Some random thoughts

by **Completely Off-Topic** » Fri Jun 06, 2003 10:40 am

The biggest problem with the IF game "Tubby and the Quest for His Lost Shoes" was that while Tubby hasn't seen his shoes for twenty years, everyone else CAN see them, so the game ends in about ten minutes. What a jip!

Ah well, they can't all be CDJ's.

by **pinback** » Wed May 14, 2003 1:30 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Yes, this goes beyond your little performance art here.

I wish you wouldn't call it that. That's not what it's about. But I guess we don't need to get into it in this base too. Sorry everyone. Maybe once my new website is up, it will be easier for you to understand.

indirectly got a nice compliment a few moments ago from a co-worker regarding it.

Well, tell them "thank you", indirectly from me! What a nice thing to hear!

Are you planning on making any more excellent and quality music that is better than what's on the soundtrack to Blade Runner, Ben?

Oh, I don't know if you could call it all THAT, but thank you anyway for the compliment. Yes, I will no doubt get back to my music once I've accomplished all of my self-actualizing goals. Things are going well, but I'm not done yet!

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed May 14, 2003 1:14 pm

pinback wrote:Well, you know, I do feel like I should at least release one IF-related product to the world in 2003, so Jonsey, I hope that even though you are so far unable to accept my new attitudes, you will still be available for me to ask Hugo questions of. I respect you for many things, and your Hugo expertise is definitely one of them.

Yes, this goes beyond your little performance art here. Any way I can help, I will.

I imagine any new project I started would be over before it started if I didn't think I could count on you for help.

You *should* make a new game. That would be awesome.

For what it's worth, I've got your "Motherplucker" song in rotation amongst my MP3s here at work, and you just indirectly got a nice compliment a few moments ago from a co-worker regarding it. Are you planning on making any more excellent and quality music that is better than what's on the soundtrack to Blade Runner, Ben? Because you have a real calling with that.

The populace demands "Motherplucker II"!!!

by **pinback** » Wed May 14, 2003 12:53 pm

Well, you know, I do feel like I should at least release one IF-related product to the world in 2003, so Jonsey, I hope that even though you are so far unable to accept my new attitudes, you will still be available for me to ask Hugo questions of. I respect you for many things, and your Hugo expertise is definitely one of them.

I imagine any new project I started would be over before it started if I didn't think I could count on you for help.

by **Jack Straw** » Wed May 14, 2003 12:07 pm

Bwahahaa! "pinner"

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed May 14, 2003 10:54 am

Also, for a Scott Adams-style game that IMO is better than actual Scott Adams games, I'd go with Ascii and the Argonauts:
http://raddial.com/if/#asciargo

by **pinback** » Wed May 14, 2003 9:43 am

I really cannot say how much it troubles me that you're upset by this. Is there anything I can do? We need to think of some way of dealing with this, because there will be no "three day deadline" I'm sorry (well, not really!) to say.

Can you just try it my way for a couple days? Maybe that would be a good way of resolving this! This is an adventure base, right? Join me in this adventure, for, hey, for three days, and see if your whole world doesn't change for the better.

Will you do that for me?

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed May 14, 2003 9:39 am

Three days. I give you three days before you revert back to the Pinback of old. This is the last I will say on the subject, as I am getting tedious. But three days. It's killing you to post like this, just like it's killing me.

Text adventure discussion is on-topic for this forum. And probably any base in this BBS. I say this not to you, because you are intentionally trying to get me going, but in case there is anyone else out there lurking who is wondering if you are being sincere or not.

The further you increase your grip on this refreshing and optimistic way of looking at life, Pinner, the more negative people such as myself slip through your fingers.

by **pinback** » Wed May 14, 2003 9:35 am

Wow, thanks Looper! That's a great recommendation! It sounds like just what I am looking for. I miss those "old-timey text adventures", you know? Actually, I should probably just go back and play some of the Infocom games, now that I think about it, since I never did finish any of them... :( Except I think I lost my Infocom CD!! :( :( :(

Anyway, I am going to go check out this game as soon as I get home!

