Do multimedia and hyperlinks/buttons/etc really make parser IF more accessible or improve it as an art form in any way?

[HAL9000]

In UI design (I think it’s called UX now?) the interface should never distract, it must compliment the content and facilitate a better experience for the end-user. If elements of a UI go against that mantra, it’s not a good thing. For example, if the UI has some ornate designs that elicit a certain theme that fits the content, that can be a boon.

Switch what I’m saying to graphics and audio complimenting the story’s text now. Does this graphic enhance the story? Does it add to what the words are describing with additional, important information? Then the graphics are adding to the experience. It’s why a lot of those visual novels show facial expressions and body language with the characters swapping in and out as dialog is displayed. The dialog doesn’t typically describe the mood of the characters. Nor are the environments described in many cases. The graphics carry that load.

Also, as you pointed out, extra media is extra work. Is the quality of the music/graphics you’re adding consistent? If not, the game is hurt by the inclusion of it. Inconsistency can be jarring to most and takes people out of the moment.

Lastly, if you remove something, how does it affect the story? If it doesn’t change much of anything, it’s not needed. You need to be your own editor all the time, even beyond the written word.

The only benefit of purely eye-catching things is for marketing. A title graphic does the trick. Anything beyond that has to have real purpose.

Speaking about marketing, you also asked if additional media would attract more players. If it’s of high quality, of course it will. People see more ways to engage with the game, but it doesn’t guarantee the game is better for it. Sometimes a movie trailer is better than the movie it promotes. Expectations can impact a person’s enjoyment too. If your goal is to make money, then yes, media could help greatly.

In the end, there is no right or wrong answer, just your own artistic vision… balanced with reasonable editing. Don’t screw up!

[Kastel]

@alexispurslane

Do images and such really make parser IF more attractive to people who usually aren’t interested?

Speaking as a new player to parser games but know a lot about visual novels, I’m not so sure. While there aren’t that many visual novels with text input, I do think it’s important to bring up graphics aren’t everything. They don’t get players as well as a good story would.

And there’s a huge problem with visual novels having illustrations that don’t match the text or are frankly unnecessary. I’ve played visual novels where I sincerely believed the omission of images would actually improve the experience.

… Which leads me to my interest in text adventure games. Emphasizing text over other elements means a host of new strengths and weaknesses. I concur with people here that letting the imagination run wild in text parser games is great. There are many tricks in text adventure games that can’t be replicated in visual novels and elsewhere. The IF works I really enjoy are the ones that exploit this text-only medium and this includes works with images.

Drew Cook has already mentioned their lovely Repeat the Ending, but Everybody Dies is another game that uses illustrations to supplement their story. Emily Short in her review brought up how the ambiguity of these illustrations adds to the game – and I think that’s only possible in mediums that emphasize the text. They aren’t for getting newbies to play these games; they’re there to add something to the interactive fiction experience.

I don’t think parser games that have multimedia elements are going to grab prospective players. Same with hyperlinks and buttons. If added poorly, they might be seen as extraneous elements and could give a bad first impression to players. There’s really no general rule of thumb in getting anyone interested in IF in general.

I entered the world of parser games because I wanted something different and unique: a simulation where my text input changes the world. Others may get into the scene for different reasons and there’s going to be a section that will never get into this scene; I know people who are just turned off by the idea of reading a text-only game, despite being massive bookworms themselves.

And in regards to the Play Online feature, I think I speak for some folks that I got into IF because of this. Even I recognized then I’d probably get a subpar experience, but I wasn’t sure how invested I would be in this scene. It’s a really useful feature to get people to try IF out without asking them to download Gargoyle!

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

I agree with a lot of the earlier points.

For me, multimedia can work well, and can even be breathtaking; I remember a Pseudavid twine game that had no special elements but at the end had a paint splash cover the screen; it was awesome.

But in general, the ‘evolution of parser games’ already happened. Graphics and Clickable links led to adventure games, deeper graphical immersion led to Myst, and the end goal of most ‘add UI and graphics elements to a text game’ is just a regular video game, which is of course a very popular genre.

So I think adding graphics and helpful UI elements is a good idea, it’s just a good idea that’s already a several-billion dollar industry.

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

@Kastel

And there’s a huge problem with visual novels having illustrations that don’t match the text or are frankly unnecessary. I’ve played visual novels where I sincerely believed the omission of images would actually improve the experience.

