alt Hacker NewsI'm not from the era of these games, but I remember trying them and finding them frustrating for the same reason.
But when I tried this, I literally couldn't stop. I could just write some random action.
It's actually amazing to me how many situations they were able to consider in the game, but having the LLM translate my language into the right action made the game feel way more natural.
I'd be interested in seeing how people can dress up these games with images, or more complex interactions. It could be a whole sub-genre.
Or even make new games with the LLM translating what you write into a restricted set of in-game commands.
One thing I noticed about the linked page: I said something like "what's in the mailbox?" and the answer was "That mailbox is closed." I think the next level would be able to string together multiple commands like "open mailbox" + "look in mailbox"