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Learning to follow directions, February 8, 2022little breaks immersion more than when the protagonist of the game refuses to follow your instructions.
there's a reason why so many people dislike stock parser answers like "Violence isn't the answer to this one" -- if i'm dealing with a padlock and holding a heavy rock in my hand, and i type BREAK THE PADLOCK WITH THE ROCK, i at least want to be informed of why my action failed. the stock response mocks the player for attempting a logical action. immersion break.
in a game like A Matter of Importance, half the actions you try are refused by the protagonist, often for the silliest of reasons. the protagonist is such an egotistical coward that they refused about half the actions i was able to give them, and examining almost anything comes back with a snotty message about it being unimportant.
the first move - third move, actually - puzzle is a guess-the-verb that makes no sense in context. i was only able to solve it (after multiple logical actions were "irrelevant" or "wouldn't help me") when the game gave up and told me (Spoiler - click to show)"maybe it would be better to ignore the cars," which clued the bizarre IGNORE CARS.
i tottered around a bit in what seemed to be the main game area, being informed that despite being a burglar i was not interested in any aspect of the building i intended to break into, nor in stealing anything else, nor in interacting with NPCs. and sometimes when the game informs you that something is irrelevant, it's lying, but you have to use exactly the right verb on the right specific detail to proceed. anything else would give you one of the game's stock "that's irrelevant" messages.
it's an aggravating feeling when the solution to a puzzle is right at your fingertips but you can't work out the correct phrasing to get your recalcitrant, obnoxious player character to do it.
there's a strong suggestion in the INFO menu that all of this is in aid of something: that this is supposed to be a difficult, frustrating game with some kind of manifesto or major twist at the end of it. but i've spent too much time beating my head against this game already.