Chefelf.com Night Life: fabiobit - Viewing Profile

Ben,

Is it possible to add RSS feed to Fully Ramblomatic? I know it will be something of a scuffle to figure out how to implement it (as I am sure there must be a reader who actually understand these things, while I do not) and in doing so, making the site available on Google Reader.

Google Reader is a new tool from the aforementioned company which allows me to read newsgroups, blogs, etc all in one place. You may find it useful: www.google.com/reader

Best regards,
Fabio.

True. In Brazil it's mandatory that young kids TV shows be hosted by hot babes in leather-- and I am not joking. Xuxa, Eliana, Angelica, etc-- oh Christ, our children are exposed to so much crap from an early age.

Chzo is a used car salesman from another dimension. Our universe is contained within a snowball hanging in his pink cadillac.

Adding a parser to Trilby's Notes (and the following -upcoming- game) was a great way to enhance the mood. Writing your actions give you a larger sense of control over the character (at least to me it does). One thing bothered (it didn't make the game any less enjoyable): the parser in AGS is a (poorly-coded) fake of Infocom's parser (not Yathzee's fault, nor Chris' since he's deticating his energies to a point and click oriented engine). And in Trilby's Notes it's practically used the same way you would employ a mouse in a point and click adventure. Verbs were often limited to talk, use, etc.

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!