Slashdot Mirror
Where are the 'Construction Set' Games?
"I know that most PC games today have editors where a player can create their own levels and share them but users still need the original software. Even worse, consoles, which have the larger market, don't have enough storage (except maybe for the XBox) and aren't open enough to encourage players to create their own games and share them."
C :I think I see mbishop's point. Legos are still alive and well, but I don't see as much evidence on these types of toys in today's TV commercials. It seems those commercials are more interested in pushing the latest licensed crap instead of pushing toys designed to stimulate your child's own imagination. Of course, a simple Google search may yield a result or two, but that still doesn't answer the real question. Computer-based sets, would be a nice alternative, but nothing beats the real thing where children can use their own hands to create something they can show their paernts. Where have all of the Heathkit's, the chemical experiment toys and the other types of "builder" sets gone, and are they due for a revival, soon?
construction sets... aw forget it, i just wanted first post...
first post!!!!!!!!!!!
first post! first post!
Many games come with construction sets these days, including Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind. There is also a 3d game construction set available from a small company, saw it in a gaming magazine- I ordered it and it seemed okay, but was more than I wanted to commit to at the time :)
The Morrowind Construction Set is pretty good though.
In many ways, I think that the mod community is a more grown-up version of kids using these types of games to build their own creations.
I remember playing a game like that on my parents 286 when i was young. Definitly more educational than the crap thats produced these days.
***There is no point in asking, you'll get no reply***
And I would just like to say that the new post-limiting karma system is poor. Slashdot is supposed to be all about free speech.
Those screenshots are awesome...takes me back to the days when the cover art was beautiful, and there was a reason there were no screenshots on the outside of the box. Phooey on these new game engines :
www.code-fix.com
The kids still have 'em. They just call 'em meth labs nowadays.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
You write the code that controls your robot which then battle against one another.
Hey Remember core wars anyone?
http://leocad.org/
It was a real joy to see I could build with all the lego pieces my mother always threw away when I was a child because they weren't recognizable as legos.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
While there aren't any Music Construction Sets around, and I personally wish there were, there is a definite abundance of Game construction sets and there have been for years. A large community of homebrew game developers has sprung up around various programs from companies like ASCII and Clickteam, and there are dozens if not hundreds of freeware game construction sets that people use to make their own arcade games and RPG's. Programs like Acid from Sonic Foundry also fill a niche in the music industry by allowing people to start creating music without formal music instruction or lots of resources.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
We played with rocks when I was a kid!
And we liked it!
worlds in ZZT and have great fun. The script editor was kinda klunky, but once you got used to it, it was really powerful
Of course, once you learned how to edit the levels, and you got the unlocker that could unlock the shipped levels, beating the game was pretty easy ;)
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
...they should be easier to make with the more recent use of middleware in the games industry. I mean, that is what a "construction set" is really - a very high level middleware.
The closest today is the simulator games you get on sourceforge that allow you to program robots.
...of an erection construction set.
I think your chances of actually learning to think with a computer are much better with a Shell command line than with a GUI that does everything for you.
http://www.stagecast.com/
Isn't this what flash is? The player is cost-free, and you can play games created with it. However, the software to create the games is not.
No, there is absolutely no replacement for hands on building. To put something together on the computer would not be anywhere near the experience you get from building an "igloo" out of Construx around yourself and screaming for your mom to come lift it off you w/o breaking it (heeh).
;-)
How about spending hours playing w/roller coaster kits and watching the roller coaster fall upside down time after time because it was just about impossible to make it do a loop.
I used to love building forts, using construx, etc. I was never a fan of Legos (parts were too small?) nor was I a fan of any "computer level builders". Roller Coaster Tycoon lasted about 3 days in my house as a college student. Even w/all the cheats it wasn't fun.
We need to bring back hands on experience. Computers rot your brain
Well, I miss the old construction games (albeit you can still find a few music construction ones on www.shockwave.com and a few other shocked sites.) I also miss the old adventure games where you really had to think and use logic to proceed. Unlike most of the modern games where you can fight and use other methods to continue on. The old King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, etc. series were great little games for encouraging creative thought.
I remember how frustrated I used to get when I would get caught trying to figure out how to complete that one last task. I miss those games, unfortunately a few bad apples killed the genre (KQ7or8 anyone). Perhaps some new gaming company will decide to revive it, and perhaps even make it better so you can have different endings, different ways to win and lose, a less linear lifeline, but still all of those great little realistic and funny puzzles.
I loved the nursery rhyme and folk story puzzles in King's Quest, and the great space jokes in Space Quest.
But, these build it yourself games I have found still exist online in a lot of shockwave sites, like www.shockwave.com. Just no one has bothered making a large scale version... yet.
~ kjrose
Imagine a Beowulf of these...
Call this guy:
Barry C Deuschle, Sr.
BCD TECHNOLOGIES WEST INC.
1535 OAK INDUSTRIAL LANE SUITE A
CUMMING, GA 30041
866-655-3475 ext. # 61
Just tell him you don't appreciate companies that send spam and hang up.
I would be most appreciative!
Slashdot isn't allowing me to post the full headers:
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.
Yeah Baby!
My Atari 400 KICKED ASS.
What was his name? Bill Budge? Now that was a cool creation.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Contains an 3-D RPG Engine with toolset to create your own campaigns. Supports it's own C/C++ like scripting language, and includes a good integrated environment for developing maps, Non-Player Characters, and source code changed.
So go get creative...
It fits into this genre; you designed a track and then you drive it alone or with a friend. My friends and I used to play that all the time.
GOBACK.
You are the least unintelligent person it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.
FYI: double negative = positive
therefore: least unintelligent = most intelligent
so you resent smart people and you try to avoid meeting them?
I played both Adventure Cons Set and Pinball Cons Set, and I would have to say that I learned many things from them.
Using ACS I think I created my first "D&D" module with it. Then gave it to my friend to try playing it.
I think we could use more of these games that encourage thought, and not just 1st person shooter.
Neverwinter Nights would be a good example. As a DM you create your own modules and in the process polish up on your code writing abilities.
--Note to self. Add witty sig here, someday...
a lot of these toys have forcefully deprecated because one idiot kid did something stupid with them and their parents had a fit.
This brings to light a bigger problem:
What ever happened to natural selection? You know, the kid who swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own?
Why are parents now making kids wear a helmet for everything but jerking off? All of the fun toys had "swallowable parts" so they aren't popular anymore because some parent raised a stink over it...
*steps off soap box*
rokenbok lets you build stuff and then has remote controlled trucks to play in what was built.
... it ain't just the spice of life. when i was a kid, we played "number munchers", "math blaster", etc, because those were the only games available to us on our apple ][. now kids have "Kill a Hooker part 3" on their PlayCubeBox 3. how is "math blaster" going to compete with that.
and don't try suggesting that parents shouldn't get "Kill a Hooker part 3" for their kids. Because the parents know that the kids will stop loving them if they don't buy them all the things they want.
construction-type games are a limited market, because they have to compete with the promises of instant gratification which other games provide. why spend hours constructing something when you can press the power button and be killing cops in less than a minute?
MORTAR COMBAT!
Rocks! ROCKS!!!
You had Rocks!
I had to make do with dirt! And I had to share -that- with my entire neighborhood.
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
Because stupid kids can't figure it out and smarter kids are the ones kicking your ass in WC3.
Yes, this article is without merit. There are plenty of construction sets, they exist within games. Neverwinter Nights and Morrowinds are AWESOME in their capabilities to make adventures. Quake III also comes to mind-- yes, modmaking requires programming, but map making doesn't.
The reason they don't make any "stand alone construction sets" anymore? Well, for one, the name "___ Construction Set" just isn't cool enough for mainstream consumer. But the biggest reason is money. If you can make a standalone NWN game, the people you distribute it to don't have to buy the original game. Game companies don't want that. They're in business to make money.
The Incredible Machine, More of The Icredible Machine, and Sid and Al's Crazy Toons (I may be wrong on this exact title) were all about constructing Rube Goldberg machines that were pretty neat, had multiple solutions, and allowed you to mess with gravity, friction, and the like to understand fundamental priniciples of physics while still having a good time sitting at a computer.
is Lego Mindstorms!
;-)
Also a useful tool to learn Java
I think the "Construction Set" aspect still exists in many games, but it's taken new form. With the rise of First Person shooters and RTS as the more popular forms of entertainment, I think that sort of thing has moved into customizing the game. It takes quite a bit of talent to build really good levels, or brand new campaigns, and also quite a bit of devotion.
I see your problem though. Those sorts of activities are very much confined to the geek. Level design and game mods take quite a bit of computer expertise, and I get the feeling you were thinking along different lines. Games like The Incredible Machine come to mind. I'd be hard pressed to give you references, but one "Construction Set" games comes to mind. If you're interested in the game of pinball, I recommend Visual Pinball. It's a complete pinball game construction program, and it works beautifully. Much to the dismay of most of the Slashdot crowd, though, it's main drive is VBScript. Very fun and easy to use, however. The programming is basic enough that I think a beginner could learn to use it very easily.
Other than that, there's lots of software out there for music creation and whatnot. It may not be presented in game form, but if you have an itch to do it, I'm sure those would serve just as well!
I remember Racing Construction Set and Adventure Construction Set on the Commodore 64 .. The hours spent playing those games and building my own. I don't know about using more brain activity, but it sure added many extra hours of fun to a game. I think with Adventure Construction Set you could build stand-alone games and distribute them to your friends.
I'm highly impressed by a Zome set I picked up a while back. The kids love to build intricate geometric shapes with it, and I get to sneak in some basic points about topology at the same time. See http://www.zometool.com for more details.
After all, is it free speech if everytime you say something you are drowned out in a flood of shouts?
Yes. It is free speech unless the government locks you up for what you say. Being drowned out in a flood of shouts is not the same as the government locking you up for saying something.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Without a doubt it was 'Racing Destruction Set' for the Commodore 64. You had a variety of cars, wheels, engines, track types, track elevations and gravities to change around. You could construct a ton of different tracks and all of the permutations kept me riveted as a youngster.
Nothing like using the indy racer with moon gravity going up a monster hill and launching off into space! Now that was a fun game!
Aside from the obligatory c64 emultaors. Did this ever get ported to any other platform?
> ... commercials are more interested in pushing the latest licensed crap ...
.. high replay value, no need to go back to the store for a few years?
.. now he talks more!)
Which one is more profitable?
A license agnostic computer game where the value is in the interactivity
Or the uber-franchisable, horizontal-marketing-up-the-ying-yang licensed toy that does so little, you're practically forced into buying the next toy, which does a tiny bit more (now you can move his head! now you can move his foot! now he talks! buy this
This is so obvious, its probably taught verbatim in business or marketing schools.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Anyone remember the Shoot-em Up construction Kit for the Amiga? I loved that thing :)
:)
Made some really retartded games if I remember
It's right there in your post: "C" is the ansa to you silly question, glasshoppa! Must I do all you thinking for you? *bonk*
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Altough the title of that application (Windows-based of course) sounded a bit strange, it's a solid application to create (but not limited to) RPG games. There are also some nice games. I'm now thinking about pulling my old (cancelled) Phantasy Star V project out of my shoes and looking for some guys who help me. When I started the project back in 1997, I cancelled it half a year later since nobody really wanted to contribute.
Every problem has a solution, but every solution creates new problems.
What about games like The Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City and the like? In all of these games you use pieces and widgets to build things. These are the next generation of 'toolkit' games.
Heck, I'd sumbit that they are better than legos and blocks since thy make you think in four dimensions instead of three.
Recap: The Electronic Arts Adventure Construction Set was a game building.. game which would output Ultima 4 type.. games. The user could either edit the few pre-made worlds, or create their own from scratch, including weapons, magic, puzzles, character attributes, music selections etc.
This was my favorite game when I was using my C64 at around age 12. It didn't teach me anything about music, or adventuring, or anything really, but what a good time. Too bad I was the only one with a C64 for miles around, and had to play my own games.
AC
As an aside, NWN is one of the most bug ridden games to come out lately. Pathing is terrible, and all the stats have bugs. Attack modifiers are messed up and randomly change between saves, etc .. It shouldn't have been release with such glaring bugs.
Slashdot is not about free speech, in the way that you probably want it to be. This is not your site, and I think it's fair to say that CmdTaco and gang are doing a good job at running it the way THEY want to run it. If you don't like it, go run your own site. Have fun.
