From: Dennis Ranke Date: 2004-11-05T19:53:42+09:00 Subject: Re: [SUMMARY] Sokoban (#5) On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 22:29:57 +0900, Ruby Quiz wrote: > Let's talk about one more thing though. Interface. To a game, > interface is > critical. Dennis Ranke's and Dave Burt's games read line-oriented input, > requiring you to push enter/return to send a move. While they do allow > you to > queue up a long line of moves, this tires my poor little fingers out, > especially > on involved levels. > > That begs the question, why did they use this approach? Speaking for myself, I decided to try to write the most simple solution (in terms of code) I could come up with. First, to show that a fascinating game can still be extremely simple at it's core and second, because I wrote it in a 20 minute break at work. ;) I realized from the beginning that this would make for a terrible actual game (and in fact I had to force myself to even play through the first level this way when testing the code ;). When comparing my solution to others (both in terms of code and playability) it shows very nicely that when trying to write a nice game you'll have to pay as much attention to the interface as to the actual gameplay and that's an important lesson for all aspiring game programmers. :) (fyi. I'm programming games for a living, hopefully all with better interfaces than my sokoban ;) -- exoticorn/farbrausch