intfiction.org

I recently played Bob Bates' Arthur and one thing I particularly liked about the game were the still images dominating the upper part of the screen. Similarly, one of the great things about Alabaster was the changing image of Snow White.

I guess what I'd like to ask is, what other games use still images to good effect? Are there any cases where having still images detracts from a game?

In the English-speaking world, Robb Sherwin is the guy who uses images the most heavily. Heavy use of images is much more common in non-English-language IF, for historical reasons.

Ghost Town Uses still images.
(my first attempt with the IF world. Created with Adrift)

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Being There is an excellent example.

Sticking with the Infocom games; Journey, Shogun and Zork Zero all use images; although some in different ways than others.

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"Will you stop breaking the fourth wall? It's costing me an absolute fortune to replace it!"

The text adventures from Legend Entertainment (founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu after Infocom went down) all made excellent use of images. The three most known games were Eric the Unready and the two Gateway titles.

Trying out Ghost Town now. The trouble is that the image and the text window aren't integrated, so it's a bit clumsy to switch between the two. Is there an ADRIFT Runner option I'm missing?

The photography in Being There gives the (non)game cohesion which it would otherwise lack, and it the details in the photographs implicitly suggest actions to try.

Is lack of artistic ability the only reason more people don't include images in their games?

That, and even if you have the ability, producing enough images for even a fairly small game is a fuckton of work. Even if you're just taking photos. And pictures can look kind of shoddy if you don't also do layout, which is an entirely different set of skills.

The other thing is that most games would require art to be consistent: if you have illustrations for some rooms/items/NPCs, but not others, that's a problem. If you have images for everything, but the art styles are totally different because you ganked images from wherever you could find them, the effect's usually going to be pretty crap.

There are ways around these issues, of course, but none of them are simple. (Write games with style and subject material that corresponds to a substantial body of stock images; develop a style of quick-and-dirty art and write games with style/subject material that works for it; write a zany game for which a grab-bag of visual styles is appropriate; write games set in your apartment, neighbourhood or the next place you're going on holiday; hire an artist.)

I'm guessing everyone has their own take on why they don't include pictures in their games JJ, but one of my favourite games to include pictures is Arrival, which Stephen drew. The artwork looks like a kid drew it - which is the point, as the protagonist is 8 (in fact if you read the about page the whole idea for the game came out of the fact that Stephen felt he drew like a child). Very cool game, and the art style compliments the game's content and style - which I think is the measure of whether a game's images succeed or not.

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Check out Everybody Dies by Jim Munroe.

-Kevin