I suppose this is more of a general IF topic than a Quest-specific one - but we don't have a "General IF" forum, so here it is.

(In the following, I'm using the word "game" to refer to an IF work. Basically, that word pops out more often than not, but also it seems clearer than "work" or "piece", which could refer to other things. I tend to not like the word "game" as such, but I'm using it here.)

I wanted to get opinions from those who have them and wish to offer them about the use of hyperlinks in IF. The reason for this is that I'm trying to make a design decision, and I'm not sure even what the various issues are.

Traditional IF is all text-based. With this:

1) you read text
2) you need to parse the text and identify critical pieces
3) you input text of your own as commands
4) you get a textual response

And the cycle starts all over again. Hyperlinks impact two areas of this for me - 2 and 3 above.

Hyperlinks can ease issues revolving around 3), which is the "guess the verb" problem or the "I think I know what I need to do, but it won't accept any of my input", which is frustrating because it's often hard to know whether we actually have the wrong idea (in which case nothing we input is going to work) or we do in fact have the right idea and simply can't get the piece to accept the input, because it's looking too narrowly. I have run into numerous games on Quest (some even highly scored) where, in some cases, you must type a specific sequence of words, a sequence which might not be natural. It was natural to the author, but not to every player. This is a design issue. Hyperlinks (and associated verb menus in Quest) can help with that, since it constrains and identifies the choices. Of course, the author has to have actually implemented the verbs in the UI. I have run into many games on the Quest site that both list verbs that don't work and don't list verbs that are actually needed. (This is a different design issue.)

Hyperlinks can also ease the job of 2 (parsing and identifying) - and therein lies the problem for me.

I have played games that use hyperlinks and games that don't, and I have noticed a distinctive difference in the "flavor" of the game experience. First, clicking a link instead of typing, in and of itself, gives the game a different feel. Typing on a keyboard is very tactile, very left-brain. Clicking a link is more spatial, more right-brained. I don't know if the left/right brain distinction is accurate, but there is a definite difference in how I feel while doing it.

But second, having objects and exits called out as hyperlinks changes the kind of *mental* work I need to do in the game. I don't need to read the text as carefully – the key words are called out and highlighted for me. Some words matter and, well, the rest don't. It can make things easier for someone new to IF, but at what cost? The immersion changes or an change. The pace changes.

Changing the dynamic of the game is not in and of itself a bad thing – depending on your point of view, on your design, on what you want your game to be. And things like hyperlinks are almost essential in mobile apps – that paradigm is different anyway, so it's not as surprising when it's a different experience.

Having said all that, I'm curious how others feel. Are the changes that hyperlinks cause in game play a good thing, a bad thing, something else? Which kind of game would you rather play?

I'm contemplating having both modes (keywords highlighted or not), but I'm not sure which should be default. Perhaps I'll give the player a choice...

(I'm not looking for flame wars here. I'm eliciting *opinions*. If you're of the mindset that your thoughts have any more weight than that, then it might be best not to partake, to save yourself the frustration that will inevitably come when others don't agree with you!)

You've already hit the nail on the head, the concerns you raise about hyperlinks (especially on 2) and 3)) are the reasons that I dislike them in games. It is partly personal preference but I also think that not having everything spelled out for you is key to immersion in any game, not just text based. Hyperlinks are like the tutorial mode that many visual games have, except left on for the entire game.

The points you make about some games requiring specific and unnatural inputs should not have any bearing on the concept. These are simply faults with particular games, things that should have been ironed out with more thorough beta testing and implementation of synonymous terms.

There are different arguments to be made in the case of gamebook style works, but assuming that all else is equal in terms of traditional text adventure, hyperlinking removes the sense of "you-can-do-anything" freedom that it traditionally has. Even though its an illusion, I think the fact that you think you're deciding to do something rather than hitting one of a few pre-defined "action buttons" is a big part of the appeal of this style of IF.

