Text-Based Game Elements

Well... pretty open question, but I'll post my thought none-the-less.

Lots of kinds of soldiers. Helps with research (more research, better soldiers).

A rock-paper-scissors thing for kinds of soldiers. Say... Infanty beat air units, tanks beat infantry, and air units beat tanks. So players have to build an even army, or use a scout-like unit to determine what kind of unit would be most effective on the enemy's army.

Mining/resource building can be used for drafting armies/research. And better research can allow for better mining structures/better/faster income.

That's all I can think of, right now.

Good luck!

Quote:

pretty open question

Text-based games don't hold long-term attention - the type of game were playing does. I'd say options in general hold long-term attention. One of my favorite rougelike text based games, ADOM, must have hundreds of features, and every time you create a new character, you'll have a different style of adventure.

Another thoery of mine is that text-based games involve more imagination, so the game's only limit is only the imagination of the player (which ironically contradicts my first statement).

Just some thoughts.

I've been working on a text based game over the last few years. I've gone through 7 beta attempts, and I'm currently working on the 8th. Here are a few lessons I've learned. Take them for what they're worth:

Complexity:
Yes, you want a high lse their luster quickly because players can 'figure them out' and 'become pros' verevel of complexity in your game. Games like Tic-Tac-Toe and checkers (ie, very simple board games) loy fast. Once you've learned the basic strategy of Tic-Tac-Toe, you almost always end in a stalemate. Thus, the game gets boring and people stop playing. The problem with trying to make a game complex enough to hold a users attention (for the long term) comes with how you present data. If you give the user 10,000 choices right from the beginning, the game becomes to intimidating and users will never play. Finding that balance becomes a matter of style.

KISS:
ie, keep it simple stupid. In earlier versions of a game I made, I completly deprived the user of information in anticipation that players were smart and would figure things out. This turned out to be a bad assumption. When designing a game, the goals of the game as well as the different paths of how to obtain that goal need to be very well defined. Give the user all the information they need, and let the challenge come from sorting thorugh information, not trying to first derive the information. This is, perhaps, the greatest lesson I've learned.

Constant Change:
Pattern is good for the initial stages of a game. However, changes in pattern is what really drives players to keep playing. Any redundancy in a game is just a pitfall for boredom. For example: If you start players off with 3 units to choose from, and never add any more, players will get either frustrated or bored with the lack of options. Hoewver, if you slowly increase the number of chooseable units to 30 over time... with each unit adding its own distinctiveness to a game, that causes other players to have to adapt to game play and makes it fun for those players who 'get' new units to recruit. This constant adaptation process piques the intereast of the players and ultimately makes things exciting.

Anyways, thats my 2 cents.

Hmmm another crawfordite?
No shame in that, quite the opposite.
If not, and you are interested in looking at what people are doing without graphics check out storytron, the sleeping giant.

Text-based should be about interactivity you can't get in modelled 3d worlds these days. Virtually anything should be possible to type and get a response.

I know that's daunting, but that's where the perk to text-based is. You don't have to draw any graphics, you just have to think up the words.

For example, play gemstone IV (text-based MUD), then World of Warcraft. Gemstone, though text-based and having no graphics, feels A LOT more interactive than warcraft, because, well, you get to use your imagination, but also, there's so many more commands and things you can DO than just click on monsters and watch your 3d model swing.

I'd be interested in seeing actual characters in the game, not just nondescript military units. For instance, in the PS1 game Brigandine, you played one of several leaders trying to conquer the continent, but each leader had a name, a portrait, and some little story sequences involving meeting with the other leaders and some named henchmen. For instance, Leader A invades B's territory and there's a story sequence with A telling B, I don't really want to fight you but I've got to unify the continent to beat C. Each leader also had a distinctive, memorable personality and weapon. (Eg. crazy foppish scythe guy with the title of "Tyrant" and an electric guitar theme.) Having that character element to the game added a lot to the experience.

Let me say this: if it takes me three MONTHS to be declared the winner of the game, I'm not interested. If you're worried about people getting bored, give them non-combat things to do in-between wars. Evolution or production stuffs. And then make sure you give them community types of things (mail, chat, boards, etc.) which encourages long-term faithfulness.