This is a very clear and easy to read article, and covers a surprisingly
large amount of material. Perhaps one area in which it is less strong is
that it doesn't have many examples of poor scene descriptions. There is one
described as 'weaker' but it may help authors to have more examples of
things they should avoid. But for examples of good things to do the article
is very informative and uses many good examples from IF games (both old and
new) to make its point.
<P>
While starting to read the "secondary sense descriptions" section I was
reminded of the puzzle (or series of puzzles) in Hitch-Hikers Guide to the
Galaxy, where the player wakes up in the dark (on the Heart of Gold) and
each time has to use a new sense to make sense of the surroundings. It
might be worth mentioning that here. In that case the 5 senses formed the
basis for almost a meta-puzzle, and even on a smaller scale thinking in
terms of the other 5 senses (not just for scene descriptions) could give an
author ideas for other puzzles thay could be deployed, and to build up a
better picture of the scene the player would see. How much of that gets
into the scene description is another matter though.
<P>
The sections dealing with changing scene descriptions were particularly
strong, both changes with time and plot, but also change of character (e.g.
from "Being Andrew Plotkin"). When I started to read the article this type
of thing was in my mind as something that must be covered. I was glad when
I found that it was.
<P>
The sidebar about scene descriptions and a short paragraph/sentence after
the main point was really good for me: I hadn't thought about that before!
Please make sure that that section of the article stays in, either as a
sidebar or brought into the main part of the text. It was very useful and
enlightening.