Good interface ideas

[Lummox JR]

Sean Howard has an interesting post at his game mechanics page about Roguelikes:

http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=53

The first part is a neat idea, but the real meat is below. The idea is to encourage Roguelikes to go with a simpler interface instead of having a zillion and one commands that only work on one item each, or menuize item interaction in a way that's simpler. It certainly makes a lot of sense.

Also of note is his article on procedural content:

http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=37

[Gamer_2k4]

Interesting.  The first article will be useful in a small game I'm designing that has randomly created monsters and items.

[Lummox JR]

I've always liked the idea of procedurally generated content, but #37 is the first place I've seen it suggested that a language be implemented to that end. That makes more sense than anything hard-coded ever could, really, except that the danger of creating such a language is that you have to keep adding on to it as you want new features.