Do you believe there is a preferred interface-design, and if so, why?
My last game was a two-verb coin: "Look" and "Interact". I was contemplating going further in my next title to have object interactions and observations to be one and the same verb, moving from a verb-coin to a one-click-does-all design. I'm worried that this might limit the depth of some of the puzzles to pixel-hunts, which seems to turn off a lot of the adventure-game crowd, which is small-enough as it is.
Your thoughts?
I've used a one-click interface in several games (e.g. Warthogs, Quest for Yrolg), and it's worked out pretty well for me.
My favorite interfaces are parsers, SCUMM and the complex context menus of Return to Zork. Verbcoins can be pretty cool too.
From the player's POV I'm not very fond of one-click or two-verb interfaces - they're very limiting. From teh designer's standpoint they have the great benefit, however, that it's damn faster to make/write a game with such a simple interface. And the primitiveness can be slightly compensated by putting additional verbs together into the inventory as though they were items.