Monthly Archives: February 2008

Gilbert interview

February 27, 2008

Just wanted to point out a new interview posted over at Eurogamer with Ron Gilbert, he of Monkey Island fame. Gilbert was recently hired as creative director at Hothead Games to assist with their upcoming games, “Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness” and “Deathspank”. I’m not a Penny Arcade fan, so the former doesn’t really appeal to me very much — particularly the way Gilbert describes it:

“It’s kind of a light adventure game; there aren’t going to be these really intricate, mind-boggling puzzles you would find in Monkey Island.”

The latter, however, sounds a bit more intriguing, although not much has been revealed about it except that it will be released episodically — which apparently is the hip new thing these days. Said Gilbert:

“The adventure game aspects in Deathspank are a lot more traditional and hardcore. You are going to get a
[More...]

Category labels: adventure games, interactive fiction | Leave a comment

IF Beginners Comp

February 26, 2008

I would be remiss if I did not mention the new IFBeginnersComp, organized by David Fisher and inspired by (and running parallel with) the Interactive Short Fiction Competition. The comp consists of games that are suitable for beginners to IF, which I think is a great idea for getting more people interested in IF.

There are five entries in the comp:

- Connect, by James Hudson
- Germania, by Vicente Munoz
- Limelight, by Justin Lowmaster
- Mrs. Pepper’s Nasty Secret, by Jim Aikin and Eric Eve
- The Sleeping Princess, by Molly, Alex, and Mark Engelberg

All were written in either TADS3 or Z-code, so they should run on most interpreters. I recommend Spatterlight for Mac users and Gargoyle for Windows/Linux users.

The public judging period goes until March 15th, and instructions for voting can be found here.

The important question, however, is whether the [More...]

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The Sentimental Sound of Spinning

February 20, 2008

Like many nerds, I get nostalgic when I think back to my childhood in the mid-late 70s and 80s and the computer games that I played during those years. Best I can remember, it started with the original Colossal Cave adventure on my dad’s enormous NorthStar Horizon computer, with its wooden case and dual 5.25″ floppy disk drives. Later, it was some of Scott Adams’s great text adventures like Adventureland and Pirate Adventure, and a host of other text-based games like the old Star Trek grid game and even an old game about the Battle of Midway very similar to this one. Not to mention a whole mess of games that I typed in by hand from David Ahl’s incredibly awesome book from 1978.

Then it was on to the famous Apple ][ days. I spent countless hours with so many games, I couldn't possibly remember [More...]

Category labels: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Vespers Update 2/18

February 18, 2008

Time for another update, the first since starting this blog. There has been some progress in a few areas, although perhaps not enough to warrant one of my more extensive blogs like on GarageGames.

Characters and Animation

Happily, we’ve finally replaced our previous animator, who left us for more prosperous opportunities. In his place we now have two individuals helping with the character animations, James and Matt, which I hardly have to say is a real gift. Progress on the new characters has been slow so far as we get those two up to speed and comfortable with the art flow. We’ve also made a few adjustments to what we were doing previously; in addition to entirely new character rigs, we’ve also been experimenting with a system to provide some pretty nifty lip syncing to go with the voices.

The lip sync process uses a software program called Magpie Pro, [More...]

Category labels: 3D/if, Vespers | 4 Comments

IGF Ramblings and XYZZY Awards

February 16, 2008

Just a couple of thoughts as I daydream about what it would be like to have a game nominated as a finalist for IGF…

I really wanted to try to go to GDC this year, finally, to get a glimpse of what it’s like. Alas, it was not to be. Another work trip this week made it too complicated to try and do both, especially with a busy week ahead of me and the in-laws coming for a visit this next weekend. Ah well. Next year, I think.

Speaking of which, thanks to TRC and Scorpia for posting and linking to the finalists for this year’s IGF. I’m a little disappointed that we don’t have any real adventure games in the list this year — I guess we haven’t seen enough innovation with graphical or text adventure games to catch the attention of the judges.

I was also [More...]

