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Dear (son/daughter), How are you? I am doing well, and I hope this thread finds you in good times. I know our relationship has been rocky ever since I told you that Video Games were just a distraction, but I was only worried that they are taking away from your studies. I don't think you can learn to much about (college major) from shooting lasers at monsters all day, but what do I know I'm a fictional persona created by a 22-year-old. Last week, I stumbled upon a type of electronic entertainment media called "interactive fiction" that I think you should try. It requires a lot of reading, but the immersion may help you read a little better. I don't know if you've played any of these games or not, but I recommend that you go to this website and download some of the 'interpreters' for your computer device. If you're just getting started on these types of games, I suggest you start out by playing this tutorial by Adam Cadre. After you do that you should look for other games, possibly at ifdb or at this neat little INFOCOM Directory you can play online. If you've already are familiar with Interactive Fiction, we should talk about some of your favorite games! What do you like about the medium of Interactive Text? Why does a small portion of the population love these games so much? Feel free to discuss whatever as long as it relates to the topic of Text Adventures! See you soon, (Parental Figure)
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Feb 3, 2016 21:22
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some of my favs: Anchorhead So Far Shade Slouching Towards Bedlam A Mind Forever Voyaging
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Feb 3, 2016 21:37
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http://hadeanlands.com/ is amazing.
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Feb 3, 2016 22:13
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The very first digitally-mediated game I ever played was Adventure, and it sure is weird to have lived to see a new era commercial text adventure games (speaking of which everybody buy Hadean Lands). Anyone interested in the history of IF Classic (or computer games in general), I cannot recommend https://www.filfre.net highly enough. Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Feb 3, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 22:28
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What makes a good text adventure vs. a bad one? What do you enjoy doing in a text adventure? I haven't really played any.
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Feb 3, 2016 22:29
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FactsAreUseless posted:What makes a good text adventure vs. a bad one? What do you enjoy doing in a text adventure? I haven't really played any. A lot of it is a matter of details (sensible responses to examining things or "wrong" actions, grammar). I like games with interesting (but not too difficult) puzzles, but there's good IF that doesn't really have puzzles at all, like Galatea. Here are LPs of all the Infocom games (probably requires archives): http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3102387 Of the Infocom games, I think the best is either Trinity or Spellbreaker. They're hard without being blatantly unfair the way Zork II and Hitchhiker's Guide were, and they have interestingly weird settings. They established the "crazy quilt" setting/genre that's still very popular in modern non-commercial IF. Edit: Although I guess Hitchhiker's Guide was also "crazy quilt." Worst Infocom game (of the ones I've played or read LPs of, at least) is Starcross. The writing style is terse and humorless to the point of being rude to the player (the default response to examining an object is "the [object] is as described"), the plot/puzzles are very mechanically minded (there isn't even much attempt to disguise that the NPCs play a role more like vending machines than actual characters), there's a stupidly unfair "puzzle" (touching the skeleton instead of searching it) worse than anything in Zork II, and the setting is a lot less interesting than it could have been (lots of alien organisms described as looking more or less like Earth animals).
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Feb 3, 2016 23:18
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Good IF is largely a matter of taste - as in, what suits yours? That and good writing, since words are pretty much all you have to go on. Personally, I've got very little patience for the old Infocom games. I don't like games where I can accidentally put myself into an unwinnable position and not realise it until hours later (Christminster, I'm looking at you). Since I play games for the storylines I prefer the more forgiving trend in modern IF, where the question isn't so much 'can you reach the ending?' as 'you're going to get an ending; but which one?' Although there's a healthy share of crap in that category too. When I was getting back into IF a few years ago someone recommended that I play Shade (apparently some sort of modern classic) and the experience was like pulling teeth. Getting to the end of Shade isn't hard; it's just tedious and not even remotely worth it. If I hadn't also been playing Galatea and Savoir Faire I would probably have binned the whole idea in disgust. (Play Galatea and Savoir Faire.) But forget that negativity: here are some of my favourites.
If you're new to IF I'd recommend 9:05, Violet, and Gun Mute -- they're all short enough to polish off in your lunch break, and well-crafted too. Blue Lacuna and Counterfeit Monkey are the longest, and Lost Pig and WTWLA in between. Violet and Lost Pig are straight-up comedy, Counterfeit Monkey and 9:05 have an undercurrent of humour, and the others are all pretty serious. And I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention something about Sub-Q Magazine -- they publish IF on a regular basis, although it's less PUT BREAD IN TOASTER and more like short stories with a non-linear reading map. One of these days I'll write something I can submit to them, but they've got a max word count of 3500 (more or less) and that's really short. Or maybe I'm really prolix. Either way.
