[MUD-Dev] Text Parsing

[claw at kanga.nu]

On Wed, 09 Jun 1999 21:25:51 -0700 
Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> wrote:

> Nobody *likes* to fail. It's okay if your game is hard and takes
> time, but it's *not* okay if the user is expected to fail
> repeatedly in the process of learning it.

A lot of the, err, failure of failure can be mitigated if every time
the player fails, it is reasonably obvious to him that if he only
did XXX or YYY differently next time he'd have a decent chance of
coming out a winner.  You can't do it too often of course -- too
many failures and even the best laid clue trail becomes a chore, but
if you can throw a little adventure and discovery into the learning
curve (if I do XXX next time...I did XXX and Wowo!  I can also do
YYY...) you can stretch it out to almost impossible lengths.


--
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...


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