The recent discussions of Paul's game The Fisherman's Quest and text adventures in general has made me want to redo my own text adventure game which was written for the Amiga many years ago, although never fully completed. To this end I have started to redesign the game based on what I can remember as I no longer have the original source code or plans.

The Search For The Lost Football is not as complex an adventure as Paul's, but it should still hopefully be an entertaining game.

I'll keep you updated on it's progress.

Kind regards,

Francis.

Well, same offer I made to Paul is open to you too ...

If you need any help with text, design, puzzles or proof-reading, testing etc. I should be able to get my head back in text mode (been in graphic adventure mode for a while).

I already have a bunch of conflicting ideas on why someone might be in search of a lost football ... some less obvious than others.

Sam.

Thanks Sam. I may need a hand to pad out some of the location descriptions, but I'll let you know nearer the time.

I confess that the premise of the game is a bit of an odd (lame?) one. The basic synopsis is that a boy loses his ball by kicking it through the window of an abandoned house. The game starts at the point of him about to try and break in to find his ball. The game includes the usual type of finding objects and solving puzzles associated with the genre.

I've now managed to remember most of the details regarding the locations, objects, puzzles and more importantly how they all fitted together. There were a number of flaws in my original game design so some thought is still required on how to redesign these parts.

Kind regards,

Francis.

No premise is lame ... as long as it's realised properly.

I like it - it immediately conjures up some ideas for me. Mostly The Trap Door related ones ...

I'll be eager to follow development ...

Sam.

I've started programming the game. So far I have the locations with basic descriptions and the ability to move about.

Very early development screenshot:



Kind regards,

Francis.

I love adventure games, the more the merrier

Looking good. MODE 7 adventure games always look more colourful but I'm always torn as to which I prefer, because they never seem to hold as much descriptive text on text as other games.

Definitely looking cool ...

Sam.

Personally I've always preferred text adventures in Mode 7 purely because I find it nicer to read than any other screen mode.

I've played some adventure games which use Mode 3 and I just didn't find it as comfortable playing those, especially over a long period of time.

Kind regards,

Francis.

Exactly. Torn.

I was just wondering if people prefer that a screen is cleared when they move to a new location so the description, etc. starts on a blank screen or if they prefer the new descriptions to be appended to what is already on the display.

I am kind of in two minds about it.

Kind regards,

Francis.

Toggle between them then.

I dunno. I can't remember having a strong feeling either way ...

Sam.

Mmmm. I'm same as Peter, although I perhaps have a slight edge to being able to see previous text, even if it's just because I've done an inventory and just want to refer to it without doing an 'Inventory' command again. Not that it's a big deal.

If you can do it as a user option as Peter says it would cover it all

Depends on how long your descriptions are really, if there quite large the previous one will scroll of the top of the screen so you won't be able to read it, so it becomes no good, if there short you'll be able to see the last few visited locations. If you're going to have short descriptions and not clear the screen, why not alternate the colour each time to make them easy to distinguish.

Some more rambling thoughts ...

If you go with the clear screen description approach, I think you should include a status panel consisting of points, time and maybe inventory items. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Infocom adventure had something like that and it worked quite well (tho don't think it cleared the screen).

Regarding scrolling, I'd say you could avoid being restricted by the screen size, if you can come up with a system where you can use the traditional SHIFT to step through the description and maybe use the cursor keys to go back up a certain amount.

One useful feature is the short/long description, where you get the full scene-setting description the first time you enter the room and then a shorter one with only the most pertinent information (maybe even just a title) when you return. Then you can use LOOK to get the full description. This makes it strikingly apparent when you find yourself in a new location and helps avoid confusion if you get dumped back to a previous location (it can get very annoying, if you start mapping something as a new room, when it isn't).

HTH,

Sam.

Thanks for the input guys.

I think that I would have to agree with Steve as I have slight preference myself for being able to see the previous text. I'm not too keen on having a switch to go between the two types.

@PaulD

I think that alternating the colour between descriptions could potentially be a bit confusing for the player. At present each element of the text (description, exits, visible objects, etc.) have a unique colour (see screenshot) so the descriptions will be broken up anyway.

@samwise

I was thinking about having long and short versions of the descriptions. As you say it is an excellent means of determining whether you have been at a specific location before. It's probably not that beneficial in this small (less than 20 locations) adventure, but it would certainly be of use in a larger adventure.

Kind regards,

Francis.

Hi guys,

I've just done a basic text encryption/decryption routine so that all of the location descriptions, objects, etc. for my adventure are encrypted and not easily readable.

A screenshot of the text encryption/decryption at work:


Kind regards,

Francis.

Looks good Francis, but the ciphertext appears to be the same length as the plaintext. I thought the biggest problem with text adventures on machines like the Beeb was the lack of memory size. Developers like Level 9 spent most of their time perfecting text compression routines, IIRC from a magazine article interview I read in the dim and distant past, which naturally results in unreadable text.

Is this something you're considering, or are you planning to keep the adventure small enough so that memory's not an issue?

Sam.

Hi Sam,

Yes you're right, the encrypted text is the same length as the unencrypted text since I haven't used any form of compression. The Search For The Lost Football is quite small so it should (in theory) fit comfortably within the constraints of a BBC B.

I have been looking at text compression as well which will be employed should this game outgrow the BBC's memory capacity or for future adventure games.

Another possibility I am looking at is only loading what I need when I need it, although this may possibly make things too slow. I'll need to try it and see.

Kind regards,

Francis.

Just a quick update.

I've managed to get the location descriptions stored as an external encrypted data file which I can then read from as and when I need to. It seems to work quite well.

The data file can store upto about 1000 characters for each location (which should hopefully be enough) and caters for full and abridged descriptions.

Took me a while though to remember how to use the file functions. I don't seem to have any decent documentation on the finer points such as using PTR#, but I've figured it out now.

Kind regards,

Francis.

@samwise

I've added my game to the wiki list of projects in development so that I can keep people updated from there. I've still to fill in the details however on the actual page.

I don't believe that I have the facility to create a discussion section on the forum so could you do this for me please?

Kind regards,

Francis.