To clairify, what I meant by "(not in the tradition sense)", (that should have been "traditional) is that it wont be about collecting items and using them on other items, or configuring the stones correctly, like the standard adventure game puzzles go (not trying to bash adventure games thought).

It would be similar to those interactive books I think, but I can only remember reading one ever. I think games would be much better equiped to handle something like that though.

The interesting part -- that would set it apart from a 35 hour movie -- is that there are multiple sub-plots going on all over the place, and the player gets to choose what ones he will particapate in. So the plot might be your town is being invaded by crazed cowboy dwarves, but other than that the barber is having an afair with nieghbors wife, the kid that sweeps the floor for the barber keeps stealing the drunk guys glasses and putting them somewhere else, and the drunk guy is convinced it is the dwarves and unless someone tells him what is happening he will attack them with nothing but a mug of ale and a broken pegleg that he took from a passed out sociopathic circus performer. Thats a pretty lame example, but thats the basic idea.

I guess there would have to be predefined way that you can interact with this, but it would still be very entertaining (I would think) to see how it would play out if you told the husband of the woman that the barber is banging, that the drunk guy is the one moving in on his woman and he plans the murder him with the a stolen pegleg.

PHRICTION

OT: I want to see an 35 hour movie...

There's only a finite number of ways someone can program the reaction trees for the AIs. And the interaction devices will probably get fairly complex since you don't want to use the standard, have 4 options, pick one, method. The predefined rules of interaction would include speech recognition, or sentence recognition at some point.

Someone mentioned the use of chatter bots. That would not be a bad idea, but each chatter bot should be programmed with a personality of its own, a personality that reflects the history of the character itself. It actually might be a very good idea if someone went about and tried this. Chatter bots aren't god AIs yet because they're only specialized to chat on certain subjects. They can't generalize and talk politics and the slaying of the beast in the last episode of Buffy(why does that TV show always come up) in one conversation(Most of them are specialized to talk about generalities, paradoxial? They have to change the code structures some before an AI can seemingly have real intelligence).

But that is alright, because in games, each character would have his/her specialized area of knowledge. Its expected. The Blacksmith only sells weapons, armours, and talks about them, maybe has seen knights using them. You'd rarely catch him talking about milking cows(unless he milks cows during night shifts), or anything else. If not an interactive storyline, chatter bots can be used as a way to liven up some of the ingame characters. They can make speeches not seem so dull and calculated all the time. Plus it would add to the overall immersive effect of the game, and strentghen the use of a good plot. I think detective stories are a good idea to start with for this sort of gameplay.

Something off topic, but I just feel like putting it here: There are so many good ideas to work with. Resources to make these ideas happen seem short. I think you'd have to fund your own games to make some new exciting ideas come to life, or maybe liven up your sales pitch..right they're going to buy into an Ewok's ramblings.

-=~''^''~=-.,_Wicked_,.-=~''^''~=-

[edited by - Wicked Ewok on August 10, 2002 4:07:04 AM]

Also, I''d like to point out that a truly pure character interaction game would just be a simulation of real life. Sure, we can change the age setting, twist reality in a few ways, and we''d get the next dimension. But is everyday conversation really that interesting? A story line would have to be incorporated in some way, or there should be some pre-programmed actions that really affected on the global scale to keep interests up. How bout creating a Creative Artificial Intelligence? An AI that knows what good stories are made of, and can create/decide upon actions according to what he thinks will make the best tall tale for your grandchildren(In the Game World of course).

This sort of game can also be compared to an MMORPG where everyone stays in character(How many gallons of sh*t do I have to eat before this happens), which is not a bad idea, since most people usually never stay in character.

-=~''''^''''~=-.,_Wicked_,.-=~''''^''''~=-

You just described Shenmue.

Liquid Moon Team

Project X2

Shenmue minus the fighting sequences and the puzzle solving and the minigames.

I've thought about different ways to do something like this. Basically, you have something like a traditional adventure game minus the puzzles. That of course strips out most of the gameplay, and although a game about walking around and talking to people could be interesting, it would get boring pretty quick.

Most stories (probably all interesting stories) have some sort of conflict. In the case of a game, if you don't involve the player in that conflict (or involve them in a trivial way) the game will be pretty boring. In most movies or books where the characters aren't physically fighting or trying to solve some sort of mystery\puzzle the focus is some kind of emotional or moral conflict.

Good games to look at for this would be Japanese dating sims\hentai games and the Sims. While not the greatest games in the world, they do have gameplay that doesn't involve fighting or puzzle solving (in the traditional sense), but character\social interaction. You may want to check this out also.

[edited by - impossible on August 10, 2002 3:40:41 PM]

The thing to note about storytelling is that its the conflict thats usually the most interesting part. By conflict, I don''t neccessarily mean with guns and rocket launchers. What could work is psychological inner conflict, antagonism (this one is always great), relationship conflict, et cetera. What I''m getting at is that there has to be a obstacle for the character(s) to overcome. Otherwise you have some schoolaged girl''s diary where its generally eventless, but every minor detail is explored to its fullest. I would recommend studying games like SpaceQuest, or any other ''Quest'' game by Sierra or Lucasarts. In situations that these games present, its mostly story, however, the gameplay is subserviant to it, like in SQ5 where Roger had to save his ship''s engineer by getting his pet alien and breaking into the prison area. An event in the story, but its not just given to the player, they have to actively work the puzzle out. Otherwise you have a book displayed on a screen and effectively just waste electricity.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

Funny you should mention that. I have been playing old LucasArts adventure games the last week. Ive played Day of the Tentacle, and some of the Monkey Island games.

The reason I''m interesting in this is not so much because I want to make a pure character interation game, but I want to have a game that is heavy of character interaction and I dont want it to suck.

PHRICTION

i dont know if anyone else has noticed, but ive been posting all over the place and citing lucas arts games as examples...

these are great games!

the dig: you are a NASA shuttle pilot, you land on an incoming, mile-wide asteroid, put together some plates, and rocket off to some alien planet. as it turns out, the aliens found a way into a dimension of thought, and are sick of immortality. you, and the two other members of your team go through all kinds of hell (literally, you name the damn planet cocytus - dantes 9th hell)
and finally, after losing both the other members, you activate the ''eye'' and let all the cocytans out and get to go home. this game is hard as hell.

day of the tentacle: a bizzare plot. for some reason, this mad scientist created these two tentacles, both are peaceful until one drinks from sludge water and decides to take over the world. this is a strange plot, and a stranger game, but you REALLY have to work to finish it. not to mention that there is another FULL game in Ed''s computer upstairs that is even HARDER to beat. i have never finished that one.

full throttle: you actually hit some people in this one, but not in the traditional way. you only use it as a last resort for some stubborn bartenders and bikers. yet another very fricken hard game, but not quite so much as the above two. i cant actually remember the plot... but you are trying to make your way to this guy''s ''lair'' to do something... and he and the cops are after you.

indiana jones (atlantis): impossible without help. you spend the whole time finding your way around and figuring out what to do. you can choose a number of different paths for the game, which makes it that much more interesting. you can choose to fight, go it solo, or go with your friend. anyways, this was a hard game.

there are tons more. i suggest the sierra games, also (police quest, kings quest, etc)

all of these games are based on something other than fighting, and have great plots. you solve puzzles, but only in the same way you would live in real life. you interact and experience very difficult storylines, albeit somewhat predetermined.

hope this helped...

-geo

Read: The Sims.

As much as us hard-core gamers hate it, it does have an incredibly cool AI system and is basically pure character interaction/development.