I was on an Infocom IF kick for awhile. Drawing maps is a must! This also originally appeared at Mapstalgia.
52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: Lurking Horror Map
Tag: video games
52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: Zork I Map
These originally appeared over at Mapstolgia which you should really check out if you haven’t already. Some of my other weekly sketches are over there too!
Designer Diary: De-making King’s Quest: Where to Start?
I’ve wanted to make a video game for, well, I don’t know how long it has been. Pretty long I’m sure. I can remember (just like everyone else can) drawing out dozens and dozens of level designs for my game. What type of game was it? It was a racing/platformer hybrid where racers in these pods would race through tubes that had a number of hazards. It was either going to be really stupid or stupidly hard. I never got anywhere on working on that game. I’ve never got very far on any of the games I’ve ever worked on. The problem always being have to learn a programming or scripting language. I’m not very good at it…
I still want to make a game though. So, what am I to do? Use Inform 7! Inform 7 is a programming language for making Interactive Fiction (IF) that uses natural language. What does that mean? It means that if I type in as a line of code:
The Castle is a room. “You stand before a majestic castle it’s walls are imposing.” To the east is the Moat. To the west is an Empty Field.
The compiler takes these sentences and from it knows that the Castle is a room and when you are there will display the quoted text. The compiler also knows that to the east is another room, Moat and to the west is a room called Empty Field. While you can do much more than create rooms with Inform 7 all of the coding is done in complete understandable English sentences like the ones above.
I figured the best way to learn Inform 7 was to start creating a game right away. But, I didn’t have any ideas for a IF game and I didn’t want to hate own of my own good ideas after implementing it so poorly on my first attempt at using the language. This is where Roberta William’s King’s Quest I comes in. King’s Quest wasn’t the first adventure game to have graphics (that was Roberta’s Mystery House) but the graphics were line drawings and static. KQ1 was the first to have a moveable avatar and detailed (for the time) visuals of your character’s surroundings. The player still has to type in commands at a prompt in order to interact with the game and there is still a lot of text to go through. Why not take that text and that premise for my own first attempt at game making? So, that is what I decided to do. I’ll just jettison the graphics and re-make the game in Inform 7. It shouldn’t be that hard should it?
Next time: Drawing Maps, designing a world
Let’s Play Quest for Glory I: So You Want to be a Hero? Finale
Greatest Heist Yet
Garcon tries to scale the wall while the poor visioned minotaur has his back turned, to no avail:
If the right, and the middle are out that only leaves the left!
“Shit on a shingle!” Now is not the time to be practicing your climbing skills, Perseii! Eventually many tries and a vigor potion later:
The key to this area is to not step on the carpet and take the path to the left by the barricades then to go over the bridge on your right and finally to step over that thin black line you see there between the barrels and the assorted sacks. After that you slide through the door
This is a timed event where you have to stop all the brigands from flooding into the room, mess up and you’ll be forced to reload. Eventually we’re going to want to get Danar to the door in the upper left against the back wall.
close door
Once the brigands move away from the bottom door you need to:
Next some familiar looking brigands come in through the upper left door on the left wall.
move candelabra
nyuk, nyuk, nyuk
Brought to you by Errol Flynn and the Three Stooges
jump on table
With the knochelkopfs out of the way we enter the door into…
Seepgood wants to ask the weird looking fellow about Elsa and Yorick but the little guy doesn’t seem to shut up
Warlock Wonderland
ask about Elsa
ask about Yorick
So close Garcon can taste it! All he’s got to do is figure out this funhouse maze…
pull chain
Girl out the Band
open door
This is a fun little puzzle. If you mess up you find yourself kicked out of the door in the upper right sliding off of the bridges and into a restore game. Once through it though after dodging that fake door you enter the real one behind it to behold:
I suppose fighters can duel the enchanted Elsa before dispeling the curse upon her theives don’t have that luxury though
use dispel potion on Elsa
They Make a Cute Couple, Don’t You Think?
I thought they’d never leave!
get mirror
get potions
look bird
Remember that. It will come up later…
Drive the Curser from the Land
We use Yorick’s secret passage and find ourselves back with the Antwerp… Only one thing to do now!
Check out stats!
Nice! Okay, let’s go take care of Baba Yaga
Click the image to watch the ending!
And with that this let’s play comes to an end! Thank you for reading along. Next week I’ll be starting the sequel to QFG1, Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire. A fabulous game that expands on the the base QFG1 provided and expanding it with some wonderful storytelling, a fantastic setting, and a great sense of humor!