Merk's Review: Nerd Quest

Below the spoiler space…
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Another review I’ve now seen suggests that the “beamer” is probably a projector (like – to display slides or a computer display up on the wall). That makes a lot more sense than finding a BMW there, although it’s definitely disappointing to think there was no way to drive out of there in a new car to pick up Debby. Heh.

Haven’t played the game, but thanks to a recent business trip with a sales rep from our London office, I can confirm that “beamer” is a Britishism for “projector”. I was a little confused when that first came up too. :slight_smile:

Incidentally, it seems “beamer” for BMW is considered incorrect by purists, which explains why I keep seeing “bimmer” (which I had assumed was a misspelling) in various places around the 'net. See http://www.bmwccbc.org/misc/tech-and-trivia/bimmer.html .

Hmm. Interesting.

Unfortunately, when misinformation spreads to such a degree, I think there’s no going back. It’s why “hacker” equates to “computer security criminal” now, and why “browser-based game” (a sticking point of mine) is used to describe other kinds of web games that are not browser based (Java and Flash games are not browser-based, for instance). I’m sure there are a thousand others – using the Kleenex brand name to refer to tissue in general in some parts of the country, for instance.

Supposing for a moment that a BMW auto is called a “beamer,” it brings up a good point. Not only should a game be beta-tested, it should be beta-tested by English-speaking players in other countries. In the case of this game, the confusion might have been cleared up by a more meaningful object description, but I can imagine some other confusing (and embarassing) word choices. For instance, I might write a light-hearted game about some clumsy girl who falls on her fanny. At least in the southern United States, that’s a more polite way of saying “butt” or “rear-end,” but I’ve heard that it has a different meaning in England.

strange I wasn’t shocked by the word “beamer” (maybe it’s because I’m also a nerd who know the “latex-beamer” project :slight_smile: ).

I’ve just played this game, and while it’s always interesting to have new game engine, it’s true this one needs more improvement. It’s not that bad, but it lacks some common synonymous (like inside = in or examine / x = look at). It may be more suitable to CYOA like games?

I think you’ve just broken the developer’s heart: mechanique.nl/blog.html

:frowning:

Yikes. Using an existing IF development language was an alternate suggestion. The main one was to just to observe what’s out there now, and make this one more object-oriented. And he’s somehow drawling a correlation between complaints about the writing and complaints about the engine. :frowning: My Nerd Quest review isn’t the worst or most negative one out there, is it? :frowning: :frowning:

I wouldn’t worry about it. At the same time the author says (on his website) that his IF language is basically a hobby project for himself and just himself, a way to relax, he enters the game in the Comp and says that apparently it sucks. I don’t think you can have it both ways.

it seems there are always people who prefer to design game system rather than writing games :slight_smile:

Of course using any existing systems would have turned the game writing much easier.

I wouldn’t worry about it. This kind of hobby projects pop up all the time and the author is really enthusiastic about it at first but as soon as they realize it’s not all dancing in the moonlight enjoying marshmallows and champagne they abandon the project. If he hadn’t been put down by the review(s), the project would’ve died a natural death very soon (I’m not trying to be negative here and I apologize for rubbing salt in wounds but the project had that written all over).

Yeah, there’s that. The first couple of homebrews I’ve played in this IFComp were meant to be engines, not just stand-alone homebrew games.

It’s not always like that, though. When I was writing IF in QuickBASIC, it wasn’t because I wanted to write an engine (although I got started on one a little later in VB – called SAGE – abandoned now). It really was because I wanted to write IF. I think some of the homebrew work in past competitions comes about for the same reasons:

One, the author has a flat view of how IF works. When you’re just starting out, it’s easy to underestimate its under-the-hood complexity. As a player, you try things that don’t work, and get responses that mean “that didn’t work.” When things do work, it’s obvious that the author intended it to work (even if it’s just default handlers, like putting stuff in containers). It’s with this view of IF that homebrew authors design their games. They don’t realize there’s a world model of objects and relationships that make it work the way it’s supposed to, and instead go for immitating the way they perceived IF to work as a player. You must have nouns and verbs, you pair them up as needed, and everything else gets a “that didn’t work” message.

Two, armed with this photocopy-of-a-painting view of IF, the author (possibly a programmer) doesn’t see the need to learn an all new “only-for-IF” language to do something that’s perfectly practical in their programming language of choice. You don’t need TADS to write a verb/noun parser that has no object-oriented relationship among its various setpieces. In fact, using a general-purpose language, the tendency is to think TADS or Inform or Hugo would be too restrictive, since the sky is the limit in a general-purpose language.

That’s how it was for me. The funny thing is, my change in viewpoint wasn’t even intentional. When I entered IFComp 2004 with Trading Punches (and if I’m remembering this correctly), it wasn’t so much to join the crowd as it was to enter something anonymously (where I thought doing another game in QB would make it obvious that I was the same guy from 1999). I picked Hugo because it had good multimedia capabilities I didn’t see elsewhere, and because it seemed to be underrepresented.

I guess my point is, when homebrews show up in the IFComp, it’s not always because the author is more interested in programming an engine. I think much of the time, the author just makes the wrong assumptions.