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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?
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!
http://www.stagecast.com/
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...
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'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.
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.
It's Racing Destruction Set. After I posted, I went hunting really fast and found this. I can see many hours of my time already gone now...
GOBACK.
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?!
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.
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.
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:
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!
I'm sorry, but if you think NWN is one of the most bug-ridden games to come out lately, you haven't been paying many games. You're right, though, that it does have quite a few problems. We had a number of players not get saved at all last night in our weekly multi-player session.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
capsula
I couldn't agree more. There's a principle that's been lost in this country called "assumption of risk". This simply means that if you buy a chemistry set for your kid, you probably ought to turn off ER and go play with it with him.
I went to castle Neuschwanstein outside of Munich last winter. The best vantage point is a bridge high above the castle, and getting there required walking up a very icy path. People were slipping and sliding all over the place, and all that I or the other Americans that were with me could think of was "man, not in America. Somebody would sue."
The cost of litigation is such a terrible example of a rotten apple spoiling the bunch. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for legitimate damages when a party has caused harm, but I really think we need to try to get back to some degree of personal responsibility...
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
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
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.
One of the more interesting projects done with VP is to recreate arcade pinball machines; you can even hook up a special embedded version of MAME to emulate the LED display.
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!
The perfect fix for the PCS blues is to download Visual Pinball. I've personally used this with fantastic results and there are many incredible games available, all created by users. It's currently freeware (that self-disables with a hidden expiration date), but I expect it to jump into shareware or retail someday.
The main difference is you have to learn some basic Visual Basic Scripting.
Have you played Visual Pinball? It is a modern equivalent of Pinball Construction Set, with a 3-D table appearance, supporting ramps and multiple levels and such. It uses VBS (gasp) as the scripting language... the first non-viral use of VBS that I've ever seen!
Unfortunately there is no way to make a standalone player yet. It is a free program (closed source), but it runs only on Windows, and the author has plans to take it commercial someday so get it while you can.
http://www.randydavis.com/vp/
http://www.vpforums.com/
I loved Pinball Construction Set, and made several Apple ][ disks full of games. Bill Budge recently did a very wonderful thing: he declared all of his past Apple ][ games to be in the public domain! A great thing, and I wish more authors of classic software would do the same.
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