There's a really cool construction set out there and I call it the "Build Your Own Linux Distro Construction Kit". All you need is an extra machine that Linux supports, a machine with ftp capabilities and a whole bunch of free time.
If only I had time...
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
The article you refer to has received some criticism. New Scientist has an article describing the criticism:
9 99 92538
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns
I don't recall that Music Construction Set could make stand-alone music executables. Maybe I've got it wrong.
;^)
The other biggie, Adventure Construction Set, I believe also required an original disk to play.
Not that these were hard to come by. I owned originals of both, but they were trivial to copy and distribute, i.e. pirate.
The exception that I'm aware of is Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker (by one of the Kitchen brothers of Activision fame). This could be used to create stand-alone games and it was really a pretty freaking intricate design system that they came up with. It had scripting, sprite editing, background design, music design, and sound effects. Out of the box, you could create a fully functional reproduction of Pitfall! and use that as a basis to learn the system. Amazing stuff for the time.
Incidentally, all of the above is based on my recollection of the C=64 world. Other platforms may have had different limitations, but I recall ACS and Gamemaker as both being C=64 only. Perhaps I'm forgetting details in my old age.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
ROBO CODE
You can learn java, and you can beat the crap out of some IBM engineer at the same time! What more do you need?!
...check out The Underdogs. It's a game site dedicated mostly to those games of yesteryear that went largely unnoticed (sometimes for good reason.) They have hundreds (if not thousands) of games available for download (if the game is abandonware), as well as maps, manuals, etc... Some of them are fairly recent (but the archive goes back to the early 80s.)
On topic: if you use the select menu on the left-hand side of the page that says "Search by Theme" you can choose "Design Tool". This takes you to a list of construction set games.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
The best thing I could think of was Hypercard for the Macintosh, it allowed games like The Manhole to be created with very little programming. Sure, it needed a significant amount of computer knowledge to create something enteretaining, but it was nothing like programming a game like Quake III in C.
My all-time favorite game construction kit was the Pinball Construction Kit. It came out in 1985, and it allowed for the creation of personalized pinball tables inside the game. The only problem is that the game required to play any pinball table you design.
Try searching google for game creation kit. It came up with a ton of results, and this one looks promising.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Screw the "construction" video games-- try real construction games.
I don't know the manufacturer, but Capsela toys were fantastic-- you had these clear, spherical "blocks" with 6 connectors. Some connectors had little axles in them, and inside the blocks themselves, there were gears connected to those axles. There were also floats, propeller blades, wheels, and other little goodies you could attach to the blocks. And, of course, a small motor and battery pack.
Any links?
Also: go to your local Radio Shack. Pick up one of the 200-in-1 project kits for kids. Even as an adult, these things can be fun. Transistors, resistors, capacitors, relays, switches, inductors-- everything you need for some really cool projects... IN ONE PLACE. I loved mine. I just gave one to a friend's 8-year-old son, and he absolutely loves it.
If you really must go for a "construction" game, look for an old Apple or DOS emulator and find a copy of Omega. It's a game where you do basic AI for a virtual tank that then goes into battle against other tanks.
I really liked that constuction kit with the plastic bubbles you could hook together. There was all kinds of neat stuff... modules with motors, pontoons, fans, etc. I can't remember the name though... If anyone remembers please let me know.
Blender And Linux Fan
I am happy to say that my little sister is four and she plays with legos. She is mostly into building cars so they roll the fastest across the floor in my dad's kitchen, but like I said, she's four. I think that proof that this has stimulated her creatively because the other day she was telling me that she had designed and then her mom had helped her cut out all of these pieces to put together to make a 3D basket. It's just a basket, I know. But it seemed amazing to me that a kid so young was designing things in 2D to be put together in 3D.
I can only hope that there are still toys like that available when I have my own kids. I don't have my legos anymore (my mom sold them when I was away for a summer), but maybe I can convince her to keep hers so that the next generation has all of those neat little pieces that always seem so scarce when you really need them... like the ones that transfer the block stack from up/down to right/left. And the pulleys. Must have pulleys.
Liora
"After reading an the article..." Something seems stragely odd about that grammar... eh...I am not care about it.
You can still find and play the old adventure games; there even seem to be ports to the Palm. By the same token, you can still write your own versions. See Inform.
map editors, like for starcraft and the such, are better than you may think. just imagine what they have to think of when first making those fledgling moves to create their own universe. they must think about how placing objects and obstacles will affect gameplay. this helps a child think empathetically (see things from another's point of view, for you 12 y/o /.'ers).
i have a nephew, and they let him play outside in the dirt, he has his over-sized legos, and they still build things in pre-school with glue and popsicle sticks and painted macaronni. it's not dead to play with stuff like that, just not as common.
i don't see people making their dolls and toys like they used to. i bet the forums of the 40s talked about how "back in my day, we had to make our own lincoln logs by whittling them down with our pocket knives!" bah, it's nothing new, just an aspect of the changes our generations have been going through.
Thinking in terms of Music Construction Set...SimTunes was a great, if somewhat obscure game. Maxis rebranded version of "Musical Bugs" by Japanese artist Toshio Iwai. (demo here?). The idea was you had a big blank grid, that you could paint with colored blocks. 4 "bugs" would walk over the grid, and when they passed a color would play the pitch (or percussionish noise, if that was the type of voice you set the bug to) corresponding to that color. Other blocks would warp or otherwise redirect the bugs. You could focus on making a cool picture, a cool sound (it really could be used as a 'poor man's sequencer') or both. Very powerful, with "kiddy" and "advanced" (but still pretty friendly) interface settings.
They released this 5 or 6 years ago, recently rereleased in a pack of Kid-oriented Sim games. The original was fairly cranky in its need for certain DirectX drivers (windows of course), I bought the rerelease but haven't yet installed it to see if they improved the driver situation.
A great creative musical toy...maybe better for kids/teens/adults with a smattering of musical experience. (They have some cool music theory embedded in there, like you can constrain the notes to the blues or other scale...)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Anybody remember "Chipwits"?
It was a Mac game that had a visual programming interface (sort of a flow chart). I don't think it caused brain damage - you really had to think about condensing the "code" (even with (sort of) called subroutines) and it made you think quite carefully about how you programmed your litle robot for navigation, fuel and defense.
The guy is looking for programs that make standalone games, not something like Lego... sheesh.
You can't get any cool chemicals in them today because of safety concerns. What is the point of a chemistry set if you can't take off your eyebrows?
All that aside, my favorite toy when I was young was my handed down set of wooden blocks. I had enough of them that I could build massive structures, and I learned enough of basic enginerring that they didn't colapse on me. I couldn't choke on them and as long as my mother kept half an eye on me while I was young I never got more than a small bruise from the colapses.
All of my children will have old fashioned block sets. Simple toys that don't force play in one direction are the best.
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
You could wire flippers, bumpers, everything with your own point system. PBCS would also let you 'paint' your selected parts any of 5± colors including 'erasing' the part. Using 'invisible' bumpers was quite entertaining.
It was also possible to adjust gravity, bounce, and friction of the ball, IIRC.
The coolest feature of all is that you could take your finished game and 'compile' it to run stand-alone! Trading pinball games was great...ah, Apple 2 memories....I also had a program for the Apple 2 called Gamemaker. It let you create simple games like 2600 Pitfall clones and the like. Never got the hang of it....
The best 'Constructon Set' in recent memory was the level editor in Crack Dot Com's sidescroller, 'Abuse'. It used a lisp driven engine to allow you to make levels easier than anything I recall at the time. Just like wiring a simple circuit. (Much like PBCS!)
What's Bill Budge doing these days?
when you first mentioned construction, I thought of his current favorite game "Tonka Digs and Rigs"
...where all the chemical sets went to. Right into lawyer's pockets. I'm sure there have been more than a few lawsuits from careless parents buying kids a chemical set and then finding their kid injured from improper use. If it's even remotely possible for a kid to be injured from the improper use of a toy, then they won't bring it out. I think Lego's helped my interest in computers (Commodore computers from 1982 on up). I used to write simple "niche" programs in BASIC way back when. Same idea with Legos... take a bunch of pieces (commands) stick 'em together, and viola! ::sigh:: Time to put my C128 system back on the desk, I need some simpile computing time. 8-Bits at a time for me, thank you.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Sure, Neverwinter Nights, case modding and ldraw are phat, but I think the author was specifically asking about products aimed towards kids... Lego, Construx, KNEX... these are still around in some form or another, but it seems like they're getting more and more expensive and the focus is shifting to older adolescents/adults who have time to play with toys... I suppose the resurgence of Legos and robots in the classroom is a start tho'...
These days it seems like LEGO has become little more than a lame re-working of Playmobil, with barely a nod given to the idea that these things are meant to be built, not just looked at. They seem to be more interested in competing with action figures and other more "mainstream" toys than in making products like the LEGO I used to know -- Mindstorms being perhaps the only exception. I'm the first to admit that if I had Star Wars LEGO when I was a kid, I never would have left the house. These days, though, I just see more corporate branding tie-ins from a company that markets products to kids. This doesn't seem like the LEGO I grew up with.
Breakfast served all day!
I'm not sure how closely this relates, but Crossfire is a nice open source online CRPG. And being open source, it has an open source mapmaking utility or two.
ObDisclaimer: I'm more than just a player, but not a full-fledged developer.
I don't know about all this "construction", but Racing Destruction Set for the C64 rocked. You built your track, gave it gravity characteristics, and then loaded up your car with oil slicks, land mines, etc., and proceeded to bomb the crap out your opponents. This guy is currently working on a 3D version for the PC. Of course, he also rewrote the C64 version of Bruce Lee, the Best C64 Game Of All Time...
I believe you are referring to Racing Destruction Set, a very popular game by Electronic Arts released in 1984. Many of my pre-teen hours were wasted creating tracks for this game. Many more waiting for it to load! For those interested a remake is underway.
Another thing that has been lost is that computers no longer boot into BASIC...ok, stop laughing, I'm a little bit serious here. Home computers booting into BASIC, plus hobbyist magazines (some oriented at kids) I think were a great boon to budding programmers/designers in the early 1980s. While the Web has a huge host of new opportunites, it doesn't provide the ramp up the learning curve that BASIC did...it's relatively tough to make a decent graphical game with javascript/DHTML, and other languages are even more obscure for the total newbie.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I remember ACS back when it was on the Amiga, but you could only save files onto fragile floppy disks. That was my first stab at creating my own game, and I spent weeks toiling away at making sprites and maps. It may have been primitive but the interface was surprisingly intuitive. AFAIK copies of the software are almost impossible to find now, and I don't know what platforms are supported. Any clues?
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Maybe first person shooter games decrease brain activity, but I can't see how more intricate strategy games like XCom (what a classic), Warcraft, and Civilization can't end up making a kid smarter. Especially in the case of XCom, you had to think about base placement, how much to allocate to research, scarcity of materials, etc. The other games I've mentioned are similar. What better skills to learn than dealing with supply/demand and scarcity? And sure, having tough aliens (or orcs, etc.) just makes it all the more fun.
And you can design your own maps/campaigns on most of those games.
You ask me, that takes much more thought than jamming a bunch of blocks together. Not that I didn't love Lego's too. I'd just be thrilled to be a kid now. The complexity of the 'virtual' construction sets are amazing.
Mod Archive offers software to create MOD/S3M/etc type formats, and although I haven't explored the site very far, I would presume also provides large quantities of samples (at least they can be ripped from songs that are there) with which to make one's own music.
Yes, it's a weeee bit more complex than the old MCS was, but we're not in the world of the Commodore 64 anymore.
You can do some pretty darned cool stuff with good tracking software and samples.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Then there's Sid Meyer's SimGolf. You can build a (non-mini) golf course, and watch the Sims play on it, but you can also play the course with your in-game avatar golf-pro. Others can save their courses and there's a big course repository including real world courses at the official site, much less other non-official ones. The golf game is not like links, but it can be somewhat challenging and makes this an interesting mix of sim and sport.
Of course, prior to SimGolf there was the Sims. Build a family and a home, and then play with them. While currently you can't easily transfer families to other people, the online version due out soon is expected to be a huge seller, allowing people to pit their constructed families against others.
