Books like this encourage more indy developers. Especally now that the flood of games on iOS makes it very difficult to make money in that market for new game programmers.

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Games-Atari-2600-Steven/dp/1541021304/ref=nodl_

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@DiscreetFX

Or you can just keep it vintage/retro and go with this book. I absolutely loved this book when I was a kid and had a blast with it creating text adventures. :) When will interactive fiction get a revival?!?! :)

https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Adventure-Games-Your-Computer/dp/0345318838/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=creating+adventure+games+on+your+computer&qid=1552563950&s=gateway&sr=8-1

@Debaser

Cool book, it would be nice if great text adventures made a come back.

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@Debaser

Quote:

Or you can just keep it vintage/retro and go with this book. I absolutely loved this book when I was a kid and had a blast with it creating text adventures. :) When will interactive fiction get a revival?!?! :)

I remember the time of the text adventures and I remembered how often I tried to write some.


But to be honest, with the upcoming of computers with good hires-gfx like the Amiga, most text adventures became obsolete. People didn't like to type in long sentences and solve text puzzles when they could play a 'point &click' adventure or a RPG instead.

There are tons of adventure writing tools on Aminet, but only a few people had used them.

@DiscreetFX

Thanks for the link DiscreetFX. That looks interesting to play with.

@OneTimer1

Oh I hear ya. When I first got my C64 my parents gave me some educational games but it also included Zork and I think Cutthroats. Zork had me hooked that summer. :) But yes as much as I enjoyed playing them once I had found friends to swap disks with graphics took over with the likes of Bard's Tale, etc.

I do have the notion of maybe creating a few text adventures again for the fun of it however.

@Debaser

Quote:

Debaser wrote: @OneTimer1 Oh I hear ya. When I first got my C64 my parents gave me some educational games but it also included Zork and I think Cutthroats. Zork had me hooked that summer. :)

The Infocom adventures had the best language parser / interpreter I ever saw. AFAIK there had never been better system around.

If you ever started making a text adventure, you may have shorten commands like 'go north' into 'n' or 'take that box' into 't box' and suddenly you are using a simple input device instead of a full blown text parser.

moving:
n, e, s, w, u, d,

g ( get ), p ( put ), o ( open ), u ( use ), t ( talk ), l ( look ), ...

When you have done it right you can still type:

> go north
> look around
> get the box
> open the box with key

But you will hardly do it.

I once heard a story about the first adventures, they where written as a proof of a machine interface that could understand human language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
(There is an Amiga port http://hol.abime.net/3544 )

It is sad to see the demise of the classic text adventures, but the people playing them where not impressed by the text parsers, they just wanted to play.


ps.:
There is a new text adventure (text adventure with graphic) available for Amiga (and many others) here: https://8bitgames.itch.io/hibernated1

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 15-Mar-2019 at 07:54 PM.
Last edited by OneTimer1 on 15-Mar-2019 at 07:50 PM.
Last edited by OneTimer1 on 15-Mar-2019 at 07:49 PM.
Last edited by OneTimer1 on 15-Mar-2019 at 07:27 PM.

@DiscreetFX

You should check out the range of books at amiga.net.pl

They have 4 title dedicated to programming in AMOS, Blitz Basic, E and assembler. You can get them either as hard copy or an ebook and each product page has a link to the table of contents so you can get a good idea of what the book covers without having to buy it first. For some reason there is no table of content for the book that covers E but I contacted them to ask if they will remedy it.

Update.

I got an email reply and they have now added the table of contents for the book on E.

https://amiga.net.pl/ebk-dp/AmigaE_English-spis.pdf

Last edited by Rob on 20-Mar-2019 at 07:47 PM.

@OneTimer1



Quote:

The Infocom adventures had the best language parser / interpreter I ever saw. AFAIK there had never been better system around. If you ever started making a text adventure, you may have shorten commands like 'go north' into 'n' or 'take that box' into 't box' and suddenly you are using a simple input device instead of a full blown text parser.

Here is an interesting talk given at the 2017 Kansas Fest (Apple II thing -ducking- ) by a guy named Evan Wright that touches on Infocom's parser but also his work in developing his own and an authoring tool to allow easy porting to other platforms. It is an interesting talk.

Yes - I have been going down the rabbit hole a bit on interactive fiction/text adventure games and design. :) Sorry DiscreetFX for throwing your original topic, off topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II3O1CJA-x8&t=1514s


Thanks also for the link to Hibernated as well - I will check it out.

