Elder Gods Shrine ------------------------------ presents Adventurist's Guide Through Textual Adventures Part I Written by Vladimir Krstulja aka Chthon ----------------- Table of Contents: + Intro + What is a Textual Adventure + How to Play Textual Adventures + How to Adventure Well + The Problem of Mazes + Final Word ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intro ------------- Hello adventurers! The Elder Gods Shrine came out with another beautiful text file on textual adventures. This time, this excellent piece of sick minds craftwork, is not for the coders but players. To be precise, for newbies who never played a textual adventure before! But this file can also greatly help all the experienced adventurers to review their adventuring methods, as well as programmers to see what should the players expect. What is a Textual Adventure ----------------------------------- More referenced as Interactive Fiction (IF), a Textual Adventure is a computer game, played through text commands and descriptions. The player gets his status and enviroment described on screen, and, given a promtp, tells the computer what to do. Why do these games exist even today, with Quake, Doom and another pile of 3D full realistic games? First, textual adventures are very old, and are usually played by fanatics who began with these games on Spectrums, Commodores and other excuses for a computer. On the other hand, textual adventures provide more realism if the player has enough imagination. In Doom, or Quake, for example, players get realistic enviroment, sounds, high adrenaline, etc..., yes, but need lots of computer equipment for that. But textual adventures do not need piles of different computer cards for sound, graphics; fast processors; much memory...Quite opposite: textual adventures need only a computer, disc or floppy drive, monitor (monochrome is quite enough) and the keyboard! And, of course, a player to play! ;) But what are the advantages of such games? First, no need for expensive equipment. Second, all the equipment it uses actually is the player's brain. The brain is one huge graphic/sound/smell/touch/emotion card! I believe smell, touch and emotion cards are not yet invented, are they? Reading descriptions on the screen, player derives a picture in his head, of his surroundings in the game, including vision, sounds, smells, emotions, touch! A bit of psychology: When playing 3D games, even full realistic, players cannot develop the sense for temperature, emotions, smells, nor full sense for sounds. He cannot actually FEEL the wind blowing in there. Why? Because his eyes focus on the monitor, brain focuses on his fingers to react - therefore the brain is too busy to imagine REAL feelings, and player sees physical image on the screen not his mental, derived by descriptions. Textual adventures provide all of this mentioned. But of course, a textual adventure HAS to be good, to provide such pleasure! You won't feel anything if the computer says "Ok. You dropped the glass. It is broken". But you will, if he describes "As you drop the glass, it falls down to the ground, and shatters in milions of pieces." - you will automaticly imagine the sound of broken glass, and "see" the glass actually falling down! I don't need to prove this. You just did imagine all of this just by reading this small example. See? How to Play Textual Adventures -------------------------------------- First, of course, you need a textual adventure. My advise is to go to ftp.gmd.de/if-archive. You will find there lots of textual adventures of all kinds and genres. If this site exists no more while you read this, then just try to find words TEXTUAL ADVENTURE on Yahoo!, or whichever search system there is. Somebody sure will have some info about this games. Afterall, where did you get this file from? There are many different methods of playing textual adventures. Actually, these methods depend on a game itself. Some textual adventures (commercial ones, for example) offer you to input a whole English sentence, like GET THE SWORD AND KILL THE BLOODY MONSTER Of course, you don't HAVE to type the whole sentence. GET SWORD AND KILL MONSTER should do the job. The point is, these games ALLOW you to input full sentences. I, for example, love to input full sentences. To cut the confusion, you can also write GET SWORD, and in the next turn type KILL MONSTER. Did I just mention turns? Yes. Textual adventures are not played realtime. (Except MUDs, but that is another story now...) The time passes only if you input an understandable sentence and press >enter<. Here is an example: ...you are stunned and frightened. The stone block above you will fall at any second now! You should escape fast! >run est I don't understand the word 'est'. >run east As you hurriedly run to the east, the stone block falls down and shatters. You are... As you can see the time did not pass when player entered RUN EST. This is very suitable to avoid unnecessary deaths and frustrations if you mistype. I haven't yet found a game that doesn't support this. Of course, not all of the textual adventure games support full sentences. Non-commercial IF games are usually of this type. Many games understand only verb-noun sentences, with no articles and adjectives...It all depends