When designing a Quest game, is it possible to:

Hide the Compass Window?

Hide the Places/Objects Window?

Hide the Inventory Window?

Let the user generate a game log of all plays and responses?

Especially the game log and the ability to hide the compass and place/objects windows. That would add a little extra challenge, and take away some of the "click on stuff until something happens" playing.

If these are not possible, would it be possible to include in a later version?

Thanks!

Alf

not sure about the game log, but the rest, no

Use the following script command - in your case make it part of the startscript:

panes off

That will hide them, but players can still get them back by clicking the arrow button as usual.

Alex wrote:Use the following script command - in your case make it part of the startscript:

panes off

That will hide them, but players can still get them back by clicking the arrow button as usual.

Oh, i thought he meant physically remove them

For the game log, Quest has an option to log all ASL in a report, you could encourage your users to do this, or just write information to the logfile using ASL. Both would provide something similar to what you are wanting.

Thanks for all the replies!

Alex, I'll try the panes switch. It would be nice to let the developer decide to allow the windows or not. Maybe a future enhancement??

TTFN,

Alf

It doesn't seem all that important. Why the big deal? The majority of games created in quest aren't complex enough to "make them harder" by hiding the panes.
If anything, it sometimes helps to have them there instead of deleting a potentially badly made game.

Bugswatter says

The majority of games created in quest aren't complex enough to "make them harder" by hiding the panes.
If anything, it sometimes helps to have them there instead of deleting a potentially badly made game.

Suppose part of the idea of the game was to encourage children to interract with the game through reading - and typing - sentences. (Which is one of my reasons for being interested in IF). That would be a very good reason for removing the panes.

Frank

I'd like to permanently remove the panes as I don't think they add anything to the interface. No other system bothers with them - why does Quest?

davidw wrote:I'd like to permanently remove the panes as I don't think they add anything to the interface. No other system bothers with them - why does Quest?

Well, as we all have different opinions, here's mine:

I think a graphical interface would be good, and a nice background in which you could change "skins". Graphical MUDS look better and are easier to interact with, instead of trying to figure out what the few hundred commands are.




There are some more, but there isn't much point in printing loads as you get the idea.

I think quest would not only be more fun to play, but more fun to develop if we could have such visual quality. Just my opinion

I really don't think it would be hard at all, for someone to design a shell for Quest that could do all this. It really shouldn't be done by Alex, that's not his responsibility.

Madbrit, I think, talked about using a simple program to send commandlines to from Quest for the purposes of images and sounds or something as such. This would be exactly that, just fleshed out with a graphical interface. It should be the responsibility of the creator to do all this for maximum playability of their game.

What would the program have to do, you could probably make it in VB.

Load a preconfigured GUI, run Quest hidden, and monitor the incoming text window of Quest, watch for lines that read $$QUEST.GUI.CMD_42049502_$$, and call some procedure to update a picture, or highlight some text, or change the value of your health meter, or whatever, then message everything besides that $$... line to a text box..

Doesn't seem like this is something you can expect from a guy already providing you with the proprietary language, client/server and a development toolset. This is all on the game maker I say. You just gotta be ambitious and follow through.

Al was talking about shelling a program from quest.

There's probably ways to pass stuff to quest via the windows API, but to get them back would be harder I guess.

One of the nice features of text-based IF is that it requires you to think. In some scenarios, the compass gives away parts of the puzzle you want the player to figure out. As soon as you enter a room/location, the object windows gives a list of stuff you may want the player to find for himself. Yea, I know that with enough scripting you can do anything. I just think that the scenarios would be more challenging if the player had to read, think, and remember. With all these visual aids, all the player has to do is just start clicking. Sooner or later the click will bear results.

I don't propose eliminating them completely. I just think that some scenarios would be better without them. Just my opinion.

Hi, Alex.

Would you please consider an option switch to allow the developer to show/not show the compass, object, and inventory panes? Especially nice would be to select each one individually. Sometimes you'll want one, or the other, or all.

I would like to develop some scenarios in which these panes will give too much away.

Many thanks!

Alf

I'd like to get rid of them personally. I don't think they're necessary.

Out of the few changes I'd like to see in Quest, this is about the most important one for me.

I finally paid for Quest today, so hope to start using it now.

Eh, you can hide them... But the user can get them back if they want.

If you want to totally get rid of the directional's - you can get around it. The same if you don't want the player to have the inventory list.

... Personally I don't see why you'd want to get rid of the inventory list... Just saves the player typing "i" all the time.

To avoid the compass points just use the command's, like <#whatever# north> or <#whatever# south>...
That way they have to type instead of pressing a button.

Alf wrote:Hi, Alex.

Would you please consider an option switch to allow the developer to show/not show the compass, object, and inventory panes? Especially nice would be to select each one individually. Sometimes you'll want one, or the other, or all.

Perhaps I'm thinking of another system but I thought this option was already there - something like "panes off"?

Though it's just gone midnight and I could be talking through my posterior.

Alf wrote:Hi, Alex.

Would you please consider an option switch to allow the developer to show/not show the compass, object, and inventory panes? Especially nice would be to select each one individually. Sometimes you'll want one, or the other, or all.

Perhaps I'm thinking of another system but I thought this option was already there - something like "panes off"?

Though it's just gone midnight and I could be talking through my posterior.

Actually, I think the panes are good. I wouldn't want them gone. As everyone else said, just hide them. Because if the player agrees with you, he/she will keep the panes hidden. And if they want the panes, they'll just turn 'em back on. As for making quest more graphic, I think that would be a cool idea, but only to a certain degree. Making it a little more colorful, and adding some more interface, but not as graphic as the screenshots that were pasted. Because, quest is, after all, a TEXT game. That's why I was attracted to it in the first place. So with everyone modifying it to make it more graphic, I feel like we're in the 70's and just trying to improve the game's graphics, until they are as good as the games today! (Though I wasn't even born yet in the 70's) Anyway, that's just my opinion.

Same here. As ebayfan stated, Quest is about text adventures. If we put graphics into it and all that sort of thing, it will take that element away. The text thing is why most gamers come to things like Quest. I think the only real improvement Quest needs is the ability to dock and undock the panes.

I think I'd go with those who would like the ability to turn the panes off and not have the player turn them back on. I think that all the options should be open to the author - panes on, panes off and player's choice. I doubt if that would add too much extra work for Alex (though I'm not a programmer so I could be wrong.)

As far as graphics is concerned, again I'd like some choice as an author. If I'm allowed to mention TADS here, I'd mention that Multimedia TADS allows inline illustrations in the same way that websites do, rather than having special panes for them, and this seems to work nicely for those who want them but they are not necessary for those who don't.

Frank