[MUD-Dev] Re: darkness/visibility

[Michael.Willey at abnamro.com]

     ____________________Reply Separator____________________
     Subject:  [MUD-Dev] Re: darkness/visibility
     Author:   mud-dev at kanga.nu (Chris Gray
     <cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA>)
     Date:          6/12/98 4:37 AM

[Michael.Willey at abnamro.com:]

> >On a graphic mud, this seems like a non-problem - since the players
>are
> >interpreting their surroundings with the human eye already, simply
>turning
> >down the lights causes the same effect as it would in RL.  Assuming
>a
> >text-based mud, how could you present the same effect?
>
>Not having played a lot of games much, the only one I remember that
>tried to make use of darkness in the images was "Faery Tale
>Adventure" on an Amiga. Our solution to not being able to see very
>well was to turn up the brightness on the monitor. So, I wouldn't
>suggest going to a lot of work to do something that the player can
>easily defeat. Just modifying your colourmaps won't do - you'll have
>to actually fuzz things or something.

That's true - I've been playing a lot of N64 games lately, and I've noticed
that many of them have areas where darkness/low visibility is meant to be a
challenge.  My solution there was to turn off the color correction on the
television: the colors were completely skewed, but there was enough
contrast between them to see clearly.  My wife calls it my 'night-vision
goggles' ;-)

So to present the idea of low visibility with graphics is easier than with
text, but not foolproof either...