TextArena
A downloadable game for Windows
Introduction
You are a lone adventurer arriving on Free Isle after a ferocious storm. Your quest is simple, to journey beyond the mountains and find your fate. You may explore villages and towns, caves and forests, collecting items and treasure. But there are whispers of darkness returning to the land, an evil which must be confronted and ultimately defeated...
About the Game
TextArena is a text adventure RPG. Although it was written in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, it’s heart and soul is in early gamebooks, table-top roleplaying games, and the first forays into computer games such as text adventures.
Disclaimer: Those expecting polished triple-A graphics, or any graphics as they are commonly understood, need look elsewhere. This game is in monochrome, and the player interacts through text-based input by the console window. There are few text-based illustrations thrown in, but Text Arena operates in the 'theatre of the mind' primarily. This game influenced by Interactive Fiction (IF), a genre I have huge respect for, however is not really itself an IF endeavour.
Developer Updates
28 April 2024 - TextArena 1.0 released. Currently no bugs reported (if you find one, please let me know in the comments).
Community
Please use the comments section to ask questions and provide feedback.
:)
Download
Install instructions
Once the download is complete, double click the TextArena_setup file to install the game.
Follow the install wizard and enjoy the game!
Comments
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Hey, man! I'm currently doing my first playthrough and as a fellow game gamer would like to point out at some things that would make the game experience even better.
I've died at the first resting place door (I can't say the word here, for spoiler avoidance reasons) because while the game "waits" between messages, it takes inputs. So, instead of the word, it took a pure "enter" and it killed me.
By the way, the waiting time could do with a little bit of reduction or, even better, with a "press a key to continue ..." option. Maybe some more "cls"'s or "clear screen"'s would help declutter the screen a little bit?!
Otherwise, I really enjoy your take on combat (with the critical being a very nice surprise). I'll have to play a little bit more to get the whole gist and be able to comment on it.
By the way, if you're keen, I'd like to discuss your game (and maybe one of mine) in the future. I don't see a lot of really good text based games, so I take every opportunity to chat with the makers of the ones that I like.
Hey! Thanks for the feedback, and I agree, the input does require a bit of a delicate touch (I've a few solutions to this but nothing that worked). On the up-side, once you know your way around you can 'pre-load' direction commands (speed run??).
I will certainly look at incorporating the things you pointed out when I come to making a sequel (at some point).
Out of interest, which race/class did you pick for first playthrough?
Enjoy the game, I will check out yours!
Hey, man! I played a little more tonight, but I won't make any additional comments until I'll finish the game. I'm also making a map (without any spoilers) for it. By the way I have found the Secret D. Quest and I ran away, because of the D. , you know. Will it come back? :)))) I went with an Orc Warrior.
Sounds great and I would love to see your map! Well done on the secret (you made the right decision).
Hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think once you've finished it (it would be good to know roughly how long it takes too?). I appreciate the feedback.
So ... I've managed to reach the final destination. Out of curiosity ... what happens if you hide? :) As promised, here is the map: https://ibb.co/ZWqSqFG . I've taken some notes regarding things that I liked and things that I would have done differently. Please note that they are not regarding the story - that, by the way, seems very familiar (in a 90's Final Fantasy Super Nintendo kind of way) to me.
So, this is my list:
- I really liked the "comparative damage" fighting system. As far as I understand it, there's a base damage (STR) that gets an additional bonus from (LUCK)?! The SKILL governs, well, the skills/abilities, I guess.
- We've already spoken about the waiting times and the unwanted key presses. If I'm not mistaking, you have programed the game in java. I'm not familiar with the language, but I can show you how this is avoided in python, if you wish, and maybe there's a similar way to sort things out in java.
- I've noticed that at some point I got to fight a ... :unknown: with 1 HP. Is that supposed to happen? I found it extremely funny, thinking about fighting "THE UNKNOWN"
- The potions have no "label", so I drank them without knowing what they did. I kind of figured it out, but it took me a while.
- The buy/sell options and the skill use ones are case sensitive and need to be imputed by hand. You have already figured out how to assign keys to the movement/directional/interaction menu, so I kind of wonder why you didn't use the same system here
- The text is not wrapped, so obviously there are spots where words are broken in the middle at the end of a line.
- Do the monsters "evolve" as you level up?
Overall, I think that the game is a really nice take on the old ZX Spectrum (and before) text adventures with the obvious addition of a combat system and a 90's flavoured story.
There are a few more things that I could add, but I won't do it here, because there are spoilers involved. I've started a subreddit named r/asciiadventures that you can join and we can continue this discussion there. Just start a thread about your game.
Cheers!
That's great you got through it (hopefully not too many deaths?). Thanks for the great feedback, it sounds like you enjoyed it overall. In response to your list:
Damage system: Yes this is mostly from STR and a bit of LUCK. SKILL does have some attack properties when used with other abilities (eg with the Rogue).
Waiting times: I am going to look into this a bit more. I think my keywords are not quite right when looking on stack overflow etc! I would appreciate seeing how you did this in Python.
Unknown: Yes this is a bit of an easter egg/gimmick - I'm glad you found it funny!
Potions: I know what you mean, but sometimes it's more fun to try something out? Similar to how you find properties of ingredients in Morrowind etc. A manual for the game will be coming soon too.
Buy/Sell: Good point, I will update this in future versions.
Mobs: The monsters do scale with the player (apart from bosses), and there are stronger ones in new locations as the game progresses.
Text-wrapping: Good point, I will look at this for future versions.
I'd be keen to discuss further on reddit - I've joined the sub-reddit now! I will make a post introducing the game and then we can chat more.
Thanks again for your detailed and constructive feedback. Your map is great too!