Jolt Country

Question for anyone out there: The Spellcasting games had a list of possible verbs and nouns that they displayed for everyone. Looked a little like this:



Would a list of verbs be of any use to anyone in a graphical text adventure going forward? I am thinking of implementing this because Hugo allows you to double click on any word on the screen and have it show up on the prompt. I think it would therefore be possible to play a game most of the way through with limited typing which may appeal to a few people out there.

I wouldn't set the screen up like S:101, but I'm curious as to what people think about such a feature.

I think it would be interesting. It would probably be most useful on palmtop devices, but I think the screen size would then make the feature pretty limiting anyway.

You would also need a clickable "okay" button, which you can't do unless you're at a pause prompt (during normal text input, I don't think keyboard/mouse events are trapped). You *might* be able to circumvent the normal text input altogether by writing your own that's just a "pause" loop (build a string and send it into "Parse") or just avoid the prompt altogether and make it entirely point-and-click.

Have you experimented with this yet? Or am I over-thinking it? :)

My .02: I played the Spellcasting games, and the verb/noun lists quickly became more trouble than they were worth. Cumbersome, and it was much quicker to simply type in commands than scrolling through both lists.

Plus, I think it falls prey to the menu-type conversation systems: there's no incentive to explore on your own - you just go through all the options.

Merk wrote:Have you experimented with this yet? Or am I over-thinking it? :)

Oh no, no, no overthinking. I just basically have some screen real estate on the work in progress and was wondering if it made sense to try something like that. Because you can click on any word in Hugo it would work... but yeah, the Palm devices having small screens to begin with would be a problem.

Maybe I'll just release a skeleton in case someone else wants the Spellcasting interface? That might be the best way to do it.

Hugella wrote:My .02: I played the Spellcasting games, and the verb/noun lists quickly became more trouble than they were worth. Cumbersome, and it was much quicker to simply type in commands than scrolling through both lists.

Plus, I think it falls prey to the menu-type conversation systems: there's no incentive to explore on your own - you just go through all the options.

Good points. The more I think about it the more it's becoming a "just because we can do a thing it does not follow that we should." Heh.

Occasionally, I'll come across old-but-interesting threads like this while looking for something else. I just want to say, I think sometimes we should do stuff just because we can!

This was an interesting idea. I wouldn't try to emulate the Legend games too much; that seems like a recipe for trouble. Still, for games looking to use up some of that extra screen real estate on today's average displays, I could imagine one window devoted to common commands that one could click on and another window for held and nearby objects. I think the end result, if done well, might be a bit more aesthetically pleasing than functional, but it'd be interesting, stylistically.

The more interesting bit, is that Jonsey did implement / include this feature in CZK; I would wager this was the inspiration for the highlighted keyword system and the more direct, option based dialogue environment.

Seeing an idea such as this presented, then being tweaked and twisted into an entirely other direction (especially as a derivative) speaks well for how the early text adventures have influenced modern examples of the genre.

I think a list of applicable verbs would be very useful, especially for new adventurers. If "guess the verb" is part of a game's puzzle then I guess I wouldn't include it, but if it's not, then including the game's verbs would probably alleviate many frustrations.

Back in the day I remember people complaining about point-and-click adventures like Maniac Mansion and saying that a person could just randomly click their way through the game without much thought. My response was that this action would be akin to solving a Rubik's Cube by simply trying every single combination. Yes, you might eventually solve it via brute force, but the process wouldn't be much fun.

Flack wrote:My response was that this action would be akin to solving a Rubik's Cube by simply trying every single combination. Yes, you might eventually solve it via brute force, but the process wouldn't be much fun.

Not necessarily a good example, as a Rubik's Cube has so many combinations that you could spend years trying to solve a particular Rubik's combination using brute force.

I think the idea of showing the player options such as what commands are valid in the current context, or, if that's not possible because it's too many things to know about, the entire vocabulary, is a nice idea if you can implement it.

Although as was pointed out, how you get the run-time-system to accept a clicked on item without having some sort of equivalent of an OK button is another issue.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Still, for games looking to use up some of that extra screen real estate on today's average displays, I could imagine one window devoted to common commands that one could click on and another window for held and nearby objects. I think the end result, if done well, might be a bit more aesthetically pleasing than functional, but it'd be interesting, stylistically.

It would make sense for Hugo games to be designed visually for large displays, since (as far as I know), Hugo doesn't work on today's mobile devices. Aesthetics have always been a strong point of Hugo, and today's large LCD monitors present a large canvas. Sort of like the way modern websites are designed aesthetically with CSS for standard displays, but have pared-down minimalist versions for smartphones.