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Plan for Rubes
Plan for Rubes
| Name: | Rubes |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Nov 08, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  Not Rated | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Rubes |
Blog post
Chasing Windmills?
Well, now I've gone and done it. I've decided it's time to write another game and there ain't a damn thing I can do about it. Except maybe write a .plan.
I made a shareware game for the Mac many years ago, mostly to satisfy the urge I always had as a kid to make a computer game. It was a hell of a lot of fun. Did fairly well, too. Definitely taught me a lot about programming, marketing, and sales. So now it's some 10 years later or more, and I started getting that urge again.
So I looked around and discovered Torque. The path was set.
Or was it? Like some folks, I had the tools and the drive, but no clear target. I couldn't decide what game to make. I wanted to make something different. Fun, challenging, intellectual. Interactive. Immersive. Then it hit me--taunted me, actually. I had spotted my challenge, as Don Quixote spotted the cluster of huge windmills before him.
A first-person text-and-graphics adventure game. Torque 3D FPS meets Interactive Fiction. Crazy idea, I'm sure of it. Has it been tried before? To some extent, but I have yet to see a true hybrid. Will it work? I have no idea. Will people buy into it? Who knows.
The question is, will FPS gamers used to instantaneous 3D action embrace the idea of having to pause and type text commands during a game? Or, will IF gamers accustomed to paragraphs of imaginative prose and turn-based play embrace real-time images and motion over pure words?
Who knows. It may end up just dissatisfying both camps. No matter, though. I've made up my mind.
Can an FPS game and an IF game peacefully coexist? I guess that's the real question. But when I sit and think about each of these genres, I can't help but feel that something is missing from each one. They each create a sense of immersion and interactivity in their own different ways, but couldn't each one benefit from the advantages of the other? IF games offer an impressive depth of setting, character, and interactivity, but often they just don't come across as a vibrant, living place where the gamer truly exists. And FPS games offer amazing visuals with a strong sense of mood and space, but often feel empty, shallow, or (ironically) two-dimensional.
It's a huge challenge, no doubt. This is no short-term project. IF is not easy. Good IF is really hard. To make a truly immersive IF game on its own requires a tremendous amount of effort. Plus, the IF community is pretty sophisticated; fancy graphics dressing boring IF is nothing more than boring IF.
Then, of course, there's Torque, and that's a whole new thing for me. I'm getting more and more comfortable with it, but I'm just beginning. That's a long road in and of itself, I know, but I've loved it so far and the support here is pretty amazing.
The only way to get from here to there is with small steps and lots of help. My basic plan right now:
- Keep learning Torque
- Adapt an IF engine to Torque
- Put together a tiny "proof-of-concept" hybrid FPS-IF game
Once I reach that point, hopefully the proof-of-concept will attract some other enthusiasts to the project, especially someone from the IF community looking to take a game of theirs into new territory once they see the possibilities. It would be ideal to have someone handling the IF writing and others working on models and music, while I focus on the programming. But that's a long way off. A tiny proof-of-concept game by IGC '06? Might be a stretch.
There are some really good open-source IF engines out there which have been in use for years. I decided to use the popular Inform as the basis for my IF engine, and adapting it to Torque will be a fun challenge. I've got some of the initial basics down already, including noun and verb structures, command entry, and some rudimentary text parsing. There are a lot of basic IF features that I won't need to include, which will make things easier, but it will still take a huge effort. Will it be worth it? Only time will tell.
As one wise man here has said: "You know how we all complain that we wish for games that take chances and reach for greatness even if it means losing the mass audience." What the hell, sounds like a plan to me.
And that's where I stand. So am I on to something, or am I just chasing windmills? At the end, the novel's closing lines sadly denounce the dreams of Don Quixote: "...Those false and nonsensical stories...are already tottering and without a doubt are doomed to fall." Hmm. I'll just hope I'm on to something.
