[haspok]

How old is the author I wonder? Did he not play Wizardry or any other similar game back in the 80s/90s, which implemented exactly this kind of gameplay? Wizardry 7 had so much - good quality - text in it (probably enough to fill a book) that it significantly accelerated my English learning at the time as a non-native English speaker. And the fighting system was very similar to what the author arrived at in the end.

I for one would be very happy to see the return of this style of gaming - I haven't played computer games for so long, mostly because they are just all the same, 3D action and no substance. I would gladly read / interact with fantasy fiction like this though.

[pjc50]

The author describes themselves as a "gamebook enthusiast" and mentions IFCOMP, so they're very much operating within the knowledge of the genre.

What the article really is is a deconstruction, presented as to a novice; he's asking what interactional elements and primitives are required of both video-action and text-interactive games, in order to produce an action-IF game.

[dkersten]

> because they are just all the same, 3D action and no substance

What do you count as "substance"? Have you played The Witcher 3? Life is Strange? Until Dawn? They are games with heavy narrative where your choices impact the direction of the story (in Until Dawn, any and all of the 8 characters can die or survive, depending on your choices). Or games like Bloodborne or Dark Souls, which, at first glance, are just action games, but when you look beneath the surface, they hide extremely rich and deep storylines (but its up to you to dig for it if you so wish) and incredible environmental storytelling. Or a game like Machinarium, which manages to tell its story purely through pictures. Or The Last of Us, which, while its a 3D action game (kind of), is the first game that, for me, surpassed movies in atmosphere, storytelling and getting me emotionally invested in the characters.

My point is that games have moved on and there are a lot of games out there that aren't "3D action with no substance". A lot of indie games aren't even 3D or action. There's a vast spectrum of games out there, I bet there's plenty that you would, in fact, enjoy.

> I for one would be very happy to see the return of this style of gaming

I used to play MUD's back in the day and even worked on my own MUD engine a few times. My most recent toy was about two years ago, but I abandoned it because I felt it was too depressing if I was the only one playing a multiplayer (text based) game. :(

What is it you are looking for in such a game, out of curiosity?

[wlesieutre]

>Or games like Bloodborne or Dark Souls, which, at first glance, are just action games, but when you look beneath the surface, they hide extremely rich and deep storylines (but its up to you to dig for it if you so wish) and incredible environmental storytelling

In a similar vein, Overwatch, one of the biggest 3D action games at the moment, has gameplay that exists entirely as non-canon action segments borrowing characters from the world. But it's still not shallow; there's a ton of worldbuilding in the environments, voice interactions between characters that hint at shared histories, and stories told in Blizzard's incredible animated shorts.

Just because something looks like a shallow action game doesn't mean that's all it is!

Related: the most recent animated short, Honor and Glory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQfk5HykiEk

[wlesieutre]

I'm slightly mistaken! There was a temporary 3-week event last November with a 4-player PvE story as Overwatch agents going on an actual mission. But other than that, gameplay has been all non-canon.

https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Overwatch_Uprising

Should be another one this year, we'll see what they do with it.

Anyway, expanding on what I said in the previous comment, it's a neat narrative structure. Rather than "here's a game, go play the story" they've given us a game and then having released it are now telling more of the story out in bits and pieces. New map, new comic, new animated short, new character, new voice lines, anything like that related to the game is a chance to flesh out the world, its history, and where the conflict between Overwatch and Talon is headed.

I think my favorite part of it is the environmental storytelling. Every level has some significance to one or more of the characters (video from the previous comment takes place at Eichenvalde), and there are bits and pieces of lore scattered throughout. The name that we see being carved into the bar at the beginning of the video exists in-game at the start of the level (and has been there since launch). In the present-day, with the non-flashback portion of the short having now taken place, the Overwatch emblem that Reinhardt sets on the armrest now exists in-game at the same location.

