Hello, this is my first new thread so I hope it's OK! I have started learning Visual C# for a project I will be working on this summer, but to help me learn, I decided to create a MS-DOS, text driven, game. I would keep it simple and try out new programming techniques to keep me thinking about C#. However, I couldn't help but get drawn in to the design aspect of the game. Originally, I wanted to create a traditional (read: clichéd) fantasy RPG with a mystery running through the middle. However, upon further thought, I realised that the player would have trouble transporting themselves in to this world with only my relatively basic writing skills. Furthermore, creating a mystery in a fantasy world without voice acting would require huge chunks of text that most users, myself included, would just skip. Particularly as they would be in the difficult to read mono-space fonts used by MS-DOS. So instead, I decided to create an adventure game set in the world of hacking. Now, because I am not a hacker, this game would be less realistic and more Hollywood like. None the less, the setting would instantly be correct as it would all take place in MS-DOS. I still want to include a mystery though (and this is where I want your suggestions) The way I envisage the game is working is through a series of keywords that the player would learn through the adventure. At the start the player would only know "dir", "help" and "connect", but I digress. The user would receive jobs and have to hack in to servers, each time learning new words to deal with harder servers. On many of the servers, there would be a strangely named .txt file. Inside said file, would be a short. but cryptic, clue to the mystery. The player would slowly uncover something deep and mysterious, probably a conspiracy. What I was wondering was, A) how does this sound as an idea overall. B)How can I make sure the player reads the clues. I don't want to make it too obvious, as I want the player to feel like they are discovering something (obviously this won't work if they use the internet :P) and C) has anyone tried including cryptic clues in a game and if so, are can you judge the crypticity (that's a word!) of them? I don't want them too hard to work out, but the player needs a sense of satisfaction upon piecing them all together (like a good puzzle in Legend of Zelda or a Sherlock Holmes novel when you work it out before the end of the book)

have you ever played Uplink?
http://www.introversion.co.uk/uplink/

you could borrow some ideas frome there

I was going to reference that game but I could not remember the name! Yes, I have played it and that is what partly inspired me to make this game.

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Original post by thk123 I decided to create a MS-DOS, text driven, game. I would keep it simple and try out new programming techniques to keep me thinking about C#.

Sorry to be nit-picky, but DOS is an operating system that Windows has replaced. Command line applications do not run in DOS, they run in Windows, even though it looks kinda like DOS and has many of the same commands as DOS. The correct term would be "command line" or "console" or "text based". If it truly was an MS-DOS application, you'd need DosBox or some other emulator to run it on modern Windows! Not to mention that .NET programs won't run on DOS at all.

Anyway, good luck with your project.

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Original post by Ezbez Sorry to be nit-picky, but DOS is an operating system that Windows has replaced. Command line applications do not run in DOS, they run in Windows, even though it looks kinda like DOS and has many of the same commands as DOS. The correct term would be "command line" or "console" or "text based". If it truly was an MS-DOS application, you'd need DosBox or some other emulator to run it on modern Windows! Not to mention that .NET programs won't run on DOS at all. Anyway, good luck with your project.

Sorry, my mistake *blushes* I do normally call it a console, but I was scared it would get confused with gaming consoles. However, I should have made is clearer.

This is my first post here, hi all.

I almost wrote the same game many years back. I wanted something simple to get used to windows programming, so I designed it to look almost like a windows MUD client. You browsed an imaginary computer in a pane on the left hand side of the screen using a command prompt style interface. On the right hand side was a strip about 16 characters wide which showed garbled text. In the game (which was incredibly far-fetched when compared to real life) this was sort of streaming a bare version of the data that was supposed to be being transmitted between the two computers and sometimes clues were disguised within it.

The one feature I kind of liked which added to the hacking feel was that whenever you wanted to view a text file on the server it didn't show it onscreen, it "downloaded" it as a text file onto your computer for you to open in notepad. In other words, the files were hard-coded and were just outputted into plain text files. It was a nice little effect that kind of added to the atmosphere. The window was easy to arrange how you liked, so having it side by side with an explorer window wasn't too much hassle.

