CYPHER: Cyberpunk Text Adventure

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

@maga

Mrm. I’m not inclined to blame them too much for weak English, (given the amount of effort they’ve spent on graphics, you’d think a little more work on translation might be in order, but it looks as though they’re a team of two and their budget probably doesn’t allow for it).

In comments at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, they seemed to be suggesting that their translator turned out to be not actually so good at English, and that they were getting a new one to redo it. I can understand how that happens, but it also seems like when the prose is such a big part of the game you’d want to get that right before you announced your game as the freshest thing since Arlie Latham.

What really distracts me is the NPC who seems to be named “Dog.” If you’re going to make me spend a lot of time talking to a guy named Dog, you’d better implement a response to PUT CAR IN CAR.

[severedhand]

What surprised/interested me the most was learning that they used Unity 3D to create this game. I wasn’t even game to try to use Unity 3D to create a 2D game (I considered Unity but went to GameSalad, which is genuinely 2d) let alone a text adventure. I give them kudos for the feat. The obvious question to me is why did they do it this way when they were creating a brand new game with no other restrictions, given that state of the art tools were already available for this purpose. If the answer is – they wanted to have the graphical and sonic bells and whistles, Unity would certainly give the authors way more control over those than Glulx does. But that will not make up for a poor parser with a crowd used to better.

• Wade

[syzygy]

My guess is the hammer syndrome: If all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

They don’t impress me as people with a wide background in programming, to put it mildly.

Cheers,

syzygy

[George]

@severedhand

The obvious question to me is why did they do it this way when they were creating a brand new game with no other restrictions, given that state of the art tools were already available for this purpose. If the answer is – they wanted to have the graphical and sonic bells and whistles, Unity would certainly give the authors way more control over those than Glulx does.

My guess is deployment. Glulx will get there but the full spec isn’t cross-platform yet. And chances are good the authors didn’t know what Glulx was.

[Jamespking (Marco Innocenti)]

My guess is they don’t even know this community existed or what TADS or Inform are. Because.
If that’s the case, nice job on researching, though. Type “text adventure” in google and see what comes first…

[maga (Sam Kabo Ashwell)]

@severedhand

But that will not make up for a poor parser with a crowd used to better.

My sense is that they’re not interested in a crowd used to better: they’re marketing to retrogamers.

[severedhand]

@Jamespking

My guess is they don’t even know this community existed or what TADS or Inform are. Because.
If that’s the case, nice job on researching, though. Type “text adventure” in google and see what comes first…

You better watch yourself on the research front

In the RPS topic, the brothers said themselves: “First thanks for all the nice comments! we’ve been getting a lot of attention this weekend, players are thrilled! they’re just happy about playing a new type of text adventure (beyond the games IF community usually makes every now and then, which we also enjoy too)…”

@maga

@severedhand

But that will not make up for a poor parser with a crowd used to better.

My sense is that they’re not interested in a crowd used to better: they’re marketing to retrogamers.

I just meant that in the balance of their elements, the choice of Unity and the graphics heaviness obviously don’t - and haven’t (with people who’ve played the game, which isn’t me) - make up for the parser troubles in terms of the game experience.

I think their target audience is broader/ more complicated to describe than retrogamers, as they are pitching the novelty of the whole thing, possibly to people who don’t have any preconceptions about text adventures.

I can see broadly what they’re trying to say in their own posts re: parser quality and ‘concetrating on the game itself’ (news.cabrerabrothers.com/); but they’ve kind of missed the boat because it looks like their parser is impairing the game some. But I can’t talk, I haven’t played it, and they say they’ve got players who cleared it without hints. If their parser is okay enough to do that for the bulk of their audience, they’re doing okay.

• Wade

[Dannii]

It would be rather easy to embed Glulx in a graphical system. Or at the least they could have ported the Inform parser (like has recently been done in Ruby).

