Beginners Adventure

[Joefish]

I seem to remember reading a review of a more recently written detective mystery game, where you had a notebook that automatically filled itself out with clues, which you could then ask people about.
So again, that's jumping out of the context of the text adventure into a multi-choice list again; one that grows longer as the game goes on.
Seems a fairly common mechanic, although one that seems to work more smoothly in a point-and-click interface rather than pure text. And better on a system with the capacity to store loads of different, if irrelevant, responses to your questions.

I'm beginning to warm to the idea of the 'Heisenberg Taxi' though. So instead of an adventure that maps out London to let you walk around, Sherlock Holmes could visit little pocket-sized regions of London, then hail a cab and pick a location from a menu to jump from one to the other. You could make it more interesting (and more London-like) to have other secret links between mapped areas. So the cabs act as both shortcuts to areas you've already visited (like warps in action RPGs) and passages to places you've just heard mentioned. Not sure about going full point-and-click, but you could also add in some mini-games with a text interface, like making moves on a grid, swapping pairs, or throwing switches, with either a 'safe word' to exit and return to adventuring mode, or commands specific to that location to play the mini-game.

[8BitAG]

Nothing particular new about the taxi idea. Gradually giving the player access to additional locations is an absolute staple in adventure games, particularly later point-and-click ones... e.g. Broken Sword, Monkey Island.

You may like the check out the Frogwares series of Sherlock Holmes games on PC, Joe.

They've done some very interesting things with the detective genre (although the later games in the series incorporated a little too much action and stealth sequences... I guess they would argue that the Sherlock Holmes stories themselves are more action adventure than detective).

The games really took the whole element of detecting from beyond a checklist to something else entirely...

Playing the games, you unlock clues which get added to your deduction board. Your objective is to link all these clues and information to make deductions... The interesting thing is that it's perfectly possible to link combinations together than make logical sense, but aren't correct, allowing you to jump to conclusions and arrest the wrong person. In the later games, where this was more developed, there were then consequences in further stories... and you even had moral choices to make... you could choose to let the criminals get away with their crimes.

Testaments and Crimes & Punishments are the best in that series. Many of the cases in the games are adapted from actual Sherlock Holmes stories.

[Joefish]

Oh yes, I can see there are other mechanisms that have been developed. But you're also kind of making my point.

With classic adventures you can lock off areas until you have inventory items (key, shovel, rope, dynamite, sword, passport) to enable you to reach them. It's much, much harder to provide a convincing way of doing that with ideas or information as enablers (unless your whole game is made up of learning passwords!).

With mouse-driven interfaces it's very easy to limit what the user can click on initially and expand that, as it's another example of a multi-choice interface. And my 'Heisenberg Taxi' works just like that. The game limits your options and enforces them with a menu.

In a text adventure though anyone can type any destination they can think of to instruct the taxi driver and so go straight to the end of the story. There's no obvious reason for all the streets of a city to be blocked off to you just because you don't know anyone. You have to have a particularly peculiar narrative where the taxi driver refuses to take you places he somehow knows you haven't been told about! Or Watson prevents you leaving Baker Street until you've guessed where your client bought his morning paper or something. So, all the methods mentioned so far seem to break out of the text adventure method and rely on forcibly limiting your options.

Then again, a well-crafted adventure could let you use knowledge of a prvious play-through as an alternative to saving your game. Just let you go anywhere you want to pick up from where you left off...

Or randomise critcal names and locations so you have to play through and make notes yourself to find the important ones... But then you need to have loads of redundant location descriptions to waste the time of anyone who isn't playing properly...

I suppose one way you could do it in the traditional text adventure mould is to have people you need to talk to only available once you have some information on them, then disappear again, then re-appear somewhere else when they have something timely to offer. Legend of Zelda NPCs do this all the time, so that's one aspect of action-adventures that would work in text adventures.

[Morkin]

[Edit - sorry, couldn't resist]

[8BitAG]

With mouse-driven interfaces it's very easy to limit what the user can click on initially and expand that, as it's another example of a multi-choice interface. And my 'Heisenberg Taxi' works just like that. The game limits your options and enforces them with a menu.

It's not a new idea; as mentioned, most games with transportation systems limit the areas you can visit from the outset.

There are lots of ways you can block players from visiting certain locations... and lots of ways that games do limit people... these aren't new ideas.

For example...

Games *do* sometime stop you from going to places by saying something like "You see no reason to visit that location at the moment." That is fine.

Or outside a location can be visited... so, it doesn't restrict your list of options for transport, but you can't actually get inside...

Lots of believable options for that... Some include...

Restricted opening hours... You can't visit until a certain point in the game because its closed.

Locations "locked"... You can still use traditional keys. Or you might need an object to show a doorman... a matchbook... a member's card... or just a secret password.

Locations blocked by police... You can't investigate a certain crime scene location because the police are still guarding it.

There are absolutely loads of way of blocking off locations in a realistic way. And, going back to another idea you mentioned, plenty of games do have moving NPCs who might be absent from locations until the point in the game where you are required to interact with them.

As I said originally, the main tricky aspect for implementing a detective story in a text adventure is how you handle conversations and interactions with NPCs... The rest is pretty straightforward.

[Joefish]

I know!

You are in Baker Street, outside No. 221B.
You can see: Watson, a dog, a dog lead.
Exits are: North, South, In.
What now?
> GO NORTH

You are in Marylebone Road.
You can see: Watson, a London Copper.
Exits are: East, West, South.
The Copper says, "You're outside your home without an excuse. P?s? off home".

