Avantar wrote:So here I am asking your opinion:
You see, I do have descriptions of rooms and then I have descriptions...
How it is now, when walking into a room the description is pretty general like this:
"You are in the West corridor.
Further to the North, you can see the entrance to the ensamble room. On both sides of the hallway there are multiple bedrooms, but they are all locked. To the South lies the entrance to the South corridor."
but if you actively look at the room and taking in more detail, it looks like this:
look at west corridor
The floor is made up of polished stone. It ultimately connects the North - and South corridor together. Beautiful pointed Gothic arches mark the major exits and are complimented with stone vaulting that reach high up. The arches are made up of light brown stone voussoirs with the keystone being white.
So both description are for the West Corridor. - You think I should change it?
I wanted you to actively look at a given room - like studying it or just moving along through it without noticing the actual detail.
Well here is the tricky part, I use a lot of descriptions in my game. But I have a reason for that as I already stated, not just because I am trying to over compensate, but for others as well...
Regardless, if you want your game to feel rich and alive with the player to actually be in your world, you need to have a decent basic description and then also a more detailed description for when they want to examine a room and then key objects in said room. There are multiple ways to go about this and multiple people will tell you any multitude of different things.
However with this being a Text Adventure and there is nothing but “text”, you should, in my humble opinion, give text/descriptions where it is warranted and when the player might like to see it. Other wise it will feel like you did not put much effort into the game, at least not where room descriptions are concerned. I by far am no expert in TA and a rather new comer to the scene and for all intensive purposes I hate to read..., (Don't ask me why I am here...) but when I am in it for a penny, I am in for a pound and I want to be able to “breath” your world.
I believe it was Jay (Sorry if it was from someone else or if I am misquoting...) from another thread that mentioned that graphical games do not have these sort of problems with basic objects such as a tree, a wall or a blade of grass. It is represented in pixels and that is the end of it. We know what it is, we accept it and move on. (Obviously there may be a switch on the wall or a hidden trap on the ground, but that is a whole other matter.) But here in TA some people, if not most, will want to examine everything, even if in reality it means nothing, simply because they can. Or because they are so used to the old formula in my opinion, that every game must be a puzzler and every room in that game must have a puzzle to discover or an item to solve one from another room.
But in reality, most rooms unless you are outdoors, in a cave or some where else that everything is the exact same, need to have their own items and descriptions. Look at old castles for an example. Most, at least the ones I have seen on TV or read about, have these marvelous rooms, each one like a world onto it's own. Rarely did one room match another, unless they were a set of rooms, but you get my point. The master bedroom would have certain lavish furniture apart from the rest of the bedrooms and obviously the castle. the great dinning room would be much more ordained than the one the servants used, with the former having plush carpet, a wonderful chandelier above, fine china and silver, while the latter would have wooden bowls and utensils, with wobbly chairs perhaps. The grand foyer would look completely different from the rest of the castle. Even the bed of the master bedroom would look quite different from the bed of another slightly less important bedroom and the chain of differences would continue. They would not all have the same exact paintings. Not even a basic chair or sofa would most likely be the same from room to room. It is all eye candy for the guests and to show off. But again this all depends on the type of castle, the time period and what the owner of said castle had in terms of money or want.
Now to answer your question, your first basic description is great. It tells you exactly what the player “needs” to know. However your second description is of more detail and great as well, but rarely do I ever “x room”. I figured what ever the author wanted me to see in the first place was already there or at least that is how I am making my game... which come to think of it perhaps I should change to save the player of unneeded text upfront... Hmmm... Seems when I am helping you, I am helping myself...
But anyway, I really like this a lot-
“Beautiful pointed Gothic arches mark the major exits and are complimented with stone vaulting that reach high up. The arches are made up of light brown stone voussoirs with the keystone being white.”
But I think you could have saved the second half for a “x ceiling” or “x arches” description, since it goes into even more detail.
So it would look like this when you enter the room-
"You are in the West corridor.
Further to the North, you can see the entrance to the ensemble room. On both sides of the hallway there are multiple bedrooms, but they are all locked. To the South lies the entrance to the South corridor."
---
x room-
“The floor is made up of polished stone. It ultimately connects the North - and South corridor together. Beautiful pointed Gothic arches mark the major exits and are complimented with stone vaulting that reach high up.”
---
x floor/x stone-
“The stone is polished to a fine sheen, thanks to the many servants who daily clean these floors.
x ceiling/x arches-
“The arches are made up of light brown stone voussoirs with the keystone being white.”
---
You have to draw the line some where, when descriptions no longer matter in a general room. I think that would be it, unless you wanted to put emphasis on something as a puzzle item, like
x white/x keystone-
“But you notice a black stone out of place against the white...”
Then it also depends on what kind of game do you want to make? Maybe with it being more action oriented, you do not have time or really even need different descriptions for every room. Even expensive store bought video games use stock tables, chairs, floors, etc. But they usually change it up in each new area. So say your game goes to another continent, even if you did not keep changing everything in every room, at least make the two continents drastically different for room descriptions. Whether you go the extra mile and make each room feel unique is your decision, but totally different empires or lands would have different things.
And I finally found when it tells you of only being able to take five items. I had tried and retried about five times. Why I kept missing it I am not sure. The only thing I can think of is the different colored text and the dark blue made my eyes see that as important, while missing everything else as I was clicking continue. I really have no idea. Still I like your game and the possibilities that can come about it. Don't give up on it. I am not sure how much these functions are actually functional, but once you have the basis down, all you have left to do is the story and adding the environment around it.