List of games, I've completed: Guess the number Tic Tac Toe Hangman I'd really like to make a small text adventure next (something like old Zork perhaps), but I have no idea where to start, how to plan it. Can I get some advice on this topic? If text adventure is too big of a step, then what should I make next?

A little advice, altough text adventures may not seem all that impressive nowadays, theres still alot involved in creating one. Before you do get started on your text adventure, plan as much out as possible. The more you plan now the smoother the development process will go later on.

Start at a very high level, such as the overall goal of the hero(or villain if you play evil =]). With the basic goal of the game, think up of the different locations you would want in the game and how they differ from other locations. Once you have that, start thinking about the several important characters that you are going to need for the player to accomplish the goal.

Next up would be thinking at a lower level, pick one of the locations you came up with, and think about the different places, characters, items etc in that location and think about what does the player need there? does the player need to speak to an important character before leaving town? maybe he/she needs an item to get away from that location, do you get that item from another character? do you have to do anything for that character in order to recieve this item?

As you can see theres alot involved with text adventures. It would be very awkward to just open up your IDE without any plans. Once you think you have a solid design you can then start doing more design :P Your going to have to think about the several objects your game will need and how they all interact with each other, for example, you could have a Location class which stores information about the different characters, items and exits to other locations. Or an item class and an inventory class which contains a list of items and functions for adding and removing those items. Then your player class could have an instance of this inventory class. Again theres alot to do.

Once you have all that planned out, it will be a much smoother ride when developing the game, looking at the plans and implementing it like it was supposed to be instead of thinking up the game on the fly allways helps.

Good luck with it :)

[Edited by - cNoob on April 19, 2008 1:59:57 PM]

All too true cNoob! And let's not forget the adventures background and setting! There's always the obligatory sci-fi/fantasy worlds, but almost any background will do, what about setting it in your home town? You'd have a better background knowledge. Personally, I'm an AD&D Greyhawk fan, love to see all the original modules as text adventures! If you want them I've a fair few as pdf's