8 ms·
Complex game worlds, simple text interfaces (2015)
- anthk 5y agoNethack/Slashem is complex (and most roguelikes too) and text based.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoCalling Nethack text based is a little disingenuous. It uses text characters as tile-based graphics, which is a different thing.
- anthk 5y agoBoth. You get the game messages by text. Call it TUI based. Ok, well. We'll define text something being able to be printed on a teletype. Modern Z Machine games have complex-ish worlds, but roguelikes' objects have a far more emergent gameplay. Then, MUDs. A lot of them have pretty complex worlds simulations.
- justusthane 5y agoHe mentions that specifically in his "explainer" video (and uses Rogue itself as an example: https://youtu.be/CDDYeJznOhY?t=223 https://youtu.be/CDDYeJznOhY?t=223
- LanternLight83 5y agoI really love the ideas expressed here and on the home page, especially (ie., just personally, a side-note if context) as text adventure games have been a focal point between my non-gameing SO and I in an ongoing debate on where to draw the line on what counts as a "game". Anyone got with experience with the "Knights of San Francisco"? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=egamebook.com.flutteregamebook&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=egamebook.com....
- timvdalen 5y agoI bought it a few weeks ago after I got a newsletter about it (I guess I signed up after playing that first demo), but I haven't had time to play it yet. The main menu art and music is cool, though.
- tpudlik 5y agoI bought and played it after reading this piece. It's a small but enjoyable game; if you're at all intrigued, I'd encourage checking it out!
- Quequau 5y agoThis seems like something that might dovetail rather neatly with some of the work that Richard Evans has done. "Little Text People" for example.
- squeegmeister 5y agoAre there any games you'd recommend by him?
- Quequau 5y agoHe was the AI lead on The Sims 3 and He designed and implemented the AI for Black & White. Back in the day he gave a couple of talks about using logic systems & logic programming to control NPC behaviour. The end result of that work went into Little Text People.
- pugworthy 5y agoA good system for describing a game could also be used to help create narration of movies for visually impaired people. Or even descriptions of audio for those with hearing loss.
- filiph 5y agoHi, I'm the author. One of the coolest things I learned after releasing the game was that it's played by folks with visual impairment. It's "playable with issues" (meaning I have work to do), but playable nonetheless.
- pugworthy 5y agoHey very cool! Glad you've had a chance to try that. If you've never done it, find a TV and movie or show that has audio descriptions of visuals for visually impaired audiences. It's kind of an interesting experience to hear a voice over describing the scene. One of my favorites was the description of the opening Paramount logo animation. Something like, "Stars flying from a dark sky skim across the surface of a calm lake towards a distant mountain, then circle the mountain as the name 'Paramount' appears"
- hikarudo 5y agoOff topic: shows with audio descriptions are also great for learning foreign languages. You basically get a voice narrating what is happening on screen. "Oh, so that's how you say 'crouching' in Japanese!"
- EvanKelly 5y agoPerhaps it was just the time in my life that I played it, but the most immersive experience I had playing a game was a text based MUD called Achaea. I've tried to recapture that experience unsuccessfully. The lack of focus on graphics meant that complexity of description and systems didn't need to have visual work to go along with it, which allowed for much more complex systems than I'd seen in any game at the time.
- haolez 5y agoI have the same book regarding fiction books vs series or movies. The books have a lot more depth and are more creative in my experience.
- akudha 5y agoI feel the same. I think with movies, we don’t have put in any effort at all. We just sit there and watch. With books, it is a lot more effort - not just reading, but imagining while reading. Maybe that extra effort makes it more enjoyable and valuable?
- Sophistifunk 5y agoSeems likely it simply makes it "stick" better, the same way writing down facts as you learn them helps vs simply sitting passively and soaking it in. The "(re)-creation" part taking place in your head helps to cement things.
- Fellshard 5y agoIron Realms did a good job with systems like that, as did other MUDs. When a fair amount of the game systems rely more on player construction and engagement to shape events, the world comes alive - the game becomes a framework for player interaction, whether by combat, dialogue, or politics.
- Agentlien 5y agoAchaea was absolutely magical with everything being run by the players. It's still around, but I haven't played it since ca 2004. Part of the immersion was how strict the RP was. You weren't even allowed to break character in the public chat. From the newbie guide: In Achaea, you are playing the role of your character, not yourself. Your character is of the realm of Achaea and knows nothing about concepts like computers, the internet, the Boston Red Sox, or anything that does not exist in the world of Achaea. You must remain "in-character" (IC) just about everywhere. There are a few exceptions, such as in private conversation with someone else who does not mind if you go "out-of-character" (OOC). There can be administrative consequences for going OOC publicly, so be careful! If another adventurer warns you that you are exhibiting "insanity" or acting "insane", be aware that the word "insanity" in Achaea usually refers to OOC behaviour.
