Remaking a classical: Text-based to Graphical.

[Dualnames]

Well, remaking a classical is actual a thing that a few guys from the forums have done many times, with success and without and with controversial feelings. I'm not talking specifically at this point. So well, what are you doing when you're remaking a game?
You stick to the game and add things that won't drop but instead improve quality? Or just remake it as it is?

I'm trying to do the second. The problem is that it's actually one thing remaking a graphical game and one thing remaking a text-based game. I've yet but added something quite important to the game except for interface addons,and well I don't know. Anybody's thought on that?

[mkennedy]

Good luck if you can pull it off, Will the game have a parser or will it be converted to point and click? Once I tried doing a remake of Classic Adventure using World Builder, got about 4 rooms done and then discovered my artistic talent was rather lacking.

[blueskirt]

Personally, as a gamer, what I want to see in such remake is the same game without all the bad design associated to those days.

Walking deads are a vestige of the past should be removed entirely. Same thing with timed sequences, which are directly counter productive to the exploration aspect of adventure game. And when the situation is critical need a timed sequence, it should be done with a real time clock rather than a "one action = one minute lost" clock where every useless actions play against you.

For the interface, you must understand that I don't want to solve dumbed down version of the most famous puzzles from the text adventure era. I don't want to click my way through the Babelfish or the Tea/No Tea puzzles, I want to solve them like people solved them back in those days. So, the game should feature a text interface, or at least a point and click interface with a text interface not unlike Leisure Suit Larry 7, or if a point and click interface is used for the entire game, a text parser GUI should be featured for such puzzles.

Very few line of text should be lost in the translation. A lot of these games selling point was their lengthy and humorous narration, reminiscent of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't want the animations and backgrounds to replace the narration, most if not every lines of narration should be featured in the remake.

These are the guidelines a text adventure remake should follow for me to play it. Anyway, good luck in your projects, there are so many adventure games out there that actually deserve remakes and so few actually get one.

[Mr Flibble]

Part of the joy of text based games is the appearance of previously unseen items, which works best in a text based format. I'm thinking of the Babel Fish and No Tea parts of HHGTTG specifically.

You'd need to find something equally charming as the old semantic jokes, because you cannot just draw the old jokes and expect them to work.

[Dualnames]

Personally, as a gamer, what I want to see in such remake is the same game without all the bad design associated to those days.

Walking deads are a vestige of the past should be removed entirely. Same thing with timed sequences, which are directly counter productive to the exploration aspect of adventure game. And when the situation is critical need a timed sequence, it should be done with a real time clock rather than a "one action = one minute lost" clock where every useless actions play against you.

For the interface, you must understand that I don't want to solve dumbed down version of the most famous puzzles from the text adventure era. I don't want to click my way through the Babelfish or the Tea/No Tea puzzles, I want to solve them like people solved them back in those days. So, the game should feature a text interface, or at least a point and click interface with a text interface not unlike Leisure Suit Larry 7, or if a point and click interface is used for the entire game, a text parser GUI should be featured for such puzzles.

Very few line of text should be lost in the translation. A lot of these games selling point was their lengthy and humorous narration, reminiscent of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't want the animations and backgrounds to replace the narration, most if not every lines of narration should be featured in the remake.

These are the guidelines a text adventure remake should follow for me to play it. Anyway, good luck in your projects, there are so many adventure games out there that actually deserve remakes and so few actually get one.

Response:
Mostly, I do agree some things need a parser instead of being transformed into a point and click. Example the GUIDE, I was reluctant to remove the list of the entries, but now it has to be. It's actually more fun this way. Things are done by clock time and not like 30 clicks of the mouse. Timers are usually quite big to allow some fooling. If walking deads is what i understand as dead ends, no really that has to stay in, it's were this game's based off, trial and error.

Interface, well, I wouldn't want to spoil the original's fun and joy. As for your idea, that would sort of make the interface crowded. It is enough crowded as it is that there's an in-game tutorial. And we do like the Babel Fish as well(yukonhorror actually sticks that we don't mess this out and wants it perfect, that explains why I've remaked it 8 times), and the tea/no tea puzzle, which I found as quite on of the best. And which I would ruin if i allowed list on the GUIDE.

