A bureaucratic adventure game

[sawyl]

For no very good reason, other than a desire to try and create an interface using cmd, I've written a rather lame text adventure in python. Here's a small taster:

Front Entrance
You are standing on a path in front of a building. To your right is a large glass facade, through which you can see a canteen. To your left is a small ornamental lake.
There is an exit leading west
>>> look lake
You are looking at an ornamental lake. There are moorhens swimming in it.
>>> west
Reception
You are standing in a reception area. To your right there is a small green sofa. To your left, there are a couple of televisions displaying random images and a set of doors leading to a library.
There are exits leading south, east, west
>>> look sofa
You are looking at a small sofa. It is lime green.
>>> south
The Library
You are standing in a small library. In front of you are shelves of books. You can't quite read their titles from here.
There is an exit leading north
>>> south
You can't go south
>>> north
Reception
You are standing in a reception area. To your right there is a small green sofa. To your left, there are a couple of televisions displaying random images and a set of doors leading to a library. There are exits leading south, east, west
>>>

Astute readers will note that I've neglected to include any actual adventure elements. Well, fear not. In version 0.2, I plan to make it possible to water the potted plants and obtain free coffee from the vending machines. It's going to be a right roller coaster of a game once it's finished...

Comments

good memories

[silvershooter.livejournal.com]

Hi Sam,

I know this adventure, it is the Hobbit from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in the early 80's, right?
As you already stated some classic adventure elements are missing...

I would suggest something like:
>>> pickup sofa
>>> east
Front Entrance
You are standing on a path in front of a building. To your right is a large glass facade, through which you can see a canteen. To your left is a small ornamental lake.
There is an exit leading west
>>> use sofa on glass facade
You managed to break the glass with the sofa, you can now enter the canteen and get some coffee.

Re: good memories

[sawyl.livejournal.com]

I used to love The Hobbit on the Spectrum. Particularly the bit where, if you drank the wine from the barrels, it would slur the dialogue. Wonderful stuff.

While I've yet to reach that sort of level with my humble offering, I have managed to add the ability to carry things around:

Reception
You are standing in a reception area. To your right there
is a small green sofa. To your left, there are a couple of
televisions displaying random images and a set of doors leading to a
library. You can also see cup.
There are exits leading south, east, west
>>> look cup
You are looking at a cup of dirty liquid. It appears to be some form
of instant coffee.
>>> take cup
You put the cup into your bag
>>> south
The Library
You are standing in a small library. In front of you are shelves of
books. You can't quite read their titles from here.
There is an exit leading north
>>> drop cup
You take the cup out of your bag
>>> look cup
You are looking at a cup of dirty liquid. It appears to be some form
of instant coffee.
>>>

Now all I have to do is add actions to objects and you'll be able to get into the canteen by breaking the window...

Re: good memories

[silvershooter.livejournal.com]

Great!!
I love these old fashioned simple adventures.

Another classic I liked a lot was Guilt of Thieves, I am not sure if this was on the Spectrum, maybe this was already on the Atari ST.

How do I registered to be a beta tester?
Do I have to pay for this? (Thinking of M$oft).

Re: good memories

[sawyl.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_of_thieves), was released for both the Spectrum and the ST, so what ever you remember, you're probably correct.

Of the non-Spectrum games that I used to love, the ones that really stick in my mind are Xenon II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_II:_Megablast) and Gods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_%28video_game%29) from the Bitmap Brothers and the quite superb Prince of Persia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_%28video_game%29) — the latter two being the only computer games from that era that I ever managed to finish.