What Does The Future Hold For 3D Myst-ery Games? 132
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Thief (Looking Glass)
Pioneered stealth. Hiding. Avoiding enemies. The sound you and others make becomes really important. Unbearable tension. Really brought the first person shooter into the realm of mystery.
Nightfall (Altor)
Pioneered RT3D with the point and click cursor interface that 2D puzzle gamers were used to. Also, allowed construction in the environment (e.g. build a barricade or staircase using the hand). Physically modeled workaraounds to puzzles (if you can't figure out how a puzzle works, find a physical way around it). Pure RT3D puzzle/exploration game, with no combat (it IS possible!).
Trespasser (Dreamworks)
Robot arm like interface. OK, so the interface sucked, but you have to learn from the bad as well as the good, and with innovation comes risk.
What other games were significant?
Why do all this? Imagine taking the best parts of these games and using them to build the next generation. At a roundtable I once attended at GDC, a whole lot of us got round a table and griped about puzzle games (including some neat people, like the Monkey Island guys and the author of Leisure Suit Larry). The issues that came up were DETERMINISM (you replay the game, you get the same results), lack of IMPROVISATION (you solve the puzzle the way the designer said, or no way) and lack of FREEDOM (you can only go where a picture was rendered).
RT3D solves the freedom issue. You can now go anywhere if you can reach it (run, swim, climb..). Having true physics and AI solves the determinism problem - even slight changes in the way you play + rnd numbers affect the AI etc. Having a point and click physically modeled hand (one that can click a button or jam a wedge in a door) solves improvisation, because if a you don't get the designers puzzle strategy, you can work around it using anything you can think of. In addition, having real physics and AI that reacts to your presence (like the importance of being quiet in some places) would really help the immersiveness.
Am I missing anything?"
Re:More Exploration (Score:2)
See ROTSOS [airwindows.com], or as I like to think of it Return Of The Son Of Spacewar :) The demos I have so far consist of only a couple MPEG videos of essentially infinite consistent and entirely emergent terrain- and there's also a section on names generated the same way :)
What this means is that among the nineteen million stars of the galaxy you'll have several hundred that have a temperate habitable planet (and many that are borderline...), among which is the star Conard in the quadrant of the galaxy controlled by a feline sort of alien race, the planet being Diaceside. On this planet by the largest sea is the port city Corantial, which you can find from space by looking for the three surrounding mountains forming three points of a square with the city as the fourth...
Now. The trick is- all that is emergent. The three mountains would be blind luck- the city might end up named Sounirmas, or Fraeutnte, or Loeespgon, or even Asshot. However, given the proper algorithms to produce EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE from a single block of data read back and forth and up and down, you could go to thousands of stars and visit hundreds of planets and still, when you return, there's those three mountains again, and you are welcomed by the cat ladies of the port city of Corantial- because the mechanism, the algorithm, is totally rigid but _totally_ consistent and repeatable (also bloody fast, but that's another story :) )
I've GPLed everything I have so far but currently am hard at work on other things- but I do mean to pursue this further. The concept is so flexible you could use it for anything- as long as you can cope with the fact that everything has to be emergent. You can have a world-city, or countryside with cities down to the positioning of the trash barrels on the sidewalk- but you _cannot_ place even a single cigarette butt manually and expect it to be persistent, or you'd have to have a database terabytes in size to handle the sheer scope of the game world. If everything is emergent from the one database, you get to have a game world the size of a state, or country, or world, or the size of Ringworld if you wanted- all off a 16M file, all consistent down to the street-signs (but you're going to have street names like Bloangble :) )
The kick in the tail from all this is the security and consistency of multiplayer situations. Done properly (i.e. to extremes) the game world is unhackable barring clever executable tricks. You simply cannot change the bit of data that would say 'deposit of gold under place in the countryside I colonised' without simultanously changing many stars and planets in the universe, altering the very terrain you're standing on (gee, where'd the mountain go? Hell, where'd the _town_ go?) and possibly the name of the planet you're on :) it's a very effective way of keeping lots of data on the client side but making it resistant to tinkering- the data is so general purpose that any modification to it will put you in a parallel universe due to how extensively each byte is used for so many different purposes.
Seeing as my work is GPLed I would be happy to see other people take this idea and use it in their own stuff- the only trouble is, to get the proper benefits you have to build your world entirely this way. If you build the driving game you can spend a lot of time sorting out good algorithms so that if this quartermile is data value 123 and the next is data value 213 you have such and such a transition of roads (over varying-LOD terrain- see my flyover demos), but the one thing you can't do is draw a road freehand, or plunk down a gas station. Instead you make gas stations sub-data-value 107 and look to see if that's giving you an acceptable distribution of gas stations.
If you like exploring that much perhaps you'd like to _make_ a game of this nature :)
(yes, I'm the same guy who's always going on about his mp3.com music :) I was revamping my mp3.com site the other night instead of working on ROTSOS, and today I replaced a microphone cord plug and am making four high-resolution mini patchcords. But I'll get around to it- probably when I get really REALLY sick of wiring patchcords and winding bass pickups :) )
Its called HALO (Score:1)
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If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Alone in the Dark (Score:3)
I notice Alone on the Dark 4 is coming, if not by the original developers, at least by more French ones (www.darkworks.com).
Also, what about Daggerfall by Bethesda?
It's certainly true that Wolfenstein clones have had an undesirable grip on the industry for too long, spurred heavily (IMHO) by the fact that such games translate quite well to consoles.
Increasingly, it only makes commercial sense to develop games for both PC and console, and so the PC is brought down to the console's level. The "little people" genre (theme park, populous, dungeon keeper, AofE, Settlers etc) seems to work poorly and consoles and may have its days numbered because of that.
The whole myst thing brought computer games to people who had never touched one with a barge-pole before. These people then declared that myst was the best game ever written, amazing, mould breaking (sic) hype, hype, hype. Actually, I thought myst was a dreadfully frustrating, limited adventure game that managed to wow naive people with glossy pre-rendered graphics. Ug. Give me Sam and Max hit the Road _any_ time. Mind you I loathe adventure games, so I'm biased.
Still, Close Combat V coming soon...
