Script party!

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm, notwithstanding the word situation (which Collector and adeyke have already touched on)...

Typing "What is Graham's last name?" will get the response "Cracker."

...am I the only one who finds this amusing?

[Collector]

...am I the only one who finds this amusing?

It is an Easter egg.

[BBP]

It looks really, really very strange because in the script files every action that involves a female character (fairy, Grandma, Riding Hood, Hagatha, Valanice) it says something like "if said ((check out, b*tch) ; it makes no difference for the gameplay but it makes me feel uneasy working with this. First thing I'll do in the final make-up is remove all the b**** and so on, turn them into more appropriate words. Maybe I should do that on the other parser scripts as well, make them more readable.

[Collector]

Most of the WORDS.TOK and vocab resources have naughty words. In nearly all cases it is to chastise the player for entering such words. It usually results in a message such as "This is a family game. Perhaps you should buy a copy of Leisure Suit Larry" or "Not in front of the players!"

[adeyke]

There's a world of difference between having a list of designated naughty words that scold the player for using them and having sexist slurs that are just accepted as valid synonyms.

You should probably use your judgment and take the most appropriate synonym, rather than the alphabetically first one.

[Collector]

It is more revealing what the strings in the logic/script and Text/MSG resources are than what is in the WORDS.TOK and vocab resources. The latter is just a list of accepted user input (though can be used to cheat when the game is looking for a player response). The former is something that partially relates the narrative. For AGI games the Resource Viewer will display a list of all the strings used in that logic. For SCI some strings are in the scripts, but messages the game displays are in the text or MSG resources.

[adeyke]

I'm not sure I understand your point.

If you're saying that it would be even worse if the game actually used those slurs in its output texts, that's obvious. I think everyone would agree that the game would be even more sexist if it actually referred to its characters using those words.

If, however, you're saying that only the outputs matter, and the possible inputs don't, I completely disagree. If the game allows a certain action, then, to some extent, it condones that action. If the player types "look bitch", the game should either tell them off or just give the standard "I don't understand 'bitch'" response. The latter would take zero effort. Instead, someone put in some work to make sure that, if someone wanted to use slurs like that, the game would accommodate them.

[Collector]

If the game allows a certain action, then, to some extent, it condones that action. If the player types "look bitch", the game should either tell them off or just give the standard "I don't understand 'bitch'" response. The latter would take zero effort. Instead, someone put in some work to make sure that, if someone wanted to use slurs like that, the game would accommodate them.

No, I'm not sure you understand the purpose of the WORDS.TOK. It is just a generic list of what extra words it recognizes as synonyms, not what it "condones". The "I don't understand" type messages are simply generic parser messages for any input that is not in the lists. KQ2 is about the only one that allowed such words to be used in place of legitimate vocabulary. As I noted earlier most of these in other games were merely to tell the player "no no" and have no relevance to the narrative. Note that the inventory is not stored in theses resources, but in AGI games the OBJECTS file. The parser will recognize those, too. Mostly what is in the WORDS.TOK and vocab resources are common words, like pronouns, verbs etc. Key words tended to be stored elsewhere, like in the scripts/logics themselves. For example, even if the word attack is not in the WORDS.TOK, this will work.

Code: Select all

if (said("attack","vent")) {
    print("The cover just slips off.  There's no need to break it.");
    }

What the WORDS.TOK will do is to allow the user to use a synonym if attack is included in a group int the WORDS.TOK, otherwise it will only accept "attack". Any game that you had to struggle to find just the right word simply did not have a very complete list of synonyms via the WORDS.TOK.

For BBP's proposes it is not required to have every synonym to create a script of the game.

[Spikey]

There's a world of difference between having a list of designated naughty words that scold the player for using them and having sexist slurs that are just accepted as valid synonyms.

Word. Adeyke, you are the most correct person I know, and I don't even know you aside from AGDIforums. .

And here I was, talking to others, arguing how KQ was a game created by a woman, having female protagonists that save males in distress and all, refusing marriage.

[adeyke]

I do understand. The purpose of the words.tok is to allow the parser to understand a variety of commands without needing to program them all separately. For a very simple example, if someone wanted a description of Dracula, they might say "look" or they might say "examine", and they might say "count dracula" or "dracula" or "vampire". Without words.tok, they'd have to list out all combinations:
if (said("look","count dracula") ||
said("look,"dracula") ||
said("look","vampire") ||
said("examine","count dracula") ||
said("examine","dracula") ||
said("examine","vampire"))

With words.tok, they can simplify this. They just say that "look" and "examine" are synonyms and that "count dracula", "dracula", and "vampire" are synonyms, so all the script has to say to capture all six possible combinations is:
if (said("look","count dracula"))

So I get the purpose of the words.tok.

I'm still saying that what they choose to put into that words.tok file matters. By putting "bitch" (and other such slurs) into that words.tok entry, they're saying that they want the parser to understand the word "bitch" and understand that you mean the same thing as "hagatha" or "mermaid" or "valanice" or such. That's a vile, misogynistic thing to do. They could have just left those words out of words.tok, but someone chose to include them, and that action can be criticized.

And I do think that if the game is intentionally made to permit something and if it doesn't in any way criticize or penalize you for it, that means it condones it.

There's a world of difference between having a list of designated naughty words that scold the player for using them and having sexist slurs that are just accepted as valid synonyms.

Word. Adeyke, you are the most correct person I know, and I don't even know you aside from AGDIforums. .

And here I was, talking to others, arguing how KQ was a game created by a woman, having female protagonists that save males in distress and all, refusing marriage.

I'm not sure how much of that is sarcasm. I will say, however, that the bad aspects of something don't mean the good aspects don't exist, but at the same time, the good aspects don't make the bad aspects immune to criticism. I'm not passing judgment on the work as a whole.

[BBP]

It's... kind of shocking how eager Valanice is to marry Graham in KQ2, knowing little more of him than his name.

One of the scripts shows that you can get the following reply if you aren't quite out of Hagatha's cave yet:
"It wouldn't be safe to ride the carpet until you are all the way out of the cave. Only wierd QA types do that."

Hey, is it really possible to use the gold fish to cross the sea in the Pink Sky World by jumping into the water while holding the fish?

[adeyke]

Hey, is it really possible to use the gold fish to cross the sea in the Pink Sky World by jumping into the water while holding the fish?

I was unaware of it, but I just tested it and it works.

[Collector]

We each seem to be arguing two different debates. I was only talking about it from a technical view and you seem to be arguing about the social/moral aspects. I was agreeing with BBP that for her purposes she could ignore those words. In fact for what she is trying to do she can in general ignore the WORDS.TOK for AGI games. Also, KQ2 is more of an anomaly than the norm. I would thing that if Scott Murphy had been caught he would have been some trouble. As I noted, many of the games have such words, but are almost always used to chastise the player for using them.

[adeyke]

That would certainly explain why I couldn't make sense of your replies. When I said this:

There's a world of difference between having a list of designated naughty words that scold the player for using them and having sexist slurs that are just accepted as valid synonyms.

And you followed with this:

It is more revealing what the strings in the logic/script and Text/MSG resources are than what is in the WORDS.TOK and vocab resources.

I took it to mean that you were also engaging on a social/moral level but brushing aside my concerns.

[Collector]

More revealing was in reference to BBP's effort to explore the branching narrative of these stories. I have little interest in debating the wisdom or lack of virtue of Scott's prank. This is something that creative people have done since time immemorial. There are even a few cels out there with genitalia on Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck for similar pranks. I do have a long time interest in the workings of the games and BBP's efforts go directly to exploring game design.