Difficulty in learning the specific input conventions of text adventure games

Signals over time

5 observed signals across 1 sources, tracked for 0 days. Confidence: medium.

What people are saying Observed

• “Someone commented that it's fun to see Zarf is still around, so I want to take the opportunity to say that the entire community around text adventures is likewise still thriving, most visibly on the IntFiction.org forums. People seem to look at text adventures as relics of a specific era, and it's true that it's hard to make money off of them these days, but there are several high-quality releases per year, and the quality seems to only go up. These games are often playable for free, because they're released for competitions that stipulate the submission must be free. ----- It can be a little hard to get into text adventures, because the parser interface is designed to accept inputs according to a specific convention (all three of "cut tapestry", "cut the tapestry", "look behind tapestry. cut it." would work, but it's not a guarantee "slice tapestry" would, and almost never would "cut hanging fabric" work). This convention must be learned . Despite the marketing in the 1980's, it does not come naturally to people. Learning that convention means forcing yourself through a few games. But once you have lea”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “Someone commented that it's fun to see Zarf is still around, so I want to take the opportunity to say that the entire community around text adventures is likewise still thriving, most visibly on the IntFiction.org forums. People seem to look at text adventures as relics of a specific era, and it's true that it's hard to make money off of them these days, but there are several high-quality releases per year, and the quality seems to only go up. These games are often playable for free, because they're released for competitions that stipulate the submission must be free. ----- It can be a little hard to get into text adventures, because the parser interface is designed to accept inputs according to a specific convention (all three of "cut tapestry", "cut the tapestry", "look behind tapestry. cut it." would work, but it's not a guarantee "slice tapestry" would, and almost never would "cut hanging fabric" work). This convention must be learned . Despite the marketing in the 1980's, it does not come naturally to people. Learning that convention means forcing yourself through a few games. But once you have lea”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “Someone commented that it's fun to see Zarf is still around, so I want to take the opportunity to say that the entire community around text adventures is likewise still thriving, most visibly on the IntFiction.org forums. People seem to look at text adventures as relics of a specific era, and it's true that it's hard to make money off of them these days, but there are several high-quality releases per year, and the quality seems to only go up. These games are often playable for free, because they're released for competitions that stipulate the submission must be free. ----- It can be a little hard to get into text adventures, because the parser interface is designed to accept inputs according to a specific convention (all three of "cut tapestry", "cut the tapestry", "look behind tapestry. cut it." would work, but it's not a guarantee "slice tapestry" would, and almost never would "cut hanging fabric" work). This convention must be learned . Despite the marketing in the 1980's, it does not come naturally to people. Learning that convention means forcing yourself through a few games. But once you have lea”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “Someone commented that it's fun to see Zarf is still around, so I want to take the opportunity to say that the entire community around text adventures is likewise still thriving, most visibly on the IntFiction.org forums. People seem to look at text adventures as relics of a specific era, and it's true that it's hard to make money off of them these days, but there are several high-quality releases per year, and the quality seems to only go up. These games are often playable for free, because they're released for competitions that stipulate the submission must be free. ----- It can be a little hard to get into text adventures, because the parser interface is designed to accept inputs according to a specific convention (all three of "cut tapestry", "cut the tapestry", "look behind tapestry. cut it." would work, but it's not a guarantee "slice tapestry" would, and almost never would "cut hanging fabric" work). This convention must be learned . Despite the marketing in the 1980's, it does not come naturally to people. Learning that convention means forcing yourself through a few games. But once you have lea”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “Someone commented that it's fun to see Zarf is still around, so I want to take the opportunity to say that the entire community around text adventures is likewise still thriving, most visibly on the IntFiction.org forums. People seem to look at text adventures as relics of a specific era, and it's true that it's hard to make money off of them these days, but there are several high-quality releases per year, and the quality seems to only go up. These games are often playable for free, because they're released for competitions that stipulate the submission must be free. ----- It can be a little hard to get into text adventures, because the parser interface is designed to accept inputs according to a specific convention (all three of "cut tapestry", "cut the tapestry", "look behind tapestry. cut it." would work, but it's not a guarantee "slice tapestry" would, and almost never would "cut hanging fabric" work). This convention must be learned . Despite the marketing in the 1980's, it does not come naturally to people. Learning that convention means forcing yourself through a few games. But once you have lea”

  Hacker News · frustration