Unofficial Tex Murphy

That's why we shouldn't set our aims too high if we're going to do something like this. By the way, a quick look around the internet turned up these YouTube videos that have been posted not too long ago. Apparently they're attempting an Under A Killing Moon remake and "have access to Chris Jones" as he says in one of the comments. The second video looks (or rather sounds) promising and it actually pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLbYSt4Quu0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaLCVLGQ7Ks

I'm pretty sure that someone you are referring to resides here.

As for a Text based adventure, interesting though the idea is, I must say I agree with Thaurin. I'd much prefer a low budget graphic adventure reminiscent of an old style adventure game than something which can be put together in say 6 months.

I'm not sure what you're implying here but you seem to be suggesting that text adventures are somewhat trivial and below the level of low-budget graphic games.

I beg to differ with you about that. In my experience, text adventures are actually a significantly greater programming challenge than graphic games. Most of the work in graphic games is in creating the graphics. The actual programming, on the other hand, is much simpler. That is because, in graphic games, the player is limited by what the programmer has given him/her to click on. In a text adventure, the player has much, much more freedom and the programmer must anticipate all the possible actions that a player might try.

Talk to bartender; ask bartender about...; throw egg at bartender; kiss the bartender; give bartender the money; show bartender the knife.; etc., etc...Not trivial - and that's just the bartender!

Believe me, text adventures aren't just thrown together. The reason I think we could do it relatively quickly is because more people would be able to contribute the the production of a text game because much of it is writing prose. Also, the programming is very modular. The basics are not hard to learn even for non programmers, while the difficult aspects can be handled by the more experienced programmers.

Personally, I would be put off and constantly distracted by a low-budget graphic TM game because it would not be immersive, and none of the characters would live up to my memory what they should be. However, reading them, just like when reading the novels, the characters come to life exactly as they should be.

So while you think a low-budget graphic game is closer to the TM experience, I think it is further away and that text would serve the memory better.

On the other hand, I will concede that text games are more difficult to play than graphic games. They require significantly more thinking, imagination and patience than graphic games. But when was that ever a bad thing?

I'm gonna agree with Paul on this one. A text adventure would be great, and we would be able to use our great imaginations rather than almost certainly less than desired graphic design.

I would not work on a text adventure game. I do not like them, so it's out of the question, at least for me. I also think text adventures are more trivial to put together than you think. Exactly because they are modular, it is pretty easy to define all allowed actions for one object (the bartender) and put a reaction to it. I'm not saying that text-adventures are trivial to make, but it certainly is more trivial than even a quality low-res point-and-click adventure game. I do not think most work for such a game necessarily goes to graphics. What about music, puzzle design, story, animation, dialogue, interface, etc.? There're there, just like in a text adventure game. That you have more verbs to work with in an adventure game does not mean there are necessarily more combinations.

But enough of that. A Tex text adventure game can be made. A point-and-click adventure can be made. Someone should just step up and lead such projects.

I also think text adventures are more trivial to put together than you think.

As someone who has written several text adventures, and 2D point and click and 3D point and click, I couldn't DISagree with you more. But that doesn't matter. I know that some people simply don't like text adventures.

I am presently in the middle of launching and marketing my 3D virtual Library program, so I haven't a lot of free time right now.

However, I know that we have a few people on the board here that are interested in a text Tex Murphy and have experimented with Inform. All we need to get started is for someone to volunteer a good story and we can extract most of the prose directly from the story text. I hope that in a few weeks I'll be freed up enough to do some of the programming.

low-res point-and-click adventure game.

or High-res if you let me do it in ARPAS (assuming I ever finnish it ).
I can provide the graphics that is certain. But I don't know when. The game could start out Text base and move up to 2D.

Yeah Chris Marsland is working on something Under A Killing Moon related. Ideally I would like another update from Aaron in Chris to know where things stand.

Yeah Chris Marsland is working on something Under A Killing Moon related.

Yeah. Chris' project sounds very intriguing. I get the impression that he is reworking UAKM for modern hardware. That would be *really* wonderful.

My dream fan project would be to do something to the extent of Chris's UKAM project but it's just too much time. I really hope the new UKAM sees the light of day. Good luck, Chris

But as for this potential project, i'm thinking on using some elements from the official radio installments by Aaron and Chris. I like the idea of starting it off in the old, seedy house.

But as for this potential project, i'm thinking on using some elements from the official radio installments by Aaron and Chris. I like the idea of starting it off in the old, seedy house.

You know, that's a fantastic idea. I wish I had thought of it.

How would people feel if we took the Radio Theater script, word for word, as a starting point for a game? We would all know the basic story and how it ends, but in order to make a game out of it, we'd have to add things like puzzles, and other obstacles that the player would have to negotiate in order to advance the game.

Advantage:
The main game script would be derived from the expert writing of the official Tex Murphy source including location descriptions and dialog (perfect for a text adventure adaption.)

Disadvantage:
We all know the story already, so it might be too easy.

Comment:
Last year, I made a short demo game based on Chapter 11 (if I remember correctly) of the Pandora Directive. Everyone knew the story, but still had difficulty winning the game, so maybe it doesn't matter too much if we know the story ahead of time.

Man, I wish I had thought of that when I had lots of time for this. My writing skills are terrible so I was begging somebody, anybody for a good story to base a game on. The Radio Theater script was sitting there all the time. Arrgghhhh! Why didn't I think of that?

Kudos to Joel.

It is a good idea. I haven't listened to the radio theater because I have never finished Overseer, but it'd be a good thing to base a game on!

I don't think it'd be too easy, because while you may know the story, it's the puzzles that make it hard, right? The puzzles need to tie in to the story, but they are at the same time sort of separate. That is, the story doesn't give away the solution to the puzzles.

Anyhow, I could totally see myself or a group of people simultaniously making a point-and-click version of this text adventure concept. Why not? I could even make terrible graphics for it and have other people improve on it later. I'm even off work for the next four weeks.

I'm even off work for the next four weeks. Very Happy

There you go. Perfect timing.

Or you could all just talk about it for a while, maybe put one week worth of *real* work into it, get everyone who doesn't have a lick of technical skills' hopes up, drop the project, eat a ham sandwich and remember the days when you actually thought about doing something productive, while watching that new episode of the Closer on TNT that just rocks socks.

It's what I did! And I'm a glorious employee at a fast food chain!

Life is what you make it. I made mine into something I'm comfortable with. I shot low. I aimed low. And I hit my target. You're already a winner if the game you choose is really easy.

(This is my attempt at "reverse psychology" motivation.)