Comments on room description essay
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This essay has some original ideas, but they aren't emphasized as much as they
should be. I very much liked what was said at the start about room descriptions
not being what people play adventure games for---indeed, we play interactive
fiction because we feel like interacting in some way we usually don't, not
because we want to look at things. I'd note this truth at the very start of the
essay, cutting out the part about "text streams" (which I always find too
abstract except in very theoretical "What is IF?" essays). Adventureland and the
other Scott Adams games would be a good example to start with; their room
descriptions never get much longer than "You're in a forest. Exits: [...] Visible
objects: [...]"; yet these games are still fondly remembered, though mainly as
intricate "Chinese puzzle boxes," as Graham Nelson called them (in "The Craft of
Adventure"). The essay then says that room descriptions can serve the game story
if they are more detailed than the location--exit-list minimum. I'd put it the
other way round: if a game is to have a strong story, the room descriptions
*must* go beyond the minimum, because every story-like sequence of events we live
through necessarily takes place somewhere specific. In fact, when I'm living
through something really intense, I find that my heightened awareness of what's
going on spills over into a heightened awareness of what's around me.
<P>
The organization of the essay's main part is all right, but I'm not sure
descriptions based on senses other than sight deserve a separate heading. I'd
make two large subsections, the first for "passive" scene descriptions and the
second for "active" ones. (Indeed, the essay already has a section for "active"
scene descriptions; "passive" scene descriptions can replace the "caves" heading,
which segues into topics more general than caves.)
<P>
"Passive" scene descriptions, as the essay implies, are ones that simply tell you
where you are and where to go from there, in a more detailed style than
Adventureland's. How about starting by going into more detail about what room
descriptions are for? When I play a text adventure, I closely read a room
description when I first enter the room and then ignore it except when I'm
looking for a clue or just bored and wanting to look at something for a bit (even
if the game is in "verbose"). Whenever I'm playing, I'm focused mainly on how to
get through the game and how to find out what happens, not how to see what more
rooms look like. A succession of overlong room descriptions (as in the "Red" and
"Sea-Blue" sections of Photopia) kills my enthusiasm quickly, as do room
descriptions that, on multiple readings, seem to try too hard to be "vivid."
Basically a room description should draw my eye around the room in an orderly
manner, as the explanation of Hunter, in Darkness's "Base of Canyon" implies;
they should never make me feel like I'm going over the same ground twice, not
even within one sentence. And here my opinion seems to differ from the essay's.
To me, all of the "getting the job done" scene descriptions mentioned at the end
are excellent examples of what the majority of descriptions in an adventure game
should be like.  For instance, "Chill Tunnel" tells me I'm in a tunnel with two
exits without making the tunnel feel like a standard D&D corridor (it's slightly
skewed) and evokes, rather than spells out, what I'll find at each end. "Angle
Branch" tells a lot about the mood of the enemy headquarters: "like every other
hallway in this place" tells me how monotonous this building is (and also
something about the personality of those who built it), and the description of
the metal plate as "attendant" recalls how dutiful and efficient the enemy is (as
in the beginning of the game: "You're sure the police are as efficient about
litter as about everything else they do."). In contrast, the latter four
sentences of "Weird Tunnel" could probably be combined into one to say that the
tunnel feels skinlike and leads only down.  More about brevity would be in order
in the section on "passive" descriptions. 
<P>
Other directions to take in this part: 
(1) The point that "Base of Canyon" does not start with "You are in the base of a
canyon." is a good one. A paragraph on ways to avoid repetition would be welcome.
(For instance, having the opening sentence in second person but having the
scenery act on the player as in So Far's "You are surrounded by benches."
("Theater near Aisle"); having the description play off the room name as in So
Far's "Or perhaps ex-storage..." ("Theater Storage"); metaphorical titles such as
Jigsaw's "In the Serpent's Mouth" for the inside of the cone of a missile;
references to other times or places as in A Change in the Weather's "Elsewhere in
the park..." ("Wildflowers") and Christminster's "During the week this must be a
busy thoroughfare..." ("Biblioll Street"), etc.).
(2) How do we describe details effectively? I notice a lot of games have room
after room of "Trees line either side of the road," "Geodesic discs are scattered
about," "Midges hang in the air," etc. A number of plurals in succession like
this create a hazy atmosphere instead of precise clarity. Some room descriptions
spend the whole time on one salient object, as in So Far's "Abandoned Road, at
Chimney"---can we balance these two styles? 
