11–20 of 29 posts
> Have you played before? > No. > I assume that means yes. Yeah, that's that half-century-old state of the art in natural language processing working...
Some practise is required to become fluent in that language. But it's worth it, because it unlocks many amazing text adventures!
> Have you played before? > No. > I assume that means yes. Yeah, that's that half-century-old state of the art in natural language processing working...
It's not NLP and it never was. The parser accepts a language with a specific syntax that just happens to vaguely look like English. Some practise is required to become fluent in that language. But it's worth it, because it unlocks many amazing text adventures!
You're quite abjectly wrong, though. Text adventures were heavily advertised, in their illustrious and very brief moment of sunshine, as 'accepting English input' (cf. Maher, The Digital Antiquarian), which by definition constitutes NLP. They were just extremely bad at it, hence their accompaniment by a constant stream of excuses like the one you just made. (You must have had to dust it off first! That one is older than me.)
Many, many historic text adventures are available in the browser, thanks to the Parchment interpreter. You can find them on the IFDB, and click the link to play online. One of my favourites among the classics are Plundered Hearts[1]. There's also a lively community of people who make modern text adventures. These tend to be shorter and more well designed than many of the cruel games of the past. My all-time favourite…
> With the cantankerous Wizard of Wordplay evicted from his mansion, the worthless plot can now be redeveloped. The city regulations declare, however, that the rip-down job can't proceed until all the items within have been removed.
It's full of delightful wordplay and puzzles that play with the text-adventure medium, constraining what words you can use. Highly recommended.
If this was built bespoke for this game, fair play, but I would love to have this library if it's a library.
EDIT: I found the repo https://github.com/jscalo/haunt
> js/terminal.js implements the I/O layer: a typewriter-speed character queue drained via requestAnimationFrame, an inline editable prompt with command history, and two promise-based input methods (readToken for OPS5 accept, readLine for acceptline).
> css/crt.css creates the retro look: a bezel frame with power LED, a perspective-transformed screen, repeating scanlines, a slow horizontal band, flicker animation, and triple-layer phosphor text glow. Three themes are available — green P1 (default), amber P3, and white — switchable from the settings menu.
Many, many historic text adventures are available in the browser, thanks to the Parchment interpreter. You can find them on the IFDB, and click the link to play online. One of my favourites among the classics are Plundered Hearts[1]. There's also a lively community of people who make modern text adventures. These tend to be shorter and more well designed than many of the cruel games of the past. My all-time favourite…
My favorite of all time is "Ad Verbum". > With the cantankerous Wizard of Wordplay evicted from his mansion, the worthless plot can now be redeveloped. The city regulations declare, however, that the rip-down job can't proceed until all the items within have been removed. It's full of delightful wordplay and puzzles that play with the text-adventure medium, constraining what words you can use. Highly recommended.
I’ve played the old, text-only, Z-code version back in high school, around 1999, and the experience was so vivid and immersive that to this day I can draw a map of Anchorhead from memory and recite the lineage of the Verlac family. I think it’s still my favourite game of all time (although I spent much more time on some others).
These days, an illustrated version can be bought on Steam for something like $10. Highly recommended!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not NLP and it never was. The parser accepts a language with a specific syntax that just happens to vaguely look like English. Some practise is required to become fluent in that language. But it's worth it, because it unlocks many amazing text adventures!
Thank you for explaining the joke. You're quite abjectly wrong, though. Text adventures were heavily advertised, in their illustrious and very brief moment of sunshine, as 'accepting English input' (cf. Maher, The Digital Antiquarian ), which by definition constitutes NLP. They were just extremely bad at it, hence their accompaniment by a constant stream of excuses like the one you just made. (You must have had to du…
I would understand your joke if it was made in the 1980s, but today it only shows a very old misunderstanding of the genre. (One might say you must have had to dust that misunderstanding off first!)
[1]: The systems that do strive to understand English – usually through LLMs – generally do not result in very satisfying games. They are primarily made by AI enthusiasts rather than text adventure designers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for explaining the joke. You're quite abjectly wrong, though. Text adventures were heavily advertised, in their illustrious and very brief moment of sunshine, as 'accepting English input' (cf. Maher, The Digital Antiquarian ), which by definition constitutes NLP. They were just extremely bad at it, hence their accompaniment by a constant stream of excuses like the one you just made. (You must have had to du…
Our understanding of what makes for a fun game has evolved significantly since the 1980s. Designers of text adventures today generally agree that structured, non-natural input is a good thing and reduces frustration in the end. I can't think of any prominent text adventure designer who still pretends the parser understands English. There are also no widely used text adventure development systems that even strive to u…
Your profile says you are a quantitative analyst. (I take this as reliable, since it does not also call you a rhetorician or humorist.) The fetish for logic puzzles thus checks out, but I admit I had thought the denumeration of time among the arts of number. Or had you mistaken Graham Nelson, Emily Short, and allies for Infocom alumnae?
Many, many historic text adventures are available in the browser, thanks to the Parchment interpreter. You can find them on the IFDB, and click the link to play online. One of my favourites among the classics are Plundered Hearts[1]. There's also a lively community of people who make modern text adventures. These tend to be shorter and more well designed than many of the cruel games of the past. My all-time favourite…
My favorite of all time is "Ad Verbum". > With the cantankerous Wizard of Wordplay evicted from his mansion, the worthless plot can now be redeveloped. The city regulations declare, however, that the rip-down job can't proceed until all the items within have been removed. It's full of delightful wordplay and puzzles that play with the text-adventure medium, constraining what words you can use. Highly recommended.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite of all time is "Ad Verbum". > With the cantankerous Wizard of Wordplay evicted from his mansion, the worthless plot can now be redeveloped. The city regulations declare, however, that the rip-down job can't proceed until all the items within have been removed. It's full of delightful wordplay and puzzles that play with the text-adventure medium, constraining what words you can use. Highly recommended.
Mine is ‘Anchorhead’ (1998), by Michael Gentry. I think it’s actually my favourite game of all time, of all genres. I’ve played the old, text-only, Z-code version back in high school, around 1999, and the experience was so vivid and immersive that to this day I can draw a map of Anchorhead from memory and recite the lineage of the Verlac family. I think it’s still my favourite game of all time (although I spent much…