Default Out of World Commands in Inform7

Authoring Inform 7
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What Out of World commands do you think should be standard in an Inform7 text adventure?

I’ve got: About, Credits, Help…

Any others you’d recommend? It’s my first Inform7 game!

Thanks,

Greg

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Other than the built-in commands, those seem sufficient to me.

Edit: although HINT is a good one to include.

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Thanks!

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I’m a big believer in having a COMMANDS command (with VERBS as a synonym). I.e. a list of all the verbs a player will need to use to complete your game (probably in order of how frequently you expect them to be used).

This can depend a bit on what kind of game you are making, though, and how you want players to approach it. (And I know some people probably disagree with me on this.)

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A little more on what is typically/sometimes included in each command:

ABOUT

  • credits
  • about the creation (programming language, length, etc.)
  • about the release (submitted to IntroComp, got 35th in IFComp, etc.)
  • contacting the author
  • how to get help (e.g. HELP command)
  • if this command exists, say so in the opening (like after the banner)

CREDITS

  • duplicate of text in ABOUT or with more information
  • author(s)
  • testers
  • programming language creator
  • inspiration

HELP

  • usually used as a general help (e.g. EXAMINE everything, draw a map)
  • include some “new IF player”-oriented information here (even if it’s just go here for how to play parsers)
  • include special verbs here if there are any (e.g. SNIFF)
  • if HINT command, say that there are hints if needed
  • if this command exists, say so in the opening (like after the banner)

HINT

  • usually context-sensitive (if it exists)
  • uses game stats to figure out what needs to be done next
  • can be menu-style (player picks relevant hint) or all selected automatically by the game

VERBS

  • all default/common verbs (LOOK, EXAMINE, TAKE, DROP, etc.)
  • directional verbs
  • all special verbs (SNIFF, SEARCH, etc.)
  • any shortcuts (L, X, T ROB, DROP ALL EXCEPT RAKE)
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VERBS is a potential spoiler. Instead, make the code around an unusual verb as flexible as possible so that many different commands and grammars work.

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You can make a VERBS command that updates as you go. That way, when you finally get that you can EXTRUDE STOMACH, EXTRUDE is added and it’s not spoiled. This is very useful for games with nonstandard commands.

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As a design principle, I’m of the opinion that the best puzzles make it clear what options are available, and the trick is figuring out how to use those options. Otherwise you’re setting yourself up for guess-the-verb/guess-the-noun/hunt-the-pixel/etc problems.

I had to reframe some puzzles in my IFComp entry because of that, but now every command needed to beat the game is available as a hyperlink, and I think it’s better that way.

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If you have a lot of meta information, you can make all of these verbs synonyms for one action which opens a menu with all the meta info, divided up into subsections.

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The most important commands have already been mentioned, but some optional ones you could add if you wanted are “walkthrough” and “xyzzy.”

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Clearly XYZZY is an in-world command. :smile:

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Very helpful. Thanks!

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Sorry, newbie here… What do you mean every command is available as a hyperlink?

Thanks!

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That’s just their specific game, which I believe has options to play either as a traditional typed-input parser or with hyperlinks to enter commands.

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Ahhh, ok. Thanks.

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Yeah, it’s an experiment I’m doing. But it means every single command to complete the game has to be presented explicitly to the player.

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I use almost all of these, if not all.

While the original question was for what definitely should be standard, I’d like to add a few I find frequently useful.

ABOUT is a good command for immediately letting the player know about VERBS, and I really like writing “Try ABOUT to get basic info or VERBS to see commands to use” in italics at the start of the game. I also like spinning off META and OPTIONS from VERBS (VERBS does action stuff.) Otherwise VERBS can get a bit too long. You also can, if you want, have a VERBS NECESSARY command to list what commands are necessary to win the game–though some may find this a spoiler.

One other thing that’s really helpful is referring to VERBS in a general parser error, if the player seems confused.

I also like the idea of HINT [THING] being out of world (you’re allowed to have an action out of world applying to things) and HINT maybe deciding (with rules) which thing to hint. But that may be down the road!

If the game’s complex enough, I also like having a THINK command, which is different from HINT. THINK would inform you of stuff you almost got right, or you got right, but it wasn’t time yet. E.g. “you managed to distract the troll with (X), but you couldn’t distract them long enough to get in and out of the cave.”

I sometimes also use a VERSIONS command to replace VERSION, for games with more than one release. Then EXTENSIONS gets pushed to what VERSIONS did. But that may be personal taste.

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