Let's make an adventure game! 3

toasty • 2 years ago on Adventure Kajam 

The 10th Kajam is upon us, folks!

This time we're focusing on building an adventure game.

What does that mean?

A typical adventure game might include elements like:

  • Puzzle solving
  • Gathering items to use and combine later on
  • A story involving the player
  • Dialogue
  • Multiple endings
  • Either a point-and-click interface, a text-based parser (where you type in commands, rather than moving a mouse) - or both!

Your challenge is to make a game involving some of these elements, or any others you think are common to the genre.

Or just make something cool and show us! Whatever you do, the real goal is to have fun and be nice. 😎

When? October-November!

  • Jam begins: 22nd October.
  • Feedback and ratings: 8pm UTC, 15th November.
  • Ratings close: 8pm UTC, 22nd November.

A brief history lesson…

When I was your age, we played these things called adventure games…

Beginning as far back as the 1970s (😱), these games originated as text-based experiences such as Colossal Cave Adventure. During the 1980s and '90s, the genre embraced graphics and brought us memorable classics such as Siera's King's Quest series and The Secret of Monkey Island. Influential 3D titles include Myst and Grim Fandango. More recently, the genre supposedly declined, but has also seen some real success with games like Telltale's The Walking Dead and Don't Escape, as well as the prolific output of Wadjet Eye.

Tools!

@Tijn very helpfully composed a list of tools that might be useful. If you have any others, suggest them below and I'll keep this list updated.

Simple Game Interpreter - an adventure game interpreter built in Cython. Released for beta testing only recently
https://kyamix.itch.io/sgi

Comments (3)

Tijn
 • 2 years ago • edited • 

I think it would be nice to list some tools to help people get started. Here are some free ones I find cool:

Twine - probably the most well-known tool for creating interactive fiction
https://twinery.org/

Adventuron - web-based adventure game system, inspired by classic games, but easy to learn by beginners
https://adventuron.io/

Ink & Inky - language & editor by Inkle Studios, powering such games as 80 Days
https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/

Inklewriter - easy-to-use online tool to write basic interactive stories, also by Inkle Studio
https://www.inklewriter.com/

Adventure Game Studio - point & click adventure game creation system for Windows, used by many successful indie titles such as Gemini Rue, Heroine's Quest and the Blackwell series
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/

GB Studio - a simple tool to make actual Gameboy games
https://www.gbstudio.dev/

SCUMM-8 - SCUMM-like engine demake, created in PICO-8. Great for creating tiny adventure games
https://github.com/Liquidream/scumm-8

SCI Companion - editor for creating SCI games, the engine used by Sierra
http://scicompanion.com/

Story Teller - a brand new text adventure engine for DOS
https://thelobdegg.itch.io/story-teller

Dolores - an experimental new engine by Ron Gilbert (creator of Monkey Island, but also the SCUMM-engine)
https://github.com/grumpygamer/DeloresDev

Wan
 • 2 years ago • 

ohtge - An engine made by myself to make fake terminal games in the browser, with an easy BASIC-inspired API
https://github.com/mkalam-alami/ohtge

toasty
  • 2 years ago • 

Simple Game Interpreter - an adventure game interpreter built in Cython. Released for beta testing today!
https://kyamix.itch.io/sgi

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