(3) Talk about use and overuse of adjectives: that "Garden Park" description
mentioned in the essay is so adjective- and simile-heavy that I find myself
zoning out.
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Now the "active" scene description part is organized better, but I have some
comments and examples. 
(1) The description of Christminster's "Archway, between the Courts" that is
mentioned is more interesting than the essay lets on. It would be a bit unusual
if every time the player enters that room she bows in front of the First World
War memorial. But, as a player, I don't read the room description every time I
enter a room, only the first time and then when I'm stuck, i.e., only at times
when I'm just "looking around." And I think that if I were just looking around
and my eyes lighted on something like that, a little shiver or feeling of grief
would inevitably pass through me, because my mind would not be distracted by
anything else. How often should a scene description assume that the player will
read it, and does that reading count as an "outside-the-game" action by the main
character, as the player's time spent sitting and reflecting in front of the
screen might?
(2) In the "Tortilla Flat" room on the moon in Jigsaw, there's this parenthetical
remark: "(NASA wasn't very dignfied in its naming conventions, which later
angered the International Astronomical Society.)" In A Change in the Weather,
there's this parenthetical remark, about the bush in the cliff: "(One of those
coincidences that makes your life a little easier.)" When I played these games,
the first remark felt out of place, but the second one didn't. I think this is
because, for me at least, all descriptive text in a text adventure feels like it
could be said by the main character to himself unless the game spells out a
different style early on (as in Leather Goddesses of Phobos and the Unkuulia
games). The Jigsaw remark stuck out because I didn't feel like my character could
have known that, but the A Change in the Weather remark seemed like one my
character could have made. Therefore every adjective used and detail noted is a
chance to describe the player character's personality, feelings, and ideas; and
overt editorializing in room descriptions can often seem excessive. (Perhaps
avoidance of this problem is another benefit of short,
location--exits--salient-detail-or-two descriptions.)   
<P>
In your sidebar on placing objects in the second paragraph of room descriptions,
you might also want to say a bit about how to draw attention to important objects
in the main paragraph of a room description. Generally, I might examine
first-paragraph nouns preceded by "a" or "an," but not plural nouns, which
usually turn out to be atmosphere.  For instance, in the room "Tower, Bottom" in
Metamorphoses I would examine the statue (preceded by "a") right away, but I
would ignore the mirrors and other objects of plural number. I also find it
annoying when a description has a sentence like "Apple trees, shrubs, and garden
gnomes fill the yard." and it turns out that I "don't need to refer to" either
the trees or the gnomes but examining the shrubs gives "Beneath one of the shrubs
is a small key." That's what I think is meant by the warning in some capsule
reviews that a game requires "random inspection." Also, a game is hurt if much of
the scenery in the first paragraph of room descriptions turns out to be just
atmosphere and only the object descriptions in the second paragraph matter, as is
the case in much of Adventure and Zork Zero. The game starts to feel like a walk
through a funhouse with painted walls and a gadget sitting square in the center
of each room, no matter how evocative the first-paragraph sentences are. And you
might want to mention that a customized "initial" description cannot make a
hastily-placed interactive object feel like it belongs in a room, as this
sentence from the parody Sins against Mimesis exemplifies: "Your mimesis plant
squats in the center of the room, slowly photosynthesizing."
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As for a conclusion, I have one idea. I've noticed that, though while I'm playing
a game the puzzles and interaction occupy most of my thoughts, after I'm done
with the game it's the world and the placement of objects in it that stay with me
the longest. I still have vivid memories of Colossal Cave, the attics of Curses,
and the Kensington Gardens of Trinity, memories that float into my mind as I come
upon certain rooms and spaces in real life; yet it takes me a while to remember
what puzzles took place in those areas. In his review of Zork II, Duncan Stevens
said he once "had dreams about the Bank of Zork"---N.B. not dreams about the
state-machine puzzle that took place there, but dreams about the area and the
zaniness it represented. Some of the most memorable scenes in adventure games are
made when the land represented by the room descriptions is itself a puzzle, as in
the land of the giant sundial and mushrooms in Trinity; and it's hard to see how
experiences of exactly this type could be had in other fiction. And if you'd like
a quotation regarding this with which to close the essay...
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And if the vulgar joy by its own weight<br>
Wearied itself out of the memory,<br>
The scenes which were a witness of that joy<br>
Remained, in their substantial lineaments<br>
Depicted on the brain, and to the eye<br>
Were visible, a daily sight...<br>
--Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805), I.625--630