Just curious about other people's personal preferences, as PLAYERS, on verbs/commands in a game. Would you rather have a large catalogue of verbs to choose from, or a smaller one?

With a large library, you have a greater illusion of freedom. In any given situation, there's more to (possibly) do. That said, you are almost guaranteed to run into "guess the verb" problems, or be let down when an action that seems obvious to you wasn't implemented by the author.

With a small one, you sidestep the problems of the above, but at the cost of that illusion of freedom. You'll quickly discover their limitations and you'll know that those are the only things you can ever do.

I honestly don't know what my own opinion on this is. I love exploring in games, which makes me lean towards large options and more choices. That said, unless the author lists all the possible verbs (which is rare, even when the list is small, and unheard of otherwise), I end up seeing lots and lots of default messages. Is it worth being able to "bite" or "wash" or "spin" the three things in the game you can do that to, at the cost of the hundred+ objects you can't?

Just wondering if anyone has any personal thoughts/opinions on this they'd be willing to share. I think it can make us better authors to stay in the mindset of the player sometimes.

The more the merrier has always been my opinion. There's nothing quite like the feeling of trying a command on a whim and having the game actually respond, that kind of attention to detail always gets this immediate reaction of 'whoa, this author is awesome and really knows what they're doing!'

All the typical 'guess the verb' complaints only come in when an unusual action is not only required to complete the game, but hasn't been clued properly in the text at all. Like, if I see a button, it's fine if you want me to push it, but if I instead need to >reenact Act I of the H.M.S. Pinafore at the button, you'd better make that obvious!

And even in a case where you're going to run into a bunch of default messages, it goes a long way toward keeping confidence in the author if they have it at least be a custom one.

this depends on the type of game, but for better organization, you can use Objects as broader 'verb categories' with their Verbs as (sub) options within those broader categories:

player (Player Object)
-> character (Object)
->-> information~stats (Verb)
->-> equipment (Verb)
->-> appearance (Verb)
->-> magic (Verb)
->-> items (Verb)
->-> skills~perks (Verb)
-> Actions (Object)
->-> explore (Verb)
->-> travel (Verb)
->-> steal (Verb)
->-> jump (Verb)
->-> fly (Verb)
->-> search (Verb)
->-> buy (Verb)
->-> sell (Verb)

(brief example in partial code)

object name="player">
  <object name="character_button">
    <alias>character</alias>
    <inventoryverbs type="simplestringlist">information~stats;equipment;appearance;magic;items;skills~perks</inventoryverbs>
  </object>
  <object name="action_button">
    <alias>action</alias>
    <inventoryverbs type="simplestringlist">explore;travel;fight;steal;jump;fly;search;buy;sell</inventoryverbs>
  </object>
</object>

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as a game maker, you should have a way of seeing all of the Verbs (and etc game stuff) possible, in case the player gets frustrated, such as a Command, if they can't figure it out, either directly giving the answer, hints, or hints+then an answer.

if it has to do with 'HOW TO PLAY', then you got to let the player know this, obviously

if it has to do with solving a puzzle, if you want them to have to guess on 'OPTIONS TO TRY', that's fine, but have a backup in place, to help them if they can't figure out what are the available options to try, in order to try to solve the puzzle. And lastly, you might want to provide them with the solution to solving the puzzle too, as a last resort for them.

make an informational (about the game, what can be done in the game, how to play the game, 'game~player controls: F-key for moving forward, A-key for attack, etc-key', etc etc etc) system
make a hint system
make a solution system
(optional) make a cheat system

I think you're going to run into "guess the verb" problems with both large and small sets anyway if they're not called out to the player. Unless the verbs are all listed somewhere, the player has no idea how many verbs work or not. You definitely don't want to ignore common synonyms, though.

What I think the best approach is (based on what I have read and considered more than my own experience) is to put in the verbs and commands that *you* think make sense, give at least a reasonable "happy path", and then put it in front of a bunch of testers and get transcripts back to see where players may have diverged from your thinking. You'll go mad trying to anticipate all the possibilities people might type, and you might end up implementing lots of things that nobody will ever use. Using some directed feedback can help you focus on where the actual problem areas are. But that means you have to test!

I'd be happy if someone polished enough that all nouns give a response.

My take on this is that, like Marzipan before me, the more the merrier.

As for the guess the verb problems, I guess this is really up to the player. Someone on here (Silver, possibly) once said to me on a similar subject, 'Type a stupid command, get a stupid answer' - or words to that effect.

My policy is to set the scene, then put myself in the player's shoes and try to imagine every command I might want to logically try for that given scenario, and set a response for it using the command pattern method.

So, you're in a room that has a chair. Sitting on that chair doesn't do anything, but it's a logical command so I set a response for it. However, if the player wants to eat the chair then they're going to get a default response. Yes, you can feasibly eat a chair, but it's impossible to allow for every command a player might try.

It's quite a laborious process, as you not only have to imagine all the commands a player might try, but also the variations. This means just setting a command for 'sit on chair' isn't good enough - you need: sit; sit down; sit down on chair; sit on chair

You really need to think of all reasonable things that people will try. Then get beta testers to look at it through different eyes. No other way really.

To give an example of "guess the verb", I just played a game on this site to categorize it, and you start out in a completely dark room. Nothing to see, no places to go. Thinking I was in bed, I tried "get up". That didn't work. I tried "turn on light". That didn't work. I couldn't find anything to do.

So I downloaded the game and looked at the source. Seems you could have typed either "stand up" or "turn on light switch". In other words, I knew what to do but couldn't work out the exact magical incantation the author had presumed. That <- you don't want.

Wow, that's like Bad Game Design 101 right there. And you put a lot more effort into figuring all that out than anyone else ever would have. Was there even any indication you were lying down?

OurJud wrote:'Type a stupid command, get a stupid answer' - or words to that effect.

This made me chuckle. But I'm totally behind the sentiment.

Lots of great input, guys. I guess the key is really just clarity -- making sure you sufficiently clue the player to any obscure commands they might need for a given scenario -- and thoroughness -- making sure any logical action, useful or not, at least yields a sensible response. Being the OCD riddled mess that I am, I will probably be pretty good at that second part, though lord knows if my sanity (what's left of it) will survive the process...

jaynabonne wrote:To give an example of "guess the verb", I just played a game on this site to categorize it, and you start out in a completely dark room. Nothing to see, no places to go. Thinking I was in bed, I tried "get up". That didn't work. I tried "turn on light". That didn't work. I couldn't find anything to do.

So I downloaded the game and looked at the source. Seems you could have typed either "stand up" or "turn on light switch". In other words, I knew what to do but couldn't work out the exact magical incantation the author had presumed. That <- you don't want.

Wasn't someone on here threatening to make a game like that recently?

jdpjdpjdp wrote:Being the OCD riddled mess that I am, I will probably be pretty good at that second part, though lord knows if my sanity (what's left of it) will survive the process...

I might as well have typed that

It'll slow you down, let's just put it that way

It'll slow you down, let's just put it that way

OCD or sanity?

Well... both, really

And I might as well have typed that!