Hi guys, i dont really get what he means but here it goes. What do you think?

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Some further grumbles are to do with Quest rather than this game particularly. For a start I can't find any way to make a transcript.

For another thing I think the separate command entry field at the bottom of the screen is ugly. It could be a sensible choice if the game didn't display commands in the main text, but instead rephrased them—so instead of

>take hat
Taken.

>eat banana
Delicious.

in the main window, you'd have only

You take the felt hat.

You eat the banana, which tastes delicious.

My Angel did something like this, I think. But if you're going to stick with the traditional display model, it's clunky not to be able to type commands in place.

If you use a verb with just a subject and the game thinks it needs both subject and object, you get a jarring pop-up menu. This happens even when the verb is perfectly reasonable with just a subject, as in break mirror."

m4u wrote:For another thing I think the separate command entry field at the bottom of the screen is ugly.

Yes, it would be great if we could change the CSS of the complete gamewindow.

m4u wrote:It could be a sensible choice if the game didn't display commands in the main text, but instead rephrased them

Can be done by the gamewriter

m4u wrote: But if you're going to stick with the traditional display model, it's clunky not to be able to type commands in place.

What does he mean with that???

m4u wrote:If you use a verb with just a subject and the game thinks it needs both subject and object, you get a jarring pop-up menu. This happens even when the verb is perfectly reasonable with just a subject, as in break mirror."

Can be done by the gamewriter

I think a lot of this is because text adventures have always been one way, he feels uncomfortable when they look a different way. A pop-up is jarring if you are used to an 80s style pure text adventure, but I would suggest not to people used to modern operating systems and unfamiliar with the conventions of the genre. A separate text box is far more logical than mixing input and output in the same box.

This is a problem for competition entries, because your game is put up against games than do conform to the expectations of the genre, and may suffer if it does not. Think of it as pioneering a new way for IF!

Against specific points:

For my entry last year, I put in a transcript command, that just said do CTRL-A and CTRL-C to copy all the output to clipboard, as I realised some users would try that.

Quest 5.3 has a better looking input box!

There was a thread recently about suppressing the command in the output box, and I am thinking about doing that myself. I am not sure what to do with error reports, and also reading transcripts if they do not have the commands will be a lot less helpful.

Pertex wrote:

"m4u"

But if you're going to stick with the traditional display model, it's clunky not to be able to type commands in place.

What does he mean with that???

I think he means in the sense of typing commands directly into the game window, as opposed to the separate window at the bottom of the screen.