@OneTimer1

Quote:

The Infocom adventures had the best language parser / interpreter I ever saw. AFAIK there had never been better system around.

Just in case you're interested, I would suggest the current "state-of-the-art" when it comes to text adventures is the Inform 7 language, which enables you to code text adventures using plain English.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Beginner%27s_Guide_to_Interactive_Fiction_with_Inform_7/Getting_Started_with_Inform_7

One interesting fact is that you can run the text adventures coded in Inform 7 on the same runtimes used for Infocom games:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform

Quote:

All versions of Inform generate files in Z-code (also called story files) from source code. These files can then be run by any Z-code interpreter – that is, by any program which properly implements the Z-code virtual machine (or Z-machine) specification. The Z-machine was originally developed by Infocom in 1979 for their interactive fiction titles. Because there is at least one such interpreter for nearly every major and minor platform, this means that the same Z-code file can be run on a multitude of platforms with no alterations.

Last edited by HenryCase on 18-Mar-2019 at 10:27 PM.
Last edited by HenryCase on 18-Mar-2019 at 10:21 PM.

@Debaser

Quote:

Or you can just keep it vintage/retro and go with this book. I absolutely loved this book when I was a kid and had a blast with it creating text adventures. :) When will interactive fiction get a revival?!?! :)

I created 3 choose-your-own-adventure style games in the recent past. They were created in BlitzMax. The games are GUI based but I've tried to maintain the graphics text adventure game theme. The link is http://www.crosstimbershaven.com/games/choose-your-own-adventure-games.html.

I am currently in the process of making a new adventure game, but it's moving slowly; mostly because I've changed programming languages from BlitzMax since it's no longer supported.

@davidf215

Quote:

since it's no longer supported

BlitzMax is open source, just like AROS and Linux.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 19-Mar-2019 at 06:17 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

BlitzMax is open source, just like AROS and Linux.

Yeah, I know. I had already switched over to PureBasic when I heard BlitzMax was open sourced. PureBasic offered an integrated GUI editor, 3D graphics, and database connectivity along with being available on Win/Mac/Linux. PureBasic is also available on AOS3. When I switched from BlitzMax to PureBasic I planned on using the AOS3 version of PureBasic, but later I realized the AOS version was significantly behind versions on other platforms. So the AOS3 version of PureBasic is outdated and hasn't been improved (version on Aminet still shows v4.00) even though it's been open sourced. Since the AOS3 version of PureBasic is so outdated, I decided to use C for any Amiga software I may write.

@Debaser

Quote:

Or you can just keep it vintage/retro and go with this book. I absolutely loved this book when I was a kid and had a blast with it creating text adventures. :) When will interactive fiction get a revival?!?! :) https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Adventure-Games-Your-Computer/dp/0345318838/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=creating+adventure+games+on+your+computer&qid=1552563950&s=gateway&sr=8-1

I really enjoyed this book, too. I discovered in the library at my school. I typed the Werewolves and Wanderer game into my C64, and played the game often. A digital version of this book is available online. at https://www.atariarchives.org/ (as are several other Atari books). The direct link the the Adventures book is here: https://www.atariarchives.org/adventure/.

I did create a free version of the Werewolves and Wanderer game from this book. I added a GUI to it to make it more user-friendly and modern. My version of the game is located on this page.

@davidf215

David - awesome stuff man. I ordered the book for a few bucks on amazon and it just arrived. I can't wait to give it a flip through again. I will check out your games as well - thanks!

@Debaser

"When will interactive fiction get a revival?!?! :"

well, Clopas have just released not long ago (to my understanding) a text-adventure based upon redwall book serie:

https://escapethegloomer.com/escape-the-gloomer/

I guess return of text adventures to mainstream will still take some time, for I have bought this game but havent yet started it a single time. There is just always something else that grabs my attention instead.

@HenryCase

I have a great respect for the parser in the text adventure games. But there are some major problems:

1. Speed and Disappointment

Typing whole sentences is slow and you get a bad playing experience especially when 'moonlogic' is used.

Moonlogic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpiAFd9OkHY

2. Localisation

But there are some nasty problems when it comes to other languages, for example German.

In English language a text adventure would respond like this:
(C for command, R for response)

C: take the red ball
R: i 'dont know how to take the red ball

In German language it would be:

C: nimm den roten Ball
R: I weiß nicht wie ich den roten Ball nehmen soll.

You can see how that sub-clause in the English language, is just a reprint of the input. This will not work in most languages. Grammar is a bitch (not only in German)

Example (Monty Python) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

As a result you will hardly find translations of classic text adventures into non English languages.