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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Undo and the Twelve Cube Puzzle (was: [Inform] Turn off "undo")
Message-ID: <erkyrathDwyvs1.78z@netcom.com>
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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 20:04:49 GMT
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Carl Edman (cedman@lynx.ps.uci.edu) wrote:
> As long as there is load/save/undo, all players have infinite luck.  Any
> puzzle which is soluble by luck becomes an optional puzzle.  If you want
> to have a mandatory puzzle, you have to force the player to be unlucky.

> > I'm pretty sure he was only speaking about the undo which Frotz does,
> > overriding the author's control over the game.  I know if I was programming
> > in Inform, I'd be annoyed by it.  (Of course, since I only play, I love it.
> > But I'd rather just have the language handle it better.)

> I agree.  Undo should be a command like save and load.  But if an author
> feels the need to override this command to do anything other than add
> cute messages, he probably hasn't thought through the problem
> sufficiently.

I understand your point, and mostly agree with it. However, one might get 
to the point where you're making the player *too blatantly* unlucky. I 
wouldn't want to make the effect too artificial. (For example, if the 
number of choices is small.) So I might choose to override "undo" anyway.

Or design the puzzle so that there are lots of choices. This is all 
hypothetical; I've never overridden "undo" in a game.

And yes, undo is a command just like save and restore. *If* I wrote a game
that overrode undo, I would override save and restore in the same way. 

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
