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The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

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Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#41

Post by glimshe »

thom wrote: post #35
glimshe wrote: post #4

One of my dream games is a truly open world text adventure. I got a glimpse of it by having ChatGPT run this game, but it started hallucinating and misremembering after a few rounds. It has to be perfect to avoid breaking the immersion, but I'd pay $100 for such a game even without graphics.

Would D&D not work for you?

It did for a long time, but depending on busy friends makes it so I can't play this whenever I want. My "dream" game is a single-player game I can play as many times I want without having to rely on others.

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#42

Post by glimshe »

alisonatwork wrote: post #9
glimshe wrote: post #4

One of my dream games is a truly open world text adventure. I got a glimpse of it by having ChatGPT run this game, but it started hallucinating and misremembering after a few rounds. It has to be perfect to avoid breaking the immersion, but I'd pay $100 for such a game even without graphics.

Isn't this what MUDs are? I tried a few in the early days of the internet and even back then they were like much bigger and more dynamic versions of text adventures of the 80s. For me I bounced off the idea that I had to role-play with other humans - I thought it was far more interesting to chat with other humans about real-world topics - but if you are looking for a large, text-based role-play experience then it's p…

MUDs are a low-tech version of what I'm describing. It relies on other people being available and generally leverages the usual tropes with repetitive killing-based gameplay.

LLMs are limited today, but one day they may be able to provide the well-paced narrative you're talking about. The LLM would be a skilled fiction writer that would introduce interesting events as I explore the world.

If I decide to go to a bar and talk to random strangers, it could give me interesting life stories to listen without any action. But, suddenly, a mysterious man walks in, gives me a sealed envelope and departs without saying a word... What is in the envelope?

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#43

Post by glimshe »

mynjin wrote: post #12
glimshe wrote: post #4

One of my dream games is a truly open world text adventure. I got a glimpse of it by having ChatGPT run this game, but it started hallucinating and misremembering after a few rounds. It has to be perfect to avoid breaking the immersion, but I'd pay $100 for such a game even without graphics.

Would Avalon count? https://www.avalon-rpg.com/intro/mud

I've never played Avalon but it looks like a better text adventure. I'm not talking about hardcoded or randomized worlds, but truly reactive worlds.

In my experiment with ChatGPT, I was walking around in a museum (that was the scenario) and decided to flirt with a woman who happened to be there. The flirting was something I decided to do on the spot with no prompting from the AI. The woman had just been part of the room description up to that point. But it reacted to this new situation in a semi-realistic way, essentially creating a new "adventure" on the spot. I met her on the next day, brought a gift (and so did she), but then it started hallucinating... :(

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#44

Post by glimshe »

stevekemp wrote: post #28
griffzhowl wrote: post #8

There was a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure, with writing from Douglas Adams. It's entertaining, but insane what you have to figure out to get the babel fish... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th...

There's a good three-part writeup starting here, covering Douglas and the game: https://www.filfre.net/2013/11/douglas-adams/ For my money the "best" adventure game was and is The Hobbit, but that may well be because it's the first one I was haunted by. Similar two-part writeup starts here : https://www.filfre.net/2012/11/the-hobbit/

The Hobbit had randomness and emergent gameplay in ways that even Infocom didn't quite reproduce. A classic.

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#45

Post by 1313ed01 »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #38
ido wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's mostly that you're no longer interested in computer games and as such aren't aware of what's currently available. IMO there has never been a bigger and more varied supply of good games as there are today, in pretty much every genre (my personal taste is mostly for small indie games, not AAA). I started playing computer games in the late 1980s myself and have never stopped.

100% agreed. The golden age of gaming is right now, Kickstarter and Steam have opened up the field to smaller studios in a way that has never happened before. The biggest, most advertised titles are often very good-looking and very "bubblegum", for the exact same reason that the most popular genres of pop are like they are. To appeal to the widest audience, you have to file off all the sharp corners, and if that's th…

I feel like the indie-games are almost as clustered in small areas of potential "game design space" as AAA-games are, but just clustered in different areas, in particular around "games inspired by ha handful of SNES games and early Playstation JRPGs" (and maybe a tiny amount of vague Rogue-like-likeness). If you read much about old games (e.g. [1]) it is obvious that the history of games is full of evolutionary dead-ends and forgotten mainstream games (and entire almost-forgotten mainstream genres).

