.DT
Design
$MUDNAME$ Creator Help
Design
Name
.SI 5
Designing the Game, especially Quests
.EI
Source
.SP 5 5
I don't know who wrote the original of this document, although I'll be
happy to acknowledge the author when I find out who that is. Some part
of it is taken from the manual of a compiler for INFOCOM-like games.
.EP
Description
.SP 5 5
Perhaps the most important point about designing a game is to think as a
player and not a designer. I think the least a player deserves is:
1. Not to be killed without warning.
At its most basic level, this means that a room with three exits, two of
which lead to instant death and the third to treasure, is unreasonable
without some hint. Mention of which brings us to:
2. Not to be given horribly unclear hints.
Many years ago, I played a game in which going north from a cave led to a
lethal pit. The hint was that there was a pride of lions carved above the
doorway. Good hints can be skillfully hidden, or very brief (I think, for
example, the hint in the moving-rocks plain problem in "Spellbreaker" is a
masterpiece) but should not need explaining even after the event.
A more sophisticated version of (1) leads us to:
3. To be able to win without experience of past lives.
Suppose, for instance, there is a device buried under some anonymous floor
somewher which must be disarmed. It is unreasonable to expect a player to
dig up this floor purely because in previous games, the device was there. To
take a more concrete example, in "The Lurking Horror" there is something which
needs cooking for the right length of time. As far as I can tell, the only
way to find out the right time is by trial and error, but you only get one
trial per game. In principle a good player should be able to play the entire
game out without doing anything illogical or that is a non sequitur. In
a similar vein:
4. To be able to win without knowledge of future events.
For example, the game opens near a shop. You have one coin and can buy a
lamp, a magic carpet or a periscope. Five minutes later you are transported
away without warning to a submarine, whereupon you need a periscope. If you
bought the carpet or the lamp, bad luck.
5. Not to have the game closed off without warning.
Closed off means that it becomes impossible to proceed at some later date.
If there is a papier-mache wall which you can walk through at the very
beginning of the game, it is extremely annoying to find that a puzzle at
the very end requires it to still be intact, because every one of your
saved games will be useless. Similarly it is quite common to have a room
which can only be visited once per game. If there are two different things
to be accomplished there, this should be hinted at.
6. Not to need to do unlikely things.
For example, a game which depends on asking a policeman about something he
could not reasonably know about. (Less extremely, the hackers' keys in
"The Lurking Horror".) Another unlikely thing is waiting in uninteresting
places. If you have a junction such that after five turns an elf turns
up and gives you a magic ring (well, on Discworld, it'd stab you...),
a player may well never spend five turns there and never solve what you
intended to be straightforward. On the other hand, if you were to put
something which demanded investigation in the junction, it might be faith
enough. ("Zork III" is especially poor in this respect.)
7. Not to need to do boring things for the sake of it.
In the bad old days many games would make life difficult by putting objects
needed to solve a problem miles away from where the problem was, despite all
logic - say, putting a boat in the middle of a desert. Or, for example, it
might be fun to have a four-discs Tower of Hanoi puzzle in a game - but not
an eight-discs one. (This applies to mazes as well. However, they are
somewhat different. See the section on mazes below for more information.)
8. Not to have to type exactly the right verb.
For instance, looking inside a box finds nothing, but searching it does. Or
consider the following dialogue (amazingly, from "Sorcerer"):
> unlock journal
(with the small key)
No spell would help with that!
> open journal
(with the small key)
The journal springs open.
This is so misleading as to constitute a bug. But it's an easy design
fault to make. (Similarly, the wording needed to use the brick in "Zork II"
strikes me as quite unfair. Or perhaps I missed something obvious.)
9. To be allowed reasonable synonyms.
In the same room in "Sorcerer" is a "woven wall hanging" which can instead be
called a "tapestry" (though not "curtain"). This is not a luxury, it's
an essential.
10. To have a decent parser.
This goes without saying. (The original author makes the comment that the
parser is the weakest spot of "every LPmud so far", saying that things like
"taking and dropping of multiple objects" should be provided for - Discworld
not only handles that but much more advanced things, thanks to the
add_command system.) The last few are more a matter of taste, but I believe
in them:
11. To have reasonable freedom of action.
Being locked up in a long sequence of prisons, with only brief escapes
between them, is not all that entertaining. After a while the player begins
to feel that the designer has tied him to a chair in order to shout the plott
at him. Likewise for muds - too often quest designers choose the easy way
out by making a room teleport-proof and blocking all exits until the victim
has been told the entire story.
12. Not to depend much on luck.
Small chance variations add to the fun, but only small ones. The thief in
"Zork I" seems to me to be just about right in this respect, and similarly
the spinning room in "Zork II". A ten ton weight, however, which falls down
and kills you at a certain point in half of all the games is just annoying.
13. To be able to understand a problem once it is solved.
This may sound odd, but many problems are solved by accident or trial and
error. A guard-post which can be passed only if you are carrying a spear,
for instance, ought to have some indication that this is why you're allowed
past. (The most extreme example must be the notorious Bank of Zork.)
14. Not to be given too many red herrings.
A few red herrings make a game more interesting. A very nice feature of the
Zork trilogy is that they each contain red herrings explained in the others
(in one case, explained in "Sorcerer"). Difficult puzzles, however, tend to
be solved last, and the main technique players use is to look at their maps
and see what's left that they don't understand. This is frustrating when
there are many insoluble puzzles and useless objects. So you can expect
players to lose interest if you aren't careful. My personal view is that
red herrings ought to have some clue provided (even only much later). For
instance, if there is a useless coconut near the beginning, then perhaps
much later an absent-minded botanist could be found who wandered about
dropping them. The coconut should at least have some rationale. The
very worst game I've played for red herrings is "Sorcerer", which by my
reckoning has 10.
15. To have a good reason why something is impossible.
Unless it's also funny, a very contrived reason why something is impossible
just irritates. (The reason one can't walk on the grass in "Trinity" is
only just funny enough, I think.)
16. Not to need to be American to understand hints.
The diamond maze in "Zork II" being a case in point. Similarly, it's polite
to allow the player to type English or American spellings or idioms. For
instance "Trinity" endears itself to English players in that the soccer ball
can be called a "football" - soccer is a word almost never used in England.
17. To know how the game is getting on.
In other words, when the end is approaching, or how the plot is
developing. Once upon a time, score was the only measure of this, but
hopefully not any more.
.EP
See also
.SP 5 5
quests
.EP
