[Dev log] I Am Suspicious of Myself

[Paul Smith]

This will be my first time participating and also first game I've made. This will be a short text adventure, about the right scale for a first timer with only a couple weekends to work on it. I've been a fan of text adventures since sneakily playing the first scenes of a pirated copy of Leather Goddesses of Phobos on a family friend's computer.

 

I Am Suspicious of Myself focuses on one night in the life of you, the protagonist. You have been given a couple of burnt DVDs with a bunch of cool movies on them. Your mission is to watch these movies. You have the whole night free and nowhere to be the next day so you should be able to get through them all before dawn. Who needs sleep, right?

 

Problem is, you're already a bit tired and these movies are pretty trippy. There's one called Matrix that gets you thinking you're living in a simulation; another called Memento that has you checking for strange writing on your body from the previous day which you now can't remember. I'd tell you where Hellraiser takes you but I'd need to put up some sort of content warning first.

[Paul Smith]

Dev log 1:

 

Have started writing the text for the game on my 1990s Quickpad Pro (this is also the machine I still play text adventures on). I've written much of the text for The Matrix and some notes for the other movies.

 

I need to research text adventure engines and find out what's the easiest for a beginner, however I prefer the old-fashioned typing method as opposed to clicking multiple choice menus that I think you get in Twine? This is so I can include a ton of Easter eggs or other responses to random inputs.

 

I think the 'main game' will be very short and probably pretty easy for the player, and hopefully amusing. But more fun will be had by typing in other stuff.

 

My text adventure player of choice is Frotz because it works on the Quickpad, but I'm not sure how the Infocom engine compares to modern developments in text adventures. However the advantage of choosing this type of game is I can still write up all the text and optional side stuff before I've finalised the engine/scripting language.

[Travis]

This sounds interesting, especially as someone who always preferred text to point-and-click (even though they were harder and I rarely finished). 

 

If you weren't already, I would consider somehow incorporating this post-credits commercial from the Hellraiser VHS tape. 

 

 

 

[Paul Smith]

That's great! I don't know if any engines I choose could include that, but maybe I could link to it or something.

[Paul Smith]

Help needed:

 

Could I please have opinions on text adventure scripting languages for a first-timer? For what I have planned I will need a bit of flexibility in response to certain commands, like changing one's entire inventory as a response to a specific input.

 

Example:

You have just watched the Matrix. You are suspicious of yourself (this is not the full text, just the gist)

> Inventory

You have:

- A phone

- One blue pill

- One red pill

 

That inventory would then be wiped when you watch a different movie.

[Paul Smith]

Help needed:

I also need to know if I've missed any popular/well-known movies that feature a false reality or false memories - a protagonist who is not what he/she seems and therefore has a reason to be suspicious of themselves.

 

What I have so far:

 

The Matrix

Memento

Total Recall

Jacob's Ladder

Fight Club

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Inception

Hellraiser

[Travis]

33 minutes ago, Paul Smith said:

That's great! I don't know if any engines I choose could include that, but maybe I could link to it or something.

Ha, I just thought you could throw in a reference to a HELLRAISER BALL CAP!

Probably not worth it, but glad you enjoyed it anyway.

[Zzot]

I guess “Bourne identity” could be included in you list? Wikipedia has a list of “Simulated reality in fiction” that could be useful! 

 

Good luck with your game, can’t wait to play it!

[voxn]

I'm no expert on text adventures, but twine is the engine I see mentioned about 100x more then any other.

[shallow_depths]

Yeah, Twine is good for hypertext/choice-based IF. For more-traditional parser-based IF maybe look at Inform, Quest or ADRIFT.  I don't know much about using them though.

[Paul Smith]

22 minutes ago, Zzot said:

I guess “Bourne identity” could be included in you list? Wikipedia has a list of “Simulated reality in fiction” that could be useful! 

 

Good luck with your game, can’t wait to play it!

 

I've never seen the Bourne films! They're famous enough to be included as most players will be familiar with them. I'm going to have to do some research (ie. watch some movies) as I haven't seen Jacob's Ladder or Total Recall in years either.
Also thanks for the wiki list, that's great. Lost Highway, Dark City, Truman Show are all potentials for inclusion, though I just thought of another that's not listed - The Sixth Sense. It'll be fun to write someone who's suspicious they might be a ghost...
 

12 minutes ago, voxn said:

I'm no expert on text adventures, but twine is the engine I see mentioned about 100x more then any other.

 

Thanks, though I don't think Twine is what I'm looking for as it looks like it's focused on a click-to-choose ("Choose Your Own Adventure") model rather than the traditional text input.

 

I'm looking at Inform, TADS, Adrift and Quest as they appear to be the popular/best supported engines that came up on an intitial search. If there are any advocates for other interpreters please let me know!

http://inform7.com

http://www.tads.org/

http://www.adrift.co/cgi/adrift.cgi

http://textadventures.co.uk/quest
(Edit: beaten by seconds, thanks for the confirmation shallow_depths!)

 

However I am also tempted by the Z-machine language used in Infocom's original games - I've done a bit of programming in my life and like Lisp which is what it's derived from. That might be a bit too hard for me to finish in the time I have so that might be something I explore later.

[Problem Machine]

I haven't seen the movie, but if it's anything like the book Shutter Island should fit

[Rilen]

Shutter Island could have been title I Am Suspicious of Myself, for sure. 

Project looks amazing, very excited to see how you go!