As for the narration we have added and not removed a single line of narration.

Part of the joy of text based games is the appearance of previously unseen items, which works best in a text based format. I'm thinking of the Babel Fish and No Tea parts of HHGTTG specifically.

You'd need to find something equally charming as the old semantic jokes, because you cannot just draw the old jokes and expect them to work.

Response:
That's what we're working on at this point.

Thoughts:
I do want this to be more simplified than the text-based(let's face it not all people find text-based good, which is bad because text-based adventure games, are quite the best) but I don't want this to be less challenging. I do want to give some helping hands to beginners, but not cause frustration to those who don't wish to be helped.

[Jared]

For the interface, you must understand that I don't want to solve dumbed down version of the most famous puzzles from the text adventure era. I don't want to click my way through the Babelfish or the Tea/No Tea puzzles, I want to solve them like people solved them back in those days. So, the game should feature a text interface, or at least a point and click interface with a text interface not unlike Leisure Suit Larry 7, or if a point and click interface is used for the entire game, a text parser GUI should be featured for such puzzles.

Very few line of text should be lost in the translation. A lot of these games selling point was their lengthy and humorous narration, reminiscent of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't want the animations and backgrounds to replace the narration, most if not every lines of narration should be featured in the remake.

But from this comment... do you really want graphical remakes? You're placing all the emphasis on text - gameplay through text, jokes through text. Surely graphics and text are akin to television and radio - one shows and the other tells. If most of the weight is being put on text, rather than graphics... surely it should be just text?

This is something I've been putting quite a bit of thought to because since playing the wonderfully obscure Bureaucracy: A paranoid fantasy I've had the idea of, sometime in the future, adapting it into a graphical game. BUT to me that doesn't mean having a few sprites standing around on screen while the player reads all of Douglas Adams' prose - it means looking at what the prose tells you, what the character thinks and how to work that into the game as dialogue and cutscenes and animation, looking at what bits only work in text, what new puzzles could replace them, etcetera etcetera.

Because, surely, the idea is to make a fun graphic adventure that people who have never heard of the original will enjoy? People who like the original can just play that easily enough and will probably prefer it anyway, so trying to make it form them seems like a bad idea..

[Radiant]

You stick to the game and add things that won't drop but instead improve quality? Or just remake it as it is?

Depends. If you're doing the latter, you may get asked at some point why you're putting all that effort into making a game that already exists. On the other hand, if you're doing the former, you may run into fans that do not appreciate whatever changes you've made. It's tricky business.

Bottom line is that it depends on what you're remaking, and that for certain games (particularly those that rely heavily on storyline, e.g. LOOM) you will be unable to please everyone.

[Dualnames]

I  love the part that I'm considered as a monkey.. monkey see monkey do. No that's not how it works. I've removed stuff that don't work, and I've added stuff that didn't exist at all. Yeah sure you can and play the original at which what I make will be inferior since I don't have Douglas to supervise. But nevertheless you can and read the entries of a Guide at the screen, but can you watch them? No. You can go and read the part that the words Ford what about my home travelling through a wormwhole but can you see the words and wormwhole? No. And this goes down to my opinion on the matter.

It's like making a movie out of a book. Book are always better. Go ask someone about the LOTR. Books let you imagine , and a movie just shows the directors point of view. The same happens here. To conclude, I'm trying to be as faithful as I can to the books and game, and I'm only trying to achieve this:

Give a similar level of quality experience as the original did. I'm not trying to give the game just visuals without depth.

[blueskirt]

This thread is starting to be hard to follow, anyway, to reply Jared and Dual:

But from this comment... do you really want graphical remakes? You're placing all the emphasis on text - gameplay through text, jokes through text. Surely graphics and text are akin to television and radio - one shows and the other tells. If most of the weight is being put on text, rather than graphics... surely it should be just text?

