Replace "%The1 is confused!" with "Surprisingly, %the1 does not kill you!"

[Quuxplusone]

The current message implies that I've done something clever
to the sandworm in-universe; but in the code, it's apparent
that this is basically an assertion-failure and the whole game
is in a bad state out-of-universe.

Fixes #95.

[Quuxplusone]

@zenorogue ping?

[Quuxplusone]

@zenorogue ping!

[zenorogue]

There are some other controversial places where the game texts do not exactly tell the truth, like the description of the Dead Orb (which claims it is useless) and the description of the Palace (which says you will never find the Prince(ss), which was true when Palace was originally implemented, but no longer).

I like them myself, they express what the character/narrator is thinking when they find these things, even if they are slightly wrong.

[Quuxplusone]

they express what the character/narrator is thinking when they find these things

Yeah, but this particular message doesn't, right? Because "what the narrator is thinking (about the state of mind of the sandworm)" is an in-universe thing; but this message is talking about the game itself getting into a bad state out-of-universe. Arguably it would be okay for the message to refer to the player-character's own mental state — "You are very confused about what just happened!" — but I continue to think that attributing confusion to the monster in this case is just wrong.

Hmm. I guess another reason I wouldn't object to the Princess example is that that message is "lying" in service of a game-design goal (to pleasantly surprise the player when the player discovers the truth), whereas in this case if the player discovers the truth and the truth is "oh, that codepath should never happen," it's not so pleasantly surprising.

[jruderman]

How about "You somehow avoid being killed by %the1"

• Staying away from "inexplicably" and "cheated" reduces the suggestion that the player has gained an unfair advantage by cheating.
• Keeps the monster name in the message, which is important for working out steps-to-reproduce

[Quuxplusone]

How about "You unexpectedly avoid being killed by %the1!"
or "Surprisingly, %the1 does not kill you!"

I see your objection to "cheated [death]" (especially for a game whose players, I assume, often aren't native speakers of English), but I'm not so sure I understand the objection to "inexplicably." I would like to keep some element of "This is an unexpected, surprising, inexplicable situation!" as just a minor hint that what's just happened is essentially a transient bug in the game logic, not an intentional in-game effect that you should expect to rely on.

What all these suggestions have in common, which "%The1 is confused!" lacks, is the idea that you should have been killed: it's not just an ordinary move that happens to "confuse" a nearby monster, it's literally you should have died this turn and yet somehow you didn't.

[emmiegit]

I think my biggest issue with the replacement message is it doesn't quite work if you're not actually in danger. If a sandworm off in the distance gets bugged and prints the "confused" message, I'm not exactly "cheating death" there.

[Quuxplusone]

I think my biggest issue with the replacement message is it doesn't quite work if you're not actually in danger. If a sandworm off in the distance gets bugged and prints the "confused" message, I'm not exactly "cheating death" there.

Given that the message is printed only on an assertion failure inside killThePlayer, I don't think it's possible to get the message due to anything happening in the distance. It's also not specific to sandworms. I claim that your interpretation of the existing message as "oh, something interesting happened to the mental state of that sandworm" is exactly the kind of player confusion that I'd like to resolve by rewording the message. :)

[emmiegit]

I didn't realize this was part of killThePlayer, I thought it was a general replacement for that message.