I'm looking for a Adventure Game engine, like AGS or WME or visionaire or w/e that is sorta spesilised in adventure games, but has some kind of framework in place for text input instead of point and click. Like the old Kings Quest 1 or Space Quest 1 or w/e.

I am a hobbyist but have some experience making games as part of that hobby. I have already done a small console based text adventure with my own text phraser and want to add GFX. Preferably a movable charioteer (like in said kings quest) but will settle for Simon the Sorcerer type thing.

Anyway, there is quite a few options but none seam to have any text input support only point and click.

I have been recommended UNITY but it looks so huge and complex. I think I would spend ages just learning unity before getting into what I in fact want to do. Though if this is the best option, I suppose it is the way to go. I know there is a adventure game plugin for it.

Anyway, thanks for you time and I am keen to hear any thoughts you might have.
--Jynks

I meant to edit my last post.. but seam to have made a new post.. I am sorry.. this is the same question as this thread
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/662596-any-good-engines-for-adventure-games-that/

Maybe you need to clarify a bit what you want to do, as not all members here have played all the games you reference.

You want a graphical adventure that accepts textual input? Or you want to create a text adventure without graphics?

You want to keep it 2D, or do you need 3D?

If you want to go the text only route, or just a simple 2D one, Unity is clearly overkill. Yes, you can do it with unity, and you have a lot of options... but for something simple, a smaller 2D engine or writing the game from scratch will be a better idea.

I am not the right person to really give advices on 2D Games, but maybe have a look at game maker? Its a 2D Engine, and one of the more popular 2D Engines, seems to be specialized for RPGs.

I don't believe GameMaker has built-in support for a UI control library, but there are people who have built that for you. I used GameMaker studio for a bit, but I didn't care for it. The tool felt like it was fighting me at every step when I was trying to keep my code clean and organized.

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=587184

RPGMaker might work. It may or may not have built in support for text editing. But I don't think it would be good fit for a point and click adventure game.

http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/4238-simple-text-input/

Unity3d probably is overkill, but the tutorials are pretty darn awesome. It does have built in control libraries.

http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/2d/2d-overview

Something like MonoGame (or XNA) let's you draw things to the screen pretty readily. This is less of an engine and more of a wrapper library that lets you do game-like things such as drawing sprites, playing sounds, accepting controller input. Again, no built in controls, but there are free libraries out there for this.

- Eck

Maybe you need to clarify a bit what you want to do, as not all members here have played all the games you reference. (snip) You want a graphical adventure that accepts textual input?

Yes that is exactly what I want!

Back in the old days graphical adventures (that came before point and click) looked and played much like the point and click ones that are common to this day, but the point and click was regulated to right clikc for look and left click to move to. All the rest of the game play was done though text input just like the old text adventure games. "get cheese", "open cage", "put cheese in cage".

I am not the right person to really give advices on 2D Games, but maybe have a look at game maker? Its a 2D Engine, and one of the more popular 2D Engines, seems to be specialized for RPGs.

Well I think I would prefer to make a 2.5D game. As I have a background in 3D. There are a number of engines designed specificity for Adventure Game that can handle true 3D, 2.5D and 2D.. I am just looking for one that has some kind of function allowing the capture of keyboard commands though some kind og "get key" function.

Unity3d probably is overkill, but the tutorials are pretty darn awesome. It does have built in control libraries.
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/2d/2d-overview

I kinda think this as well, though there is a plugin called "adventure creator" that seams to help a lot in this case.

Well I think I would prefer to make a 2.5D game. As I have a background in 3D. There are a number of engines designed specificity for Adventure Game that can handle true 3D, 2.5D and 2D.. I am just looking for one that has some kind of function allowing the capture of keyboard commands though some kind og "get key" function.

Well, you can create 2.5 isometric games just fine with most 2D Engines AFAIK.

BUT: be aware that when you get into High-end 2.5D Graphics (like the AAA adventures and RPGs from yesteryear), going fully 3D MIGHT be easier and cheaper in the end. Point is, creating and animating 3D Characters can be a lot of work. But most of the work is done as soon as the character is modelled and rigged (prepared for animation).

For 2D Graphics, if you do not want to constrain yourself to 2D bone based animations (Which seem to be almost unusable for 2.5D), you will have to create every frame as its own sprite in the sheet. So for 2.5D games, you can multiply that at least by 3 (at least 4 directions needed, left and right might be mirrored). Even if you work smart, that is still a lot of frames to be drawn.

If you want to be able to turn the environment, same can be said about having to draw every environment prop from multiple directions, or just modelling them in 3D.

Have a look at the visual arts forum, there is a long running thread that evolved into a discussion of exactly this topic: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/661788-2d-vs-3d-cost-analysis/

Of course this all happens to be extremly difficult to guesstimate without knowing exactly what graphical style and fidelity you are trying to achieve. I also are not sure what your background and skill is with 2D vs 3D.

If you create a simple game, with a fixed view for the environment, a simple character with a very narrow range of animations, like in the 90's classics, 2.5D is most probably a good choice.

On the other hand, you mention a Background in 3D. If you are a good and efficient modeller, but are not so good at 2D Graphics work, you might think again about going 2D. Sticking to what you are good at is the best way to get good results quickly.

I'm just trying to find out if any adventure game engines have a existing technology for accepting text input a this stage

I'm just trying to find out if any adventure game engines have a existing technology for accepting text input a this stage

You might want to have a look into the asset stores of the engines also in this case. I don't think you will find many as of today that support such a feature out of the box, as I suspect it is a highly uncommon feature even in Indie games nowadays. Unity certainly has no such thing "out-of-the-box".

The "weird and wonderful" category of niche plugins and extensions gets a treatment by 3rd party asset store devs sometimes though, so have a look there. I do not know of any such extension for Unity, but if you don't want to code it yourself in Unity, the asset store would be the best place to look for it. Be aware that some assets are free, so have a look there even if you do not want to spend money on it.

If I would want to create such a game, I would code this specific functionality myself. Depending on how clever the system should be, this would be easy enough to do. You basically are looking for a system that analyzes a sententence, not unlike what regular expressions, or, in a more complex form, compilers do.

You could get a simple version running (that would scan for "keywords") in minutes, and while a really complex version that has a large vocabulary and can make sense of the whole sentence instead of just looking for words could take WAY more time, you could look into tutorials about building compilers for inspirations.

This was a major course at the university I went to, and I think its also taugth at other universities, so there must be books and tutorials about it.

But really, I would start with the "stupid" regex word matcher. Any hilarious misunderstanding coming out of this might actually add to the fun in the game, if done right ;)

EDIT: oh, I think I oversimplified the problem a bit. Your concern might not be to process the text, but to accept it.

This could also be written by yourself. You just need a system that accepts Keystrokes and will then show them in a GUI Field somewhere. With a good GUI Framework, not so much of a problem. At least in Unity this shouldn't be a problem. I cannot imagine it being a problem in other engines either.