Another example, outside of PC gaming, is the PS2 game Frequency. It's similar in nature to DDR, save that you only use the shoulder or right pad buttons to hit notes as they pass, but one of the features is a remix mode, where you can take any of the ingame tech/industrial/electronica songs and play around with their arrangements to some extent. Once you've created a new remix, you can save it, and by swapping cards, allow another player to attempt your new track. The same can be said for many of the eXtreme sports games (THPS3, etc) that allow you to create a skate-type park that you can save and let others play on.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I can think of several reasons why this type of product isn't really produced anymore:
1) There's no continuing revenue from it. Games are getting shorter and shorter (for a variety of reasons), so something that a consumer can spend hundreds of hours playing with is going to be less profitable than a stream of games that take 15-20 hours to complete.
2) Balancing capabilities vs. making sure your regular games are still better. Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit on the Amiga was originally slated to include a lot more capabilities, like getting powerups. These were removed because of thinking along the lines of "if you can build a shooter that's as good or better than ones on the store shelves, we're not going to sell any of those."
3) Support. Supporting what is basically a dev tool for the average consumer would be a nightmare. Most of the mod tools for existing games are unsupported, but I poked around in the NWN forum just for chuckles, and - as limited as the NWN editor is - people were still having a lot of trouble with basic questions like "how can I resize monster objects" (answer: "you can't").
That having been said, I really miss this type of product too. Something like EA's Adventure Construction Set was pretty limited, but making my own world was a lot of fun, as was using the random game generator.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Feh. I used to DREAM about playing with dirt. The only toy we had as children was a tick and flea infested, rabid racoon. Playing involved trying to run away from it while it tried to scratch your eyes out AND WE LOVED IT!!!!11!!1!
Michael Loves Me!
The MTV Music Generator series seemed to fit the bill for a music construction kit. As an added bonus, it was released for the PSX and PC, and the sequel was released for the PS2.
Remember: Before you Ask Slashdot, Ask Google.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
What happened to games like The Incredible Machine or Lemmings? I remember not being able to remember many long hours spent enthralled by those two puzzle games specifically.
Not only were they good puzzle games but they were fun too. I've played quite a few edutainment games that were more painfull than fun but what happened to the fun puzzle games. Is this a lost art?
It's amazing how spiritual an elaborated beer commercial can be. -- Philip K. Dick
Yea, kids need to get out more and play real baseball and get hit in the head a few times. This teaches physics lessons (Newton's third law) better than any simulation can.
C'mon MAN MOD me up. or NOT, oh well....sigh
Of course, I maintain that given time... really cool stuff will start to surface. If the EULA hasn't stifled people's creativity and willingness to develop in that environment.
Erector sets, Gilbert Girder and Panel sets with hydro-dynamic functions, hell even Lincoln logs! ,this must be some good dope!
Lest we forget chemisry sets that were not child-proof! Wahoo, nitrogen triiodide! Kablooie! All these had sharp parts and small, chokeable things. Those were the days, and look what it got us, technology! Robots and moon rovers. Computers, anyone remember the Analog Computer Popular Science published the plans for? It looked a lot like a Scientologist's Emeter. But was far more useful. How about the Altair? Bags-O-parts(tm) and barely any instructions...S-100 bus!
Wow
.
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You kids today are so underprivledged!
Although not a game, for many painting or another form of art can be just as fun as a game but, more importantly, it can stimulate the mind very well. I believe it meets the criteria, you can save it, no programming required, it can be very hands on, it stimulates the mind, you don't need the original software to view it should you use a computer.
For the builders at heart, check out MindRover by CogniToy. Given a set of parts, you build a little robotic vehicle to compete in various sporting and dueling activities. At the core of the game is modern AI and robotics theory, layered with some idealized virtual hardware to smooth over the "unfun" aspects of building a real robot. It's tons of fun to have competitions with your friends' robots!
1) lego mind-storm (no-brainer)
2) electronic experiment kit (radio-shack)
3) in Fry's electronics -- i found a fuel-cell experiment model car kit, pretty cool stuff.
4) any RC car will have you tinkering for hours
5) build your own kite / balsa airplane together
i mean... sadly enough -- people look for toys nowadays to keep the child busy, and the "nicer" parents try to find toys that keep the child busy while "stimulates their mind". i am sorry, but the best way to stimulate their mind is to *SPEND TIME WITH YOUR KID*! if you are willing to give some effort to spending time with them, then anything around you can become a mind-stimulating adventure; gardens are eco-systems full of knowledge to be discovered. a swing at the playground has many physics wonders. salt chrystalizing on the beach is a marvel of chemistry.
with all due respect -- trying to find toys to keep kids busy vs. finding mindless TV shows to babysit your offspring rates about the same level in my book -- toys that are stimulating or otherwise.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Ok maybe I've been in a cave for a while, but when I was a mere child I *loved* my legos and enjoyed constructing various projects, but nowadays it seems that most lego products come in these specialized kits (ie Star Wars, Dinosaurs, Pirate stuff, etc), and if you visit the Lego webstore you can't even get a simple kit of legos, I'm talking nothing but plain old blocks and basic parts...and the only way to get these are buy buying them individually,....and same goes with stores, on a whim I visited Toys R Us and same deal, no kit with JUST basic blocks.......whats going on?!
I learned to program way back in third grade with apple basic and logowriter. Basic is gone, unless you can find an old Apple II lying around, but logowriter still exists
Visual Pinball
pinmame (if you want to see emulated electronics in your sims)
I think Lego Mindstorms would qualify as the Erector Sets of today.
I never played computer games when I was a kid. The few computers that existed back in the 40s and 50s were reserved for governments and major corporations. :-) The only toys I had were things like Erector Sets (Meccano in Europe), electric trains, chemistry sets, games, toy guns, etc.
Children's play seems much more organized today -- with a concomitant loss of freedom for children. Play dates, T ball, organized sports even for small children. Some time ago in the Washington Post magazine I read an account by a mother who had taken a half time job in order to spend more time with her kids. I felt sorry for everyone -- their schedules basically precluded free time, the chance to explore on one's own, etc.
I don't necessarily blame computer games -- the games in many ways reflect our current society. My recreational computer use reflects my life -- some art, some facilitation of my athletic, social and political endeavors. Others' use of computers I expect reflects their lives. But still, I consider these developments to be less than healthy for our society and for us as individuals.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
Where is my OpenGL Racing Destruction Set? You could make tracks, race, trade tracks with friends, drop oil slicks and land mines...
And do it all driving a late '70s Can-AM car on the moon...
I had instant replay (via my VCR and Commodore64) for those unbelievable passes...
LR
I have a 12 year old brother who loves messing around with the level editor this comes with.
He made a "pokey the penguin" (www.yellow5.com) level.
He basically made a large map divided by a large stream with a bridge in the middle.
On one side was a race of penguins that only say "Yes!" and their king is named Pokey, who asks you to retreive the Arctic Circle Candy stolen by the italians.
Across the drawbridge of course is a bunch of stereotypical italians named tony, guido, etc and they all say things like "That's a-one spicy meat-a-ball"... Anyway, after confronting the italian king about the arctic circle candy he attacks you, and once you kill him you can pillage the arctic circle candy off of his corpse.
Once you return the arctic cirlce candy to pokey, he rewards you with "The Biff Guantlet" then it ends.
I was amused to say the least. I wish I had something like this instead of legos when I was 12.
http://www.verge-rpg.com/
Why not fork?
I believe you're asking about Worlcraft.
Back in the day, though, I spent so much time with the Pinball Construction Set I grew flippers.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Like Hollywood, the industry has found a formula and an accompanying demographic that translates into optimum profit when marketed correctly, and they will "sing that note" until it stops making them money.
BTW, I remember a great little game for the 6502-based PC's (C-64, Atari 800, etc.) called "Racing Car Destruction Set"--what a blast!
--
"I'm don't know exactly what an AS/400 is, but I'm pretty certain I wouldn't want one up my ass" --Lou
The real reason toys with replayability arnt as available anymore should be freakin obvious - they dont make as much money.
Gotta keep you comin back to the store for more. It's as simple as that. Overzealous litigation-happy parents have absolutely nothing to do with it. They are a drop in the bucket of the toy market.
And for the helmet, I wear one when biking/blading. I'll make my kids wear one. You'd probably have a different opinion had you ever been hit by a car. You'd also do well to consider that given the increase in car traffic over the last 10 years (nevermind the fact that while I might have been able to survive getting slammed by a pony, any SUV would take me out these days), the roads have become *considerably* more dangerous than they used to be.
But go on, blame parents for trying to *maintain* their kids' safe environment while the roads become more and more dangerous.
"Old man yells at systemd"
true to the Lego legacy (legocy?) they still show alternate conformations on the box. I bought the "Luke, Vader, and the Emperor" small set as a decoration for my desk at home and it showed several other things you could make with the bricks.
I think your criticism of Lego may be slightly unfounded. Looking at the "themes" drop down at lego.com I see 2 out of 20 themes that are licensed (Harry Potter and Star Wars) the rest, while they may be inspired by movies (e.g. the Dinosaurs theme or Jack Stone) all seem to carry on the Lego tradition of giving you sets and letting you build whatever you want. The store also lets you buy whatever bricks you want in whatever color.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
PD allows you to create any type of audio program or even video program using a graphic programming interface. Steep learning curve. Music Construction Set for Adults.
All ideas must be purchased from an approved content manufacturer.
An imagination is a circumvention device and punishable by law.
After all, if you think up your own entertainment, you're STEALING from The Company by robbing them of a sale.
All this and more in your coprorate sponsored dystopian future. Enjoy. You have no choice.
--- this comment is presented in WIDE SCREEN STEREO!!!
Don't forget Pontifex by Chronic Logic.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
If you're in Waltham, Mass and in the mood for real hands-on construction toys be sure to check out The Construction Site, the only toy store I know dedicated to such things. Who knows, they might even have software, I didn't look.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
There is a pretty cool Java-Game called Roboforge. Customized robots, AI elements, web tournaments... Pretty cool
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
RPG Maker for PS and PS2
The original has been out for a while. It's similar to Adventure Construction Set.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Heathkit may be gone, but there are still radio kits for building. Radio Shack makes some very basic crystal radio kits. Elecraft is on the other end with much more complicated kits (not to be tried by people who haven't already got some experience). There are a lot of small business that make kits which bridge that gap.
What about tinker toys and erector sets and lincoln logs? Are they still available?
I loved Pinball Construction Kit. Something about it, however, struck me as disturbing some years later...in the early '90's, I ran a small computer lab at a non-profit kid's organization. The kids (around 5-12 years of age) would come in for their computer time, race for a copy of Pinball Construction Kit, and then proceed to build a simple machine--just a pinball surrounded by bumpers. So, in effect, there was no way for this ball to escape the surrounding bumpers, and it would just continually bounce around and rack up points. No hole, no flippers, nothing else. Then they would activate the pinball machine and watch the score crank up for the next 30 mintues or so, until their turn at the computer was over. When I'd ask the kids if maybe they might like to build a machine with a real challenge (you know, one that actually had flippers and perhaps a hole so you might actually lose the occaisional ball), they would almost universally respond by looking at me as if I was crazy, and say, "No way. Look at all the points I'm getting this way. I'm winning."
To this day, I shake my head over this.
Back in the golden age of Construction set games - the 80s (I remember fondly The Quill, The Graphic Adventure Creator, HURG and The Shoot-em-up Construction Set) computer users were a different breed. Most people who bought computers first started doing funny things like "Learning BASIC" and programming the computer. That's how computers worked - and why you bought them, they were a hobbyist activity. So it's not surprising that the sort of computer owner who dabbles in BASIC (but is not a hardcore programmer) would like these sorts of creative games.
These days computers are pretty much an appliance like a fridge or TV to most people. Email arrives, they look at porn by clicking an icon, they accept whatever Mr Gates feeds them. It's not surprising that the creative aspect of gaming has all but been lost.
Recent exceptions to this rule I can remember is "RPG Maker" for the Playstation - and I think there's a sequel coming for the PS2. Neverwinter Nights also has a nice campaign builder utility.
Even worse, consoles, which have the larger market, don't have enough storage (except maybe for the XBox) and aren't open enough to encourage players to create their own games and share them."
Thats not entirely true. Sony does have the Linux kit, with the purpose of being mostly open and encouraging players to create their own games... but unfortunately not open enough to share them with your non-linux-ps2-ing friends.. Still, some respect for Sony is deserved here.
These sorts of games I would think provoke thought, as you have to build buildings, make cities, and all around control large amounts of men and manage resources. I think these are thought provoking, or at least more so than the "shoot 'em up" games..
Well, there's Advent, which is an open-source adventure game construction kit.
