(Sure, you post a comment after I export all the posts and comments from the blog but before I announce the new site... http://blog.zarfhome.com/ will be the new URL tomorrow.)

I agree about the visual feedback. Except it's not exactly feedback; it's the (human) processing cycle of having to re-read the display to find the next option. I guess it's the same issue as when people talk about "spatiality" in the MacOS Finder. Is the option you're looking for in the last place you saw it?

Come to think, I had the same experience in Voyageur. Each planet has a list of possible actions, like a city in Sunless Sea. But they're arranged in two columns (across-then-down ordering). So if you use a one-shot option, and it disappears, then everything below it in the list jumps to the other column! This occasionally decoyed me into tapping the wrong option, and when I didn't it was because I had to pay extra attention.

It seems to me that a big difference here is simply the need for visual feedback. In both the forward-and-back games and Seltani, every move is followed by a brief moment where you try to find the next point you need to click on the screen. That's mental effort. Typing in compass directions doesn't have this problem at all; you can do that blind. Consistent positioning of exits as in Submachine 1 mitigates it. And even though FPS-style navigation in a continuous 3D space does involve visual feedback, it's usually slow enough that the mental effort is spread out more over time.

I love "speedwalk" feature in MUD clients where you type "nnws" and the client types "north north west south " for you. Navigating huge MUD worlds becomes trivial.

I always have to "draw" maps in IF games that don't provide maps, though these days I usually do it in note-taking software with hierarchical bullets, making a tree of rooms. Maps are not trees, but when there are cycles I just make a note, naming the destination room. It also provides a convenient structure to write out notes about objects, NPCs, and other puzzles I find in the rooms.

Thanks for mentioning that. I don't regularly spend time on Twitch, but I'll take a look.

(I think of the modern era as one of *blurring* game genres, at least in the indie world...)

Hi there! I missed this game back in the day, but a buddy of mine is streaming it on Twitch at the moment. Thought you might want to see. It's cool to see such creativity in the design with all the different sorts of puzzles from a time before genres were so rigidly defined. The word puzzles are especially neat. Thanks for keeping it alive here.

Just trying to elucidate a little the difference between Andrew's and David's approaches to client-server (if we call terp "server" and meta-terp like Lectrote, Gargoyle or Parchment "client") communication.

Web1.0 (or rather 1.5) had this approach: presentation was generated on the server, compressed and fed to the client. Client uncompressed it, parsed the HTML, populated DOM and presented to user. So all 3 of the MVC were effectively handled serverside.
It seems to me that steps that Andrew listed lead in this direction.

There's now another fad, or fully fledged fashion even: to serialize model on the server and pass the parts that presentation level needs in the form of, e.g. JSON. The client can turn JSON into tree quickly, traverse and call DOM manipulation methods directly, without HTML in between. Or even ditch DOM and use Canvas, that is up to the client. Sometimes it's called (together with focus on the user-generated content) Web2.0

I guess this is what David means by "separation of concerns and the MVC-like patterns".
Also, in the present model of Glk "data" are always pushed down from the "server", either as response to a command or as result of some timer, internal event.
If there are events on the "client", they need to be wrapped into user command as if they were a typed in user input that needs parsing. Please correct me if I'm mistaken about this point. For example, if UI decides to refresh the inventory window, it needs to issue "inv" command that would go into transcript etc.

If we take graceful degradation into view, maybe yes, all "client" events should be equivalent to user parse-able input.
But if we stretch web app metaphor this far, maybe there could be just JSON requests posted from client (does Glk include this?)

Have you played Superluminal Vagrant Twin? Parser IF, boiled down to the bare essentials -- there isn't even a LOOK command, because you never need it. Space travel, trading, adventure, etc. It hits the "I would like to be a character in a C.J. Cherryh novel" itch for me better than just about anything.

I also just looked at _House of Many Doors_, which is not in space but rather in a world-sized house. Which I am also in favor of.

However, it's got another one of those combat models that I don't want to come anywhere near.

I remember the title _In Search of the Most Amazing Thing_ from my youth, but I must have never played it at all. The screenshots spark no memory.

(But the creator, Tom Snyder, wound up working on Infocom's "Infocomics" a few years later... huh.)

I didn't play _Starflight_ either. But I've read Jimmy Maher's article about it, which counts, right?

As for Worldsmith, I know it's been mentioned several times on the intfiction.org forums, but I just haven't gotten to it.

I'm surprised you didn't mention Worldsmith in this round-up. It's got the most advanced procedural World generation I've ever seen. I wrote a review on IFDB - not only does it procedurally generate Worlds, but the text of the World builds based on the state of its evolution.

sallyc

I'm surprised you didn't mention Worldsmith in this round-up. It's got the most advanced procedural World generation I've ever seen. I wrote a review on IFDB - not only does it procedurally generate Worlds, but the text of the World builds based on the state of its evolution.

sallyc

I think Starflight would be up your alley. (Not procedural, but space exploration goodness.) It's on gog.com.

Did you ever play In Search of the Most Amazing Thing? It was, I suppose, a very early example of this type of game.

I was describing the easy mode. What did you think I meant?