More Views on Synonyms

       Taken from a letter and e-mail from Bev Truter

I noticed the letter from Nick Edmunds in the last issue of
SynTax, mentioning the lack of synonyms for verbs in many text
adventures, which often results in the player spending a-g-e-s
frantically typing in all sorts of ridiculous phrases in an
attempt to track down that elusive verb-with-no-synonym. It should
be obligatory for authors to provide at least one, preferably two,
synonyms for peculiar verbs, or odd actions the player is required
to perform to accomplish something.

For example, I've discovered TOSS PEPPER AT GUARD works in a text
adventure called `Thief's Adventure'. While THROW PEPPER AT GUARD
gets the response, "You can't do that!" Why not, for heaven's
sake? Surely, if you can toss something, throw should work equally
well. Similarly, I've had to ATTACH ROPE TO HOOK in another game -
TIE ROPE TO HOOK was apparently too far-fetched a concept. The

same goes for actions like DESCEND ROPE, where DOWN, CLIMB ROPE
and CLIMB DOWN ROPE were all useless.

My all-time favourite pet hate is the verb PUSH, when it doesn't
have PRESS as a synonym, or PRESS without PUSH as a synonym.
GGrrr!!! As you quite rightly put it, it's fun solving puzzles in
games, but just plain irritating playing find-the-right-word.
Looking forward to playing "Acorn Court", seems like there are
plenty of alternative verbs / words there!

... And here's a fresh moan too. I've just been playing a smallish
Speccy emulated game called "Jester's Quest", and would you
believe that PUT SEEDS IN POT won't work at all (a categorical and
indignant "you can't do that"), but that PUT SEEDS INTO POT does
the trick perfectly. Unbelievable. The same with several other
items and a cauldron later on.

@~I remember being frustrated by the fact that I couldn't allow
@~the player to both 'tie hook to line' and 'tie line to hook' in
@~Second Pit. I couldn't manage to get TADS to allow both line and
@~hook to, at the same time, be both direct and indirect objects!
@~But I could imagine people saying - why can I tie the hook to
@~the line but not the other way round? ... Sue
















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