Comment on Games with Text-based Interaction?
tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 3 days agoThose kinds of old text-based adventures are definitely worth a shout, but I think you mentioned their biggest flaw - that other means of interaction are much more natural and intuitive than text parsers.
It’s very frustrating and not fun to be trying to find the right phrasing the game wants for “combine the x with the y” or “use the a in the b” when we can just click on things.
In Event[0] for example you are free to move around and look at things and click on things and find clues by yourself, but KaIzen is always there to chat to - and you often need to. So it’s a great blend because it’s a “normal” and modern game in most respects, but with free-text conversation as an core element.
Again it’s a flawed game (Only ‘Mixed’ on Steam and I agree with that!) but it’s an interesting experience regardless.
Those kinds of old text-based adventures are definitely worth a shout, but I think you mentioned their biggest flaw - that other means of interaction are much more natural and intuitive than text parsers.
I think that they improved in later years, and experience and improved design helps with “hunt the verb”.
You might look at ifdb.org
That being said, I haven’t played much in recent years, so maybe that’s a condemnation of them.
Malix@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
a bit later Sierra adventure game “Leisure Suit Larry 7” has both: mouse point & click AND text-parser. Though it is only really required in few places where you either need to ask about something not offered in the dialogue options, or figure out a clever verb for doing something (some are easter eggs and funnies, can’t really remember what else needed custom verbs typed in, fairly sure there was some).
In any case, the game isn’t for everyone’s tastes, it is goofy/juvenile/immature/naughty/“adult”, but overall more on the side of comical/cartoony and not really a “sex game”, even if getting laid is the goal for Larry.