[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Online adventure games

[Mike Rozak]

>From Fred Snyder:

> Just a few months ago, I experimented with my own online adventure
> game engine.  The idea was to provide a framework for creating
> Zork-like games and publishing them on the web.  The results of
> that experiment are here:

>   http://castwide.com/games/webventure

I just played it for a bit. I didn't the the HTML refresh would be
fast enough (especially with my 1000 ms delay due to satelite
connection and distance), but its speed is actually decent. You
might want to post on rec.arts.int-fiction. I know some people have
mentioned similar concepts there. TADS (and adventure creator) has
something called TADS HTML (I think) that might be similar; I never
looked into it. You could also look into using TADS or Inform as a
scripting language (in addition to your own brew), if you want to
have 100's of games available. Inform uses a P-code binary format,
so it wouldn't be difficult to write a P-code machine for your
server, since it's all open source.

> The reaction I received from players largely followed your
> expectations.  One of the first questions I got asked was, "Is
> multiplayer possible?"  (At this point, it is not.)  It was also a
> mere matter of hours before players started sharing game hints
> with each other.

Sharing hints is a big problem. On the down side, it reduces the
length of the content, and can sometimes have a negative influence
on game-play if this makes the experience too easy. Conversely,
hints are available for all adventure games. I use them for those
puzzles that I can't get, and which end up blocking progress. The
only difference between hints on online adventure games and offline
ones is that online ones are slightly easier to get to. Kind
of... There is one other important difference: Hints in an offline
adventure game help you get through the game faster (sometimes to
your detriment; not many people fast forward through movies they
rent), while hints in an online adventure game help you beat other
players.

The other solution to hints is, as Malcom was describing, to have a
different solution for each player. The latest (3 yrs ago) Lucasfilm
Monkey Island game has some of these.

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
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