Back in the olden days I created an “adventure game shell” that allowed you to write text adventures and then “pour them” into the shell to play. They were actually text adventure hybrids — while you could include pictures and audio, you didn’t have to. And the interface was point-and-click so no typing was required.
That software ran on the Apple IIgs and over the years I’ve poked at creating an upgraded version on a modern platform, but never took the time to actually do it.
But driving down the road the other day I started thinking that it might be a very cool product for the iOS platform. Kind of a cross between a book and a game (bame? gook?) that could appeal to people who want to jump into something for maybe just a few minutes at a time. Quick to get into and out of.
So while I know that chronicling my efforts here could backfire in my face when someone creates one in a weekend and gets it into the App Store, I’m going to rely on people being honorable…
…and also, nobody but me thinks a “text adventure” would be cool. =;)
Here are some random thoughts on this project, the Adventure Game Machine…
– The iPhone and iPod touch will be hardest to do because of the small screen size, so I’m going to do that version first and then tweak the result for the iPad afterward.
– AGM will be a free app and include a complete game when it’s downloaded. iAds will be used to monetize the app.
– In-app purchases will be used to buy different stories that can be automatically downloaded into the AGM shell. Only the free story/adventures will have iAds, ones that are purchased will be ad-free.
– An authoring tool will be created at some point — probably online in PHP, but maybe an “author mode” could be added to the AGM player itself. That way you could write your own adventure while waiting in line, etc.
Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ll be back soon with some details about the innards of the Adventure Game Machine.