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Adventure Story Game for iPod Released
XO Play writes "XO Play today released an adventure story game for the iPod called 'The Rise Of The Lost,' puts you in the role of Sir Jacob Zaviour. Your mission is to travel through lands and fight the evil Wizard Sazque. As you read through the adventure you will be asked to choose your destiny by selecting from a number of options found at the bottom of the page, similar to the 'choose-your-own-adventure' series. The game costs $9.99 is played via the Notes section of your iPod." It wouldn't take too much to write a generator for such games, as Notes uses small text files with HTML tags for links, as long as you had the data to do it with.
Frankly, I'm rather unimpressed -- the probable quality of the game is VERY low.
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Now that I've seen this, over and over in my head I keep hearing the same line:
"You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike."
Cry me a river...really. Who in their right mind would turn their nose up at the quality of a game on an iPod, which is market primarily as a MUSIC PLAYER?!?
If you want to play games while you walk around, go get a GameBoy Advance, download games to your cell phone, or strap a 12 volt lantern battery on that old PlayStation of yours and get to it. Otherwise, remember that text based games did entertain quite a few people back in the day, and probably can provide entertainment value even in these days of 4GB portable music players.
Just because you can't get 85 FPS doesn't mean there is no entertainment value. If you'll recall, the Mona Lisa, which is only ONE FRAME, has been going strong for quite a while now.
Sheesh.
You could creatively overcome these limitations...
;-)
- To generate "random" numbers, you could have 10 "links" to each page spaced closely together - (for example every letter of the words "go north" leads to a different outcome). The user would pick one. This is defeatable, of course, but if the result is delayed a bit (you die in the room after the next), it would be hard to track. The links could also be shuffled every time you resync.
- you can encode inventory with lots of copies of each page. For example, file "Room001-0010" means you have object 2, while "Room001-0110" means you've got objects 2 and 4 (couting in binary here). Sure, it's wasteful, but if you've got 40 freakin' gigs, it's possible. Also, different stages of the game could use different objects, and you could have the user trade them in when they reach a certain stage. Once you've killed the dragon, your sword gets stuck in his gut.
Just give it time, and someone will write a script to port Zork
Get the whole tech specs for the notes format here. You can link to music, so this adventure could be quite entertaining.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I know the parent was a troll, but just to list some of the games available for Mac.. there are a few thousand and a growing many are simultaneously released for both PC and Mac, including Halo: Combat Evolved, SimCity 4, The Sims (and sequels), Command & Conquer: Generals, Age of Empires II, Northland, Activision Anthology, Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, ToySight, Championship Manager 03/04, Wakeboarding Unleashed, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness.
Apple's own small list of SOME of these games at this link includes, but is not limited to: 3D Hearts Deluxe, 3D Spades Deluxe, 4x4 EVO 2, A-OK! The Wings of Mercury, Active Lancer, Activision Anthology [NEW], Age of Empires II: Gold, Age of Mythology, Airburst, Alchemy, Alias Underground, Aliens vs. Predator 2, Aliens vs. Predator Gold**, American McGee's Alice, America's Army, Androkids, Another War, Arcane Arena, Argonaut, ARR!, Arthur's 1st Grade, Avalanche, Avernum 3, BabelBloX, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, Bejeweled, The Belt, Big Money Deluxe, Billy Frontier, Birdie Shoot, Black & White, Black & White: Creature Isle, BloodRayne, BombSquad, Bongo Boogie, Bubble Trouble X, Bugdom 2, Burning Monkey Casino, Burning Monkey Mahjong Solitaire, Burning Monkey Solitaire 3, Burst, Candy Cruncher, Captain Bumper, Chainz, Championship Manager 01-02, Championship Manager 4, Civilization III - Game of the Year Edition, Clive Barker's Undying, Coldstone, Command & Conquer Generals, Cosmic Encounter Online, Cro-Mag Rally, CrossCards, CyberExtruder, Deimos Rising, Diablo II*, Dominions - Priests, Prophets & Pretenders, Doulber Gold, Dragon's Lair 3D, Drip Drop, Dungeon Siege, Earth 2140, Enigma, Enigmo, Episilon Tahari, Equilibria, Escape Velocity: Nova, Europa Universalis II, EverQuest, F1 Championship Edition, Fallout, Fallout 2, The Feeble Files, Finding Nemo Games, Fly! II**, Forma, Freedom Force, Galactic Patrol, Geneforge, Geneforge 2, Germs, Ghost Master, Ghost Recon: Game of the Year Edition, Giants: Citizen Kabuto**, GLTron, Gorky 17, Green Machine, Grizzly Adventure, Gutterball, Halo: Combat Evolved, Harpoon 3, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2*, Helix, Heroes of Might and Magic IV, High Roller, Icewind Dale**, iConquer, Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, iPuppets Presents: Colin's Classic Cards, James Bond 007: Nightfire, Jeopardy! 