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[Canned Turkey]

Game Show Games?

nickelodeon guts on snes

[gunswordfist]

does smash tv count?

[Canned Turkey]

Sort of, it looks like more of a run n' gun though, but I guess it's both.
It's a Futuristic Run n' Gun Game Show Arcade Game.
Never thought i'd type that out.

[gunswordfist]

i was kidding but that description makes me want to play the game.

[Sik]

As long as it's a version that has a double stick-like setup (i.e. not the Mega Drive version) and that you remember that the game is pretty much brutal in every sense of the word (the game is not even remotely easy, mmkay?).

[gunswordfist]

smash tv xbla was the 1st game i played that let you shoot with the right analog stick. i loved it.

[zenaple]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this but i'd revive text games, especially muds.  maybe people these days are so over stimulated they need graphics, but like books vs movies, text games can go way beyond anything possible with graphics.

[gunswordfist]

i have never played a text game...except maybe mob wars or whatever it was called but i liked how shadowrun genesis described some of its scenes with text. there's nothing wrong with using your imagination a little bit in a game. just my 2 cents.

[MrBones]

i have never played a text game...except maybe mob wars or whatever it was called but i liked how shadowrun genesis described some of its scenes with text. there's nothing wrong with using your imagination a little bit in a game. just my 2 cents.

There's actually quite a few available on steam. Look at anything published by "Choice Of Games" for example.

[gimymblert]

Text game aren't dead, muds on the other hand ...
https://emshort.wordpress.com/

[SirNiko]

IF also has the benefit of being incredibly easy to code, especially if you go for choose-an-adventure style links instead of a text parser. They're great for designers who have strong writing capabilities, or writers who want to experiment with interactivity. I suspect IF/Text Games are going to keep hanging on for a very long time just like books are still around despite the existence of movies.

Depression Quest was developed last year, and isn't it basically an IF/Text Game?

MUDs sort of live on through browser-based MMOs, which seem to be growing in popularity as it gets easier to make network-based games. You also have RPGs played via forum, which are functionally similar to MUDs but exchange the convenience of automation for (generally) better gameplay.

I think a MUD with traditional text-only interaction but some modern sensibilities like a convenient GUI could do well in the modern world, but I suspect there is a limit to how many really popular MUDs the market would want or need.

Also, now is as good a time as any to plug my favorite text adventure in recent memory, Violet (2008).

http://jayisgames.com/games/violet/

[Canned Turkey]

Speaking of text adventures, I was thinking of making a choose your own adventure game in the style of a binary tree, until I realized that giving the player just 10 choices would call for the writing of 2047 game states. nevermind then...

[valrus]

Did game show games ever go away?  I would have thought that every successful game show still ends up on pretty much every platform in some form.  It's more just that the core gaming media doesn't pay them any attention, any more than they would a new version of Monopoly or something.

[gimymblert]

Speaking of text adventures, I was thinking of making a choose your own adventure game in the style of a binary tree, until I realized that giving the player just 10 choices would call for the writing of 2047 game states. nevermind then...

How many line per screen estimated? if it's the 4 lines rpg box that's 8188 lines MIN, that's not much. If you multiply by 10 that's about just a bit more than the longer http://nanowrimo.org/about
With 400 lines per path

[Canned Turkey]

Yeah but lets say for each choice there is 3 words (look at book, take the book, etc.) and each scenario is 50 words. That's just about 111,000 (approximately) words I need to write, around the same word count as The Prisoner of Azkaban. That's only for 10 choices. I don't think writing the equivalent of a novel is worth it if it's only going to make for a 10-20 minute experience.

[gimymblert]

That's only 3700 pages, come on! 

[ElVaquero]

Did game show games ever go away?  I would have thought that every successful game show still ends up on pretty much every platform in some form.  It's more just that the core gaming media doesn't pay them any attention, any more than they would a new version of Monopoly or something.

"New version of Monopoly" reminds me of Fortune Street, one of the few original ideas in the genre to come out semi-recently. (though I think that series and board/game show type games are more regular in Japan)

It's a cool game and definitely something to check out if you're interested in these types of games. But also, it's a local multiplayer game about bloody detailed finances and usually takes over 5 hours to complete a game. Pretty tough sell.

[valrus]

Speaking of board games, this isn't exactly a genre, but one thing I rather miss is the more "boardgame" style of strategy game, in which the game you're playing could really have been a boardgame, and all the rules and interactions and constraints are "on the surface".  (Not a boardgame adaptation, but one made, as many early strategy games were, with the same kinds of assumptions about the relationship between rules and games.)

In particular, this would be in contrast to increasing levels of "simulation", where there are potentially complex equations and simulations running under the hood, of which you can have only partial knowledge, or that you couldn't calculate in your head without a lot of practice.  (And I would include in this something like SRPGs where each "piece" has a lot of stats, not all of which are necessarily known to the player, and the equations that determine accuracy and damage are also either unknown or are a bit cumbersome to actually predict.)

[Sik]

Text game aren't dead, muds on the other hand ...
https://emshort.wordpress.com/

Achaea is a MUD and it's still around, and has been since 1997. But yeah, it's quite the niche, even during discussions of niches MUDs are rarely brought up.

[Eigen]

I made a text-game once. It got a bit of coverage, so yeah, there's still a market for these things if you spice them up a little. Although I admit it's a novelty and not really a long-lasting experience since only a few people play it these days.

But there are many directions you could take this if you're willing to be silly. Like..

Text-based aerial combat / flight sim
Text-based racing game
Text-based RTS (I did that but it wasn't too much fun)
Text-based platformer
Text-based online fighting game
Text-based beat'em'up
Text-based tower defence
Text-based 4X

etc.

I even have an game engine for it if you want: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=42377