pem@cadnetix.UUCP (Paul Meyer) (10/30/87)
[] I finally decided to order the game, Quarterstaff, being advertised by Simulated Environment Systems in MacUser. My first impression on opening the package was elation--the documentation was only a few pages, but implied that, as I expected from a Mac game, the user interface was simple enough not to intrude between me and the game world. Unfortunately, as soon as I started playing the disappoint- ments started piling up. After about an hour I reached the conclusion that what I was using was more properly beta-test software than a shippable product. For example, although instructions were given in the manual for printing out the contents of windows (including the automatic mapping window), the actual menu item was replaced with a disabled line. I also got a bomb box when I tried to restart from a save-as. Additionally, there were several aesthetic problems: The room descriptions had clearly not been competently proofread (I'm sorry, religions have "prime tenets", not "prime tenants"!). The sounds were too limited and often inappropriate to their uses and the use of Macintalk was too stilted and inflexible--both were distrac- tions best turned off. (At least this function worked--but the disk space and processor cycles used for sound and speech could be better applied elsewhere. See below...) After about four hours of playing I discovered that the game was seriously lacking in robustness--I had several bomb boxes from a saved game and eventually had to start all over. (BTW, the file system usage is not well thought out--to save a game you give a folder to be created; to restore you find a specific file within the folder. You cannot double-click on a game to restart it; doing so will crash because saved game folders do not have some of the constant files the master folder does.) The game also clearly needs to be playtested by someone other than its creators. Some operations are incredibly clumsy--dealing with objects inside containers cannot be done from menus (hierarchical menus could be used to be symmetric with the menus for what is in the room and what is on a player's person). You cannot determine what is in a container, even on your own person, without spending a turn looking into it--and if you have no light you can't "look" at all, but you can still drink from things, remove items from containers, etc. In any case, to access something in a container you must spell out the whole name of the object (no abbreviation, no smart parsing of noun phrases). The ad and the manual make a big deal of how the creatures in the game react to your actions via an "AI rule-based system". As far as I can tell, the rules consist of: 1) If it is not in the room, ignore it (even if it's shooting at you). 2) If it is and it does something other than movement, attack it until it is dead or you are. 3) If it tries to give you something, take the thing and then attack it. Come off it, folks! When D&D dungeons work this way, people get bored. It's much worse when there aren't any other humans to interact with! The games you build with World Builder make creatures more interesting than this, and they don't claim to be particularly clever in implementation. Another major problem is playing and reaction speed, both subjectively and objectively. It takes a long time to do anything--it takes three or four turns at about 30 seconds or a minute each to do such simple things as going through a door. Trading items within the party has to be done from giver to receiver--otherwise it is an attempt to steal. In sum, after less than a week--only about 10 hours of playing time--I decided the game was unplayable. I'm sending a copy of this review to SES. If I get a response I'll tell you folks all about it. (*sigh*) -- pem@cadnetix.UUCP (nbires!isis!ico!cadnetix!pem)
patm@omepd (Pat Mead) (11/04/87)
I just last week got a review copy of this game for our Users Group Newsletter. I may have a newer copy of this game since some of the problems discussed before didn't occur to me. For example I could double-click on a saved game and it would go in just fine. Also taking an object from someone in the same party is fine. But I'm also running it from my hard disk. My version is 1.2 or 1.3. Just to add to the previous review I have found much to be lacking in this game. The first thing you'll notice is that you must open a door, a simple task right. Being used to text adventures you type 'Unlock door with key'. No go here DOOR is an unreconized word. The only sentence that works 'unlock with bronze key'. If you use the word door foget it you'll never get in. You get the idea of how bad the sentence parcer is. There is a way to get around some of its problems. You can choose a verb from the action menu and an object from the characters menu or room menu to build most of your sentence. I have also found no way to split up food between party members. This is a pain to pass the food around when you have 3 rations and it would be easier to split it up. I have spent most of my time playing fighting the game instead of really playing it. I have great hopes that the AI under the poor interface is good if only I could get far enough to see it. They are working on a multi-player version with apple-talk or modem which could spice things up some but the first order should be to make it user friendly. *********************************************************** usual disclaimers--- Patrick Mead ogcvax!inteloa!omepd!patm ***********************************************************