...is MTV Music Generator for PlayStation and PS2. It is really easy and fun to assemble scores using the built-in sound logic on the consoles. It is very flexible and very addictive. You can even make a video to go with it. I like it.
today is spelling optional day.
Simply put, kids are brought up in a fast track environment. Our culture as a whole craves instant gratification, which is something you can't get from a construction set. Kids can still create and invent, but the elements are much more structured now.
Lots of posts talk about LEGOs- complaints of the "juniorization" or dumbing-down of kits are commonplace in the LEGO building community. In the "good old days", a basic set of blocks was plenty, and your imagination was the tool for buidling. Now the tool is the instructions that come with the kit. How many children do you see play with the elements of the set in their own way, and not the stock finished product?
There's still a demo available through Loki which can still be downloaded.
It's a very, very fun game, and quite different from twitch-based or other reaction-driven games.
Speaking of the old Quest games...
:)
:)
Hero6 is an attempt to recreate an adventure game inspired by the Quest for Glory series. Just thought I would note it.
On the subject of "construction kits", the mad engine is the adventure game engine Hero6 is using to accomplish this. In case you are interesting
Thanks
Programming logo or basic was offered in most schools I have attended on euro-asian continent, nevermind speed of the machines. Programming can be like lego or other, if simple enough blocks are used. Main thing is to teach students a self reward system, for programming. Get stuff done,
fast enough that it will bring gratification for cool things, like moving turtle across the screen.
Anyway that trend, lack of those games etc, can be seen on different areas, schooling, daily entertainment. Everything is being wired closer to reaction level, advertisement, movies. Not to logical level...
just my 2c.
"Attack modifiers are messed up and randomly change between saves, etc .. It shouldn't have been release with such glaring bugs."
:-)
That's only a display bug. If you read the actual calculations it does at the bottom, everything is fine.
But sure, it's a bug and a bug is always a bug.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
One of my favorite features of that game was the different gravities, hitting a jump in almost zero G was pretty neat!
From Chronic Logic comes Pontifex where the object is to construct a bridge that can support not only its own weight but that of a train which then attemps to traverse the bridge.
A demo for Win32 is available.
While this game doesn't really have the "sharing" quality descriped in the news item, it does promote development of problem-solving skills and can also become qutie addictive.
Even after you've solved a level, you wind up going back to see how much more efficient (or outrageous) your design can be. Thus promoting creativity as well.
Certainly something that helps stimulate the mind and it's enjoyable for all ages.
I don't know if anyone remembers OMEGA, published by Origins (in the late 80's or early 90's). It was basically a game of tank combat. Instead of directly controlling the tank, you instead had to "program" it using a simplified scripting language. I had a lot of fun with it, but unfortunately, I can no longer find the media or books. Anyway, just though I would mention it as a great "edutainment" product.
BTW: Anyone know of anything similar?
If you want to dabble with mods, the modplug (modplug.com, I believe)software is the best. If you want samples, RPGamer has a whole bunch of s3m/mod/xms, in addition to the stuff at modplug. Just some handy links.
...is breaking them. Young kids won't find as much enjoyment with computerized construction toys as they will their real-life counterparts for a few reasons, but the primary reason is the inability to break them. I remember the sick joy I got from breaking my Lego creations and smashing my Lincoln Log houses like I was Godzilla.
Maybe I'm just sick. Who knows...but man loves to destroy. It gives us a sense of control. Until we can tap all that sick perverted pleasure with a computer program, even I won't be making anything in the imaginary world of 1's and 0's. I like to see plastic fly, woodchips soar, and smell the spoils of my personal, private wars.
Give me a magnifying glass, some army men, Lego's, and some beer and I'll have a jolly good time!
-= Jigoku =-
I stumbled across a Bridge building game a few years ago. Pontifex! (you can grab the demo at the site. It is a great game that lets you construct a bridge by using light weight material/ heavy weight material/ cable/ and decks. while having to stay within a simple materials budget. Each type of constuction equipment had advantage and disadvantages (weight/strength/cost/ etc.)
The best part about this is that it is REALLY EASY to use and understand.
My 7 year old daughter plays with it, and it is not suprising to hear her make comments (I made a bride with the same kind of triangles) or hear her ask questions about a bridge ( Why isn't this bridge too tall with the supports as wide as they are?).
This game is great. I reccomend it.
flogger
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
My favorite, although probably not up there with Legos or Lincoln Logs, would be the good old "Incredible Machines" series of PC games by Jeff Tunnell. A great mix of wacky puzzle games and classic construction-style building. It's got something in it for everyone, from the tediously easy beginner levels to the mind wobbling insanely complex expert levels, not to mention a built in editor to come up with your own puzzles. Maybe not a true "classic", but sure something to pass the hours away with (I still play it on a weekly basis ;).
there were so many things missing from that article that I don't know how it could be seriously discussed. I mean, does a RPG, a FPS and lets say computer chess all affect human brain development the same? I think the construction set game is just one example of educationally beneficial software. I'm not even going to start on how TV and ALL computer/video games are somehow EXACTLY THE SAME. The article provides absolutely no differentiation from these various mediums as well as the content and relative context of their use.
I often think of programming, or at least debugging, as somewhat game-ish. Does that mean my work adversely affects my brain?
Here is some guy that is attempting to rewrite it for the PC. I assume he means Windows.
Here is a review of the classic C64 version.
My brother and I spent many hours creating impossible track and then racing around them.
As an answer to the question of "Why are there no more construction set games?" I think that many of those games were somewhat limited in what you could do. I actually spend more time twiddling with games that I have written than playing other games.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Ah, the days of C-64 and Pinball Construction set. I remember getting the ball stuck, bouncing back and forth between bumpers. Still, I don't remember learning much from this game. Now, Artworx Strip Poker, that tought me a thing or two.
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Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
Now that rocked...
There is an MTV music generator game for PC and playstation that is supposed to allow users to create their own songs and export them.
How many 9 or 10 year olds know how to use shell commands? Ok, there are a few smart ones out there, but I think a 'construction set' game, for kids, would be better with an interface. You can ween the kids off gui's later.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
1. Bull
2. Shit
NWN has been out for what, a few weeks? It takes time to create content, just like it takes time to create a game from scratch. Of course the first modules up on servers were light on role-playing and heavy on hack-and-slash. To expect otherwise is ridiculous. Such modules also have far less depth and are therefore easier to create whether the game has been out for three weeks or three years.
I suggest you visit the NWN boards at the bioware web site and do a search for Grim's Tavern to see an example of a fantastic module which is already up and running.
The amazing thing about Grim's is how quickly it was up and running, albeit in a basic form in its early days, highlighting another thing worth mentioning:
talent * effort = high quality results
The average person has little talent and applies little effort. As a result, the majority of construction set content - whether NWN or not - is:
1. Bull
2. Shit
...how large the market is for a *good* PvP (Player vs. Player) RPG environment. EverQuest, DAOC, UO, etc have all tried in one way or another to cater to the PvP demands of their subscribers, but none have really hit the nail on the head yet. A lot of people are anxiously awaiting Shadowbane to arrive as the holy grain of MMORPG PvP .. But till then those same people will be trying anything that can get their hands on, including NWN. I have played a few of the NWN PvP deathmatch modules and was quite surprised how fun they were. Definately not for everyone but it shows what people like to do.
If you have red alert 2 you can download their map editor and build maps to play against people on the internet, LAN, or against the computer. It take a lot of creativity. http://www.westwood.com
For anyone who can't find Racing Destruction Set, try playing rock & roll racing for nintendo. Its a pretty cool ripoff.
C64, Amiga 500...beall, endall. You saps with Atari 400,800,1200's..I pity Thee :D
:P
:)
Serously, I take great offence to the statement made below that yesterdays games were more educational than the 'crap produced today'. Put down your crackpipe!
Todays games are literally just visually updated versions of the same games we've been playing for 20 years. I agree that the world could use more adventure games, but lets face it: They dont make em cuz people don't play em!
Police Quest was fun....sure...but I think it taught me as much about being a policeman as a 1/2 hour documentary on the Discovery Channel...or 12 minutes of COPS.
Somehow I dont think playing through THE PAWN raised my IQ any......but, who knows, perhaps it did. I can say that playing games is what forced me to learn about PC's, and thats how I wound up with my nice computer job today. But I dont think the world has made great intellectual pitfalls by switching from ZORK to Counterstrike.
If anything, we're all better prepared to handle an MP-5 for when the Canadians Invade.
Mindstorms are very good at moving the Construction Set mentality into Logic and Code.. I think that it is a bummer that they are so expensive that every kid can't get a set.
I am also impressed with Rokenbok. This doesn't include programming and such, but it does combine technologies and push the limit of what is possible in children's minds...
Great toys are the ones that make children comfortable with the emerging technologies. The construction toys that we played with in our younger days are old news. Toys are not nearly as cool when your parents are better at using them than you are.. My favorite memories as a child was building a computer program, and having adults be totally astonded by what I made. Because Adults are more comfortable with current technology, toys are going to have to go somewhere where adults are not comfortable.
Computers really did not come of age until a generation of kids had been able to play with them. I think robotics and the like may come to age after this generation of kids play with Mindstorms and Rokenbok and the like.. I see games like Robowars becoming the new playground for the nerdy kids, and They will be doing things with Embedded software and robotics that blow the adult generation's mind
Was purchased by a company that eventually changed their name to "X10". Talk about a company that grew up to be a bunch of assholes.
If you want another Pinball Construction Set, talk to Bill Budge. He created the first computer sim construction set of any kind. I still have a few Apple binaries I created using his tool set. He has an interview here.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
My favorites (I had ACS and MCS) were Rocky's Boots and Robot Odyssey.
Those were fun games. :-)
The Doctor What (KF6VNC)
DarkBasic is a programming language and dev environment that lets users with little or no programming experience create 3D games.
The great thing about DarkBasic is that it acts as a very good introduction to both programming and 3D programming (which can be a nightmare if starting with something like DirectX).
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Supposedly Will Harvey (author of Music Construction Set for the Apple ][) wrote this program when he was 16 years old, back in 1983ish. The liner notes said the he wrote it in one night on a dare from a high-school teacher.
Makes me think of Stuffit, DeCSS and Napster: other great software written by very young, very motivated hackers.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Here are two cool games that let you construct stuff:
www.bridgebuilder-game.com - construct your own bridges on a limited budget
www.sodaplay.com - build walkers in a springs and masses simulation
"Linux"? People can satisfy their creative and constructive urges using a huge multitude of programming and graphic tools. Of course, there area also an endless number of game editors for many games, games that now have free runtimes (Quake, etc.).
Ultimate Ride is the only roller coaster construction kit available -- it's awesome and easy to make rides that would have to be blacklisted by NASA for the amount of G's being used -- you can spike it to over 30G if you really want to kill your riders.
And I am not afraid to play a video game. Having zero brain activity is nothing to be afraid of -- it's called relaxation! For me, I am more afraid of games being a black hole for time.
It's not quite the same thing as virtual legos but the Sim* line does have that construction set feel. Sure, there is a a plot that you are encouraged to follow, but for the most part, you are left to use or abuse the game constructs in whatever ways you can come up with.
I see this most clearly in "The Sims" which is basically a virtual doll house. You (or my wife for instance) can collect new figures and furniture and redecorate to your little heart's content.
It could be argued that this doesn't quite fit since if you aren't following the stated objective of the game you are sort of playing with the box instead of the toy. But in my opinion, the freedom to do this was part of the game design which means that someone recognizes the potential of the game style.
The game making kit M.U.G.E.N is available. If you've ever wanted to try your hand at making a Street Fighter II or King of the Fighters type game. The kit comes with a tiny demo game. (One character versus his evil clone.) A lot of people on the internet copy the art and moves from popular fighting games to make characters and levels.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Ah, the Pinball Construction Set. Perhaps the finest piece of software every written.
Anyone remember a game where you build simple robots using logic gates and engines and bump sensors?
I'm glad to see someone mention Adventure Construction Set. I think I had all of those Construction Set games for the C64, RDS, MusicCS, Gamemaker, PinballCS, yes and even Shoot'Em Up CS...
But the best by far was ACS because it was not locked into a genre, nor a vague set of design tools. It was perfectly approachable by kids or someone who was not ready or willing to start writing code.
While today's modding features and map editors are great and thankfully becoming a standard, few have matched the range and variety that came from some games like Civ2 or Total Annihilation (both of which I still play!) Yet Neverwinter looks promising. However even these are simply skin changes when compared to something like ACS at its time.