Re:Overly simplistic view of necessary traits (Score:1)
Other than that, really good points, and I can't really find much that needs to be added.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Re:Suspense and tension (minor Riven spoilers) (Score:2)
There I was exploring the world of Riven, having just figured out how to get to the submarine, looking around the various places you can get to by going underwater. I was playing around inside the pyramidal cage (the one where the floor can open or shut), wondering what its purpose was. Then I suddenly remembered the "game" in the school that you use to learn the number system, thought about what it depicts, thought about what I'd seen in the pyramidal cage, and put two and two together. "So that's what the cage is for..." I thought. "That's just EVIL!" And because I wasn't led to the conclusion by the game designers, but instead was allowed to figure it out on my own, the impact was that much greater. After that, I couldn't travel in the submarine without feeling slightly nervous about what I was going to see swim by... :-)
The lesson to be learned from all this? Subtlety. It's found all too rarely in games (and movies, too), and is vastly needed. I remember someone's comment about the old TV show Dr. Who; this person (whose name escapes me) said that what differentiates Dr. Who from most other science fiction is the level of danger often found: while many plots are along the lines of "We must stop the quantum bogomitron particle flux before the chain-reaction destroys the entire universe," Dr. Who plots are more along the lines of "Doctor, hurry! That mudslide will wipe out the entire village unless we do something!" Smaller, but which one is more gripping? Again, subtlety wins.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Interactive Fiction is alive & well (Score:2)
The IF games newsgroup: news:rec.games.int-fiction [rec.games.int-fiction] - for discussion of IF games, hints, etc.
The IF writing newsgroup: news:rec.arts.int-fiction [rec.arts.int-fiction] - for discussion of writing good IF
The IF archives: U.S. Mirror at http://www.ifarchive.org/ [ifarchive.org], or Original FTP site (in Germany) at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/ [ftp.gmd.de]
The folks on the IF newsgroups are very friendly and helpful and will be more than happy to help you. Start by downloading one of the IF starter packs if you've never played text adventures before, then try the excellent game Curses, by Graham Nelson. (Then try anything else written by Graham Nelson -- the man is a genius). Have fun!
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Re:Suspense and tension (Score:3)
I agree 100%. One of the most replayable games in my collection is Angband [slashdot.org], a turn-based game which doesn't even use graphics! Well, admittedly you can play with graphics, but <dons asbestos suit> Angband purists play in text mode. %lt;dons asbestos suit> You see, Angband gives you one life. ONE. You can save, but only in order to quit the game. When you die, that information is IMMEDIATELY recorded in your savefile and you have to start over. Sure, you can make backup copies of your savefile easily, but that's regarded as cheating and not a "real" victory. The result is a game that, though you'd think all the opportunities for suspense and atmosphere were missing, turns out to be absolutely gripping, because you know you can't afford to make stupid mistakes.
For example, one of the most exciting moments in my recent play was when my High-Elf Mage got herself trapped in a corridor by a Xorn. Xorns, for those of you who don't play Angband, cause confusion when they hit you -- and when a mage is confused, he/she can't cast any spells. All they can do is drink potions (some potions cure confusion) or use staffs or wands. But reading scrolls or spellbooks (a mage's primary method of spellcasting) is right out. Well, I had a bunch of cure confusion potions, so I just drank one -- and the Xorn hit me again, causing me to be confused again! Meanwhil I was watching my mage's hitpoints drop from around 200 HP to 150... 100... 50... Then I ran out of potions and knew I was doomed. In desperation, I took out my wand of teleport monster and started shooting it off in random directions (which is all you can do when you're confused). The very last charge on the wand hit the Xorn, teleporting it away from me when I had just 5 HP remaining -- I was saved. The feeling of relief I felt at that moment was one I've almost never experienced in commercial games. Of course, that's because I haven't played too many of them, but this should at least give you an idea of the sort of suspense that can be created by good gameplay (and, done right, 3D immersive gameplay can be even more powerful).
P.S. I hope the blow-by-blow account wasn't boring; if so, my apologies (and don't play Angband, because you wouldn't like it! :-)). And I'm perfectly aware that I sometimes used the first person in referring to my Angband character. I'm perfectly aware of the difference between fantasy and reality, don't worry; just consider it illustration of how even a text-only, turn-based game can be extremely immersive.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Re:Adventure and Action games ARE different! (Score:1)
Looking Glass went under partially because they were perfectionists who believed in shipping a functional, complete, stable game. Thief 2 needed such a huge patch right off because Eidos forced them to ship--they were given a hard, no-holds-barred deadline which nearly killed the development team (not hyperbole--they were in crunch mode for far longer than usual, and that ain't healthy). At the same time, Daikatana's ship date was slip-sliding away...
Free, Open 3D Game Development Project (Score:2)
WorldForge's core technology is being developed to be game-generic. Present plans include multiplayer RPG and RTS games. We've nothing against violence in video games, but in most of the games we have planned right now it plays a lesser role than in commercial games. We value problem solving and thinking more than reaction and quick twitching, and the games we develop are supporting this approach.
We've been at this for coming up on 2 years now, and still going strong. Our core team is several dozen in number (quite big for an open source project). You may have seen our booth at the LinuxTag Expo last month. Our first release (of a primitive early prototype) was a year ago, and we're working up to our next release within a few more months (a simplified RTS game to demo our client and AI engine, first unveiled at LinuxTag). In a year or two, y'all are REALLY going to enjoy using what we're working on right now. :-)
Of course, everything is available under the GPL. This includes a considerable (and growing!) amount of art (including 3D animations), music, a fantasy game world called Dural, and a complete tabletop roleplaying game rules system. It is *easy* to get lost in our website looking at everything!
We try hard to be one of the easiest net projects to get involved with. We're strong believers in net projects as educational opportunities, so even if you've never done anything remotely like game development, but would like to have a cool project on which to develop your artistic, musical, writing, or C++/Perl/Python programming talents, I think you'll find WorldForge will suit your interests nicely. Really, the only requirements we have are to have an interest in making games, and persistance in sticking with it.
Because WorldForge advocates freedom in gaming, people only interested in making Big Bux won't fit in too well. Not that we have anything against money! But this is more of a hobby than a job, to us. (Good experience, though!)
WorldForge is like GNOME and GNU in that it is more of a collection of projects with a general overall goal to give uniform direction, than a single specific program being developed. We have a number of game projects, servers, clients, etc. underway now, but if you've got something that you're willing to develop as GPL'd software, we can make room for you.
