I think extremely limited parsers for puzzles also tend to have a problem of themselves lawn mowing all the limited kinds of puzzles that can be made with the limited parser. I’m reminded of puzzle platformers where they add a mechanic like light switches then create every possible variation of puzzles using light switches.
I would assume that any real system would have some way of deciding which things would complete. You’d need that for other reasons anyway: obviously you wouldn’t want to complete any object anywhere in the game.
But also I generally have nothing but contempt for so-called puzzles where you could be spoiled by auto-complete. I’m sure there are a couple examples somewhere of times I thought it was fun, but mostly I just find it stupid and pretentious and obnoxious (looking at you, Photopia/the up/fly scene).
Oh, huh! I just ran through Larry Horsfield’s Ectocomp game the other day, let me check.
In the ADRIFT 5 runner, for me, Tab switches between the input line and the map (if it’s open) and does nothing otherwise. But maybe older versions? Or something?
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Frotz on iOS has autocomplete/suggestion for the “base verbs” and any word that previously appeared, and double-tapping on a word anywhere copy-paste it to the prompt (putting spaces where relevant)
Looks like it’s an option under Edit in the Runner – not sure whether authors can enable or disable it on their side, though. If it’s on it’ll be extremely obvious, it pops up suggestions whenever you start to type.
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Not being a puzzle game is definitely one of the biggest flaws of non puzzle games.
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Tab autocompletion is a lifesaver for me. I use CLI tools a lot in Linux environments. I am trying to add autocomplete for known verbs and nouns (that should avoid spoilers) for my parser input part in Twine just to see how that would work out…
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Oh, wow. Not tab-complete but “complete this thing without asking” and if you want just the thing you typed, you have to do something special to get rid of it? And it gives you commands I’ve never heard of like empty and lower when you’re trying to get E or L. That’s awful.
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the noun issue in building a non-spoiler tab completion I think is easier, practically every standard library has useful variables/flags like visited or examined which can be inspected by a tab completion routine; for the verb is a bit more complex, but one can start with a solid set of default (the “Zarf card”)
anyway, X followed by return is far faster than EX-tab-return (2 keystrokes vs. 3), so the lack of tab completion in IF perhaps stems from the well-standardised set of one-letter shortcuts ?
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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One reason not to implement auto-complete: your players will never have to deal with auto-corrupt.
A handier feature to implement would be intelligent command history—i.e. if you’ve already written X, don’t go through all past commands, but only those starting with X.
You didn’t know those cakes exist?
But if you think of IF and fairy tales, can you avoid thinking of Alabaster? Which doesn’t seem to me to have a heavy-handed morality lesson involved.
It could start its own genre and then be summarily kicked out for failing that genre’s checklist,,,,
That isn’t quite true, from what I recall?
“I considered becoming a pirate or a thief, but they were always being killed by adventurers and it was always fine for adventurers to run around with this, that, and the other in their pockets, so I became an adventurer.”
--- the stranger, probably.
Instructions unclear, removed hands and put them in pockets.
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I did not, and I’m a very serious cake baker. I think it’s a British thing?
Alabaster is all riffing off of Snow White, and there are serious lessons about the evils and depredations of female vanity there (but not about trusting a gang of strange men, oddly). Whether or not those lessons surface in the various parts of Alabaster, they’re there in the source material. I played Alabaster too long ago to remember it well. I wrote a game-- Fairest– riffing off of many fairy tales, and mine certainly employed a heavy-handed moral lesson, because I wanted it to be a fairy tale in and of itself.
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All of this technical discussion has been quite fascinating. Before the match, I knew nothing about Dialog except that, “It looks more like regular code than Inform 7 and Draconis uses it.”
The Iron ChIF does seem to be using Dialog’s unique features to great advantage. Their dictionary creation system seems like it ensures that the player’s attention is directed towards the puzzles, rather than keeping notes. I can’t help but think that something like this would make The Gostak much more player-friendly. I also admire the way that they provided a reason for why the aliens can’t produce the same sounds that humans can. It’s subtle, but it definitely adds to the overall effect.
One of the things I admire most about the works of Emily Short, author of the greatest language-related game in IF history, is her ability to create a complex mental image with a few deft sentences. I think this skill is especially valuable in parser games, and Pacian’s posts have shown that he has the same ability, especially in regard to characterization.
But since it seems like Pacian’s interdimensional spider will be disguised with a coat and hat, rather than a cake, I wanted to inform the chIFs (@Draconis and @Pacian) that my vote can be won over by the inclusion of cake.
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Surely you can riff off the broad category of fairy tales in general, then, without being a fairy tale in the heavy-handed moral sense?
I wouldn’t say Alabaster has the same moral lessons as Snow White due to the perspective flip and due to being morally greyer? Having played it more recently, I wouldn’t say you couldn’t extract moral lessons if you wanted, but it’d feel interpretive to me and would likely be something like “you ought to think through the consequences of your solutions to problems before implementing them”.
So kind of like TADS message parameters?
yes, exactly. there’s a lot more of them, though. although some of the more esoteric ones are rarely used.
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I had been expecting a much quieter period while the competitors worked on their entries, before a more conventional judging period. This is shaping out to be a fairly unique event in the IF world. I like it!
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Just for once, I’d like to see a fantasy world where giants do regularly disguise themselves as windmills.
A hint of farce. Alas, there’s not likely to be any moments of the spider-stranger hiding in awkward spaces, since the sole room we have seen doesn’t seem to be equipped with closets, beds, wardrobes, and the like.
You make it sound like a want ad!
“Lonely survivor (AFGNCAAP) of spaceship crash seeks rescuer (parser) for long nights solving puzzles, obscure frustration, and driving away of hunger daemons.”
Fingers crossed that there’s no war between AIs involved in this plot.
“Help! I’m stuck in a cruel lottery with only robots for eyes and I can’t get out!”
Or, alternatively, downfall? After all, is not the ancestor of all such translation puzzles an Infocom game…forgive me…it must have slipped my mind for a moment, as blasphemous as that may seem to some.
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At least there won’t be any surplus whatchamacallits.
Endymion; or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Alien Alarm Clock
Well, there could be rations for post-cryogenic sustenance, and those could include cake? :P
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Better than filling you with dread and paralysis, one would assume.
The course of true ice never did run smooth.
So the PC is translating audio messages. Huh.
Unrelated; I’m assuming this is because the tonal nature of Mandarin means that using intonation to indicate questioning would be awkward.
The Europa Adventurer Robinson vs A Cave of Errors.
If Trala and Lind fall for each other, does the fairy get paired off with the spider? 
The brevity dividend.
I’d read that.
Tbf, a rambling title does fit the character of the protagonist…
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I wonder what kind of Europan aliens Draconis is imagining. Fish? Squid? Sea cucumbers? Or maybe they originated from elsewhere, like the robots in Code of the Lifemaker, which would explain how they could be humanoid and have a language.
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To clarify a point on the main thread: Despite all of the work done during planning, the question of how to handle beta testing never came up. (The irony!)
For the pilot, testing by other people is disallowed, but the participants will be discussing this aspect after the episode is finished to decide whether that should be the permanent policy.
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