February 6th, 2001
This started out as a .plan file. As I write this, we haven't had a new one in quite some time (so much for my promise in the first .plan file for one per week!) But then I realized this is probably worthy of its own section. For now at least, this will comprise the entirety of the web page for what will eventually become our second game.
INFOCOM
"West of House. You are standing in
an open field west of a white house,
with a boarded front door."
If you don't recognize that quote, you have missed out on what was undeniably one of the most definitive computer games ever made. Released in 1980, Infocom's Zork I started a company that built a reputation for transporting you to other worlds in a way no other company has ever done before or since. No one who played their games will ever forget the white house, or Lord Dimwit Flathead, or the babel fish dispensing machine, or Floyd, or any number of other great scenes and characters from their game library.
The great thing about Infocom games was they never used a bit of graphic (well, not until near the demise of the company anyway). All of their stories were text adventures. The strength of the company lay with their writing, which was phenominal, both back then and even now. Especially now. By not having to worry about graphics, they could focus on the story of the game and they did an astonishing job.
Unfortunately the world moved on. Graphics became a must have for computer games. As they began to pour more resources into showing their scenes rather than describing them, what was left over for the story grew ever smaller and the quality of the games suffered as a result. Infocom folded.
Don't worry. I'm going somewhere with this. And it's not where you think.
THE ADVENT OF GRAPHICS
The problem in the latter days of Infocom was not in the fact they didn't know how to create a good game. They had proven over and over again they knew exactly what they were doing. The problem was with the technology available at the time. In twenty lines of text, the game could describe a scene to you in enough detail that anyone who had ever played could picture the room they were in. But it left enough to the imagination that every place was personal to the player, if you see what I mean. Everyone who played remembers the Gate to Hades ("Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!"), but my vision of that place is completely different from what someone else might envision, and that makes it far more realistic and memorable to me than if I had actually seen a picture.
When graphics began to appear in Infocom games (i.e. Zork: Nemisis), this was taken away. Sure, the puzzles were still there, but at its core it became just another adventure game, no different than King's Quest or Lesiure Suit Larry. Adventure games are all fine and well, but they weren't really what Infocom was good at, and they sometimes have a tendancy to devolve into "hunt the pixel" sort of puzzle games, which is exactly what happened.
The point of this lengthy dissertation on Infocom is this: In its infancy, the computer game artform could immerse you in a world by describing it to you. Infocom did this better than anyone has ever done it. But then the age of graphics came and this was lost. The graphics and technology of the time simply weren't able to accomplish this feat. Not really, anyway. Sure, you could follow around the 16x16 pixel tile that represented the Avatar in Ultima 4 and sort of identify with it, but did anyone ever actually immerse themselves as a part of the game with that little tile?
Don't get me wrong, our next project is not going to be a text only game!
THE FPS MAKES ITS DEBUT
With the evolution of the computer and the advancements in programming technology, the immersiveness that was lost is beginning to creep back into our art. In my opinion, the best way to put a player into a graphic game is to show them what they can see as if they were really there. In other words, the "First Person Perspective Game", or the FPS (First Person Shooter). Starting with Ultima Underworld and Castle Wolfenstein, the FPS has evolved a long way, until you can now see some pretty damn astonishing things happen in a virtual world.
For a long while, the S in FPS was the primary thing. Kill everything that moves. If its bloody corpse twitches, shoot it a few more times, just for luck. Bah! I blame ID Software for this, who still seem blind to the fact that people want more than this (witness Quake 3, a fairly new game that still has a one line story to it). They deserve a million kudos for the engine they built for Doom, but why in the name of all that's good didn't they put in a script? It's such a waste of really great technology that you just want to cry.
Of course it had to happen. Stories are creeping into the FPS. There were some early attempts at this. Ultima Underworld and System Shock, for starters. But it took until the release of Half-Life, and the public's voracious appetite for a good immersive story game before design houses finally took notice. If you beat them over the head a few dozen times with a huge hit, they eventually do get it!
Okay, I've spent far too much time on background.
THE NEXT BIG GAME
For our next project, I want to combine the immersiveness of a FPS with the story elements of an old Infocom game. It's that simple. When you play this game, I want to burn in your memory for all time the locations and characters that you will visit while traversing our world.
Some would call this blend an adventure game, but that would not be quite right. I have no interest in adventure games. I understand their appeal, but it's the one genre I have never really enjoyed. Just not my cup of tea. So I can tell you with all honesty this will not be an adventure game.
Some might call this blend a role playing game. That's certainly closer than adventure game, but again, I don't think it will be quite the same thing. We may have some role playing elements in the game, as there might be character improvement as the game progresses, but in an RPG, character improvement is the main thing. In our game, it may be there, but it will be secondary to what we're trying to accomplish, which is to tell an interactive story.
We could compare this concept to what was done in Half-Life or System Shock II, and that may be the closest description yet. I think we will be slightly more story based than either of those games which were still very S in their FPS origins. We may very well have shooting in our game, but, like character development, it will be secondary to the story of the game.
Do I know the specifics of the game? Yep. I know the backstory and the origin and logic of the "puzzles". I know how the levels will be designed and what kind of textures will be used. I know the general layout of the cutscenes and even some of the dialog in them. About the only thing I don't know yet is what we are going to call it! But I'm not going to tell you any of that stuff. Not yet. One thing I learned in managing the Manifest Destiny project is that it is possible to divulge too much too early (something I did with MD), and this is way too early for me to start talking about the specifics of the game. We haven't even built the display engine yet.
It's an ambitious project. Putting in a story of Infocom level standards is no small feat. Compared to that challenge, programming a 3D engine is trivial. With what I've learned programming and managing our current project, I have no doubt the technical aspects of the game are within reach. But the story will be something else again. We have a couple of years to get it right, though, and we will be working very hard on it.
What about Manifest Destiny? For those of you waiting on MD, have no fears. MD has not been delayed one whit because of our second project. Our first project is still our first priority and receives every hour of my attention it would without the second project's existence. It's always dangerous to estimate timelines, but I still expect another six months of heavy full time programming on MD with another year of heavy support (i.e. more than half my programming time). After that it will be more sporadic as I hope the game will be mature enough not to require my constant attention, allowing me to focus more and more on the next big game!
For that reason, you won't see much more than this message here in this section for a while. Once we have a display engine finished, I may begin to post a screenshot here and there, but don't expect that to happen any time soon. We'll let ya' know :)
Ron Hiler
Lead Programmer
R&J Cyberware
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