on the programmer and his skills. All the adventures that I wrote or tried to write, understood full sentence. I think, and that is my personal oppinion, that the game is complete and gives much more pleasure if the player can input the whole sentence. But due to programmer's laziness or lack of skills many games understand only verb-noun sentence. Beside this, textual adventures can have small, or large vocabulary. Most of the games include only few verbs and a little more nouns. I have to admit that I have found a great number of textual adventures with rather large vocabulary. Hereby I wish to greet the game SKULLDUGGERY by David Jewett (can be found on ftp.gmd.de /if-archive/games/pc/), for excellent sentence parser and rather large vocabulary, let alone the ANSI graphics included! The story is great also! Of course, my drug THE GUILD OF THIEVES, by Magnetic Scrolls, was something I would die for! (too bad it can't be found in stores today, but who knows...perhaps there is a pack left forsaken on a shelf in a library or computer shop). Good games are those that understand the EXAMINE verb. It usually allows the player to closely examine an object, giving more realism. Just to mention, there is no textual adventure without the LOOK verb! It is the mostly used and mostly familiar verb among the IF players. It gives the description of the room player is in, as well as sounds, smells... Ok. But how do you interact? As said above, you interact through your sentences. Your sentences can be described as commands which you give to computer. If the computer recognises your command, it will render your move and show the results on the screen. Well, this was some weird-terminology speech. ;). But that is what computer actually does. Whenever you type LOOK, the game will give you room description you are in. Of course, a 'room' in textual adventures is not only a room in a building. 'Room' is reffered to your current location described by LOOK command. Even this is a 'room': >look On the Sandy Beach You are a sandy beach. The river here flows quietly, and the green forest around calms you down. The birds chirp in their usual afternoon symphony, and a light breeze makes you feel like in a dream. However, this wonderfull idyll is broken by an old path that runs northwards, deeper into the forest. There is something unusual with the path, like it doesn't belong to this almost heaven-like surroundings. Perhaps this strange moaning you can hear from the north gives you the creeps about that path. The river continues from east to the west, along which some footsteps can be seen. Now, you can see this wonderful location by the river is also a 'room'. The descriptions usually tell where can you go. From this description, you can see that you are able to go north, east and west. Typing those directions will lead you that way. Almost all textual adventures understand 'n' instead 'north' and 's', 'w', 'e' instead 'south', 'west', 'east', respectively. Some games tell the exits beneath the description, sometimes not defining where do they lead. Like this: On a T Junction You are on a T junction. There is also a store here. The exits are north, south, east, west. This description does not tell WHERE the directions lead, although it can be derived from the given exits and knowing previous locations. Actually in this description paths lead east, south, and west, and the store is to the north. Except just moving around, you can also do some other various things, depending on the verbs the game understands. All the games understand the verbs like LOOK, GET, DROP, I or INVENTORY, N, S, E, W. This are kind of general verbs that each game must understand. I think no explanation is needed here, but for those who need some, here it is. Look gives description of the room. But LOOK AT will usually give the description of an object, ie. LOOK AT PAINTING. Some games also understand LOOK IN, LOOK UNDER, LOOK BELOW. This is optional. You can check if the game understands a verb, simply by typing it. If you get a message like 'I don't understand that verb', it means the game doesn't understand that verb. But you must be careful. For example, in the game The Guild of Thieves, if you try to move an object that cannot be moved in the game (was not ment to be moved) you will get the message 'It refuses to be moved'. Now, this doesn't mean that the object actually refuses, but the game is not programmed to move that object. Due to estetics, the game doesn't say 'You can't move it', but explains that in a humourous fashion. Imagine a table refusing to be moved! ;) Verb I or INVENTORY will describe you what do you currently carry. These are some common verbs each game has. Most of the games have some DOC or TXT file along, which describes what verbs does the game understand. Also, typing HELP or ? or INFO in the game, will give you some help. How to Adventure Well ----------------------------- There is no general criteria on who is a good adventurist. Each game has its own traps and tricks. But, there still are some minor guidelines every newbie adventurist should follow. Explore what you can, before you enter in a quest or problem solving. Don't go in the cellar or dungeon if you haven't yet fully explored the first or second