Over on Twenty Sided, Shamus Young posted a blog today on, of all things, interactive fiction. Seems he’s been playing “Phantom of the Arcade” lately, an Inform-based text adventure written recently by Susan Arendt, his editor at The Escapist, and made available online. This spurred him to ponder the familiar issues and frustrations related to the IF parser, and particularly how the parser handles unknown or unacceptable input. “Feedback itself,” he states, “is a reward” — feedback that shows that, even though the command entered is invalid, the author and/or parser has anticipated it enough to provide useful information rather than a generic “I beg your pardon?” response.
One idea he came up with for this involves modifying the IF environment (particularly one that is web-based) to create what he calls a “feedback parser”:
To do this you’d just need a bit of functionality added to the parser:
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Write from the Start
So pretty much one of the most challenging parts of making games for the small indie or hobbyist developer is getting the extra help you need. The developer who can do it all on his or her own — programming, artwork, writing, modeling, animation, web design, yada yada — is a rare breed with far too much talent and disposable time. When I made Missions of the Reliant way back when, in (gulp) 1994, I could handle most of it myself because things were just…simpler. I didn’t have to worry about modeling or animation, and web design meant little more than plain text and a few animated GIFs (mostly I just focused on BBS’s and AOL — and, sadly enough, eWorld). Life, as they say, was so much easier when we were young.
Unless you start from the beginning with a set of partners, it’s tough to find people [More...]