I have a question for people who played a bunch of text-based games.
So, this is not a medium I can interact with without falling asleep, but from the little I've heard it seems like many text-based games had systemic interactions far beyond what graphical games deliver.
What are the sorts of interactions that got lost along the way?
Do you have any examples of interactions that blew your mind when you first stumbled onto them?
Meta: #gaming, #gamedev, #videogames
Main difference (for me anyway) is that text operates in a different way to graphics.
Classic text adventures were able to imply a world that graphics of the time weren't capable of showing. (This maybe explains why text games mostly disappeared as graphics caught up?)
There are still things you can do in text that graphics will never be able to do, sort of like with books vs films. But it needs a good writer who isn't just trying to do a text version of a graphical game.
@FediThing Do you have examples?
It's sort of hard to explain... if you read something and then you see it, those are different experiences.
For example, I remember playing a text adventure where a side character was described as wandering around a room frantically looking for something... If that had been graphical, it would have either looped and been disappointing, or required a huge amount of scripting/AI to be convincing. But in text it only needed some words.
In graphics everything requires so much work that it restricts what the game can show, and locks games into whatever the assets allow.
In text, it's maybe easier for single authors to paint a bigger picture?
@FediThing To a certain degree, I agree.
It's definitely true for interactions, tho I think these days that's largely due to developers (or more accurately publishers) shunning systemic solutions because they allow for less control.
There are heaps of techniques to make the game universe seem bigger (both physically and in narrative) tho.
I'm not saying text is better than graphics, just saying they work differently.
Text maybe stimulates your imagination more because you have to actively create the images in your own mind.
But graphics allows you to show things people might not have imagined.
Also a lot of text adventures incorporated graphics, and many modern graphical games still use text (for example in lore items), so it's not a completely binary choice. They can work together.
@FediThing @phryk are there any stand out text adventures that come to mind