A good remake in my opinion should make an older gem playable to a broader public, it should mix the greatness of older games, with the accessibility of recent games (easier interface, less dead-ends and less unforgiving timers, etc.). Since the greatness of a lot of these older games was the writing, there should be as little text as possible lost in the conversion. Who in their right mind would want less Douglas Adams or less Steve Meretzky in their game, tell me? Same with the puzzles, they should be as rewarding as they were in the originals.

to me that doesn't mean having a few sprites standing around on screen while the player reads all of Douglas Adams' prose - it means looking at what the prose tells you, what the character thinks and how to work that into the game as dialogue and cutscenes and animation

But a graphical adventure game doesn't have to be absolutly in 3rd person perspective or features animations.

Because, surely, the idea is to make a fun graphic adventure that people who have never heard of the original will enjoy? People who like the original can just play that easily enough and will probably prefer it anyway, so trying to make it form them seems like a bad idea..

There's the persons who played and liked the original, there's the persons who never heard of them and there's the persons like me, who heard of the original but simply cannot play the original because of the bad design decisions that plagued this era, namely constant dead-ends and timers that not only become dead-ends or just outright kill you, but also remove the pleasure of exploring the game. And it's because I heard a lot of good things about the originals that I would like to play a remake that would be as close as possible to the original experiences yet accessible to a broader public than the hardcore IF players.

If walking deads is what i understand as dead ends, no really that has to stay in, it's were this game's based off, trial and error.

I still think dead-ends and walking deads are bad design desisions. When I fail I want to know I failed, I don't want to wander aimlessly looking for a puzzle solution that doesn't exist, nor do I want to keep on walking just to die several days later because of a mistake I did 3 days ago. Like Ron Gilbert said, if I need a jar of water on a space ship, and the jar of water can only be found on the planet, make sure a puzzle on the planet require me to take the jar of water before I board the space ship, or make sure someone on the planet hint me I'll need a jar of water later on. But if you want to keep dead-ends, so be it. I will probably try the game but it risks to face the same fate the original game faced on my computer.

[Dualnames]

This thread is starting to be hard to follow, anyway, to reply Jared and Dual:

A good remake in my opinion should make an older gem playable to a broader public, it should mix the greatness of older games, with the accessibility of recent games (easier interface, less dead-ends and less unforgiving timers, etc.). Since the greatness of a lot of these older games was the writing, there should be as little text as possible lost in the conversion. Who in their right mind would want less Douglas Adams or less Steve Meretzky in their game, tell me? Same with the puzzles, they should be as rewarding as they were in the originals.

But a graphical adventure game doesn't have to be absolutly in 3rd person perspective or features animations.

There's the persons who played and liked the original, there's the persons who never heard of them and there's the persons like me, who heard of the original but simply cannot play the original because of the bad design decisions that plagued this era, namely constant dead-ends and timers that not only become dead-ends or just outright kill you, but also remove the pleasure of exploring the game. And it's because I heard a lot of good things about the originals that I would like to play a remake that would be as close as possible to the original experiences yet accessible to a broader public than the hardcore IF players.

I still think dead-ends and walking deads are bad design desisions. When I fail I want to know I failed, I don't want to wander aimlessly looking for a puzzle solution that doesn't exist, nor do I want to keep on walking just to die several days later because of a mistake I did 3 days ago. Like Ron Gilbert said, if I need a jar of water on a space ship, and the jar of water can only be found on the planet, make sure a puzzle on the planet require me to take the jar of water before I board the space ship, or make sure someone on the planet hint me I'll need a jar of water later on. But if you want to keep dead-ends, so be it. I will probably try the game but it risks to face the same fate the original game faced on my computer.

Well, what I'm trying to fix for this game is that sometimes the game's difficulty is super-hard. That explains my point of view about the tool marvin needs puzzle. yukonhorror loves challenging games and that means if I followed most of his ideas that would make the game difficulty level insane. As for your anwer on the very last paragraph, yeah i'd hate that too. Example there's a junkmail on your yard, which if you ignore at the original you get to know you messed up 12 minutes later when you need it at the vogon ship. Which really sucks. insted I've put a 3 times warning when you exit the room.. In case you miss it, the game sort of responds, too bad you should have picked it up like response. Yukonhorror wanted this to be free. So that means if you get it or don;t get it the game doesn;t care. Many times the difficulty is uber. I'm trying to set this game's level to normal.

Ten Tools Puzzle:

Spoiler

That sort of explains the autosave feature. However still the game has some issues as for the ten tool puzzle that's actually the one that will haunt me forever. You need to have ten tools so that marvin randomly asks one of them otherwise if you miss one it will say the missing one. If that tool is accesible(into a place you can still visit) that's fine otherwise that will cause frustration. This also enables the game to be finished. Most dead ends end up in your death. Some however don't.

[close]

I really do allow about enough time to explore(time doesn;t progress when the game is running an interaction anyways) So at least of what I think you get enough time.

I actually do believe that this game dead-ends and various probabilities give this game enough freedom to do stuff. You can go and drop all your items and then pick them up, you can do it on HOG and then just pick some of them for a scenario..., and that's a thing that would be killed if you sort of didn;t alllow the game to interpret any situation. I'm mostly trying to save the player from doing wrong things.. so that I can minimize the chance of players being stuck..which might happen. I want most puzzles to be able to minimize the rooms they relate to to a minimum possible limit.
Example Babel Fish puzzle.

Spoiler

If you have all required items from earth, those are the gown thumb, and junkmail (only that's the one you can miss, which I'm making sure you won't)you can solve it with only but those. And if you get to lose the chance to get a babel fish you can just load the autosave and just start again. So it might take you a while to realise you should use mail on satchel but there's a hint for it. So Babel Fish puzzle is based on trial and error.

[close]

Most situations are sort of changable at any time. Some of them are not. You can go and not give the sandwich as Arthur but you can make up playing as Ford.

[Dave Gilbert]

If you want to remake a text-based game to a graphical one, that's fine.  Although it's probably best to remake a game that would really benefit from a point-and-click interface.  A game like Infocom's Hitchhiker's relied on its clever use of language and wordplay (even if a lot of those words translated to "I'm a game that hates you" - HHGTTG was an evil game!) It could represented visually, but you'd lose a lot of the experience in the process.  What do you think adding graphics would bring to that table?

[Jared]

A good remake in my opinion should make an older gem playable to a broader public,

We're in agreement so far..

it should mix the greatness of older games, with the accessibility of recent games (easier interface, less dead-ends and less unforgiving timers, etc.).

And agree... but this is in conflict with what you said just a moment ago about a remake needing a text a text parser. There's no way to really make a parser interface easier to use, especially if we're talking Infocom, and I think the parser is hard to see as anything but a step backwards in design. I know that old-skoolers are frequently dismissive of 'point-and-click', but there are plenty of ways to stump people in puzzle design (legitimately and logically) with a nice, easy-to-use interface.

Since the greatness of a lot of these older games was the writing, there should be as little text as possible lost in the conversion. Who in their right mind would want less Douglas Adams or less Steve Meretzky in their game, tell me?

Me. I don't think an unseen narrator shoving text into your face is good storytelling - yes, it's been used by Sierra but it's mostly a text adventure convention adopted by them due to the fact that graphics were so deficient at the time that they begun publishing adventure games. And, furthermore, Sierra were really, really good at it - when they continued using narration well into their hay-day it complemented the plot and never felt like it was taking away from it.

This doesn't mean that I believe in cutting all the text out - it just needs to be worked into the story in other ways and giving some careful consideration.

Same with the puzzles, they should be as rewarding as they were in the originals.

Well, of course. But we can't work on the assumption that they were perfect when they were made.

But a graphical adventure game doesn't have to be absolutly in 3rd person perspective or features animations.

No. But it works.

The more I read, the more it sounds like the Flash version of HHGTTG on the BBC website is what you want in a remake..

There's the persons who played and liked the original, there's the persons who never heard of them and there's the persons like me, who heard of the original but simply cannot play the original because of the bad design decisions that plagued this era, namely constant dead-ends and timers that not only become dead-ends or just outright kill you, but also remove the pleasure of exploring the game.

Well, I find them difficult to play because they have been made with the conventions of another era. So... I use walkthroughs. I know it's looked down upon, but these games really have become something of a different age.

And it's because I heard a lot of good things about the originals that I would like to play a remake that would be as close as possible to the original experiences yet accessible to a broader public than the hardcore IF players.

