Sure, we all know what’s a good idea to do. We know some of the obvious. But nobody knows what people don’t like! The small, little problems people have with games! The tiny things, like the blurb being a certain way or too long text timers! What are your vetoes (is that right?) and your pet peeves…

What’s funnier than it being only seconds long is the delayed realization that you’re also implying it to be a game. Which… fair enough.

[image] CMG: Ordinal compass directions in parser games. They are 100% guaranteed to scramble my brain and make me frustrated. That reminds me: I have a barely rational dislike for when large areas are modelled as multiple rooms. I feel like I’m going to miss out on some corner. Clearly I ca…

[image] Pinkunz: Would an option to turn audio and images on/off at the beginning be adequate? This is one thing I miss from AXMA 6 - the UI always contained sound controls. It didn’t adjust volume, but you could shut off sound for the entire game, and there was also a “mute” button which sto…

[image] Hanon Ondricek: Unfortunately no built-in way to not display images. In almost all systems, including inline images in parser, it requires an authorial choice presented at the beginning “Do you want images?” and a variable that gets checked before the image to display or not display. A…

[image] severedhand: […] horrible preference text file. Hey, I like that preferences text file. I wish Spatterlight has it too, I am never sure with GUI preference settings if something will work the way I intended it. :person_fencing:

[image] severedhand: Actually these things are supported at the interpreter level. Spatterlight has graphics and sound toggles in its prefs. Gargoyle has them, too, they’re in that horrible preference text file. I’m on a Mac so can’t check Glulxe/Wingit right now but I’m guessing they probably d…

Well, I’ve mentioned Cow V: The Great Egg Quest before. It has no puzzles and no real story, you just navigate around a bit and take eggs from one place to another. If you can find something worse than that, congratulations. My pet peeves in IF are: no substance in either gameplay or story too ma…

[image] Tuppura: choices that seem more significant than they are Do you mean in what the result leads to, or the intended effect on the reader being less than it should be? Charm Cochran’s The RGB Cycle plays with this really well. On the other hand, you also have The Trolley Problem Proble…

I meant choices that have little to no impact on the story despite being presented as super important. Maybe it could work in moderation in a nihilistic story or a story about a catastrophic thinker that blows little things out of proportion. SIM (Sara is Missing) is one game with this problem. Esp…

Where do I start… Assuming that the player is an idiot. No examples. I still play these games, but only once. Assuming that the player is a genius. Any game by Jonathan Partington qualifies. I’m sometimes in the mood for a challenge of wits, but this can be a put-off if I’m not. Shoehorning classi…

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Bad stuff. Unpopular choices. Terrible games. (In your opinions)

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