None of the new creation games like Sims and Black&White let you start with a clean slate. It's fun to play within building rules and then try and break them, but we need something that gives kids (both young and grown-up) a way to express their own original ideas.
Imagine a modern RTS construction set where you have to think up your own units and worlds. Or an RPG construction set where you not only write the story but it could be in any place, time, whatever. And then be able to give it to other users of the construction set.
It could be marketable as long as the construction set is flexible enough and easy enough to allow anyone a chance to make something completely original or a different take on the familiar. Stop saying kids today are stupid, give them a chance.
There have a lot recent games that support user created art & content for example: the Quake series, the Sims, Morrowind for the PC, Neverwinter Nights, Mind Rover, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and more.
m l
And most of these games that allow user content creation are among the highest critical reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/games/pc/highscores.sht
However you must also realize that creating game art is a lot more complex today. It takes a team of artist years to create the average game. In 1987 games like "Adventure Construction Set" (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=1923) were more accessible simply because only a few pixels need to be set per sprite for the art to be competitive with professional quality games.
tpun
I remember playing a game like that on my parents 286 when i was young. If you played games on your parents 286, you're still young...
RDS was THE coolest game ever. The only thing that came close was Mail Order Monsters....
http://www.naildrivin5.com/davec
Anyone remember Racing Destruction Set on the C64? I remember sitting around for hours designing race tracks with my friends and then DESTROYING my friends cars. There is nothing that sparks creative interests like trashing your friend's on the computer!
I Like It
I got into computers when Construction Set games were in their prime. Between my friends and myself we had almost all of them. (It's interesting to note that most of them were made by Electronic Arts, now one of the biggest gaming companies.)
The thing that all of them had in common was that they were SIMPLE! Look at Pinball Construction Set: Drag the pieces from the right side of the board to the left, and you're done! Anybody off the street could get a decent table up and running in 10 minutes.
Nowadays you practically need a degree to figure out what the hell you're supposed to be doing.
Editing a Quake level (hardly a construction set, but nevertheless) requires considerable artistic talent. I'm not able to think too well in 3D so I have a fantastically difficult time working with a Quake editor.
Visual Pinball (mentioned earlier) is great but you need to know how to program in VB to make the table work. Then you need to have nice graphics to overlay so the table doesn't look like a sterile piece of crap, because plainness just doesn't cut it nowadays.
My current favourity "software toy" is a Trainz, a Model Railroad "constructor". It's a great program that's as open-ended as any of the old constructors. Building a layout is not too hard but takes considerable time. Creating new locomotives requires great proficiency in 3D editing with a tool like gmax. And scripting a scenario (new with the latest service pack) requires programming proficiency in an OO language.
This is the price we pay for stunning graphics, real-life sound, and 3D immersive gameplay. Is it worth it? Well, that's a decision we each have to make for ourselves.
Wasn't this the program that wrote out both the player and the music as a single machine-code file that one executed with sys 30120? I'd completely forgotten about these. I probably had 50 or more songs in this format for the SID on my C64. Ahh, the good 'ol days...
The command would have been
LOAD "*",8,1
which meant load the first file on the disk - which usually also had an autorun. In fact, I still sometimes hit shift-2 to do quotation marks.
LOAD "$",8
Was the typical command to get the list of files on a disk. LIST displayed the currently entered BASIC file (as the normal shell doubled as a BASIC editor).
Great machine, that.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
And today the kids are spending thier time trying to get the lastest wall or aim hack so they can be "teh winnar", sad.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Welcome to the land of the defensive parent. I didn't note anything in the initial post that indicated that helmets on bike-riding kids was bad. He is right, however, in a sense. We are overprotecting our children, and look at the results...
I, too, make my kids wear helmets when riding a bike, rollerblading, and skateboarding. It's just good sense. I do not, however, sue every company that produces a toy that my children manage to cause themselves pain with. The point that you failed to see in the initial comment was simply that litigation has pulled MANY a good toy off the market, and will continue to do so. Attributing all toy cancellations to the greed of the corporation, no matter how good it feels is both cynical and inaccurate. Does greed factor in? Much of the time. Is it the only factor? Certainly not.
Now, before you leap back on your super-parent high-horse, try to remember that his opinion is no less worthy of being spoken than your own. Also remember than man is the only animal without a natural predator, the only animal that places more emphasis on the survival of the weakest than that of the strongest, and the only animal that the Darwin-esque "survival of the fittest" does not apply to. Something to mull over while you're congratulating yourself on your parenting prowess over your helmeted, marble-free children.
I have to say it, because this game *never* has gotten the credit it deserved. It was truly revolutionary at the time, yet it got almost no attention.
It had this whole powers of 10 thing going on where you could zoom out and see the entire island, and then zoom in to see one particular plant on the sidewalk on one of the many towns in the island. Additionally, you could define your own "stunts" (such as, fly this byplane through this tunnel) and then "film" them from different camera angles and save the film - all way before other games had that option. You could also script events (such as, this bus goes off a cliff after 10 seconds and you paraglide away from it)... It was really one of the better 'software toys', or 'construction sets', and yet no one seems to have played it - the disney brand may have hurt it in that respect...
jdm
My usual fix for that particular obsession is the Citybuilder series from Impressions Games. Started with Caesar II, then moved up to Caesar III, Pharoah and the Cleopatra expansion, Zeus and the Poseidon expansion, and eagerly awaiting Emperor, set in ancient China.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The game let's you build not only personal levels for yourself and to share with friends, but also allows you to post your favorite personal levels into a TQ Universe where other members can play your games as well.
Additionally, TQworld has begun to open up the internal language (the forum on the TQworld site has this information beginning to appear). Since the games are stored on your hard drive in clear-text format, you can tweak them (or completely rewrite/design new ones) in your favorite editor.
My five-year-old, just learning to read, will probably be fluent in HTML [no frontpage, thank you] by the time she's in second grade. Basic web design, at first anyway, gave me the same feeling I used to get with the old Erector Set..."I made that." Scripting, IMO, is the ultimate construction set, allowing kids to mix and match ideas quickly and easily with lest risk of slicing fingers [a common Erector Set injury]. Then again, you risk carpol tunnel, and these kids would reather build viruses than space ships, anyway.
I had something called Arcade Game Construction
Kit for my Commodore 64, which I bought sometime
around 1988 or 1989. It was pretty cool. You
drew the characters cell-by-cell for various
movements, you could make projectile weapons
(not _only_ for weapons, of course), and make
sentries for the "bad guys". I didn't get very
far with it, but it had a lot of features. Sound
effects and music development were part of the
program.
Is there anything like this out there these days
that's in the consumer price range?
But the game industry is way too obsessed with getting just one more frame per second out of the voxel-mapper than in building something other than a clone.
This is the industry that asked "who's going to buy a game about doing the chores?" when the Sims was being pitched.... for three years.
Now, they can't churn out the sequels fast enough. (and the middle manager who asked that question probably got a bonus and a free vacation, PAID FOR by sales of the Sims).
Perhaps someone will develop and market such a game, but it is highly doubtful it will be the "game industry."
Chipwits, for the original Mac, allowed you to program a robot by hooking together various bits of code that sort of resembled ICs. A google search turned up a Chipwits web site, but it doesn't appear to have anything to say at this point.
Another was "The Incredible Machine", where you solved problems by putting together various components to build Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions. It appears that some version of this game is still in existence, see this page from Sierra
Now I may have to actually try the new IM.
Subscribers can see articles in the future? So what? Everyone gets to see them in the future.
Coldstone
is a product put out by ambrosia software (it runs on both Windows and OS X) that can be used to create your own standablone games on either platform.
it comes with a ton of artwork on Cd, plus you can easily import your own. I've played with it a bit, and so far have been very impressed.
Interestingly, Pillars of Garendall was created entirely using coldstone.
This sort of thign is great, it provides an easy way to build a standalone game, without coding. Of course, you won't be building the next Unreal Tournament with it, but it does what it does nicely.
----
One of us needs to stick ones' head in a bucket of ice water.
- Hobbes
I know you asked specifically for *games* construction set (I remember those well from my Sinclair ZX Spectrum days of yore). Let's generalize as far as we can: the construction sets of today are the programming languages and associated compilers. And for sure, there are a lot more than 15-20 years ago.
SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)
I remember back on the Apple II I had a movie construction kit where you could create various frames of animation then move them about into a cohesive story. I spent LOTS of time doing that but my absolute favorite computer construction kit was on the C64= and it involved fireworks! You could plop down hoosker-do's and hoosker-don'ts. You could create a multitude of spinning exploding effects and also put them to music. The coolness factor of it may have been agrandized by my love for blowing crap up but I still remember it fondly to this day.
I keep looking around in the local stores for anything similar. The closest I've seen is something called Fantavision for the PS2. A half-baked puzzle fireworks game.
Time well wasted
Where does Bill have his games for downloads?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Go to the nearest toy store of decent size - not the Kay-Bee in the mall but like a Toys R Us, and check out the prices for toys. You'll easily find that Legos, Kenex (sp?), Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, TinkerToys, etc remain some of the more expensive objects, and it's not because they're hard to make or sell. It is because these toys spark imagination, incite creativity, and can be played with again & again ad nauseum and NEVER get old or fall out of fashion. Hell, in my teens I was goofing off with Legos I'd had since I was 8. Compared to the latest Power Ranger, that's value.
And that's also the crux of the whole issue. The toy companies exist to make money like any other industry, and the way they keep your kid continually wanting the latest-greatest is with advertising and the synthesis of "cool" around the latest toy. Every one of us felt that left-out feeling when they were the only kid who didn't have the toy of the moment (check South Park's "Chinpokomon" episode for a reminder). Hell, I still remember how excited I was when I got Optimus Prime for Christmas. Nobody else I knew had it, and for the next month I was the center of attention amongst my friends. Sure the toys are fun many times, but the kids get a thrill out of that attention just as you or I do when we bring in the latest tech gadget to work to the squeals of envy from fellow geeks.
Toy makers aren't stupid -- they know that licensed toys are a source of unending turnover and that with enough up-front marketing they can have your kid driving you insane for a $10 piece of crap over & over again each week from 5 to 12 years of age, and so this is what they do. There'll always be a new Care Bear of Stretch Armstrong or Barbie outfit. Not so with "construction set" games -- even the most adamant Lego fiend reaches an eventual point of saturation where they have all the blocks they need.
Well, maybe not Zack. He's a Lego maniac.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
About 2 years ago Massachusetts based Cognitoy made a commercial game MindRover which is much like older programmable robot games in concept. You can check out a demo on their web site (last time I looked) (http://www.cognitoy.com)
I played it for a while, it was interesting, although I kept wanting to write code instead of messing with their GUI.
- Ultimate Wizard (well, it "only" had a level editor, I guess, but man! so much fun...)
- Slot Car Construction Set (tile-based racetracks!)
- Racing Destruction Set
- GameMaker
- Adventure Construction Set
And I don't care how much you naysayers say "nay"; the spirit of these games lives on in NWN. NWN mods are not just PVP mods and crappy, unfinished story mods. There are tons of good modules available already, but you're better off playing them in small groups with people you know (just like "real" tabletop DnD).To the people complaining about too many "uber" twinked-out characters running around, I say: why are you playing on a server that allows them? Every time someone serves a game, there are two check boxes: "Enforce Legal Characters?" and "Item Level Restrictions?". If you don't want to be knee-deep in twinked-out munchkins, stay off the non-ELC, non-ILR servers! et voila.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/
Has its own scripting language, 2d games mostly, comes with some tiles, and has net support. Best of all its free! Also, anyone can make their own game with it within minutes.
-I fear the easter bunny.
Of course, one reason why this is true is that a person never has just one trait, but a collection of traits.
What's more, a change in environment can make a formerly adaptive trait purely detrimental. (Fair skinned people get skin cancer in sunny climes, dark skinned people get rickets in cold climes, sickle cell anemia has no adaptive benefit in an area where malaria doesn't florish.)
My favorite evolution story is the one about the Samurai Crabs. In this case, the adaptive trait (having shells that look like human faces) supposedly developed entirely because of a local superstition about such crabs. It had nothing to do with "fitness" in the sense laymen use it when referring to evolutionary theory. However, it was an adaptive trait (unless the theory is wrong and the crabs really are reincarnated samurai) because it allowed the face crabs to survive and reproduce.
