Re: [kidsgames] Generic adventure game engine

[Terry Hancock <hancock@earthlink.net>]

jm wrote:
> At 10:00 14/07/00 -0700, Terry wrote:
> >Obviously that depends.  Sierra games and the Humongous Entertainment
> >games my kids play seem to combine "graphic adventure" segments with
> >"arcade sequences."  Interestingly, the HE games seem to use the
> >same arcade games over and over, just with different artwork.
> Could you give me one HE title so I can take a look at it (well, hoping
> there is a demo somewhere) ?

Humongous Entertainment games are not free in any sense of the word,
althought they are cheap, and they keep the old ones on the market,
gradually turning them into collections.  They run only on
Win 3.1 or Win 95 (It appears that the newer ones only run on
Win 95, though they were relatively late adopters).

You can always check their website: http://www.humongous.com, 
which does have free downloadable demos (I just checked).

If you don't mind blowing $10 you can get the Humongous 
Entertainment Collection CD (which has "Putt-Putt Goes to the Parade",
"Putt-putt goes to the Moon", and "Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise" on
one CD).  I found a bunch of these at our local OfficeMax.


Just a philosophical opinion:
I think games of this nature are very much like books or television
shows, and that they fall very naturally into the closed-source
economics model.  Of all the classes of software, this is the
one I really don't mind being closed source and proprietary.

In fact, I would argue that if a generic graphic adventure game
engine (especially one compatible with industry standard APIs)
were to be developed, it would be good to release it under the
LGPL or other license that allows the games written with it
to be proprietary.  This might encourage adventure games to be
written for Linux, since there would be an economic payback.

(And having a free (LGPL) engine might encourage development
in the face of overwhelming Windows dominance in this area).

I notice that Linux free software games tend to have a very
different sort of nature -- they seem to have weak story or
character, with a more complete and open game play. They are
designed to be _games_ proper, rather than puzzle/stories like
the commercial adventure games.

While I can admire this type of game for its own qualities,
I always really liked the story-type adventure games, and I
wish there were more available for Linux.  Indeed, if there
are in fact ANY games like this for Linux I'd like to find
them!  The problem would seem to be that the talented people
needed to create the content for these games are not 
motivated to work on free software, and would much rather
get a regular pay check (after all, they could always be
working for Saturday morning TV).

Well I may have exposed my extreme ignorance about this
subject, but that's okay, maybe you'll teach me better. :)

-- 
Terry Hancock
hancock@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~hancock/index.html
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