A few observations on the C code (I didn't read all of it):
- please, no strtok
- a little more concentration on the UI, for example not using strcmp to test inputs
- make all preprocessor definitions be uppercase
- those conditional operators confused the hell out of me - just use if/else
[1] http://www.ulisp.com/show?383X
https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=c896g2rtsope497w
Graham Nelson ported my port to his Inform language, and Inform is probably your best choice if what you actually want to do is write a (plain text) adventure game.
If you want to learn C programming, writing a text adventure in C would be a fun learning project! But aside from pedagogy there’s no real reason to write a text adventure in anything other than Inform, TADS, etc. Not only is it much easier to use one of these purpose-built languages, with Inform you get multi-platform compatibility going back to the 8-bit era for free!
Personally if I had any free time, I’d be more interested in looking at how to use a frontier LLM like llama as an integral part of a text adventure. There was something like this using GPT-2 circulating on here a while back, but it was pretty rough.
However, it’s pretty obvious that if you figured out how to precisely control the LLM so it didn’t produce crazy stuff, you could realize the dream of truly realistic NPCs in these games. Text adventures would seem to be a perfect laboratory for experimenting with this.
serhack_•5h ago
I wanted to write my text adventure, but I'd offer reader to have multiple options, especially for those who are not really practical with english (includes myself ^-^).
laurieg•5h ago
For the creative side I would recommend trying out all kinds of things. Should your player be able to get stuck/into a dead end? Will players play once or many times. Can you "win" your game or is it more of a narrative? How do you want the player to feel!
For some more specific ideas, think about how your game branches. Branching and decisions in games are far trickier than they might appear. Too subtle and the player misses the choice entirely. Too in your face and they become boring ("kill the baby" vs "save the baby", gee I wonder which one takes me down the evil path)
Also, merely asking a question or giving a choice can influence the player. If you ask "who is the killer?" and give a list of suspects, one of them must have done it, even if the player never considered it. The question also assumes the player knows there was a murder and gives that away if they hadn't worked it out yet.
dejobaan•1h ago
MrVandemar•5h ago
- https://planet-if.com/
- https://intfiction.org/
- https://grumpygamer.com/why_adventure_games_suck/
- https://grumpygamer.com/puzzle_dependency_charts/
- https://ifarchive.org/
bloat•4h ago
https://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/DM4.pdf
Crimes Against Mimesis was a famous tract in its day. I don't know how things have moved on since then.
https://www.rickandviv.net/index.php/2004/08/18/crimes-again...
rednab•4h ago
The Interactive Fiction Wiki is a nice place to start:
https://www.ifwiki.org/Main_Page
And if you search for something like "interactive fiction tips" you'll find tons of resources.
glimshe•3h ago
eigenhombre•2h ago
[1] https://if50.substack.com/archive?sort=new
[2] https://if50.textories.com/
mseepgood•1h ago