In other words, can they move even if you do absolutely nothing, including not typing Look? I would much prefer a player to see, “Man arrives from the North/street.” on it’s own, independently from any actions the player was doing, as that gives credence to a living breathing world. Right now, the player has to travel to each room or keep using Look to see if “magically” the NPC happened to be there/dropped by, because it works in Turns of player’s actions or randomly chosen number of player’s actions.
I also have another character programmed to move randomly around, but again, no one knows this, as they would not be getting the info of something entering their area or space, unless typing Look repeatedly or doing something else to make up a Turn. Is there a way to make this seem like NPCs can travel in real time, independently of the player’s actions or inactions? Thank you.
Though I do not have my laptop with me, I am pretty sure you can have time-based events as opposed to turn-based events. If I remember correctly, events are by default set to turn-based but there should be a field where you can change this. The event can call a task which immediately moves the NPC and prints a message if needed.
However, I recommend to avoid situations where the player has to type fast to succeed - that is just my personal preference
Infocom tried real-time-based NPC actions in Border Zone, and it’s fair to say that everybody hated it. It doesn’t feel like a “living world”; it just feels like the game is interrupting you all the time as you try to play.
Ever since then, when people talk about “living NPCs”, they mean NPCs that act every turn. Turns is how game time works.
Right now, the player has to travel to each room or keep using Look to see if “magically” the NPC happened to be there/dropped by
No, you can have messages that pop up after the player’s regular action. It doesn’t have to be a move or a LOOK action. Check out how the Thief or the Wizard work in the Zork trilogy.
(Again, this is about single-player IF. MUDs have evolved differently, but the two approaches don’t combine well.)
I’ve thought of this. In the early game this will not be a problem. However, later on with possible over crowding of NPC and other interactions… Testing will need to be done.
What is a player’s regular action? I’d like to have it where no action at all and an NPC will still walk by. Typing this I just realized I can make fake random characters walk by using a random timed text event. But the player will have zero interaction with them, which may or may not be good for different parts of the story.
What I need right now though, is an NPC that will walk independently of the character’s actions or lack there of. And which can be spoken to or interacted with by the player.
I will look into the games you mentioned, if I can. I am not sure how far into the Zork trilogies the thief and wizard are in.
In the “demo” the latter will not be a problem. Later on, well by that time I hope to understand the game system better. And as I was typing another reply, I remembered I can make timed events of text with fake random NPCs on timers or even random timers, but not necessarily actual characters that will physically walk independently from the character and that can be interacted with. Although if it can be done, please let me know as it is integral to the game(s) I am working on. Thank you.
I don’t mean to be discouraging, but do note that real-time effects in IF have been loudly hated from the time of Infocom to modern IFComp entries. Either they require you to do something before a real-time timer runs out—in which case, needing to go check your map, or using text-to-speech, or just being a slow reader, can doom you—or they require you to do something after a real-time timer runs out—in which case, you’re left to zone out and get distracted while you wait. The latter is more common nowadays than the former, but it tends to lead to people losing interest in the game while they wait for it to progress.
One analogy I’ve heard used is that most people wouldn’t appreciate a book that would lock out the next page if they didn’t reach it quickly enough, or if they didn’t spend enough time on the previous page, and thus wouldn’t read that book in the first place.
Without quoting your entire post, which was great by the way, why do real time events work so well for MUDs, but not IFs? And this is a question for anyone reading this, really.
Both are text based. Both have a similar game interface, which can be all text, black and white and little to no graphics. Both use real time events not manipulated by a DM or Wizard, although MUDs can be or solely rely on it, depending on the game engine used. Not all have separate windows either for different functions. And yet I think those can be made in IFs if needed, to lessen or prevent sensory overload and cluster of all info on one screen.
People who are also visually impaired play MUDs, as well as those who are not visually impaired. So why shouldn’t it work or why do people hate it so much in an IF? To me the styles are not all that different, minus you take out the Wizard (if they are even present), all other “online” players and you have the entirety of the game world, roaming NPCs, monsters, quests, etc. Even by default, a MUD can be played online, without a single player or DM running it. So why shouldn’t work for IF?
they are cosmetically similar but very different in gameplay. it sounds like you really want to make a MUD and not an IF game. and repurposing IF authoring tools (which are turn-based to their core) to do this is probably not the best way to go.
I think in the end it comes down to—they’re different genres, so players will be going into them with different expectations. The underlying technology is similar, but the art forms have diverged so much over time that the way that technology is used tends to be pretty different.
Same thing with choice-based IF and visual novels. The way you interact with them is similar, but what players expect out of them is different.
It can be done with tasks without “fake random NPCs” but the user-friendly walk feature is limited to turn based moves. To move a “real” NPC at certain times, you must make a timed event which calls a task with an action that moves the NPC. Or a task which calls several other tasks if needed. See screenshot:
I think the major difference is that a text adventure is a single-user game, whereas a MUD is a multi-user game. Multiple players are playing the game at the same time. You have no control over what other players do or the timing of what they do.
Even without timed events, it would appear to be real-time. If you just sit and observe, you will see other players coming and going and doing things. I’ve never played a MUD, but I imagine that you can also see other NPCs coming and going and doing things. In fact, all the other players will appear to you as NPCs.
I guess I share a lot of other posters’ reservations about how well this would work, but I’m also interested in people trying new things or mashing together aspects of disparate genres (if text adventures and MUDs are genres).
Hopefully you can prototype something that uses Denk’s suggestions above and see for yourself how it plays?
Remember that it’s important to listen to players - their complaints and suggestions always tell you something - but, also, people don’t always know what they want until you’ve given it to them.
If you like IFs, I think you’d like MUDs, although not all MUDs are built the same, literally. I could talk about them all day, but I could simply direct you to the MUD sub reddit or even a few MUD websites, if you’d like. Or we could talk about them, provided a mod would not mind.
Regardless, yes, to your thoughts. And to me, that makes the game world come alive. You do not have to do anything. You could be a Halfling and invisible and just watch what goes on around you. NPCs would still roam the country side, night and day would still cycle, it could rain, two aggressive monsters could fight right in front of you, you could die from starvation waiting
Yes. I have recently tried the Border Zone game to see what they were talking about. I am already not a fan of the game, but that is because of it’s theme and also it is like an Escape the Room/Point and Click Adventure, without the pictures.
However MUD from Squidsoft had space ports you could visit. There you’d see little cleaner robots zipping by, transports and spaceships landing and taking off and by simple descriptions, get the feeling that the deck plates beneath your feet were really vibrating.
But it was all real time or so it felt. I could have a seat in a chair and wait for someone and see everything that was happening around me as it were. I want to capture that similar feeling in a IF. The only thing it would lack, would be other actual players. But if that is not something people would want, then I am not sure how well received it will be.