Primary Requirements: Plot and Characters (Score:1)
Who are we as players in the game? What are our motivations? Why do we want to open the sluice gates on FCD#3? What other game entities are we battling against?
You need character development. I remember playing Planetfall (an Infocom text adventure) and crying when Floyd (your robot pal in the game) died. The prose of that particular phase of the game was crafted to evoke emotions of the player. The human experimentation evidence in Myst, on the other hand was just more stuff I couldn't click on and do anything with. In the Leisure Suit Larry series, characters fell into a few basic categories: "obstacles", "assistants", and "points". The obstacles were part of puzzles, to be worked around. The assistants were helpful parts of puzzles, giving clues and items to proceed past puzzles. The points were, well, the goal of most of the puzzles in the series.
Personally, I still prefer the classic text adventures for stimulating the imagination. The field is now referred to as "interactive fiction", and has new writers showing up every week. They leave something to the imagination, like reading a good book versus watching the movie.
Re:what we need is what we had. (Score:1)
In the early cga/ega days as you point out, Sierra's gfx weren't bleeding edge, but that wasn't the point, they were stable. And it was the technology under those graphics that was bleeding edge, look at the old AGI based games... they ran on just about anything. What AGI really allowed was for the game to be seperated from the mechanics of the game. Remember that it wasn't the number of polygons that made a game good, it was the items I listed before like story and characters.
Maybe you were just playing the wrong titles... LSL's storylines weren't exactly intended for kids, although Al was usually rather childish in his sense of humor. Look at some of the latter game series, Laura Bow, Phantas, etc. Also remember that at the time the target audience was NOT adult geeks, mostly parents and their kids (or kids and their parents). Sierra was a family oriented design house... I doubt you could say that for id. Although they did have their share of more grown up games.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Sierra was the ONLY BEST company in a Highlander-esque sense, they weren't: EA also had some ass kicking titles, as did some of the small no name companies. I'm simply saying that their game content (as opposed to technical glitz) was top notch, and is something that is sorely missing. Where today is there a game series with characters like the Grahams?
what we need is what we had. (Score:2)
What these games need is what Sierra On-Line had, back before it became the pathetic shell that it is today. We need to get Roberta out of retirement. Sierra's games, and her's in particular, set the standard for the industry for what? nearly a decade? Here's a short list of the things I really miss from the good days of Sierra:
Ok, enough of a eulgy to Sierra On-Line. What can we do with today's technology? Well, here's my suggestion for a game, I wanted to see Sierra make this, and in fact I went up to their offices in Oakhurst way back when to interview with them and try to pitch the idea... after the tour I canceled my interview, and stopped pursuing getting a meeting with Roberta. Now I'd like to suggest we do it open source... but I'm afraid we won't find the right people to do it and it'll be a disaster.
So what I'd like to see is a collaborative quest style game, much like King's Quest or Hero's Quest (aka Quest for Glory) only with some number of players each taking a given role and playing together. Define the characters, define the world, let the players figure it out from there. If bandwidth and screen realestate wasn't an issue, put real time video conferencing of the whole group up while you're playing. (audio is at least a bare minimum, trying to cary on a conversation by text while you're playing is a tedious distraction in today's games.)
Some examples of stories that I think this would work really well for... The Hobbit. All six parts of the Lord of the Rings. The Belgariad. The Malloreon. The Saga of Recluce. (ok, a couple of those last ones might be marginal, I'm working from distant memory on a couple as to whether they'd be good multiplayer quests.... the two JRRT ones however, no question they'd be excellent if done right, but I fear that some game company is already hacking out some miserable knock off, just to make it out in time for the movie.)
So 'berta, if you're out there, WE MISS YOU!
Adventure and Action games ARE different! (Score:4)
Looking Glass went under due to reasons that could happen to anyone. It wasn't because of the type of game they made, it was due to their business troubles.
Re:Games need a good story (Score:1)
Re:More Exploration (Score:1)
Gadget (Score:1)
Re:3D Graphics no substitute for 3D Characters (Score:1)
Re:Gadget was not a game (Score:1)
don't forget Zork, dungeon, etc. (Score:4)
And I think that may be a clue as to where to start developing more interesting games. If you are going to spend a lot of time on fancy graphics, you aren't going to be able to experiment with good gameplay; at best, you can tinker around the edges. Those older games also got tuned because lots of people were using them and lots of people had access to the source.
So, keep the graphics minimal, experiment, and share. You can still dumb it down and make it look pretty for the mass market later.
Hero's Quest/QFG 1 (Score:1)
Re: Confused Rant (Score:1)
Also, you contradict yourself. You "loathe" adventure games, yet you "love" Sam and Max?
There is an insufficient number of game genres for Sam and Max to be classified as anything other than Adventure.
Continuing, the most interesting console game format is the console RPG. Yet that does not translate well to the PC. Wouldn't it be ridiculous for me to suggest the PC is hold back console development?
Finally, 3d FPS action has only recently been ported to the N64. Doom 64, and Quake 1/2/3 64 have sold extremely poorly, so any limitations caused by them are now over.
Too much emphasis on graphics -- look at Nethack (Score:1)
absolute turds for single-player gameplay (although I must admit I do enjoy a good multiplayer deathmatch
Anyway, for proof that a good gfx engine is not required for gameplay, look at Nethack -- an @ sign roaming a screenful of ASCII art. Yet the game is incredibly addictive, purely because you can do almost anything you like -- every zap a polymorph wand off a wall and turned yourself into an umber hulk, then chomped your way through solid rock? Now that's flexibility!
One thing I'd say about NH is that it needs more story. Some of the other roguelike games have taken care of that though. But IMHO the pure flexibility of the game makes up for it.
Wouldn't this cause conflicts with ... (Score:1)
Perhaps the target audience is not the adolescent with excess hormones but perhaps the more mature audience. Think back to board games like Diplomacy or Machiavelli (sp?) where intrigue and mystery is an inherent part of the story and the randomness given by interaction with other humans. If so, you are in the mental challenge business which is strictly speaking not entertainment. People who want the mental equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest are not likely to be found at gaming conventions and you are competing against games like chess and bridge. As others have noted, the gameplay/plot is key in this situation and the graphics only a reinforcing visual prop.
