One tester's tips, cont'd

[Lancelot (Onno Brouwer)]

@rovarsson

I repeat, just to squash any growing suspicions around here, I do not go around LICKing everything in scope when I’m playing IF.

Rest assured Rovarsson, the thought never crossed my mind…

> lick wall
"Hey," R says, "I already licked that wall! Why don't you lick the ceiling instead?"

Working on the tutorial assistant is a lot of fun

[heasm66 (Henrik Åsman)]

What’s wrong with the Scott Adam’s approach (the response “Not yet!”)?

(only kidding.)

[JoshGrams]

@severedhand

What happens if I implement KICK specifically only once, though? The player finds this early in the game, and says ‘Great, Kick works!’ Then everything else they kick either gives a response as if they hit it with their hand, or a ‘You don’t need to do that.’ Then it can look silly or see-through or cheap.

Worse, I think, is the other way around: they try it early and it doesn’t work, so they go, “ok, I don’t need to think about KICKing anything” and then later fail to find it when it’s required to solve a puzzle.

[severedhand]

@JoshGrams

Worse, I think, is the other way around: they try it early and it doesn’t work, so they go, “ok, I don’t need to think about KICKing anything” and then later fail to find it when it’s required to solve a puzzle.

Good point.

-Wade

[pinkunz]

@JoshGrams

Worse, I think, is the other way around: they try it early and it doesn’t work, so they go, “ok, I don’t need to think about KICKing anything” and then later fail to find it when it’s required to solve a puzzle.

That’s valid, but I think my assumption would be based on whether or not I received a default failure response. If I receive a custom failure response to “record” instead of a default message that tells me that the author has specifically thought about that verb and took the time to write a response to it. I might jot it down to try again later. Some might even imply that the verb might be used later with the wording of the failure message. “With what, genius? Your stunning good looks?” tips me off to keep an eye out for recording equipment.

With that said, leaving a default failure response to a verb that is used later in the game would have the unfortunate effect that you described.