Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!milton!electro!jwtlai%watcgl.waterloo.edu@watcgl.waterloo.edu From: electro!jwtlai%watcgl.waterloo.edu@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: Re: "Space" Message-ID: <1990Aug15.160312.10697@watcgl.waterloo.edu> Date: 15 Aug 90 16:03:12 GMT References: <9007250107.AA01311@hitl.vrnet.washington.edu> Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 27 Approved: hitl@hardy.u.washington.edu In article schraudo%beowulf@ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >Wumpus is played in a 3D space with additional contraints: the only moves >allowed are those between vertices of a dodekaeder. Thus Wumpus is an >instantiation of the general 3D navigation problem... I >agree that the constraints are counterintuitive - indeed my whole point >is that you get the best mileage by imposing intuitive constraints that >are gleaned from nature. This may seem parenthetical. I've seen the original Wumpus game in a Creative Computing collection. There is no attempt at aiding the visualization of the space. Each of the vertices is numbered 1 thru 20; there are no navigational directions given, just a list of the vertices that can be moved to. I would argue this space is difficult to navigate as there is no equivalent to directions one can fix on. The author of the game noted that all the playtesters at his site made maps but never arrived at the dodecahedron; in fact, it seemed to him that none of them even realized the vertices were always in the same configuration, judging from trashed maps. A simple way to make Wumpus navigation intuitive would be to add a diagram indicating which surface on the dodecahedron one is on and what the orientations are, relative to the player; this map would be a projection from the surface of a sphere containing the vertices. If I recall my graph theory, the configuration in Wumpus is planar and can be mapped onto 2D. Wumpus had no real navigational interface. It could have been made reasonably intuitive. It is trivial to make a nonintuitive system.