[cabrerabrothers]

Hello,

Just came across this post here. Woah, many violent comments towards the effort. No problem though, we have thick skin and we learn from our mistakes. Good news is, we are throwing out patches for some of the issues (grammar, for example) and to support more screen resolutions in the near future

We have a huge fanbase growing and people is really happy with the game so we have nothing to say but BIG THANKS to the whole IF community for supporting CYPHER!

About the parser: I will just go ahead and post here what we posted over our news site since this is my first post here and I don’t want to be disrespectful towards the community by posting a link.

A word about CYPHER’s text parser
There has been some confusion around the web about the parser CYPHER uses and it is no one’s fault but ours. Like most of our players, we played text adventures long time ago, so we understand where some of the comments are coming from and we can’t agree more with them when they say the parser is a bit limited on some aspects (“WHERE”, “AND” etc.) For those of you who don’t understand what a parser is and what the hell we are talking about, here’s the wikipedia definition:

PARSER - In an Adventure game, a text parser takes typed input (a command) from the player and simplifies it to something the game can understand

Now, it is fair to say Inform has one of the most beloved parsers out there (if not the most). These guys have been working on their parser for years along with their community. They will be the ones who people will remember. They carry the torch for all of us text adventure players. Their engine is open source, its cool, it supports many words and sentences much better than the one we did.

Just that we never intended to build a text adventure parser to compete with theirs (or any other for that matter).

We aimed to do a game. That’s all.

CYPHER is fast paced action. CYPHER is popcorn on a Saturday night with friends. CYPHER is all that and more you may have never tried before. But what CYPHER is not is an attempt to evolve text adventures parsers, but to bring some heavy fun to players and delight cyberpunks all over the world with a futuristic setting. No, I’m not selling you the game again; that’s what it actually is. We focused on the world, the environment, the sounds, the music, the graphics, the story, the game mechanics and how to bring all that together into a text adventure you can actually finish with little help. We are thrilled seeing some of our players get through the end with just a couple of tips! That’s what we aimed for!

The parser could be improved? Always. There is always room for more improvements and there will be improvements on CYPHER or on our next games; but what we won’t do is lose our main focus – and that gentlemen is the game.

Hope you have fun with it!

[Jamespking (Marco Innocenti)]

I hope you haven’t seen any violent comment in here because there is none.

[cabrerabrothers]

“Disappointing as it is, people will lap up any old shit if you cover it in enough baubles and come up with a wanky video for it.”

Sure there is, and it’s okay because people can say whatever they feel like it. We do it too when a game comes out and we don’t really feel its our cup of tea. In fact, Carlos and I were just talking **** about a game a couple of hours ago (won’t mention the name here but it starts with Call and end with Duty). Just wanted to come up here and let you all know we are actively reading your comments to improve CYPHER.

We are also very aware of the positive response CYPHER had in the community (it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G) and working towards releasing more cool games like CYPHER in the future

[maga (Sam Kabo Ashwell)]

@cabrerabrothers

“Disappointing as it is, people will lap up any old shit if you cover it in enough baubles and come up with a wanky video for it.”

That’s harsh, even hostile; but not violent. A fine distinction, but an important one.

[cabrerabrothers]

@maga

@cabrerabrothers

“Disappointing as it is, people will lap up any old shit if you cover it in enough baubles and come up with a wanky video for it.”

That’s harsh, even hostile; but not violent. A fine distinction, but an important one.

Well we agree on disagree. I think it’s violent. And again, that’s okay. We are players too. Carlos and I just don’t want the topic to steer about what we all think a definition is but to be make sure our point about the parser was understood and in consideration.

[Peter_Piers1 (Peter Piers)]

@cabrerabrothers

Hello,

Hello yourself. The fact that you came over here and read our thoughts and are addressing them is wonderful, and shows that your heart is in the right place.