If you want to give players the option to enable the hyperlinks then I wouldn't argue that's a bad thing, but I would not make it the default setting. Either make no hyperlinks the default, or force the player to choose their difficulty setting as part of the intro script.

I have been thinking recently about CYOA adventures, and the same thoughts apply here I think. If the entire game can be played with hyperlinks, and the command line becomes superflous - you have a CYOA game. The problem there is that it is trivial just to click though links.

In a text adventure you have the illusion that you can do anything (or at least type anything). In a hypertext adventure you probably have one to four choices a head of you, and it is not that difficult to plough through them all in many Quest Gambebook games (the competition winner Worship the Pig seems an example of that; I have not played many but I could believe all Quest Gamebooks are like that).

So where is the challenge?

That is not to say you cannot have challenges, but it takes a lot of thought to engineer challenges in a CYOA. Authors probably choose CYOA because it is easier, and do not want to invest that thought, and the Quest Gamebook infrastructure really does not encourage complex games (just a few hours before you started this thread I put in a feature request for adding script support to the GUI for gamebooks).


There is also an asthetic issue - I think hyperlinks in text looks ugly.

Depends how important "challenge" is. I think it's perfectly legitimate for there to be little or no challenge - you can still create an interesting interactive story. You don't put obstacles in the way to stop people getting to the end of a book or film, so I don't think IF needs to be so much different from those.

Personally, that's what I'm interested in making - an interactive story without puzzles. Probably because I'm not much of a gamer myself, so I can't think of any puzzles - certainly not any puzzles that would fit with the story I want to write. So you may well not like the "game" I'm working on for the IFComp!

That is true, and I was thinking of updating my post to say that. It becomes more of a short story than a game, but that is legitimate as you say - and Worship the Pig works well in that context, I did enjoy playing it.

I think I know where you're getting at, Jay.

I use hyperlinks most prominently in "Welcome to Dream Valley" in a way that both forces the user to look away from the "Places and Objects" pane and legitimately read with all the objects being described in the room description. It does take away from challenge, but one of my goals in both "Welcome to Dream Valley" and future projects is to make the user interface easy to use to the point where the challenge is in the turn-based combat and puzzle-solving.

Funny, I had a name for this, it was "Text-n-Click" (point 'n click with text).

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

As far as the traditional IF vs CYOA, I hope there is something in between, which is what Quest is offering. I know I would not want a read/choose/click/read/choose/click game cycle, which is what I feel with most CYOA. It has a very linear feel despite how the game might branch.

I do agree as well that I would like to have any puzzles or challenges in my work be those in the actual game world, not in the interface. I know for some, working out the game mechanics is part of the game experience. I would be quite fine if that wasn't the case. I'd like the player to be able to focus on the content not the interface as such. The conversation more than the language.

I had some more thoughts on my own since last night, and I think I've decided the direction I'm going to go, based on considerations I didn't list above. I think the challenge with hyperlinks will be how to make the player still want to read the main text (all of it) even if there are highlighted words. In other words, hyperlinks can take you on to more content, but the content itself must have relevance, more than the movement through it. It's going to be an interesting challenge, and I hope it all works out in the end.

I appreciate the input!

jaynabonne wrote:
I think the challenge with hyperlinks will be how to make the player still want to read the main text (all of it) even if there are highlighted words!

Hmmm? Using hyperlinks does not mean creating a gambook with links like "Go to the troll bridge". I started my game without links, only text input, after a year I tried to combine text input with links and now (after another year) I am using only hyperlinks. Yes, there are highlighted words in the description but most of them are links to scenery objects so finding the right way to solve a puzzle is not just clicking on links. In the garage of my game there are more than 30 tool objects, so be happy to find the right one just by clicking

It's told that typing would give you the feeling of freedom. Perhaps, but there 3 things I don't like:
1. Finding the right command is absolute annoying.
2. I hate to read "You can't ... it" or "Nothing out of the ordinary." or "I don't understand your command." all the time. With links you definitifely know which objects can be used.
3. I can't type blind, so for every command I have to look at the keyboard and this interrupts my gaming experience

