjoy what actually
happens.  Similarly, I would hope that a well designed game would give
me joy to play, not joy to watch my point tally go up.

	Peter Weyhrauch
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer
From: dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett)
Subject: Re: Alternatives to score in text adventures
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 16:43:21 GMT

adam@owlnet.rice.edu (Adam Justin Thornton) writes:
>I don't see why it would be terribly hard to have flags indicating
>whether or not you've solved the puzzle for each given puzzle; you're 
>probably going to have less than 300 such puzzles even in a very large
>game; if each flag is set as a bit in a long status string, I don't see
>why this is a problem.

It's not that it's hard or an implementation problem, it's just that
it's tedious and a pain.  Also it seems like the time required to come
up with creative excuses (IMHO "You're just guessing the password!" is
too lame) could be better spent on other things.

Dave Baggett
-- 
ADVENTIONS: interactive fiction (text adventures) for the 90's!
dmb@wam.umd.edu * Compu$erve: 76440,2671 * GEnie: [coming soon]
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: mgfrank@avernus.com (Marc G. Frank)
Subject: Re: Alternatives to score in text adventures
Organization: Maryland Appreciation Society
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 03:29:07 GMT

In article <77804@ut-emx.uucp> steppe@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Top Changwatchai) writes:
>falling off a cliff or sinking your ship isn't fatal.  And once you figure out
>a puzzle (say, threading your way through a complicated maze), the game then
>skips over that puzzle when you return (i.e., you don't have to go back through
>the maze when it's obvious that there's nothing more to be found there, and
>that the route is already mapped).

This brings up another point.  Does anyone else think mazes in games are
a Bad Thing?  For me, nothing detracts from my enjoyment of a game more
than a maze.  Of course, nearly every (or perhaps all of them; I say
"nearly" in case I've simply forgotten one) text adventure I've played
has had a maze.

I can play games without mapping them -- except for that damned ObMaze.
Mazes aren't fun, they're just irritating.

Is there any reason you designers out there keep including mazes except
tradition?  Does anyone think they add to the playability of a game?

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Marc G. Frank                                  mgfrank@avernus.com |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "If the Pentagon needs, say, fruit, it will argue that it must     |
| have fruit that can withstand the rigors of combat conditions, and |
| it will wind up purchasing the FX-700 Seedless Tactical Field      |
| Grape, which will cost $160,000 per bunch, and which will have an  |
| 83 percent failure rate."                           -- Dave Barry  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer
From: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Subject: Victory conditions (was: Alternatives to score in text adventures)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 23:38:04 GMT

In article <bsw1du.aqz@wang.com>, smayo@wang.com (Scott Mayo) writes:
|> [...]
|> Depends on what you call *win*. Do you win when you meet the friendly
|> elves in Adventure? Or do you win when you get that last, blasted point,
|> the one that drove you to your wit's end? The latter is winning to some folk -
|> it shows they've *completely* plumbed the sordid depths of the game, and
|> the programmer's grungy soul. For that sort of player, score is everything.

The victory condition of the game is up to the programmer.  I prefer 
games where the victory condition is the achievement of some objective 
- you return to town alive and in possession of "The Lost Widget" for
example.  Expertise is demonstrated by achieving this objective with 
the _least_ possible score.  This is more natural to the real world 
where the important thing is the achievement, not the irrelevant 
side-information you pick up along the way (of course, you don't 
know what's irrelevant until you've solved the puzzle).

I really prefer stategic games to puzzles anyway.  So, on that basis, 
I would argue to eliminate score entirely  - or change its meaning so 
it was a measure of how well you were doing (in terms of time or 
resources) rather than how much you've unraveled.  Games of this
latter kind can actually have value in the real world.

-- 
J. Giles
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.programmer