On another level (Ecopoint Antarctica), you can see the cryo-chamber where all of Mei's colleagues went to sleep in the pods to wait out a storm, and then never woke up. There's an animated short telling that story as well.

What's remarkable about the game is how well it functions as "just an action game" with bright colors, fun characters, really great gameplay, and gorgeous level design. But if you want to look into it deeper, there's a pretty big world with some heavy stuff going on.

I'm going a bit fanboy here, but if you're into shooters definitely check this one out.

[filiph]

Author here. I played Wizardry games in the 1990s. How is the combat system in Wizardry similar to what I'm arriving at with the "fractal stories" concept?

I actually brought up a Wizardry 7 gameplay video just to make sure I'm not remembering it wrong, and here's the text:

JOE CASTS ENERGY BLAST RAVEN HIT! RAVEN DIES!

Not what I'm going for at all. This looks more like the "Try #5" (D&D-style actions).

If what you mean is that Wizardry had great writing (not in combat, but elsewhere), I'm not disputing that. But Wizardry was a videogame. I'm trying to build a text game.

[mrec]

Once I grokked where you were going with this article, my first thought was the awesome King of Dragon Pass [1]. Technically it looks very simple; I'm not sure whether it was implemented as a webpage, but it definitely could be. Where it succeeds better than any other RPG I've ever encountered is in forcing you to roleplay as a bronze age tribal chieftain, because "act according to the worldview and ethics of a 21st-century westerner" just isn't on the menu. The Gloranthan heroquest elements (where your characters try to LARP mythological stories as a form of ritual magic) are wonderfully out there.

Curious whether you've played it, and if so, how close it comes to the sort of thing you're aiming for.

[1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/352220/King_of_Dragon_Pass...

[filiph]

I love King of Dragon Pass! It was definitely an inspiration (although I found out about it only after I set out to build this whole thing) and at one point I wanted my game to be basically a king/lineage simulator with options to "zoom in".

Later I figured that what works better is to have a "Conan the Barbarian / Elric / Fafhrd+Mouser simulator" that can "zoom out" to higher levels. The problem with kingdoms is that spacial relations matter _a lot_, and so that's not something you want to base your gameplay on with a text game. That's why King of Dragon Pass has a map as one of the central pieces of UI.

But yeah. Huge fan of King of Dragon Pass here.

[mrec]

> The problem with kingdoms is that spacial relations matter _a lot_, and so that's not something you want to base your gameplay on with a text game.

You're rekindling my enthusiasm for this sort of thing (I gave up on Sorcery! about halfway through Book 4 when it took rewind away, and Sunless Sea after carelessly dying 20+ hours in on ironman), but I don't think I'm as focussed on just-the-text as you.

The main appeal for me is the scope for extreme fluidity of scale and timestep, and that's perfectly compatible with maps and other informational graphics. I've played way too many CRPGs where you spend 75% of your time just trudging from A to B and back without making any decisions at all.

[hdhzy]

>... through Book 4 when it took rewind away

They took the rewind but you still have multiple revivals in case you die (and you keep your items and knowledge!) similarly to going back by Lorag in Book 2 so it's not that hard.

[mrec]

My complaint wasn't that it made it hard, it was that it made it tedious. Having to play through large stretches of the game again just to change one decision wasn't fun, and the threat of that discouraged experimentation.

[Zarathruster]

King of Dragon Pass has a lot of problems as a game, but as a roleplaying experience (where 'role' doesn't just mean 'tank' or 'ranged DPS' or such) it really has no equal, IMO. What I find fascinating is that the challenge, which is to play a very specific role (what are the expectations of my tribe/patron deity), is far more interesting than what we get in more open "play however you want!" games.

[jamesrcole]

> I haven't played computer games for so long, mostly because they are just all the same, 3D action and no substance

If that's your opinion of them then I don't think you've investigated them much, and are just jumping to conclusions.

[PostOnce]

I still play all the time and there's some truth to them all being the same. They get more and more polished on a UI level, and more realistic looking, but remain static mechanically.

