Are Infocom games under a copywrite?

[Dave Gilbert]

Good old "T" remover!Ã,  My personal favorite was using it on the rabbit.

Some of the old text games would be impossible to convey graphically.Ã,  "Nord and Bert", with its beautiful pun puzzles, would be near impossible.Ã,  Likewise LGOP and it's "T" remover.

Some things should be left well-enough alone.Ã,  Activision was planning a graphical "Planetfall" at some point, and their priliminary screenshots of Floyd the Robot were a tremendous let-down.Ã,  It's not that the pictures were BAD, just the opposite, but nothing could ever compare with what I had in my head.Ã,  The same thing happened with Y'Gael in "Grand Inquisitor".Ã,  In "Wishbringer" and "Beyond Zork", she was a wise, grey-haired old woman.Ã,  Somehow, in Z:GI, she mysteriously turned into a young, ditzy valley girl.Ã,  This is a very small wrinkle in an otherwise fine game, but I couldn't help think "Huh?"

I used to think a graphical "A Mind Forever Voyaging" was impossible, but now it might just be.Ã,  GTA and its ilk have proven that detailed city-scapes are possible for games, but I doubt it would be able to make the same political impact as the original.Ã, 

Yeesh.Ã,  I played these games almost 20 years ago.Ã,  I'm such a nostalgia buff.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Well, surely, if things are done well... Dave, since you're also a reader of the Dark Tower series, I'll give you an example. I read the first four Dark Tower books with few illustrations - and what little there were were "sketch-style" - pencil lines, non-coloured, and they showed just a concept of the character. I made the journey into the Calla Bryn Sturgis with my own images of the ka-tet - Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and especially Oy (who I knew was *not* like what I imagined, but I liked the picture I had of him). And even such characters as Walter O'Dim, and especially Jonas DePape and Rhea of the Cöos. Not to mention the Tick-Tock man.

Anyway. I rode into Calla Bryn Sturgis with my own images of the characters. I saw the illustrations that accompanied the book. They were nice, yes, but I didn't pay them much attention. That wasn't Roland, and that wasn't Susannah, and so on. They were nice concepts, but not *my* concepts. And this is as it should be.

But when I bought DK7, I was flabberghasted. The illustrations are perfect. I was more than willing to surrender my own images - *those* were Jake and Oy, *that* was Pere Callahan. And *that* was Roland.

What do I mean by this? Sure, there's a difference between illustrating a novel and completely making it a graphic story. But it's not impossible. The important thing is to keep a close eye on the original, and try to capture what it gave off.

As for your question "why does everyone want to remake Zork"... surely there's a lot of potential in the game, were one to try and add an actual story to it. Nothing much, but certain story arcs. It is most certainly possible, as you'll remember by the intro I showed you a long time ago (Cindy the fairy).

[Sanguinous Rex]

Well, surely, if things are done well... Dave, since you're also a reader of the Dark Tower series, I'll give you an example. I read the first four Dark Tower books with few illustrations - and what little there were were "sketch-style" - pencil lines, non-coloured, and they showed just a concept of the character. I made the journey into the Calla Bryn Sturgis with my own images of the ka-tet - Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and especially Oy (who I knew was *not* like what I imagined, but I liked the picture I had of him). And even such characters as Walter O'Dim, and especially Jonas DePape and Rhea of the Cöos. Not to mention the Tick-Tock man.

Anyway. I rode into Calla Bryn Sturgis with my own images of the characters. I saw the illustrations that accompanied the book. They were nice, yes, but I didn't pay them much attention. That wasn't Roland, and that wasn't Susannah, and so on. They were nice concepts, but not *my* concepts. And this is as it should be.

But when I bought DK7, I was flabberghasted. The illustrations are perfect. I was more than willing to surrender my own images - *those* were Jake and Oy, *that* was Pere Callahan. And *that* was Roland.

What do I mean by this? Sure, there's a difference between illustrating a novel and completely making it a graphic story. But it's not impossible. The important thing is to keep a close eye on the original, and try to capture what it gave off.