Well... each to their own. But text adventures and graphic adventures are entirely different media, and I think going halfway between the two can't be anything but a bad piece of design.

[Dualnames]

Ok, we surely agree about the narrator. I actually thought of an idea of using Douglas himself(sprited not photos) but well I don;t know.As for the bad design, I do believe you made your point in certain posts, there's really no need repeating yourself.I just get this feel if I even try to please you I'll unplease the rest, if I please the rest another part won't be pleased so this goes to the the very part that well, I can't really please everyone or all of you. The Journey is almost finished. It's hard to do things that almost no one around has done. I actually do wanna change things but I just can't go and add a bloody text parser. Yep there are puzzles you get to type stuff, but not all of them. Babel Fish puzzle is sort of a cool thing as it turned out to be. And well, I think, even if it turns out the very worst of what I'm hoping for, release this game. Even doing it will actually prove you wrong. People sometimes must do new things otherwise you'd be still playing HHGTG in a black screen never playing monkey island 2. That's called Evolution and I really want to bring some of it.. by doing something and going somewhere that no one has gone to the way I'm going to.

[Jared]

Sorry if you have misunderstood but my posts haven't been directed at you - when I see comments like those of Blueskirt about game design I'm interested in seeing what exactly they're trying to say and want more detail - so I quizz them on points, hear their arguments and present my own in return.

There's no need to take what I say personally - I haven't directed any comments at you (something I thought would be unnecessary seeing as we're across one another's perspective) and I haven't even tangentially mentioned your game. Yet now you seem to assume that I have done both. I didn't even want to post until I saw Blueskirt's comments.

I haven't missed anything have I? This sort of conversation isn't somehow in violation of AGS forum rules, is it? Just I've had two reprimands about it in this thread and I considered it pretty normal human interaction and doesn't seem to earn any ire in any other message boards that I've been on.

Anyway, I'll be leaving this thread alone now. So long.

[blueskirt]

Dualnames: You are reassuring me with bringing the game difficulty to normal instead of insane and mentionning the game will feature a text parser for some puzzles, I will most certainly try your remake.

Jared: Well, if you still happen to give a look at this thread:

And agree... but this is in conflict with what you said just a moment ago about a remake needing a text a text parser. There's no way to really make a parser interface easier to use, especially if we're talking Infocom, and I think the parser is hard to see as anything but a step backwards in design. I know that old-skoolers are frequently dismissive of 'point-and-click', but there are plenty of ways to stump people in puzzle design (legitimately and logically) with a nice, easy-to-use interface.

Like I said in my first post: text parser, or a mix of point and click and text parser not unlike LSL7, or point and click except for some classic puzzles that should be solved with text parser. It doesn't have to be absolutly text parser.

Also, I would be fine playing the flash version on the BBC website if it wasn't for the fact it include all the dead-ends, walking deads and timers that prevented me from enjoying the original in the first place.

Anyway, I'll be leaving that thread alone too. Good luck with your remake, Dualnames!

[Dualnames]

Well, two both of you, there's really no need to leave the thread. I'm actually taking anyone's well made point into serious consideration. I really do think that we have to connect a graphical and textual game and make something worth of it. That's the point of the thread anyway. I just want to know if there was a certain way.

Clarifying things:
Jared: I don't feel pissed about your posts. None of them. I just thought you sort of repeated yourself, considering you were referring to me, which you weren't so I do apologise. I do enjoy any critic based on something as long as it's going somewhere.

Also I'm thinking of adding ye old parser(this time enhanced) for the dialogs..
And concerning dead ends I've been fixing most of them.

Also I just realised Custom slots feature doesn't really help the player at all but creates a more overwhelming interface so I'm removing that.

Thanks to all people for posting(you can still do that), but in case no one does, I'd like to say a thanks. You've been helpful.

[mkennedy]

If you're interested I made a module to add text parser functionality to point and click games.
You can get it at:

http://www.rudolphuebe.com/suf/uploads/autoparsermodV2.zip

If you have any questions about it just let me know.

[Dualnames]

I've checked that one. Already. Anyway, I'm gonna Update the demo soon with REAL changes.