I'm not fraging the idea, in fact puzzles are quite a good way of relaxing but perhaps the question should be framed as "what segment of the population enjoys puzzles and how they can best be approached using technology derived from current display engines?"
LL
Gadget was not a game (Score:1)
The problem is how to sell these things. They needed a category to explain what they were, and the marketing people chose games. They are not games, they have no strategy, tactics, puzzle or reflex requirements at all, just pure exploration. They were reviewed as games, and failed miserably. Too bad, I thought they were interesting works of art. Perhaps they'll get another chance someday.
Re: (Score:1)
Not ATM (Score:1)
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Multi-Player Myst Games!! (Score:3)
Now imagine a game, like myst, but bigger, with more complete physics. And imagine that this game, has varying degrees of dificulty, not as a setting, but as a function of how many people are in the game playing with you.
"I can open this door, but there is only one potion, guess we'll have to find another way to get you onto the pirate ship"
and
"If only Bob were playing, he could turn that lever while I pull the switch, guess I'll have to find some other way to do it. Hmm, wonder if I could bully that troll in the dungeon to help me
I want to play this kind of game. I would $PAY$ to play this kind of game. And I'd prefer regular releases of small games in a series to long seperated releases of HUGE games. (You and your buddies spend a weekend playing the New one every 2 months, maybe its an Add-on to the enginee.)
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Re:Adventure and Action games ARE different! (Score:1)
Sure it's not an action game like Quake. But the adrenaline is still there. This time because you are not sure if the guard will hear you or not, instead of the usual John Woo frenzy.
System Shock (1 & 2) was more of an RPG. But the action elements were still vry important, the game is more like Quake than it is similar to say Fallout or other standard RPG's.
Great games all of them however!
Re:Why do we WANT these kinds of games? (Score:1)
"So your hemorrhoids are flaring up again, huh?"
Ahh, wonderful game...
Puzzle games (Score:1)
So, what do I want to see? Good, entertaining and challenging, but doable, puzzles with real clues (in a mystery) and a good story to work out.
What don't I want to see? Crap like Rama where your ability to proceed depends on seeing the right speck of dust in the right place after wandering the barren plain for a week. The other thing I hate is things that show up after you do something else for no reason. If I need the matches on the mantel to light a fire sometime, leave them there, or give them a reason to appear later, not just because I happened to notice the closet in a house across town or something silly like that. Make things progress logically so you can actually figure out what you need to do from the clues you're given and not just wander around repeatedly until you happen across something that's changed for no apparent reason.
Hmmm. Didn't realize that was such a hot button for me...but there you are...
All well and good but...... (Score:1)
Re:Forgetting a company? (Score:2)
-russ
Looking Glass (Score:1)
Thief 1 and 2 were comparatively successful - the demise of Looking Glass was due to business matters, rather than a flaw in the game design.
Of course, I could easily be wrong about these things, too.
I still miss the 7th Guest. (Score:1)
It had plenty of story, graphics, and puzzles.
It had plenty of slow, though, on my 486.
Re:Forgetting a company? (Score:1)
It still does, at least in theory. They released Gabriel Knight III sometime this year (with awful looking 3-D figures. I know that's what computer games look like these days, but - ew!).
Their latest King's Quest, though, was a shoot em up. I was very annoyed. KQ used to be the defining example of adventure games, and then they released the world's most boring slog and shoot experience?
Re:Better RT3D (Score:1)
Such games exist already, but not for computer systems. Just check out Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, and Donkey Kong 64 for Nintendo. They are real time fully-rendered 3D games where one solves puzzles in a highly nonlinear fashion.
I admit, the puzzles in these games are nowhere near as complicated as those in Myst, but at least they're present. If a similiar game were made with more difficult puzzles I would be very happy.
Uh, what do these two companies have in common? (Score:2)
Re:Nothing beats the text parser (Score:1)
And you never had to worry about the fact that you had absolutely no idea what the sprite in the closet in "Hugo's House of Horrors" was supposed to look like.
Re:Nothing beats the text parser (Score:1)
Err, and I'd just like to add that I didn't intend to make it sound like the gaming world revolved entirely around Sierra up until (but not including) KQ7.
Hmm. And now I'm feeling nostalgic. What should I play? Space Quest 3? Zork? 7th Guest? Maybe I should pull out a thesaurus (and a dictionary to make sure I spelled "thesaurus" right).
And come to think about it, I wonder what the thesaurus has to say about the word "thesaurus".
And how many more stupid FidoNET taglines can I rip-off to waste time until I go to work?
I miss that portion of the early '90's where I thought it was still the '80's.
Re:Adventure and Action games ARE different! (Score:1)
This game probably did more to damage the adventure genre than any other. It meant that people who hated adventure games could suddenly consider themselves fans of the genre, which spread the same deadly (anti-qualitative) memes that Star Wars had spread over Science Fiction. Millions of people - people who didn't know or care what a slavering grue was! - sat enraptured by a slideshow with polished but sterile graphics and token elements of gameplay. Meeting another fan of adventure games become a trepidatious, usually painful experience: "I love adventure games!" could now most-often be translated: "I've played Myst and Riven! What's a Zork? Isn't Scott Addams the guy who writes Dilbert?"
Both thumbs down to Myst.
More Exploration (Score:1)
Re:News at 11: Game Designer cracks... (Score:1)
Now someone will follow up informing me of what TLCPP ripped off. ;)
Riven actually had multiple paths and endings! (Score:1)
Re:The ultimate RT3D experience (Score:1)
Note: If you do not appear in person in front of the Ankh-Morpork Tribunal a small fee will be paid to the Assasin's Guild for your complete deletion...
yours,
CITY WATCH
Tex Murphy (Score:1)
Re:Anybody remember Cyberflix??? (Score:1)
Games need a good story (Score:3)
Whether it be one of my own stories, a friend's, or just some random writer's story, I want to be able to tell it, not only in a way that is visually appealing, but in a way that enriches the player's life. (I'm not talking Chicken Soup for the Computer here, but just something that lets you escape from everyday life for awhile, and do something other than blow other's people's heads off in some FPS)
Too many games try to impress via their engines. Sure, it's nice if you can arc arrows over walls and hit people on the other side, (I'm not dissing Thief here, that's a good game)and if you had some grappeling hook you could fire, and it would realistically hook onto something, and you could climb up, and it could even fall off, or any number of "amazing 3d graphics and physics" things, it's still nothing without its story.