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Feb 4, 2016 00:04
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FactsAreUseless posted:What makes a good text adventure vs. a bad one? What do you enjoy doing in a text adventure? I haven't really played any. So to this question there's pretty much two camps that relate to game theory in general: Story vs. Mechanics. That is to say, what do you like to do more: to listen or to solve a puzzle? I personally like reading long texts and hearing some interesting stories, and I love that text adventures make the story-telling much less linear. Some story games I could recommend would probably be Narcolepsy by Adam Cadre and Shade by Andrew Plotkin (although Shade is a little harder than typical 'story heavy' games). My favorite IF game by far though would be Amnesia by Thomas M Disch. You'll need the manual (which is available in PDF online) to get past some anti-piracy mechanics (because there are a LOT). That said, this game is loving awesome. Disch literally mapped out most of Manhattan before he made this game, and you can explore most of it too. Game is boss.
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Feb 4, 2016 00:08
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80 Days is really drat good and I'm glad it got a PC port. I really hate text parsers though, because all you do is constantly grapple with finding the very exact wording that the dev had in mind, so I'm not a fan of old school IF games at all. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 00:10
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Also, if anyone can find this post-2000 IF game I've been looking for that'd be awesome. Basically, the game is you talking to a dead girl (with a vast amount of options and dialogue). I only read the description of the game and never downloaded it, but I found it one night maybe two years ago, said I'd download it, AND I CAN'T FIND IT.
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Feb 4, 2016 00:12
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Sam Barlow, the man behind Her Story created an experimental IF game where you are only allowed one move per game: Aisle.
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Feb 4, 2016 00:36
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Kopijeger posted:Sam Barlow, the man behind Her Story created an experimental IF game where you are only allowed one move per game: Aisle. Also Kentucky Route Zero is fantastic and one of my absolute favorite games, and while I don't know if it totally counts as IF it still leans more towards that area than a traditional point and click adventure game. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 00:38
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:Also, if anyone can find this post-2000 IF game I've been looking for that'd be awesome. Galatea?
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Feb 4, 2016 00:45
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YEEEEESSSSSSS OH MY GOD THANK YOU I AM DOWNLOADING EVERYTHING SHE'S MADE
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Feb 4, 2016 01:15
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Semi-related to the subject at hand: have been messing around with Twine 2.0 for a month or so, not sure if Twine is the route most of these authors have taken but I was wondering if there were better alternatives? The documentation, wiki, and bug reports for Twine are insanely unkempt. As a program with technical documentation, it's just awful trying to figure out how and why a thing is broken or if it will ever get fixed.
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Feb 4, 2016 01:35
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the alternatives would prob be: inform 7 tads with inform 7 being what is most used and has a cool help system built in that serves as a manual with examples you can plug right into your game and mess around with
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Feb 4, 2016 01:38
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pixelbaron posted:the alternatives would prob be: these look great, much obliged!
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Feb 4, 2016 01:41
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I have not tried my hand at this, may download inform 7
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Feb 4, 2016 01:46
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:YEEEEESSSSSSS You will not regret that, Emily Short is one of the greats. IIRC Inform 7 comes packaged with the annotated source of a game she wrote to be an example, called Bronze? Of course since the language is designed to look like english, the source of any of her games can be used as a pretty good example. E: in one of her games you're a parrot and all you can do is say single words to guide a conversation people are having in the room
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Feb 4, 2016 03:07
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It's kind of hilarious how often Infocom used the same basic plots. Explore the ruin full of traps (and sometimes monsters) to find treasure: Zork I, Zork II, Infidel, Hollywood Hijinx. Teleport around collecting random junk for vague plot reasons: played for laughs in Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Hitchhiker's Guide; played straight in Zork III (although the teleportation is less of a focus there), Trinity, Spellbreaker. Fix the high-tech facility: the Heart of Gold in Hitchhiker's Guide, the space station in Stationfall, the planetary life supports systems in Suspended, the planetary life support systems again in Planetfall, the alien object in Starcross. Nord and Bert arguably fits into this category as well, just in a very weird way. Wander around until you find the missing person: Ballyhoo, Sorceror. Solve the murder mystery before the deadline by timing your actions according to the suspects' schedules: Deadline, Suspect, Witness.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:11
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MinibarMatchman posted:Semi-related to the subject at hand: have been messing around with Twine 2.0 for a month or so, not sure if Twine is the route most of these authors have taken but I was wondering if there were better alternatives? The documentation, wiki, and bug reports for Twine are insanely unkempt. As a program with technical documentation, it's just awful trying to figure out how and why a thing is broken or if it will ever get fixed. A little late to this, but if you need help with Twine 2 I might be able to lend a hand. You're right that it's nowhere near as documented and supported as Twine 1, but you can do a lot with it if you're willing to deal with its built-in predelictions.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:52
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Are there any games that fit more into the RPG genre? I'm thinking like a MUD except singleplayer. I've always liked MUDs but they are all severely lacking in story, usually depending on player interaction for actual fun. So any text adventures with stats and equipment and what not?