(ICJ: Sorry I am using this base to talk about non-Hugo text adventures. I just thought a text-adventure thread was more appropriate here than anywhere else. I would be happy to move it to another base if you wanted to.)

by **looper** » Tue May 13, 2003 10:58 pm

pinback wrote:Have there been any good reg'lar ol' "text adventure" games released any time lately? I don't mean artistic exercises in experimental interactive fiction, I mean TEXT ADVENTURE. You know. Go north, pick up blue key, go south, put card in slot, open door, get treasure? Like that?

Dude, Dude! (Now that I've exposed my absolute dorkiness by saying "Dude"...) *Ahem* So glad you asked, Ben. Just got finished playing a game that fits your bill: The House of the Midnight Sun (a Z-machine game). Download it from the author here: http://www.johnson46.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cd.htm

!!!

(breathe deep)

Actually, yeah, I found House to be very enjoyable: not too easy, not too hard. Puzzles are largely local i.e. find something to get you into the next section of the game, use it in the appropriate manner, and then most likely you won't need it again.

Hmm, let's hope you haven't played it before; the author says it was based on an earlier game of his which he wrote in 1983 (called Castle Dracula); I think this is why it's got such a strong "classic text adventure" feel.

Just about everything is richly described, and examining everything is the primary way of finding clues.

I think the verbose descriptions come with the territory of being a horror-genre game, and I'm glad for that, because they're well-written (except for the occasional annoying sentence fragment).

by **pinback** » Mon May 12, 2003 1:08 pm

Hey, thanks for the advice, Roody! I'll check it out!

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Mon May 12, 2003 1:01 pm

Have there been any good reg'lar ol' "text adventure" games released any time lately? I don't mean artistic exercises in experimental interactive fiction, I mean TEXT ADVENTURE. You know. Go north, pick up blue key, go south, put card in slot, open door, get treasure? Like that?

It's a little ZANY because it involves TIME TRAVEL, but I'd recommend First Things First (http://jrwdigitalmedia.com/ftf/).

by **bruce** » Mon May 12, 2003 12:49 pm

Protagonist X wrote: The Amiga IIRC had (has?) some sort of really cool scripting language, with a lot of OS-type calls. Very flexible, I was told. I want to call it Rexx, but I'm pretty sure that was the OS/2 scripting language.

Right on both counts.

I, by the way, still use Rexx (under VM) quite a lot.

Bruce

by **pinback** » Mon May 12, 2003 12:17 pm

Have there been any good reg'lar ol' "text adventure" games released any time lately? I don't mean artistic exercises in experimental interactive fiction, I mean TEXT ADVENTURE. You know. Go north, pick up blue key, go south, put card in slot, open door, get treasure? Like that?

Should I try to play Zork again? Every time I play, I get caught at the control panel with all the colored buttons or whatever it is. Can't figure that game out! Does it get better after that?

by **Protagonist X** » Mon May 12, 2003 11:34 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:That BASICA cartridge was pure evil, personified. I think it set me back years, when it came to learning how to really program. Line numbers should be outlawed -- they really, really detract from the learning process when it comes time to use anything else.

Amen, brother! Testify!

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: If I remember right, code for the Amiga didn't even have a semi-colon or other character there to denote the end of a line (I could be wrong). But still, that's Amiga... er, whatever it was called, AmigaDOS or AmigaBASIC or whatnot, Fortran and Hugo as the languages that I have scanned and looked over that has managed to figure out when a line ended, and even Fortran kind of cheats.

The Amiga IIRC had (has?) some sort of really cool scripting language, with a lot of OS-type calls. Very flexible, I was told. I want to call it Rexx, but I'm pretty sure that was the OS/2 scripting language.

Ehh, whatever: the Amigans and the OS/2 crew have a lot in common as it is. "The platform was superior, it was just persecuted by sinister forces..."

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon May 12, 2003 10:44 am

That BASICA cartridge was pure evil, personified. I think it set me back years, when it came to learning how to really program. Line numbers should be outlawed -- they really, really detract from the learning process when it comes time to use anything else.