[1] https://www.cgwmuseum.org/

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#46

Post by k__ »

shevy-java wrote: post #13

I guess nowadays nobody would want to play e. g. King's Quest and what not, but in the 1980s or so that was novel and creative. Today the games tend to have powerful 3D engines, but the creativity was lost for the most part. Sometimes there is still innovation (Little Nightmares brought something new to the table, for instance) and of course the graphics and sounds are great, but something is gone now. In part this m…

Terraria and Stardew Valley show that it isn't just about graphics.

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#47

Post by sillyfluke »

1313ed01 wrote: post #45
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agreed. The golden age of gaming is right now, Kickstarter and Steam have opened up the field to smaller studios in a way that has never happened before. The biggest, most advertised titles are often very good-looking and very "bubblegum", for the exact same reason that the most popular genres of pop are like they are. To appeal to the widest audience, you have to file off all the sharp corners, and if that's th…

I feel like the indie-games are almost as clustered in small areas of potential "game design space" as AAA-games are, but just clustered in different areas, in particular around "games inspired by ha handful of SNES games and early Playstation JRPGs" (and maybe a tiny amount of vague Rogue-like-likeness). If you read much about old games (e.g. [1]) it is obvious that the history of games is full of evolutionary dead-…

Yeah, it's hard not to consider the runaway success of games like Stardew Valley as counterexamples to the idea that the creativity is completely gone. But you wouldn't blame someone if they superficially looked at screentshots and thought it was a run of the mill retro pixel game. But it's wild to me that there are people who come from broken homes or rough childhoods who say the game was literally therapy for them and showed them a vision of domestic life or human interaction that they could realistically replicate or at least shoot for in real life.

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#48

Post by miki123211 »

alisonatwork wrote: post #9
glimshe wrote: post #4

One of my dream games is a truly open world text adventure. I got a glimpse of it by having ChatGPT run this game, but it started hallucinating and misremembering after a few rounds. It has to be perfect to avoid breaking the immersion, but I'd pay $100 for such a game even without graphics.

Isn't this what MUDs are? I tried a few in the early days of the internet and even back then they were like much bigger and more dynamic versions of text adventures of the 80s. For me I bounced off the idea that I had to role-play with other humans - I thought it was far more interesting to chat with other humans about real-world topics - but if you are looking for a large, text-based role-play experience then it's p…

It is my understanding that muds (and all the flavors of Mush in particular) can sort-of do it, by letting players create their own story through roleplay, supported by an extremely open (and often player-modifiable) world, as well as good admins / GMs.

That is more like "computer tabletop", however, and doesn't scale beyond a small number of players.

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#49

Post by fragmede »

ido wrote: post #29
shevy-java wrote: post #13

I guess nowadays nobody would want to play e. g. King's Quest and what not, but in the 1980s or so that was novel and creative. Today the games tend to have powerful 3D engines, but the creativity was lost for the most part. Sometimes there is still innovation (Little Nightmares brought something new to the table, for instance) and of course the graphics and sounds are great, but something is gone now. In part this m…

I think it's mostly that you're no longer interested in computer games and as such aren't aware of what's currently available. IMO there has never been a bigger and more varied supply of good games as there are today, in pretty much every genre (my personal taste is mostly for small indie games, not AAA). I started playing computer games in the late 1980s myself and have never stopped.

Monkey Island. The difficulty of the first game and the difficulty of the last game. The last game was still a game, but the challenge wasn't there. It just wasn't there. We might as well just be playing Progress Quest.

Re: The Rise of Computer Games, Part I: Adventure

#50

Post by nottorp »

anthk wrote: post #40
Apocryphon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adventure games became FPS as early as 1992 (only one year before DOOM, so maybe I'm not making much of a point here) with the coming of Ultima Underworld.

UU was an RPG. What adventure games became were either full hybrid 3D mechanics (Tomb Raider) and niche point and click ones.

Tomb Raider isn't an "adventure" game, no matter what the "mainstream gaming press" says. Monkey Island is.
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