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Feb 5, 2016 21:10
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Highblood posted:Are there any games that fit more into the RPG genre? I'm thinking like a MUD except singleplayer. I've always liked MUDs but they are all severely lacking in story, usually depending on player interaction for actual fun. So any text adventures with stats and equipment and what not? I have no clue what a MUD is, and so far all I can find are games that seem ridiculously hard for the sake of being ridiculously hard. Like it was said earlier, INFOCOM is really difficult and infuriating. I can't think of too many text adventures with that much difficulty besides the crap they made before the INFOCOM era. Luckily, you can try one of those pieces of garbage because Adam Cadre ported one here. FYI if you haven't played any text adventures then this one will for sure turn you the gently caress off. I haaaated this one and Adam Cadre is one of my favorites.
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Feb 5, 2016 21:23
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I went on a choicescript binge last summer and found the platform pretty fun and accessible. They're multiple choice and the language allows for some pretty insane branching, so it's always surprising to dig into a game's code after you've beaten it to see all the content you missed. A few Choice offerings: Robots - design your own robot, teach it right from wrong, possibly usher in the AI singularity? The sheer breadth of this game alone makes it worthwhile, though the human NPCs can get kind of annoying. Mecha Ace - pretty sick if mecha's your thing. I loved pimping out my giant robot and making crazy renegade maneuvers to destroy it. Creatures Such As We - more thoughtful and introspective piece, deals a lot with the nature of completionism and Perfect Endings. IIRC was made in response to the outcry over the controversial Mass Effect 3 ending, but I could be misremembering. Zombie Exodus - there's already a couple zombie COGs out there, but this one definitely stuck with me more; more focused on shoring up your cathedral fortress, deciding who to trust in your little post apocalyptic commune, and protecting your little sister At All Costs. Slammed! - Wrestling COG. Find out the true meaning of wrestling and maybe make some friends along the way. (I didn't actually play past the demo for this one but enjoyed what I saw.) Hero of Kendrickstone made by the Mecha Ace author, this one honestly kicked my rear end. A lot of the stat checks seem to assume you are min-maxing in one skill or another, but my loser bard still always managed to find a way, and some of the game's detailed fail states that basically no one will ever see are also pretty cool. Sabres of Infinity - same author as before. Haven't played it but a friend of mine swears by it. Diabolical - play as a supervillain! This game's a bit less smaller (both in length and breadth) than some of the others, but it's smart and funny, and I'm proud of my volcano lair, what are you gonna do about it? There's a ton more that I missed, but these are some that I had a lot of fun exploring, though a single playthrough can definitely go by quickly. There's a little something for everyone, so it's worth checking out if you're thinking about getting into interactive novels but the thought of wrangling with an interpreter is daunting to you.
