From his Grumpy Gamer blog, Ron wrote the following post, at the end he asked a good question. You are invited to answer 
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I shamelessly plugged your adventure game, @seguso !
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What did you dooooooooooooo! 
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You donât know the latest version of my UIâŚ! Now you have to compose like:
IN ORDER TO objective, USE object SO THAT subject ---- continuation
Example:
IN ORDER TO take Kateâs belongings, USE wanted poster SO THAT Kate â will be arrested.
Here, âwill be arrestedâ is chosen by the player from a list of about 20 continuations â similar to the game âTangle Towerâ.
(some puzzles have âBECAUSEâ in place of âSO THATâ).
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Please blur that spoiler!! Some people playing that game as we speak 
Right⌠probably Ron Gilbert himself would finally get unstuck at his own game , after reading that!
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Other example:
IN ORDER TO take the carpenterâs nails, USE peg leg SO THAT the carpenter â leaves to fix it
(where âleaves to fix itâ is chosen from the same predefined list of 20)
Whenever the USE (method) and IN ORDER TO (goal) form a valid combination, will you implement (unique) responses for all of the 20 continuations?
For example:
IN ORDER TO take the carpenterâs nails, USE peg leg SO THAT the carpenter- is knocked unconscious?
Is the list of 20 continuations changing depending on which goal and method you combine? In other words if you are able to construct:
IN ORDER TO take the carpenterâs nails, USE red herring SO THAT the carpenter- leaves to fix it?
before you have the peg leg then you give away part of the solution.
If you add continuations to the list only after acquiring the peg leg it stands out as a new option - so surely must be the solution!
On the other hand if a player acquired the peg leg before unlocking the goal âtake the carpenterâs nailsâ and is allowed to construct things like
IN ORDER TO buy a ship, USE peg leg SO THAT the carpenter- leaves to fix itâŚwell in this case it should at least create a reaction which doesnât solve any puzzle but shows that the carpenter does leave and return because why would the reaction be anything different? the carpenter doesnât know you want to rob him even if you do not know yet youâll want to later on!
Careful design may overcome these issues, of course. But it is always interesting to see if/how that works on an existing puzzle or puzzle chain.
Playing MI2 again with other people who never played it before really shows the way you discover and solve puzzles can be very different, which leads to a very different experience of the same game.
Thanks for questioning the new UI! Iâve been able to reply to just the first part of your question⌠Iâll finish later!
Is the list of 20 continuations changing depending on which goal and method you combine?
No, itâs fixed. Itâs simply all the final parts of the solutions of all the puzzles in the game, put together.
In some exceptional cases, for some objective, I hide a specific continuation, because itâs borderline for that puzzle⌠but this is very rarely needed, because the continuations are very specific concepts, like âleaves to fix itâ, âis jailedâ, and so on.
Here is the current list of continuations for my game (not a spoiler, for reasons I explain later):
The reason why I donât consider these giveaways would deserve a discussion by itself. Briefly, letâs get back to the carpenter puzzle in Monkey2. Since the beginning of the game, you see that âleaves to fix itâ and âis jailedâ are possible continuations that you can use. But I donât think these are giveaways. Knowing since the beginning of the game that to âget someone jailedâ is a possibility does not giveaway that puzzle IMHO. And knowing since the beginning of the game that to âget someone to leave to fix somethingâ is a possibility does not giveaway that puzzle.
Whenever the USE (method) and IN ORDER TO (goal) form a valid combination, will you implement (unique) responses for all of the 20 continuations?
Iâm not sure I understand⌠Since the continuations are very specific, they will almost never make sense with the wrong objective or with the wrong object, so I donât need to handle unique responses. I only need the generic response âthis doesnât make senseâ or âI donât see how this helps to XXâ. In other words, with this UI you almost cannot compose sentences that both make sense and are solutions to some puzzles.
in other words if you are able to construct: IN ORDER TO take the carpenterâs nails, USE red herring SO THAT the carpenter â leaves to fix it
before you have the peg leg then you give away part of the solution.