As for your question "why does everyone want to remake Zork"... surely there's a lot of potential in the game, were one to try and add an actual story to it. Nothing much, but certain story arcs. It is most certainly possible, as you'll remember by the intro I showed you a long time ago (Cindy the fairy).

I agree with Brisby.  Now, this is a general answer to some other people:

You have to also realize that people want to cling to the past, heck I'm not saying this to bash anyone, God knows how often I look back and miss some things.  But this whole "Text games should stay text games" argument needs to be shelved right next to "Super Nintendo > All, RPG games all suck today!" argument that often pops up in certain circles.

I feel strongly that you can give a graphics to anything, I mean, oh no, some things will look different then what you envisioned in your head when you played them, but its just like anything someone reads a book, then watches the movie or reads the comic adaptation! 

Why Zork?  Because other then "Adventure" (and you guys should be thankful we're not going to redo that one LOL), Zork is considered by many to be the "Granddaddy" of text games.  I do believe that Zork can be re-made and that it will become a compelling and awesome adventure game.  Someone was correct though - you can't just make it a 'carbon copy' of the text Zork.  It needs to be a bit more dynamic, a bit more "alive" - and these considerations have been taken into, uh, consideration

***

Oh, and I'd LOVE to take up the challenge (one day) of bringing Leather Goddesses of Phobos into an 3d adventure game medium   I don't remember too much about that game, but I do recall being stuck in that damn mad scientist's lab in the body of a monkey!

lol

[Alun]

You have to also realize that people want to cling to the past, heck I'm not saying this to bash anyone, God knows how often I look back and miss some things.  But this whole "Text games should stay text games" argument needs to be shelved right next to "Super Nintendo > All, RPG games all suck today!" argument that often pops up in certain circles.

I don't think anyone has said that text games have to stay text games, period.  What has been said is that some text games wouldn't work well as graphic adventures.  Which is an entirely different argument.

but its just like anything someone reads a book, then watches the movie or reads the comic adaptation!

Not all books have movies or comic adaptations.  Nor should they.  Not everything in writing converts well to visuals.  I doubt there'll ever be a movie or comic version of Finnegan's Wake--and if there is, it'll certainly be completely different from reading the book!

(Egad...okay, just to make sure, I checked imdb.org to see just in case there had ever been a Finnegan's Wake movie made...and it turns out there was!  Well, I suppose it's inevitable that given any well-known book someone's going to try to make a movie out of it; I'm still not convinced that's necessarily a good idea...)

That being said, I'm not saying a good graphic adventure couldn't be made out of Zork.  But it would have to be changed a lot, and that change goes well beyond making it "more dynamic".  One problem is that plot tends to be considered an important graphic adventures nowadays, and Zork, as others have said, well, doesn't have one.  Of course, as Rui said, you can add a plot...but that's sort of the point; to make it into a good graphic adventure you'd have to change a lot.  It wouldn't be a graphical version of Zork as much as it would be a graphic adventure based (probably rather loosely) on Zork, which isn't the same thing.

Still, nothing's stopping you from doing it, if you want to.  I personally don't think every text adventure would be improved by being made into a graphic adventure, any more than I think every book would be improved by making it into a movie.  Some things work better in writing.  Still, if you really want to make a graphic adventure based on Zork, I wish you success.  I'm not trying to tell you not to do it; I'm just trying to explain where I think some of the other posters in this thread are coming from.

[lo_res_man]

  the question that begs asking is how do you do the gui? One of the beuties (and frustraition) of these games is the amount of things you can do. things that maybe useless, usefull, or deadly are often in the same room.  as well you can often have inbetween rooms that hav no purpose but expand the feeling of depth.as well a few keystrokes can describe somthing that can take weeks ( at least) to paint. This is a noble idea. but its going to take hella long.     

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

You just described something that is part of the actual process of converting the whole thing into text. It's nothing I haven't had thoughts about, in the past, when I dreamed of making "Babel" a graphic adventure.

I dunno, I think as long as people know the risks and caveats - and this seems to be the case - it's more than well worth the good ol' college try.

[lo_res_man]

Well I love a noble quest to do something impossible, Count me in!
I would be best at charactor sprites, and design. If I can get a hand on a microphone, I'll do voice acting.
May the project commence!