Int Fic Hints

Problem: The author has written a game with a puzzle which a player cannot solve on their own.

Context: The author has written a puzzle which is very logical--in their own mind. The player, on the other hand, is unable to comprehend what to do next, and may quit in frustration unless they can find a solution to the puzzle.

Forces: The forces involved come from the author and from the player.

The author: The player: Solution: The author (or someone else) can write hints for the player, beginning with opaque clues about the nature of the puzzle, and ending with explicit instructions about how to solve it.

A good hint system might provide the player a list of topics or questions which the player might have ('How do I get into the house?', 'What do I do about the Troll?'). These topics could be subdivided into general categories or sections, such as the physical locale within the game where the puzzles are encountered ('Outside the House', 'Beneath the House', 'The Maze and Environs', etc.) Once the player selects a topic, they are presented with a list of clues, provided one at a time, which get progressively more explicit. This is to ensure that the player may stop reading the hints at any time, once they feel they have been provided enough impetus to solve the puzzle. Whatever form they take, the progression of clues should generally follow this series of development:
  1. Is the puzzle currently solvable? The player may feel that they are stuck, say, on 'How do I unlock the grate?', but they will actually be stuck on 'How do I enter the house?', inside which will be a skeleton key. The first clue given to a player should convey to the player whether or not the puzzle is solvable yet. In our example, the first clue might look like:
  2. What are the clues within the game? A good puzzle should have indicators to its solution within the game itself (if not, effort should be spent to put them there, instead of writing up a hint system!) The next few clues should point the player in that direction. In our example, say the author has put a skeleton inside the grate as a clue. The next clue might therefore be:
  3. What is the logic involved? A good puzzle should be logical. (Again, if it isn't, effort should be spent making it so!) The next clue or clues should try to get the player thinking along the lines of logic needed to solve the puzzle. So, for example:
  4. What do I have to do to solve the puzzle? If the hint writer has conceded that the author's thinking might be alien to the player, they should probably also concede that the hint writer's thinking might be alien to the player as well (especially if they are one and the same!) As a last recourse, explicit answers should be provided, a la:
Also note that the player may have indeed figured out what to do, but hadn't known exactly how to phrase it: They may have tried OPEN DOOR WITH KEY or UNLOCK GRATE USING MY SKELETON KEY, which may not have worked, for whatever reason.

[Note: It is traditional to write out commands typed by the player in ALL CAPS, which in itself is probably a pattern (IntFicAllCaps? ?, but not one I'm going to write up right now :) --LucianSmith]

All of these four sections are not necessarily needed, depending on the forces involved. For example, Brendon Wyber's 'Theatre' included hints only, and no explicit instructions. For him, presumably, his desire to present a challenge to the player led him to believe that providing explicit hints would detract from that. Also, those hint systems which provide hints within the game itself ('Theatre' is one, as are 'Tapestry' and Infocom's 'Arthur', among others) might only present the topic question (like 'How Do I Unlock the Grate?') to the player once the puzzle has been reached and is solvable.

This also leads to another potential problem: If all the topics/questions are available to the player from the beginning, their very presence can sometimes be constituted to be a spoiler. ("Aha! One of the questions is 'How do I get into the house?, so there must be some way of doing that!") The accepted method of dealing with this is to put bogus questions on the list as well as real ones. (How do I get on top of the house?, How do I revive the skeleton?) Infocom did this a lot, in their InvisiClues.

[Note: Again, this is probably another pattern in its own right, but anyway,... --LucianSmith]

Examples There are many ways of implementing this Pattern. Here are a few:

[Note: This can't be a 'pattern' per se since I've never seen it done, but it shouldn't be too hard to incorporate a daemon that started running after you read a clue that prevented you from reading the next one until a certain number of moves have been made within the game, or a certain amount of real time has passed (or both!) --LucianSmith - Actually, I believe that Arthur did incorporate this to some extent -- L RossRaszewski ]

Resulting Context When written and utilized well, the result is that the player finds out how they were thinking wrongly with exactly the right amount of a 'push', and is able to further enjoy the game. The player still feels challenged, and the author has a happy customer.

Rationale In this system, the player can complete the game without the sense of loss consumate with either giving up on the game altogether or from being 'spoiled' for that puzzle. (See "Cheat, Beg, Wheedle, Cajole" from XYZZYNews #12, at http://www.xyzzynews.com/xyzzy.12f.html) I received the greatest validation of my hint writing efforts than when I read a post from someone who said they had just finished 'So Far' "without cheating", and only a "gentle nudge" from my clues page (above). I was ecstatic.

Also, consider the alternatives: This is the opposite extreme to,... There are other possibilities, better than the above, which are out of the control of the author, but which the player can employ:

Relationships: [none yet, since we haven't written any other IntFic Patterns. If you write a related pattern, be sure to mention it here --LucianSmith]

Known Uses: (see 'Examples')

-Written by LucianSmith -Very slightly edited by DavidGlasser
CategoryIntFic
EditText of this page (last edited November 5, 1998)
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