(What do you mean by âbefore you have the peg legâ? The peg leg canât be picked up in Monkey2. Just sawed.)
Anyway, in general, I dontâ think that seeing âleaves to fix itâ gives away an important part of the solution. Iâm just telling you âlook, in this world, making someone leave to fix something is a possibility. So remember that you can do it: sooner or later it might be needed.â. Iâm just telling you the ârules of the gameâ, so to speak. The puzzle is to understand that , for THAT objective (take nails), and for that object (the peg leg), and for that person (the carpenter), this concept of âmaking someone leave to fix somethingâ applies. The puzzle is to recognize that this abstract concept applies to the current situationâŚ
Will read the rest later 
. Thanks again!
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if a player acquired the peg leg before unlocking the goal âtake the carpenterâs nailsâ and is allowed to construct things like "IN ORDER TO buy a ship, USE peg leg SO THAT the carpenter - leaves to fix it⌠"
No, actually he isnât able to construct that sentence, because, after clicking âbuy a shipâ and âpeg legâ, the UI would not propose âthe carpenterâ, but only âthe shipâ and âthe peg legâ and âyouâ. (thatâs a detail I hadnât told you). But in previous versions of the UI it was possible to compose that sentence. So letâs pretend he is allowed to , and go on:
well in this case it should at least create a reaction which doesnât solve any puzzle but shows that the carpenter does leave and return
I donât agree⌠Because if you read the sentence, it doesnât really make sense: you said âin order to buy a shipâ. But making the carpenter leave does not help you buy a ship! So I only need to say âI donât see how that would help me buy a shipâ. In fact itâs one of the advantages of this UI: I donât need to give custom error messages. Because, with this UI, you canât compose a sentence that makes sense, unless it is the correct one. (almost⌠there are rare cases, but they are perphaps a dozen in a whole game)
btw, @Sushi, this new UI was invented to solve one problem you too reported, namely that many objects seem to more or less make sense with many objectives⌠so again you have an incentive to try to combine them, because you never know if thereâs a link between an object and an objective. (even more so if the object is a character⌠it kind of makes sense to ask everybody to help with every objective) .But then, the game becomes again a trial-and-error game, which is what I was trying to avoid. So I had to ask the player to be more explicit, and explain what he expects to happen after using that object, or why this will work.
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Aha!!
Yes, and it is an interesting way to reduce brute forcing solutions to some extent. But sometimes, especially when the outcome is comic/unexpected you might take the wrong one and get a standard response.
Letâs say you need to get past a locked door and you have a key. Letâs assume the only way to open the door is to blow it up with dynamite, since the real key was lost (but you donât know that yet). The correct solution would be âin order to get past the door, use dynamite so it is destroyedâ Then according to what you explained, if a player constructs âin order to get past the door, use the key, so it opensâ, heâll get the response âI donât see how that will help to <insert goal here= >get past the doorâ. While a more customised âmmm it doesnât fitâ or âthis must be for another door⌠or another gameâ would not leave the player full of rage that makes them construct âin order to get past the door, use foot so it is destroyedâ. Instead if a generic repsonse something like âauch, that hurtâ or ânot with my new shoesâ would make the game feel more alive and more rewarding for trying things that may not be âtheâ solution but funny or well-tried efforts.
If the number of sentences you can construct that way is fairly limited, you should be able to give custom responses to the ones that are funny or nice tries but for whatever reason not possible as the solution (or one of the alternatives solutions, which I am also a fan of). You could even use it to provide a hint to the player if theyâre getting warm.
Also it should be possible to detect if a player enters the same two things and is just trying everything for the third part one after another and make in-game characters (player avatar or NPC) react to this after, say, the 5th time: âI bet youâd wish you could buy a hint now? Sorry, we donât do micro transactions.â or âYeah, I know this doesnât make sense, but Iâll find a solution to this⌠eventually!â âIf you try hard enough you can do anything! Like chopping some wood!!!â
I see how making all outcomes available from the start helps to not make them stand out as opposed to when they are added dynamically to the list. Having some outcomes reused multiple times in different contexts and including a few red herrings should help to not solve the later puzzles more easily by elimination.