Peripherally off-topic VN asset discussion

I am not widely versed in VNs, but from understanding the production process I see how there can be resource/budget limitations. Even professional VNs have a limited stock number of backgrounds and paper-doll character illustrations, so if there’s, say, a one-off story element where a character gets a black eye, it might be prohibitive to create a custom element to show the player that. So you get lots of conversation “what happened to your eye” and since the player is used to things being displayed visually, they’re like yeah, what’s wrong with this character’s eye? and it all falls back to text description and suspension of disbelief. If there’s no background art for a room that’s seldom used, you might get just an overview exterior image of the location and talking heads like “Hey, your rec room is really nice! Look at the foosball table!” there is no foosball table nor rec room on screen.

And some independent VNs might have one illustration of a character that never changes - that’s their whole character budget, or they can get a friend to make them one rendering but can’t ask for too much if they’re not paying.

I remember in the Game Grumps Let’s Play of DDLC, they’re like “Oh we’re sitting over here now? There’s no illustration for that? Okay!” …so often a deficit of visual resources is made up in text narration! Which as stated is one of the main draws of prose IF - you can have an “unlimited budget” for set and special effects if it’s only described and not visually illustrated. The reader’s imagination can exceed anything the best CG artists can create

I think some VNs deal with resource limits by employing very strategic layering - “paper doll” isn’t just a casual term - they often have characters with “tinker toy” elements - if you need the arm up, you paste on a different arm which is specifically designed to always hook to where the shoulder coordinates are expected to be. And you can layer different outfits over a character if you know they only can be in six basic poses. They might do the layering live in the engine, or have the illustrator do multiple faces and arms and legs that can be positioned “paper doll” fashion and saved as needed - similar to how South Park streamlines the animation with stock shapes and facial expressions to do it fast and within budget.

[Kastel]

Off-topic VN Talk

I’d like to write up something for this forum someday about my thoughts on visual novels versus interactive fiction, but I’d need to get deeper into IF theory first.

But yeah, I don’t want to be too harsh on visual novels. I write VNs after all! Once you commissioned graphics (and voice acting) to be made, you are stuck with this. There are actually visual novels where the production schedule was so messed up that the game got voice acting first. The writer had to edit in such a way it wouldn’t conflict with the already recorded lines.

The paper doll element can actually be explored further. I think visual novels are best understood as “theatrical plays for your computer”. Much like how we see stage props that are repeatedly used on the stage, we can willingly suspend our disbelief and assume that a character portrait bouncing up and down is actually movement. There’s something powerful about using these limited and stock assets in creative ways, especially if you’ve seen this portrait used forever but there’s a different variation on it.

It’s also entirely possible to use this approach with backgrounds: I was part of a project where, recognizing a million original backgrounds was not feasible, the team decided to commission assets like trees and rocks; you can then rearrange each scene with these assets, thus making new but familiar backgrounds for each scene. The way we can toy around with audiovisual assets and make something new out of remixing them is really interesting.

And I can talk about this aspect of presentation forever, like how arranging specific portraits can make for cinematic battle scenes. If you’re familiar with manga paneling, people have actually done that in visual novels. That’s the kind of stuff that I enjoy: people exploiting the strengths of the medium to tell something that wouldn’t be possible in other places.

[nephar (Timur Ozturk)]

@kamineko

I don’t know how true it is that players control the appearance of their play session. IFDB sort of stovepipes players to iplayif.com , and I think this method only allows for browser-related configs (zoom and light/dark mode on my system).

Are you peeps playing with whatever settings iplayif.com offers to you? How archaic!

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

this sounds snarkier than I want it to, but “everybody knows how to do this obvious technical thing” has yet to solve any problems of accessibility in IF, even if it’s been a thing for years.

[jnelson (Jim Nelson)]

My response comes from the experience of writing According to Cain, which offers graphics and music as part of the game. (Some of what follows comes from my talk at NarraScope a few weeks ago on that subject.)

Also, I’m not trying to be combative. Hopefully it doesn’t come out like that.

@alexispurslane

the less I feel like graphics and UI elements really do anything to enhance parser IF artistically, or increase its accessibility

@alexispurslane

I’m not sure what images really add to text descriptions, for instance, except for ruining the reader’s freedom to fill in the blanks of a description and imagine things how they want to, subtly contradicting or distracting from the text, and/or replacing text

First off, almost every IF game released these days has digital cover art; I do think a good cover enhances the experience by suggesting the game’s tone and subject matter (just like a good book cover). So, there’s one example how graphics may add to a game.

For accessibility, I agree. I permitted the user to decide whether to include them or not at the start of Cain. Graphics and music are not required to play.