floor. There might be a candle hiding somewhere. If you sense a room that might be tough or dangerouns, don't go before you have explored everything else: there might be a weapon hidden! Examine everything you can. If you see a painting, examine it. In the game The Guild of Thieves I examined a painting to find its contents crucial for my further progress! Actually, I wouldn't have been able to end the game if I didn't examine this painting. What should you examine always? Paintings (there may be something behind them or on them), chests (there may be something in them), rugs (there might be something beneath them)...bushes, boxes, crates, wardrobes, desks (especially desks), tables, cupboards...everything that is able to hide or contain something! When you have examined all this, and still you haven't found any answers to a problem, start examining other goodies, searching for hidden features, small notes or writings, examine even a scratch on a furniture: it may give you some answers! Write down your game's progress! Whatever is written somewhere, whatever is broken or something, write it down: you will forget it later! In the game The Guild of Thieves I was supposed to remember which playing card was missing from the desk, so I could use this information at the very end of the game! Draw maps! Find out your best method to draw a map and use it! Watch out for CURVING or WINDING tunnels! (Thanx to Steve Herring who reminded me to this feature in his game THE CRYPT). You can enter a tunnel from the south, but return to them from east, if the tunnel is connecting two described rooms -> your passing through the tunnel is not described, although some games explicitly tell you that you have entered a tunnel from south and, through that tunnel, entered another room from the west! +------+ ___ | | The tunnel (not described) / __ | | Room 2 (described) / / +------+ | | +----+ | | Room 1 (descibed) +----+ All in all, use your logic and your brains! All the problems and quests have to be logical. Even if the problem sounds difficult it can be very easy. But watch out for misleading theories. In the game the Guild of Thieves, there was a bear in a cage, and a valuable chalice with the bear in the cage (I was supposed to take that chalice). There was also a pack of honey, guarded by nasty bees! Believe me: I spent a whole MONTH(!) deriving a tactic how to fool the bees and give honey to the bear, taking the chalice while he is busy with his food. All tries failed, until I figured out that bears loved fish too! I cought a fish in the moat (using self made fishing pole, made by billiard cue and some thread, and a dead maggot), then I put some rat poison (!) in the fish and gave the fish to the bear who accidently died, so I took the chalice. (I also tried to poison some rats with the rat poison, but I failed! ;) ) Oh, yes, observe the word trickery! In the game the Guild of Thieves, you will find two cubes that are not IDENTICAL but ABOUT the same size! This WAS crucial! Such differences can be found by EXAMINing objects or even by carefully reading the room descriptions. The Problem of Mazes ---------------------------- (Thanx to Steve Herring who reminded me to this feature, in his game THE CRYPT) Mazes are a feature for itself, found in almost all textual adventure games. I think the mazes began to be used much since the game of Zork, but I could be wrong. We all know what are mazes in real life, but mazes in textual adventures are rooms with the same or similar descriptions, bound together, forming a maze. In some mazes you will reach the walls, but some will keep repeating the boring same description, like You are in the maze of narrow passages, all alike. As you move, you keep getting the same description on the screen. Eventually you get lost and don't know wether you are moving or not. Well, drop something and then try to move. If you get this object in the room description, then you haven't moved! This way you can trace your way by dropping things, if you have them enough. Otherwise you will have to drop a single object and go back for it, if you find a passage. Mapping your progress, and CAREFUL moving will provide a good maze map, as long as you move carefully and slow. Well, you don't want to go east by accident, instead of west! A maze of twisty little passages is almost unmapable. But, see what you can do about it combining the methods described above. Final Word ------------------ At the end, there is nothing much to be said. Part I of the Adventurer's Guide Through Textual Adventures offers quite some information, for the newbie adventurists. My advise is play as many adventures as you can. Learn as many tricks as you can. Part II will be for more experienced adventurers, and part III for full experienced adventurists, including me! ;) I wander how will I manage to write a guide for myself writing the stuff even I didn't know? ;)) The Lands of Torment PBeM +.oO -------------------------------------------------------------- Oo. + | vkrstul@public.srce.hr Chthon | | the GameMaster of | | http://jagor.srce.hr/~vkrstul the Lands of Torment | | PBeM game | | | | .!! Eight years of Interactive Fiction gaming experience !!. | +.oO -------------------------------------------------------------- Oo. +