Category labels: indie games, interactive fiction | Leave a comment

Implementing an IF interface in 3D

February 12, 2008

Most of today’s graphical adventure games eschew text input and output for more streamlined, symbolic interfaces and visual feedback. The typical IF game is somewhat unique these days in that it relies entirely on text for both purposes. There are advantages and disadvantages to each interface type, but what I want to know is, could a hybrid IF-like interface work in a 3D graphical game?

Rather than going into the why, I thought I’d discuss the what, so at least you’ll have an idea what I’m talking about and how it might work. Cue the screen shot.

This is a shot of the kitchen, which is still a work in progress. The cupboard is to the left, a table is straight ahead, and a locked hatch in the floor is in the back to the right. At the bottom of the screen is the text output window. Here’s a [More...]

Category labels: 3D/if, Vespers | 3 Comments

A Verb Analysis in IF

February 9, 2008

While preparing some blogs to discuss things like my decision to use a text parser for command input, the oversimplification of the adventure game interface, and a demonstration of our hybrid interface, I started thinking about all of the different verbs used when playing interactive fiction. Because when you really get down to it, the real heart of an adventure game — aside from the salient features like writing, story, and characters — is arguably the verbs.

My impression is that the vast majority of commands in IF are limited to a few categories, like movement or examining. But once you get beyond those common actions, you find the jucier verbs, the ones that seem to have a larger impact on advancing the game and the story. Verbs like PUSH, PUT, WEAR, TURN, or BREAK. And then the rare verbs, the ones that are used maybe once or twice in [More...]

Category labels: Vespers, interactive fiction, text in games | 15 Comments

Al Lowe on adventure puzzles…and text?

February 6, 2008

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has posted a nice interview with Al Lowe, the creator of the famous Leisure Suit Larry series of games from Sierra. I recommend checking it out, as Al provides a nice perspective on those old Sierra games and the current adventure game market.

In it, Al makes an interesting observation that I think is important to reflect upon:

RPS: I’ve noticed that we seem to have lost our patience with puzzles. Developers seem to be frightened of a player getting stuck. Why do you think this happened?

AL: I have a definite thought on this. I hesitate to share it as I don’t want it to come out sounding the wrong way, but I believe that in the early 80s, you had to be ridiculously determined just to make those damned computers work. It was near impossible. Set high mem. Deal with QEMM. Customize [More...]

Category labels: Vespers, interactive fiction, text in games | 4 Comments

Catching up with Vespers

February 5, 2008

Although The Monk’s Brew is a new blog, I’ve been blogging for some time on my progress with Vespers over at GarageGames.com, the makers of the 3D engine I am using (Torque Game Engine). I thought the beginning of this blog would be a good place to collect those initial reports, in case anyone would ever care to go back and review my development process and progress. All new blogs from this point will be posted here on TMB. Here are the links to the blogs, in chronological order:

Chasing Windmills?
11/8/05
In which I first discuss my decision to pursue a hybrid of interactive fiction and a first-person 3D engine.

“Vespers3D”
12/30/05
In which I discuss my initial attempts at creating a text parser within the Torque Game Engine, and my enlistment of Jason Devlin and “Vespers” as the experimental game.

Vespers3D: The Adventure of Text Parsing
3/9/06
I which I discuss [More...]

Category labels: 3D/if, Vespers | Leave a comment

Welcome

February 4, 2008

Welcome to The Monk’s Brew.

This is a blog about a number of things, but if I had to summarize it, I would say that it is a blog that presents an indie game developer’s perspective on computer game design, development, and play. Although not limited to one game genre, the focus will tend to be on adventure games, including a focus on interactive fiction and its contributions to indie gaming and design.

The main context of this blog is the ongoing development of Vespers, an indie game project that I started back in 2006. As with many indie games, Vespers is an experiment. This experiment attempts to answer the question, “What would happen if you took a traditional interactive fiction game and dropped it into a 3D first-person graphic engine?” It is based upon the interactive fiction game of the same name, written by Jason [More...]

Category labels: Uncategorized | 2 Comments