Quest has an option to disable the command line. Why would you do that? How would you do that?

If you do disable the command line, you need to allow the player to do everything via links and the panes on the right. Quest already does the basics. You have the directions in the compass rose, and TAKE, DROP and LOOK AT for objects. You need to ensure all your objects have a full range of verbs.

Some commands do not have an object associated, such as LOOK, LISTEN, INVENTORY and JUMP. You can get around that by adding an object to them. Put a YOURSELF object in the inventory, make sure it cannot be dropped, and add verbs to that (a better way would be for Quest to have something built-in, but that is beyond my skills).

Some commands have two objects, and this gets tricky. You need to think about these on a case-by-case basis. It may be best to split them up. Instead of ATTACK GOBLIN WITH SWORD, have an EQUIP verb for sword, and an ATTACK verb for the goblin. An alternative would be to give a menu list of options for the second object.

So why would I want to?


For the player

The downside for the player is she loses the illusion of freedom. With a command line, she starts the game under the impression she can do anything. If she can type it, she can do. Without the command line, she is restricted to a limited number of options.

But it is just the illusion of freedom. Before long, the player will find that actually she cannot eat the flower, she cannot burn the newspaper, etc. because the author has not implemented that. Disappointment ensues. Take away the command line, and the player has already accepted that you are limited in what you can do.

In interactive fiction, perhaps the biggest problem for players is "guess the word" puzzles. The author thinks it is obvious that you should TWIST STATUE QUARTER TURN, but the PLAYER cannot understand why TURN STATUE does not work. It can be a problem for verbs, for objects and for conversation topics with ask/tell.

Get rid of the command line and the problem just disappears.


For the creator

Clearly the creator has to be careful to check the verbs for each and every object (and may well want to modify the list as the player progresses throyugh the game). However, this is an advantage, as it allows the creator to quickly check that each object has an appropriate response for every verb. You do not have to worry about inappropriate verbs, they will never happen.

Further, you do not need so many items. A good text adventure should implement every object mentioned in a description, or so the experts will tell you. If the room description mentions a table and a window, you need to implement them, just in case a player one day decides to look at them. Perhaps 95% of players will never see it, but the other 5% will complain if it is not there.

Take away the command line, and you can just forget about those scenery items.


So what do you think? Ready to disable the command line?

Thanks for starting this discussion. I envisage it could be very useful in parser games in controllable cut scenes where the parser alone would be too frustrating such as interacting with another character or (as I'll hopefully try and do in one of my games) using a computer. It would be interesting to get it to work like how conversations worked in old point and click adventures; although saying 'old' is a bit misleading as the same tried and trusted method is used in current games such as Skyrim.

I think we need to meld the dynamic conversation discussion with temporarily disabling the parser code ... Maybe that was already mentioned there, I only really scan read that thread and bookmarked it as important for later.

Summary: what I'm suggesting is keep the parser for what it does well (or not if you don't like it) which is exploring without feeling railroaded or limited but introduce the hyperlinks where parser alone will not suffice such as very driven scenes. And the starting block for that is turning the parser on and off with the command you mentioned on that other thread that I forget lol (we need to bring all info here really).

Use this to turn it off:

request(Hide, "Command")

There is no need to turn it back on!

Oh yes there is! Apart from CYOA books where you had a die and rolled for stats at the start (Warlock of Firetop Mountain; City of Thieves; Starship Traveller etc) I think I'm yet to find a PC version to properly do it justice. Although parser games aren't without their own problems for sure. I think both systems should be used together.

The Pixie wrote:
So what do you think? Ready to disable the command line?

Yes! When starting my project the commandline was active. After a year I tried to add hyperlinks. And after a second year I removed the command line completely.