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Feb 5, 2016 21:43
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gandhichan posted:I went on a choicescript binge last summer and found the platform pretty fun and accessible. They're multiple choice and the language allows for some pretty insane branching, so it's always surprising to dig into a game's code after you've beaten it to see all the content you missed. Choice of the Deathless is amazing. There are also novels set in the same world, and a sequel! Highblood posted:Are there any games that fit more into the RPG genre? I'm thinking like a MUD except singleplayer. I've always liked MUDs but they are all severely lacking in story, usually depending on player interaction for actual fun. So any text adventures with stats and equipment and what not? I don't know of any, no... *adds to the list of things to make*
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Feb 5, 2016 22:11
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Highblood posted:Are there any games that fit more into the RPG genre? I'm thinking like a MUD except singleplayer. I've always liked MUDs but they are all severely lacking in story, usually depending on player interaction for actual fun. So any text adventures with stats and equipment and what not? The Reliques of Tolti-Aph, Kerkerkruip, Magocracy...and also Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom but that's more of a comedy option (ie everyone in this thread should play it). E: oh poo poo, how could I have forgotten Beyond Zork (play it and find out) e2: links Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Feb 6, 2016 |
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Feb 6, 2016 00:15
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FactsAreUseless posted:What makes a good text adventure vs. a bad one? What do you enjoy doing in a text adventure? I haven't really played any. Finally have a moment to give this a more substantive answer. I got into IF sometime in 2002, when I somehow heard about IFComp, one of the two big annual competitions in the field*. I was a little curious, and so I decided to start with the winner of the previous year, All Roads. I recommend this game specifically, and this approach in general. Anything that finishes in the top 5 of IFComp for any of the 20+ years of it's existence is going to be pretty drat good. They won't always be to your particular liking - I've encountered a few frustratingly difficult single-room puzzlers, and some people don't like the more artsy-fartsy word-cloud ones - but they're always going to be well-made, and mis-steps are part of figuring out for yourself what kinds you enjoy. I will say they have a surprising amount of variety, but the basic IF experience is something like Myst or Riven: a silent main character is trapped in a mysterious land of enchantment and clockwork, and explores it trying to Figure Stuff Out. Which reminds me, The Dreamhold make a very good introduction to the "genre". It was designed to be people's first IF. The author is the guy who most recently wrote Hadean Lands. More specific recommendations:
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Feb 6, 2016 02:57
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At least some of Infocom's games required included items called 'feelies' in order to be beaten as a form of copy protection. Here's all the feelies. And if we're posting links to the games themselves, here's an alternate site for them with games missing from the OP's link.
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Feb 6, 2016 03:15
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Oh, when I was growing up, text adventures were my thing. My first computer was a Commodore Vic20, so I had the Scott Adams games, Adventure Isle and a Dracula one (names are probably off). 2 word parsers, no internet or clue books for help, but good times. Then upgraded to an Apple IIc so I could finally play the Infocom titles. Planetfall and Hitchhikers (book nerd) were my favs, I was rockin' high school with my "I caught the Babel fish" t-shirt, which was basically a magnet for bullies. Playing those games really expanded my vocabulary at the time. Also the packaging for the Infocom games was amazing, so many goodies. I still have whats left of my Stellar Patrol I.D. card from Planetfall in my wallet, always gets a odd look when it gets noticed.
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Feb 6, 2016 04:14
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Doc Hawkins posted:
Beyond Zork is pretty much the type of game it sounds like they are looking for. In fact thinking about it now makes me want to go back and play it again. As far as IF design goes, Beyond Zork is really great in how it has these hubs that are connected mostly random layout adventure areas. Puzzles abound all over, but it gives the whole game a grand scale that feels like a MUD in scope. And speaking of IFs with goof hub design, has Adam Cadre disowned Interstate-0? It doesn't appear on his site any more and looking for it on google there is one database that lists it, but with Author Unknown.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:31
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BiggerJ posted:At least some of Infocom's games required included items called 'feelies' in order to be beaten as a form of copy protection. Here's all the feelies. I remember back about nine or ten years ago Emily Short and some others tried to revitalize feelies, and created a website where you could order cool stuff for modern IF. They would work with authors to create cool physical items for their games reminiscent of Infocom's stuff. Unfortunately the website and the service went down after a couple of years. Archived link
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Feb 8, 2016 01:20