Why add in-game graphics, then? To add some polish to the experience. To help set a mood. To suggest a setting. I did not use images as illustrations, in the way illustrations in a children’s book show what’s written on the page. Rather, the graphics I used (slices of paintings depicting Cain’s world, as I envisioned it) were set in a sidebar and between chapter breaks. Again, I viewed it all as polish, not replacing text. Think of the flourishes in an illuminated manuscript.

Regarding sound, I didn’t use sound effects, but I did assemble a soundtrack and matched music to locations and events within the game. Again, I made this optional from the get-go for the user, and again, I regarded it as polish, not an essential part of the game.

I know full well some players turned off the music, while others simply didn’t know it existed (because they played with an interpreter that didn’t support it). That’s okay. I’m just happy they’re playing, even it’s over a TTY.

But I also know from reviews that some people enjoyed the soundtrack. Cain even got some praise on how well the music meshed with the game (and some surprise that the music wasn’t commissioned explicitly for it).

@alexispurslane

isn’t the fact that parser IF is basically presentation-agnostic, so the player can choose for themselves how things look

Sure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t incorporate other media, so long as your game can “degrade” (UX term, not mine) for interpreters or users that want or need more control over presentation.

(It helps that TADS’ multimedia features, while dated, were designed with this “degradation” in mind.)

@alexispurslane

I don’t think adding action buttons, or a menu of options for actions based on what objects you select, or making object names clickable to inspect them, really adds much either. Those UI elements are entirely superfluous add-ons

Lots of IF elements are superfluous—being able to open multiple games in multiple windows is a dreamy, futuristic world, if you played text adventures in the early 1980s. The status bar is not really necessary for most IF. Even parser features, like being able to refer to an object as IT after referring to it earlier, or implicit open/unlock actions, are superfluous. How many text games written today could be made to work with two-word parsers? Quite a few, I bet.

These are quality-of-life features. If I’m presented with a numbered menu in IF, but the choices are also hyperlinked, it seems to me that’s okay.

One more thing…believe it or not, adding media to Cain helped me improve the game’s text and design. I listened to my soundtrack incessantly while coding it; the music put me into the world while I built it. Much of the prose describing Cain’s world comes from studying the paintings of the Hudson River School, and I wanted to share that with players.

So, while I describe the additional media as “polish,” the experience of adding it actually fueled my creativity while writing the game.

It’s hard to explain, but looking back, I would not have done it differently.

[alexispurslane]

This was a very helpful reply, thank you!

[inventor200 (Joey "Jess" Tanden)]

@alexispurslane

TADS 3 Web UI

You can do all of this in HTML TADS, if you’re not aiming for multiplayer support. Just for what it’s worth.

Otherwise, I personally agree that graphics don’t really add much, while sound can, but I also feel more strongly that it’s up to player preference.

@HAL9000

In UI design (I think it’s called UX now?)

(I’m sorry but this is something I know about lol)

UI design specifically means the audio/visual design of the menus and buttons and their placements. UX design specifically means the way these elements react to the player, how the menus are layered or sequenced, and how the player can interact with the UI.

[SomeOne2 (Max Fog)]

I’m surprised none have mentioned things like Zork Zero. For me, puzzles like the Towers of Bozbar and Double Fanucci were really good, because it got me to step out of the game and actually process what’s happened so far. You guys may not like it, I dunno.

Also art can push a game if it’s done well. I really think the BBC’s 20th and 30th anniversary version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a step-up from the original, obviously depending on the game. Probably games such as Suspended or Counterfeit Monkey couldn’t really have images. (Though CM’s map was a nice addition.)

Regarding hyperlinks, I have to agree with @HanonO. The fumbling process occurs quite a lot. It’s not one I like, and would generally go against it if the section isn’t a non-parser section (example: Towers of Bozbar in ZZ).

Of course, we all have different views, but… yeah, I’m on the images side. (Only if you can get away with it: a game with half-baked images or image placement is even worse than without.

[alexispurslane]

@inventor200

You can do all of this in HTML TADS, if you’re not aiming for multiplayer support. Just for what it’s worth.

That’s good to know, but I think I’m gonna avoid all multimedia for now. I’m already struggling with the urge to over-detail every room in order to feel like it’s finished and I can properly move on, which is causing a massive unnecessary time sink, adding more vectors for yak shaving is not a good idea for me

[inventor200 (Joey "Jess" Tanden)]

@alexispurslane

adding more vectors for yak shaving

(adds to phrasebook)

[HAL9000]

@inventor200

UI design specifically means the audio/visual design of the menus and buttons and their placements. UX design specifically means the way these elements react to the player, how the menus are layered or sequenced, and how the player can interact with the UI.

