RPG Text Adventures (Interactive Fiction with Stats)

[JarlFrank]

I'm greatly enjoying Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom right now, and I wonder if there are any other worthwile text adventures out there with RPG elements in them. I like the text adventure genre, and it has great potential for adding some RPG gameplay.

Anything good out there?

 

[Darth Roxor]

My favourite is Statbuilder.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm greatly enjoying Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom right now, and I wonder if there are any other worthwile text adventures out there with RPG elements in them. I like the text adventure genre, and it has great potential for adding some RPG gameplay.

Anything good out there?

The most famous one: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-31-beyond-zork-coconut-of-quendor.html

Check the comments for more suggestions.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Well, there's Eamon for the Apple II with hundreds of adventure disks available, and 3 Skulls RPG which is the only party based text RPG I know (a pretty unremarkable game otherwise).

There's also Alter Ego and The Hound of Shadow if you don't think RPGs require combat.

 

[TigerKnee]

Kerkerkruip, an "interactive fiction roguelike"
http://kerkerkruip.org/

Most IFs that try to combine the RPG genre are pretty shit though, where the combat boils down to spamming the word "Attack" or whatever.

 

[JarlFrank]

Would've thought there'd be more, considering how powerful modern text adventure programming languages/tools are (especially Inform 7).

 

[majestik12]

http://www.fleshcult.com/

 

[tuluse]

Would've thought there'd be more, considering how powerful modern text adventure programming languages/tools are (especially Inform 7).

There are all the Choice Of games, there is a thread about them somewhere.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm more looking for text adventures with a text parser rather than CYOA, though.

 

[MisterStone]

You could play a MUD, no one is on them anymore, basically you'd be playing a single player game.

 

[Stephane F.]

Inform 7 is a wonderful tool for creating a RPG, if not the best (ok, excepted the fact that you have no graphics). JarlFrank, just give me 10 more years and I'll have finished my own text-RPG. Thousands of items and NPC's, factions, stats and skills, long-term reputation and, in general, the game keeping memory of the PC's actions and opinions ... and all that is so easy to code. Easy but long ...

 

[Niektory]

Otchłań

 

[thesheeep]

There are some kickstarter projects that are basically gamebooks.

Holdfast is the name of one of these, though I have no idea where you can actually buy it.
I backed it but did not yet find the time or desire to get into it. I had a glimpse at the combat rules and they were somehow weird.

Speaking of buying, probably some among these are interesting:
http://gamebookadventures.com/
No idea if those have stats, though.

 

[MisterStone]

I remember a series of text rpgs like the OP describes, where you could load characters in to play different modules. This was hella old, probably from the early 80s. Was that Eamon, or sth else?

 

[JarlFrank]

Inform 7 is a wonderful tool for creating a RPG, if not the best (ok, excepted the fact that you have no graphics). JarlFrank, just give me 10 more years and I'll have finished my own text-RPG. Thousands of items and NPC's, factions, stats and skills, long-term reputation and, in general, the game keeping memory of the PC's actions and opinions ... and all that is so easy to code. Easy but long ...

This is why I am surprised that not more RPGs have been made with it, mostly just straight adventure games. Even though there are semi-official extensions for combat system and health points so you don't even have to code all the mechanics yourself. I played around with Inform 7 for a while and thought, hey, you could make RPGs with this quite effectively, I bet there are a lot of those around!

Haha nope. I once found one or two that were rather simple in their RPG elements (basically adventure game with some combat and XP - the Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom one I mentioned in my OP is pretty good and fun and a good example for this), but that was all. There don't seem to be many IF writers who like using RPG elements in their adventure games, it seems...

 

[Stephane F.]

I'm french, so I can't tell about the english-speaking scene, excepted for Kerkerkruip. But in France we are a few people trying to program real RPGs - not "textual adventures" with a few RPG elements - in Inform7. I hope I'll be able to translate my own project when it is finished.

If anyone here is willing to launch a project but doesn't know how to code, I'm also ready to share my very little knowledge.

 

[:Flash:]

Drachen von Laas, obviously.

 

[dannyfx1]

Anything good out there?

http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home
Donwloadable game books + play tools

( copyright free for public use )

Try out the Seventh Sense book player!

 

[Gord]

I remember playing some pretty old ones on my old C64 many years ago. No idea what they were called, however.
In principle it was a series of small german rpg/adventure modules and I somehow liked the atmosphere of them.
Not sure if they had a parser, however, or if they have been menu-based.
Also given my age at the time, it's possible that they are rather simplistic.

 

[baturinsky]

You could play a MUD, no one is on them anymore, basically you'd be playing a single player game.

Yes, if you want IF/RPG, play MUDs. And there still ARE actively played MUDs.

 

[Horus]

Corruption of Champions: Cute little rpg adventure game about fantasy setting where you become the champion of your village to protect the village against demons. Game has lots of C&C and great tactical combat where you use various means to pass the encounters.

http://www.fenoxo.com/playCoC/CoC_0.8.9.swf

Try it, it's free.

 

[Barghest]

Anything good out there?

http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home
Donwloadable game books + play tools

( copyright free for public use )

Try out the Seventh Sense book player!

Haven't checked it out for a while, but that's looking good.

Seems there are quite a few fighting fantasy style games out on the web, but haven't tried them out.

 

[crufty]

i have been writing one for 8 years now

it is harder then it looks since most IF stuff is not setup for stat based gameplay

flipside, stuff written 8 years ago still works today. so there is that.

 

[HeroMarine]

I like the text adventure genre, and it has great potential for adding some RPG gameplay.

This is a good idea. I'll think about it for future CYOAs.

 

[JarlFrank]

Inform 7 is a wonderful tool for creating a RPG, if not the best (ok, excepted the fact that you have no graphics). JarlFrank, just give me 10 more years and I'll have finished my own text-RPG. Thousands of items and NPC's, factions, stats and skills, long-term reputation and, in general, the game keeping memory of the PC's actions and opinions ... and all that is so easy to code. Easy but long ...

It's been 9 years, so it should be pretty close to release by now, right?

Right?