I used to play games with CGA graphics, or even some of the classic text adventures, and I loved them, because they had excellent stories. It's time to truly bring that back. If it takes 240 hours to play because of a really long, deep storyline, GOOD. I'll always have something to do in my spare time.
I know I'm probably saying the obvious, and maybe even straying off topic a little. But, this has really irked me about popular games these days. (Especially first-person shooters, which have a major lack of storyline) Anyway, I'll stop my ranting now, and go back to my dark cave.
-John H.
(P.S. if anyone wants to invest in a small game company, write me e-mail.:)
Re:Myst? You're joking right? (Score:1)
Dude, Myst was beautiful. It was like 5 years of complex 3d modelling and texture mapping, all done on 68040 Macs way before the Pentium came out. You're joking, right? When was the last time you saw a mousepad or a poster with a beautiful scene from Doom?
Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
foo = bar/*myPtr;
Moderators (Score:1)
One digusting b#stard.
Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
foo = bar/*myPtr;
The market (Score:3)
I guess I think that if there's a reason for fewer "smart" games and more shooters and the like, it's due solely to market influences. A lot of people are buying Q3A, and non-shooters seem to have fallen out of favor with many geeks, including a lot of people who read
"During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I was riding the pogostick."
Forgetting a company? (Score:3)
Maniac Mansion.... (Score:1)
Re:Halflife and Tribes (Score:1)
Re:Well, what is lacking in other games? (Score:1)
Mostly non-predictableness in the story is largely gone by the time you have played it. The standard ways of doing it have been to have a large forking tree or to have NPC (guards, allies, enemies, etc.) behaviors randomized or in tune with your reaction. Deus Ex is supposed to have a good deal of non-repetition; I haven't checked it out yet but my friends say good things about it in that respect.
To have a truly non-linear story line requires a mini world that continues on while you 'do your thing'. It would be more like modelling an entire city with a large plot but with the interaction possibilites of a MMORPG. Nothing that I am aware of does this in a graphical format although I'm sure such things exist in MUDs. The level of interaction in Black & White may come closer to what is necessary.
I'm sure there's more to say or other ways to do it but that's all I've thought about in the meantime.
Re:A bit excessive... (Score:1)
Well, what is lacking in other games? (Score:3)
Games like Thief and System Shock proved something that movie makers have forgotten, that the ultimate suspence can be resounding silence. Instead we get predictable sound tracks that give away the next move... beh. Sound effects, especially ambient sound effects can drag you into the game and keep you on your toes for hours.
Being enthralled by the atmosphere in the game is what keeps people like me fascinated by the game. Trying to kill the humungous boss with an arsenal of weapons at the end of a level is rather boring in comparison to having to inch across a narrow beam 50 feet up in the wair above a pair of guards.
With the proper AI and randomnization (this is extremely difficult from what I gather), you can make sure that the game has replayability. This is one of the key elements that make RTS games and some FPSs fun.
Anyways, back to my original point... Story. Thief, SS2, and Thief2 were obviously second rate technological pieces in comparison to things like Q3. Yet most of my friends loved those games. It shows how the wherewithal to create an *experience* can be rewarding. Sadly this courage has gone to waste with LG's shutdown.
Hopefully these more carefully crafted games will increase in number and begin to be as numerous as other 'engine' games.
Nothing beats the text parser (Score:2)
For exploration there really is nothing better than the old text parsers like adventure, zork, HHGttG, old Sierra games, etc. They just have that extra bit of exploration to them because you can't just mouse around the screen all the time, you have to think about what you are doing. That barrier is what makes them fun, the thought involved, not the oh this looks cool what does it do when I click here element.
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
A bit excessive... (Score:5)
Sounds to me like real-time 3-D is the least of your problems there. Even producing an accurate physics model is only a small step towards the goal of complete freedom of action. What this describes is nothing less than a world where the consequences of any action can be reasonably predicted, where NPCs have not just preprogrammed responses but full personalities and convincing AIs, and where the game knows the properties and uses of each and every item in the environment. RT3D games could give a better illusion of allowing free improvisation, if the creators are clever and the players are willing to stay within certain boundaries. But thinking these games cab offer the same kind of freedom as real life (where I could, this moment, stop reading
Ironically, such goals migh cause games to look substantially worse... designers would have to do away with background scenery, costumes, complex weapons, and anything else they couldn't describe completely down to a nuts-and-bolts level (what does the wiring inside a BFG look like? Is the fuel for the flamethrower poisonous?). They'd have to limit characters' abilities severely, in order to stave off unforseen consequences.
- Michael Cohn
Black Dahlia, ahh, what a game (Score:1)
Me and my fioncee played Black Dahlia through, with the help of a walkthrough, and it still took a really long time.
That, if anything, was a game that capturred the player into the storyline and theme. Only one of the eight CD's was unnecessary, the other seven served us both for a VERY long time of entertainment.
I would love to see more games like this, with the intensive plot and atmosphere being more of a matter than blazing fast 3D effects and humongous multiplayer functionalities. Honestly, Black Dahlia was the best puzzle/problem solving game I've ever played - And I did enjoy both Monkey Islands, Discworlds and others.
It's really a shame that no game makers vreate such games any longer. I would gladly pay the price for them if they really proved to be worth the challenge. Preferably in Linux as well.
Are there only that few others who share the interest and love for these kind of games? Please identify yourselves.
Re:Why do we WANT these kinds of games? (Score:1)
Funny? Definately! Troll? Maybe..... but definately not interesting.....
they should take a look at this one (Score:2)
It's still one of my all-time favorites.
News at 11: Game Designer cracks... (Score:4)
While the adventure genre is a lot quieter than it used to be, there have still been some good games out, and still some coming (Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 4, respectively).
On a side tangent, saying "There are too many FPS's and RTS's, lets make more Adventure games" *isn't* the way to go! That'll just lead us to a point where we'll say "There are too many adventure games, we need more (neglected genre no 17)".
