To those unfamiliar with text adventures, I have the beginnings of a web-based
java game here (requires no download) Should give you an idea of the formatting, and common features. Although I warn you, its very incomplete, and only a demonstration.
If the java game demonstration piques your interest, you might want to download a sample of my adventure game, Thief of Light, which I have been designing with the aid of ...
TADS--the text adventure development system
Notes:
The following have been designed using Michael Roberts' TADS system, with the HTML extension that supports graphics. These games are truly interactive, allowing typed commands to be interpreted by the parser, resulting in changes in game state.
The version I used allows games to be saved and loaded. You can also move using compass directions (assuming there actually is a place to go). You should get a message indicating that you can't move whenever you reach a dead end. Don't give up. I wouldn't post it here if there weren't a few things to explore.
And mostly, I post these here with the hope that my visitors will bookmark my page and/or remember to look for me in the future, as I anticipate there will be more to see as soon as I get some of my map generation bugs worked out.
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In order to play, all you will need is the HTML TADS playkit, which can be found at
interactive fiction archive executables , and a .gam file. That will give you the basic text adventure with some formatting. For games with graphics there are two alternatives. Either the images are included with the .gam file, or they are automatically accessed through the .gam file code everytime the game is played. In the second case the images must stay in the same folder as the gam file. Otherwise any missing images will not display properly.
TADS games are free, as are the programs used to design them. Once you have the playkit you can play any one of the thousands of .gam files you can find on the internet, simply by downloading that file.
The only alternative is to try an online role-playing game, but many of those are paid services and require you to pay $40 or more for the CD first. Admittedly, however, TADS games are not multiplayer, and do not support animation or movies.
There are a lot of creative energies going that aren't funneled into corporations. TADS is one of the few places where you can make use of it.
I will post a sample game here, which has no serious bugs:
It won't look like much of anything unless you open it with HTMLTADS.exe, which comes with the play kit. In theory HTML TADS games are compatible with more traditional text-based interpreters. Since I am new to coding, I give no guarantees.
TADS GAMES BY NATHAN COPPEDGE:
Thief of Light Test.zip --3/23/06
Thief of Light is meant to be an adventure/ strategy game. But since it was getting
too ambitious relative to my progress (yes, I even started to get my heart set on
multiplayer) I have funneled that ambition into a different project, Archemesis.
The zip file includes the gam file, seperate images, and a readme.
For those that aren't familiar with .zip files, you can find more information here.
As soon as I get the right software for a standalone game I will implement it. However, until that time the game is best viewed with the images unzipped in the same folder as the .gam file.
Future games I anticipate to post samples for:
Archemesis see preview
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