> I've gotten to the stage now where I can't help thinking that Shareware
>adventure games which begin with the player half-starved and then have lots
>of inedible or lethal food lying around (Busted and Save Princeton come to
>mind) are in fact using this as a shareware cripple - they say "register to
>get help" - what they don't mention is that without the help, you'll never
>find the food, and be severely limited as to how you can play. I don't mind
>lightly crippled Shareware, but if this is true, it's ridiculous.
As the author of Save Princeton, I can assure you that this was not my
intention. I put in the food puzzle without realizing how annoying it would
be. In fact, I was dumb enough to think that the creative solution to it would
make it less annoying than the standard "you must find a piece of food every
100 moves" kind of hunger you find in classic games. Boy, was I wrong. It
ended up being the single-most-complained-about puzzle in the whole damn thing.
As the saying goes--"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately
explained by stupidity."
I am, by the way, at work on a revision of Save Princeton that will make
the food puzzle significantly less annoying. Look for it in a couple of
weeks.
-Jacob Weinstein