On a separate note—please never require me to tell the difference between green and yellow for gameplay purposes. People love to use red-yellow-green to indicate status, but I can’t see a difference there.
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Hey! 
(In all seriousness though, I agree (unless, of course, the character is meant for that, but yeah), and I can agree that it reminds me of that as well 
)
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Introductory Wall of Text ™
I am, of course, guilty of this (Cursèd Pickle is Wall of Text: The Game) If I want to read a book, I’ll read a book. I love a great opening scroll, but I’m here to interact with your story, not cram a handbook to be able to understand the history of what happened before I got here. If the world has history, put the book in the game and let me decide to read it instead of making me click through all the pages in order before I can walk.
Intersection
You can go north, south, east or west from here.
Conversely, I also don’t care for being dropped on the map without the merest shred of a clue where to go first. It’s cool I can make that choice, but I do experience choice-paralysis that I’m going to stumble across the story in the wrong order. You’re not taking away my agency by putting something in the first room like a mailbox and a White House or something to direct my attention organically. I literally could not play Oblivion because the first starting town you get to after emerging from the sewer is round and all the doors look the same with the same signs I think you had to click them to read them? and I could never convince myself I hadn’t missed something and was completely unprepared to forge in a random direction into the wilderness.
I agree profanity can be overused, especially if every character is a potty mouth and they all blend together. It’s interesting if a specific character curses frequently, or characters have their own levels and ways of expressing frustration in how lewd they will get. I must admit a well-placed F-bomb or unexpected saucy delivery can be very effective if not overused.
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I think that is feasible modifying a3Lite’s GOTO (the parser verb, not the programming instruction considered harmful 
) to limit its pathfinding depth to one level, obtaining exactly what you suggest 
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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An issue we currently have in Italy is that one of our generals has decided to declare war on political correctness…
This to say, I don’t think is feasible to remove profanity to Sailors and Soldiers, fo’c’sle and barrack language being what is since the birth of Mars and Neptune, hence is feasible to have “every character is a potty mouth”…
side note, here in southern Italy the trait of true gentlemanly is being capable to speak to gentlemans and uncouth people in their respective languages…
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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Oh boy, I’ve got some takes.
- Excessive menial choices. “Are you going to run straight for the treasure or check for booby traps?” is a choice that makes me think. “Do you use the shampoo or conditioner first?” I will click whatever just to move on with it. I realize a lot of this can be flavor or so the story isn’t too straightforward, but when too many insignificant choices show up, it desensitizes me to the ones that actually will have an effect.
-
- The worst is when you get a dialogue branch that looks like this:
Janice leans over from her desk: “Hey, can I borrow your pencil?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah.”
“Yep.”
“Sure.”
“No problemo.”
“Okey dokey.”
“Your pencil is my pencil, friend.”
“Anything you say, Janice.”
-
- And every choice will net the exact same “You give Janice your pencil” text. I don’t mind when they’re different enough in tone or wording to give your character some flavor, but multiple identically-acting options in a row that do nothing makes me question why it’s a choice.
-
- I also agree with everything about the character customization, because most of the time it never comes up again. My hair has a streak of yellow, I prefer cargo pants on the warmer days, and my left eye is green while my right eye is brown, watch this never be relevant ever. I don’t mind having a name selection but default names are usually the way to go.
- Being bombarded with useless, unclear stats that I have to manage. If a sidebar is immediately listing my lawn-mowing skill, preferred pizza toppings, days until I should get a haircut, and number of Jules Verne paragraphs I can recite from memory, it makes me care less about the story and more about micromanaging these values. Bonus points if the game doesn’t seem to have practical applications for any of these.
- Default Twine game styling. The basic black-on-white text is so boring. It just makes me feel like the author didn’t care to pick out something that could fit with their story; you don’t need to be a CSS wizard, but just picking out a nice shade of turquoise in the background or something can make the game that much more visually appealing.
- Unexplained verbs being introduced. Burglar is fun, but it took me a few turns to figure out that besides Xing and SEARCHing, I could also LOOK UNDER and LOOK BEHIND every object I saw.
- The same bit of stock text being printed over and over again. Be it the faint mildew smell in Cragne Manor or the every turn reminder to get to the airport in My Girlfriend’s An Evil Bitch, clogging my screen nonstop with text I’ve already read gets on my nerves fast.
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@mathbrush I know, right?
I’m always sorry about random curse words in my texts but, really, it’s not me. The characters are speaking by themselves. I try to make them stop, but to no avail.
My latest game starts (and is advertised) with an f-bomb. At least, this advices players about the tone throughout the game (ofc, jokes apart, I don’t see it as “random”) and it could be a push or a pull depending on who you are.
(Does this mean I can add a “contextual” star to your review? )
This made me think about one of the things that trigger me most in usually (but not limited to, sigh!) older games: offending, teasing the player.
TAKE BOTTLE
Are you stupid?
DRINK WATER
You sound like you are not able to have a decent idea, don’t you? You must be stuck in elementary school.
I signal this when beta testing games anytime I find it. The reader is NEVER stupid, and otherwise your best friend. Behave accordingly.
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I’d like to see a jam of sorts that asks for a game that DOESN’T use old conventions (mazes, inventory and timed puzzles: too easy a task) but still succeeds in being the worst.
The goal? Find a way to make the game compelling enough that people will try and finish it anyway.
How?
A wall of text and backstory, but so well written it captures you even if you don’t like walls of text.
Insulting comebacks but funny, non trivial, contextual.
Curses, but (I don’t know, I love them tbh!)
Searchable items as a convention made funny (no idea here).
Empty descriptions but somehow evocative (this has been made already: see Swigian).
Add yours.
—
Omg. I probably made my first, actually useful post in 15 years here. Like, I’m promoting SOLUTIONS 
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I’m pretty sure that’s what prompted this thread 
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Actually, it was too good to be true 
Btw, no. A bad game is a bad game. What I’m suggesting is finding a way to make use of bad things to make a good game.
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That’s the very thing I am going to attempt. MOON LOGIC seems a proper name for my game.
Now I only need to make sure it is bad enough to pass the JAMS committee…
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This is just run by me, Onno.
And again, the point is just to make a bad game. Not trying to use “bad things” to attempt to make a good game. It should be purposefully bad.
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Wow, I’m really unpicky compared to you lot.
I don’t like timed text. And that’s it.
-Wade
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Then this whole discussion is kinda beyond the point. Cramming all kind of undesired things into a game does not auomatically make it a bad game, merely an unpopular one. Thank you for clarifying it.
To clarify, I was not suggesting you change the scope of your jam. Hope this didn’t confuse people.
Oh no worries, I was just answering Onno
you’re right: for the Infocom Imps, a player isn’t a stupid, is a cretin
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
automatic 5 stars, game of the year
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Does offending players via [comments in the] source code count?
...
C "YOU'RE DEAD, JIM."
C
C IF THE CURRENT LOC IS ZERO, IT MEANS THE CLOWN GOT HIMSELF KILLED.
...
from Crowther and Woods’ Advent 350 Fortran source code.
Edit: Clarification.
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I know this is a joke but I don’t take points off for profanity usually, unless it overall contributes to my ‘would I like to play again’ point. Because I feel like it’s not fair, as most popular don’t mind profanity and there’s no way for people to know ahead of time that I wouldn’t like it!
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