Sorry for the less than vague title, but I couldn't think what else to call it.

This is something I'd like to gain opinion on, and deals with revealing the players' locations in stages, as opposed to giving them all the info at once.

Not suggesting it's anything revolutionary, and I don't doubt it's been done already, but I must say it's not a style/technique I come across often. Maybe because of the potential extra work it creates.

Anyway, how about instead of the usual:

You are in the lounge of your apartment. The kitchen is in the east wing of the building, while opposite in the west wing, lies the bedroom. The door to outside is north.

There's a coffee table here, on which lies a bunch of keys and a notebook.
>

You have something like:

Apartment.

There's a coffee table here, on which lies a bunch of keys and a notebook.
> take all

You pick up the keys and notebook.

The kitchen is in the east wing of the building, while opposite in the west wing, lies the bedroom. The door to outside is north.
>

I'm not sure this would work for every location, but I like the idea of giving the player the most relevant information, not just first in the description, but instead of. Dealing with the most relevant thing would then reveal things like exits and more detailed location descriptions.

This idea came about because sometimes I feel quite overwhelmed when a new location is thrown at me, which contains a whole bunch of options for me all at once; multiple exits, objects, other characters, etc. I sometime find myself wishing the location and all the things it contains were broken down by relevance, but maybe it's just me.

Would such a style irritate or intrigue you?

For me, I think it would depend mostly on what triggers the descriptions to 'progress' - for example, whether or not you actually have to pick up the keys and notebook from the table before being able to see the rest of the room. One of the things I enjoy about text adventures is when they reward players for their attention to detail - e.g. examining everything in a room might uncover a secret/clue that another player might miss.

Something that concerns me about descriptions sequentially showing only the most relevant information, therefore, is that (depending on how it works) it might make the game appear more linear and less 'free-form' than it otherwise would. Although for parts of a game, such as the beginning, or the start of a new area, I imagine it might work well. Another potential issue I can think of is what is considered 'relevant' at the time: the author and the player might have different ideas about what this constitutes, especially if the game is a more open-ended one with a lot of exploration.

It is an intriguing idea, though, and one I personally wouldn't mind as a player - but perhaps used sparingly, and not for the whole of the game. A variety of styles is rarely a bad thing.

Good points, Chris.

I must admit this idea was developing as I typed the OP, and certainly not fully thought through.

On reflection I can appreciate the potential issues you mention. Like my example for instance. It assumes the player is ready to leave the apartment, when it's more than likely they would want to explore their current location first. There's nothing to stop them doing this once they've picked up the items, of course, but what I'm essentially doing here is forcing the player to do things.

I think maybe this style would work better on CYOA type games.

Hopefully I didn't give the impression of disliking the idea completely - although I agree that the style does seem more suited to a CYOA game, perhaps. In the case of your example, it might be a good idea to use that style of unfolding descriptions if e.g. the player's character is late for work or otherwise in a rush. I imagine it'd be suitable if a character is gradually recovering their consciousness after being asleep/incapacitated too.

I have a scene in the project I'm working on, where the player enters a room and it is described as being (more or less) empty, causing the character to turn around, whereupon they notice a hooded figure standing next to the doorway. Most of the encounter in that room revolves around speaking to the figure (you can't leave without speaking to them, in fact), so there isn't much time devoted to describing the room itself. The room appears different, and can be examined as usual if the player returns later, though - perhaps this is similar to the idea you mentioned?

Even if it's not a style I'd personally want to see used all the time, I can definitely see its use in areas where you want to change the pace of the narrative.

No, your points were good ones.

Like you, I can see it working to change the pace. I may experiment with it for my WiP.

To add my two cents, another consideration is that the ongoing description has nothing to do with what the player types. The example you gave would imply to me (at least at first) that the subsequent description was in response to my "take all", which makes it seem strange, since it's not. Now, if I play the game enough, or multiple times, then I might eventually realize that the description is coming out in stages on each command, which would probably prompt me just to type "z" (wait) over and over to make all the text play out before I did anything. In other words, the game would be withholding information (at first) that I might need to make the best choice about how to proceed.

What you could do perhaps (though I'm not sure how with Quest) would be to have a "short" description when you enter the room, and then if the player types "look" or "l", then they get a full description. That's not too bad a system, as the player will probably quickly learn that they can get a fuller description with an explicit look.

I would definitely not include any key information in that more verbose description. Otherwise, again, you're just forcing the player to explicitly look in order to know everything about where they are, which is often critical to deciding the next command.