[NTLUG:Discuss] re:Hilcrest idea

[Steve Baker]

Wayne wrote:

> ::I want an adventure game, I'm envisioning something on the lines of the
> ::old adventure game, where you have to pick up certain items for points,
> ::and put certain items places to get into more of the puzzle. Something
> ::that teaches and exploits logical thinking skills. In other words, the
> ::kiddos are learning actually every step of the way but having a good ::time
> doing so.
> 
> How about a turn-based game?  It's not going to have the 'cool' factor of a
> real time game, but it should work better on all the systems and not have a
> large overhead requirement.

Is the game itself a 'shared' experience (like a MUD) or is each player
in
his/her own private world?

Are you thinking about interaction in the old adventure style (verb
noun, eg
get bird, go north, say xyzzy) - or some kind of point-n-click interface
(eg
the Kings' Quest series) ?

It would be pretty easy to add still pictures - but only if we have a
talented
artist somewhere who could paint 100+ images. (Maybe we could get some
of
the kids to do this?  Given a verbal description of a location.)

Games of this sort are pretty easy to write - in fact I believe there is
a new adventure design kit to enable your to script such things without
any programming at all.

The additions to make it limit the time you can play and keep game saves
and statistics on a centralized server might require a little more work
though.

> I can setup a Majordomo list if needed.

That would probably be a good idea.
 
> What type of interface would you be interested in?  With a web browser you
> could have the cross platform aspects easily, but you'd be limited in what you
> could do.  Do they all have newer browsers, say Netscrape 4.x?  If so you
> could probably do some interesting this with the DOM and JavaScript.

Using a web browser is certainly do-able - there is an online version of
"Colossal Cave" (the classic Crowther & Woods adventure).  If you did
that,
you could probably run ALL the games on the server - those kinds of
game use almost zero compute time and are easy to run as CGI programs.

Here are some links you might like to check:

  KMUD:

    http://fara.cs.uni-potsdam.de/~uhlmann/kmud

  The classic Colossal Cave adventure online:

    http://www-tjw.stanford.edu/adventure/

  The source code for Colossal Cave (not the online version though):

    http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/e_downloads.html

  (You probably don't want the *original* code since it's in Fortran -
   but there are lots of C-based versions floating around on that site)

  Hugo (an adventure game engine that allows pictures):

    http://www.interlog.com/~tessman/hugo.html

  Various text-based adventure "engines":

    http://roadrunner.swansea.uk.linux.org/software.shtml

> ::Here's what I got in the way of resources.... a bunch of kids taking
> ::multimedia. A larger bunch of kids taking C++ programming. The most
> ::advanced got to loops last year.  An even bigger bunch of kids taking
> ::webmastering -- (so maybe this ought to incorporate the internet? that
> ::would handle my idea of multiplatforming. I definately want to do
> ::something open source ....

Well, writing a simple verb/noun adventure game along the lines of
"Collosal Cave" (the original adventure) would be a great programming
project for those learning C++.  However, it would be naive to expect
anything they would produce in a few weeks to be really useful for the
sort of solidly reliable tool you'd need here.  That doesn't mean you
shouldn't teach that though - writing a simple text based adventure
would
be a GREAT project for someone who was just mastering C/C++.

What the heck do you teach in "Multimedia"?   Perhaps we might get our
pictures painted there?  (Although technically, that's a "Monomedia" :-)
 
> ::What I need: someone experienced in game programming

I'd be happy to help.

> :: -- or has time to learn

...well, you never stop doing that.

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1 at airmail.net (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker at hti.com      (work)