Interactive Fiction Graphics and scary sounds are complementary
#1
Posted 20 September 2006 - 11:25 PM
Graphics and sounds are great. I remember playing The Secret of Monkey Island (my first adventure game - and I am sure lots of people started there too) and crying of joy. I was hooked in the genre. Fortunately, in 1995 or so, I was introduced by a friend to Interactive Fiction. The grandfather of point and click adventures (in a way).
Yes, it's only text. Yes, it's extremelly addictive and "graphical". I can't find the exact words to describe it, but Interactive Fiction takes you to a whole new level of adventuring - you are suddenly involved in the plot in a way point and click adventures simply can't. Seriously. The mood is set up by the author (so a talented writer is needed) and your input is not limited to a few stock commands. True enough, the first works of IF had the terrible problem of "having to guess the right verb" but later works (specially the thousands of freeware IF being released every year on the Internet [IF features a very large community, if you never heard of it try surfing the web for a couple hours, you won't regret]) have such an advanced parser and handles nouns in a way that the problem has been lessened considerably.
Ben is a talented writer and a fairly good game/plot designer. I am not sure if he tried his hands with it in the past but, regardless, I think he's too worried about public acceptance (and reaching a wide range of players) to try his hands on it again. Or maybe he's just not interest. No matter.
I invite you all to search these topics on google and see what you think of it. I won't even give you links (this will save the topic from slash-n-hackers [I doubt they even read the thread this far]): Inform 7 (the most famous and widely used programming package to produce IF), TADS (the second most famous package), IF Comp (the annual IF competition), IF Archive (with loads of good games, etc) and so on. A simple search will lead you to many other paths.
Maybe you enjoy the reading, maybe not. Feel free to share you thoughts on IF and try convicing Ben to give it a try (again? not sure). And remember: neat graphics, sound and smooth animation are great BUT they're only complementary stuff. You don't need any of these to write a fun/scary/adventurous game.
Cheers!
#3
Posted 21 September 2006 - 03:39 AM
I really can't agree with that. Sure, reading alone can be quite thrilling, but there are limits to that too. Especially when you are trying to set up an atmosphere. Just reading everything makes it a very personal experience, indeed, and you're left to imagine the scary stuff in between on your own.
But the thing that I liked most about Mr. Yahtzee's work was the "games as art" thought. Compared to that, writing something that freaks the readers out is quite easy to accomplish. Managing to address just more than one sense, however, isn't.
This post has been edited by Gobbler: 21 September 2006 - 03:43 AM
Quote
#4
Posted 21 September 2006 - 06:47 AM
Some British guy trapped indefinitely in Auntrailia... you wouldn't know him
<!--quoteo(post=169306:date=Aug 10 2007, 11:03 AM:name=Legion)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Legion @ Aug 10 2007, 11:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=169306"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--fonto:Arial--><span style="font-family:Arial"><!--/fonto--><!--coloro:#483D8B--><span style="color:#483D8B"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->So why the unholy flying purple donkeypunching fuck will it not work on yours? Just what kind of machine are you running there? Your toaster?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And the man again!
<!--quoteo(post=180859:date=Jan 16 2008, 02:29 PM:name=Legion)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Legion @ Jan 16 2008, 02:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=180859"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In my opinion it's saying, fuck the lightsabers and special effects and fuck your voiceovers and fuck your stupid multimilliondollar game studios; you don't need any of those to make brilliant and scary games that will fuck with your head.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<u><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro-->My Getting Huge Progress (Gym and weight gain diet)<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></u>
<b>May '07:</b> 11st (154lbs)
<b>August '07:</b> 12st 7lbs (175lbs)
<b>November '07:</b> 12st 9lbs (177lbs)
<b>December '07:</b> 12st 11lbs (179lbs)
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<b>March '08:</b> 13st 7lbs (189lbs)
#5
Posted 21 September 2006 - 12:48 PM
It's you, dimwit. You used to sign Ben Yathz. I am pretty certain of that.
...really? hmm...
#6
Posted 21 September 2006 - 01:44 PM
You really have no idea how to respond to sarcasm, do you?
And it's spelled Yahtz.