Appreciate the explanation. I used to do UI design and do functional documentation as well. I always thought UI design was a part of that other side, but now that I think about it, there were graphic guys at work that made some pretty amazing interfaces without much concern about usability. Slackers!

[BrettW]

@inventor200

You can do all of this in HTML TADS, if you’re not aiming for multiplayer support. Just for what it’s worth.

But not on the web, right? I’m still reeling from my realization that Parchment doesn’t do HTML TADS 3, and having to hack the minimum I need back in.

[BrettW]

One example I can think of where images would be irreplaceable is something like maps or diagrams for puzzle-y machines. To say the same in text would be a nightmare. How to use these and be accessible, I don’t know. The easy answer is “don’t use them”, but then that limits the type of experience you can provide.

On hyperlinks, I have an example from my current game. In the game is a computer with a particular interface which is not hard to run, but it requires new verbs (CLICK ON ...) and to streamline the situation there’s really only a few choices. No problem for a curious or experienced parser player. But for everyone else, it’s much easier to offer a hyperlink on the monitor’s description so you the player can literally click it, and it fills in the command for you.

Unfortunately the way this rolls out in TADS 3 land (AFAIK) is that you can only offer these experiences in a dedicated interpreter, or provide the more accessible web versions that can’t do HTML stuff.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

some aspects of my reply will surprise old-timers, whose surely remember my critique of late Panks’s taste in colouring his works, but I consider myself a pioneer of using “enhanced text” (beginning in C64 era, I discovered, mid-80s that appropriate POKE 53280 and/or POKE 53281 enhances the narration, go figure that the pair of numbers above are unerasable ROM in my brain…), hence my critique on the inconsistent support of bold/italic/underline styles in 'terps (as my “scroll of styles” showed…) and colours. And there’s also the recent usage of textual smileys, as in ; ) re “winking” !

so, there’s a substantial way of improving the main art form, with appropriate use of styles and\or fg/bg colours. All is needed is a consistent support from 'terps… not an easy proposition, I fear.

[inventor200 (Joey "Jess" Tanden)]

@BrettW

But not on the web, right? I’m still reeling from my realization that Parchment doesn’t do HTML TADS 3, and having to hack the minimum I need back in.

Well, Web UI TADS needs you to be running the game on a dedicated server, using a seemingly-modified version of the language. It’s not like you can make a Web UI game and have it work in Parchment, and not a lot of people have a spare server to host things on for themselves.

Also working on your game and iterating on it in Web UI is an absolute nightmare. Someone was posting here about it once, and he had to upload the game to the server, wait for that version to go live, then test it from his personal computer as a client. He was asking if there was a way to test it locally on his machine, but I don’t remember any answers coming of it. I’m guessing you would need to set up a server on your coding rig, and have the computer basically connect to itself, and restart the server and reconnect every time you need to test it.

EDIT: Also also, I remember there being a discussion around the problems of needing a game to be hosted on a specific server while submitting it to a comp, instead of just sending a game file.

EDIT 2: More info on why we don’t see much of Web UI anymore can be found here.

[alexispurslane]

@inventor200

He was asking if there was a way to test it locally on his machine, but I don’t remember any answers coming of it

There is a way to do that, figured it out when I was messing with Web UI the day before yesterday. Just run the Web UI game in FrobTADS with network permissions set to permissive (frob -N 0 [game]). It’ll run it locally on your machine and give you a link on localhost to visit in your browser to play the game. It works very well!

So this is essentially correct:

I’m guessing you would need to set up a server on your coding rig, and have the computer basically connect to itself, and restart the server and reconnect every time you need to test it.

But it’s not a bad thing, certainly not as negative as you’re making it sound. That’s the normal set up and development cycle of modern web apps and websites. Serve them up on the local machine with NodeJS or Django or whatever, have your browser connect to local host, etc.

IMO, Web UI is still very much usable, it doesn’t really have any showstopping flaws or anything, nor is it that hard to use at all, and it lets you do some seriously amazing things that HTML TADS and Parchment won’t let you do, stuff comparable to Vorple, since you can create an interpreter customized with arbitrary HTML, JS, and CSS and game output with arbitrary embedded HTML and JS and arbitrary video and audio as well as pictures, and have the JavaScript on the client side use AJAX or websockets to communicate directly with the game besides just the normal interpreter loop. It can seriously do cool stuff. For instance, look at this demo: https://gs.tads.io/?storyfile=http://seriousgames.atwebpages.com/WebUIdemo/WebUIdemo.t3

[Loressa]

Well, my focus is on MUDs, but in those adding details like graphics and MXP (clickable) links dramatically increases accessibility and retention, especially for common commands like navigation.