Text-based games
Author
I love playing text-based RPGs, I'm interested in making a text-based D&D style game, but sadly I have no idea even where to begin. What I need to know is what to use to create such a game. (program, language, etc.) If anyone could help I would be very thankful. After all, this IS the "beginners" forum, and I am most definately a beginner.
"Music is an indirect force for change, because it provides an anchor against human tragedy." ~Jesse Michaels
[edited by - Quebb on May 19, 2004 6:32:21 PM]
Author
Call me dense if you must, but I''ve looked through most of the "For Beginners" section of the site already and unfortunately I haven''t been able to find anything. Maybe I overlooked something, maybe I didn''t - I don''t know. All I know is that I''m horrible at navigating websites and can''t find anything.
"Music is an indirect force for change, because it provides an anchor against human tragedy." ~Jesse Michaels
"Music is an indirect force for change, because it provides an anchor against human tragedy." ~Jesse Michaels
There was a really really good set of tutorials on this Text Adventure games on www.gametutorials.com.
Its in the Game Tutorials section of the tutorials.
I did get a chance to read it and it comes with an excellent "engine" for making Text Adventures. Now this "engine" could be heavily modded to make Text RPGs. If you want to do this i really hope you have a good knolage of C++(especially file I/O).
(there is also a Text Based Games chapter in Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus but it is very complex and the book is expencive)
An other alternative is a MUD but I dont know much about how these are made.
P.S. You are right that For Beginners section is pretty useless.
Its in the Game Tutorials section of the tutorials.
I did get a chance to read it and it comes with an excellent "engine" for making Text Adventures. Now this "engine" could be heavily modded to make Text RPGs. If you want to do this i really hope you have a good knolage of C++(especially file I/O).
(there is also a Text Based Games chapter in Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus but it is very complex and the book is expencive)
An other alternative is a MUD but I dont know much about how these are made.
P.S. You are right that For Beginners section is pretty useless.
Do you know how to program already? If not, it would be good to learn some programming language first. The most common "serious" languages are C++, C# and Java, with C# and Java being a lot simpler to pick up than C++ (they were made specifically to make programming easier and faster than it is in C++).
Second, are you planning to make a single-player game or a multiplayer game (MUD)? A MUD would be harder, whereas you can make a single-player game using just simple console input/output. However, the input parsing and the management of the game world should be pretty similar in both, except in a MUD you''re getting input accross a network. There are several books which have examples of text-based games; Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus (although it focuses a *lot* more on making a graphical game, and the text tutorial is just an afterthought), Java in a Nutshell or Java Examples in a Nutshell (I forgot which, but one had a very concise and elegant design for a MUD as an example of Java networking), and there''s even a book only on MUD programming (click here). There are also many websites with tutorials, for example this or this. It shouldn''t be too hard to come up with something that works by yourself after you learn about reading in strings word by word and about some basic object oriented design.
Second, are you planning to make a single-player game or a multiplayer game (MUD)? A MUD would be harder, whereas you can make a single-player game using just simple console input/output. However, the input parsing and the management of the game world should be pretty similar in both, except in a MUD you''re getting input accross a network. There are several books which have examples of text-based games; Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus (although it focuses a *lot* more on making a graphical game, and the text tutorial is just an afterthought), Java in a Nutshell or Java Examples in a Nutshell (I forgot which, but one had a very concise and elegant design for a MUD as an example of Java networking), and there''s even a book only on MUD programming (click here). There are also many websites with tutorials, for example this or this. It shouldn''t be too hard to come up with something that works by yourself after you learn about reading in strings word by word and about some basic object oriented design.
MUSH MUD MUCK
Those are text absed games. Very fun, imho, since they allow you to "program" within the game.
Those are text absed games. Very fun, imho, since they allow you to "program" within the game.
maybe use basic if you''re completely new and just want to do text.
C & C++ expose you to pointers and libraries and crazy things when your program isnt perfectly defined or your environment isnt perfectly configured (which is quite often when you begin). they have the advantage of making super-fast programs.
Java & C++ really require getting your head round object-oriented programming - which takes a while to get (at least it took me a while to get), but give you hard(er)-to-break, more logically laid-out and easier to maintain programs.
something like the old qbasic was pretty simple & direct. I''m sure theres other basics out there. - BASIC was originally a beginners language (how it is running on massive bank servers handling requests all over the world or exposing flaws in the MS OS''s is beyond me). VB (Visual Basic) is of course always a possibility couldnt say much about it.
C & C++ expose you to pointers and libraries and crazy things when your program isnt perfectly defined or your environment isnt perfectly configured (which is quite often when you begin). they have the advantage of making super-fast programs.
Java & C++ really require getting your head round object-oriented programming - which takes a while to get (at least it took me a while to get), but give you hard(er)-to-break, more logically laid-out and easier to maintain programs.
something like the old qbasic was pretty simple & direct. I''m sure theres other basics out there. - BASIC was originally a beginners language (how it is running on massive bank servers handling requests all over the world or exposing flaws in the MS OS''s is beyond me). VB (Visual Basic) is of course always a possibility couldnt say much about it.
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