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xiw posted:http://hadeanlands.com/ is amazing. I played this game a few months ago and it was an amazing game, but man was that ending infuriatingly vague. I hate it when authors get all mysterious on you and won't explain their endings because they think it's better for people to come up with their own meaning or whatever. The mechanics of the game were metaphysical and trippy but at the same time extremely internally consistent so i'm sure there was a definite thing that happened and could be explained, but at the same time it was so metaphysical that it's sort of hard to come up with it on your own. The setting was really intriguing though, in a way that's sort of difficult to describe without experiencing it, since the rules of the universe were so different from our own, although internally consistent. Learning alchemical rituals that all had their own special, internally consistent rules and interactions and then figuring out how to use one in a new way to solve a puzzle was amazing though. One of the neater things was how whenever you performed a ritual, which initially is a sort of a puzzle to figure out but will create some sort of effect that can be modified depending on how you did the ritual (transform one thing into another, cause a specific effect, imbue something with the power to see/do/change something), it was memorized and then whenever you reset (there's a time travel aspect) from then on you could instantly and automatically complete any ritual whenever you wanted with a single command, unless you wanted to change some aspect of it to change the effect slightly (which would then be memorized as a variant). It would even memorize combinations of rituals needed to do something like, say, get a key to unlock a door, so you could just try to walk through the door and it would perform dozens of actions in seconds and skip straight to going through the door. So, over time, the scale increases from figuring out rituals to figuring out when, where and why to use the huge toolbox of rituals you have that often use up materials that aren't replaceable in such a way as to preserve specific reagents you might need to perform a new ritual to reach a new area and learn more rules for rituals or get more materials for rituals. Honestly, the game is so bizzare and unique that it's difficult to describe a lot of it without going into multi-paragraph rambling. Best thing I can do is recommend people try it out themselves if they like this sort of mindbending logic. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Feb 9, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 11:15
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http://www.improbableisland.com/ is a multiplayer one entirely based on this kind of nonsense. The mods are struggling a little to keep up with modern machines right now, so. One can more or less win automatically, at this stage. Rant at the machines hard enough, and it just works.
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Feb 9, 2016 11:57
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I'm going to play this game today, thanks for the review. In return, if you like mind boggling but internally consistent play Amnesia by Disch
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Feb 9, 2016 15:17
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Cool, a text adventure thread! I've written a few games myself. I still have a bunch of iTunes promo codes for PataNoir and Death off the Cuff, so if anyone wants a free copy of the iOS versions, just PM me for a code  .
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Feb 9, 2016 19:43
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SimonChris posted:Cool, a text adventure thread! I've written a few games myself. I still have a bunch of iTunes promo codes for PataNoir and Death off the Cuff, so if anyone wants a free copy of the iOS versions, just PM me for a code Can we be friends. Also what platform do you write with?
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Feb 10, 2016 00:18
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A few more picture based IF games because I like the combination of words and pictures: Magnetic Scrolls were the LucasArts to Infocom's Sierra. Their games were typically easier and getting stuck was rare. Legend Entertainment was like the Image Comics of the scene. They put out a lot of experimental or subversive material with a very friendly UI. You can play Timequest for free while most of their catalog can be easily found with some Google-fu. King of Dragon Pass has found a resurgence in recent years and it's still one of the few text-based simulation games in the West (Japan loves this stuff, see Koei games). There's a lot to say but just take a look at it, most people find it immediately interesting. For something more linear and direct, Steve Jackson Gamebooks. A bunch of them are on mobile devices like Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery 1 and 2 are up on Steam. Finally, a shout out to one of my favorite board games Tales of the Arabian Nights. You pass around a large book of encounters that are generated by your actions. Like you can bump into an old woman and choose to rob her and she might turn out to be an evil djinni that turns you into a dog. It's a very random game where victory feels like a coin toss but I can't say I've ever had a bad run of it.
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Feb 10, 2016 01:26
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Callipygian Weasel posted:http://www.improbableisland.com/ is a multiplayer one entirely based on this kind of nonsense. The mods are struggling a little to keep up with modern machines right now, so. One can more or less win automatically, at this stage. Rant at the machines hard enough, and it just works. Isn't this just like the old Red Dragon BBS games? Not really IF in a meaningful fashion. Unless there's something more here than at first glance?
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Feb 10, 2016 01:45
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:Can we be friends. Sure, friend . My games are all written in Inform, except for AlethiCorp, which is a web game using ASP.NET MVC.As for the mobile apps, they are made by wrapping the Inform games in native code, using Andrew Plotkin's iOSGlulxe for the iOS apps and this Android code for the Android apps. I'm also working on a windows desktop version using WPF. I hope to get that up on Steam when it's done.
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Feb 10, 2016 09:16
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SimonChris posted:Sure, friend I will buy them all on steam as soon as you do so friend
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Feb 10, 2016 15:21
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