37 ms·
Me too, I learned a lot of English. I would play Monkey Island and Indiana Jones with a dictionary on the side. I remember taking hours in one of the first Kin
by soneca 7y ago
Me too, I learned a lot of English. I would play Monkey Island and Indiana Jones with a dictionary on the side.
I remember taking hours in one of the first King Quests, that used typed text input, that the right verb was to "pick-up' a cup. Not take, not get, which were the only ones I knew at the time for picking up things.
- indigochill 7y agoEspecially confusing since "get" to my knowledge has been the conventional keyword used for this action in the vast majority of parser games and MUDs (maybe "take" in some cases, but "pick-up"? Really?). I'm a native English-speaker and that still probably would have stumped me for a while.
- galonk 7y agoSince "pick up" should not be hyphenated, as a native English speaker I don't think I would have ever guessed it!
- soneca 7y agoThat's probably on me though, not the original game. Let's keep in mind that this is a memory from ~30 years ago, so not that reliable in general
- the_af 7y agoBack then, when there was no internet (or it wasn't widespread), Sierra On-Line games were vicious. Not only the wrong action meant instea-death, hope-you-have-a-savegame, but they were also sometimes impenetrable in an age where there weren't internet forums to ask for help. (There were hint books you had to buy, which in my mind were a scam). For example, in Space Quest 2 there was a puzzle where some strange creatures tell you that in order for them to open a passage, you just had to "say the word". Keep in mind I was just learning English back then. The answer was you had to literally type "the word".
- swiftcoder 7y agoAh, the old "Speak, friend, and enter" of Tolkien fame.