Although not explicitly a game, programs such as Reason that have synthesizers and samplers of various sorts organized as rackmount synthesizers are as entertaining as any game, and are indeed used to make real music too. propellerheads.se. Just looking at the screenshots should be enough to get you hooked. For example, you can flip the synthesizers around and rewire them and every single knob is tweakable.
Also, Mac/MSP (only available for Mac) is a music program that has been likened to legos, for one puts together various tone generators and input devices to create complex digital synthesizers. For an analogous game, try Widget Workshop from Maxis.
For games, don't forget SimCity 4 and the rest of the Sim games, which are still being churned out at a good clip.
Cliff wrote: Computer-based sets, would be a nice alternative, but nothing beats the real thing where children can use their own hands to create something they can show their paernts.
I'd like to argue with that. Software is so much more flexible and maleable than things in the real world. You build a robot arm with LEGO Technics and it doesn't work what do you do? You have to pull it apart to fix a small bug. Then you get it working and you want to add a nice little new feature. What do you do? You pull it apart to enhance it. Software is magical in that you can change it without disassembly and reassembly.
To my way of thinking there are lots of great software based construction kits and many have been mentioned in this thread (e.g. Pinball Construction Kit, ClickTeam's Klik and Play, Incredible Machine, StageCast Creator, and SimTunes) but the ones mentioned are either not universal Turing Machines or are universal only in a theoretical sense (way too awkward to do some things). (Or are professional programming languages that are really not kid-friendly.)
What gets me excited are universal construction kits. Examples of this are Squeak (and its EToys), Agentsheets, Logo, Boxer, and my ToonTalk. These are all kid-friendly program development environments. Software-based special purpose construction kits are fine, but general-purpose ones give kids access to the true power and magic of computers.
And of course kids can "show their parents" software they have built. And the parents are likely to be more impressed than a LEGO construction.
Haven't played it in a while, but Mind Rover from CogniToy is pretty sweet.
You are a researcher on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. In your free time you re-program the rovers to race around the hallways, battle it out with mini lasers and rocket launchers, and find their way through mazes.
Their online store sells it for $25 but you could probably find it for less. Available in Windows and Linux versions.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
While it's great to solve the puzzles to put the ball in the bucket, start the contraption, turn on the light, etc., I also ended up spending considerable time constructing "Loony Tunes" style contraptions that rolled the ball, triggering the fan that blew the balloon, that triggered the mouse trap that cut the string, that dropped the ball that hit the cat.
Great fun building stuff here.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
As someone that has worked in the game industry since 1988, I'll tell you that times have really changed. I think there are three main reasons why you don't see Construction Set games much, and two of those reasons are why most of the games are really, really not innovative at all.
1.) Edutainment became a bad word.
There were many companies that have attempted to make entertaining products that also taught people. Problem is, they weren't perceived as cash cows, so the suits ran screaming. I'm not sure if I know any names, but in the early nineties...edutainment was up there with girl games as the two huge untapped markets for gaming. After that, a few visible failures brought the house down.
2.) Games are more expensive than ever.
This problem leads to the bean counters wanting to take fewer and fewer "perceived" risks. When game budgets are getting close to $4 million per title, and PC games don't usually have a PRAYER of selling enough copies to make that back (I think you could count on one hand the amount that do it each year)...how can you "risk" something like that? I don't agree, but that's the logic.
Now, I'm sure if you checked the stats, there are acutally MORE failures of clones and licenses than there are of games that try something new. However, gaming has never been about statistics, engineering, or anything else...logic need not apply. Which leads me to...
3.) Games are technology driven.
So...it's hard enough to push the latest technology to its limits. Take undisciplined programmers, add soft science marketers and THEN try and capture lightning in a bottle. Now, try and make the game FUN as well. Takes too long, and you never know when it's done. Used to be that you could sit a guy or two in a room and let them hack away for 6 months. Now, you're dealing with teams of people all trying to impress business types that wouldn't know a fun game if it bit them on the nose.
Now, I'm not just blaiming business types...the whole industry has painted itself into this corner where they're turning into big-budget Hollywood.
But, if you're looking for innovative construction games...do some web searches for some shareware. You'll have much more success with finding something there than finding it on the shelves of Best Buy.
"...if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later." -- Lewis Carroll
Uhm, who said anything about Commodore 64? The screenshots of these apps looked more like PC-CGA graphics to me. If they had been C64 screens they would have been much more colorful and generally nice looking. :)
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
OMG-far too fun and addictive! Replay value forever! I can't recommend them enough, and they'll fit on a floppy. Windows only tho... :(
The guy is looking for programs that make standalone games, not something like Lego... sheesh.
Ah, but when you're done, you can print out instructions for your creation so that you or others can build them. True, you're not making a standalone computer game, but you are making something very similar.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Spiderweb Software makes shareware games.
Their Exile series of games (Exile, Exile II, Exile III, Blades of Exile) runs on both PC and Mac. Exile III runs under Linux (!).
Different scenarios can be constructed by you and then and run by other people, so the game world can be shared with your friends.
I haven't kept up with their products over the past two years, but they are still around and making games.
www.kyodai.com has a game which helps your memory.
You can win without designing rides, but who would want to?
Bite the hand.
The Zork series helped you develop intellect.
Check this out! http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=237
CP/M-86 v1.0 got a rating of 7.45 and it's downloadable! Also love the "If you like this game, try: MS-DOS 3.20, Osborne 3 MS-DOS v2.11"
Pinball Construction set was just amazing.. WOW. What have you done in 16K?
I remember a rumor going around in the early 80's that the author, Bill Budge, was working on CS CS...
What time does the Super Mario Bros. Supershow show on TV?
I work at a public library and I have to catalog all of the non-book materials (CD-ROM's, videocassettes, DVD's, etc.) that we get. Among these I have to catalog a zillion children's CD-ROM's, which seem to be aimed at every grade level and every subject in existence, including reading, music, math, construction, etc. Admittedly, I think a lot of them are rather linear math quiz type things, but quite a few seem to have a creative element. My library has 153 children's CD-ROM titles which are all educational games, so listing them all here would be a boring exercise, but some titles include:
I never really look at the things in detail unless someone complains it's not working, but they are all very popular and are always getting checked out. They are geared towards a much younger age-group than NeverWinter Nights and Diablo (more my fare), but so was the Music Construction Set in it's day. I would imagine if someone gave me one of the creative games I used to play and a computer to run it on, it would be entertaining for a short time as I was hit by a wave of nostalgia, but I don't know how long I could maintain interest, as my expectations from computer games have changed.
It is my impression that for the 7-13 year old crowd, these kinds of games exist and are as fun as they were when I was that age even now, however.
I don't know the URL, don't have time to find it, but if you look "Game Maker" up in Google, you can find a freeware program that lets you drag, drop and program PC games. Pretty fun!
The fact is that these Construction Set games were never wildly popular. With a lot of effort, you could create a game that still didn't quite measure up to commercial versions. And that was when commercial games were designed by a couple of guys in a garage, not a huge teame or programmers, designers, artists and musicians. I imagine that there is still just about as much activity with mod creation as there ever was with "Construction Set" games. Whether or not the product is really "standalone" makes no practical difference.
And don't forget all of the "Sim" type games on PC. While these aren't "game construction kits," they are a lot like computerized legos, and similarly appeal to the desire to design and construct something.
Ah you forget Driller and the Freescape environment.......
Http://www.puppettime.com and when you find out Cycore isn't supporting our program anymore, you can come tax my bandwidth here http://www.earthorbitdesign.com/software/pt/ the mac version is 12megs... and if you all que up in line, you might get 12k download from my house... basically, it's a 3d storytelling environment with prebuilt characters with canned emotions. You type in the script, and record your voices, the program does the lip-syncing based on a phoneme to viseme conversion method... you give the puppets some stage direction and set your camera cuts... pretty sophisticated considering it was all my brother writing code....
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
..and its variations are great construction set games. They just don't teach you about nut/bolt sizes.
Hi all, Perhaps the best construction set I can think of for the upper elementary to middle school level is the LEGO Mindstorms kit. It involves programming, engineering, building, planning, all the things put together in one easy to use package. I don't often say this about a commercial product, but I think LEGO pulled it off on this one. The kit costs a little over $200 and they've sold over 250,000 of the kits. We use them here in Maine, both in curriculum, and after school programs. The kits come with 700 pieces of what I call "engineering" LEGOs. Not just bricks, and not those terrible 'use them once to build a Star Wars Proton Sled' or such narrow kits. Give them a try, kids and adults both love em.
So, restricting the amount people can say is not free speech? Just because you post something which Malda and his janitors disagree with, you should be limited to saying 2 things a day?
Hah.
Unless it has boobs or a big gun attached to it, game companies won't bother trying to market it.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Coldstone is a new and cool game construction kit. I haven't used it, but it looks promising.
I disagree. What's happened is that we've managed to so completely manipulate the environment that we've redefined "fittest". Now, instead of health/strength making one "fit", it's money/looks/social grace. "Fit" is whatever manages to perpetuate your genome.
I seem to recall a program called Games Factory released a few years ago. It allowed you to make standalone games without programming,just point and click. The only limit was your imagination.
:)
So they're still out there
The controllers (USB devices) have a memory card slot that can take an 8Mb card. That should be plenty of storage to hold one or two user-created levels (depending on textures, etc).
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
My first laptop was a compaq 286. The thing may have been shit, but it had faster response times than my winshit system at work. I wish I still had that thing. My only complaint was that the lappie was completely sealed off with no screws or clasps to get inside.
I guess that illustrates the point of this article.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Brings back good memories. I had every one of those construction set programs. I loved Adventure Construction Set the most though I never finished my "master" adventure.
:) Erector was way better than classic Lego, but Mindstorms are the best of all.
Seriously though, anybody remember Erector sets? Those things were the best, and I had a hand-me-down set from older siblings. I firmly believe working with things like that really inspires creativity in kids...myself not withstanding
I don't have kids yet, but these thinking games in meatspace are probably at least as important as the classical U.S. education.
When I went up there I was amazed to see an italian girl walking (with difficulty) to the bridge uphill through the ice and snow... in designer stillettos!
If they are capable of reading, they are capable of using the shell. How many kids were playing around with Apple II's and MS-DOS machines during the 1980's? I was using CP/M and programming in BASIC at the age of seven. I believe that any child that can read at an appropriate level for a seven-year-old can learn to use the command line. The GUI is probably necessary for pre-literate children, although I doubt the value of computers to children of that age.
Best Slashdot comment ever
Check out the sodazoo while you are there - look for models by dryguy!
-- Stamp out entropy. ->dryguy@bellsloth.net
Besides the loops they give you, you can find lots of free ones on the web as well.
Go and download the demo, I can't recommend this game highly enough, it's fantastic!
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
Try DOGA(http://www.doga.co.jp/english/).You can paste together dozens of shapes to make 3D vehicles and mecha that can be simply rendered and put into short movies. Level one was free, level 2 was $50, and the website talks about a level 3 but I can't seem to find out what happened to it after beta. Also ALICE (http://www.alice.org/) is a good intro to Python that lets you design your own worlds and move your creations in a variety of ways. These two programs kept my son busy for hours.
It's not exactly the same idea as the "Construction Kits" you're refering to, but it is targetted towards children who want to create their own games. There is already a complete game available, although it's missing graphics here and there, it's still playable from beginning to end.
sidenote: it's tough to meet all of the dependancies under Linux, but with Windows all you need to install is the Microsoft Text-To-Speech API, and you're good to go.
--Cycon
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
load "$",8
had to be followed by a list (or lI, if you wanted to save a keystroke..) to actually display the files -- because it put the list of files into memory as a fake basic program! woe to you if you want to see the directory before you save your basic program...
and remember hitting shift-run/stop after the ",8,1" part to automatically run what was loaded?
The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something; for the box might even be empty.
When I started reading the blurb, I assumed it meant toys like lego, erector sets, lincoln logs, etc. Alas, I'm too old to have had a computer to play with when I was young, so I missed out on that whole generation of software.
true - most current 3d games have editors that you can use provided you have the game
HOWEVER
RPGMAKER 2000 (www.rpg-maker.com)
this program allows you to make 2d rpg games on windows that self compile and will run stand alone on any windows platform (ie: windows 95-nt-98-2k-xp-etc..)