What game designers (and to a greater extent, publishers) should do is make games that *don't* fit into genres, that are unique and aren't following a game model already paved out by id/blizzard/lucasarts. As someone working in the gaming industry, the most frustrating thing for me is seeing publishers sticking to genre games and not taking risks making *new* games. Will Wright with "The Sims" is a great example - he had to literally fight all the way for *seven years* just to get the game made!
Before the mid-90's, a first-person gun game would be called "a doom clone", and would be marked down for that in a review. Now, thanks to the lack of innovation being allowed by publishers (and to a degree developers), the same game is called a game in the "FPS genre", and usually boosted thanks to the not-so-subtle pushing of games on reviewers by publishers.
The main publisher/developer that doesn't do this is surprisingly Sega, and they are reaping the rewards because of it! Innovative non-genre games like Crazy Taxi, Seaman, and Jet Set Radio have made gamers wake up to the life outside FPS's and RTS's
Hopefully, genre domination will change - Things like the LithTech/Real networks deal ( http://www.lithtech.com [lithtech.com] ) and Auran Jet ( http://www.auranjet.com [auranjet.com] (disclaimer - I'm a designer at Auran Games) ) should allow the unjaded garage developer with the cool game concept to come out with genre-breaking ideas, and get them out to a large audience. Hopefully then, publishers will let developers make risky games.
And that's the end of my rant.
sprayNwipe
-=-=-=-=-=-
And just to get this off my chest - *never* use Trespasser as an example of a good game. Even Daikatana is better than that abysmal slide-show, interface-deficient, crate-stacking-with-real-physics game. See http://www.oldmanmurray.com/longreviews/trespasse
I suggest... (Score:1)
Re:Ultima Underworld (Score:1)
You've got it backwards. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was made by Blue Sky, which was later renamed to Looking Glass after they discovered that there was already another software company [blue-sky.com] called Blue Sky (which, ironically, is now called eHelp).
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds was the first game actually released under the Looking Glass name.
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Re:Anybody remember Cyberflix??? (Score:1)
Re:Overly simplistic view of necessary traits (Score:1)
People need more immersive and engaging games, something a bit more involved than running around with a big gun blowing people away.
I wish I had something more insightful to say, but I think you've already said it
3D Graphics no substitute for 3D Characters (Score:4)
Better RT3D (Score:4)
The biggest problem I see with even the best of such games is the lack of alternatives. Yes, Myst and Riven and others are great alternatives to the Quake style shoot-em-ups, but invariably the player has to solve ALL of the puzzles more or less sequentially to complete the game.
What I would like to see is a game where there were multiple, mutually exclusive paths that might be taken to successfully to a conclusion. And if there was a certain randomness in the game that would make one path or another easier to find each time the game is played, so much the better.
Gonzo
Re:The ultimate RT3D experience (Score:1)
-Kahuna Burger
Re:The ultimate RT3D experience (Score:1)
Re:don't forget Zork, dungeon, etc. (Score:1)
Too much improv? (Score:1)
On the other hand . . .
If the player has a huge amount of freedom, the game designer might not be able to make that assumption. Or might make the Really Big Bad Guy invulnerable to anything except the Sword of Armageddon. Now wouldn't that suck? A player doing the entire game as a sneak-around-and-chat, suddenly having to don platemail and go beat things up hand-to-hand (okay, sword-to-hand). And alternatively, the game designer couldn't make the assumption that said player owns the Sword of Armageddon. There goes the pretty FMV, there goes the "now that rocked" moment. You could do it with in-engine graphics since those will take up less space - but still, the game designer gets to write many multiple endings. Not easy - voice acting would become near-impossible (though I'm not complaining about that, I never much liked voices anyway, heh).
You also might start losing plot. Say that on the way to the quest for the Sword of Armageddon, the player finds information on the Really Big Bad Guy and his underlying motivations (i.e. the King killed his father). Well, guess what - now you won't! I realize an obvious argument is that the game designer shouldn't link things like that. But those kinds of links can be fun and can help move the plot along. We're trying to tell a story here, remember, and how many really good books are completely predictable from beginning to end?
grrr. Now what was my point? :P oh yeah. Multiple paths are a good thing, but don't take it to extremes. The only way you could create an infinitely branching plotline would be with dynamic plot generation - with an algorithm that understood things like suspense and coolness factor. And that ain't happening anytime soon - we'll have a computerized Isaac Asimov *long* before then (after all, it only needs text, and it doesn't have to happen in realtime . . .)
So, for conclusion . . . DON'T GO OVERBOARD. I'd rather be funneled into a plotline than be floundering around without anything interesting to do.
Oh, one example of a mistake (possible spoiler! awooga! awooga!): In a game called Lufia, you discover an ancient weapon called the Twin Blades (or the Twin Sword, I forget). It is presumably the most powerful weapon in the world and the only one that can kill the big bad guy. Well, at one point, you can get a weapon called the Buster Sword . . . which, statistically, is better than the Twin Blades. Doh. And you can use it to kill the big bad guy. So, why did you bother going to get the Twin Blades in the first place? This particular glitch is just the designers making a mistake - but I can see this sort of thing happening far more often when it's not linear. Even in a recent game, Septerra Core, there's a tower that contains some incredibly powerful weapons - many of which suck by the time you can actually get to them :P (The sword, for example, is useless - in order to get it, you *have* to get the Twin Demon Swords of Marduk, which *are* the most powerful swords. One sword per character that uses a sword . . . so why did I bother with the tower?)
Okay, I've rambled on enough. Hope someone can extract something meaningful out of this.
Re:Its called HALO (Score:1)
Re:Why do we WANT these kinds of games? (Score:1)
You could, however, practice your swordfighting skills...
"You fight like a milkmaid!"
"How appropriate; you fight like a cow!"
Though if you haven't played monkey island this probably doesn't make much sense...
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Re:what we need is what we had. (Score:1)
Sierra had a handful of decent games. Can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure they existed. But they also made a lot of not-so-good ones. I remember when Lucasfilms Games started making those side-view adventure games that Sierra had originally had the monopoly on, and they just blew away Sierra. Even in the early CGA/EGA days I never saw what was so great about Sierra's graphics; they weren't so much high quality as large and colorful, which a lot of reviewers seemed to like. Their storylines seemed a little too childish, and the ease in which you could die grew annoying.
There were some really great game companies back then; Origin and Electronic Arts probably produced the best consistently, and I don't think Infocom ever had a bad game. But very few people I know think very highly of Sierra.
