Pinback wrote:

When I try to think of all the things that I vaguely remember hating about a Robb Sherwin game (and realize, there are many more things I like than hate), here is what comes to mind, in no particular order.

- Bugs (you've gotten much better)
- Layout consistency (again, much better)
- Description of scenery

Those are the simple ones. If we delve a little deeper, we get to things like:

- Thought your writing is awesome and funny and stuff, it often feels like you do too much of it. Pages full of text, where just a concise paragraph would have done. Info dumps which slow the game down and may seem more indulgent than necessary for the player to enjoy the game.

- Too much "Robb-speak". Your greatest strength can become a weakness if it is overdone to the point where the player feels excluded from a club, where it starts to feel like you wrote the game for a small circle of hip friends rather than the general public.

- Too many video game and sports references. This is the same item as the previous one, except in a different area. We know you like video games and sports. But it's narrowcasting. One does not want to be taken out of a story to think "Oh, that Robb! He sure loves his sports (and video games)!"

- First person v. third person. This is a taste thing, of course. You for some reason have an affinity for first-person, and this is a fetish which I will never understand if I live to be a billion. But, whatever.

The reason I chose Pantomime as my favorite Robb game is that it does the best job of addressing all of the above issues.

These are the hallmarks of all successful text games: Tightness of implementation and economy of text. Think of any classic of the genre which is either 1) implemented sloppily, or 2) overly profuse with its language. You can't. And even if you can, you're wrong. It's a game, not a book. It's not "interactive fiction", it's a GAME, goddamn you. If you want to write fiction, write a book. But save the voluminous prose for such a project, not your word game projects.