I made a shareware game for the Mac many years ago, mostly to satisfy the urge I always had as a kid to make a computer game. It was a hell of a lot of fun. Did fairly well, too. Definitely taught me a lot about programming, marketing, and sales. So now it's some 10 years later or more, and I started getting that urge again.
So I looked around and discovered Torque. The path was set.
Or was it? Like some folks, I had the tools and the drive, but no clear target. I couldn't decide what game to make. I wanted to make something different. Fun, challenging, intellectual. Interactive. Immersive. Then it hit me--taunted me, actually. I had spotted my challenge, as Don Quixote spotted the cluster of huge windmills before him.
A first-person text-and-graphics adventure game. Torque 3D FPS meets Interactive Fiction. Crazy idea, I'm sure of it. Has it been tried before? To some extent, but I have yet to see a true hybrid. Will it work? I have no idea. Will people buy into it? Who knows.
The question is, will FPS gamers used to instantaneous 3D action embrace the idea of having to pause and type text commands during a game? Or, will IF gamers accustomed to paragraphs of imaginative prose and turn-based play embrace real-time images and motion over pure words?
Who knows. It may end up just dissatisfying both camps. No matter, though. I've made up my mind.
Can an FPS game and an IF game peacefully coexist? I guess that's the real question. But when I sit and think about each of these genres, I can't help but feel that something is missing from each one. They each create a sense of immersion and interactivity in their own different ways, but couldn't each one benefit from the advantages of the other? IF games offer an impressive depth of setting, character, and interactivity, but often they just don't come across as a vibrant, living place where the gamer truly exists. And FPS games offer amazing visuals with a strong sense of mood and space, but often feel empty, shallow, or (ironically) two-dimensional.
It's a huge challenge, no doubt. This is no short-term project. IF is not easy. Good IF is really hard. To make a truly immersive IF game on its own requires a tremendous amount of effort. Plus, the IF community is pretty sophisticated; fancy graphics dressing boring IF is nothing more than boring IF.
Then, of course, there's Torque, and that's a whole new thing for me. I'm getting more and more comfortable with it, but I'm just beginning. That's a long road in and of itself, I know, but I've loved it so far and the support here is pretty amazing.
The only way to get from here to there is with small steps and lots of help. My basic plan right now:
- Keep learning Torque
- Adapt an IF engine to Torque
- Put together a tiny "proof-of-concept" hybrid FPS-IF game
Once I reach that point, hopefully the proof-of-concept will attract some other enthusiasts to the project, especially someone from the IF community looking to take a game of theirs into new territory once they see the possibilities. It would be ideal to have someone handling the IF writing and others working on models and music, while I focus on the programming. But that's a long way off. A tiny proof-of-concept game by IGC '06? Might be a stretch.
There are some really good open-source IF engines out there which have been in use for years. I decided to use the popular Inform as the basis for my IF engine, and adapting it to Torque will be a fun challenge. I've got some of the initial basics down already, including noun and verb structures, command entry, and some rudimentary text parsing. There are a lot of basic IF features that I won't need to include, which will make things easier, but it will still take a huge effort. Will it be worth it? Only time will tell.
As one wise man here has said: "You know how we all complain that we wish for games that take chances and reach for greatness even if it means losing the mass audience." What the hell, sounds like a plan to me.
And that's where I stand. So am I on to something, or am I just chasing windmills? At the end, the novel's closing lines sadly denounce the dreams of Don Quixote: "...Those false and nonsensical stories...are already tottering and without a doubt are doomed to fall." Hmm. I'll just hope I'm on to something.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 11/02/08 - Vespers3D: The End of October Vespers Thing 07/29/08 - Vespers3D: Turn-Based or Real-Time? 06/04/08 - Vespers3D: Being Indie, Being Resourceful 03/19/08 - Vespers3D: Adventures with NPCs, Part IV 12/29/07 - Vespers3D: Adventuring Onward 09/03/07 - Vespers3D: Adventures with NPCs, Part III 08/06/07 - Vespers3D: Visibility Issues in 3D 07/26/07 - Vespers3D: Adventures with NPCs, Part II |
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Submit your own resources!| Aaron E (Nov 08, 2005 at 23:32 GMT) |
| Rubes (Nov 08, 2005 at 23:39 GMT) |
| Aaron E (Nov 08, 2005 at 23:59 GMT) |
| abc (Nov 09, 2005 at 07:14 GMT) |
For some inspiration I would look at what previous text-parser+graphics games have done. The most modern commercial examples, I think, would be some of the early 90s Legend Entertainment games, which you may have played. The graphics were entirely first-person 2d images. They tried to update the parser with some entirely optional automation, so that it could be played "sort of" like a purely graphical adventure if you wanted.
