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With continued development on my text adventure game, I’ve finally implemented a working, albeit somewhat simple quest.

Starting from where I left off in the last post, the player is made aware of their first quest by talking to the disgruntled internet user in the first room of the game. As was shows in a previous screenshot, by talking to the user, the player finds out that they need to somehow get faster access to “Friendbook”

By asking a series of questions related to the words in bold, I’m able to finally discover how I can help the character; by finding an object called a “Proxy unit”. Despite the fact that the player now has an objective to fulfil; if they so wish they can continue to talk to the user to discover tips or learn more information about the world; including the discussion of real-world issues related to the internet such as network advantages and DDOS attacks. An example of this can be seen in the screenshot below.

By doing this, not only am I trying to make the world seem more real by providing background information for the player to discover, but also in an attempt to somewhat disguise one of the biggest problems with classic-style text adventure games: conversation. From when these style of games were first released in the mid-70’s, and all the way through the 80’s while they were still popular; one of the features developers tried to push was the illusion of being able to say anything to any character within the game world and receive a relevant response, making it seem like a real, dynamic conversation. However, much like the game I’m creating, this process was often flawed and relied on the user typing a series of key words for which there is a pre-scripted response to.
As is written in the book Game Design by Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams, “A few early text-based games tried to implement parsers that could understand limited English sentences as typed by the player, but these seldom succeeded. You got either an NPC saying “I don’t understand that” when you asked a perfectly reasonable question, or an NPC whose answers weren’t quite to the point, giving the impression that he was drugged or mentally ill.” (Rollings, A and Adams, E. Game Design, 15, 469.)

These issues are the reason I’m using pre-scripted responses to phrases that are highlighted to the user; any attempt to hide this would mean that not only does the player have to try and understand what they need to be asking (which could get very complicated), but there would be no sense of guiding them along. Much like the use of “quest markers” in more modern games, especially RPGs like Skyrim, which are designed to show the player where to go without having to open a map or menu (a problem in many older games), in much the same way, the conversation topics in bold serve to guide the user while avoiding being obtuse. They may be a bit obvious, but it’s better than the player not understanding what they need to say and do.

With the player now understanding that they need to find a “proxy unit”; the next step is actually finding the item. Looking back at the conversation with the internet user, the player understands that it might be worth looking in eBought; an in-game parody of eBay. Because my game is set in a virtual reality space, different websites serve as different “rooms” for the player to travel to, and each one is physically represented as, for instance, eBought is a gigantic market bazaar where all sorts of users are selling all sorts of things.

The screenshot above shows the interactive interface that is present when playing a game in the Quest engine. Unlike older text adventure games, this is far more user-friends, including panels for inventory management, navigation and a compass for movement around the game. There is even a map which is updated in real-time as the user moves around to prevent them from becoming lost. These features help to make the game a lot more accessible to people who may otherwise ignore it.

Here you can see the location of other “rooms” relative to the players position: from the starting point of the game, there are 5 different rooms the player can travel too, but only 4 that can be accessed upon starting a new game; trying to go east to Friendbook fails due the line of people waiting to access the website. Until the quest is completed, the user will be unable to access this area. However, we can see that eBought is to the west, and that’s where the Proxy unit is supposed to be, so it would be a good idea to head there.

This gif stands as a good visual example of the game itself, movement and object interaction.

Now that the player has acquired the proxy unit, they now need to go back and give the internet user the proxy so that Friendbook can be accessed.

Upon handing the user the object, he opens up a way for the player to proceed into the next area.

The gif below shows the full process of completing the quest, without the conversation.

It may only be a simple “fetch-quest”, but it’s a solid start and I think it works well as an introductory quest. The book I mentioned earlier, Game Design, has a few pages discussion the sorts of things to avoid during the development of an adventure game;

– Puzzles solvable only by trial-and-error
– Conceptual non-sequiturs (e.g; “sharpen the headphones with the banana”)
– illogical spaces
– Puzzles requiring outside knowledge
– backwards puzzles (Finding the solution before finding the puzzle itself)
– Too many “FedEx” puzzles (The actual puzzle I have designed above; however they are simple and good for letting a player get to grips with mechanics without any pressure to think critically or finish the puzzle quickly. Once the player is familiar with the game, however, these quests shouldn’t make an appearance.)

