One of the things that irritates me about parser games, is when you get a particularly difficult puzzle and have to keep scrolling back up to the room description because your two dozen inputs have run it off the top of the screen.

I'm sure I can't be the first to think of this, but is there any fancy java out there that would 'fix' the room description and have the player's inputs (and game's responses) scroll up behind it? Only when the player successfully moves to a new location does the old location scroll up to make way for the new one.

I can already see some problems with this idea, such as the fact that a particularity lengthy room description would force the parser off the bottom of the screen, meaning the player wouldn't be able to see what they're typing, but it's a thought.

just type l.

What does that do? (not got Quest open right now).

Never mind, just tried it on a game. Nice! Never knew of that function. So what does 'l' stand for in this case?

"look". It returns the room description.

Ah! Thanks.

the 'L' I think is probably just a Command, such as this custom one by me for example, lol:

(actually this code isn't done right, but it's only for example)

<command name="room_description_command">
  <pattern>roomdesc</pattern>
  <script>
    msg (room.description)
    // or maybe it's: invoke (room.description), if it's a script (run as script)
  </script>
</command>

Commands are wonderful!

a command for showing your player's stats
a command for help
a command for equipment
a command for magic
a command for a 'pedia'
a command for leveling up
a command for items
a command for etc etc etc

--------

<command name="stats_command">
  <pattern>stats</pattern>
  <script>
    ClearScreen
    msg ("Strength: " + player.strength)
    msg ("Endurance: " + player.endurance)
    msg ("Dexterity: " + player.dexterity)
    msg ("Agility: " + player.agility)
    msg ("Speed: " + player.speed)
    msg ("Luck: " + player.luck)
    wait {
      ClearScreen
    }
  </script>
</command>

You've been playing text adventures all this time without using L?

Next you're going to tell me you type out 'inventory' instead of i or 'examine' for every object instead of hitting x.

Either way I admire your dedication to playing IF, I can't imagine getting through a single game if I had to constantly scroll, especially the ones with lots of detail and objects to fiddle around with. I get annoyed if I ever have to touch my mouse for anything at all.

Marzipan wrote:You've been playing text adventures all this time without using L?

Next you're going to tell me you type out 'inventory' instead of i or 'examine' for every object instead of hitting x.

Either way I admire your dedication to playing IF, I can't imagine getting through a single game if I had to constantly scroll, especially the ones with lots of detail and objects to fiddle around with. I get annoyed if I ever have to touch my mouse for anything at all.

TA have evolved since I played them. I certainly don't remember certain shortcuts that we have now. Or maybe they were always there and I didn't know about them even then

I knew about i for inventory, but not about x for examine.