Good news is, we are throwing out patches for some of the issues (grammar, for example) and to support more screen resolutions in the near future

Thing is, you’re probably missing the point. It’s a text adventure. Bells and whistles are fine, and they do look very very nice, but grammar isn’t an “issue”. You wouldn’t catch someone buying a book with bad grammar in hopes of getting an update for it, but not wanting to wait before they can savour the story. In fact, writing isn’t as necessary as grammar. Infocom often had merely functional prose (that became brilliant in certain moments, but that’s another matter). That sort of prose can work when the gameplay is good enough. But grammar? Spelling? A text adventure communicates to the player in such detail that no other game can get close to, because it’s like talking to a person. Talking to Gronk is fun. Talking to a japanese who’s trying to tell a story in broken, unfamiliar english is disorienting and certainly not fun. Remember “All your base are belong to us”? There’s a reason that’s mocked. Imagine that all over a game… grammar is NOT an issue you can just patch.

Still, having said that, glad you’re doing it. Do let us know when it’s done.

Now, it is fair to say Inform has one of the most beloved parsers out there (if not the most). These guys have been working on their parser for years along with their community. They will be the ones who people will remember. They carry the torch for all of us text adventure players. Their engine is open source, its cool, it supports many words and sentences much better than the one we did.

Just that we never intended to build a text adventure parser to compete with theirs (or any other for that matter).

We aimed to do a game. That’s all.

This (and the rest) is a wonderful speech if you’re trying to sell something. Which you are. So kudos for that. But you’re trying to sell a pen-knife to the guys who’ve been using swiss-army knives for years (first comparison that popped into my head). You’re trying to dismiss the importance of the parser - or maybe you don’t understand it yourself.

This isn’t about trying to evolve the parser. This is about, like I jokingly mentioned earlier, forcing a player to play a mouse-driven game using the arrow keys to control the cursor.

Ok, so it’s probably not THAT extreme, but lose the pitch, guys, and understand that THIS is exactly what you’ve done. It’s the basic gameplay - communicating with the parser. “EXAMINE” is the single most used command in IF. If you don’t allow for its synonym, “X”, playing becomes more tiresome, just like it would be if you had to type “INVENTORY” every bloody time without being able to type just “i”. Typing “MORE” is just ridiculous - just press a key! Don’t tell me THAT would be too hard!

If you want to focus on the game - focus on the gameplay. Focus on the interface. And here’s the kick - the parser IS the interface. And I’ve seen tons - TONS - of “fast paced action” games completely lose their fast paced action because the parser would not cooperate.

Hope you have fun with it!

And I hope you address these issues. It’s great that you’ve come here to discuss it with us, but could you maybe come again and lose the sales-pitch?

[cabrerabrothers]

Hi Guys!

Thanks for the support!

But you’re trying to sell a pen-knife to the guys who’ve been using swiss-army knives for year

Mmmmm that’s not entirely right. We are not marketing this to the old text adventures crowd. This was not crafted specially for the infocom/inform gamers. It is marketed to the general public. Something your sister can enjoy, something your nephew will be happy to play, something someone who haven’t played text adventures might be able to download and have a ball with. That’s all. We didn’t wanted to do a parser, but a game.

And not only any game, but a Saturday night game. We never went for the Oscars, we just wanted you to put on your 3D Glasses and have some fun with it at the end of a long day. I dont know if you are aware of this but we could have easily done a graphic adventure. 100 times faster. 100 times more well received.

But we said no. Hell no. That’s not how we roll down here in Argentina. We wanted to create a game from the soul. So we did That’s why we are so proud of CYPHER! It is our first game! (Mac/PC)

Others will try now, we are sure of that. We can’t wait to see where all this leads.

[Peter_Piers1 (Peter Piers)]

Mmmmm that’s not entirely right. We are not marketing this to the old text adventures crowd.

I was talking about the contents of your post. Looked like a sales pitch and it addressed us.

Incidently, if you want a game with a soul, try “Crystal and Stone, Beetle and Bone”. Made by a blind girl who had a story to tell. That one is from the soul, and one can feel it, even though it can be visually very weird at times (formatting not exactly all over the place, but there’s quite a few oddities).

