Strategies to Eliminate Compass Directions from IF Narrative?

[McTavish (Ade)]

For reference, there was a good discussion of this a while back. Here:

The compass, location descriptions and mimesis

So, I’m unearthing this thread from a couple of years back. It’s a useful discussion on alternatives to the standard navigation model of n,s,e,w. All of the relevant arguments I agree with. My question though is not about the mechanic, it about the representation of the mechanic within the text. In a game where the author is striving for total immersion, complete mimesis and a more…er…literate…approach to room descriptions, using the ‘north to’ tags effectively pulls the reader out of the …