Last week, I ended my research by looking at Google’s project Tango – the ability to generate real-time 3D virtual space from real environments through the use of bluetooth and GPS.

In the case of the digital doctor, rather than personal security, this technology could be used for a variety of life-saving rescue efforts. For example, the mountain rescue service. If a climber becomes stuck on a dangerous peak; a drone could be sent out to create a 3D map  of the area, sending the data back to the mountain rescue service. From this, they could use the map to plot the safest route. Furthermore, in conjunction with a video camera, the 3D map could be textured with how the mountain looks on that day, meaning that a route that might be the best option could actually be covered in ice and snow, and so mountain rescue will be able to plan accordingly.

In fact, there are various emergency rescue applications this could be used for, including fire rescue with the ability to map out burning buildings quickly and efficiently to find people who are trapped, as well as police/special forces operations for mapping out raids and uses in hostage situations.

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Drone design concept:

 

 

This is a simple concept I made in photoshop showing my idea, and I’m going to explain it in the concept of mountain rescue.
The drone is a quadcopter design which allows for easy, omni-directional movement on six axis without sacrificing mobility. Underneath the machine are a pair of mechanical grips capable of carrying survival equipment and food to any trapped mountaineers to keep them alive while the rescue service plans the rescue. Underneath the drone is a camera similar in design to a Kinect; a single device with a variety of camera technologies included. The device is capable of mapping real-time 3D space, while a second camera captures real-time video which is uses to texture the 3D map. A 3D map is good and allows for easy route planning, but gives no information on weather and environment (beyond geography), which could be hazardous for the rescue team; especially if the planned route turns out to be covered in ice and snow, for instance.. Finally, a third camera could have the ability to provide thermal imaging which could help identify targets in cases of extreme weather or heavy foliage. The drone would run a rechargeable, internal battery (which can be changed if the drone is opened), which in contemporary times would give the device approximately 20 or so minutes of power before needing new batteries or to recharge, however in the future battery technology will undoubtedly get better. As a compromise, a small solar panel will be fitted to the top of the drone, providing an alternate method of charge.

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Search and rescue drones do actually exist (http://sardrones.org/) however they usually fall short of the “rescue” part; while they are also capable of recording video and carrying packaging, they are unable to effectively map out routes and identify hazards easily. The idea of my drone is to streamline the rescue process, reassure the individual who needs rescuing and also help generate a fast and safe plan for the rescue team themselves.

The first project we had for our Digital Media workshop was to design a digital publication for viewing on an iPad.

Of course, we immediately went ahead and, as a group, decided to do a technology magazine.

The publication had to be created on Adobe InDesign; a program that works well enough once you get used to it, but can be a pain to work with at first. Especially considering it’s not really like anything I’ve used before.

However, I feel we did a fairly commendable job on our project overall.

Below is an image of the introductory page of my article. In retrospect, it may look a bit bland; and the font was not the best choice (although I do have an excuse for that). AND there’s too much text at the bottom.

Still, I’m fairly happy with the way it turned out. I was inspired to use one large image as the background, due to:
a) Having trouble making hard colour and gradients look nice and blend together.
b) I’ve seen it done this way in magazines such as National Geographic and Focus. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed.

The idea of designing a digital publication in InDesign was to get all these little interactive elements that are impossible in a conventional print magazine – Scrolling text boxes, interactive image galleries and video embedding.

I have an example of all the elements just mentioned on one of the pages of my digital article, unfortunately Adobe doesn’t believe I have renewed my CC subscription. So until that’s sorted, I’m afraid I’ve no example to show. I’ll update in time.