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Re:Why do we WANT these kinds of games? (Score:1)
We've all heard the jokes about games that act like slideshows -- a la Myst/Riven. The fact is, glitzy graphics alone don't do it.
Neither do puzzles. Ohhh, setting the clock to 2:10 p.m. raises a bridge so I can get into a small room to solve more puzzles.
RPGs reward players with 'stuff'. Stuff that makes you badass, so you get the pleasure of beating them fearsome monsters into small piles of putrid debris.
3D shooters do much the same thing. Granted, there are classics like Tetris that don't use these methods, but puzzle games require lots of thinking, for what seems to be insufficient reward.
Suspense and tension (Score:1)
Being enthralled by the atmosphere in the game is what keeps people like me fascinated by the game. Trying to kill the humungous boss with an arsenal of weapons at the end of a level is rather boring in comparison to having to inch across a narrow beam 50 feet up in the wair above a pair of guards.
Good moviemakers and writers have known for years that suspense and tension are absolutely addictive. Having your awareness drawn out like a piano wire is at least as big a kick as the adreneline overdose you get from things like Unreal.
Thief is an excellent example of this. You're creeping around, you don't know what's going to happen next, but you know that if you don't stay on your toes, you're fucked.
The impact of this sort of situation can be increased by raising the stakes. Eg. in Soldier of Fortune, you only get a limitted number of saves per level. You can choose to turn this feature off, but I find it generally more fun to play with it on. It means that you can't afford to get sloppy because you can't just save before every major encounter. And so you're more involved with the moment, because if you screw up, you have something to lose (in this case, time and progress through the level). And if you pull off a clever stunt or a subtle strategy, the payoff feeling of success is huge.
Of course, to make something like this work well, the user interface has to be nearly perfect. If you're creeping around and get killed because you goofed or were just unlucky, that's fine. But if you're always falling off that ceiling beam because the controls suck, that's just frustrating.
Ultima Underworld (Score:3)
I'd pay money for a CYOA-style game. (Score:1)
Adventure, StarCraft, Grim Fandango, Half-Life, System Shock 2. Decent games, but all entirely linear. Team Fortress (which was very well implemented in Half-Life as TFC) redefined multi-player gaming with the simple introduction of classes.
The next Half-Life could redefine the single-player experience by introducing the simple two- and three-way choices of choose your own adventure. Let me choose good or evil. Let me make a non-fatal mistake.
Half-Life's strength was its production value, not its gameplay or story. Ditto StarCraft and Grim Fandango. Bonus points for System Shock 2 for its RPG-style classes.
Make a good choose your own adventure and you'll make a million bucks.
Re:Games need a good story (Score:1)
But........don't let it (Score:1)
Some pretty screenshots (Score:1)
http://www.gamez.nl/extra/myst_shots2.p html [gamez.nl]
--cr@ckwhore
Re:Level of Detail (Score:2)
I strongly agree with this. Games like Myst almost aren't games at all - they really could be called "interactive fiction" (I know, that term has a many bad connotations, but...). They capture your attention because they place you in a fully imagined and realized world; a world where interesting things are happening. They make you want to explore. They contain believable characters and realistic details.
Which is not to say that Myst, Riven or any other example of the type was perfect. But for me the appeal of these games was not so much the intellectual feat of puzzle-solving (they're pretty simple puzzles) but uncovering the depth of the world and the plotline: finding out what happened to the characters and why. Much the same reasons I read a good novel or watch a play.
Re:Well, what is lacking in other games? (Score:1)
Being enthralled by the atmosphere in the game is what keeps people like me fascinated by the game. Trying to kill the humungous boss with an arsenal of weapons at the end of a level is rather boring in comparison to having to inch across a narrow beam 50 feet up in the wair above a pair of guards.
try 'Amber: Journeys Beyond' by Hue Forest [hueforest.com]. The game was published in 1996 in a Myst-like world. It had no soundtrack and no movement. Every once in a while a movie would come up and the walls would start bleeding. I've never played a more frightening game (and I've played some doosies). Minimalism at its best.
Myst? You're joking right? (Score:1)
The problems with Myst (in no particular order):
- No usable inventory field
- No driving story, besides new-age sounds and lopsided environments that were supposed to "drive an internally-woven story" (new-age bs)
- Technology essentially mounting to an Apple Hypercard stack (what the brothers originally programmed Myst in)
- Rendered still frames in a gaming world quickly going to real-time 3D (Doom, Marathon). Hell, even 7th Guest was able to combine mouse clicks with *some* motion - years before Myst.
- No definable ending
- All videos relating to the story could be viewed easily off the CD without playing the game (this was laughable)
- No true goal system (a result of the hacked-together inventory system)
- Worst of all, that "mass-media taste" that has been embraced by games like the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" CD-ROM, which has been on top of the gaming charts for several months. Games like Quake and Diablo more adequately brought gaming to masses - without sacrificing technology
In short, "Myst games" are nothing but mass-marketed dribble. Games like Thief, which are revolutionary, should not be placed into the same slot. Games like Myst should be shot off the planet.
Re:News at 11: Game Designer cracks... (Score:1)
And the Lithtech engine? Please. The frame rates in that thing, even on a decent machine, are nothing to be excited about.
Re:Why do we WANT these kinds of games? (Score:1)
Don't get me wrong, I love first-person shooters. I have played much more Doom, Quake and Half-life than I would admit to any of my non-geek friends, but they are the gaming equivalent of a Jim Carrey movie - fun as hell, but take absolutely no brain cells to process.
Personally, I really like playing Myst like games. Anyone remember the Seventh Guest?? Pretty damn cool, if you ask me. Of course, I grew up playing Kings Quest, so what do you want???
Re:3D Graphics no substitute for 3D Characters (Score:1)
Level of Detail (Score:2)
Re:Adventure and Action games ARE different! (Score:1)
These two ingredients-- atmosphere and story-- were definitely present in Looking Glass Studio's games. The Thief games and System Shock 2 were both creepy, tense experiences. Those guys understand atmosphere and sound design.
Why not tap into the current source of hype..... (Score:1)
Think about it, either cooperative play where puzzles require two players to work together, or a competitive situation where one player serves up for another player. This could be an excellent use for the Neverwinter Nights [neverwinternights.com] engine and the Aurora toolset.