- zem 5y agoi've been thinking a lot lately about how i could design a civ-like game with a core mechanic more like hamurabi [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamurabi_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamurabi_(video_game)]. the output needn't be purely textual (e.g. the game could display a map, or graphics of various entities), but the input would just involve making decisions about various variables, and the simulation engine would take care of the rest and show you the outcome.
- EvanKelly 5y agoMaybe not quite what you're talking about, but https://www.nationstates.net/ https://www.nationstates.net/ is almost like Model UN the game. Played a bit with friends back in the day, but missing some of the mechanics of Civ
- filiph 5y agoYou might enjoy King of Dragon Pass and newer games from that same developer (https://sixages.com/ https://sixages.com/).
- filiph 5y agoOh, and Warsim: The Realm of Aslona.
- zem 5y agowarsim looks beautiful too. interesting combination of kingdom management and an actual player character.
- filiph 5y agoIt was my go-to game for a while. It was funny, because I bought this high end gaming laptop with real-time raytracing support and whatnot and then used it to play a game that is literally just text and some ASCII art in a terminal-like window. For me, it's a winning combination of a) quick to start, b) easy to "pause" (it's not realtime), c) lightweight and d) high-level strategy. Unfortunately, it was lacking depth at the time I played it (a few years back). I didn't mind, though. It was a casual fix, like playing Tetris. Anyway, definitely recommend picking it up. And it's by a solo dev, so there's an authorial quality to it, too.
- nahuel0x 5y agojust try AI Dungeon
- filiph 5y agoAuthor of the game here. I don't mention it in the article or the video, but AI Dungeon is exactly what I didn't set out to do. GPT-2/3-based games are cool, but they have no ground truth.
- Multicomp 5y agoI'd love to know the 'design patterns' of works like this Knights of San Francisco game. Did the author use a workflow engine, a rules engine, functional event sourcing, a nested pyramid of if-then-else doom? I have a sense that this space is somewhat unexplored. Text-based game world simulation is a relatively underdocumented (to my eyes) form of the 'game UI overtop a database manipulated with game logic rules' type of games, of which Simulation games are at the complex end of. There are things like Twine and Inky that offer variables and conditionals to prewritten bodies of text, but doing composable texts worlds that change their state based on the accumulated choices of players over the course of their time seems to be a complex feature to build and extend, whether in Twine or another tool. Dialog simulation systems that remember what options you've done and give you additional options or changes over the course of the game are sold as products online. Heck, someone recently patented a 'grudge' system that a popular game (League of Legends?) used. Or maybe I've just been looking too closely at it. I've been working slowly for about the past 2 years on an automation system for a tabletop RPG (non D-20 system) to speed up battle generation & resolution, trying to incorporate all of the various rules that say 'in X scenario, if Y conditions are met, gather this information from the user, then apply its Z effect like so, but also let the DM / user change any of the above or ignore the entire thing before you do so', so while I've ordered Designing Data Intensive Applications in hopes of gaining more insights, this problem certainly seems like a big thing to chew on from my self-taught programmer's POV right now.
- filiph 5y agoAuthor here. The game has several levels (explored more in my 2017 "fractal stories article"[1]) - from top to bottom it can be something like > you're in a room > you're talking to this person > you're in this branch of the conversation OR > you're in another location > you're in a fight with these two monsters > monster A is swinging at you with an axe > you've deflected that swing and have an opportunity to counter-attack It's basically a stack of situations. To answer your question, the design patterns differ according to the situation. The roaming between the locations is relatively simple node-navigation (except we need to track from which node we come to each location, for example, and we can skip through visited nodes that haven't changed). The dialogue can be something very similar to ink [2]. The combat is similar to roguelikes, where it's turnbased, but as a player, you only "see" your own moves, and the other moves happen in between. I do track of time on the level of milliseconds, and I have moves that take more or less time, also depending on who makes them (an agile goblin readies a sword much quicker than an old man stands up from the ground). I like your idea of a TRPG helper. I was thinking of something similar. Like, have an app for combat only, where you set up the combatants, and then let the DM simulate effects of different actions done to those combatants. As you say, in TTRPG it's important for the DM to be able to bypass the system, make an exception, etc. But I'd say that 80% of the time, the DM can just report the effect back to the players. And it takes them much less time and mental effort. (Especially if we're talking about one of the more simulationist TRPGs like Blade of the Iron Throne [3].) [1]: https://filiph.medium.com/skyrim-rendered-in-text-1899548ab2c4 https://filiph.medium.com/skyrim-rendered-in-text-1899548ab2... [2]: https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/ https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/ [3]: http://ironthronepub.com/ http://ironthronepub.com/ (Edit: format)
- failrate 5y agoGood read. An interesting idea would be to have 3 good options shuffled up with 2 bad ones.