2, Jinni Zeala, Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer, Kick Off 2002, Kiki the Nano Bot, Knights and Merchants*, Law & Order: Dead on the Money, Legion, Lineage, Links Championship Edition, Lua Lua, MacPuyo 2, Marble Blast Gold, Master of Orion III, Max Payne, Maximum Pool*, Maya Personal Learning Edition, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Medal of Honor: Spearhead, Mind Rover, Monster's Inc. Games, Mummy Maze Deluxe, Mutant Storm, Myst III: Exile*, Myth II: Soulblighter, Myth III: The Wolf Age, NASCAR 2002, NASCAR 2003, Neverwinter Nights, Nickelodeon Jigsaw!, NingPo MahJong, NoLimits Rollercoaster Simulation, No One Lives Forever, No One Lives Forever 2, Oni*, Only Mortal, Orbz, Otto Matic, Owari, Payback, Pillars of Garendall, Player Manager 2003, Pocket Tanks, Ponere, pop-pop, Power Chips, QBz, Quake*, Quake II*, Quake III: Gold*, Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc [NEW], realMYST, Red Faction*, Republic: The Revolution [NEW], Return to Castle Wolfenstein, RHEM, Sacrifice, Scramble, Second Life, Seven Seas Deluxe, Shadowbane, Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos [NEW], Sheep*, Sim Theme Park*, SimCity 4, SimCity 4: Rush Hour [NEW], Simon Extreme, Simon the Sorcerer II*, The Sims*, The Sims: Hot Date, The Sims: House Party*, The Sims: Livin' Large*, The Sims: Makin' Magic, The Sims: Superstar, The Sims: Unleashed, The Sims: Vacation, Sin Gold*, Slope Rider, Slots from Bally Gaming, Snowball Run, Solace, Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, Solitaire Till Dawn X, Spelvin, Spider-Man, Spin Crisis, SpyHunter, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, Star Trek: Elite Force II, Star
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
As far as a program that uses text files and makes a CYOA thing, that's already done: Multiple Endings Story Engine
:) No one's seemed interested so it's not seen many updates, but works great the way it is. If someone wants to write some up I'll happily host them. It's real simple to write. I almost made an editor for it as well, which would be rather simple, too.
Works great.
I figure I'll karma whore and explain my system for passcodes. When you reached a certain part of the game, you'd write down the passcode it gave you on a sheet of paper, then reboot your iPod (to go listen to music or whatever). The next time you opened the game, on the first screen there would be an option to enter in your passcode. Clicking on it brought you to a screen that looked like this:
1 - - -
2
3
4
5
1 through 5 being links. Each number, say, 4, would lead to a document inside the folder named after it with that number, containing another file that said:
4 - - -
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
It would go on like that until the last number, of which each contained its own file. For invalid numbers, it would say "Invalid Passcode" with a link back to the title screen. Valid passcodes linked to whatever state and location the game was in when you read off the code.
I guess it might be fitting to discuss the method I used for my game. Each time you decided to perform an action, you'd be linked to a different world state (or folder). That way you could actually interact with the game even though the notes feature does not have access to anything more than basic HTML (no scripting at all). Luckily, most world states were only a few files large because the action would usually trigger a puzzle that wouldn't allow you to leave a room. One of the biggest troubles was just keeping all the wold states straight amongst what grew to literally hundreds of thousands of files. If you broke a vase in your house in the game and were allowed to leave, a whole "broken vase" world had to be created. Every single text file for the game had to be duplicated and scrubbed through by a script to make sure that the game "remembered you had broken the vase. This is the main reason why I gave up on the game. Every insignificant event that wasn't self-correcting had to have its own world branch in which that task was completed! Oh, if only for some basic, basic scripting. Or perhaps a game making tool that simulated scripting by allowing me to program with it, then generated all of the event branches and HTML files for me. Then, I'd make a game. A good one. Hell, maybe I'll write the tool! Some day. Alas, for enough free time...
Before you mod me down for whining about not having a new feature on my old device, let me tell you that is not the intent of this post.
The linked notes (which the game relies on), as far as I know, only work on 3G iPods and the miniPod. I couldn't find anything on the game's website that stated this.
I imagine a lot of not-ultra-techie Mac/Win users might get pissed off if they download the game for their 2G or 1G iPod and it doesn't work. Just a thought.
I can finally catch that damn Wumpus on the go!!!