Today's video games have really impressive graphics, awesome gameplay and scope. Sometimes the graphics are as good as a movie! But you may think that due to these new flashy games, the old school text based games are forgotten and outdated.
Well, you are not right about that one. In fact, people are still playing and creating new text based games in the 21st century. And in this post, I'll be showing you how to vent your imagination and create a fun text based game for playing and sharing with your friends.
And the best thing is that you don't require any programming skills whatsoever :D
> You enter a room with an old machine in the corner…
In the late 1970s and eighties, when personal computers started to be popular, text-based adventure games were very much in fashion as they were very easy to create and even more fun to play. Here, the players were given a command window showing descriptions – such as, ‘You are in a desert facing south,’ – and they were supposed to type commands like walk, run, pick up.. to progress through the game.
Despite their apparent simplicity, such games became immensely popular due to their compelling storylines and the depth and detail of the worlds that they thrust players into. Popular games from this time include Zork and its sequels, Adventureland and even a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy text-based game written by Douglas Adams himself.
Text-based adventures can also be described as ‘interactive fiction’, and are the digital equivalent of the ‘Choose your own adventure’ books and similar print series in which the reader alters the story by choosing the actions taken by the protagonist.
Type ‘text based game’ into Google Play or the Apple app store and you’ll see there is a veritable cornucopia of such games, with scenarios ranging from zombie survival and bleak sci-fi futures, to fantasy worlds inhabited by wizards and goblins, and noir-inspired detective plots. There are a few larger publishers outputting significant numbers of games, such as Choice of Games and Delight games, but the relative ease with which they can be created means that there are also plenty created by indie authors.
Some of these games look a little more jazzed up than their prehistoric counterparts, but the basic premise is the same – the player interacts with and influences the text-based story by making choices and issuing commands. Some games use the traditional method of typed commands, while others favour a more streamlined multiplechoice prompt system to move the game forward.
> You see a strange tool…
So, maybe you could be the creator of the next big text-based hit. And on that note, it’s time to introduce you to some of the tools that you can use to create your masterpiece of interactive fiction. Here we’re going to look at some of those which provide the best balance between being accessible and powerful enough to allow you to create something that will get people hooked on your creation. And you’ll be pleased to know, they’re all free.
QUEST
Quest is a popular and versatile tool which can either be used via your web browser or downloaded to your desktop (on a Windows computer). The great thing about Quest is that you don’t need to know any special computing language or syntax, you can simply use the program’s interface to create ‘rooms’ for the player to explore, objects for them to pick up and manipulate, exits for them to walk through and so on. Quest also enables you to choose between creating a ‘text adventure’ (in which the player has free rein to explore) and a simpler ‘gamebook’ where multiple choices are provided at the end of each passage of text.
ADRIF
Adrift stands for ‘Adventure Development & Runner – Interactive Fiction Toolkit’, and like many of the best DIY resources it does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s again downloadable for Windows and can be used to play test your own adventures and those created by other people. With Adrift you use a series of intuitive editing windows to create each element of your text adventure bit by bit, with dropdown menus making the whole experience easier to navigate. Take a look at the ‘popular games’ section of the site to get an idea of the kind of games you can create.
INFORM 7
Inform is a very powerful tool for creating text-based adventures and is based on the writer creating the interactive story through use of natural language (ie to create a room you would actually type something like, ‘the armoury is a room’). But as it’s much more technically involved and requires you to remember specific syntax, it may be one for more advanced users and those with a lot of time to invest.
TWINE
Similarly to Inform 7, Twine uses a text-based editing interface to create your adventure, with ‘links’ created between passages of text to create the paths through which the players will move through the game. But it’s a much simpler and more accessible tool, and finished stories can be published directly to html for web posting. Though no coding knowledge is required, more advanced users can delve deeper if they wish, by using things like JavaScript and css in their Twine stories. If you’d like to get an idea of some of the results that can be achieved, take a look at the samples on the home page.
> You reach the end of the passage
When you’ve created your interactive masterpiece there are many different ways to get it out there for people to play. Depending on the platform you use to create it, you should be able to publish it on your own website or on one of the many text-based adventure repositories out there, either as a standalone package or as a game that can be run using one of the free clients on offer.
Thank you for reading my article, I hope you liked it. I am new on this platform so if you like my posts, do consider following me.
Also, if I get a good response on this article, I'll write some useful tips for making such games, so make sure you comment and upvote if you want a part 2 :)