Well, thanks for the comments on my last blog entry, where I tried to describe the feelings I had at that time regarding roguelikes and doing something different. Of course, a roguelike can have story and fixed places. But what I meant was more something like a 'serious' adventure: linear plot, no replayability (except someone wants to experience the plot again), no RPG elements, but great visuals and sound and story.
As I don't have money for hiring people who can provide 'great visuals and sound', it would be some kind of textual interactive fiction, illustrated by some dark, disturbing images. But then, perhaps a game is the wrong medium at all. Perhaps a movie or a written book would suffice. -- but this is missing the interactive elements an adventure or interface fiction can provide.
However, this whole thing is not as relevant as it was some weeks ago. Yesterday I played LambdaRogue and again I had fun with it (which is of course bound to the fact that it's partly random), and I decided to fix the pending issues, and to create a game mode WITHOUT story at all, just the dungeon.
Earlier / Later / Permanent Link
Krice schrieb am 03.12.2009, 13:53
The problem of story in games is that it usually requires the player to do things in certain way and order to follow the story. I think it's boring. I just started Oblivion and from the beginning I have to follow some a-holes to somewhere. I don't care who they are. It would be nice to let other characters do their stuff and you could interact with them to change the "story", or choose to do nothing. Of course that kind of gameplay is harder to program than scripted story, but I think it's not impossible.
getter77 schrieb am 03.12.2009, 21:53
Hmm...
In this case, what about going for a more modern/nuanced take along the lines of the old Dragon's Lair game and/or the little smattering of primarily QTE games that've popped up in recent times? Mind you, I see no reason to stick to the notion of it being reflex based and to not infuse various Roguelike sensibilities into it that I think have plenty of potential...(Yes, this also happens to touch on one of my secret plans somewhat, lol)
Such a premise would fit quite well in expressing a narrative whilst blurring some of the lines between film and gaming. You'd merely replace the popular commercial notion of emphasis on Reflex with perhaps Introspection.
Time enough to think things through, and should a solid bead on things emerge I'm sure the likes of Roguetemple and such will manifest bit of help and whatnot.
Mario Donick schrieb am 03.12.2009, 22:33
I think I should add that I don't want anything in the Fantasy or SciFi genre. Just a disturbing little psycho horror thing.
Imagine a mixture of Silent Hill, Myst, the "Millennium" TV show and, eh, some female attributes.
@Krice: Interesting that you mention the Elder Scrolls series when it comes to story-based games -- as far as I know, the stories of these games are told rather boring, because Elder Scrolls allow you to explore a big world ...
@getter77: You are right, roguelikes have many elements that could be useful for other kinds of games. However, @all, I don't want to invent an innovative "game" (game in the ludologist's sense), I want an interesting "narrative" (as opposed to ludologists who tend to say that games and narratives exclude each other).
Jotaf schrieb am 04.12.2009, 04:30
I see where you're coming from, and it's understandable! A small detour, to have a different experience. But graphics are for hardcore people, either teams or single guys willing to invest 5 years or more to make a small-sized game (5 years for a RL can make for a pretty big and deep game).
Graphics require a lot more dedication than might seem at first. Finding an artist is hard enough; finding one that is willing to draw a character in 4 directions, with 6 frames of animation (ie, the same character 24 times)... no wait, make that at least 10 characters, between player, enemies and NPCs (I'm being conservative here); 240 boring frames. That feels like work to them.
Not to mention terrain tiles with extra combinations. Freeform maps made by pasting images together like in Braid are better seen by artists and look less blocky, but require a dedicated editor, alpha transparency, and now your game has to be coded in OpenGL.
The overhead doesn't stop there. Consider the GUI; it's hard enough with nicely-aligned tiles in a RL; imagine adding all the meta-info to your code to align every image perfectly by the pixel. And repeat for every panel, or code a widget system, which represents basically the same amount of work...
Or you can use the tools you already know to tell your story. Legerdemain is a RL with no random elements that tells a story. It's in a medieval setting still but the author could've easily chosen another one.
(Hey I just realized: I compiled a list of "Multiple reasons why you want to code a roguelike" 
Mario Donick schrieb am 04.12.2009, 09:04
@Jotaf: Indeed, it's a concise list of arguments for roguelikes 
However, you mention character drawing: I don't want characters. I want static, surreal backgrounds, perhaps with some little animation loops in it (That's why I mentioned the Myst games). These background should be a panorama, seen from an ego perspective.
Happily, you don't need any big graphics programming skills. Adventure Game Studio (AGS) and the Panorama3D plugin allow you to create adventure-like games using skyboxes. It's very easy, from the technial side. The good thing on AGS is that it has a sophisticated scripting language, with a C-style syntax and a good IDE (similar to Visual Studio IDEs). Thus, it really feels like programming, not like toying around
Creating the graphics for the skyboxes is still challenging, but I created lots of landscapes by combining and editing stock photos, and this could be done for the skyboxes, too. You could even use Google SketchUp to create a real 3D room and simply export it. And then, I only need 5 or 6 different rooms for a start.
This is the good thing on AGS (and similar, less professional looking tools): They emphasize content, you don't need care about character movement or GUI or such.
Jotaf schrieb am 05.12.2009, 17:15
Ah, AGS! That's a fine tool. I don't know about skyboxes, but when I played around with AGS it was pure bliss; I got it running just the way I wanted. Too bad that unlike you I didn't have a story to tell; I wanted to code some interesting game mechanics. Seems like the smart choice here But make sure you come back to LR, ok? :P
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