I remember shaking my head when Compute! had Amiga listings in their magazine. I could not comprehend the lack of numbers. If I remember right, code for the Amiga didn't even have a semi-colon or other character there to denote the end of a line (I could be wrong). But still, that's Amiga... er, whatever it was called, AmigaDOS or AmigaBASIC or whatnot, Fortran and Hugo as the languages that I have scanned and looked over that has managed to figure out when a line ended, and even Fortran kind of cheats.

... This kind of became a rah-rah Hugo post. That was not my intent, but no matter, it still works.

by **Protagonist X** » Mon May 12, 2003 8:56 am

looper wrote: So all of this huge preface is to say that it seems possible that you and I could be at a comparable level of comprehension in regards to Hugo or programming in general, and perhaps we could be of help to each other.

You're probably further ahead than I am along the road towards a workable game. Much of my time lately has been spent looking at the design documents and scaling back the monster I was imagining.

As a film student, let me use analogy to explain: I was falling into the classic film student trap of trying to make I, Claudius or Lawrence of Arabia my first time behind the camera. Better to start with a couple short films and finish them than try for some sort of massive epic when you're learning.

looper wrote: You mention TRS-80 BASIC. I never personally even learned how to program much in (for me, ATARI) BASIC; I suspect partially this was because I did not have anyone around who already knew how to program and who was willing to show me how to do it; I was trying to do this on my own, out of books (I was around 10 at the time). A few years later, and I had given up; I was more interested in playing the games. So, anyways...

The school I went to had Trash-80s, and at home I had the BASICA cartridge stuck in my PCjr. Similar problems with learning on those machines, though: BASIC, back in the day, was (is?) really just a toy programming language to give you a taste of what it is like to type things in and run them. It's like having a little plastic toy car that you can sit in and pedal with your feet thinking thet you're driving around just like Dad does in the big car.

That sort of experience alone will not prepare one for learning to shift gears or parallel park, let along how to open up the hood and make sure the distributor cap is on if it fails to turn over some morning.

Going with the "Languages-as-cars" kick, there's a list of these on the web that compares Logo to (if memory serves) a quarter-scale Roll Royce, with a working gas engine and everything. Given the benefit of time travel, I'd probably have gone in for Logo training and learned how to do arrays properly the first time around. BASIC left me so confused, I think I was in high school before I got the concept of "programs really don't need line numbers." Hell, I had a hard time with GOSUBs in BASIC.

Al lof this is by way of saying that if you've done much programming in anything, you're probably fgar enough ahead of me that I'd need you to explain basic concepts to me to get around the black hole of my ignorance.

And yeah, I was always much more interested in playing games than writing them.

looper wrote:
Your post was a nice kick in the pants to start reading the Hugo manual again. Thanks.

Thanks in return; I was going to write the same thign about your post when I read it.

by **looper** » Thu May 08, 2003 12:39 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:No matter what language you're using, besides the manual, be sure to check out the example code. For Hugo, I've heard that the code to Gilles' Scavenger Hunt game is one of the best commented games ever...I'm drunk now so I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but the point is, don't stick to only the manuals... the more code you look at , the better...

You make sense, and I'll definitely check out Gilles' Scavenger Hunt. Thank you for the helpful advice.

looper

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Thu May 08, 2003 12:47 am

I think no one can be faulted for not having their shit together from just reading the manual. Unless you're a programmer like Robb (and maybe even then it's somewhat hard learning languages), you should also be checking out the 'examples' or whatever directory at the IF archive. No matter what language you're using, besides the manual, be sure to check out the example code. For Hugo, I've heard that the code to Gilles' Scavenger Hunt game is one of the best commented games ever, and one can't forget that there's also the code to games like Guilty Bastards on the archive available for perusal (I uploaded the code to my game 'Anne and the Terrordrome of Evil' just because it has some stripped-down following code and stuff like that in case anyone was intimidated by GB's mutliple files.... I do need to upload another version, though, since it seems like some things have changed in Hugo since I uploaded that and that version no longer compiles).

I'm drunk now so I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but the point is, don't stick to only the manuals... the more code y ou look at , the better...

says Roody, fearing the next time he actually opens up his source code again...

Some random thoughts

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