Text Quests

from Elemental Forums

I am talking about the "choose your own adventure" types of quests introduced in the 80`s as books and finding their way in computer gaming ever since - "King of Dragon Pass", "Space Rangers", most recently "King Arthur".

If you did not encounter such quests till now they are basically a decision tree type of quest solved by choosing a response from multiple choices presented to the player in text form. Abilities and randomizers are often important for success/failure.

I think "Elemental" could benefit from such an addition because it allows to present a lot of information, story and flavor of the world in a fun and motivating way, telling stories which would be difficult to implement in "regular" quests.

Last but not least it would give modders a powerful tool not only for adding their own quests for enjoyment of all but to introduce a new faction/creature/ability in a "in-game" way without the need for the players to read documentation and breaking the flow of the game/suspension of disbelief. The choice mechanism in and of itself could be a powerful tool usable not only for quests: for example if it could be activated by speaking to an intelligent item the properties of the item could be chosen "on the fly".

 

What do you think about it?

5,042 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I remember reading all those Fighting Fantasy adventure books. Those were a hell of a lot of fun.

I'm not sure how much we need them in Elemental... I think we can do better. We already have a robust adventure system in the works and we should take advantage of it. Also, if people wanted to play a text adventure, they'd... well, play a text adventure!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Some of you may or may not remember War of the Lance, a strategy game by SSI set in the Dragonlance universe.  This was a spectacular little strategy game. 

In it, you had heroes, and you would send them off to quest.  They would not be available to your armies while they were questing.  A similar system would be fun, imho, where you can choose quests for them to go on, and they would depart and would not be available until they succeeded or failed.

A nice little feature they had was your enemies (AI or hot seat opponent) could send their heroes on their own quests, or send them out to thwart your efforts.  This added a nice flavor to the game and it felt appropriate that there was no direct control over them and their quests.  You just sent them off on their merry way and hoped for the best.  Of course, you could group the heroes together and spend resources to aid them when you initially sent them out, but that was it.

It gave you the feeling that you were sending them out on these dangerous missions for the cause of the kingdom and you might never see them again.  It was excellent tension.  If they returned successful, not only did you reap the rewards, but you had a morale boost.  If they failed, your morale was hurt.

I could see this type of system incorporated in your text based quest suggestion.

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