Can we make a better parser tutorial?

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

@cvaneseltine

Since a plug-and-play tutorial exists for I7 - it seems reasonable to expect games to provide either that level of help, or to provide something that is superior but tailored to that specific game - if there is a movement to adopt new-player-friendliness as a general community standard.

Largely agreeing with zarf, but I think the basis of comparison would have to be something like “Does the game provide at least the level of help you’d get if you just plugged the extension into this particular game, with maybe a little more tweaking?” For example, in Terminator the extension would be pretty much useless. (Though this probably falls under “non-standard parser,” and of course I had to roll my own tutorial because the mechanics of the game would’ve been incomprehensible to everyone without one.) Or if you have a one-room game where inventory isn’t important, like Tea and Toast or Engima, Tutorial Mode only gets you look, examine, and the metacommands. And a game like Moonbase Indigo where the fun is mostly in the nonstandard commands won’t work that well in tutorial mode, though maybe it supplies its own tutorial…

…it’s not that I’m arguing against the general idea, that people should use the extension or come up with their own tutorial. Just that even if the extension is well known, it won’t be the case that everyone will have it or a similar tutorial unless they Just. Don’t. Care. On the other hand, testing has become a generally accepted norm, and that requires a fair amount of effort, so we might think that most authors should be willing to put in at least the fraction of effort that goes into testing into making the tutorial work.

For a cautionary tale, I tried putting Tutorial Mode into the one project of mine in which it might be expected to work (Faithful Companion–this is 6G60 so I had to use the old version). The first thing that happened was that it told me to LOOK and then told me I was done. I don’t usually Bracket Every Notable Thing in room descriptions, and apparently this meant Tutorial Mode didn’t detect that there were examinable things around. I hastily threw in a bracket and got this (emphasis added):

“Haunted?”

The caretaker grimaces. “A year since you visited, you say? Some hooligans smashed the mausoleum up a month back. Since then, well, I’m the only one who’ll go near it. And I don’t care to stay long. See for yourself if you like, and I’ll collect you in the morning.”

Poor Thurnley. No rest even in the tomb.

Faithful Companion
A Ghost Story by Matt Weiner
Release 3 / Serial number 150603 / Inform 7 build 6G60 (I6/v6.32 lib 6/12N) SD

Type ABOUT for more information about this game.

Cemetery
Visitors used to sit on the bench here to contemplate their mortality. Apparently the reminders of their mortality have become all too great. A marble door leads inside.

You can review your surroundings at any time by typing LOOK. Try it – type LOOK now. (Or, if you don’t need instructions, you can turn the tutorial off by typing TUTORIAL MODE OFF.)

look
Excellent – LOOK will print a description of your environment, like so:

Cemetery
Visitors used to sit on the bench here to contemplate their mortality. Apparently the reminders of their mortality have become all too great. A marble door leads inside.

Individual objects have descriptions, too. You can find out more by examining them, as in EXAMINE THE BENCH.

examine the bench
Very good. Since you’re likely to examine things frequently, you can also abbreviate this command as X, as in X the hidden-key.

The bench is covered with a light drift of leaves. Apparently the caretaker no longer cares to rake here. But there seems to be something under the leaves.

And that covers most of what you need to know! There are lots of other verbs you can type as you go along, but you’ll likely be able to guess them from context. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new actions.

To stop the game, type QUIT; to save your current position, type SAVE. RESTORE allows you to bring back a game you have previously saved, and RESTART starts the game over again at the beginning.

The old version of Tutorial Mode picked out a random visible thing for further examining… and this time it happened to grab a dummy (and privately-named) thing I’d put in there in case the player sees something on the bench and types “x something.” The new version replaces this with LOOK AT ME (and mentions that you might want to look at other visible things), which is much nicer.

And then:

x the hidden-key
That’s not something you can see.

x leaves
The bench is covered with a light drift of leaves. Apparently the caretaker no longer cares to rake here. But there seems to be something under the leaves.

You feel a chill. There is no wind, but the leaves fly up from the bench and twirl in the air. Somehow they describe a faintly human shape.

There was a key under the leaves on the bench.

The ghost looks around.

You can pick things up when you see them, like this: TAKE GHOST. [I guess I didn’t mark it as not portable–maybe persons are portable? This got fixed in the new version.]

take ghost
Well done. Now you’ll get a message to tell you whether you succeeded in picking up something:

You reach out, but the thought of touching the leaves is too much to bear.

The leaves swirl toward the bench as if the form within them is peering at it.

x door
The inscription on the heavy marble door reads “I May Have Peace When I Rest.”

The leaves swirl toward the bench as if the form within them is peering at it.

unlock door
(first taking the iron key)
You unlock the marble door.

The leaves swirl through the motions of taking themselves.

Now, it turns out that you’re holding something. To find out what, try typing INVENTORY.

i
No – try again.
Now, it turns out that you’re holding something. To find out what, try typing INVENTORY.
inventory
Right! In the future, you can also shorten this command to INV or just I. As you see, it will print out a description of what you’ve got:

You are carrying:
an iron key

The leaves swirl toward the marble door as if the form within them is peering at it.

If you want to get rid of something that you’re holding you can always drop it, like this: DROP THE IRON KEY. [entirely coincidentally, this is exactly what you need to do to not get killed]

drop the iron key
Dropping things will move them into your environment, like this:

Dropped.

The leaves swirl around the iron key and it rises into the air among them, where the ghostly figure’s hands might be.

The leaves swirl through the motions of unlocking the marble door with the iron key.

x ghost
Leaves whirl and flutter without falling, around a disturbance in the air that takes a vaguely human shape.

The leaves swirl as if the ghost is looking at something it is carrying.

x key
A heavy iron key that seems to fit the lock of the crypt’s marble door.

The leaves swirl as though the ghost is putting something down, and the iron key falls to ground.

z [killing time to see if it suggests moving]
Time passes.

The leaves swirl toward the ghost as if the form within them is peering at it.

z
Time passes.

The leaves swirl toward the iron key as if the form within them is peering at it.

open door
You open the marble door.

The ghost waits.

To move from place to place, you can use the compass directions (NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, as well as NORTHEAST, NORTHWEST, etc.)

From here, try NOTHING. [And I don’t know what happened here… ah, I think the route check doesn’t do “using doors,” which is bad if you’re testing a door.]

Anyway, it seems as though you may need to hammer out some quirks when dropping this into your game. Which is something worth doing!