When I sent it to a mate (only about a fifth completed at the time) he felt the need to check that he wasn't actually online whilst playing it.

If you feel that you'll learn from writing such a game then I recommend it as I had great fun writing in the style of different characters, often in the form of emails. I was also influenced by Introversion's Uplink, but also by Doom 3's email messages you download to your PDA. Some messages were storyline related, as in "I think something strange is going on" sort of topics, but others were your usual office banter like "The drinks machine on floor 3 is giving out hot chocolate when you punch in the order for a coffee", etc.

Cool, thanks for the advice. The idea of random, irrelevant stuff was something I was planning to implement anyway. For example, on the first server you have to hack in to, it is a blog, so I was going to make some random, normal, posts. However, I was a little unclear about how to make it clear to the player which are actually relevant without going "MAIN STORY MESSAGE HERE:" for all the main ones. (Like I said in a previous post, I want the user to feel like they are uncovering the mystery)

First of all, I love the idea. It sounds really great, and I'd love to get my hands on it once it's done, as long as it's done reasonably well. ^_^

As to ensuring that players encounter your clues is perhaps to place them in files that the player is required to open for one reason or another.

Another thing that came to mind was providing several endings, depending on how far into the mystery players penetrate. That way you can provide a relatively low-challenge path, with fairly clear clues, for players less adept at such things, and better endings for those that spot the more fiendishly-hidden elements of your mystery.

I would say that more layers (and thus more endings) is probably a good thing. ;)

Connecting this to my first suggestion, you could place the more obscure paths in more obscure places, with the most arcane of them involving the use of obscure bits of knowledge from elsewhere in your game.

Some of the levels, from easiest to hardest (if my estimation is correct), might be something like these:

• Passwords or other directly-useful data in files that the player is told to fetch (if, perhaps, for other purposes). The data in question is not that requested by the job-giver, but is clearly a password.



• As above, but the data is that which the job-giver requested. Use on the player's part, however, opens up a little more of the mystery...



• Files in the same directory as job-related data, marked out in some way - the only text file, perhaps, or one of a small set, or a suspicious name for the location. ("Why is there a file called 'monster.txt' in a folder containing data on flowers?", for a slightly silly example.)



• Files that are "job-related", but which only provide clues when considered together.



• Files in nearby directories, that are reasonably well-marked-out, but which, not being in the directories directly related to the player's "job", call for a little exploration. Gradations of difficulty involve distance and depth in file structure from "job" directories to those that hide the secret, and obviousness of the directory and the secret-containing files within.



• Similarly to the above points, but with contained data being hidden behind codes (including positional codes, such as acrostics), or merely providing clues to acquiring another to the mystery.



• Again, but making use of clues scattered across multiple files, even multiple systems.

You could use external references - "White rabbit object" (Jurassic Park, if I recall correctly), or "You must see it for yourself" (The Matrix), but this is risky, and may push players away. It's safer, I think, to place all clues, even those to the deepest parts of the solution, within the game, and not reference the outside world overmuch.

A perhaps important note is that it should be fairly easy to go back to a system that has been visited before; I would suggest treating each incursion as the first time for that system, or perhaps incurring only a small, perhaps accumulating penalty.

I would also suggest having the player keep files that result from raids, for future reference. You might want to periodically clear out files from which all clues have been taken.

Finally, I would suggest against making any given ending a "bad" ending, unless it is caused by the player doing something clearly silly (such as getting arrested ;)).

Very good luck with this! ^_^

Woah! That's a lot. Many thanks, I will certainly send you an email when it has been completed. I found your gradation of difficulty thing really useful and the idea of multiple endings is very suitable for a mystery. Now I just have to work out how to make this all work.
Thanks again,

It's my pleasure, thk123 - I'm glad to have helped. ^_^

I look forward to that email! ^_^