Text adventure games - What is needed?

[ThemePark]

Typical, I only look at the game forums and only find these other ones after months of being at Gamershood

So anyways, I'm planning to make a text adventure game with a little graphics, in 3 parts.

I have some ideas for the riddles already and a little graphics, and I've got the programming down.

So now what I want to hear everybody about is, what do you expect there to be in a text adventure game? What is necessary for it to be good, and what do or should all text adventure games have?

This way I can make more sure that I won't be making a complete dud

Oh, actually it will be mostly a combination between a textadventure game and room escape game, so the questions above go for room escape games too

[Mistery]

Sorry, I'm not sure what kind of text adventure game you mean.
Is it a game where the URL changes according to your answer/choice? Or is it a flash game and the story changes depending from your choice?
Do you plan puzzles to solve or is it about making right choices?
I'd be glad if you could give some more details on this aspect.

[ThemePark]

I guess, this site is only focused on websites No, I'm talking about the good old textadventure games from back in the late 80's, early 90's I guess, where you had to type in commands, examine rooms, combine objects and such. Adventure games like the Monkey Islands series, but without graphics.

I'm planning to put lots of logical puzzles into it, mostly in part 3, and some objects, you'll need to combine to progress.

[Mistery]

Ah, I see. Wouldn't have guessed that somebody aside from me still remembers those good old text adventures. I loved to play them in the 80's and beginning 90's, I played a couple of them but I most remember the classical "Adventure" (I think it was called like this where you had to go down in a cave and explore many rooms collecting items and fight against a pirate and a dwarf) and "Star Rider", a text adventure in a space ship in German.

I was even influenced by these games and created a similar story but on paper (always a short chapter and you had to choose the direction or action and then go to a specific other page).
OMG and I just realize that I made a game with dwarfs and one with aliens & spaceship lately, the influence is still here

Well, I think it is important to make such a game interesting enough since the featured action games are the standard today and text adventures can bore players who are used to the "modern" games:
- items to use
- some humor (I loved the humor in the old games!)
- unexpected turns
- not too long and clear descriptions
- if possible save function
- enough rooms/locations to explore
- some dialogues and interaction with other characters you meet

Well, that's all that comes into my mind right now.

[ThemePark]

Well, I've been a computer nerd since my childhood, so I've played a lot of those textadventure games, and in general those good oldies games

I'm very nostalgic of mind, so I often try and make my games (not that I have completed any yet) like the way they were back then with 256 colors, PC speaker sound and so on.

The good thing about the games back then also was that despite the poor graphics and sound compared to now, they usually had awesome gameplay value, so obviously if I'm going to make a game that people will want to play for more than 5 minutes without getting bored, and perhaps actually make it popular and sellable (I'm not at all sure about that part), I'll definitely need to focus on great gameplay.

So basically I'm planning on making a trilogy. In part 1, it's an opposite room escape game, you'll need to get INSIDE your house In part 2, it's a sort of a regular room escape game, you made it into your house but something happens (I won't say what, it's not very exciting anyways) and you'll have one task to complete (just some boring house work basically). And in part 3, you'll go around in 7 mazes, probably somehow shaped like parts of a brain, and solve puzzles in the theme of each of the 7 intelligences, and for each of them solve a boss puzzle.

Unfortunately part 3 is going to be incredibly hard, if not impossible to make, not so much for the logic intelligence as I already have that down, but for the other 6, so that might change. The 3 parts will be connected through a history, thus why I call it a trilogy, and they will all have logic puzzles, and require you to find and put objects together.

Obviously I'll have items to use. As for the humor, I love humor in games, so I definitely want to try and use that as best I can. Also I want to ridicule a bit when people make the obvious choices, like putting things in the game, that have a very obvious use, but that you find out that it can't be used that way.

However I dislike it when you have to, say combine a washing machine with a tennis ball and you'll have a tin of cinnamon, combinations that aren't really logical, just weird. So those choices that are not obvious, will still be logical.

The save function is a brilliant idea, I hadn't thought of that at all, but I'll definitely have to incorporate that. The unexpected turns, well, there should definitely be some of those, both storywise and in terms of the previously mentioned objects and combinations.

I'll try to keep the descriptions short and clear, it is true that unless you can literally paint a piece of art with words, long descriptions are dull at most, and cause tired eyes and annoyance at worst. So that's definitely a no-no.

I'll definitely make lots of rooms, but try and keep it to a proper number, not too many or too few. However dividing part 1 into places will be hard, seeing as it all occurs outside.

As for the dialogues, I hadn't really figured that I'd put any characters besides the main character in the games, so I don't think I'll put that in. But well, those were some good thoughts, thanks

[OneBun]

This sounds great! I have played my share of text adventures. I think this is a very creative idea. Most text adventures I've played were a bit of a mystery solving experience. This wold be a reshing change....lol at least that is my opinion!

BTW I am known for being a bit of a computer nerd myself. I think it is a good thing. At least my family & work collegues think so. So, i think it is a good quality. I must admit that I have not yet made a complete game (maybe one day) I am more of a web developer nerd/tinkerer.

[bread]

sounds fun

add a dancing gir image if you can as the only graphics

[the dunce]

yup gotta have the dancing gir

[bread]

so...anything happening with this game

[ThemePark]

No, as is typical for me, I have postponed the game I usually always get new ideas for things to make, so I end up only working on my ideas for a while, then start off a new project.

Right now I'm in the process of creating another game, once that is done I will once again put my main focus on making my text adventure game

I'll probably post here or perhaps in a new thread about how that game is coming along. But since it's a big game, it's going to take at least a year, I'm afraid

[bread]

like me ^_^

[nigec]

are you thinking on the lines of the hobbit?

its quite easy to achieve with AGS, Wintermute or Lassie if you want online gaming, altho these tend to need a cursor rather than text commands

total image/text i recommend HTML TADS is very easy to use, its actually what i did my first adventure game with a long time ago! and the longest game i've ever done

the thing i found with text driven games its so easy to get lost in your own script, its very difficult test a text game, because you have to play the whole thing unlike graphical which you can normally launch yourself in any room quite easily

i hope you do have a go, i to come from that generation and i enjoyed those games a lot

[rolephant]

I guess, this site is only focused on websites No, I'm talking about the good old textadventure games from back in the late 80's, early 90's I guess, where you had to type in commands, examine rooms, combine objects and such. Adventure games like the Monkey Islands series, but without graphics.

I'm planning to put lots of logical puzzles into it, mostly in part 3, and some objects, you'll need to combine to progress.

Ahhh i remember playing those on the old acorn computers when i was at primary school!
I've been wanting to play one of these for so long but can't find any!

[Mistery]

You mean like these?

http://www.ifiction.org/games/play.p...me=1&mode=html
http://www.ifiction.org/games/play.p...me=2&mode=html
http://www.ifiction.org/games/index.php?cat=43
http://www.ifiction.org/games/index.php?cat=44
http://www.freearcade.com/Zplet.jav/Scottadams.html
http://www.freearcade.com/Zplet.jav/Rogue.html
http://versificator.co.uk/hamlet/index.html
http://versificator.co.uk/auntsandbutlers/index.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/19837/playing.html

[Electrogirl]

I really like these games. I've been looking for some for a while.