Beginners Adventure

[Joefish]

I know!

You are in Baker Street, outside No. 221B.
You can see: Watson, a dog, a dog lead.
Exits are: North, South, In.
What now?
> GO NORTH

You are in Marylebone Road.
You can see: Watson, a London Copper.
Exits are: East, West, South.
The Copper says, "You're outside your home without an excuse. P?s? off home".

----

You are in Baker Street, outside No. 221B.
You can see: Watson, a dog, a dog lead.
Exits are: North, South, In.
What now?
> GET DOG

You take the dog.
What now?
> GET LEAD

You take the dog lead.
What now?
> WALK DOG

You clip the lead on the dog and let it walk ahead of you.
What now?
> GO NORTH

You are in Marylebone Road.
You can see: Watson, a Copper.
Exits are: East, West, South.
The Copper says, "Out for your daily exercise I see. Carry on".
What now?
> GO EAST

You are in Park Square.
You can see: Watson, A Derbyshire Copper.
Exits are: North, West, South.
The Copper says "We've got you on the drone travelling too far for your daily exercise. You're nicked sunshine".

----

You are in the Goblin's Dungeon...


Argggghhhh!

[Joefish]

I see your point, other coppers getting in the way when you're a private investigator, clue tokens like matchbooks, membership pins, secret handshakes, are all good, but:

Games *do* sometime stop you from going to places by saying something like "You see no reason to visit that location at the moment." That is fine.

There is no way that is acceptable scripting! That's the most frustrating balls an adventure game can ever do to you!

There's a mechanism in Wind Waker where you can change the direction of the wind to drive your sailing boat from one island to the next. But it's a fairly realistic boat, and I actually managed to tack it upwind to try and reach another island...
At which point the s0dding boat's figurehead turns round to you and says 'let's not go that way yet'. I tell you, it was blwdy lucky I hadn't found an axe at that point or next port of call I'd be equipping myself with a non-magical boat and a big pile of bright red firewood!

[8BitAG]

There is no way that is acceptable scripting! That's the most frustrating balls an adventure game can ever do to you!

I disagree. It's an acceptable compromise. It makes more sense when you are commanding another character through the interface but it's perfectly acceptable at other times too. I see no reason why you should expect to be able to go to locations that you haven't yet discovered the existence of in game.

Once you've discovered them, though, it is up to the author to come up with plausible reasons why you can't visit them at any particular time.

At the end of the day you're playing a game. I have little empathy with anyone who expects a game to be an accurate simulation. I want gamey elements. I don't want hunger, thirst, item limits and all the crap that goes with real life.

[PeterJ]

I like the way that Sherlock has a dictionary in the user guide. Is that normal?

[Joefish]

It's rare, but helpful. At least it helps you not waste your time trying other words. And it leaves you plenty of options to try things.
The whole 'adverbs' thing in your input is a bit unusual though. I mean, I'd rather there were explicit verbs like 'sneak north' than have to use 'go north quietly' or something at the right moment. Though the game would have to heavily hint at exactly when and how to use such things.

[rnhunt]

You may find a small Android utility I wrote useful. Ifmapper is hopefully an intuitive mapping tool you can use on your phone.

If you tell Android to allow to run in background you can even swap between it and adventure running in an emulator. I just finished playing The Wicker Woman like this, which BTW isn't a bad little adventure.

You can find it at https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... e.ifmapper

[8BitAG]

I like the way that Sherlock has a dictionary in the user guide. Is that normal?

It was more common in the earlier years... especially if, as in Sherlock, they wanted to show off the parser.

I'm always wary of any game that lists adverbs.

[AndyC]

There is no way that is acceptable scripting! That's the most frustrating balls an adventure game can ever do to you!

I disagree. It's an acceptable compromise. It makes more sense when you are commanding another character through the interface but it's perfectly acceptable at other times too. I see no reason why you should expect to be able to go to locations that you haven't yet discovered the existence of in game.

Once you've discovered them, though, it is up to the author to come up with plausible reasons why you can't visit them at any particular time.

At the end of the day you're playing a game. I have little empathy with anyone who expects a game to be an accurate simulation. I want gamey elements. I don't want hunger, thirst, item limits and all the crap that goes with real life.

You can do the same thing in more subtle ways in an adventure game too. So if you decide to just head to a location you shouldn't go yet you get a message along the lines of "You are in an unassuming street in London. Nothing here seems out of the ordinary" and then force the player to go to back to the plot.

[akeley]

It's rare, but helpful. At least it helps you not waste your time trying other words.

As it is with many complaints about IF (perhaps videogames in general, see also 8bitAG's remark about realism...I love roguelikes :), one man's annoyance is another's delight. For me, guessing the vocab was a great help in learning English and part of the mystery in general, helping the illusion of an omnipotent storyteller (which was in reality a limited 8 bit parser :)

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] you might also try Kobayashi Naru. It's a text adventure, but with an interesting interface, bit like in an adventure game you have a set of icons already on screen representing all the commands. And you don't type anything, just choose the action word + word from the scene description using a cursor/joystick (I've actually played it with a joypad yesterday).

Unfortunately, it's a fantasy setting, so perhaps not compatible with the crime mystery requirement.

[RWAC]

You may find a small Android utility I wrote useful. Ifmapper is hopefully an intuitive mapping tool you can use on your phone.

If you tell Android to allow to run in background you can even swap between it and adventure running in an emulator. I just finished playing The Wicker Woman like this, which BTW isn't a bad little adventure.

You can find it at https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... e.ifmapper

This is great! I've been looking for something like this for ages!

[DarwinNE]

There are several people currently writing text adventures for 8-bits which are, perhaps, designed for slightly more modern sensibilities. I know that's something that Davide does, and also people like Stefan Vogt; again a lot of people not into text adventures have said they've enjoyed his Hibernated game and the shorter Curse of Rabenstein.

I am happy you enjoyed my games!

By the way, Hibernated 1 was very inspiring for me, both Two Days to the Race and The Queen's Footsteps would not have existed without it. Stefan Vogt has also been very supportive during the development of The Queen's Footsteps.