> > Zork Grand Inquisitor, on the other hand, is way too easy. You can die, but you cannot do anything wrong without dying. That means, no matter what you do, if it doesn't kill you, then it's good.

> Or neutral. This game design philosophy is NOT what makes the game easy, it's what makes it playable. Some of the hardest adventure games I've played are designed this way -- because although you can't do anything that will stop you from solving the game, there could be a million possible combinations of things you can do, while only the right thing gets you anywhere. ZGI may have been too easy, but this wasn't the reason.

Actually, in ZGI, everything you do actually HELPS you to solve the game. I don't think there are any neutral actions (at least, not more than about 2). Many of the puzzles in the game you can solve simply by doing them over and over until you find the combination that doesn't get you killed. This, maybe coupled with the fact that the game isn't actually very long, makes ZGI pretty easy to beat, at least compared to RTZ (which is just about impossible), and the Zork text adventures.

I think Starship Titanic has several neutral actions and a LOT of red herrings (like the talking bomb in the basement...although maybe you actually do something with that later, I haven't had the time to win the game yet). Consequently, Starship Titanic is a much more challenging game than ZGI.

In other words: I stand by what I said. But I agree completely with what you said, too.

> To me, it is ridiculous, foolish, and downright maddening when an adventure game lets you do something that stops you from solving it, then lets you continue playing without telling you.

Me too. That was my major complaint about RTZ. Like I said, I kicked the rock at the beginning (in the first screen) of the game. Several hours -- days, actually --later, I found out I had to start the game over from the beginning.

> Consequently, it is my policy for games that show up on AGL...

Cool!

Before anyone sues me or anything (:-Þ), I'd better point out that I was talking about the new Zork games entirely in response to Stephen's post "Has anybody tried the recent Zork games? Grand Inquisitor and Nemesis I think...". I don't think AGL is too easy; nor do I think that there's anything wrong with the way that AGL is designed. If anyone thought I was saying anything anything, er, "bad" about AGL in my last post, then...well..."I really didn't mean it!" and I'm very sorry.

(In fact, I don't know enough about AGL to say anything about it, bad or otherwise. I found Rinkworks about November-ish of 1998, and I haven't had time to play many computer games -- AGL or otherwise -- since then. School, you understand. Here in Alberta we don't get out until June 29...)

-Anony "someday I'll work up the courage to put my own name here" mous.