Proof of concept: Text adventure graphical RPG-style game

I’ve successfully completed a longstanding dream of mine: to integrate Inform 7 completely into another game.

I’ve taken a basic Canvas html 5 tutorial game by Matt Hackett and integrated it with Inform 7.

Text commands affect movement, and movement affects Inform 7!

The game allows anything Inform 7 can do. My game allows only basic conversation with the goblin, but you could embed Galatea into this seamlessly (if you had the original source code).

And there are no restrictions on what web engine it can be integrated with. It just sends javascript event signals, so any engine that accepts those will work. I am considering using RPG maker to make my game Color the Truth a graphical game. I’m very excited!

I’m linking my sample game. Right now, it doesn’t do anything but demonstrate two-way communication. UNDO, SAVE, and RESTORE don’t work on the graphical end, because I didn’t code them into the pre-made tutorial. If this were integrated with a system capable of saving, then it would be easy to make saves work.

You can try the basic example here:

textadventures.co.uk/games/view/ … of-concept

(click the Play Online link)

6 Likes

Mind = blown.
I was not able to move using the arrows or WASD, but is that supposed to work?

1 Like

Pretty damn awesome.

Even if one only used inform for the conversational parts of a game, that could increase the “real feel” of an rpg. Imagine an rpg full of NPCs like Galatea.

1 Like

This. Is. Awesome.

It’s been three years since this proof of concept. Has anyone done anything more substantial with it? Amazing stuff!

(BTW @mathbrush, catching the goblin by running into her works seamlessly. However, standing next to the goblin and typing GET GOBLIN gives “I don’t suppose the goblin would care for that.” followed by “You caught the goblin!”)

3 Likes

TBF, the extraneous message isn’t inaccurate.

1 Like

I remember I just through this together really quickly. It comes from a bunch of experiments I ran before where I used the status line to communicate with javascript to do whatever I wanted. It has the advantage of not needing a server like Vorple does, and has the disadvantage of making it harder to set the status line for normal usage. It also runs off of standard Quixe, so it’s hard to make it do anything besides ‘quixe in one jframe with other stuff around it’.

The reason I personally didn’t do anything more with it is because I’m not very interested in graphical games, but I did use the same trick to add location music and colors to Absence of Law.

In the end, I think Worldsmith ended up using a similar trick. Have you tried that game? It has complete multimedia integration (with videos and more) and is a huge parser game. It has a sort of civilization/world-building minigame but once you get past that it also has an enormous 10+hour parser storyline.

2 Likes

I haven’t played it yet. I have this list of massive games I still want to tackle and I want to give them all the time and attention they deserve. Counterfeit Monkey, 1893; A World’s Fair, Jigsaw, Curses!, Blue Lacuna, The Lurking Horror, Mulldoon Legacy.

Worldsmith is patiently waiting among those.

Actually, I’ve been playing The Shadow in the Cathedral for the past week. Allthough it’s fast-paced and plays very fluently, it’s a lot bigger than I thought going in.

EDIT: I really have to play Absence of Law soon. You mentioned in a comment on my review of The Duel that Spanned the Ages that you modeled a mech-suit after the one in that game.

2 Likes

Every game you mentioned is great, you have a lot of wonderful games to look forward to. Absence of Law is shorter and a lot easier, so probably won’t provide much satisfaction lol. I am very interested in your future reviews of those games!

2 Likes