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The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

madned.substack.com

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Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#141

Post by Igelau »

dang wrote: post #136
Igelau wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a tangent. The headline is potentially misleading and appears to be about a flamebait topic. Pay attention. Read. Comprehend.

Not only was it a tangent, the analogy is as precise as one could get: the two topics are connected only at a single point (the coincidence of the name) and have literally nothing else to do with each other. Edit: you've unfortunately been posting a lot of unsubstantive comments lately. Would you please stop doing that? It's not what this site is for.

You're deceiving yourself if you don't think the other Scott Adams has ever generated an eyerolling controversy better off left avoided. Moreso if you think that interpretation isn't possible from the headline and might mislead some. I'm not sure what to think since I'm fairly certain you're intelligent and have a good memory, but I'm also supposed to assume good faith.

Per my comments, I honestly don't know what you mean. Karma score has been relatively high-to-neutral lately. So what's your metric for substance if it's not consensus?

Do please stop insulting me with these insinuations.

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#142

Post by mad_ned »

ScottAdams wrote: post #113
mad_ned wrote: post #2

I was really honored for a chance to talk with one of computer gaming's true pioneers, Scott Adams. His text adventure games launched an entire game genre and influenced and inspired a lot of other programmers and game developers. If you read the interview and come away thinking, "why didn't he ask him about X?", today's your lucky day, because Scott has graciously agreed to stop by here and answer a few questions. H…

Ned I really appreciate the interview you did! And this opportunity here, because of it, to connect with so many cool folks.

Thanks Scott - I'm really enjoying sitting back and reading all the great discussions you've been having here and interesting questions people have, nothing makes me happier as a writer than to be able to spark something like that.

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#143

Post by stuaxo »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #139
ReactiveJelly wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying it and it's _really_ hard to get any commands to work. Maybe I thought it would be more like Facade. Stuff like "Ask galatea her favorite color" and "tell galatea her dress is pretty" aren't working. It's moving really slow (minutes between attempts) as I try to guess what keywords I can use. I can't even "examine room" like I usually do for conversation. "You can't see any such thing".

Did you try typing "help", which gives you the following rather verbose block of text: ---- This is an exercise in NPC interactivity. There's no puzzle and no set solution, but a number of options with a number of different outcomes. HINTS: Ask or tell her about things that you can see, that she mentions, or that you think of yourself. Interact with her physically. Pause to see if she does anything herself. Repeat ac…

Can I use "Say" if I'm in the same room ?

For some reason I assumed she would know I was talking to her, but she then said "you might try talking to me".

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#144

Post by ScottAdams »

castwide wrote: post #118
ScottAdams wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so very sorry about the chiggers. I grew up with them in Florida and they were not a fun experience for me either. I am though delighted to hear that my classic games were helpful in you understanding your own gifts! I appreciate you sharing that with me!

I can't imagine how many future developers were originally inspired to learn programming by playing your games. A text adventure was the first thing I wanted to make when I learned BASIC on a VIC-20. Even now, I maintain an interactive fiction SDK for Ruby ( https://gamefic.com ). Thanks, Scott!

That is so neat. Ruby running IF is very special! Wonderful to hear you using your gift that way!

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#145

Post by ScottAdams »

mysterydip wrote: post #134
ScottAdams wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh you are an excellent interviewer! No one has ever asked that one of me. Probably thing I love the share the most is how amazed I was to find out the Creator of the Universe and is real and that He actually cares about me. A subject I am now always williing to share but not many inquire about it.

Thanks for sharing! Were you able to put that into any of your games in one way or another? I am a hobbyist gamedev and am struggling to find a way that doesn't come off as "in your face".

Best one I did in that area was The Inheritance. It requires you to read and show you understand some bible verses. You don't have to agree with them but you do need to comprehend what they are saying.

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#146

Post by strenholme »

eps wrote: post #133
strenholme wrote: post #76

I actually figured out the format for Scott Adams adventures and created a Scott Adams port of the “Cloak of Darkness” mini adventure, as well as my own small adventure game, Desert adventure, which can be played online at https://samiam.org/software/parchment/desert.html Downloads follow. Cloak of Darkness: https://samiam.org/software/parchment/Cloak-Scott.zip Desert adventure: https://samiam.org/software/parchment/…

> desert.html Issuing two "go north" commands causes the page to go completely blank in mobile Safari.

Works for me (Firefox, Windows).

Try this URL: https://samiam.org/software/parchment/desert-smartphone.html

(The version of Parchment I use is somewhat unusual because I had to be 100% GPL compliant)

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#147

Post by anthk »

ianbicking wrote: post #60

Game design question: Text adventures as a category always struck me as kind of lonely. They often take place in environments where all the people have been removed, like miniature apocalypses. It seems technically fairly obvious why this happens: other people are too hard to model. People have goals and expectations and so someone traipsing around trying random things is not generally acceptable, and creating charac…

Ahem. If you just played "advent", they may look empty.

Go Play Planetfall, Anchorhead or Curses!. Your little robotic friend will get you amazed.

AI Dungeon is not a game at all. Far from a text adventure.

Since Inform6 and Curses! text adventures are far more complex than the ones for the 80's microcomputers which they barely could run Zork, really slow in some extreme cases.

As I said, Infocom games for DOS/Amiga (and any new Z-Machine non-alpha adventure) are much better in that regard.

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#148

Post by KarlKemp »

Oh, hey, what a celebrity. I'd like to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to clearly state:

You suck.

(Also: Dilbert isn't even funny. The character is stuck in a dystopia because he is too cynical to realize that he could life a more meaningful life. Why anyone would willingly identify with him is left for psych majors to explore)

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#149

Post by anthk »

PaulHoule wrote: post #54

Scott Adams wrote a simple interpreter which could be implemented in BASIC or Assembly Language for his games. https://6502disassembly.com/a2-scott-adams/interp.html This was like the Infocom interpreter (e.g. "Zork") but more specialized to writing games.

The Z-Machine was made for games, too. And the then new Inform6 game was basically literal OOP with rooms, objects and people, thus making an adventure can be done in really trivial ways.

If you read up Inform's Beginner Guide you'll get amazed of how the Inform6 library handles lots of stuff for you. Lots of verbs and objects types are already implemented, so you can set a game "room" for example in just four words split into two lines.

Re: The Further Text Adventures of Scott Adams

#150

Post by andybak »

ianbicking wrote: post #140
andybak wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god. I might have just installed the wrong Galatea.

The erotic literature collection for women? That was the first program I found with that name :)

I'm never going to escape the algorithmic recommendations for this one, am I?
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