would it be idiotic to put my time into a Single Player text RPG? i would possibly make a multiplayer game - because i know people would like that. but i don''t know how to make a multiplayer game anyway - is it dumb to make a text game? would anyone play it? i plan on taking a long time on it - because i want to make it absolutely huge and open ended. like morrowind - but as a text game. it will be in VB - now is this dumb? if so - maybe Multiplay would be better? and does anyone have an idea how i might make a MP text game?

Well , actually, I don''t think that I myself would like to play a RPG consisting only of text. Today, games need some nice graphic. Additionally it''s really hard to handle the huge amount of text. I wounld not recommend to spend to much time on developing those games. Try to improve your skills and begin to develope a 2D RPG. A Project like that will help you to understand what it is like to develope a game. (And it''s nicer)

i''ve thought about a 2D tile game

but in VB i just don''t know how... my programming skills are really basic. i have C++ but i don''t want to learn all that - VB i know enough to be able to make it.

anything with graphics - especially in VB - i have no idea how to do. especially making a huge map.. i really want this to be a massive game

Text games are extremely important if you want to understand the basic concepts. Just don''t expect to actually sell them...

sell - no

i just want to make one... but i don''t want it to just be for me - that would seem like a waste. i''d like other people to play it

so i''m thinking of making it MP by LAN or whatever you call it... people connecting to eachother... but i don''t know how to do that sort of stuff - maybe i need to learn

I think you get your programming skills up to scratch, before even thinking about trying something as complicated as a game.

Make sure you KNOW that you can make a game design.
Instead of trying to learn new skills when you realise you need them;
Or trying to design a game around the skills you have.

I learnt this the hard way. I''ve got dozens of half finished games and game ideas that I just didn''t have the skills to do.

The days of text based games are gone, but if you want to do it to get better at programming. Then I say go for it, you have to start somewhere.

Don''t go for networking yet, but by all means make text games. You''ll thank yourself. And if you want others to play it, you can always use netcat so that people can play it through telnet...

Programming in VB:
If you want to learn how to program games in VB then check out http://www.rookscape.com/vbgaming/tutorials.php That is where I started about 4-5 years ago.

I'd suggest starting with the tutorials on 'DirectX - DirectDraw' if you want to learn how to do basic 2d graphics. Most of the stuff on that page uses DirectX 7.

If you plan on doing game programming for more then just a hobby then make a game or two with VB and then move on to C++. VB is good enough for you for now.


Programming a text based game:
I've never played a text based game, but I dont even read books unless they have words like "programming" or "game design" in them. I'm sure there are other people out there that would play a good text game. In fact I'm sure there are people out there that are saying "Damn, I wish a good text based game would come out! All the games today focus too much of fansy graphics and not enough on story line." However, I dont think there are many of that type of person here at GameDev. You would probably get more support if you were posting on a MUD forum.

So, I'd say make it as long as you are a good writer and have a good story line. And when its done, advertise your game in the MUD comunity and I'm sure you will get some people playing it.


PS: Dont do multiplayer, its a lot harder then most people make it out to be.

[edited by - TheDarkening on November 2, 2003 7:57:48 PM]

Personally I think text based games still have a place and there will always be people liking them (myself for instance). Saying games nowadays NEED graphics is totally absurd. Books for example haven''t vanished despite the invention of the television and other media, as billions of them are still being sold every year. Besides that, reading is a form of entertainment where you use your own imagination, which easily outperforms any visual presentation and always matches your taste.

So basically text games can be good, but you will have to be an extremely good writer to pull it off. Your game relies for 99% on the story and readers will expect the same quality they find in their books. Perhaps it would be nice to display the text in a graphical way, i.e. not using the hardware textmode, which is a horrible read. Luckily we have Window nowadays to take care of that (ehm and Linux ofcourse )

I''ve been playing around with the concept myself, and as a side-side project I sometimes work on a generic text-game engine. I think that if you can get established authors to write the stories, it will actually sell too.