Archive for April, 2008
Oh sweet memories. I’m saying that although I was not really into text adventures back then when they were highly popular. I used to play them nevertheless but it was rather difficulty back then. Infocom was one of the major game makers back in the days and since most of their games were text adventures they had to excel in story telling. And that they did. This changed a bit when graphics were added to the adventures, not animated graphics if you mind, just some background images that would fit the setting.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is a classic text adventure. I’m writing this because the game is currently playable as a browser game over at the BBC4’s website. To be precise, the 20th anniversary edition is playable that contains background images. If you want to take a look a the original version of the game without images you can do so at the website of Douglas Adams.
The major problem that I always had with these types of games was to discover the known vocabulary. The AI can obviously only react if it knows the words that you write. If you write pickup toothbrush and the word pickup is not in the vocabulary guess where that’s leaving you ?
Right, you need to find the appropriate known word for the task. Get Toothbrush or maybe Take Toothbrush. This was really frustrating and it still is, hehe. Plain simply commands work best most of the time.
The BBC was nice enough to include a link to the original game hints by Douglas Adams which is a series of questions and answers. They are not helpful all the time and do contain some red herrings. I just discovered that the original game contained a verb list and I thought it would be great to include the list in this article. Makes it a lot easier, don’t you think ?
ANSWER, APPROACH, ASK, BLOCK, BUY, CARVE, CLIMB, CLOSE, CONNECT, CONSULT, COVER, DANGLE, DESTROY, DRINK, DROP, ENJOY, ENTER, ESCAPE, EXAMINE, EXIT, FILL, FIND, FOLLOW, GIVE, HANG, HIDE, JUMP, KILL, KNOCK, LIE, LIGHT, LISTEN, LOOK, MOVE, PANIC, PULL, PICK, PLUG, POINT, PUSH, PUT, OPEN, READ, RELAX, REMOVE, SAY, SHOOT, SHOW, SIT, SLEEP, SMELL, STAND, TAKE, TASTE, THROW, TOUCH, TURN, TYPE, WAKE, WALK
The story is excellent and if suggest you give it a try if you have some time at hand. Oh, you can die in this game. Pretty fast actually. It took me 19 turns to die the first time, can you beat that ?
It does not happen very often that I’ impressed by game announcements or demonstration videos. I learned a long time ago that game videos do not show much about the gameplay itself but cutscenes and intros. The Euphoria physics engine however caught me by surprise.
I never did put much thought into game physics before and those that were introduced in last years games were still not able to come close to real world physics. Yes, ragdolls are nice but that’s about it.
Euphoria introduces a whole new level of physics, something that can truly be named next gen physics. Character and Object animations look and feel really realistic and it’s a pleasure watching the demonstrations. Even better is the fact that at least two upcoming games will make use of Euphoria: Star Wars the Force Unleashed and the new Indiana Jones game.
Sonny - I did read Sony at the beginning - is a turn based role playing browser game. The player is taking role of a character named Sonny who wakes up on a ship resurrected as a Zombie. Not your usual no-brain Zombie, one that actually can select a class at the beginning ranging from Assassin to Gunslinger. It is the players task to escape from the ship and make his way from there to meet his destiny.
The player is guided by the blind Louis at the beginning who acts like a tutor explaining the general game mechanics. The game starts with a combat. Each combatant has one action each combat round that can be either an offensive or defensive action. Depending on the class certain special attacks or spells are available that can be cast at opponents or party members.
Each character possesses a certain amount of hitpoints and spell points which are also used for special attacks. Once the hitpoints reach 0 the character is taken out of combat. The goal is to beat all opponents before they beat you.
A character gains experience points after each combat. A new level increases the characters stats and awards him with one ability and one attribute point that can be used to give the character new spells, increase spells already learned and add one point to one of the four attributes.
The player has time to rest after each combat. There are also opportunities to buy new items in a shop that increase attributes, attack and defense. Those items are limited to certain player levels and cost money that the player earns by defeating (and looting) enemies.
A great feature is the ability to respec the character at any given time which essentially removes and spend attribute and ability points so that they can be assigned again. The attributes have obviously certain effects not only on player stats but also on special attacks.
Cutscenes as well as ingame conversations narrate the story of the game. Story, graphics and music are well done and add to the game experience.
Once the character beats the first enemies on the ship he proceeds on land by using a map that connects the different areas of the game.
Sonny is a well done game, some would even say exceptional for a browser game. If you like roleplaying and turn based strategy games then you should definitely check out this game.
I enjoy Tower Defense Games and did play every new game I discovered. The basic goal is always the same. The player has to place towers on a map that shoot at spawning creatures that try to cross the map from one or more map entrances to the exits. If a creature reaches the exit the player looses one of his lives, if all lives are gone the game is over.
Tower Defense Games have been developed quite heavily over time and I would like to sort the games into three stages beginning with stage 1, the stage where it all began.
I would also like to point out that there are two different versions of Tower Defense Games. The first lets the player place the towers anywhere on the map while the second offers distinct areas on the map where towers can be placed.
The first Tower Defense games introduced all basic elements into the game that build the core of every Tower Defense Game. I’m talking about creature and tower characteristics mainly.
Tower Characteristics:
Each game consisted of several towers each with its own strength and weakness.
- Fast Shooting Tower with great range and low damage that would hit ground and air units
- Slow Shooting Tower with lower range and high damage that would only hit ground units
- Air Tower that was deadly to air creatures but did no damage to ground creatures
- Splash Tower that would do area damage but had a low range
- Slow Tower that would slow down creatures
Every single Tower Defense game uses at least those five towers. Tower upgrades were available that would add to their damage and range.
Creature Characteristics:
Several creatures were introduced in the early Tower Defense Games that are making an appearance in every Tower Defense Game. Creatures did gain more hitpoints with each passing wave as well.
- Normal Creatures. Nothing spectacular about them
- Fast Creatures. They were faster than any other creature in the game
- Sturdy Creatures: Slow creatures with many hitpoints
- Flying Creatures: Would fly over towers heading directly to the exit
- Swarm Creatures: Massive amounts of creatures.
- Boss Creatures: Single or few creatures with immense hitpoints
Game Links:
