Which one do you think is better? I prefer graphic because there is a lot more detail put into the game. I hate the games where you have to type however, like The Black Cauldron or KQ1. Those are SOOOO annoying.
Huh? A lot of text adventures have plenty of detail.
I like text games. Scrabble, Boggle, Wheel of Fortune, etc., etc., etc.
i didnt think i'd like text, but i quite enjoyed anchorhead and trilby's notes, it was the atmosphere that kept me going mainly.
I prefer a grahical GUI but if the game has an interesting story & puzzles a text parser wouldn't make it less enjoyable to me, maybe even better. I wouldn't change the text pardser in Larry 1, QFG2 or Trilby's Notes. Although I am waiting for the QFG2 remake it's more for the updated graphics than the graphical GUI. Note, though, that if you make a text GUI you have to include a wide enough verb and noun vocabulary so the game would understand what you're typing most of time. Example: some people use "get" some people use "take". If there's a closet you have to make "closet" "dresser" "cabinet" all apply to the same object.
As for completely text and no graphics at all, which the correct genre to name it is Interactive Fiction I'm not fond of the computer game genre of IF. The technology is available for creating a graphical adventure, I don't see any advantage in an IF.
The wonderful thing about IF was the freedom it provided. As much detail as you liked, and no hassle of drawing or modelling or whatever. Also, the parser allowed very interesting and varied interactions.
However - modern games are capable of all that. With graphics.
Bottom line - IF or graphic, who cares? Just give me a good game!
I myself never really played much of those games that didn't have any graphics at all, but I really used to enjoy Sierra's text parser games. It was, like many have already said, because of the freedom it provided.
But I do like a graphical GUI just as much. Also I would enjoy a completely text based game too, if it was written well and had a good story. So...
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires
Bottom line - IF or graphic, who cares? Just give me a good game!
Amen...
Imho, both are nice but it really depends on the implementation. A point-n-click is probably more userfriendly, but annoying if it lacks keyboard support or has a lot of pixelhunting. A typing system is generally more versatile, but annoying if the parser is poor.
I liked those classic text adventures where you could type unimportant actions like ''sing'', ''run'', ''jump''... And they give you funny responses. (Pick Nose anyone?)
Quote from: Yoda Man on Sun 06/08/2006 02:36:54
Which one do you think is better? I prefer graphic because there is a lot more detail put into the game. I hate the games where you have to type however, like The Black Cauldron or KQ1. Those are SOOOO annoying.
play trilby's notes and you're mind may change.
I'm very surprised that no one mentioned Zork. Maybe everyone else just isn't quite that old. But the orginal Zork was a great game done in all text. The parser understood a lot of different verbs and nouns. Still though I do perfer the graphic adventures but to me it doesn't really matter if they are point and click or made with a text parser......as long as the parser is reasonably flexible. Trilby's Notes was done quite well with the text parser. So I guess like others mentioned, I don't really care either way as long as the game keeps my interest and well written.
Thewalrus
Goo, goo, ga, joob!!!!!!!
Hey Chief, I'm 18, and I remember Zork fondly. ;D
I have a lot of good memories of that White House...
I only tried playing 1 IF and that was when i had a C64 and had a game called black knight. cant remember much of it appart fromm if i went into some church and walked too far east i got lynched by a mob of angry people...it sucked. dont mind typing games like Lsl or as mentioned trilby's notes(brilliant!) cause they are more challenging than your ceneral point and click game.
It's so disappointing that lovers of the genre would wait for Trilby's Notes to give IF any credit. It's not like oh... there were ever games like A Mind Forever Voyaging (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=14), or Gateway 2 (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=446) or Trinity (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=1921) that were worthwhile before Yahtzee took a stab at the genre.
Generally, this thread baffles.
The only issue I have with text adventures is that it's rather easy to get lost, for someone like me with a rather poor sense of direction :D
So it's kind of my problem really, but still - I love that game Anchorhead, but I get lost so bloody easily....:(
yeah, i had to restart anchorhead because i got disorientated at some wall.
Quote from: Helm on Mon 07/08/2006 14:22:39
It's not like oh... there were ever games like A Mind Forever Voyaging (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=14), or Gateway 2 (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=446) or Trinity (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=1921) that were worthwhile before Yahtzee took a stab at the genre.
Enchanter trilogy, Spellcasting 101, and of course HHGTG!
That said, I must say I seriously don't get Trinity. After playing through it (and I admit to resorting to a walkthrough for some of the more obtuse puzzles) it didn't evoke any reaction from me other than a puzzled 'huh?'
Quote from: MarkPhantom on Mon 07/08/2006 14:30:19
The only issue I have with text adventures is that it's rather easy to get lost, for someone like me with a rather poor sense of direction :D
Well, buy a sheet of graph paper and draw a map! In nearly all situations in most games the orientation of rooms makes a lot of reasonable sense (excluding the occasional maze, of course, but you're supposed to get lost in those).
Quote from: Radiant on Mon 07/08/2006 18:57:15
Well, buy a sheet of graph paper and draw a map! In nearly all situations in most games the orientation of rooms makes a lot of reasonable sense (excluding the occasional maze, of course, but you're supposed to get lost in those).
Ah yes. Silly me :p *makes note* Sorry! It's just the more obscure city maps that confuse the hell out of me - the city of Anchorhead is pretty vast.
I must agree with MarkPhantom. I'm perfectly prepared to draw a map, but I have a very visual memory. I remember places by what they look like and find it very difficult to navigate without something visual to grab on to. There are plenty of text adventures that I loved, but I never enjoyed the navigation.
By text adventures i mean pure text- no graphics at all, no music. A vry unrealistic adventure.
I wish more games would experiment with the idea Leisure Suit Larry 7 used: An icon driven interface *and* a text parser.
Quote from: Yoda Man on Mon 07/08/2006 21:25:06
By text adventures i meanÃ, pure text- no graphics at all, no music. A vry unrealistic adventure.
You mean like... books?
Preposterous!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/SANTAELBURRITO/diagram.jpg
Quote from: Ghormak on Mon 07/08/2006 21:39:43
Quote from: Yoda Man on Mon 07/08/2006 21:25:06
By text adventures i mean pure text- no graphics at all, no music. A vry unrealistic adventure.
You mean like... books?
Preposterous!
Like the very first text adventures- I remember a King Arthur game or something. Yes, kind of like an interactive book.
I'm not sure which I prefer, but one advantage of text based games is I can specify exactly what I'd like to do, for example
> BURN YODA MAN
"Burn Yoda Man with what?"
>BURN YODA MAN WITH BURNSAUCE
>pick up key
>I don't understand "UP"
>pick key
>You can't use the "KEY" in that way.
>Quit
>Quit? Y/N
>Y
The death of the text parser. Natural selection in all it's glory.
> Put everything except the green key in the linen bag
Ok.
> Give it to the squirrel
Which squirrel do you mean, the tall squirrel or the fat squirrel?
> Tall
Ok.
> Tall squirrel, go east then north then throw the bag into the volcano
Ok.
Don't bash parsers until you've played the good parsers.
Quote from: scotch on Mon 07/08/2006 22:26:59
I'm not sure which I prefer, but one advantage of text based games is I can specify exactly what I'd like to do, for example
> BURN YODA MAN
What does almost everyone here have against me? They ignore the thread of my new in production game and they ignore my Critic Lounge posts. :(
It's not you, it's what you write.
Look at your first post here! You dismiss an entire genre, a genre that has many brilliant games, on the grounds that "typing is SOOOOO annoying!"Ã, I mean what the hell!
I guess it's not my writing, it's my opinion that you have against me. So much for freedom of speech. :(
I just find text adventures annoying because they are too mucg like books. Why would I want to go on my computer to do that kind of thing? Why not just go in my room and read something?
I remember playing a text adventure game back in the 80's called Cutthroats. Even though it was all text, every room i imagined in my head, and the game became alot of fun, although very tough as i never finished it.
I guess with text adventures you can imagine whatever you want. I kept picturing the island i was on as the island of Sweethaven from the movie Popeye. Now that is strange. :)
If i can remember correctly, there was somebody following me across the map in the game, and i started to get scared because i didn't know what was gonna happen.
So, i have had great times with both genre of adventure games. Oh, the memories.... :)
Shawn
I dunno. I guess text adventures just aren't my thing. I do remember the black cauldron being kinda fun for a while, but it got hard since you didn't know what you were supposed to do.
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 00:39:27
I guess it's not my writing, it's my opinion that you have against me. So much for freedom of speech. :(Ã,Â
I just find text adventures annoying because they are too mucg like books. Why would I want to go on my computer to do that kind of thing? Why not just go in my room and read something?Ã,Â
Freedom of speech is the ability to state your opinion without being punished.
Freedom of speech is not stating your opinion and having everyone who hears it automatically agree with you.
I'm sorry, Yoda Man. You have been eaten by a grue.
Quote from: Pesty on Tue 08/08/2006 01:14:18
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 00:39:27
I guess it's not my writing, it's my opinion that you have against me. So much for freedom of speech. :(
I just find text adventures annoying because they are too mucg like books. Why would I want to go on my computer to do that kind of thing? Why not just go in my room and read something?
Freedom of speech is the ability to state your opinion without being punished.
Freedom of speech is not stating your opinion and having everyone who hears it automatically agree with you.
I'm sorry, Yoda Man. You have been eaten by a grue.
One time I spoke out against homosexuals and it seemed like the whole forum was burning against me. So what if I don't like text adventures? Come kill me, see if I care.
Quote> Put everything except the green key in the linen bag
Ok.
> Give it to the squirrel
I doubt any parser would be intelligent enough to know what 'it' is.
Well, it's like this..... some of us didn't have the luxury of having graphical adventures at first. They just didn't exsist. Sooooo, at that time if you wanted to play an adventure game it was text and that was that. I personally consider Zork to be one of the best adventure games ever. And when I say adventure, I mean adventure, I would hardly consider Zork an IF game.
Thewalrus
Goo, goo, ga, joob!!!!!!!
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 03:28:37
One time I spoke out against homosexuals and it seemed like the whole forum was burning against me. So what if I don't like text adventures? Come kill me, see if I care.
While I have no idea what you're talking about with the homosexuals I just want to emphasize Pete's point.
Yodaman, you can and you did write that you don't like text adventures, and people disagreed with you. That is freedom of speech at work. While the term doesn't really apply, as Pete pointed out, you were not censored and your posts were not deleted. You have the freedom to say you don't like text adventures for whatever reason.
No one is going to kill you. I don't even know how we would.
Quote from: MrColossal on Tue 08/08/2006 03:45:29
No one is going to kill you. I don't even know how we would.
Especially seeing as how he's already dead, having been eaten by a grue.
Should've brought a lantern with you, Yoda Man. Then maybe you would not be in this predicament.
I'm just saying that even though people don't agree with my dislike of text games, they can at least respect my opinion. Now let's get back on topic, shall we? Oh, by the way MrCollossal, the homosexual thing was in a thread way back called Bone: Out From Boneville in the general discussion. Pretty obscure, eh? A thread about a game I was trying to make (until it was criticized by 75% of everyone) turns into a thread about homosexuals, racism, sexism, etc. :)
Quote from: Ghormak on Tue 08/08/2006 00:33:41
It's not you, it's what you write.
Well, what did I write wrong in the thread for my new in production game, David Smith: Private Investigator? Most people ignored that. Heck, I doubt anyone that has posted in this thread has even heard of it. Sorry for rambling.
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 04:13:58
Well, what did I write wrong in the thread for my new in production game, David Smith: Private Investigator? Most people ignored that. Heck, I doubt anyone that has posted in this thread has even heard of it. Sorry for rambling.
Now that we've pinpointed the real problem here, maybe you should get over yourself, stop bitching about text adventures without giving a reasonable argument against them and work on your game. People pay more attention to released games than GIP threads because 90% of the games posted in the GIP forum are forgotten and abandoned by their creator.
Fine, maybe I will, gosh! ::)
Don't roll your eyes at me young man!
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 04:13:58
I'm just saying that even though people don't agree with my dislike of text games, they can at least respect my opinion. Now let's get back on topic, shall we?
Okay, but the problem with this potential interesting topic is that you've asked which is better, text adventure or graphical adventure. You might have well have asked: 'novels or theatre - which is best?'
It doesn't matter which medium is 'best' it would be far more interesting to identify the most enjoyable characteristics of both text and graphical adventures.
This would also mean you justifying your dislike of text adventures. You can't rightly ask 'so what if I don't like text adventures?' in a debate
you started about IF and graphical adventures.
Both of them have their pros and cons, and even though I was brought up on Grahpics adventures (sweet Monkey Island) I have enjoyed IF games also. Even if I do get lost all the time.
One other thing I hate about text games is that for the most part you have to type in a specific thing. Pick up or take, anyone?
I dunno, in games like Gateway II you can use the mouse to string together sentences rather than type them in. I find this approach better since you know exactly what verbs are available.
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 15:04:33
One other thing I hate about text games is that for the most part you have to type in a specific thing. Pick up or take, anyone?
I can't think of a IF game that didn't consider 'pick up' 'take' and 'get' to be synonyms. I'm glad you're supporting your objections to text adventures, but I'm not sure that's fair.
You might as well argue that graphical adventures are bad because the characters walk too slowly. Occasionally they do, but not often.
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 15:04:33
One other thing I hate about text games is that for the most part you have to type in a specific thing. Pick up or take, anyone?
It is ironic how most people who, for whatever personal reason, do not like text adventures, feel the need to 'substantiate' their opinion by resorting to this old chestnut, which is an extreme exaggeration at best. It's like saying you hate graphical adventure games because each and every one of them requires excessive pixel hunting in every single room.
It seems that most people who don't like text parsers have never played any parser game except something extremely amateurish and/or any Sierra game (all of which admittedly have a mediocre parser at best), or played such games when they were too young and unskilled in English, and blame the text parser for not understanding them. Anyone who has played just a single Infocommie or Legend game, or even The Hobbit, would know how versatile a good parser is, and how many synonyms and lexical constructs it understands.
Like I said earlier today, don't go bashing text parsers if you haven't played a game with a good parser (which indeed are plentiful, and have been for over a decade).
Quote from: ProgZmax on Tue 08/08/2006 15:08:19
I dunno, in games like Gateway II you can use the mouse to string together sentences rather than type them in. I find this approach better since you know exactly what verbs are available.
Yeah, but Gateway 2's a graphic adventure game. Radiant: I'm not bashing text parsers, I'm bashing the whole genre. := And I'm not bashing it for it's word recognition, I just don't prefer the genre.
It seems like most of your favour text adventures- why is that?
Quote from: Yoda Man on Tue 08/08/2006 16:36:47
It seems like most of your favour text adventures- why is that?
Fast gameplay. Better puzzles. Creative approaches. Versatility.
Likely the same reason people still read books when there are movies out there - an evocative description can often set the mood better than graphics. For instance, a theme of 'desolation' is easier to convey in words than pictures, and requiring the player to click the eye cursor around to find the words just isn't the same.
Gateway is IF through and through. Just 'cause you see graphics on the screen doesn't make it a pointless clickery game.
Before this reaches a head, let's not forget graphic aventures are good too. IF adventures are still excellent though. I just wanted to point that out. The natural advantages of a graphic adventures are that it allows for a more cinematic style - problem is, this style isn't always what people want to see...so here we have the endlessly circular debate.
I don't see any circular debate. I see some users pushing ignorant opinions. I respect both good graphical adventure games, and good IF. Most should be able to also if they give either a decent chance.
Then why do most of you who try to make games make graphic adventure games, not IF?
Because we like graphic adventure games and do not see any ridiculous, arbitrary competition between the two schools of adventure games?
Also, a lot of us have tried to make IF games at one time or another. It's very difficult if you aren't a confident writer, and we mostly give up when we read over our own stuff.
Furthermore, this is called AGS forums, there'll be no surprised that there're more talks about graphical adventure games here, as that's what AGS was designed mainly to create.
There's certainly no point to argue which is better, each of which certainly has its own charm and unique characteristics which the other may not be able to fake beat.
At this point I'd just like to plug my new project, which will probably never be finished anyway - an original story which some people know about, being done because I found I have a story to tell... and also to showcase the engine/template I've been working on, a sort of Gateway template. It also relieves me from the constraint of not being an artist, and still allowing it not to hurt me... AND to still use AGS. BTW, building a decent parser that even accepts pronouns (it, he, she, them) and "all" wasn't all that hard. AGS is truly magnificent.
Why am I saying this?
QuoteThen why do most of you who try to make games make graphic adventure games, not IF?
Some of us try to. And some of us try to use AGS to do it. I'm certainly not the first person to, someone else made an IF demo game a long time ago (I think it's in Bycycle for Slugs...), and since then Bernie has also started on a similar project...
Anyone who has played both the original Zorks and Zork:Grand Inquisitor will know that a decent game can transfer well into either IF or Graphical Adventure. I particularly loved in Z:GI how death would be presented in the old IF style.
IF is an oppertunity to allow a maker's individual style, atmosphere and charm to come to the surface. It certainly is more difficult than graphics to implement effectivly - drawing a fellow is a lot more difficult than depicting him using flowing prose, especially if your going for a particular effect. But it establishes a connection with the player that is very difficult to pull off with graphics.
(Starship Titanic, anyone? Despite the illogical puzzles, it was an excellent and very innovative game. The parsar for communicating with the robots was utterly mindblowing in terms of what could be understood.)
At some point, I really want to do a text adventure that implements graphics and music. I heard of a template in progress that would combine a parser with an LEC style interface, is that still kicking around?
Besides, the FREEDOM a parser gives you...
>Push Yoda Man down bottomless pit
You feel a moral sense of guilt at inflicting a rather cruel punishment on a fellow forumite, simply because he happens to share a conflicting opinion.
As you watch him plummet and fade from view, it swiftly passes.
See? Jus' kidding Chief, tis all good. ;)
Does everyone remember when Monkey Island when IF for a while?
Use manual of style on shredder
Pick up Stylish Confetti
Use stylish confetti on Heavily Armed Clown
>WHEEE!!!!
Quote from: ProgZmax on Tue 08/08/2006 03:33:15
Quote> Put everything except the green key in the linen bag
Ok.
> Give it to the squirrel
I doubt any parser would be intelligent enough to know what 'it' is.
Inform's parser replaces 'it' with the item that was adressed last (by the player or even the parser itself), in this case the linen bag. I'm pretty sure HUGO and TADS recognize it, too.
Does anyone know of any game design engines to create a strictly text based adventure game??? Just wondering.......
Thewalrus
Goo, goo, ga, joob!!!!
"Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come."
Yes, somebody does know. (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=23980.0) :P
QuoteInform's parser replaces 'it' with the item that was adressed last (by the player or even the parser itself), in this case the linen bag. I'm pretty sure HUGO and TADS recognize it, too.
That's pretty cool, though I've never encountered one that did this.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/zork1.html
> look at mailbox
> open it