I played a couple of games on Quest yesterday, and something struck me.

The first game was a "you wake up with no memory of who you are, why you're there, etc." which is not uncommon, as it fits conceptually with the player coming into a game with no knowledge of anything, and so there is no disconnect between the player and the "in-game character".

The second game I played (which is a highly touted game on the Quest home page) is different. It has a back story, and you are playing the role of a specific character. You have run to a field where your brother has just (most likely) been killed. The text is full and rich, and you are immersed into this world that your in-game character is familiar with. And yet, despite the lengthy exposition, you still get at the end of it:

You can go southwest or north.

with no description whatsoever of what those directions mean. The player is left with this need to explore to get oriented and work out what is what.

That just struck me as wrong (at least initially) as, if your character has just run to the field, then he/she should know at least what *one* of the directions means. Why is the player forced to guess or otherwise be left in the dark? And that brought to the forefront the question of just how much knowledge should the player be given? And should that knowledge be coincident with the in-game character's knowledge, especially in a game where there is explicitly laid out backstory, where you've been dropped into the persona of an existing character.

After all, these games all use "you". You go north. You pick up objects. You push buttons and fall down stairwells and talk to characters. Should the player be given all the insight of the in-game character? I suppose that could come down to the game author's design - I'm sure there are some interesting games out there that make good use of that disconnect ("you" but not really "you") to mess with the player's mind. But that's a deliberate mind-f**k , a messing with conventions.

Or are there conventions?

Basically, what is an author's responsibility, in a standard game, to make the player truly immersed in the in-game character's mind?

I know there are no hard-and-fast rules. I'm just wondering what people think about it *generally*, from either an author or player point of view. What has been your approach, your philosophy?

I feel a bit ill equipped in a good answer; since I have just posted my small demo and it might just prove inadequate. I will just have to wait and see.

I, for one, struggle with providing the right amount of information. What I try to accomplish, not necessarily successfully, is to have it play like scenes from a movie or novel. In Quest, it is a bit different as you can also see and hear or; let's just say: perform actions. Therefore the viewpoint in letting the character explore his environment by himself in search of answers to his questions. I also struggle with balancing comfortable versus accurate.
You have mentioned that you are left with choices of compass directions without knowing where you are headed. My initial feel was to give my game aliases for exits, but that ended up loosing the nice little arrows that you can click.
I guess some prefer to type and others don't - where to find the balance? I do; however, agree that you do need some kind of idea/hint to where it is you are going. Descriptions along with using the map helped me somewhat.
You end up with a lot of descriptions, but a detailed game can sometimes be overwhelming to both create and read and yet I do prefer such a game. I have slipped up on this too. The more opinions you receive, I guess the easier it would be to find that balance and learn from mistakes.

Just my 2 cents...

It all depends on context and, with a view to immersion and realism, what would make logical sense in that environment.

Say you have a room description that ends with "there is a door to the west," that's good, because neither you nor the character would see or know what is behind the door. In a more open setting like the field, it would make more sense to have at least a vague description of what is in that direction because in real life, you'd scan the horizon for a landmark. You need to consider the environmental factors that would contribute to what you know.

Like I said it's all context, and different situation would require different descriptions:

- Distance between areas - is it only a short step to the next room or is the player ostensibly walking for a while to get there? Can you merely see a path or is the building or area it leads to in visual range? Are you walking down a long corridor or is the next room openly adjoined to the one you are in?
- Day/night, weather (fog, rain, sunshine) - These would also impact what you could realistically see.
- Prior knowledge - Has the character been to this location before, even if the player is only encountering it for the first time?
- Mindset of the character - Is the story action packed to a degree where only the most obvious features would make themselves known or does your character have time to soak in the finer details and reflect on things?

I don't think "you" is screwing with convention, because in all games whether it be first person perspective where the user it the eponymous "you" or whether the in game character is defined separately. All games create an immersive experience where you identify with the character, whether you're pretending you're Lara Croft or whether the game invites you to be "you."

I think the author's only responsibility is to respect the in-game laws of logic that they have created. What is actually written makes no difference so long as it makes sense within the bounds of the in-game world.

As a player, I sort of expect to be left in the dark at the start. That sort of feels like the standard to me, although that's just my feelings. So in general, I'd say that an author's responsibility is to internal consistency first, and the player second. If a game started with "You are in a house," as the set-up, I wouldn't expect anything more than immediate visual descriptions. If a game started with "You are in your house," then I would think it was weird not to tell me what's behind doors or who the woman sitting at "my" kitchen table is before I speak to her.

As an author, I lean toward explaining anything the character would know to "catch the player up" on what he "deserves" to know. I am sort of struggling with the idea of a character's name. I feel like it's odd to say "this story is about John," and switch over to "you take the widget, you go west." Unless it takes the time to specifically say "you ARE John," than it could just say "John took the widget," or leave the character unnamed. I like the idea of letting the player enter a name for the character, but it kind of seems like a superfluous complication.

My feeling is that even if the character has no memory, surely there should be some way to differentiate two directions. What makes interactive fiction what it is is choice. But what makes it interesting is have choices that mean something. Do I go southwest, towards the small copse (with the implied hope of finding the murder weapon), or follow the footpath north (as the murderer likely did)?

In addition, including descriptive exits is a good starting point when writing the room description in my opinion.

I think everyone more or less echoed my feelings on the subject. The important thing is for the game to make sense given the setup. As always, with any sort of game design, it all depends on what the author is trying to do - hence, the importance of context. But some things make sense and some don't given that context.

Thanks, everyone!

just echoing what you've all already pointed out, in my own take on it:

there's a lot of dynamics involved:

1. how much work you want to put into making your game, each of the below items (of detail~depth~description) amplifies the amount of work that's needed to make the game.
2. descriptions~info~direction for the user to play the game without negative frustration in figuring out what to do or what can be done.
3. descriptions~info~direction of the game world and events, what and how much you want veiled vs revealed
4. in-game "player's" immersion of game world knowledge~experience~perspective
5. user's immersion of game world knowledge~experience~perspective
6. main story+plot immerision
7. side story~plot immersion
8. dynamic events~interactions~relationships and etc
9. other characters~npcs~actors immersion of game world knowledge~experience~perspective
10. etc etc etc

Just to go off on a tangent, I think part of the reason there aren't many hard and fast rules here is that people haven't been developing text adventures for very long, compared to something like novels. In novels there are many well-defined and accepted conventions -- third person omniscient, the unreliable first-person narrator, and so on. However that doesn't mean people shouldn't try to create a well-defined convention themselves but rather just follow the general rule of 'internal consistency'. Maybe an example of trying would be a game like Rameses, with its 'unreliable player character'. By doing that you can break some new ground artistically and that's a good thing IMO.

This thread makes me think of the location pane I was planning yesterday. Characters have knowledge of themselves via status and inventory... There is mapping... But a dedicated location pane might be useful for managing rich levels of detail about places. Its the last missing noun... Person, thing.... Place.