FAVOURITE ADVENTURE FEATURES by Phil Glover I was prompted to write this article by a letter written by David Haire (see letters page), in which he asked if I had any preferences in what features I like to see in an adventure. It's a bit like asking a football fan if he he has any opinion about the state of English football. Everyone has their own theories and ideas, and I'm sure many adventurers have plenty to say on what makes a good adventure. No matter how good a storyline of an adventure may be, or how good the puzzles are, there are several things that can make an adventure almost unplayable to me. The general look of the screen is the first thing I notice. I like a good, clear typeface, with a sensible choice of colours. Quite a few games are written as white text on a black screen. This may look fine on a monitor, but most people use portable TVs, which can cause the text to glare. Combined with a tricky typeface to read it can be very off-putting. Some PAWed games on the Spectrum offer a choice of three or four fonts, which I really like. I'd like to see any games written for Sam having some sort of customising routine included, so we can have a wide choice of both colours and fonts, to suit our personal preferences. Although game-code could be protected, it should be possible to save your customised choice, with the option of changing it at a future time. A default font/colour should be present, in case you accidentally choose bright orange and puce, with some ghastly 'handwritten' font. I enjoy text-only adventures, although I also like a few graphics, if well-drawn. Quite a few Spectrum adventures have slowly-drawn and filled pictures apparently done by a four-year- old (apologies to any talented four-year-olds reading this.) One game worth looking at for its poor graphics is MYSTERY OF THE INDUS VALLEY, which has quite a lot of very simple pictures, only existing to waste memory, I presume. As Sam has both 32 and 64 column text as standard, it may be tempting to use 64 columns to get the maximum amount of text on screen at any one time, but I'd like to see an option for 32 column text available for people who may have trouble reading the finer text, due to visual problems or just their TV quality. I like Mode 3 text usually, and would like to see old Spectrum games by Magnetic Scrolls (The Pawn, Guild of Thieves, etc.) running in Sam Mode 3, but it may put off adventurers who don't like Mode 3. Naturally, games should be as bug-free as possible. Any adventure must be play-tested thoroughly, preferably by people who can spell, or know how to use a dictionary. Some people seem to be able to ignore spelling mistakes, but I detest such slap- dash spelling intensely. Everyone makes spelling mistakes occasionally, but game-writers should take a great deal of care over their spelling. (An example of incorrect spelling is on my copy of OUTWRITE, which I am using to write this article. On pressing EDIT and F, I am informed that "Reformating" is taking place!) If a game has perfect spelling, you play through it without thinking about the spelling, but if you find many mistakes, it can prove very annoying, and make the game look as though the writer hasn't bothered enough. If a writer isn't too good at spelling, perhaps investing in a decent spelling dictionary is appropriate. Of course, the play-tester should be looking for such mistakes, but if they're too frequent, the play-tester may not volunteer for duty in future. (A Sam spell- checker would probably prove invaluable to adventure-writers.) Poor vocabulary in a game can cause problems, especially when trying to find the correct input. With Sam's large memory, it should be relatively easy to have a large database containing dozens of synonyms. A copy of Roget's Thesaurus, or a good dictionary of synonyms, would certainly come in handy here. It's a useful addition to any bookshelf, and helps also with on- screen text. An extensive and varied vocabulary adds depth and interest to a game. It can also improve many descriptions which may otherwise become tedious and boring if certain phrases and words are used too frequently within the adventure. The basic vocabulary of a game, used as main input commands, should have some sort of 'adventure-standard'. Most adventures now seem to adopt RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD for temporary position save or load commands, but within the last three or four years I've encountered SAVE TO MEMORY/LOAD FROM MEMORY, MEMSAVE/MEMLOAD, STORE/RECALL and many variations. Some games have the word VOCABULARY or WORDS, which can inform you of what may be required, by listing the main commands, but many games are less friendly. Personal favourites of mine are SCORE or SC, EXAM or X, AGAIN or A, INVENTORY or I, REDESCRIBE or R, and a fairly recent introduction, OOPS, which takes you back one move, often very useful when death is lurking close at hand. A large vocabulary can be helpful when trying to solve a problem if you know what needs to be done. One of the most frustrating things in some adventures is having to search for the precise wording needed when you already know what to do. I'm sure many of us have managed to fill up several screens of text with the dreaded response "You can't do that" I believe that adventures should be easy-to-use, with good vocabularies, attractive screen presentation and interesting, informative text. Most adventures should be aimed at a wide range of players, so care should be exercised so as not to upset anyone by offensive language and thoughtless references to age, sex, race, politics and other similar subjects. I wouldn't like to see unnecessary censorship of adventures, but it'd be a shame if a talented writer ruined a game by deliberately, or thoughtlessly, alienating whole groups of adventurers by almost insulting them. The aforementioned thoughts are purely my own, but it may be interesting to hear if any other club members have their own ideas of what makes a good game. I haven't really written about what sort of storyline I enjoy, as this is even more subjective. If a game is well-written, and enjoyable to play, even a simple storyline can be good. I must be honest and say that I didn't take an instant liking to FIVE ON A TREASURE ISLAND, as I've never been an Enid Blyton fan, and I bought it out of curiosity more than any other reason. The game soon had me hooked, and I found that the character interaction worked very well indeed. I'm often very wary of such interactive games, but swapping characters was easy, and, as a result, the game impressed me a lot. One feature that can affect whether or not I am tempted to buy a game is the title. If it's boring and unimaginative, or semingly just badly-named, I may not bother with it, unless I've seen a good review to change my mind. One example I can think of is BOG OF BRIT, a Spectrum 48k game. I hated the title, but, as I knew the author, I bought it, as he's a good writer usually. The game is quite good, and deserved a better title. Some games have what I consider to be very good, intriguing titles, such as THE WEAVER OF HER DREAMS, THEY SAY THE EARTH WILL END IN FIRE AND ICE, FEASIBILITY EXPERIMENT, FROM OUT OF A DARK NIGHT SKY, A HARVESTING MOON, A MIND FOREVER VOYAGING and THE WOODS OF WINTER. I haven't bought all of these games, but I like the titles, even though the actual games may not be very good. (Does anyone else have any favourites?) Sometimes a game doesn't give much information as to who wrote it, when it was written, etc. I'd like to see the inclusion of the command CREDITS, which could give a few details about the game, which can often be of interest. I also like finding other words to type in, such as names or subjects, as in some of John Wilson's games, which add some nice personal touches to games. It's often worthwhile typing words such as TV, FILMS, RECORDS, CRASH, YOUR SINCLAIR and other words that might get a response. Packaging comes down very low on my list of adventure features. It's nice to have a big box bulging with goodies, such as Magnetic Scrolls games do, but it's still down to the quality of the game itself. Most of the Spectrum adventures are now produced by 'home-brew' software publishers, often written out of sheer enthusiasm and fun. The resulting games are written by an individual, without the influence of marketing or publishing people. The games may be on Boots cassette tapes, with Biro- scrawled labels and mailed out in a used Jiffy bag, but they can be some of the best adventures available, and cheap, too. The main problem with such games may be loading them, as some cassette players leave a lot to be desired. (If you buy such games, check that the recording lugs have been knocked out, as over-recording a game is very distressing! The same will apply to Sam disks.) Sam disk adventures would avoid these problems, and some great adventures may well be written in time. Well, I think I've had my penny's worth on the subject of what adventure features I like/dislike! I'd be most interested in hearing other people's thoughts on the subject, and I'm sure we could publish any interesting ones, even if they don't agree with me! - Phil Glover