Re: Best Game to Start With?

[mollems@pulsar.wku.edu (M. Sean Molley)]

Matthew Murray (i9717029@wsunix.wsu.edu) wrote:
:      Any of the ones marked Introductory are good.  Moonmist and 
: Wishbringer, for example, or Seastalker.  And of course the Zork games 
: and Planetfall.

Not to put down the Zork Trilogy, but truthfully I wouldn't recommend 
them as good "novice" or "introductory" games, especially Zork III.  The 
Zork games, particularly Zork I, are rather non-linear and thus provide 
many places where a player who is not that familiar with text adventure 
playing strategies (ie, try everything) can get stuck with no idea of 
what to do next.

For a new player whose goal is "I want to learn to navigate a text 
adventure", I would recommend a game that has a fairly linear plot 
and provides suggestions of what to do next.  Seastalker is the "best" of 
these, but it is *so* introductory that it would probably not appeal to 
older players (in my opinion).  Wishbringer is good, with its multiple 
possible solutions to puzzles.  Enchanter is also good, because it is 
short and because the puzzles are rather easy, but it suffers from a 
couple of places where you can actually screw up permanently and not 
realize it (using certain one-shot spells in the wrong place, for example).

For a new player who already knows how to play adventure games in general 
and who is just getting to text adventures or who is just getting to 
Infocom, it's really hard to go wrong.  I wouldn't recommend any of the 
mystery games, as they are heavily dependent on being in the right place 
at the right time (for the most part) and questioning characters (which 
is one of the more difficult and frustrating text adventure activities).

Planetfall is a good choice, although the many red herrings might be 
frustrating.  Then again, it's a good lesson.  Actually, I might 
recommend "John's Fire Witch" as a great introductory game to play 
*before* diving into all of the Infocom games, because 
it is so short and yet features a variety of puzzles.  Having played and 
finished that, I would say a player would be capable of tackling almost 
any Infocom game with a reasonable degree of success.

Of course, I can't remember what the original question actually *was*, so 
this is most likely useless and repetitive advice.  Oh, well.  :)

Sean  (mollems@pulsar.cs.wku.edu)