Re: Is EXAMINE necessary? (was Fyleet, Crobe, Sangraal)

[Iain Merrick <im@cs.york.ac.uk>]

Adam Atkinson wrote:

> Iain Merrick wrote:
> 
> >I don't think it's just a case of games being 'good for their time'.
> >Some games are Just Not Very Good. Many of the Infocom games are flawed
> >by modern standards, but they're still good games. Sphinx Adventure
> >isn't.
> 
> I've never seen Sphinx, but lots of people seem to agree with you.

Sphinx adventure was yet another clone of the original Adventure. The
beginning was very similar, but it diverged after that. It didn't have a
very realistic map or well-described rooms, and the puzzles were fairly
random.

> >And -- in my opinion, at least -- the Phoenix games aren't very
> >good either.
> 
> The Phoenix games are part of a whole separate tradition. Yes, they
> tend to be cruel, terse, and somewhat chocka with puzzles. But as long
> as you know that's what you're getting, I don't see the problem with
> this.
> 
> I know that Loom and Monkey Island are non-ruinable, so I approach
> them in a certain way. I know that Fyleet (to take an extreme example)
> is full of instadeaths, sequencing problems, and so on, and so I
> approach it a different way.

Fyleet certainly has lots of instant death rooms. What _is_ the
attraction in this? I just don't see how it adds to the game at all.

With UNDO, it's irritating. Without UNDO, it's so annoying that it
spoils my enjoyment of the game entirely.

Perhaps I am just unused to this style of game. I tend to wander around
randomly until I get my bearings, rather than draw a map, but it's
rather difficult to get your bearings when you fall into a spiked pit or
get killed by orcs every tenth move.

[...]
> Fyleet is, admittedly, pretty cruel by modern standards. It's pretty
> cruel even by Phoenix standards.
> 
> But if you haven't played Quondam or Xeno, you shouldn't imagine you
> know what cruelty is.

Heh. Now there's a challenge.

-- 
Iain Merrick
im@cs.york.ac.uk