This sounds like it would increase confusion, rather than decrease it! Unless you have a maze of twisty passages all alike.
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I’m not a huge fan of mazes, per se, as they just feel a little lazy, as puzzles go (unless they’re coherent with the narrative), so I tend to avoid them in my games. And maybe this option won’t help people much. But it might help someone a little - there is one particular puzzle in my current game where they could help (and no, it’s not a maze, but there are similar locations that a player might not immediately appreciate are different locations). In a future game I’m planning there’s magic, including teleportation, following which this option might help a novice player re-orientate themselves. And any player confused by seeing the location numbers could just turn off this option.
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Possibly an option to give extra information about the location, but in a way that matches the player’s view of the world? The location title might say “Hallway (North Building)” and “Hallway (South Campus)” rather than “Hallway” and “Hallway”.
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In all other places, where I want it to be clear that a location is distinct, it would have a clearly different title and description, but for my current project, the similarities between multiple locations is deliberate. This might not stump an experienced player, but a novice player may find the location numbering option helpful in realising that these locations are distinct - it might be just the clue they need to resolve the puzzle.
It might also be useful for an automapper processing the transcript, which doesn’t have the common sense to realize those are two different Hallways.
If you release it without in-game hints and add them later, would the newer version not restore users’ saved games? (I’m all but sure that’s true for TADS, can’t speak for Inform.) That would make it difficult for users to migrate from a hint-less to hinted version.
In a short game, not a big deal. For players stuck or desperate in the middle of a ten-hour game, that might be a frustrating choice.
Maybe David Welbourn will take up the challenge! His walkthroughs are impressive.
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I wonder if it would work to have the hints be there all along, but hidden and unannounced (until later), and to access them you have to type a password or do some unlikely sequence of actions or something.
I like your ideal world. I say let people gather here to pick each other’s brains for hints and nudges and brainstorming.
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This is partly what I was getting at in the intro to my review of Nothing Could Be Further From the Truth.
More games with directly mimesis-breaking mechanics and properties like learn-by-dying, replay to optimise your turn-count,…
I welcome this. Through the past few decades, “immersion” had taken on somewhat of a “Holy Grail”-halo. An often referenced, valiantly sought after, but ultimately seldomly if ever attained ideal.
A concept that should never have been promoted to ideal in the first place.
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Have you considered entering this in Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2023? The aim of the comp is to write a game suitable for beginners. Add a tutorial and your game would fit perfectly.
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I’m going to push back a little on this.
Twenty-five years ago, I couldn’t have agreed with you more. Today, I rarely see “breaking immersion” or “crimes against mimesis” referenced (on this message board, at least), in reviews or comments, or even from beta testers.
Basic things resolutely declared “immersion-breaking” long ago we simply name today as having an unfinished feel. I’m speaking of examples like objects mentioned in room descriptions not being implemented, or typos.
(I suspect the reason for the situation was a combination of Usenet’s propensity for flame wars combined with the more objective nature of detecting immersion issues. Arguing over whether a character is well-developed, or if a colorful metaphor is serving the game’s prose, is far more subjective and less mechanical.)
Full-on immersion doesn’t feel like a Holy Grail any longer, unless there’s some corner of this board I’m not spending enough time on.
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Thanks for the heads up on this. I hadn’t come across this before (I’m only just getting back into IF after a break of about 2.5 years). I guess a deadline will help focus my mind on competing it, too!
Do you think this is a good thing? Or a loss of striving for a worthy ideal?
My very first reviews on IFDB are from december 2019. Those early reviews are full of references to immersion, enhancing mimesis, pointing out stuff that shatters the illusion…
When I re-entered the IF-scene a bit earlier that year, one of the first things I did was devour the IF-theory reader, the theory and craft essays on IFWiki, some articles by Nick Montfort and others,… These are all quite old, and place a lot of importance on the concept of mimesis. I was very much under these views’ influence when I began composing my thoughts about IF and writing reviews.
At a certain time, however, I realised that for all my talk about immersion or mimesis, I had never truly experienced it.
Captivated by the premise, sure.
Empathically inhabiting the PC or interacting with NPCs, yes.
Fully and actively engaging with a piece, certainly.
But immersion like I know it from disappearing into a book and coming up for air a hundred and eighteen pages later, oblivious of past time, having to blink a few times before my real-life surroundings make sense again?
Immersion in that sense does not play a role in my appreciation of IF anymore. Even when I did use it as a concept in my thinking about IF, I have to admit in hindsight that I was plastering it onto my impressions and appreciations, shoehorning it into reviews of IF games without it actually belonging there.
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A good thing. I’m always dubious about Holy Grails and sacred cows.
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I don’t think mimesis is frequently mentioned in theory and criticism nowadays, but, then again, how much theory is written and disseminated at present? The IF Theory Reader feels like an authoritative text, and I can’t think of a counter-text that has risen up to argue against any of its positions.
There is an early and recurring assumption in this thread that “in context” hints are the best (only) way to solve the problem of in-game hinting, and to me those assertions (like others on scoring and whatnot) feel grounded in old theories of mimesis, even if those texts are not deliberately or knowingly invoked. I think that sometimes, given the history of these concepts, they “go without saying.”
I understand @rovarsson 's comments in that context: this was a prevailing concept that is part of post-commercial IF’s origin story (“Crimes Against Mimesis” was first posted in 1996, I think), and it remains an undercurrent in our discourse.
Just my take.
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I’m not a big fan of immersion. When it simply happens ok, it’s nice, but I normally have a sort of distance if that is the right word. Back in the days when I played TTRPGs I was against immersion, but I was the only player in our group thinking that way. I never take the game (computer or tabletop) as serious as for example some LARPers or middle age market visitors do.
So it’s important for me as an IF author because many people love immersion. But it’s not important for me as a player.
What disturbs me (only a bit) are big logic mistakes in a game.
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I’m curious, what’s the difference between “logic mistakes” and “breaking immersion” for you?
Well, a logic mistake for me means like: Some time ago the game said the door is green but now it says it is red.
And immersion break means for me: I was feeling like I’m Superman flying through New York, but then something made me aware that I’m just Peter sitting in front of the PC.
Logic mistakes can and usually will lead to breaking immersion if and only if there is immersion to break. Another way of saying it: even if there is no immersion to begin with, incongruous logic can still happen. That is why they are not equivalent.
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Timur, I couldn’t have explained it better! 