Tutor's Ramble 2 - Conclusion - What's still to do?


By the end of the previous lesson we've created a pretty complete Alan adventure game. Its got locations, verbs, objects, a way the player can win the game and a couple of ways they can lose it. So what else is there to do?

r2.1 - Beta Testing

Well, besides from the obvious - the plot is boring and the writing is too! - the game would need testing if it wasn't just an example game in a tutorial. I don't mean testing by the author - after all, I've already tried to ensure that the examples compile and basically make sense. A real game needs more testing than that. Any game that is going to be published should be played by someone other than the author before its released.

A different mind, or preferably minds, will find bugs and try different things the author never allowed for and get stuck in places the author thought were easy and so on. The author can use the feedback from test players to fix the bugs and polish the way the game plays before it is published. This process is known as 'beta testing' in computer industry jargon. A little beta testing can make all the difference between a game appearing clunky and 'amateur' to the player and a game appearing polished and 'professional'.

r2.2 - Synonyms and lots of them

The creation of synonyms and alternative verbs was demonstrated throughout the tutorial. Synonyms, alternative commands and multiple ways to solve entire puzzles and problems are very important methods of making interactive fiction enjoyable for the player. Unless its the point of the game or puzzle, the player will not appreciate 'guess the word' puzzles that exist simply because the author didn't think to allow alternative ways of entering commands.

r2.3 - Help and Hints

Your game might find its way into the hands of someone unfamiliar with interactive fiction especially if you release it on the Internet. So it would be good to include information about common i.f. game commands, perhaps hints to solve the puzzles in your game and how to contact the author to give feedback. You might want to advertise the major landmarks of the i.f. 'community' such as the i.f. archive and the usenet newsgroups.

You could include that sort of information within the game by defining commands such as 'help' or 'info'. Alternatively you could simply distribute a separate text file containing such information along with the two game files (the .dat and .acd files. )

Even if you display most information with commands within the game, you should certainly include a text file anyway to tell potential players where to find versions of the interpreter (the Arun program) to play the game on different computer systems. You might package the game with a copy of the interpreter for a particular system but you never know if all the people who end up with a copy of your game will have that particular computer system.

r2.4 - Alan features that didn't 'feature'

Naturally, because this document is a tutorial, not a manual, quite a few of the features of Alan haven't been mentioned here.

I've left out many details about the Alan features that I have described in this tutorial. I've also left out some of the most advanced and dynamic features of Alan entirely ....

.... Events - the author can make things happen in the game independently of the player's commands. For example, the bomb goes off a few turns after the player touches it; the note blows down the street in the wind at some random point in the game.

.... Actors - the author can include other characters in the game who can interact with the player's character or act independantly. For example, a police constable could wander around the game and perhaps try to pick up the remote control and press the wrong button.

.... Rules - the author can specify that certain things happen when particular circumstances occur in the game. For example, if the police constable is at the street when the note blows into the location, the police constable picks up the note and gives it to the player.

After the reader has completed this tutorial and worked with Alan for a while, I suggest returning to the manual, especially chapter three, for comprehensive information on all the features of Alan.

I wish you the best of luck as you learn and use the Alan Adventure Language system and look forward to seeing you release complete and polished games.


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