----

You are in Baker Street, outside No. 221B.
You can see: Watson, a dog, a dog lead.
Exits are: North, South, In.
What now?
> GET DOG

You take the dog.
What now?
> GET LEAD

You take the dog lead.
What now?
> WALK DOG

You clip the lead on the dog and let it walk ahead of you.
What now?
> GO NORTH

You are in Marylebone Road.
You can see: Watson, a Copper.
Exits are: East, West, South.
The Copper says, "Out for your daily exercise I see. Carry on".
What now?
> GO EAST

You are in Park Square.
You can see: Watson, A Derbyshire Copper.
Exits are: North, West, South.
The Copper says "We've got you on the drone travelling too far for your daily exercise. You're nicked sunshine".

----

You are in the Goblin's Dungeon...


Argggghhhh!

[Joefish]

I see your point, other coppers getting in the way when you're a private investigator, clue tokens like matchbooks, membership pins, secret handshakes, are all good, but:

Games *do* sometime stop you from going to places by saying something like "You see no reason to visit that location at the moment." That is fine.

There is no way that is acceptable scripting! That's the most frustrating balls an adventure game can ever do to you!

There's a mechanism in Wind Waker where you can change the direction of the wind to drive your sailing boat from one island to the next. But it's a fairly realistic boat, and I actually managed to tack it upwind to try and reach another island...
At which point the s0dding boat's figurehead turns round to you and says 'let's not go that way yet'. I tell you, it was blwdy lucky I hadn't found an axe at that point or next port of call I'd be equipping myself with a non-magical boat and a big pile of bright red firewood!

[8BitAG]

There is no way that is acceptable scripting! That's the most frustrating balls an adventure game can ever do to you!

I disagree. It's an acceptable compromise. It makes more sense when you are commanding another character through the interface but it's perfectly acceptable at other times too. I see no reason why you should expect to be able to go to locations that you haven't yet discovered the existence of in game.

Once you've discovered them, though, it is up to the author to come up with plausible reasons why you can't visit them at any particular time.

At the end of the day you're playing a game. I have little empathy with anyone who expects a game to be an accurate simulation. I want gamey elements. I don't want hunger, thirst, item limits and all the crap that goes with real life.

[PeterJ]

I like the way that Sherlock has a dictionary in the user guide. Is that normal?

[Joefish]

It's rare, but helpful. At least it helps you not waste your time trying other words. And it leaves you plenty of options to try things.
The whole 'adverbs' thing in your input is a bit unusual though. I mean, I'd rather there were explicit verbs like 'sneak north' than have to use 'go north quietly' or something at the right moment. Though the game would have to heavily hint at exactly when and how to use such things.

[rnhunt]

You may find a small Android utility I wrote useful. Ifmapper is hopefully an intuitive mapping tool you can use on your phone.

If you tell Android to allow to run in background you can even swap between it and adventure running in an emulator. I just finished playing The Wicker Woman like this, which BTW isn't a bad little adventure.

You can find it at https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... e.ifmapper

[8BitAG]

I like the way that Sherlock has a dictionary in the user guide. Is that normal?

It was more common in the earlier years... especially if, as in Sherlock, they wanted to show off the parser.

I'm always wary of any game that lists adverbs.

[AndyC]

There is no way that is acceptable scripting! That's the most frustrating balls an adventure game can ever do to you!

I disagree. It's an acceptable compromise. It makes more sense when you are commanding another character through the interface but it's perfectly acceptable at other times too. I see no reason why you should expect to be able to go to locations that you haven't yet discovered the existence of in game.

Once you've discovered them, though, it is up to the author to come up with plausible reasons why you can't visit them at any particular time.

At the end of the day you're playing a game. I have little empathy with anyone who expects a game to be an accurate simulation. I want gamey elements. I don't want hunger, thirst, item limits and all the crap that goes with real life.

You can do the same thing in more subtle ways in an adventure game too. So if you decide to just head to a location you shouldn't go yet you get a message along the lines of "You are in an unassuming street in London. Nothing here seems out of the ordinary" and then force the player to go to back to the plot.

[akeley]

It's rare, but helpful. At least it helps you not waste your time trying other words.

As it is with many complaints about IF (perhaps videogames in general, see also 8bitAG's remark about realism...I love roguelikes :), one man's annoyance is another's delight. For me, guessing the vocab was a great help in learning English and part of the mystery in general, helping the illusion of an omnipotent storyteller (which was in reality a limited 8 bit parser :)

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] you might also try Kobayashi Naru. It's a text adventure, but with an interesting interface, bit like in an adventure game you have a set of icons already on screen representing all the commands. And you don't type anything, just choose the action word + word from the scene description using a cursor/joystick (I've actually played it with a joypad yesterday).

Unfortunately, it's a fantasy setting, so perhaps not compatible with the crime mystery requirement.

[RWAC]

You may find a small Android utility I wrote useful. Ifmapper is hopefully an intuitive mapping tool you can use on your phone.

If you tell Android to allow to run in background you can even swap between it and adventure running in an emulator. I just finished playing The Wicker Woman like this, which BTW isn't a bad little adventure.

You can find it at https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... e.ifmapper

This is great! I've been looking for something like this for ages!

[DarwinNE]

There are several people currently writing text adventures for 8-bits which are, perhaps, designed for slightly more modern sensibilities. I know that's something that Davide does, and also people like Stefan Vogt; again a lot of people not into text adventures have said they've enjoyed his Hibernated game and the shorter Curse of Rabenstein.

I am happy you enjoyed my games!

By the way, Hibernated 1 was very inspiring for me, both Two Days to the Race and The Queen's Footsteps would not have existed without it. Stefan Vogt has also been very supportive during the development of The Queen's Footsteps.