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Adventure Game Project: I have an Idea Now! [Solved]
Enc
A Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
A Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
As of late, I've decided that rather than just write stories and draw pictures to go along with them, that I'd like to make an interactive story for fun and giggles.
What I'm wanting to do is something similar to the old Monkey Island. Pretty much a sort of choose your own adventure with images and text, though rather than just have choice trees branching out displaying random images, I'd like to have variables and inventory and such. Now, I've been able to create a rudimentary image and text sort of game based of html pages, but I figure to do things like selecting doors and the like with a point and click interface I'm going to need to learn some sort of coding/design software.
The question is, what interface program/programming language/whatever should I be looking for? I'm willing to spend money, spend months and years of time learning new things through textbooks and the like, but I have no idea where to start.
Ideally, I don't want to use freeware/limited software like "Creature your Own RPG" games, mostly because I don't want my graphics and text bound to someone else's EULA. I'm looking for bare bones, ground up sort of things, or software meant for developers that I could buy and freely use for my own projects.
Being numerous as the stars and wise as the ancient ones, please impart your great wisdom upon me, oh wondrous H/A! Any ideas as to where to go from here?
UPDATE: Solved! Thanks for all the advice, guys! I'm going to work with Adventure Game Studio for now, (Switching to Flash when I have enough money in the new year). As usual, you guys are crazy awesome! Thanks!
What I'm wanting to do is something similar to the old Monkey Island. Pretty much a sort of choose your own adventure with images and text, though rather than just have choice trees branching out displaying random images, I'd like to have variables and inventory and such. Now, I've been able to create a rudimentary image and text sort of game based of html pages, but I figure to do things like selecting doors and the like with a point and click interface I'm going to need to learn some sort of coding/design software.
The question is, what interface program/programming language/whatever should I be looking for? I'm willing to spend money, spend months and years of time learning new things through textbooks and the like, but I have no idea where to start.
Ideally, I don't want to use freeware/limited software like "Creature your Own RPG" games, mostly because I don't want my graphics and text bound to someone else's EULA. I'm looking for bare bones, ground up sort of things, or software meant for developers that I could buy and freely use for my own projects.
Being numerous as the stars and wise as the ancient ones, please impart your great wisdom upon me, oh wondrous H/A! Any ideas as to where to go from here?
UPDATE: Solved! Thanks for all the advice, guys! I'm going to work with Adventure Game Studio for now, (Switching to Flash when I have enough money in the new year). As usual, you guys are crazy awesome! Thanks!
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I know it just came out, and everyone is having giant four-hour nerdboners over it, but UE3 is probably enormous overkill for a point-and-click adventure game.
OP: Sounds exactly like the kind of thing suited to a flash game. If you want a "proper programming language" you could use Java or Python - the latter has a fairly solid toolset in PyGame.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
@PeregrineFalcon - That's pretty close to what I'm looking for, the only downside is the downloading requirements. Thanks!
Ideally, I'd like to do flash and have it on a website (currently, my plan is to make a sort of special gift for a friend by making an adventure game. They visit the website and have to go through the game to get to the special gift at the end). I'm planning on picking up some books on flash and the like, anyone have any suggestions?
It makes Money Island style adventures. It has a huge, friendly community. It is very easy and fast to use. You can sell games created in it. It is free.
Why use anything else? It is specialized for what you want to do.
Unreal would be crazy difficult for a beginner to write a game in. Flash is expensive. Python is nowhere near the panacea that some people seem to think it is.
Adventure Game Studio is a great way to go. It's not just a "create your own RPG" type thing, it will let you make your own adventure game and do what you want with it without having to deal with the low-level engine coding. People will still have download your game instead of play it in a browser, but my impression is that you'll be able to give them a single executable instead of "here's my game, here's the extra stuff you need to run it".
Flash definitely has a lot of things going for it in terms of your wants (namely, being able to embed it in a web page and not make people download proprietary software other than Flash, which they'll already have installed), and it's very easy to learn when compared to something like PyGame. The main downside is, as mentioned, its cost.
I would just try out lots of options (flash has a free trial last i checked), and you will naturally settle on something that is enjoyable for you. Flash isn't for everyone and has some problematic quirks, but for me it is perfect because I love just throwing things together in an afternoon for fun. Being able to show them online so easily is just a bonus.
Edit: you don't really need to buy anything besides a textbook. There's various integrated development environments you can shell out big money for, but Code::Blocks and Bloodshed DevC++ are pretty popular free options.
Unless he wants to do professional game development or write his own 3D engine, learning C++ is overkill. A 2D sprite-based adventure game isn't gonna tax a modern computer, even in the least efficient language in the world.
Learning to program is frustrating; programming C is frustrating. I don't want to imagine combining the two.
I got the impression he wanted more.
Yeah, really? UE3 for a fucking point and click adventure game?
"YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE EATEN BY A GRUE. UNLESS YOU HAVE THE ROCKET LAUNCHER, THEN YOU CAN BLOW IT TO SMITHEREENS WITH AMAZING SUPER-KILL TECHNOLOGY."
In that case, take a CS course at uni. You need an introduction to programming in general, then you should learn OpenGL. I believe it works with Python these days, and its open source.
I agree that it's overkill, but it's just an engine. You can make whatever you want with it. Could probably make the most recent Telltale Monkey Island episodes with it.
Someone redid a portion of Monkey Island 2 in the fucking CRYENGINE, so it's not like it can't be done.
But there's definitely more than just shades of the "when your only tool is a hammer" saying going on here. Just because you could use UE3 for this doesn't mean you should.
Liking that Adventure Game Studio.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Someone could make a 3D adventure game in UE3. A person with no experience in any compiled programming languages could not realistically do so without a beyond-reasonable time investment. I guess it's doable if you found a pre-made code base to work off and could write in a scripting language, but if that's the case then for the OP's purposes you might as well just use ActionScript or AGS.
The right tools are AGS or Wintermute, both dedicated adventure game creators. They enable the average person to get a short adventure up and running within a week, rather than spending 6 months learning C++ or whatever.
As usual, you guys are crazy awesome! Thanks!