Text Adventures (mod/idea?)

There is a great chance of someone already mentioning this. It is even possible that what I want is already possible from the get go, making this thread useless. If that is the case: I am special!!! :P


One of the things I would like to make for Elemental is the possibility of text adventures. Thinking only of single player, it would be in the line of Space Rangers 2 where you could take part of text adventures in different planets.

Basically, in adition to being able to wage war with the Dominators, trade stuff or kill pirates/merchants (being one yourself or not), these text adventures would take you to a different interface where you had a mission to solve and in which you were to take different decisions ("Do I use kneepads for my meeting with the guard or do I use my VISA Adamantium with him?") to acomplish your goal (like not dying if you were sent to jail!).

The problem with quests in Space Rangers 2 that made me forget about those text adventures is that most have some random elements into them, and you success or them or you die. I never finished the mecha combat adventures due to randomness, therefore I died everytime. Meh. Rewards were usually fame, money and maybe items.

Back to Elemental, we already have quest screens (I remember two types during Beta). Not sure how they work but I am going to suppose that to modificate them to open other quest windows based on the selection made should not be too difficult (once I get to know intimately all the agenst involved in summoning windows, creating buttons, functions...). Right now they show a text and offer you a couple of buttons.

The main idea would be to create many quests based in resolving one text adventure (or chain of but lets not get ahead of ourselves), in addition to the normal quests that can be currently created. That would be especially interesting for non combat quests. Because seriously, I want my fragile diplomat with adventurous spirit, be able to take part of some kind of adventures (random text adventure dealing with some ambassadors, for example). Or as alternative to the combat option of some quests. And it would be certainly interesting as recruitment option for some champions/monsters.

And as my focus is single player, those text adventures could be complex and/or long (to a point!). Not sure if some kind of option to save game in a middle of a text adventure would be needed or not. Space Rangers 2 did not use them and I missed the option a few times. I understand it "reduced" the "cheating" though.


Related to this, and considering that I have not been able to study Python ( and what I learnt is so rusty that is not worth mentioning), I was wondering if the main screen is modable too. You know, being able to add new options to the main menu. One reason I am interested in this is because I would like to eventually add a... er... Alienpedia/Monsterpedia/Winterpedia/*.* to the menu, so players do not need to start/load a game to check stuff related with the campaign/game world.

And also because I need to practice/learn Python so I have thought that focusing at the very beginning in creating a test text adventure (a mini "text adventure" mod?) in Elemental (not that I could not make it in a different enviroment like Pygame), I could familiarize myself better with windows, positioning, image swaping (maybe showing 3D models like the Diplomacy screen?*)... and that kind of stuff that right now is "WTF?" to me. Starting/loading the quest without the need to load all the other world stuff would surely be faster/better.


Yeah, another silly thread by yours truly, Wintersong. By now, only newbies (noobs, if that is your style of diplomacy) should be surprised. :P

 

* that would go way beyond pure text adventure (unlike static pics) but could be interesting too.

4,768 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top

Sounds good. There is this kind of text adventures and quests in King Arthur, the roleplaying wargame from Neocore (which I warmly recommend). I think it would really add to the more mundane quests seen so far in Elemental. As for the UI modifications, I am pretty sure it will be really doable in the near future.

I probably will add text adventures to frontiers, but it will be in the form of randomized conversations with NPCs.

Reply #2 Top

I'd rather have "decisions" ala Europa Universalis, honestly. I don't really want to lose because of a text adventure.

Reply #3 Top

Quoting MagicwillNZ, reply 2
I'd rather have "decisions" ala Europa Universalis, honestly. I don't really want to lose because of a text adventure.
End of MagicwillNZ's quote
Hahaha XD I'm not actually so fond of the "Victory or death!" adventures, and if I were to make any, much like in Tactical Battles (generated by quests or normal ones), the Sovereign would manage to "make a strategic retreat".

Reply #4 Top

UI modding is supposed to be possible.  I think I read a post from a dev mentioning they used Stardock's own commercial (and freeware?) UI tool to make it all.  (Even if it's commercial version only, I think it was pretty inexpensive.)  Looking forward to see what's possible with that.

You could definitely change the fonts and quest interface to make it look like a DOS command prompt.  (Not sure that's what you're going for, but it would be awesome.)  The tricky thing is, none of the quests now allow for user text input--just clicking buttons.  Making a full text adventure where the user can type in anything he wants would be challenging.

This makes me think--a cyberpunk mod would be cool.  The quest system is a great starting point for "hacking" missions.  And, if we ever get multiple maps in one game, a second map could be used for cyberspace.

Reply #5 Top

I like it. Great Idea, Winter :)

Reply #6 Top

Quoting otakucore2, reply 4
UI modding is supposed to be possible.  I think I read a post from a dev mentioning they used Stardock's own commercial (and freeware?) UI tool to make it all.  (Even if it's commercial version only, I think it was pretty inexpensive.)  Looking forward to see what's possible with that.

You could definitely change the fonts and quest interface to make it look like a DOS command prompt.  (Not sure that's what you're going for, but it would be awesome.)  The tricky thing is, none of the quests now allow for user text input--just clicking buttons.  Making a full text adventure where the user can type in anything he wants would be challenging.

This makes me think--a cyberpunk mod would be cool.  The quest system is a great starting point for "hacking" missions.  And, if we ever get multiple maps in one game, a second map could be used for cyberspace.
End of otakucore2's quote
I tried the DesktopX thing for UI but seems really complicated to use, at least it's not very newbie friendly. I can see the potential though, and it's amazing.

About the adventures, I was thinking more in the line of Space Rangers 2, where you don't actually write anything but select between options. Text input is possible (i.e. we write the name of our Sovereign in the proper screen, or the name of units in their proper screen) so it'd be a matter of checking how but not sure if I should get so far ("right", "run", "stab"... XD ).

A different beast would be pure text adventure mod, I suppose. But right now I'm not sure about how it could work. Maybe the core functions plus the modable UI as release? Plus it would need to save data too. Would be that binary too like the current savegames? Some kind of plain text file? (cheaters love that! :P )