OK we are planning to do a text command based adventure game. We'll use pixel aart for the backdrops. This will be a midevil based game set in a dungeon and other genearic places. I want it to feel like the older stule text adventures. I never played them much as a kid so I want to make one that everyone can enjoy.

The first version willl be made in Game Maker(Sorry mac users)

If sucessfull a version will be made in BlitzMax.

Programming: Highwaydog Me

Art Me Jalonso

Just giving a heads up.

So it will be something like the Zork games ???

Cool

This is a vectorized template layout for the view type.

The real thing will be pixel art.

http://imageshack.us[/URL]"> http://imageshack.us">

I agree - It's clear and works really well    

Great work Jalonso. I believe you just may have pwned the interwebs.

Please look at the old vector image and tell me what you think of wall style. It's rough but it's supposed to me stone held in by wood banding.

OK i made my own versions of screen GUI for that Text-based game. I rather like small screen for this kind of game so i choose smaller scales

a 320x240 and a 400x300

i did this really quick just to show my opinion for concept graphics for the game GUI. So will the game allow use of mouse? or just keyboard? but i suppose it will only be all typing.... (my sample, it kinda looks though that it can use some mouse device).   

btw, Jalonzo.... i like your pixel art style. 

WTF this isn't your collab. 

Edit: oh oops sorry. I didn't know that.  I feel so stupid now.

Hold on monkey, he was just giving a idea and there's nothing wrong with that.

And besides he's a pal of mine. I can tell that he put alot of time into this so you must respect him for that.

Nice ideas, i think the res is a bit too small though. And remember that we are using a limidted monocolor palette.

http://imageshack.us">

concept for front of the first room

I like teej's interface, especially the inventory system is like I would have done it. Thanks for your input, though there will be no mouse support, I believe - it also adds to the nostalgic feel ^^

WHooooooa.

...can I play yet?

@jal: Right, I am already considering these border offsets from the very beginning, but thanks ^^

Now... a demo... why not, I think we could think about releasing one if the first few pics and parts of the storyline are set.

I can't say when this will be done, though, it's not my part =P

Nice wotk jalonso i love it!! THis is gonna be great.

the first room text:
"You awaken, battered and worn from the dungeon guards. You feel smooth damp stone underneath you. The smell of decay saturates the air. There is a skeleton of a large non-human to your right. His jaws are open in a eternal mournful scream."

LOOK skeleton:

"Something glistens deep in the mouth of the skeleton. The DOOR KEY has been found! He never had the shance to use this smuggled treasure..."

I'm doing so now converting the thing to CAD so i can detail the story

yeah, jal, this work really looks sweet =)

Shark.. I might have good news for you.

This is the first official demo of the game:

http://highwaydog.funpic.de/Claimed.zip - http://highwaydog.funpic.de/Claimed.zip

Too bad it's written in GM, so MAC users (like jal...) won't have a chance, I think... Anyway, for now it covers the first room - and it's likely that changes are being made; this is just to show the engine as well as a part of the story together with those great graphics. Enjoy.

You can.

Type "HELP" to see the available commands, if you type "USE KEY" when facing south the door opens. You can even "WALK TO DOOR" or "GO TO DOOR" (they're the same), but there this demo does end.

And by the way, I included some little easter egg... did anybody find out yet? (=

This is looking fantastic, well done guys, keep at it.

@Spriggan: You said it took up 1/4 of the 1024x768 screen - To this I'd like to say that I made it change your screen resolution for the game to 640x480, so that a window of 400x300 (which is the actual game window size) doesn't appear too small. Still, as the quarter of 640x480 is actually covered by a 320x240 field, it is indeed just a bit more than the quarter of the screen.

I agree with you that it appears quite tiny, still we need to look for a solution that also doesn't make the graphic artist (jalonso here) draw too much.. If you look at the map suggestion before, I guess you know that it is already now much work - as it is only one person drawing the screens.

I would have set the screen res to 800x600 and then scaling the game up to its double width and height, still GM decides then to interpolate the colors between each pixel - and I doubt that you as pixel artists would like to see that. Even I do not quite like this look as it appears less nostalgic... let's see if we have another choice.

Still, I don't see a problem with the window option. I guess I will just add new commands like "OPTION WINDOW" to change, but then I think I have to disable the screen res change. I will not implement it, so in the next release you'll have that.

