Hi Dark, Right. A text format is definitely the universal constant when it comes to maximum accessibility for blind and sighted gamers. Thanks to the classic Infocom text adventures and on line RPG gamebooks like Sryth I've grone to be quite a fan of text based game play myself, and of course as you say there is a pretty healthy following of mainstream gamers who still play text games. Plus as a rule text based games are fairly simple in design, and for that reason they can be played on Mac, Linux, and Windows PCs without all the complex dependencies that goes with a more complex game like Mysteries of the Ancients.
Its for reasons like that why I still haven't settled on a specific design for my own RPG games. I have lots of good story ideas for an RPG, but it is the technical/design aspect that has me wondering on how to do it. Part of the problem with having taken lots of CS courses, learning several programming languages, is that I'm presented with too many choices and options. First, you've got your on line gamebook/RPG adventure like Sryth. A project like that probably uses html for the basic web pages, a scripting language like php or Perl for the actual game coding, and some SQL using a MySQL database for storing account information and game stats. Second, you have your server based game. A developer like myself writes a game, places it on a server, and then creates a client that logs in and plays it. Finally, there is the stand alone game written in C++, Java, Python, C@#.net, or VB.net that is the same basic game but in a single player form that is downloaded to the PC. All of these are good choices, but the way the internet is growing I think an on line game would probably make more money than an off line game would. People are funny about paying say $20 for a stand alone text based RPG that they download to their computer, but wouldn't think anything of slapping down $20 for a years subscription to an on line RPG like Sryth even though the off line and on line game are identical. Go figure. Cheers! On 8/8/11, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > When my phd is finished, that's actually one of the things I think I'd > considder learning to do, sinse it's something I've always wanted to see, > and gamebooks are very popular at the moment. > > I like the sapi program idea, though my concern is including and making it > accessible to sited players, which would obviously involve readable text at > least, and maybe one or two static images the way Sryth has, eg, a dropdown > menue of directions, but with pointing arrow graphics. > > As I said earlier, there is evidence that many people are playing gamebooks, > text games like Sryth, muds (even those without a gui), asci graphic games > like rogue and angband and of course net rpgs like Sryth. > > that however would be my conern with a downloadable program, sinse it's not > as immediate to other people as a mud or text game, but obviously this is a > debate we've already had. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
