Hi Dark,
Hmmm...Well, you raise some interesting points. Like you I was drawn
to Sryth precisely because it is text-based, and is for the most part
very story driven. It is quite a lot like the paper and pen RPG games
which is in a way better than playing with an actual guild, because
you can explore the game on your own and there is a lot of back story
behind the characters. Its for that reason I began looking into
creating an RPG game of my own.
Basically, my idea was to create a text-based RPG game/adventure like
Sryth but instead of making it an online game it would be a stand
alone product. It would kind of resemble the old text adventures
except it would have text-based menus rather than typing in commands.
As you yourself pointed out some time back its no fun having to deal
with guess the verb situations when with a menu you can just select
the option you need from a list.
Plus there are things about Sryth I always thought could be better.
For example, there aren't enough character races. You are pretty much
assumed to be human. There is no way to select a dwarf, elf, fary, or
some other race commonly found in DND. Come to think of it there are
some enemy character races like dark elf, vampire, red cap, etc that
would be a nice change as well. Even these few changes would be an
improvement in Sryth I think.
However, right after Entombed came out I was scared off the idea. Not
because my idea was necessarily bad, not interesting, but I felt like
nobody would buy a game that is 99% text. Entombed is more action
oriented, has some great music, sounds, and ambience and to do the
same thing would add months if not years onto the development time.
Which made me put the RPG idea on the back burner.
That said, with Star Wars The Old Republic coming on the scene in the
mmainstream market I'm once again interested in reviving my RPG game
idea. For a couple of reasons. One I love Star Wars and a game based
on Star Wars would rock, and giving it a story-text-based interface
like Sryth would be awesome. Second, since I have several GB of sound
effects for Star Wars it wouldn't cost me anything to put together a
text-based RPG with background ambience, weapons, music, and some
pain/death sounds for enemies. It would be really the best of both
worlds as we would have a text-based U.I. and high quality sounds and
music too.
Cheers!
On 5/18/11, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
Hi Tom.
i must confess I disagree on the text based rpg suggestion. Entombed is
indeed a roguelike game, but there are things entombed cannot do, for
instance because you have such a choice of characters and such a random
dungeon, you have no character history or plot, not to mention few
cutscenes.
This isn't a cryticism, it's just part of the style.
In developement now is Airik, which is far more like Zelda, with it's own
unique plot, cutscenes etc.
I personally stil am of the opinion that if the writing, combat system etc
were good enough, a sort of extended gamebook in text would indeed sell,
afterall Sryth is really the only thing like that in the brouser catagory.
in fact if I ever get to creating a game, it's this sort of thing I'd like
to do myself.
While I don't think you could charge as much as entombed, I do think if the
game was good enough quality the medium would not matter as much.
yes, music, acting and sounds would all help, but in a game which
essentially tells a story and works on a combination of randomization,
choice and statistical management to progress that story, the story and it's
system is what is paramount.
while I'm all for raised expectations, I don't think we're yet in a
situation where you can absolutely say well this won't work sinse stil if
something is done well enough it can be appreciated.
Look at Q9. If philip had suggested making a basic, 1D superliam style side
scroller with a scoring system, the response would've been nh!
However, because the games' mechanics were solid, it's sounds extremely
good, and it's character rather amusing, it was appreciated despite bucking
the trend.
I can't really speak about racing games, sinse other than rail racer I've
not really found many that appeal to me, and I wouldn't particularly know
the difference betwene a good or bad one, but certainly in the rpg field I'd
be sad if nobody attempts any more games because they must be as good as
entombed
Entombed, while fantastic, is only one example of an accessible rpg. we have
almost no others, and in fact rpg's can cover such a range of options,
there's no need to emulate what had been done before at all.
I'd personally say, that while arcade games generally need to have something
special to succeed these days because of people's expectations, only the
space invaders and basic grid puzle genre are completely played out.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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