The thing that will make me drop a game faster than a hot potato
is an inability to map the game world. And this inability really bothers
me. I mean, here we are trying to simulate "real life" to some extent and
we put in places that can't be mapped without explanations. I will use
two examples of "mazes" that I think exemplify my thoughts. The maze from
Zork has got to be the stupidest thing I ever encountered. Can someone
explain to me how, after leaving a room to the north, I don't know that
I've been turned around and am now facing west? Or that I've returned to
the room I just came from? I can understand if I've come upon a room from
a different angle that I don't recognize it, but if I just left a room, I
should know where exactly I am now in relation to that room.
imagine an unlit maze consisting of large natural caves
connected by long, narrow, twisting, natural tunnels in
which you have a candle and no compass, and the caves
and tunnels are largely uniform; i think this would have
the properties you describe.
however, it is the case that most games seem to assume
that the character has a compass, since the player moves
the character using compass directions rather than
'forward', 'left' etc. under such an assumption, you
should at least know from which direction you enter a
room.
As opposed to this, an "easier" game Wishbringer had the trip up
the mountainside. If you didn't map it, you had to remember from memory
which way to turn or you'd fall off the cliff. This makes sense and is an
appropriate "mapping problem" in my books. The first maze is an extreme
case of "mapping problems" that seem to pop up time and time again.
although i've not played wishbringer, i don't think this
sounds very fair: if you're able to get up the cliff
once without dying by using hints in the game, you
should always be able to do it; if there are no hints
and the wrong direction kills you, it's just tedious.
Even
in those games that advertise "NO MAZES", they still have rooms where you
leave north and come in facing east without explaining this to the player.
These puzzles are ones I consider to be really brute force puzzles (kinda
like that clothing thing in 3+=, 8->).
why is this a brute force puzzle? if i exit north from
room 1 to to reach room 2, but have to go west from room
2 to get back to room 1, then i know the corridor
between the two rooms hasn't followed a straight line;
i map it like this:
-----room2
|
|
room1
it may of course be the case that the corridor has
curved and bent all over the place; unless it's
relevant to the game i'm not that interested. if the
geometry of the corridor is important, i'd either expect
to be told about it, or a point in the corridor to be a
separate location.
-- richard
-- _______________________________________________________________________________richard barnett richard@wg.icl.co.uk _______________________________________________________________________________