Unconventional Parser Movement

[jnelson (Jim Nelson)]

Hunter, In Darkness is another game that use left/right/forward/back directions.

There are a number of older threads that deal with the question (not an exhaustive list):

Strategies to Eliminate Compass Directions from IF Narrative?

[compass200t] The Problem Traditional IF typically uses compass directions; North, South, East, West etc. to navigate the game. This has problems: Compass directions do not feel natural. The location description is forced to mention the exits in terms of these compass directions, which often makes the text feel lumpy and awkward. It’s hard to write good exit descriptions without becoming repetitive. Possible Solutions 1. Using Location Names eg go into the dining room go to the…

How about left/right/up/down as compass directions?

Sometimes i play strategy browser games. When i chat about the map with others, we rarely use far northwest etc. We use “the green army top left, below the red one.” Could that be helpfull for IF too? Using left instead of west etc? If, how can i design that best in inform7, to stay compatible with north etc? In a switchable way? Subtle things: i thought about: now the printed name of north is “up”. But sometimes north should stay north, like if i look at a treasure map. up/down can mean …

A problem of compass directions

I don’t know how silly this question sounds, but I’d rather have a seasoned game designer dismiss it than let it dangle… As an exercise, I attempted to turn an existing location (a tavern by the sea) into a map of rooms for a hypothetical IF. Let’s say the plan is something like this (including some room planning, but keeping the proportions): [IF Orientation Problem (1)] The player will then perceive the rooms’ map like this: [IF Orientation Problem (2)] All good so far. What if the comp…

Non-compass navigation

tldr; I argue that compass-based navigation in parser IF is mostly an unintended accident of the earliest adventure games, that–in most circumstances–compass-based navigation spoils the illusion, and I mull whether it’s worth experimenting with landmark-based navigation. The original Crowther and Woods Adventure was not nearly as dependent on the points of the compass as many ports would have you believe. In fact, for many areas, I’d argue that it was never intended to be the primary method of…

What compassless games are missing

This is a topic that has come up several times as a discussion in the Interactive Fiction community. Most text games require the cardinal points to move around the map. North, south, east, west, abbreviated N, S, E, O. From time to time some dissenting voice comes out against them and very rarely comes any game that eliminates that form of movement by some more or less daring scheme or original. The fact is that the cardinal points are super useful because they provide a functionality when expl…

IF Wiki has links to a slew of discussions on the subject from the rec.arts.int-fiction days.