Did anyone already find the easter egg? (=

EDIT: ok, I just programmed that window part now (no, you can't play yet ^^), I've made it to use full scaling when in full screen mode, and use the original size of 400x300 in windowed mode.

First, thanks again for your comments.

It appears that the majority wants to play in windowed mode anyway, so screen resolution should not be changed, I guess.

@MoD: hmm I don't know this method yet, I need to figure out that now. Or maybe I'll find any other way to achieve the wanted effect.

In this case, it would mean that windowed => original size (no scaling), and full screen would just be double size (actually, 4x size). I'll try just to make the program draw a square of 2x2 pixels where every pixel was before, thus scaling it without interpolating.

Actually, with a screen resolution of 1280x1024 (like I have) I could even try 3x3 squares, but as there are enoguh people that use 1024x768, I'll stay with the double-size thing.

MoD, was your egg search successful? ^^ I won't spoil it here, though.. =D

EDIT: Ok, thanks for your hint, Monkey o' Doom, it didn't take long to figure out how it works. Now I've made it like this: the game checks how often the 400 would fit into the monitor width (so think in a screen res of 1024x768... 400 can not be put in 1024 more than 2 times), and according to this, the window's width will be set (to 800 in the 1024x768 case). Its height will always be 0.75 times its width to keep the aspect ratio.

Now full screen and windowed mode will not differ from each other, except from the black outline full screen mode always has.

Nope. I'll send you a gm6 example of what I'm talking about if you want it.

When it comes to screen resolution you should only worry about supporting two, 800x600 and 1280x1024, those two combined make up for about 90% computers.

I don't think should should have to redraw everything larger, I just think that having a window mode will make the smaller size less..I dono..wastefull.  This is another suggestion, and it's not something you should have to add unless you want to, but I really hate text games because I never know what commands that are available.  Maybe having an option to display somewhere all the available commands so we don't have to always type /help only to have those commands disappear whenever we do anything else.

MoD: nah, everything works alright =)

Spriggan: First, to your suggestion about the screen res... well, I solved it, like a said, in this way that it always tries to create the biggest integer factor to fit on screen... I mean if you have 1024x768, you'll get a 800x600 pic, with a res of 1280x1024 you will end up having a 1200x900 pic. And even if you dare to have a resolution of 1600x1200, you will have a 1600x1200 pic. But anyway, that's not a problem anymore.

Then, I hope its not only me who thinks that you can remember those few commands very well. Maybe it's because I also played enough other text adventures in my past that used similar commands.. anyway when I played one for the first time on a C64 (I don't know who made it..) I had a separate list of commands written on paper... of course that sucks - at least it doesn't look like living in the 21st century.

Still, I'm trying to minimize the effort of remembering stuff. For example, you can use "GO TO" exactly like "WALK TO" (and you can even write "GO DOOR" or "WALK DOOR" which is apparently incorrect English, but it works), as well as you can write "LOOK AT SKELETON" and "LOOK SKELETON".

Hmmm... Now we don't have place left that could be used to display all those commands. I suppose if text adventures aren't your type of game then you'll have a hard time "learning" this "vocabulary" - or you really write the list on a sheet of paper - or reject playing our game.

Thanks for your input, though. I'll also try to make the commands easier, for example I also enabled substitutes, for example you can write "look at skeleton" as well as "look at skull" as well as "look at bones".. even if it's not the same, it is in this case easier to input if you don't really know that you have to address this object as "skeleton". But I think you understand that this is not possible everywhere in the game.

I understand why it's possible, it may not be prudent, it was only a suggestion.  After all your target audience is the type of people that enjoy text adventures, which doesn't include me, and I understand that when it comes to features you have manage what needs to be there and what is just extra fluff.  I think it's a good idea to allow the alternate spellings for the reasons you've stated, and while I don't like these games much that doesn't mean I won't play it.  I like to make games myself so I enjoy playing other's games as they're building them, seeing what they change/add and why, it's a learning experience much like seeing all the steps people go through on these forums with their art.

Yeah, I understand.

Problem is that it could really disturb the clean appearance of the game if there's something next to it that looks like waste of space for experienced text adventure gamers.