BUT
most people don't want to play 2d rpg's as well as a lot of people shun those who create modules for PnP games - unfortunate for us
Ave Molech Setting
A possible reason why you don't see the construction set games anymore that I don't think anyone has touched on yet is the growth of the hacker culture. Back when the construction set games were around, the hacker culture was confined largely to colleges and labs. Didn't Zork start on a mainframe in Fortran somewhere? The construction set games brought a kind of pseudo-hacker culture to non-hackers. Without having to know a lot of code, they could build their own games and run them.
But nowadays, many of these pseudo-hackers became real hackers. Now people build games from scratch. Witness the explosion in recent years in freeware/OSS game projects. Not many people focus on construction set games because they're busy building their own original games.
As for me, I think I get more joy out of the construction of the game mechanics rather than the actual coding of the game core. For that reason [begin shameless plug] I've been working on my own Perl modules to do game construction (I've only just started -- if any Perl programmers out there are interested, look for module Games::Object on search.cpan.org. I hope to have Games::TileMap released soon as well). I doubt I'll be leading any revolution with my efforts, but at least I'll get to put out a few games that I've been thinking about over the years.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
it sucked. i was duped!
When I read "a 3d storytelling environment with prebuilt characters with canned emotions", the first thing that comes to mind is "Custom Pr0n!". Or maybe it's just me.
It seems to me that this technology has some real potential in the porn industry, to provide for the realtime personalized porn. If you can't get photorealistic puppets, then just give the characters purple hair and call it manga.
Allow the user to select from a list of "prebuilt characters with canned emotions", a stage set, some props, load or write a script, then let the camera roll...
Gives a whole new meaning to the term "lip-syncing".
World Racing Legends. Kind of ironic they're advertising is as a "new concept" :)
Simpler games that included a powerful "level editor" to create and save your own levels and share them with other users were generally better than the more general purpose "construction set" apps.
Anybody else here remember the original C=64 "Racing Destruction Set. Apparently, there is work on a PC remake.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I think there still are games that stimulate creation. The last one of them I've played must be Rollercoaster Tycoon. While a great simulation game (you have to build theme parks, including rollercoasters etc), you can really build great worlds in it !
...
I was a great fan of LEGOs a few years ago, and I really think it's the same kind of entertainment : you can create whatever you want. Just use some piece of lane to make a roof for your station, etc.
And then you can send/get your creation to friends, or download other people's creations. Of course, you have to have the game installed to view them
theefer
Yes, it's all Mr. gates fault. The lack of construction games, war, plagues, famine and the ever-so-popular silent collapse of a neutron star into a black hole at the galactic core.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Does anybody remember ZZT? You could make your own text-mode action/adventure/shooter games and give "object" tiles their own programs (allowing them to do almost everything you want.) The game produced a cult following, with hundreds of programmers streching the limits of the program in extreme ways. Actually, people are still using it (10 years later!)
I only wish they had Lego Mindstorms back when I was a kid.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I'm honestly surprised you chose to dignify the author of the article which originally claimed that games decrease brain activity. And the claim seems to have been taken out of context. Even though the article may have suggested that "decreased brain activity = stupid" this is obviously not the case to anyone who has read articles based on empirical evidence that the brain displays greater activity during sleep. One such example can be found at http://julkb.vortex.is/esrs/449.pdf Which suggests that levels of brain activity is not be directly associated with how 'smart' someone is. Its how you use it that matters. So, another way to look at the results that the previous article was foundered on, people who play computer games don't NEED to strain there brain in order to come to the correct answer. Now, console gamers on the other hand are an entirely different story =)
Ambrosia Software, a Mac shareware company, recently released a game creation kit called ColdStone. It's able to compile free standing games which run on Mac or Windows.
Ambrosia released there own RPG called Pillars of Garendall which was built entirely with this construction set.
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/coldstone/
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/pog/
"Rocky's Boots" was a great game. A logic puzzle game, tied into a begining electronics course, all fun. Probably the closest thing recently would be "The Incredible Machine".
BTW, Warren Robinett also wrote the Atari 2600 game "Adventure". You can find it for the PC as Indenture.
The original "Loadrunner" was also great, and had a good level editor you could use to create your own levels.
The best 'Constructon Set' in recent memory was the level editor in Crack Dot Com's sidescroller, 'Abuse'. It used a lisp driven engine to allow you to make levels easier than anything I recall at the time.
Abuse was released as free software. You can now run it on DOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, even Irix. If you can score a copy of Abuse you can run the original levels, and if not you can run the "fRaBs" (Free levels for Abuse).
Debian users "apt-get install abuse-sdl". (Sound effects are in "abuse-sfx" which is in non-free.)
Everyone else http://www.abuse2.com/downloads.php3
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Fruityloops 3 is pretty handy. It's pretty easy to use, and in the right hands, music can be of almost professional quality. There's a free demo that lets you export to mp3 but not save (so you can't go back and edit it).
My Journal - 1,337 fans and countin
I used to play with Lego stuff all the time, but was never satisfied with the motorization. So, I wrote some software that basically lets me make simulations of the ideas I couldn't quite build with Lego. There's a link in my signature...
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
When I was growing up there were still a lot of kids using more generic legos sets. But then it turned into "follow the instructions, build a [ship/castle/etc], put it on the shelf." I don't think there are as many little kids (as opposed to the lego mindstorm people) really creating their own lego toys any more.
About a month ago, my boyfriend and I decided we wanted to build a model. You know- those kind you snap together the pieces and paint? the kind my dad and brother spent nights upon nights working on when I was a child? We looked at EVERY toy store in Syracuse,NY and couldn't find ONE. Finally we asked the guy at toys 'r us if they had them. "no, we quit selling them a few years ago cause we didn't sell 'em." We finally found some- in Michaels' craft stores and in a little hobby store about 10 miles out of town. All of them are >$20. plus, you gotta buy the paints. it' sad.
God: "An inordinate fondness for beetles." -JBS Haldane-
You obviously don't have a kid. Chemistry sets are alive and well, although probably don't include gunpowder-making instructions. Electronics wire 'em up sets are as near as your closest ratio shack and as you mentioned, there's Lego, Konnex, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Zoob, and oodles more. Also consider train sets from the wooden [Brio] type all the way through very big boys with their steam engines.
Such things are out there, and are easy to find via a specialty catalog or at a good toy store [NOT Toys'R'Us or FAO Schwartz].
As another person mentioned, as a culture we're being sold on the latest and "greatest" new [licensed!] thing, regardless of its merits. Rather than running and re-running Warner Brothers cartoons, we end up with New! and Improved! drenn splattered across the kids' advertising channels.
We have a kajillion opportunities to watch "Miracle on 34th Street" every year because someone forgot to copyright it, and it gathers viewers, so it's highly profitable to sell ad time during its broadcast.
Consider all of the card-based games sold for children. [Ignore PokeMon and all of the other collectible card games such as Magic The Gathering!] There are a finite set of games:
1. Get all the cards (training for life in our aquisitive society)
2. Get rid of all of your cards (not very popular anymore)
3. Use the cards as a distributed randomizing agent for attaining a goal, with strategy involved (Mille Bournes, for example)
The kid's games take the first two types and build a theme around them, usually Educational such as Math or Patterns. Once you have one of each type, you end up seeing that the rest are ways of selling card artwork or getting odd card shapes.
Rolling back to our Licensed Property theme, each Hot New Thing (PokeMon, Harry Potter, Disney's latest Blockbuster) ends up spewing out fully licensed copies of old "favorite" games. What a waste. "Oh thanks. Another copy of Monopoly. Joy!"
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
I remember spending many hours with a friend with ACS on a C64. The fact was, that though it was easy to see the potential, we never made any substantial adventures. We just played the ones already created. It was too time consuming to build. I think we set up a few scenarios where there were ridiculous of firearms, treasure and many targets to fry all in one spot. We're basically fundamentally lazy, you need discipline or something to motivate one to do more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
couple that with cross-platform and browser-based publishing and you have a killer set of tools for the aspiring gamer maker to use.
director really doesn't get the props it deserves...
--
Twinbee is lovely character. Perhaps you will enjoy with him?
Anyone else rembember Stunt Island from Disney? I'd say it was released a good six or so years ago. At first glance, it's just a flight sim that lets you do premade movie stunts, and watch the film afterward. Even told you that you had the ability to cut the film from different cameras, add sound effects, etc. If you were really good, you could make your own stunts.
But people did so much more. It didn't have to be just stunts, you could produce full-blown movies on the thing. Had probably hundreds of aircraft and ground vehicles. You set them all up, and then used a simple scripting language to get all the objects and cameras to interact.
Myself, I made one very good (IMHO) movie that was about fifteen minutes long, after editing. Probably took me four months to get that thing done. Too bad that old 200 MB Seagate's drive servo died, I wish I still had that film.
But that was by no means the most impressive I've seen. Some one put together some kind of Star Wars filk that was about an hour long.
I keep hoping Disney Interactive will make a sequel. It provides quick and easy fun if all you want to do is fly around under bridges and stuff, but setting up, flying, directing, and editing a film would provide kids (and me!) some thought-provoking material that you don't see in games much any more.
C'mon, DI--SI2!
--Ribald
How did that get modded funny? I am serious here. My win2k system at work (1.5ghz, 600 something mb of ram) is slow as hell. I move Forte to "real time" and my ogg vorbis player starts to skip! Funny how Forte runs perfectly on my 1ghz Linux system.
I think I'll buy some old lappies for my robotics projects. Nothing will ever match the thrill I had five years ago, dialing bulliten boards, 98% no longer existed, late into the night. I guess I was a bit behind the times, but making my own terminal emulator in BASIC to scan through the whole list I had on my 2400 kb/s(or was it baud?) modem while I slept was loads of fun.
For those that care, I'm now 16 years old and programming in Java for my first job. I am running a wargame server on torch.dnsart.com and my own programming group called Flame Entertainment.
The BBS days may be gone for good(and had been for several years when I found them), but their spirit will find a new home. I will never make another suffer through dos, though anyone under my legal custody will learn to use zsh before gaining access to X.
That is my testimonial. Take it at face value, or call me nuts. But that is what happened.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Don't forget Buzz, which is like Modplug on steroids. It's like a tracker except it has a built-in modular synthesizer, and it's user extensible. There's already an extensive community behind this freeware product. Look here.
As far as games for the kiddie crowd which help with creativity, there's always Toontalk.
It's sort of an abstract programming language that represents simple concepts as robots, houses, boxes, and other manipulatable items onscreen. Kids (or bored adults) can make/trade games created with it and such. Useless for anything very complex at all, but a cute idea, at least.
Not according to recent announcements in the press. http://www.private-eye.co.uk/images/cover/1058on.g if
Anyone remember this? I think it was made by Accolade, but I could be wrong. Had a full-featured sound effects, sprite, and background editor, with collision detection rules, etc. You could basically create any shoot-em-up style game for the C64 with this kit, and the game ran as a stand-alone compiled program. I actually spent the time to re-create the NES version of 1943 (only with better graphics) using this kit when I was in my teens... it was really rocking.
Problem is that most people don't want to invest the time or energy (or posess the design skills) to make good use of a "Construction Set". It's far too geeky to appeal even to the already-semi-geeky video game-loving masses. I think probably this genre has evolved into things like "Roller Coaster Tycoon" or "Sim City 2000".
I remember Adventure Contruction Set for the Amiga 1000. You designed the rooms, the items, and the characters and even did editing of the pixels for the graphics. It was cool, and it was a neat way to design games within the system and give them to your friends.
// that was a D&D type game but in BASIC and you could create your own adventures. How far back does this stuff go anyway?
Before that it was a game called "Wizard" for the Commodore 64 that was a "Jumpman" clone but used Wizards and Magic items. You could create your own disks to make your own levels. It also was fun.
Say doesn't Civilization have a map editor?
Way back before that I recall a BASIC game called EMONS for the Apple
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Check out EB Worlds by StageCast. By simply assigning rules to objects, you can create fairly complex games very quickly. It comes with a collection of graphics or you can use your own. The games are limited to the 2-D type however.
It creates Java-based games which you can share on the web.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
I do remember playing such a game on my Apple II but times are changing..advancements such as game engines change to whole scope. In my opinion quake was the best model of creation with changing the game by compiling your own .dll's. What a great feature not to mention the map creators. It all comes down to the question of who is railing someone and who is making this railing possible. To be creative or to be a fragaholic...you decide
Just because the game doesn't have the words "construction set" on the box doesn't mean it isn't a construction set. Take The Sims for example: the whole point of the game is to build simulated environments for simulated people. It's a Dollhouse Construction Set. Or, take Roller Coaster Tycoon, which was one of the top ten selling games of 2000. If it had been called Roller Coaster Construction Set, would you have bought it? And Zoo Tycoon did very well this past Christmas, or Zoo Construction Set, if you prefer.
