>Have you had a look at the infamous "Detective"? There are lots of
>rooms there that seem to have been added just as padding. "This is a
>useless room. Go south". :-)
Methinks Detective has finally replaced Cardigan as the canonical bad
game. I wonder how much this is due to the MiSTification...
>I think you'll have to think about what you're trying to create:
>1) A simulation of reality.
>Sure, go ahead, add as many useless rooms and objects as you like. However,
>I think there are more pressing issues to deal with before you can even
>dream of calling an adventure game a realistic simulation.
I addressed this slightly before, but: a lack of useless rooms doesn't
necessarily mean a lack of realism. In outdoor scenes especially, the
division of the landscape into "rooms" is quite arbitrary. If one of the
rooms is useless, that's because the author chose to slice off a useless
chunk of geography and make it into a room.
>2) Interactive literature. Every author should think about economy.
[Much deleted. I agree with it, so there's not much point following up
on it, is there?]
>3) A game.
>From the pure game-play viewpoint, your extra rooms might simply be
>considered as red herrings. Put yourself in the player's shoes: do you
>actually think it's enjoyable to examine a lot of empty rooms and
>useless items that the author put there just to make the whole thing
>more realistic? Or would you prefer some action, some actual problems
>to solve?
It depends. In a mystery game, having oodles of extraneous detail is
part of the puzzle aspect of the game. It makes the player hunt for
clues and sift for useful information. If, as in a classical adventure,
you could assume that anything presented in detail is important, you lose
the sense of "detecting". Also, extraneous detail can be put in to good
effect in a comedy. Even if something has no relevance to solving the
game, it's worth including if it raises a chuckle. I cite Stationfall
as an example, even though I know some will argue that the vast quantity
of red herrings detracted from the game.
-- Carl Muckenhoupt | Is it true that Kibo habitually autogreps all of Usenet baf@tiac.net | for his name? If so: Hi, Kibo. Like the sig?