Re: Characterization

[Carl Muckenhoupt <carl@earthweb.com>]

Matthew Daly wrote:
> 
> I think that part of the concept was to experiment with tons of
> red herrings in the game, empty rooms and objects that served no
> purpose in the game.

Can it really be called an "experiment" to do this after Planetfall?

> The story that I've heard, which may or may not be true, is that
> Sorcerer is a compilation of all of the puzzles that the Implementors
> couldn't fit into Dungeon.  It certainly seems like more of an
> amalgam of puzzles than a coherent world, although those two
> specific puzzles are classics of the genre.

Hmm, there may be something to this.  The coal mine scene does contain a
puzzle from the coal mine in Dungeon that didn't make it into the Zork
trilogy.  (The red palantir was originally halfway down a chute, just
like the time-travel scroll.  But when they broke up Dungeon into the
Zork Trilogy, the coal mine wound up in Zork 1 and the palantirs wound
up in Zork 2.)  And mailing in the matchbook certainly seems like
something that should have been a puzzle in Zork 1, where you have a
matchbook and a mailbox available.

> >The spells are not as useful or as well-fleshed out as in Enchanter or
> >Spellbreaker.
> 
> I don't know what you mean by that.  The spells are useful enough to
> accomplish your task, but that's sort of like saying that your legs
> are long enough to reach the ground.  It was interesting that there
> were two different spells that would allow you to fly, but you wound
> up needing both of them to succeed.

This sounds to me like a complaint about general applicability - that
is, in how many places can use use the spell and get more than an excuse
as a result?  I don't remember Sorceror being particularly bad in this
regard, but it's been a while.  I suppose there were some violations -
for example, the "magic land mines" that explode even if you fly over
them, or the frotz-proof haunted house in the amusement park.  All the
same, there were more places where izyuk could save you from death than
there were places where it failed to do so for no good reason.  And
there are several things that exist solely to make malyon less of a
one-use spell, so it's clear that Meretzky was aware of the problem.

Spellbreaker was much better at providing reusable spells, it's true. 
The best part, IMHO, was realizing that some of the spells you had grown
accustomed to casting on other creatures could also be cast on
yourself.  However, it also gave us a lot more lame excuses - most
spells cast on the roc or the guards at the manse, for example, just
fail for unsatisfying reasons.

Incedentally, I've been playing Spiritwrak lately, and although I find
it for the most part enjoyable, it also has a maddening tendency to
arbitrarily declare particular things invulnerable to particular
spells.  Perhaps it's more vulnerable to this sort of problem because it
has so very many spells, and because it so seldom prevents the player
from re-visiting locations with new spells.