I'm itching to get back to play it and try some new things, but at the moment I don't have the time. Some quick observations though:
I really like the terseness, that's how I remember
playing text adventures and that's why I preferred them on the Vic. When I got my C64 I didn't enjoy text adventures quite the same - they were too wordy and consequently felt less like games and more like books.
I remember buying Curse of the Werewolf for the Vic when I already had a C64 since two years. I enjoyed it and played it a heck of a lot more than most C64 adventures. The short descriptions allowed for fast navigation and many locations to map. And as the items were distributed randomly each new round, it also felt much more dynamic and - again - much more like a
game.
Infocom adventures in particular was a pain: long-winded description and long disk access times made them slow to play and discouraged playful trial-and-error. Some I could still enjoy and accepted as deserving of their status, but their essence was something else and they were neither as intuitive nor as evocative as my Vic adventures. Also, the wordiness at times felt strained – overwrought and flowery.
But! Purple prose or not, the long descriptions, above all, created a disconnect between the act of playing/participating and the game world. The longer the descriptions and the more adjectives used, the greater the risk that the parser couldn't deal with all the stuff described. In any case, the possibilites of interaction never grew at the same rate as the word count.
It's the same phenomenon that makes many modern games unpleasant for me. Every bag, button, belt, strap, pocket, fold and lace is depicted on your avatar in 3rd and 1st person action games, but they are just for show, you still interact with your inventory just the same as you did 20 years ago. And while increased graphics fidelity might improve atmosphere, I'd say it almost always detracts from beliveability if that increase isn't matched by increased possibilites for interaction - not an easy task for designers and programmers...
I like when every pixel count. I like it aesthetically but I also like it because it feels like there is meaning and opportunities present in every pixel. Hence the games I loathed the most were 1990s Amiga and PC PD-games where shoddy versions of old arcade classics like Asteroids were "spruced up" with photo realistic textures. The believability of the "world of Asteroids" was gone for me.
All in all, I really enjoy the Scott Adam school of text adventures