Here is an idea what you can do, though: Play the game in windowed mode and have a text editor open with a text file listing all the commands down. I know it is not the best choice, but playing around a bit in the game will make you know the commands better, so after a while you just don't need it anymore.

For example, platformer games also need some time of practice until you can control them well. On this note, I suppose we'll leave this list away from the game itself, but the next version features possible windowed gaming. =)

Those 2 cents are good ones, I'll list the commands in the help file.

Well yeah, I guess you'll have to wait a little bit till the next update, but jal wanted to come up with some new blueprints soon. Anyway, we will surely not hurry programming it, because of obvious reasons... if we did so, it would certainly looks like that. ^^

And by the way, the game features a short track of music now I wrote yesterday. I think there will be about 5-7 tracks for the game, just to be played on various places to underline the atmosphere.

Being able to write music for your games, that's one skill I'm quite jealous of.

Indeed

We should kidnap Highwaydog and force him to write music for us.

Hey, I've heard that!

*hides*

Bút.. err... *cough* What is this musik anyway? I don't know what you're talking about =P

@Shark (and topic): I haven't seen jal yesterday because I wasn't on irc, but I think I'll catch him later on.. and then we'll see. But anyway - at least I'm not in a hurry ^^

Ok let me wipe the drool off my compy...

( I don't need riddilin)

S'funny, I always thought it was spelled rhitalin.

ANYHOW, are you concerned about the nonstraightness of some of the lines in your fancypants animation? 'cauuuse if you ARE, then there are some that aren't straight.

In any case, it's awesome. Now get back to work

Mhh, I'm feeling particularly peculiar todaaay.

PAHAHA. And I get stepped on.

I stand corrected, it is indeed ritalin.

Ok well i got the rough room text done.

But Jalonso and HD are the only ones to see it yet...

Damn what merry men we be!

Larwick:

Hmm.. Actually, if you use a machine and input something wrong you should get no response =P

It would not be hard to make equivalents like "rightt", but on the other hand, I would then need to think of every "partially acceptable" typo one could make... like "riggt" "rigth" "rgith" "riigth" etc...

Just exercise typing it correct and it will be alright =P

But at least it is not relevant whether you write "RigHt" or "RIGht" =)

Setzer: Considering that it's a text adventure... what should I say... It is not quite usual for text adventures. Also, it is not just a maze to move around, so you still need to enter commands like "take key". On the other hand, it would not be a problem to program that.

But there's no way for me to use the "2" key as "down"... NO WAY!! (that's what the "5" key is for and that is what annoys me often with games that have the numpad for controlling) ^^,

Yeah, I suppose it would be better. I'll still have it in my mind, though, so if it appears like a really good deal, why not include it...

Also, I now know what I do with the "turn" commands. I just make it check the first letter, the rest is irrelevant... so you could also write

turn r... for right... or maybe turn riiiiiight

turn b... for back... or maybe turn bread (just if you thought that it could make sense...)

turn l... for left

Half the fun of testbased games was typing
go northwest
only to have it tell you "You can't exit northwest. Exits are north, west, and three degrees off the port-bow"
and then you'd go
go three degrees off the port-bow
and it would say "What? how can you DO that? I don't get it."
so you'd say
turn three degrees off the port-bow
and it would say "A goblin pees on you from the roof. You contract a fatal disease in a matter of seconds and die a horrible and tragic death. As you're dying, you see a light at the end of the tunnel, and head toward it. As you get closer, you realise it is a door. Going closer still reveals it has a lock. Your memory tells you that you dropped a key when the goblin peed on you. Exits are back and forward"
go forward
"you can't, the door is locked, and you don't have the key"
go back
"You wish. You're dead, fool, there IS no turning back"
quit
"Quit WHAT? You've already quit life."
quit game
"You already are dead. You can't quit life twice."
ressurect self
"You ressurect yourself by tasting the light at the end of said tunnel. You're so shocked that it worked that you have a heart attack and die again. There are no exits, ctrl-alt-delete does not work, and there is one word in the whole english language that will make this game exit. Better start trying."
BANANAPHONE
"You're an idiot. That one word that will quit the game is no longer an english word, but one written in heiroglyphics"
download heiroglyphics text package
"You wish."

And SO, ad infinitum.