That’s an important caveat indeed, but as an additional complication, I think it depends on the interpreter.
What I’ve found is that the transcript doesn’t survive a restart in previous versions of Gargoyle (bundling older versions of z-code interpreter bocfel), and in Lectrote (bundling ZVM).
In contrast to that, in Gargoyle 2022.1 (bundling a new version of bocfel) and in Windows Frotz, the transcript does survive a restart, enabling beta-testers to capture the intro text.
Ooh, that’s a great point.
I’m always mildly surprised that for all the incredibly useful feedback I get from my testers, nobody ever seems to comment on my mediocre writing. Perhaps they’re hoping to spare my feelings. I’ll try to remember to tell my testers not to do that next time.
On the other hand I realize I rarely comment on other author’s writing either because I feel wildly under-qualified to do so.
Maybe a naive question, but is there anything stopping me from simply copying and pasting my play session into notepad?
Some games clear the screen at various points in the plot. You’d have to copy and paste after every turn to be sure not to lose anything which would be quite tedious.
Ahhh… I’ve never noticed, tbh. Whenever, by chance, I’ve felt compelled to scroll all the way back to check something, it’s been there.
I’ll try to watch for this in the wild.
ETA: Periodically clearing the screen seems like it might indirectly impact difficulty, no? I often scroll back to check wording/details when trying to puzzle things out; this often leads to an “a-ha!” moment. Having my earlier actions wiped would probably leave me stumped longer.
No, you can generally do that (*), but if you want to do that not just once at the start to capture the intro, but instead of an automatic transcript, you’ll have to think of doing it every once in a while, because a) sometimes the screen will be cleared, as Nils said while I was typing, and b) interpreters usually only keep a limited amount of scrollback text, so it’s not guaranteed to be available.
(*) If the interpreter allows it. For example, the standard ADRIFT runner doesn’t, AFAIK, because you can’t mark the text, because it has a facility to intercept mouse clicks in the output field in order to insert the clicked word into the input line. (But the interpreter also has a transcript functionality, so it’s not necessarily a problem.)
(And just to be clear, there is no general problem with transcripts in z-code games, the complication discussed in the posts further above is specifically about “restart” breaking the transcript.)
Do any interpreters have the ability to tweak this amount? I’d rather max it out personally.
My feeling is that authors do not have to agree with you or take your advice. But I personally don’t like testers trying to spare my feelings or be overly polite, because the general audience won’t, and I’d rather get harshed in private during testing than publicly in reviews.
We’re all IF lovers, and we’re qualified to comment on every aspect of a game, if that’s what the author wants and can tolerate. Our personal quirks and preferences may mean that we’re not always right in our criticisms, but I still want all the feedback I can milk out of any sucker willing to test for me.
Not that I know of. I think it might be big enough by default that it’s not often an issue in practice, just something to keep in the back of one’s mind.
If you want to be sure to be able to refer back to anything, I’d definitely recommend letting the interpreter keep a running transcript in a separate text file.
One thing I learned in MFA and then teaching writing is that ideally there’s a mutual understanding between author and reader about the goals of the piece. For instance, if I wrote a sonnet for a workshop, it wouldn’t really be productive to hear things like, “I don’t like poems that rhyme” or “I don’t see the point in counting syllables.” All valid opinions, yes, but not so constructive as feedback. The poem is probably going to remain a sonnet, and often sonnets do such things.
This is a responsibility for the author, too. It’s no good if they have priorities but don’t communicate them.
These cases may be less common, since–at least for me–a nagging question will be “does it work?”
This is really just an amplification/extrapolation of Mike’s point:
Agreed 100% - this is I think a bunch of what’s going on in that looking-for-testers thread that’s going poorly. The author has a very specific vision in his head but hasn’t been able to articulate it so go figure, it’s not going well.
This can legit be challenging to figure out, though - especially where asking questions up front might direct attention to details that a naive player might not be as focused on. I think on Sting I had a spoiler-blocked question I asked folks to read only after they finished the game, which seemed to work ok.
That seems like a great idea! I’ll keep that one in mind.
Isn’t she lovely, ladies and gentlemen? Best boss ever.
Well, in my games you have pointed out: bad grammar, clunky writing, poor cluing, scads of bugs, lack of lickability, poor transitioning, annoying gatekeeping, poor characterization, overexplaining, redundancies, and a whole host of other lazy, dumb embarrassments, and I have sighed deeply and fixed them. It does make one wonder who writes the paychecks around here.
I expect your final draft on my desk tomorrow morning. Lickability included.
I agree. He’s amongst the worst nitpickers that I’ve ever encountered. I really don’t know why I invite him in!
That’s what they said about my good friend Vlad. 'T was too late by then of course…
This big amount of issues doesn’t correspond with your work.
That’s because you all root them out before the public sees them!
* Nils makes a mental note to try to get Rovarsson to beta test his next game.