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Newcomers AppGameKit Corner / Text Adventures

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Baldielocks
7
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Joined: 28th Mar 2017
Location: Grimsby, England
Posted: 15th Apr 2017 20:11
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Hi guys, in the past I have written text adventures not the Ian Livingstone book types , but ones with noun and verb input, allowing moving around locations, getting things,using them, solving puzzles all through your use of verb and nouns. I did sell them back in the days of the Dragon 32 and the specey through magazines and the local Tandy Computer shop. I now have a bit of time on my hands now and am playing around with them, I`m doing a very small basic one, 25 objects,17 locations, 50+ verbs and nouns, i.e usual go north, get rusty key, unlock chest, talk to druid.I`ve done all the routines including the command input one, just letting you use letters, [back space],[space] and [enter] to a max length string.This little one is just to get to grips with AppGameKit and dark basic and show my kids what I use to do and how computer games have changed. I`m hoping over time to do another big game with lots to do. Is there still a following for them ? and is it possible to sell them and make a little beer money.
if there is still a market do you think it would be possible to port them over to android for use on tablets
Cheers
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PSY
Developer
8
Years of Service
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Joined: 3rd Jul 2016
Location: Laniakea Supercluster
Posted: 15th Apr 2017 21:16 Edited at: 15th Apr 2017 21:17
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Hey,

loved to play text adventures in the past...good old times
As a matter of fact, I downloaded Tiny Text Adventure some months ago to have something to play at work
Porting to android/ios is no prob at all with AGK2!

[off-topic] The guys who made Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island released Thimbleweed Park about 2 weeks ago....same style as back in the days
PSY LABS Games
Coders don't die, they just gosub without return
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Van B
Moderator
22
Years of Service
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Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 16th Apr 2017 14:06
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There is a decent number of people still into text adventures, nostalgic gaming covers all types of players. There's enough money in these games to warrant Ian Livingstone releasing his adventure books as apps, so I'd say go for it.

I think it would be a good idea to make the interface as polished as you can - theme it with the game, like imagine a 50's crime adventure with a typewriter interface, round keys and printed text on paper... give it some atmosphere, because it will have to pop on app store pages. At the time when I was actually able to play through text adventures I had an ST, so I'm more used to the Magnetic Scrolls games, they had really quite nice interfaces, especially Alice - that had a map and all sorts in a windowed GUI - having a map and notes etc would help round of a text adventure I think, so long as art isn't a huge issue.
The code is dark and full of errors
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Baldielocks
7
Years of Service
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Joined: 28th Mar 2017
Location: Grimsby, England
Posted: 18th Apr 2017 09:30
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Thanks guys, if I do get a large , full adventure put together I would probably but it out on PC first as I`ve only been using AGK2 for a couple of weeks and not fully versed in creating virtual keyboards on tablets yet or the other changes to routines I would need. How would you go about selling a PC version , steam or any other sites as obviously not selling anything for 35+ years you get out the loop quickly plus things have gone a lot further then cassettes ( for younger viewers these can be seen in the history section of gaming and music on WIKI )
Van B when you were playing on your ST I had an Amiga also, but my text adventure days go right back to ZX81 when interface was nothing but text scrolling up the screen.
What do you think to taking it right back to those days and colossal cave style (but still keeping it clean and tidy) or would that be too basic for now adays ?
cheers for all the help guys
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=PRoF=
21
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Joined: 17th Mar 2003
Location: Milton Keynes, UK
Posted: 18th Apr 2017 11:31
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I still occasionally download classic text adventures (or interactive fiction, as they are called these days) on my phone with a Speccy emulator! I played through Seabaseelta with the Mrs a few years ago, with me reading it and then both of us deciding what actions to take.

I would go for an approach like The Hobbit or Seabase Delta where there is a large picture, which is then scrolled off screen by the text.
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JohnnyMeek
11
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Joined: 23rd Apr 2013
Location: Slovenia
Posted: 18th Apr 2017 14:19
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If you're making a text adventure I strongly advise that you use this - Inkle Writer

This Game was made using it. It's free to use and just exports a JSON file.
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Baldielocks
7
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Joined: 28th Mar 2017
Location: Grimsby, England
Posted: 18th Apr 2017 16:08
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Thanks JohnnyMeek, but what I`m doing is not a branching story it`s a interactive game, in this one you have more free flow, such as walk around find a key at X location go up to another location unlock and search a chest, get a magic bean from there, go to a garden plant said bean, then swim a river to get a bottle, swim back fill bottle with water go back to garden and water the seed you planted, grow into a beanstalk climb beanstalk, get some giants cotton climb down use cotton as rope to enter a well, go off do something else then retrace back to location X to use a combination you found somewhere whilst in the well to unlock a safe, find a letter read it and off you go to get some rare treasure, i.e. you need to revisit locations many times and go off in 3 or 4 directions from that 1 location at any different time whilst carrying a limited number of items but you can leave the items at a location and come back when you need them to solve further puzzles and leave the ones you can`t carry at another location for later
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Rich Dersheimer
AGK Developer
15
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Joined: 1st Jul 2009
Location: Inside the box
Posted: 25th Apr 2017 19:01
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Although writing a program or system that helps you design interactive fiction can be very rewarding, there are several design programs available. My favorite has been ADRIFT
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catventure
8
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Joined: 14th Feb 2016
Location:
Posted: 7th May 2017 15:31
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Hi Baldielocks,

You *might* also check out "TAB" (a PC Windows variant or replicant of popular 80's retro text adventure utilities such as Quill/PAW or STAC/GAC)
Might be more what you're used to and fit what you are trying to do?

http://tab.thinbasic.com

Here is a youtube demo vid showing the Editor & Player + the tutorial game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-BJInNxPug

catventure.
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Baldielocks
7
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Joined: 28th Mar 2017
Location: Grimsby, England
Posted: 7th May 2017 19:03
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Thanks for advice of what to use to write the game, but I`ve written the engine and core systems ( i.e locations / movement how verbs act with what nouns , descriptions and what comes of using an object with another object , I do like the sound of the large picture like on the old Hobbit game which I`ll try to implement when the first one is totally finished and playable just to enhance it. What I was wondering with my first post was the interest if any in text adventures and how to sell them. I was going to just do it on the PC to start with and when I know a bit more about AppGameKit and creating a virtual keyboard I will try and port it over to android but until that point it will be the PC I`ll be working on and for.
Cheers
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okee
10
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Joined: 1st May 2014
Location: Ireland
Posted: 8th May 2017 15:08
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Quote: "What I was wondering with my first post was the interest if any in text adventures and how to sell them"

https://itch.io/ might be a good place to try, haven't used it myself but you can sell your games on there or ask for a donation etc

https://itch.io/search?q=text+adventures
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