Oolite, game depth and CYOA ... An idea.

[SiriusCG]

I've been kicking around an idea in my head for the last week or two and I'd like to get some feedback from you folks if you have a minute ...

I've been a fan of Interactive Fiction (IF: think text-adventures a'la Zork) since before Elite on the C64. One aspect of IF that I like, is that it can combine story telling with problem and/or puzzle solving. Good IF can pull the player into the game domain and give an enhanced sense of immersion. It's also good "brain food" too.

There are a couple of authoring systems for IF; full fledged, sophisticated games that can respond to an incredible array of user input. Inform7: http://inform7.com/ will produce this kind of material and the CYOA, or Create Your Own Adventure style of IF. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure

In CYOA, a user picks a "path" from a limited number of response options. Depending on your choices, the game usually takes a different direction, leading to various endings. Privateer was this sort of game as comes to mind. It can be fairly "open ended" allowing the player to solve the game without following a strict "sequential play" regimen.

CYOA doesn't have to be "blind choice" either. It's possible to require the player to accomplish certain tasks before progressing to another stage. They may need to have particular information, be in a particular place or have a particular item in their possession as examples.

CYOA games are generally easier to code as they don't have to parse a wide a variety of responses as "Zork style" IF games. But they can scale to fairly high levels of complexity and be quite challenging too.

CYOA is what I'm interested in bringing to Oolite. I think it would be possible to add some more depth of play and give the Oolite commander a bit more "immersion" in the Ooniverse.

So my question: would Oolite Commanders be interested in this?

I'm much more a programmer (20+ years professionally) than a graphics artist and I think this would be a good fit for me to bring back something to the community. Looking at the fine artistic talents of folks like griff, pagroove, and so many others in this community, I think it would be a better use of my talent to do something cool in code, and leave the pixel pushing to those who have a flair for it.

Currently I believe a CYOA parser can be done using the same Spidermonkey scripting tech that Oolite currently uses so it could be added as an OXP. My CYOA parser shouldn't need any other OXP dependencies and would run on a "plain jane" install.

Additional CYOA stories could be authored and added, they're just simple text files, and that would insure future expansion.

So friends, before I start investing any serious time in this, I'd like to hear (well, read actually) comments from anyone who survived reading this far ...

Cheers.

BTW, I'm currently writing an IF story in Inform7 of the "Zork" variety that takes place in the Ooniverse ...

[Disembodied]

I think (although not from personal experience: currently I'm only in Galaxy 5) that the Assassins OXP already has a small text adventure (sort of: I assume it uses a set of fixed options, as opposed to a parser) tucked inside it, and is much admired. If you could find a way to make this sort of thing easy to do, I'm sure a lot of people would be delighted!

[Kaks]

All the more impressive if you consider that LB didn't have js & mission.runScreen() to work with!

Looking forward to seeing your handiwork, SirusCG!

[Commander McLane]

Not knowing much about what a CYOA-parser does I would say that the possibility of having multiple choices on a mission screen is basically all that's needed. Therefore, as a first approximation, I'd say that you don't actually need to create a parser first.

IF-style OXPs have been done before. IIRC Trident Down has a quite elaborate decision tree, with several possible outcomes depending on the player's actions. At a much smaller scale I have programmed one or two switches into Cataclysm, where an action of the player can lead to a slightly different scenario. This is definitely a direction of OXPing which I also want to pursue more.

So that's two thumbs up from me.

[SiriusCG]

I've read a bit through the code in both Assassin's Guild and Trident Down. Very impressive work on both counts! But, to extend of evolve either of those OXPs, an author would need to be familiar with the underlying code and how it works. Most of the IF authors I know wouldn't write IF at all if they had to tinker under the hood to see it done ...

The idea I have is to create a "CYOA framework". An author would need only be concerned with providing text files for the parser to process and is not required to work with underlying code. The format for the input texts will be kept as simple as possible so the author can focus on story and not on implementation issues.

Not knowing much about what a CYOA-parser does I would say that the possibility of having multiple choices on a mission screen is basically all that's needed.

The parser concept I'm working on will take into account for dynamic changes in the game. Most of the simple CYOA parsers are nothing more than "logic engines" that follow the same routines over and over, printing the same responses over and over. My idea will allow the game to not only generate new responsive text for the player, but to adjust itself to changing game parameters too. It's a bit of work, but I think it will yield engaging results for the player.

Cheers.

[Svengali]

Sounds like a good idea.

[drew]

No idea what all that lot means, but ditto the above.

Cheers,

Drew.

[Cholmondely]

I've read a bit through the code in both Assassin's Guild and Trident Down. Very impressive work on both counts! But, to extend of evolve either of those OXPs, an author would need to be familiar with the underlying code and how it works. Most of the IF authors I know wouldn't write IF at all if they had to tinker under the hood to see it done ...

The idea I have is to create a "CYOA framework". An author would need only be concerned with providing text files for the parser to process and is not required to work with underlying code. The format for the input texts will be kept as simple as possible so the author can focus on story and not on implementation issues.

Not knowing much about what a CYOA-parser does I would say that the possibility of having multiple choices on a mission screen is basically all that's needed.

The parser concept I'm working on will take into account for dynamic changes in the game. Most of the simple CYOA parsers are nothing more than "logic engines" that follow the same routines over and over, printing the same responses over and over. My idea will allow the game to not only generate new responsive text for the player, but to adjust itself to changing game parameters too. It's a bit of work, but I think it will yield engaging results for the player.

Cheers.

Did anything ever come of this?

[Switeck]

A lot of mission OXPs have been written since then, no doubt some of those have multiple options and/or outcomes...not simply success/fail results.

You could probably read through their scripting if you wanted to know for sure...