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Let me stop you right there :). You would never have a continuation like âis destroyedâ. Too generic. (Indeed, that is not a puzzle, but the ordinary way to use the dynamite.) Instead, a proper continuation is something that explains what is the hidden link between the object and the objective that you already clicked. So the continuation can never be something that is obvious in either the object or the objective. The purpose of the continuation is to make you be explicit about how the object and the objective are linked. (because they will never seem linked at first glance, otherwise that wouldnât be a puzzle).
Again you would never have âit opensâ as continuation. there is no hidden link to explain between the door and the key. Indeed, using the key on the door is not a puzzle.
This is a UI to express puzzles, not obvious interactions. For obvious interactions, I have another UI. (I have some context-sentitive buttons: âopen the doorâ, âgo by the secret passageâ , âmount the horseâ, âsearch the bedâ, âopen the drawerâ. etc.)
To make more examples of how powerful continuations are to express hidden links: sometimes , after you click an objective and an object, the UI does not propose âso thatâ, but âbecauseâ. Example: IN ORDER TO get inside the Queenâs castle, USE Jack BECAUSE [Jack ] [is actually her nephew].
So in this case the continuation (is actually her nephew) does not express the result of your action, but explains a hidden link (jack is actually her nephew ). the puzzle was actually to understand that Jack was the Queenâs nephew.
But it would also incentivize trial and error, which I want to avoid⌠Edit: you are talking about custom error messages that donât focus on the objective but on the action⌠I might do thatâŚ
But anyway, as I said above, it is extremely unlikely that you are able to compose a sentence that completely makes sense. For example, you are able in my game to compose IN ORDER TO xxx, USE y SO THAT [you] [drug it].
I always respond âI donât see how this would help me to xxxâ. Except in the particular case of
"IN ORDER TO win the horse race, USE mike stalloneâs horse SO THAT [you] [drug it]
Here, I give a custom error message, which is what you asked. Because drugging the horse really makes sense for that objective. But this happens maybe a dozen times in a whole game. It is extremely unlikely that you are able to compose something that makes sense, including the objective that you clicked.
If the number of sentences you can construct that way is fairly limited, you should be able to give custom responses to the ones that are funny or nice tries but for whatever reason not possible as the solution
Currently I do this when it makes sense for that objective ( like in the example above). Edit: I might extend this even in cases where the action does not make sense for that objective, but makes sense considered on its own⌠(which is what I think you are asking)
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brute force is impossible, because you need to click four things: 1) the objective, 2) the object, 3) the subject, and 4) the continuation.
- in a typical situation you have 10 open objectives. (except near the end of the game)
- The objects can be anything in any location, so letâs say you can choose between 100 objects.
- For the subject you have 3-4 choices (any object contained in the objective you clicked, plus the object you clicked, plus âyouâ, plus any object obviously implied by the object you clicked).
- And then you have 38 continuations.
So to brute force you would have to try 10 x 100 x 3 x 38 combinations
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Yes, I too like it very much. It makes the game seem more fair. it makes you aware from the start that, in this game, doing something is a possibility⌠for example, hiding inside stuff is a possibility; getting things dirty is a possibility; making someone leave to fix something is a possibility⌠etc.
It is difficult because continuations are very specific concepts, and therefore are unlikely to make sense in any context other than the correct one. But I managed to do this twice⌠with the continuations âfollow the smellâ and âhide inside itâ⌠wonât tell you more on that. 
So far I didnât need red herrings, because there are already 38 continuations, so⌠But after playtesting I might add some, especially near the end, where you have already used almost all continuations. (after your playtesting, I mean
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The answer does not lie in games but in the energy that a person expresses to transmit joy and love.