A soul is a great thing for a game to have. But when it starts being an excuse for not investing more in the game properly… bah. I’ve played more of that sort of game that I remember. What good’s a book when the pages are glued together? The soul of the piece may be in Chapter 5, but I won’t get past Chapter 2.

EDIT - Look, guys, it’s ok to be proud. It was a good thing you did. But unluckily for you, you’re charging for the game. And IFers have seen games that are much, much better than your game for free. That’s strike one against you right there. Then you seem to treat grammar as a minor thing. Strike two. And now you’re basically saying you like the parser the way it is because, well, it’s your baby. Well, your baby is crippled. And you have the chance to make him walk. And you’re denying him that chance.

EDIT 2 - Incidently, what the heck happened to the prose in Cypher? Your writing in these posts is better than the one in the game.

EDIT 3 - You know what, there’s a HUGE Spanish IF community. Why didn’t you just release it in Spanish first? There’d have been no issues with grammar then, I expect.

Done editing, now.

[tove]

I’m pretty sure we understand your target audience, but that’s exactly the problem: if someone hasn’t played [many] text adventures, they’re even less likely to put up with a frustrating parser. I myself do play a lot of text adventures (and I’m someone’s sister!), and too much guess-the-verb or poorly-supported synonyms is going to make me quit eventually. If I were someone coming from a position of wariness about text adventures, I wouldn’t get past the first screen of that kind of thing.

[cabrerabrothers]

@Peter Pears

Mmmmm that’s not entirely right. We are not marketing this to the old text adventures crowd.

I was talking about the contents of your post. Looked like a sales pitch and it addressed us.

Incidently, if you want a game with a soul, try “Crystal and Stone, Beetle and Bone”. Made by a blind girl who had a story to tell. That one is from the soul, and one can feel it, even though it can be visually very weird at times (formatting not exactly all over the place, but there’s quite a few oddities).

A soul is a great thing for a game to have. But when it starts being an excuse for not investing more in the game properly… bah. I’ve played more of that sort of game that I remember. What good’s a book when the pages are glued together? The soul of the piece may be in Chapter 5, but I won’t get past Chapter 2.

I played a bit of Crystal myself and found it incredible boring (maybe its another game named Crystal, I don’t know, played a good bunch of IF and old school text adventures I forgot). Different people consider fun in different ways; the same happens with CYPHER or Crystal and Stone. And we spend 7 months doing the game by the way. Like I said, some people will hate it, some will find it boring, others will love the fact you can be firing your gun inside a Yakuza nightclub while a thermal explosive is being detonated.

It all comes down to different tastes in life. Just wanted to make sure guys understood the reasons behind CYPHER, otherwise it may come of as “we don’t care what these IF folks say! Muajaja-evil laugh-” which is not even close to the truth. We do care.

Anyway, text adventures are back, we’ll be pulling a good bunch of these ones so stay tuned!

[cabrerabrothers]

I’m pretty sure we understand your target audience, but that’s exactly the problem: if someone hasn’t played [many] text adventures, they’re even less likely to put up with a frustrating parser.

Don’t worry though, we are not going to screw up the genre for new gamers. Here is what one of our players just said over our facebook page:

Hey Javier and Carlos, My name is Arthur, I’m 15 years old and I just wanna say Thank you guys for the first Text-Adventure I’ve ever played in my life! Yeah, I’m getting my ass kicked but the feeling of solving a challenge by myself is so great!

[George]

@tove

I’m pretty sure we understand your target audience, but that’s exactly the problem: if someone hasn’t played [many] text adventures, they’re even less likely to put up with a frustrating parser.

Games with frustrating parsers were popular thirty years ago. Given that IF has mostly dropped off people’s radar (and notwithstanding a few, uh, technical improvements since then), is it possible that this is tapping into the same demographic?