The gaming industry is what we make of it as consumers...and right now multiplayer games glut the market. Why? Because they offer replayability and unique experiences from game to game.
PrimalChrome
Re:Overly simplistic view of necessary traits (Score:2)
Alfred Hitchcock was gifted in knowing what to show on film, and what to leave to the viewer's imagination. The shower scene in Psycho is a classic precisely because it did NOT show every stab's effect on the victim!
Games where I do NOT know EXACTLY what is going to happen, whether it's my first time playing it, or my 200th; THOSE are the games that fire up my imagination and draw me in!
Some people prefer the challenge (and uncertainty) of trying to blow up the mega-nasty monster before THEY get blown up. Others prefer the intellectual challenge of trying to work through a puzzle, under time pressure. (The classic Adventure had a lamp whose life was limited, and near certain, immediate death, in the dark.)
In either case, there is some information that is known and some that is not known, and a perception that it IS possible to make it through, alive. In the fullest sense of the word: life-like.
Tex Murphy (Score:2)
What makes a good Myst-like game? (Score:2)
An interesting theme.
A level of challenge which requires a level of comprehension and smarts a tad higher than the one you have, making you learn new ways to think all through the game.
Failing all that, use Lara Croft.
Why do we WANT these kinds of games? (Score:5)
This growing trend of "puzzle" and "adventure" games is really starting to disturb me. What's happened to all the first-person shooters -- classic games like DOOM, Quake, or Unreal? First-person shooters are real games; they're the only ones that are actually training our kids to become valiant soldiers. I don't see anyone practicing their aim by playing Monkey Island.
What happens when Janet Reno decides to take all our guns away? Are we going to let her get away with, because our kids were too busy playing garbage like Riven? No! We need to fight back. We need to give our children the training they need to fight in the real world. If kids can't learn to solve their problems with violence, how will be able to defend our rights?
Enough with this "mystery game" crap. Bring back the first-person shooter!
Overly simplistic view of necessary traits (Score:3)
Two analogies:
1) During the era of B&W silent films, I can image such a round table discussion concluding that to make good films to capture large audiences they needed three things: COLOR, SOUND, EFFECTS. Well, we've got all three now, and for every _American History X_ or _Babe_, you've got countless _Starship Trooper_ and _Armageddon_'s.
2) A standard book has zero DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM. A choose-your-own-adventure book (remember those?) has all three. By the reasoning given, cyoa should be best sellers, with regular novels at the bottom of the heap. This is clearly not the case.
Why?
1) Better technology does not create better end products, it only allows the creator's concepts to be expressed in ways not previously possible. A lousy idea is still lousy even if it's IMAX 3D surround sound. A great concept can be accomplished in a 5 min B&W segment with no effects.
2) What people want, generally, is a compelling experience that speaks to their basic needs, desires, dreams, problems, etc. A finely crafted novel immerses the reader in a new world, giving a rich exposition of the author's ideas. A cyoa is too loose, and so it is even more difficult to communicate a well-defined concept. It could be done, I'm sure, but I don't think it has.
These principles apply to gaming. First and foremost, gamers want to have fun. This is why Diablo II, despite is dated graphics, and simplistic gameplay (find monster, kill it, get treasure, repeat for 15 hours, game over) is doing so well - it is *fun*. Blizzard is always behind the tech curve, but they know how to code *fun*. (They must being using the language F++
Half-Life was also great in part because of: a good story (for a game), the illusion of freedom (the path was almost completely linear, but you could explore that path as you wanted), and it gave the player the experience of being *there*. (I could only play for 30 min in a setting, cause it made me so tense. But those were gloriously stressful half hours
What about Myst? I never played it, but I've watched friends play through parts of it. It was ACCESSIBLE (which is why so many non-hardcore gamers bought it), IMMERSIVE (a realistically rendered, self-consistent world), and ENGAGING (people seemed to genuinely like to the slowly disclosed story coupled with the task of solving problems.) It had little DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM. Trespasser had all three, and by all accounts it was loathsome. What do games *really* need? You be the judge.
Finally, something I think all games lack, that great art possesses, is the ability to speak to our core; that is, to say significant things about the human condition, to challenge us with new ideas, to enlighten us about ourselves and others. Granted, games in general don't really do that (I thinking of sports and board games). But clearly computer game creators aspire to something closer to literature and film at times. To get there, the content must *significantly* improve.
Anybody remember Cyberflix??? (Score:2)
The company disappeared. (The killer space they occupied on Market Square in Fab Downtown Knoxstantinople is still available is if anyone wants cheap rent wired.) But the game still resonates with me. It was lush and plush. Intriguing and diffifcult. The solution wasn't just a matter of trial and error. I finally finished the game AFTER I stopped kludging. Anybody ever play it? Some reviews called it the ultimate... I don't know if that's the case, but it certainly was a wee bit above DiabloII (not a troll)....
Zelda 64 (Score:3)
The game allowed complete freedom of movement within the environment, and the physics of the game play directly into the puzzles. In one puzzles you are expected to hit a target with a flaming arrow to thaw it. Unfortunately you must hit the target while standing on a moving platform. After trying for I don't know how long, I realized that I had a flame shield like spell. I cast it and the heat from that spell activated the switch just as the arrow would have.
The important part is the game engine works the way life does. There is more than one way to do it. I wish I could meet the developers of that game and find out how they put the engine together. The surround sound is amazing also.
This game ties for the best game ever written next to Hero's Quest (humph... ok Quest for Glory I).
Re:Forgetting a company? (Score:2)
The ultimate RT3D experience (Score:5)
DRIVE! to work every day!
WORK! at a boring job five days a week!
SHOP! for food and other useful items!
COMBAT! a house full of roaches!
HAVE SEX! with your
"The frame rate on this game kicks total ass! But I can't find the railgun anywhere!" - Geta Halflifer
"Wow, look at those shading effects! If only Lara Croft's butt could be rendered with this kind of technology!" - D. Ruling Fanboy
"Unlike Daikatana, the AI kicks ass in this game! If you get pulled over for speeding too many times, the cops really take you to jail! - S. Racer
"Ook! Ook, ook, oooooook!" - The Librarian
Real Life The Ultimate Real Time 3D Experience! And it's cheat-proof, too!