#7
Posted 21 September 2006 - 02:26 PM
...really? hmm...
Dude...
He KNOWS that!
PM me, we'll talk.
#8
Posted 21 September 2006 - 02:59 PM
I've dabbled with Inform in the past, but, to put it succinctly, it was much more troublesome than AGS.
#9
Posted 21 September 2006 - 05:19 PM
I've dabbled with Inform in the past, but, to put it succinctly, it was much more troublesome than AGS.
However, it changed. That's why I wanted to point out the seventh version of Inform. It's supposed to make programming easier and let the author spend more time on the story part of it. Graham Nelson came up with a somewhat original (and I say somewhat because I read somewhere it has been done before) programming language which is entirely based in -english-.
As for everyone else:
Calling him "dimwit" was in itself a sarcastic answer. But I don't think any of you played Zork.
This post has been edited by fabiobit: 21 September 2006 - 05:23 PM
#10
Posted 21 September 2006 - 05:53 PM
I've dabbled with Inform in the past, but, to put it succinctly, it was much more troublesome than AGS.
Hey, all I'll say is be glad that I didn't put a 'c' instead of an 'a' at the start of the word
<!--quoteo(post=169306:date=Aug 10 2007, 11:03 AM:name=Legion)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Legion @ Aug 10 2007, 11:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=169306"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--fonto:Arial--><span style="font-family:Arial"><!--/fonto--><!--coloro:#483D8B--><span style="color:#483D8B"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->So why the unholy flying purple donkeypunching fuck will it not work on yours? Just what kind of machine are you running there? Your toaster?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And the man again!
<!--quoteo(post=180859:date=Jan 16 2008, 02:29 PM:name=Legion)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Legion @ Jan 16 2008, 02:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=180859"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In my opinion it's saying, fuck the lightsabers and special effects and fuck your voiceovers and fuck your stupid multimilliondollar game studios; you don't need any of those to make brilliant and scary games that will fuck with your head.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<u><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro-->My Getting Huge Progress (Gym and weight gain diet)<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></u>
<b>May '07:</b> 11st (154lbs)
<b>August '07:</b> 12st 7lbs (175lbs)
<b>November '07:</b> 12st 9lbs (177lbs)
<b>December '07:</b> 12st 11lbs (179lbs)
<b>January '08:</b> 12st 12lbs (180lbs)
<b>Febuary '08:</b> 13st 2lbs (184lbs)
<b>March '08:</b> 13st 7lbs (189lbs)
#11
Posted 22 September 2006 - 02:31 PM
Played it a few times on and off, never beat it. Never did explore the entirety of the 1000-point version of Adventure, either. Infocom had quality parsers, though. I spent a lot of time playing with GAGS, then AGT in the early 90s; still my favourite tools for that.
#12
Posted 22 September 2006 - 03:58 PM
AGT was nice. I remember playing Crusader (one of my early favourites) and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Zork 1 was tough but fairly beatable, you just had to figure out what to do with the trasures you found and survive the puzzles, the dam being the hardest one. Zork 2 featured a much better underlying plot but was still hard and primitive (compared to the subsequent IFs they released).
I -think- Adventure became The Colossal Cave by the time Douglas Adams started working with Infocom and gave up his "Odysseus" project. Not sure tho. He and Scott Adams (unrelated) started working with IF after ADVENT and, of course, DUNGEON which later became known as Zork and was divided in three separate games for the sake of playability. Colossal Cave has been ported to different IF languages and is readily available on the net through a quick search. I never played it to the end because I am not a fan of overly stretched IF works but I liked some of the puzzles in the early stages.
Adventure was not written by Adams, btw, I just mentioned his name as a reference to the year it was changed to Colossal Cave. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas' work and well-known book) remains one of the best IF games, again readily available if you do a quick search. You should've read the book before you try it tho or you may find it too challenging.
For newcomers I still recommend Bronze by Emily Short. Or Moonmist if you want an easy, Infocom classic, IF detective adventure. Just download the latest Gargoyle interpreter (for Win and Linux) or Zoom (for Mac) and get the games from either ifarchive.org or some other IF depot.
This post has been edited by fabiobit: 22 September 2006 - 04:19 PM