Simulating www searches in games

[GarageGothic]

I've been thinking about this for a long while, and I still haven't come up with a satisfying solution: How can you use the Internet (or rather, a simulation of it) in an adventure game without limiting the player too much?

Of course, I'm thinking here of the mystery/detective genre, which usually consist of interviewing people, reading books and sometimes even visiting museums. But is it realistic in this day and age to not allow the player character to go online?

The Uncertainty Machine allowed you to research the strange statuette on the Internet, by clicking the inventory object on the computer, but that was about it. Pleurghburg allowed you to receive e-mails and to search for addresses if you knew the name of a person, but only if you searched for the right name at the right time. Gabriel Knight 3 had a rather impressive occult database (imagined to be on the computer rather than the web) as well as a little used e-mail function.

The gameplay of mystery games consist of recovering information, but the puzzle nature of adventure games leads to strange strategies of withholding information. As an example, in GK1, how come Gabriel Knight could look up "Drachen" and "Drei" in a dictionary but not "Cabrit sans cor"? Maybe he didn't have a French dictionary on the shelf, but he could have gone to the library or another bookstore, in fact, he could just have asked someone in the street, as many people in New Orleans speak French. Logically, he should have been able to translate the words with ease, but because this is a game, a challenge, it must be made difficult.

The trouble with the Internet is that you can search for almost anything, and probably get a few hundred more or less relevant hits. Puzzle solved within seconds. How can you implement as basic a research tool as the Internet search engine in a game without making it too easy or too limited?

One solution would be to reduce the search topics to dialog options. This would by far be the easiest option (and the one I'm currently using) - If the character can ask people about something, he can also search for it on the Internet. But it's not very satisfying. I think the idea of typing the word you want to search for makes much more of a puzzle, actually finding the right keyword, knowing what you want rather than just clicking through all the options, is much more rewarding to the player. But then he could search for anything, relevant or not!

Anybody else considered this problem?

[Hobbes]

Staying on the topic of Gabriel Knight, have you given thought as to creating your own "internet" to use within the game?

GK3 came up with SIDNEY (Schattenjager Information Database blah blah blah). It was a laptop filled with game-specific information and lots of backgroundmaterial.

If you create a computersystem so finely attuned to your setting, it should be solved... right?

[Gilbert]

I never thought of that, but I think using the parser system may help a bit.

[Minimi]

yes I did, and I know 1 game that is a good example wich go's further in this, and thats X-Files  . That game is also with search on internet, and you can search for alot... but thats also all programmed. I think it should be possible, but then some guys need to work on a project that its gonna be a plugin, because it requires lots and lots of script!

[GarageGothic]

As you may know, my game Shadowplay is about movies, and I thought of doing a Sidney-like search engine related to films and industry people like actors and directors. But it's impossible really. It would mean creating a database of all movies with credit lists and all, because if you can search for some obscure movie related to the plot, why wouldn't you be able to find Casablanca or Wizard of Oz as well?

Edit: One option which I'm still looking into is to have limited searches (dialog style), but then link documents with hyperlinks - so if an actor was mentioned in a description of a film, it would link to their biography etc. I haven't found a way to implement this yet though (I could RawPrint text onto the screen, but the hotspots would be difficult to align with the text)

[Esseb]

You could always take the easy way out like adventure games of old (and new): Have the protagonist simply say "Why would I want to search for that?" when he searches for Casablanca .

[Miez]

Why not have your "in game internet search engine" come up with (say) five top results in response to hardcoded, prefab search queries? (that might become available if the player finds out more details). That way the player still has to sift through those five and find the right clue by him/herself. It saves you the trouble of trying to make a fully functional internet simulation.

[GarageGothic]

miez, that's a great idea. I really like that. I'm probably going to use something like that. Thanks for the idea.

Esseb, or how about this: Irrelevant searches give a bunch of hits - all porn!

Edit: Which allows for a new mini-game - close the pop-up-windows

[Goldmund]

I have www searches in Donna.
On the computer page there's the url bar for typing pages' addresses you've acquired, and the separate bar for searching.
When an important word is typed into the search bar, a page opens.
Also I've added some obvious responses ("sex" etc.), and you can search for people or places in the game, which gives a short (display message) paragraph about the thing you've asked for (eg "Joshua Romero - famous archaeologist, born 1937, works include: 'summer's eve', 'pyramid of illuminati', etc, etc) - it's not compulsory to finish a game, but the player can learn something more.
For other words, I simply gave "I didn't find anything interesting on this subject".
I haven't done this with parser, just compare strings.
I definitely think that this should be typed in, not a set of options to click like in a dialog-mode.

[LL Notorious B.I.G. Will C-H]

ak, i put a clever porn related answer then relaised i hadnt read the earlier comments properly. how embarresing  

[Hollister Man]

It would be an interesting idea if someone could make AGS access a database on disk, even a simple tab-separated one in notepad.  Then you could have a list that works like "if this word is included, add this choice to links"  Sample:

Lock-----------lockpicking made easy
------------------history of locks
------------------types of locks
------------------internet locks
Adventure----AGS Website (temporarily closed for repairs)
------------------Listing of author's favorite games
Sex------------adult content in games
------------------free XXX celeb nudes (brings up a cybernanny
------------------Avatar's guide to digital intercourse


Of course, this list could be put online for others to use and add to, and each one who used it could add their own relevant data for their game.

Just a thought.

[Minimi]

It would be an interesting idea if someone could make AGS access a database on disk, even a simple tab-separated one in notepad.  Then you could have a list that works like "if this word is included, add this choice to links"  Sample:

Lock-----------lockpicking made easy
------------------history of locks
------------------types of locks
------------------internet locks
Adventure----AGS Website (temporarily closed for repairs)
------------------Listing of author's favorite games
Sex------------adult content in games
------------------free XXX celeb nudes (brings up a cybernanny
------------------Avatar's guide to digital intercourse


Of course, this list could be put online for others to use and add to, and each one who used it could add their own relevant data for their game.

Just a thought.

yes that's an great idea! is it reachable?

[GarageGothic]

We discussed something similar in a thread a while ago:

http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=6740;start=msg82878#msg82878

Although I'm still not familar enough with AGS script to understand Dorcan's code, apparantly retrieving the text shouldn't be a problem as such. I think the biggest issue would be to emulate html (clickable links and such) well enough to make it feel like the web.

[Nostradamus]

Here's an idea:
When the player inputs a search keyword that is not in the relevant database you made, the search ends up going to a commercial webpage just like you end up when you put a non-existant address in IE.

[Hollister Man]

Another way would be to randomize the results.  Bring back five random pages.  The other option is to use the parser "synonym" system.  If you enter "bush" instead of "tree" it would work anyway.