Hi Dark, Definitely. That's one of the things I've discovered with the aif game I'm working on. Take lipstick as an example here.
If you go to the women's beauty department in Wal-Mart or some other department store there will be several different shades of just red. You have royal red, cherry red, strawberry wine, raspberry wine, apple blossom, etc just to name a few. That doesn't even cover opaque, various shades of pink, etc. Well, just by adding a random SelectLipstick() function to the game gave the female character a huge list of different shades and brands of lipstick to use. It makes the description of her so much different each game because her personal attributes are slightly altered from game to game. One game her hair is long and straight and the next she's got it tied up in a ponytail. By altering each and every aspect of her attributes I've found that aif games and text adventures are more enjoyable. Its for this reason I've began looking at ways to include this level of randomisation into any RPG type games I might create. Having multiple different versions of a combat scene or slightly different description of the area each game will ultimately make it so the game doesn't get old right away. However, as you pointed out we can't really get this level of randomization in audio games. You might be able to come up with multiple descriptions of things with SAPI, but that is the limit. Sounds are so expensive that its hard to come up with decent sounds for a game let alone alternative sounds to choose from. Cheers! On 1/6/12, dark <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > all that is very true, also in terms of text sinse the english language > contains so many descriptive words, having the game randomly select a couple > can give the appearence of new items or descriptions even though it is only > selecting from a pool, which can completely change the feeling of the game. > > For instance in the roguelike game angband, most magical items that aren't > weapons such as potions, wands, rings and amulets and the like need to be > identified with an identify spell before you know exactly what their affects > are. they aren't however just called "unidentified x" they each have a > material description, such as copper plated wand, or ivory studded staff" > > Once identified, either by using an identify spell or by using the item, the > game will call them things like ivory studded staff of cone of cold. > > The clever thing however, is that these descriptions are compltely > randomized each game, so one game the ivory studded staff might be cone of > cold, the next it might be a staff of summon monster. > > this adds a lot of replay value, and also a very nice flavour for the magic > items. > > What is however even cleverer, is that the game creates these descriptions > out of a number of components that are put together. So each potion for > instance could be a red potion, a red congealed potion, a red bubling > potion, a dark red potion etc and you have lots of variation. > > the same goes for room descriptions. > > one idea I had in entombed for instance was having a description that could > substitute psudonims, or parts of the description to allow variation in the > environment. > > for instance, you are in a long/round/wide/narrow/cramped/broad > cave/cavern/chamber/room/slot. > > Add in a few more descriptors and some sentence variation, and there is the > potential for a great many different ways of describing the same > environment, ----- and that's before you start assigning random objects to > the area. > > this is why in some senses textual games have a greater facility for > randomization and variation than audio or graphical ones, sinse it's far > easier to create variations in text than it is in graphics or sounds. > > Beware the grue! > > dark. > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