Bill Budge is still in the game industry and he's currently optimizing PS2 rendering code, by the way.
My parents still make me wear a helmet while jerking off...They say when i'm 30 I can move out....only two more years to go.
Like this? Fits the bill perfectly.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
BTW, I think there was a linux port if recall.
"I have a more detailed OS experience at a cash machine."
/. and some other *nix sites as well. In *MY* experience, the command line use forces or at least encourages (I'm not too sure about this but it seems this way to me) one to a) know how the computer/os works, and b) think in a manner that encourages one to build a model of what one wants to do in one's mind.
I'm a regular reader of a lot of Mac boards, being a Mac user myself. I also read
This has nothing to do with elitism, and is simply an observation. Another thing I have observed is that many people who do *not* understand the shell will critisize it as being too difficult or primitive. Difficulty flexes the brain IMO just like physical sport flexes the body.
I don't remember any such thing. The trick behind LOAD "*",8,1 was that it loaded a short assembly-language program on top of certain addresses that the Kernal or the BASIC interpreter used as pointers to their internal routines. The load would replace this pointer with the address of its own routine, a trick not unlike the cracker's stock-in-trade of smashing the stack, and by doing so would seize control of the machine and load the real program from a different file.
The ,1 was needed to load the program into the address specified in the first two bytes of the file, and not at the start of the area reserved for BASIC programs.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Young children are fantastically good at learning languages by example, but often not good at predicate logic or deductive reasoning, which takes a lot of training. (As an aside, the book Reading Reflex applies this insight to teaching reading - instead of teaching deductive rules parrot fashion, it groups different representations of the same sound and gets the children to work through them until they derive an unconscious model that way).
The best 'programming' exercise with small children is the 'I am a robot' game. You play their robot slave, and do what you are told, but very literally, and in small stages, with 'error messages' returned in a robot voice. Just getting you to walk from the sofa to the bedroom can take ages and they love it. They naturally want to be the simple-minded robot too (just make sure they don't get too attached to it, or they may end up working in telephone support).
I've seen a huge amount of 'educational' software - I used to work in the CD-ROM business, and I buy up remaindered CD's from Marshalls for my 2 boys and watch how they use them. Most of them are dross, with the same few ideas (Pelmanism, missing words etc.) recycled with a different character or brand attached. Some have genuine insight, and I can see them learning to reason using them. Here are a selection:
Logical Journey of the Zoombinis is a wonderful introduction to deductive logic through a compelling game. It was designed with this in mind and my boys have been playing this since they were 3, and are still enjoying it now at 5 and 7 (as do I).
The Pajama Sam series of adventures from Humongous are good at teaching the global/local focus, but one that is great fun and teaches valuable debugging skills is Pajama Sam's SockWorks which features a long series of machines that have socks in them that you have to get into the right coloured baskets. As you can also build your own puzzles, the idea of solvable and unsolvable problems naturally comes up.
Zap! is another great game that teaches by stealth. You have to help 3 wisecracking cartoon charcters to fix their electrical, optical and audio-visual gadgets to get their show on the road. It manages to include a compelte circuit simulator, an optical workbench simulator and sound environment simulator, and still be lots of fun for Kindergarten children.
To teach programming concepts without writing textual code, Cocoa is perfect (if you have a Mac). It is a tool that enables you to create 2d video games by drawing the characters and defining what happens when they encounter each other by example. Andrew has made about 65 games with this, some original, some homages to TV programs or his brother's films.
Finally, if you want a comprehensible textual language, use Runtime Revolution, whose language Transcript is based on the old Apple HyperCard language, and as such has completely human-readable programs. This is what I plan to get Andrew into next.
(republished from my blog, May 12th 2002)
Neverwinter Nights includes a nice adveture editor, (the single-player game was written with it) so if you want to design an RPG look in to it.
Damn, I remember games that were like 1 FPS. ...ahhh the classics...
Oh, maybe there wasn't even a measurement at the time for frame-rates...hell-if-I-know.
then again those were EGA and CGA graphics...
I never returned those games, and still play them today actually!
Dark Heart of Ukrull
California Games
Bard's Tale
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Just in case someone is interested:o jects
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=pinball§ion=pr
One construction set type game I've enjoyed is Coaster Works on the Dreamcast (Jet Coaster Dream in Japan). In this you construct a roller coaster, then test it. If the coaster falls off, you have to redesign. If the coaster makes a full circuit, you get graded on safety, excitement etc.
There's a JCD2 out in Japan; must get around to importing it.
This used to be (haven't seen it for years) a
program that let you create computer games. It
was absolutely brilliant. Got me started towards
computer programming..
Einar
I used to compose MODs in the old Amiga demoscene days; sure it was fun at the time, when we had too much time in our hands, but somehow I can't picture today's kids typing endless commands just to get the exact degree of volume, or browsing their CD collection for useful samples...
Anyway if you're looking for a good tracker proggie check out Impulse Tracker, the most popular nowadays.
Darkbasic? No? oh.
not really a construction kit as such, but then its not really that difficult to learn a language like BASIC now is it.
Kids these days are spoon fed games, and they expect games to be top quality - not something that your average construction kit can provide in all honesty.
Face it, construction kits died with 3D Construction Kit on the Speccy. RIP.
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
You can buy basic pieces in bulk from Lego Shop at Home, off the main Lego page. You cna buy some technic parts in bulk from Pitsco-Dacta.
I always thought that a first person building game would be cool. Picture legos the size of cars and trucks but 'you'd' be able to pick them up, jump up high and build things. Give it a Bryce interface or a way to bounce real high so you can get an over view of your project and then get back to work on it. Got this idea as a kid, with my face down on the ground, looking close at my legos, wishing I could shrink down to build with them.
I drank what? -- Socrates
What about the 'Wrecking Crew' game for the original NES systems? I really enjoyed level designing for that system. And JetPack! Jetpack was a creative game too ...
.. anyone still play it?
I miss Wrecking Crew a lot though
You description is more what I remember, though I never did any "fancy ML" programming where I might have learned much about the internals.
The BASIC was good enough for me (I was 10). I spent hours calculating out two color sprites on graph paper. I think games are too good and too plentiful these days - kids just don't seem to have the same drive to learn programming (or even what's going on behind the icons).
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Yes that was the best.
Didn't it have Destruction in the title though?
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
That's what I used to get playing text adventures on the university mainframe.
Beat that, Quake!
What were you expecting?
wtf is wrong with you. Malda and his janitors are not the government. so any talk of "free speech" is a retarded topic with respect to Malda and his janitors, because they cannot put you in prison for saying something. get a life, visit a different website, do something.
MORTAR COMBAT!
If the power supply and disk drive of that machine had been more reliable I might have one sitting around still.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Always crapped out. We bought a little fan for ours, and it would still overheat in about an hour.
At the time, all the sprite stuff made no sense - I was just tampering with the sacred cryptic code out of the manual. It would be fun to go back, now that I have some ideas about what sorts of registers I'd be "POKE"ing data into.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Also, as a matter of curiosity, amid the false hits, I occasionally get good tidbits on Google (search for "Build your own" and "game").
I did my part by posting the links. Now, why won't they get looked at seriously? Because they, like, use those grody 2D graphics, or worse yet, text! What are they, 1D? Everything these days is 3D or better!
I think it's a matter of three different problems: 1) technical sophistication, 2) thematic sophistication, 3) and a need for immediate gratification, and I think the Cold Stone above highlights all three.
1) Technical Sophisticaion involves the game's engine. How sophisticated by today's standards is it? 2D graphics won't get taken seriously. People spend thousands cobbling together the latest and utmost hardware, they want something that'll *use* that hardware. Construction set games like the Cold Stone above will take up a shamefully small resource footprint on the machine of your choice.
Another factor under this banner is the complexity of construction: "Welcome to the Turing Tarpits, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy." How much work would it take to build a game with a full degree of technical sophistication? By the time you did that, you might as well be programming in C++ and OpenGL, and prepping the blasted thing to market.
To make a long point short (too late!), any toolkit which makes game which meet peoples' technical expectations will be too complicated and hard to use for casual use -- nobody will want to play with them.
2) Thematic Sophistication is a matter of story within a game. Some times this isn't necessary; a pinball machine isn't going to have much of a story line behind it (unless it was made after 1988), and first person shooters don't necessarily need a lot of plot.
But adventure games do, and to expect the average person to sit down with something like ColdStone and put together a compelling adventure is akin to having the average person sit down with a word processor and put together a compelling novel.
Most people realize that they lack the talent for something like this, and so they don't. Maybe to experiment with, which makes the construction sets little more than a toy in that regard.
3) Immediate Gratification means you want to be satisfied *now now now now now!* And you're not going to get that kind of gratification if you have to sit down with the toolkit and read the f'ing manual to learn how it works. Then there's the time spent assembling graphics, selecting (or recording?) sounds, and making the package coherent. No, people plunk down $30-$50 for something, and they want to be amused by it right away.
The same was true way back when, too, but at least the toolkits were simplistic enough then that you could have fun experimenting. I remember not having to read a manual on Pinball Construction Set (a copy of which I still have somewhere at home for the Apple II). I bet Cold Stone has a lot of manuals with it.
Commentary welcome. I would especially like to be proved wrong here...
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Yes yes, self promotion of sorts but think of it as spreding love. http://www.theconstruct.tk (Screenshots need updating)
Download Opera 9 (in the BETA forum)
Shoot, I'll be kicking myself for a long time about not being the among the first to post a response to this article. There are many good construction kits and games (created with the kits) still coming out today. I finished creating a kit in 2000 and have been upgrading it to the present day -- currently on version 1.3.1. The most popular program I'm aware of is Game Maker by Mark Overmars. It's free and you're free to distribute your games created in it. My own program is the Scrolling Game Development Kit. It's not only free, but open source / GPL. The kits are out there and a few people are using them, but I bet they could be a lot more popular -- I just don't know how. As computers get faster and cooler, kits are getting easier to make and use and can do more interesting things. I wish I had had the Scrolling Game Development Kit when I was growing up :-).
Let me add that this is a great mod for Tribes. My son has spent many, many hours playing with this, founded his own tribe based on it and talked me into running a Construction mod server on our home network gateway. It's amazing what young and un-fettered minds can come up with playing with this.
Oh, and I was looking for a post concerning this... if I hadn't found it, I'd have posted something.
"they accept whatever Mr Gates feeds them"
No, he feeds them what they want. Emailed porn would be in the form of a graphic file. How many clicks do you think the user should have to perform to see it? More than one? Why?
There's then the games where you get to construct objects, not the games themselves, which many people have been discussing. They may be cool, but they're a seperate class of item. Yes, designing your own robot is cool, or designing a car, etc, but it's not the same as 'designing' your own game.
The other category which people have commented on are the build your own level type things. Neverwinter Nights, Quake, Halflife, even back to the days of Doom. Yes, they're nice, but they then require the original program to play, and the editors are developed by people other than the people who wrote the engines.
Personally, I'd suggest to people interested in writing their own games to look at muds. Yes, the majority of them are text based, but there are a few graphical muds out there. Many of the text based engines have been released to the public, and there's a graphical engine, Worldforge, but I have no idea what their current status is.
Anyway, an interesting read from the Slashdot archives:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I beg to differ. Money doesn't make you more likely to survive. We have welfare. Social grace doesn't make you more likely to survive. We have unemployment. Hence the lack of application of the pseudo-Darwinian "survival of the fittest".
Money doesn't make you more likely to survive. We have welfare.
My bad.
sed s/money/access to money/Welfare gives you access to someone else's money (or more precisely, the services their money buys). Ditto charity.
Social grace doesn't make you more likely to survive. We have unemployment.
I'm confused. Are you saying only the socially graceful should be employed? I think being properly socialized will definitely improve one's ability to win the job interview. Please clarify, and I'll be happy to continue our debate.
Hence the lack of application of the pseudo-Darwinian "survival of the fittest".
Well, "survival of the fittest" refers to the fittest species, not individual. I.e., a species better adapted to its environment is more likely to survive than one that is ill-suited. Is it this species/individual misapplication the reason you write "pseudo"? I guess I'm getting confused again.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will now blaspheme the name of Slashdot and fully concede the point to you.
lol
I make these: http://beatseqr.com