PBBG with explorable world

[Jackolantern]

So I am really tossing around the idea of starting a PBBG project. Partly to make a game, but also to learn a few new pieces of technology. But one of my main goals is that I definitely want an explorable world in it. And for PBBGs, that seems pretty rare. So many of them follow the old Torn City style, where instead of having an explorable world you have a menu. From the menu, you can choose to do a mission, fight an enemy, go to a shop, etc. I definitely do not want my game set up this way.

On the one hand, I considered creating a browser-based MUD with some added GUI enhancements. However, MUDs seem to be doing so bad across the board these days that I am kind of hesitant to go that direction. It would also not provide a lot of opportunity to use one of the pieces of technology I am wanting to use since it is highly GUI component-based.

The other option would be to make a PBBG, but design it to have an explorable world. That is the direction I am leaning, but this has some challenges. The main challenge is designing the game in such a way that navigating the world is self-explanatory to players. Of course it could be a 2D map with a visible character moving around on it, but that isn't really the way I want to go. I want to stay mostly text-based so that the world doesn't have to be constrained by what graphic tiles I can get for the maps.

Is anyone familiar with any mostly text-based PBBGs that included explorable worlds? I would be really interested in looking at some examples. Also, if you don't have any examples but have some ideas, I would love to hear them as well. Thank you!

[hallsofvallhalla]

You can look at most of my PBBGs as find a explorable map but they are graphics based. I know exactly what you mean though. I love the way Urban Dead did their map and have often worked on a way to make it more for Fantasy games for exploring woods and such. I hate reading walls of text so the completely non graphical maps just do not have much of an appeal to me.

You have this style
http://indie-resource.com/forums/viewto ... =35&t=9253


and then like my new engine
http://indie-resource.com/forums/viewto ... 166&t=9393


or even


Urban Dead

[Jackolantern]

Thanks Halls! I am really giving some thought to the "image per location" style, and perhaps even composing those images based on what is in that cell. I do definitely think the 2D maps like in your new engine or Forsaken Sanctum are the clearest and easiest for players to understand. But I am wanting to be able to describe scenes in text that there is no way I could easily represent on the map. And then if you do both, I don't want there to be a huge disconnect between what people are seeing (the map) and what they are reading (the text descriptions).

Or I don't know. Maybe a combination would work. Thanks again! I will keep working on it but I definitely want to get something started soon. I often fall victim to "design paralysis".

[hallsofvallhalla]

Something I played around with some time ago was using a static flat image of grass and a background then you add other images on top of it like trees and rocks, a house, whatever is in the scene based on location.

[Jackolantern]

I have thought about something like that. And then having those things in the scene be interactive, like you can click on a hatchet and then click on tree trunks to cut down trees, etc. Definitely something to think about!

[KaL]

I want to make the map like the game “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?”

Where player will have to take time to travel to that location.

Each place will have different town,dungeon, and resources.

I think this will give a sense of a world kind of feel.

[hallsofvallhalla]

OMG I have created too many things in my days, i had somewhat of something like that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU-iTeIvwNM

fast forward to about 3:15

[Jackolantern]

Halls has a demo for every possibly permutation of things achievable through PHP

[hallsofvallhalla]

Haha i don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

[Jackolantern]

Looks like only a good thing through my eyes