With Torque you could make it so that the player puts in a verb alone and then chooses the thing they want to act on in first person mode - and the most common actions would get button assignments. This could turn out to be pretty interesting, but like you say, also a pain content wise:
(You see a computer, turned on.)
>TURN OFF COMPUTER
(The monitor goes blank, the lights dim, the fans stop spinning.)
>OPEN CASE
Ok. (the case opens)
>REMOVE HEAT SINK
(You now have a heat sink)
>REPLACE CPU WITH NEW CPU
(etc.)
In text-only this is doable and I've seen that level of detail done in Infocom and modern independent games before. But in 3d it seems like only a AAA budget could hope to cover most of what people would try to do in the game. In turn, a feasable implementation would make a parser less useful and more painful....I think this is why graphic adventures ended up streamlining their interface so much as you went from King's Quest 1 onwards until reaching the minimalistic walk-look-and-use style. The alternatives were a lot of "I can't do that" or going over the budget.
But anyway, I'd like to see how you might try getting around this problem :)
| Rubes (Nov 09, 2005 at 19:33 GMT) |
I agree it's a tough genre to tackle, and I think the main reason I think I can give it a shot is because I don't have to reinvent the wheel for either type: FPS has Torque, and IF has Inform. The IF side will require a lot of adaptation, but aside from a few key issues I don't think it will be too bad.
Part of the difficulty that IF has with parsing is determing what objects are "in scope"; that is, what objects the player can interact with. This essentially means determining what items the player has (in inventory) and what objects are in the immediate surroundings. With Torque, that might be less of a concern. I've already implemented the "Object Selection" resource, so players can click on objects to make them the primary "scope" object and the target of a particular command, like you suggested. If you want to interact with something else in the immediate surroundings, just click on that object instead. So I really only need to deal with inventory items (which is not a big deal) and the one object currently selected, making scope less of a problem.
My plan is to use the left mouse button as the "object selection" trigger, and the right mouse button can be "assigned" by the player to another verb, such as "examine" or "take", to streamline things a bit.
As for your example with the computer, I think it could be done. The main problem, which is true of any IF game but especially so of a 3D IF game, is trying to account for as many player actions on an object as possible to create a semblance of realism. I suppose the main limitation for that is time and effort, but we'll have to see.
So, for instance, we can create a computer object, perhaps consisting of a main computer chassis and a lid. We can also animate it with flashing lights or what have you to indicate it's on. Click on it to make it the scope object. Typing "TURN OFF COMPUTER" can stop the animation to make it appear off. Typing "OPEN CASE" can cause a lid piece animation to play, making it appear open. I suppose more detailed things like removing the heat sink and/or CPU could be done the same way, or just through text without necessarily any specific visual representation.
But, like you said, accounting for the myriad other actions a player might want to take on the computer should also be accounted for, and that's where things would get complicated. Or, I suppose, as complicated as we would want it to be.
The tricky part, as I mentioned, is that IF enthusiasts might begin to wonder why graphics are being used at all. But I still think that, for most aspects of the game, the graphics can enhance the feel of the text game, and the text can enhance the sophistication of the graphics game. I guess we'll see.
| Marcus (Dec 09, 2005 at 22:16 GMT) |
| Rubes (Dec 09, 2005 at 22:29 GMT) |
| Marcus (Dec 10, 2005 at 03:28 GMT) |
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