I'll bet you guys forgot all about my proposal to write a short text adventure demon bases on the Pandora Directive novel. Or, more likely, you figured that I forgot about it.
Well, I got started on it back in July, and then got swamped with other things, didn't make much progress. But last week, I had some time and now I've got a working demo.
It is a very short game and is based on the events in Chapter Eleven from the PD novel. (The postal code on the wrapper that Emily's puzzle box was mailed in leads Tex to the Mission District post office, and on to the Garden House bed and breakfast and Malloy's room.)
I made this demo for two reasons. One, to demonstrate what a TM text adventure might look and feel like. The other reason was to see how hard or easy it is to take an existing, pre-written novel and adapt it to a text adventure. I wanted to see to what extent I could cut and past text from the novel, how much I would have to modify that text, and how much new text I would have to add.
The game can be found here:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pdrallos1 ... andora.htm
See my next post for some other information about the game.
Well, I got started on it back in July, and then got swamped with other things, didn't make much progress. But last week, I had some time and now I've got a working demo.
It is a very short game and is based on the events in Chapter Eleven from the PD novel. (The postal code on the wrapper that Emily's puzzle box was mailed in leads Tex to the Mission District post office, and on to the Garden House bed and breakfast and Malloy's room.)
I made this demo for two reasons. One, to demonstrate what a TM text adventure might look and feel like. The other reason was to see how hard or easy it is to take an existing, pre-written novel and adapt it to a text adventure. I wanted to see to what extent I could cut and past text from the novel, how much I would have to modify that text, and how much new text I would have to add.
The game can be found here:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pdrallos1 ... andora.htm
See my next post for some other information about the game.
A couple of notes about the demo -
Since my experiment was to see what was involved in adapting a pre-written story to interactive fiction, the demo is very linear, like the novel. I don't have enough locations in the demo to allow the player to perform different sequences of events. So in this demo, you are kind of forced along a specific track. That wouldn't be the case in a larger game.
The interaction with NPCs is quite different than in the graphic game. No dialog menus. I could have done menus and taken the dialog right from the graphic game, but that's not what a text adventure is about. Instead, I programmed the characters to respond to two different kinds of input.
The first way is mindless, and I DON'T recomend you use it. I should probably disable it. For the mindless way, you simply use the command 'talk to <character>' repeatedly, and most of the right questions are asked and answered automatically. This is too much like reading a book. Boring.
The other way is to engage the characters by asking, telling, or showing the character something. For this, you use the commands 'ask <character> about <something>'; 'tell <character> about <something>', 'show <something> to <character>'; or 'give <something> to <character>'.
But you have to figure out what to ask or tell about and what and when to show or give something.
It's a good idea to look at your inventory to see what you're carrying. Experienced players often do this on their first move.
OK, that's about it. The game is versy small. Pretty easy, and might only take a few minutes to play.
One other thing. The demo is not for general release. It's just for you guys here at the message board. So I don't have a link to it on my main website. The only way to get to it is from the link in the previous post. You can bookmark it.
There are two versions. They are both the exact same game, but one of the is a DOS/Windows only version that has an interpreter built in. You only have to unzip it and then double click it to play. The other version (the z5 file) is the system independent game file. For that, you use an interpreter (available for free) for whatever platform or OS you're using, and run the game file in the interpreter. The advantage of that versiion is that the interpreters are prettier, have more font, color and size options and are available for most any platform. Even handhelds and some mobile phones.
Since my experiment was to see what was involved in adapting a pre-written story to interactive fiction, the demo is very linear, like the novel. I don't have enough locations in the demo to allow the player to perform different sequences of events. So in this demo, you are kind of forced along a specific track. That wouldn't be the case in a larger game.
The interaction with NPCs is quite different than in the graphic game. No dialog menus. I could have done menus and taken the dialog right from the graphic game, but that's not what a text adventure is about. Instead, I programmed the characters to respond to two different kinds of input.
The first way is mindless, and I DON'T recomend you use it. I should probably disable it. For the mindless way, you simply use the command 'talk to <character>' repeatedly, and most of the right questions are asked and answered automatically. This is too much like reading a book. Boring.
The other way is to engage the characters by asking, telling, or showing the character something. For this, you use the commands 'ask <character> about <something>'; 'tell <character> about <something>', 'show <something> to <character>'; or 'give <something> to <character>'.
But you have to figure out what to ask or tell about and what and when to show or give something.
It's a good idea to look at your inventory to see what you're carrying. Experienced players often do this on their first move.
OK, that's about it. The game is versy small. Pretty easy, and might only take a few minutes to play.
One other thing. The demo is not for general release. It's just for you guys here at the message board. So I don't have a link to it on my main website. The only way to get to it is from the link in the previous post. You can bookmark it.
There are two versions. They are both the exact same game, but one of the is a DOS/Windows only version that has an interpreter built in. You only have to unzip it and then double click it to play. The other version (the z5 file) is the system independent game file. For that, you use an interpreter (available for free) for whatever platform or OS you're using, and run the game file in the interpreter. The advantage of that versiion is that the interpreters are prettier, have more font, color and size options and are available for most any platform. Even handhelds and some mobile phones.
Was wondering if you were still working on this.
I played through to Malloy's room and think it works real well. I believe there needs to maybe be some text prompts to direct conversation down certain paths, but that can be worked out in the future.
Only real complaint i have was lack of being able to scroll back up or something similar. Talking to the old lady at the Garden House, i found myself missing a big chunk of the dialogue and then when accidentally pressing a key, missing more.
All up, i think you did a great job and this shows me Tex can work well in a text game format.
I played through to Malloy's room and think it works real well. I believe there needs to maybe be some text prompts to direct conversation down certain paths, but that can be worked out in the future.
Only real complaint i have was lack of being able to scroll back up or something similar. Talking to the old lady at the Garden House, i found myself missing a big chunk of the dialogue and then when accidentally pressing a key, missing more.
All up, i think you did a great job and this shows me Tex can work well in a text game format.
"Ma Murphy didn't raise a son without manners. You'll have to wait until the cookie is offered to you"
"You grab another cookie and go to work on it"
"My goodness!" scolds the little old lady "I think you've had enough cookies for now. I have to save some for my guests" ... ROFL!!!!
This may just be a little demo, but I thorughly enjoyed it! Great work doctor ... I look forward to more!
"You grab another cookie and go to work on it"
"My goodness!" scolds the little old lady "I think you've had enough cookies for now. I have to save some for my guests" ... ROFL!!!!
This may just be a little demo, but I thorughly enjoyed it! Great work doctor ... I look forward to more!
I'm not fat ... I'm festively plump.
For any of you who are new to text adventures, I forgot to mention that you should take a look at the help file in the game. Type 'help' (without the quotes) at any time at look at the instructions.
Also, part of the fun is not just to finish the game but to explore. Since this game is very small, there isn't much to explore, but try examining everything. For instance, examine the man's cup. Look in the cup. Try to take his coins. Try to kiss him or attack him. Kiss the old lady, etc. Examine the hookers. Talk to the hustlers, etc. I didn't think of everything, but I tried to make it interesting to explore and try things.
Also, part of the fun is not just to finish the game but to explore. Since this game is very small, there isn't much to explore, but try examining everything. For instance, examine the man's cup. Look in the cup. Try to take his coins. Try to kiss him or attack him. Kiss the old lady, etc. Examine the hookers. Talk to the hustlers, etc. I didn't think of everything, but I tried to make it interesting to explore and try things.
Scrolling is a limitation of the built-in compiler. Other compilers, like Frotz, WinFrotz, etc., have scrolling capability.Only real complaint i have was lack of being able to scroll back up or something similar.
I have a few Windows interpreters on my webpage (follow the interpreters link) and also some links to interpreters for other platforms. If you download one of these interpreters, then you can drag and drop the pandora.z5 file onto the interpreter (or load it from the file menu) and you will have more options.
The version of the demo game I posted yesterday was not beta tested at all. It wasn't even alpha tested. However, I did get some feedback from some of you guys last night, plus my 13 year old daughter played it this morning and I got some feedback from her too.
Anyway, I improved it *slightly*. A few more object descriptions, a couple more dialog topics, and a few new phrases in the dialog to help direct the dialog a little better. so you might want to download the newer version.
Since this isn't a real game, I'm not going to spend a lot of time beta testing and polishing it up. However, your feedback is important because this demo may be a proto-type for how we will go about building a new Tex Murphy game which will be based on a totally new Tex Murphy story.
This demo, unfortunately, was two-thirds NPC interaction and only one-third exploring. A real game will probably be just the opposite, with more elaborate and interesting places to investigate and puzzles to solve.
Anyway, I'm very interested in your two-cents. So please keep those comments coming.
Anyway, I improved it *slightly*. A few more object descriptions, a couple more dialog topics, and a few new phrases in the dialog to help direct the dialog a little better. so you might want to download the newer version.
Since this isn't a real game, I'm not going to spend a lot of time beta testing and polishing it up. However, your feedback is important because this demo may be a proto-type for how we will go about building a new Tex Murphy game which will be based on a totally new Tex Murphy story.
This demo, unfortunately, was two-thirds NPC interaction and only one-third exploring. A real game will probably be just the opposite, with more elaborate and interesting places to investigate and puzzles to solve.
Anyway, I'm very interested in your two-cents. So please keep those comments coming.