Re: An embarrassment of r

["Matthew Amster" <mamster@u.washington.edu>]

On Sat, 23 Mar 1996 17:29:00 -0500, 
Joe Mason  <joe.mason@tabb.com> wrote:

>:-) Yeah, I've noticed the same thing... Except for the select few who really 
>*are* tremendously good at them, and solve each one in under month.  It took 
>me five or six years to finish Planetfall (mind you, I started it when I was 
>eight), and at least that long to finish Beyond Zork (I finally used a 
>walkthrough).

This is approximately my experience.  For some reason, I've actually gotten 
*worse* at these games as I've gotten older.  Back when I was ten or 
eleven (or whenever the hell those games came out), my friends and I had 
little trouble with Wishbringer or HHG (both pretty easy, true).  Now, 
I can't make it through anything without hints.  Usually many hints.

Perhaps it is because I know hints are readily available now, and am 
therefore more likely to give up.  On the other hand, it may be because I 
now play by myself most of the time, and it's much easier to play IF in 
pairs.  When my next-door neighbor and I teamed up on Fire Witch, it took 
us a couple of hours to get to the last puzzle (which then held us up for 
days, but that's irrelevant).

I should mention that I don't enjoy the games any less now--giving credence 
to the idea that non-puzzle-based IF could be just as entertaining, somehow.

I did have one friend who was an IF prodigy and could solve anything in a 
day.  But he was kind of spooky.

Matthew