Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (
More info?)
Here, Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com> wrote:
>
> To repeat the obvious comment, the hint system is going to get a
> severe rewrite, and I'm open to suggestions about how to add more
> zero-to-full-speed hints at the beginning. (Getting a beginner to
> *assuredly* solve the game is not *necessarily* the goal: remember
> that _Myst_ was played and enjoyed by a lot of people who never
> finished it.)
More on this:
I now think that there's no reliable way to decide that the player is
stuck. What I can do, as I said earlier, is *conservatively* decide
that the player is (or might be) stuck, and offer a hint. If the
player really is stuck, he can look at the hint. If he's doing fine,
he can type "TUTORIAL OFF" and the game will stop bugging him.
I am not planning to rearrange the hints in the opening scene -- that
seems to work pretty well. I may extend them a little, though.
For example, "i" in the initial room gives you some added info about
examining what you're carrying. But if you leave the room first, you
never get that. I want to extend the range of that initial-help phase
a little. Once you get out into the corridor, though, it's definitely
over.
(I am trying to maintain a hint, now-you-try, hint, now-you-try rhythm
in the opening. *Not* give the player a step-by-step lead-through of
the first three rooms.)
In another thread, PJ wrote:
> One other system I could imagine putting in place for newbies is
> what I would call the unprompted scene change that works the same as
> a hint. So if a newbie was missing the point that he had to "X" a
> stack of papers, after a few trips in and out of the room he might
> suddenly get. "Your stomping back and forth in the room has caused a
> large stack of papers to fall over, revealing a previously hidden
> cubbyhole of the desk that is now in plain view." If this doesn't
> get the newbie to "X" cubbyhole, then maybe nothing ever will.
This is a strategy for a game which you want newbies to *complete*,
but it doesn't serve as a *tutorial*.
Would that scene get the newbie to type "examine cubbyhole"? No, not
at all. You never got him to type "examine papers". He may not be
thinking about the "examine" command at all. He may not even have
started thinking about the papers yet -- perhaps he's trooping back
and forth trying to solve the lock-and-key puzzle in the adjacent
rooms.
What you're teaching, if anything, is that you solve puzzles by
walking back and forth until the puzzle goes away.
(Plus, you'll get a flood of complaints -- both from new and
experienced players -- saying "What kind of stupid puzzle is this? You
can only find the cubbyhole by typing 'N.S.N.S'! How was I supposed to
figure that out?")
I had a hard time balancing "tell them what to do" versus "do it for
them" in Dreamhold. I'm sure I didn't find the perfect balance,
either. It's a bunch of case-by-case judgements.
For example, this is my only major game where you *don't* start in
Verbose mode. Verbose mode is more popular than Brief mode these days,
I'm sure. But I still want to explain it, because *some* games start
in Brief. And the only way to do this is to start the player in Brief,
let him type "verbose", and demonstrate the difference. Obviously this
takes some (pro-active) hinting, and so I put some in.
Similarly, when the player encounters a locked door, I make him type
"unlock door with key" and then "open door". I think auto-door-opening
(as in _All Things Devours_) is terrific. But I can't use it in a
tutorial game -- not at the beginning.
(I do in fact have some unlocked, auto-opening doors later on in the
game. Nobody notices they exist, of course.)
(Other point: never underestimate how much fun it is to unlock a door,
if you're not an IF expert! One of the transcripts I got from an
actual newbie had the annotation "w00t!" after she successfully
unlocked a door.)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.
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