ASCII Games

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ID:266043
 
Aug 20 2011, 11:41 pm (Edited on Aug 21 2011, 12:05 am)
So I've just started an ASCII game and I was wondering what your thoughts are on them. Their pro's, their con's, features you'd like to see, experiences?

Here's a screen shot of mine at the moment:


Aug 21 2011, 2:55 am
Con- Won't attract as many people if you had graphics rather than ascii.
Pro- Those people who do get attracted are more likely to be intelligent.
Pro- You can focus totally on gameplay.
Pro- The game will look clean unless you just make junk sprites.
Pro- In my opinion, it shows the developers devotion to the phrase "Gameplay>Graphics".
Aug 21 2011, 6:47 am
Looking pretty good. Are you using text mode or creating ASCII-esque icons? The latter is probably the best path since BYOND's text mode doesn't support very many special characters that really spice up ASCII games.
Aug 21 2011, 10:06 am
As someone who often plays Zangband, and used to be obsessed with ZZT, I love ascii graphics. If you have ever played ZZT you will find that ascii can actually look really good if time is put into it (not the original ZZT but games that people made for it)
Aug 21 2011, 12:19 pm
Looks good. I've tried making ASCII games before to get around my graphical limitations, but ironically you have to be a pretty good visual thinker to do well in the medium.

I think a lot of BYOND's strengths are in appealing to the kind of "retro" gamers who can appreciate a good ASCII game.
Aug 21 2011, 1:55 pm
In response to LordAndrew
Yeah, that's a bit of an issue with BYOND. Doesn't support the entire ASCII character set. :/
Aug 21 2011, 4:47 pm
I think that ASCII is to gaming what C-Span is to cable television. Except that I enjoy watching C-Span, but I have never been able to play an ASCII game before. So maybe the analogy doesn't work. I'm not prejudiced against the lack of graphics; it's just that in my experience, I find it very difficult to know what's going on. Then again, that's usually true on C-Span.

Now, it must also be said that, for the minimalist no-graphics ethic, the use of color may raise some eyebrows.
Aug 21 2011, 7:38 pm
In response to LordAndrew
LordAndrew wrote:
Looking pretty good. Are you using text mode or creating ASCII-esque icons? The latter is probably the best path since BYOND's text mode doesn't support very many special characters that really spice up ASCII games.

Yea, I'm using ASCII-esque icons. Like the water you can see is actually animated.
Aug 21 2011, 7:40 pm
In response to Oasiscircle
Oasiscircle wrote:
Con- Won't attract as many people if you had graphics rather than ascii.
Pro- Those people who do get attracted are more likely to be intelligent.
Pro- You can focus totally on gameplay.
Pro- The game will look clean unless you just make junk sprites.
Pro- In my opinion, it shows the developers devotion to the phrase "Gameplay>Graphics".

Yea, I agree totally with those and am becoming more and more devoted to Gameplay > Graphics. That's the reason why I just put this together, was thinking about what makes a game great and thought variety and depth is really what's best.
Aug 21 2011, 7:42 pm
In response to Pepper2000
Pepper2000 wrote:
I think that ASCII is to gaming what C-Span is to cable television. Except that I enjoy watching C-Span, but I have never been able to play an ASCII game before. So maybe the analogy doesn't work. I'm not prejudiced against the lack of graphics; it's just that in my experience, I find it very difficult to know what's going on. Then again, that's usually true on C-Span.

Now, it must also be said that, for the minimalist no-graphics ethic, the use of color may raise some eyebrows.

Yea, fair enough. I gave up the first few times I played ASCII but after I played Doom The Rougelike I started to understand it more and more. It's definitely for people that are good at mental imaginary just like a book.
Aug 21 2011, 10:25 pm
In response to Kyle_ZX
You can actually animate text-mode icons.
obj
    text = "ABC"


Tada, animated. I've seen some pretty good-looking text-mode only games on BYOND. With the right background color and whatnot it can be pretty interesting.
Aug 21 2011, 10:32 pm
You named window "Rouge" intentionally?
Aug 21 2011, 11:25 pm
In response to Nadrew
Nadrew wrote:
You can actually animate text-mode icons.
> obj
>     text = "ABC"
>

Tada, animated. I've seen some pretty good-looking text-mode only games on BYOND. With the right background color and whatnot it can be pretty interesting.

Yes but then I wouldn't be able to add color, also how do animate text mode only sprites? Just out of interest.
Aug 21 2011, 11:27 pm
In response to Zaoshi
Zaoshi wrote:
You named window "Rouge" intentionally?

Seeing as Doom Rougelike sparked the initial interest, when I was quickly trying to brainstorm a name so I could get constructing I chose Rouge. That's not at all what I plan to call it.
Aug 21 2011, 11:29 pm
In response to Kyle_ZX
Rouge = red.

I think you're looking for Rogue.
Aug 21 2011, 11:30 pm
In response to Kyle_ZX
 
obj
    water
        text = "<font bgcolor=#0000FF> </font>"


Blue water.

mob
    text = "m"
    var
        movement_text = "M"
    Move()
        if(movement_text) text = movement_text
        ..()
        text = initial(text)


Simple example of making movement states for mobs and the sort. If you want it animated just add more characters to the string.
Aug 21 2011, 11:30 pm
In response to Robertbanks2
Yea, only really proves how intentional the name was. Well that and my boardline acceptable spelling haha.
Aug 21 2011, 11:31 pm
In response to Nadrew
Oh yes, this I understand, I thought you meant there was inbuilt support for it.
Aug 21 2011, 11:32 pm
In response to Kyle_ZX
It's easy enough to do that there was never any need for a built-in system for it.
Aug 21 2011, 11:34 pm
In response to Nadrew
I would say that writing code and organizing 10 or more images isn't as good as just using movie icons. That's just my opinion though.

Actually I forgot that you're not using images.
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