Pertex wrote:Yes, there are highlighted words in the description but most of them are links to scenery objects so finding the right way to solve a puzzle is not just clicking on links. In the garage of my game there are more than 30 tool objects, so be happy to find the right one just by clicking

Then it sounds like in your game you have done what I said - made the main body text relevant. My main concern is this: let's say you're looking at a room description, and the description is a block of text which is waxing poetic about what you can see, hear, smell, etc. In such a block of text, there are pieces that are important to game play and parts that are either not important at all (prosaic filler) or important to setting a mood, scene, feeling, etc - parts that add color to what is going on, but which don't figure in the main game needs. Normally, the player *must* read all of that text, not only reading it but scrutinizing it closely to try to pick out what is important to the next step in the game. Now, I'm sure there are players who will read all of that text regardless, simply because they love to read and can appreciate being immersed in the situation. But there will be others who are goal-oriented who couldn't care less about, say, how damp the room smells or how the sunlight glancing off the water looks like electric ripples dancing on the skin of the world.

I'm just saying that with hyperlinks and keyword highlighting, we need to be careful not to either consciously or unconsciously cause this separation in the experience, where hyperlinks point to what's critical to gameplay whereas the rest is just filler and color and tends to get ignored by the player. As I said above, if you have your gameplay set up where you do need to read all of the text not just to pick out the objects but for more depth, then you've done what I was saying. Perhaps I've been playing too many lower-quality games lately that have gone the other way.

Pertex wrote:It's told that typing would give you the feeling of freedom. Perhaps, but there 3 things I don't like:
1. Finding the right command is absolute annoying.
2. I hate to read "You can't ... it" or "Nothing out of the ordinary." or "I don't understand your command." all the time. With links you definitifely know which objects can be used.
3. I can't type blind, so for every command I have to look at the keyboard and this interrupts my gaming experience

I agree with you about 1 and 2 above (3 isn't an issue for me, but I can understand. ) For me, typing isn't so much about freedom as it is about a different mental state. I can't explain it, but when I'm typing, the game just *feels* different. By having to take the words in, processing them, *figuring out what I need to type*, and then making the motions of actually typing the words out, I feel more engaged somehow. Now, the "figuring out what to type" part can be a frustration, and that needs to be eliminated. I just hope that hyperlinks don't make it where the player doesn't need to engage with the game as much since everything that is key is spelled out.

I'm hoping to do this in my game by not exposing everything as hyperlinks. Most likely, you'd be able to solve the game with the hyperlinks, but you'd also miss a bit of the experience. So if a player wants to get that experience, they can do the exploration, try things, see what happens. We'll see if that works.

At any rate, I'm not going to abandon hyperlinks. As I said, I just need to make sure that all of my text is relevant - or at least, that the player can't know for sure...

jaynabonne wrote:Perhaps I've been playing too many lower-quality games lately that have gone the other way.

I think this statement is the crux of the matter. In reality, it's not the hyperlinks or lack thereof that makes the game good or bad- it's whether the author has given consideration as to what's appropriate for the difficulty and style of their game. Every point made from games being "too easy with hyperlinks" to "too hard playing guess the verb" are ultimately individual authors failing to implement available game features in the best possible way.

One way to ensure the player reads the content is to simply remove the underline and colour from the hyperlinks. You could still click on appropriate objects and the cursor would change style when hovering over one, but the text must be scrutinized by the player.

Liam315 wrote:One way to ensure the player reads the content is to simply remove the underline and colour from the hyperlinks. You could still click on appropriate objects and the cursor would change style when hovering over one, but the text must be scrutinized by the player.

That's interesting. That reminds me of these graphical adventures I've played where you have a scene on screen and need to click on objects, pull levers, etc. And you end up spending at least half your time moving the mouse all over the scene trying to find "hot spots" where the cursor changes.

The way I'm doing hyperlinks, it's almost like that. When you turn hyperlinks off via a command, it just changes the style for the links. It removes the highlight color and hover cursor but doesn't bother to remove the onclick handler. You don't get any visual indication, but you can still click on words. (If you turn hyperlinks on again in the game, then *poof*, they all magically appear.) I don't consider that a feature as much if someone is turning off hyperlinks, they don't want to use them anyway, so they probably won't be clicking on anything.

jaynabonne wrote:
That's interesting. That reminds me of these graphical adventures I've played where you have a scene on screen and need to click on objects, pull levers, etc. And you end up spending at least half your time moving the mouse all over the scene trying to find "hot spots" where the cursor changes.

But today you will find no graphical adventure game without the possibility to show all the hot spots. People don't want to be "punished" by the author without such a feature. And I must say, that I am playing some of these games in that way: coming into a room, pressing the key for hot spots and than thinking what to do with them. Sometimes I do not really see the wonderful pictures behind them wondering of what easter eggs my friends are talking about. But it's my way of playing (sometimes) so I don't want to be punished or educated by a game creator. If I don't want to read your descriptions than it's my own fault (of course I will play your games carefully ).

of course I will play your games carefully

It's my job to make sure you want to.

Best answer? Ask the player in a script. If they say yes, keep it. If they say no, don't.

Great discussion. I'm coming a little late to the game, but would still like to share my thoughts.

Firstly I should explain the reason I chose Quest for my development platform is because of the user interface, specifically the links. On the other hand, I would prefer to play an adventure game in the old-style mode (without links) since it's more challenging and more immersive. I should also add that I come from an author background so my perspective may be slightly different than others.

I believe that we are seeing a resurgence in IF, and if it is truly going to hit the mass market a UI with links will be the critical factor. Three reasons for this. Most of the younger generation is going to want a point and click interface. There's no way my kids are going to type their way through a game, draw a map or take notes.

The second reason is the platform most games will be played on: smart phones and tablets. I just finished Zork 1-3 on my Kindle, which I last played on a Commodore 64, and by the end I was getting tired of typing on a tablet (a phone would be even worse). In spite of the fact, the latest Kindle OS has a pretty slick auto-complete function.

The last factor is also a result of the platform. People will play in short bursts and may be away from the game for a day or two. Therefore the puzzles need to be a little less challenging, which the links provide without me having to vary the difficulty through the code.

So to me the links are critical, but I also want to address the largest market possible (plus my own personal bias), and some players will prefer the greater challenge of playing without links. Other than the idiosyncrasies of Quest in regards to verbs and commands (I'll talk about that in a minute), it's really not that hard to offer both. The current game I'm working on offers a normal mode and a classic mode, which the player can select.

In classic mode it looks just like an Infocom game and in normal mode you get all the links, the sidebar and additional hints on some of the puzzles.

The major problem with this approach is that some commands/verbs work differently when used on the command line versus the links. For example in the case of ask and tell I had to modify the command to get the same response between normal and classic. This wasn't too big an issue (thanks to Jay's help), but the put command was a nightmare. I finally gave up and stole the "use" functionality since I had no need for it. Even in that case I had to write a function, heavily modify the put command, modify some templates and make a few other changes.

In other cases like "throw" all you have to do is add the verb, and the command line works exactly the way you want it to.

Slightly off-topic, but I really think Quest should provide standardization between the command line and the links. Not only for people like myself who want to offer two modes, but for all the players who may complete the game using a combination of links and command line. Even if I wasn't doing two modes I would never put out a game where someone can click put orange in bowl and it works, but if they type in "put orange in bowl" it doesn't work (just my personal opinion). Of course you could also just remove the text.

Bottom line, if you prefer one style or the other and it suits your game, go for it. But if you want to reach the largest market I think you really need to offer both.

I should also state that I think Quest is a great development platform and my comments about the command/verb issue is not a complaint, but rather a suggestion for future development. From what I understand, the link type interface is relatively new, and I'm sure it's still evolving.