Where to Start on a Text Adventure Game?

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1

Hello!

I got a little old thrift store laptop so I can work on games, during my free time.
I want to make a “choose your adventure” type of game. It seems like there would be less for me to do graphics-wise since it is a first project.

I think I would use tables for this and just store text strings which would print to the screen based on the player's input?

I’m new so I don’t know anything about how to get started. Many of the tutorials I’ve seen are focused on platformers and graphics stuff.

Where should I start? Do you know of any resources that teach this kind of stuff?

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What's your development background? if you already have Lua/C experience, then check out the examples in the sdk folder and read some of the documentation and you should be able to get up and running in an hour or so.

If you've not done much/any programming, it might be worth checking out Pulp, the web tool/engine for making simple playdate games. Many fantastic text/visual novels are made with it.

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Yeah I’m starting from zero!

I will look into pulp a bit more. I did see a video of someone using tables and such in pulp. He turned the player into a cursor as well!

Thanks!

4

Do you have any recommendations of such games made in Pulp that I should look into?

5

Personally, if you have no experience, chose Lua. It's interesting to learn and I think will get you up better than learning Pulp (though I admit I haven't given Pulp a chance).

Look at SquidGod's tutorials, they are a great kicking off point.

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6

It may be easier to start with Tinta or Narrator. These are Playdate implementations of Ink, a scripting language to make text adventure games.

You can also take a look at PlayVN, it's a game engine for Visual Novels made by the author of Trickle Greenweed Mermaid at Law in Christmas Catastrophe.

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7

I was summoned, so I appear.

Yes, PlayVN should be able to do this easy peasy.

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8

Ooh excellent! Thank you all for your prompt replies and friendly solutions. I will jump on immediately.

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9

I have set up the project and compiled a pdx for the demo. But the simulator crashes!

Update error: libraries/noble/modules/Noble.Transition.lua:145: attempt to compare string with number
stack traceback:
	libraries/noble/modules/Noble.Transition.lua:145: in method 'execute'
	libraries/noble/Noble.lua:374: in function <libraries/noble/Noble.lua:321>
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Hmm, I will take a look. Sorry, only just saw this reply. Noble has probably updated a bunch since I last updated PlayVN.