For example, Skyrim doesn't do much mechanically that Ultima Underworld didn't. Ultima proper did all of that from a different perspective for a long while before that, too. The Witcher 3 is my absolute favorite RPG at least since Skyrim and probably supercedes it, but again, it's just super polished, it doesn't do much that's really new, that I haven't seen before in an RPG or other game. You pick speech options from dialogue trees, loot dead things, and fetch quest items, but you're in a cardboard world. The monsters just wait for you to come slaughter them, they're set-pieces whose purpose is to sit there until you arrive, then bite you. The world reacts largely in a single specific way: you win.

Actually, I thing modern RPGs have regressed, Ultima VI's keyword-based dialogue was better than our modern dialogue trees. You could speak in natural language about a variety of topics, some of which were hinted at by the NPC with highlighted words, and others you had to figure out for yourself. (you could just type "troll" or you could type "What can you tell me about the troll?" or "I have seen a troll, and need advice, can you help?", it was more fun and interactive)

I'm hyped for Underworld Ascendant, because just maybe they'll break some new ground for a change. "A living ecosystem", but with people who can (and have) backed up that claim. I don't see much else on the horizon -- the indies are our only hopes! AAA can't afford to lose now, so it's all cookie cutter sequels there, only the indies can afford the risk.

I think a huge, huge part of the problem is that games cost so much and carry so much risk now. Ultima Underworld got a full sequel _ELEVEN MONTHS LATER_. You could move faster and try more then, because art didn't cost so much, there was no motion capture, no voice acting, it was cheap to make a game. If a sequel flops now you can't just try again, you lost $75,000,000 dollars and are now bankrupt.

Anyway, here's a link to a free, breathtakingly good book on the history of CRPGs from the 70s through today: https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/

[freeflight]

> I still play all the time and there's some truth to them all being the same. They get more and more polished on a UI level, and more realistic looking, but remain static mechanically.

I think the progress is more meta, trough merging and creation of whole new genres making them more approachable and lowering the learning curve, instead of singular technical feats or "gameplay innovations".

Some of that is enabled through the adoption of new technology, our modern flood of 3D shooters wouldn't be imaginable without the mouse having itself established as a PC peripheral first.

In the end, it's also always a question what a game strives for. If it strives to simulate some kind of reality with its own internal workings, like many RPG's do, then there won't be much room for gameplay mechanic innovation, most of it will boil down to making these realities more convincing trough gfx/sound/system interactions.

At least if you don't strive for a complete simulation and end up with something like Dwarf Fortress, where the sheer number of mechanics (for the simulations sake) ends up being part of the allure. A modern alternative to that would be something like Rimworld, which has comparable simulation but tries to package it into something way more approachable.

[sdfin]

> it doesn't do much that's really new, that I haven't seen before in an RPG or other game.

You might like the game Prey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2017_video_game) It does a few new things. Not too much, but has some original ideas. And the sci-fi story is quite good.

[PostOnce]

I will try it eventually and have heard good things, I'm just disappointed they didn't let Human Head finish it -- I really like their original 2006 Prey, and Rune when that was new, too.

Oh my. I just looked up Human Head on wikipedia, and while they got Prey taken off them, they're working on a Rune sequel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Head_Studios My day has just been made.

[lph]

Get-off-my-lawn sentiment aside, it seems strange that the author doesn't even acknowledge the vast field of text-based games that already exist, and that predate the modern retro fascination with interactive fiction. I'd love to see how their mechanics compare to the ones he worked out for his game.

[megaman22]

> modern retro fascination with interactive fiction

There's a modern fascination with interactive fiction? I know there's long been a niche community around it - some of the first non QBASIC programming I did was futzing around with Inform 6. I wasn't aware that it had become a hip thing though

[filiph]

Author here. When referring to text adventures I didn't mean just the ones that came in the past few years, of course. When I say "text adventure" I mostly mean things like Zork and MUDs.