Since I don't have time to actually code this idea right now to make it play and see how it works, a slightly longer description of what I had in mind: not so much dancing as mingling, with the intent of trying to gain social influence with all sorts of factions.
So, you're in a big reception room / ballroom. There are many guests. You want to get to the important people to schmooze with them but it's crowded and there are many people in the way, so you'll have to encounter and defeat other folks as you run into them. There are many approaches you can use to try and defeat someone, from flirting to impressing them with your knowledge to 'accidentally' bumping into them and denouncing them for it, and a lot of this would depend on skillchecks.
If you lose the battle you have to withdraw from the ballroom for the week. If you win then your opponent gets out of your way, adjusts your influence with their faction (like XP - important people will give you a lot more influence for beating them) and, if you're lucky, gives you a present. (LOOT!) And then you can move on to the next fight.
This would therefore allow for all the trappings of turn-based RPG combat but in a social situation rather than a cutting-off-heads situation, since a ruling-focused LLTQ-type game can't really have the heir wandering off into dungeons. :)
Showing posts with label Games That Don't Exist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Games That Don't Exist. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Friday, 27 June 2014
"I know I wrote it down somewhere!"
Brainstorming ideas for making wussy wizards in old-school dungeon crawls less miserable to play / a better part of the group dynamic...
Instead of having to memorise all spells, you can cast spells from your spellbook - at least, those with a reasonable casting time that don't require a zillion components or anything. However, this is awkward, occupies both your hands, and limits your ability to defend yourself or see trouble coming, so you probably need someone to cover you. As well as reading a spell aloud being slower than casting from memory, there's also the time required to flip through pages in your spellbook trying to find the right spell.
Which in a computer game situation could lend itself to a game in which you play the wizard, the rest of your party is your hired minions that you order around, and turning spellbook pages takes a round, so the strategy of how you've organised your spellbook before the fight is relevant.
"A wraith? Dammit, why didn't I put a bookmark in front of the On Matters Of Undead section?"
"... note to self, next time put the 'Banish Demon' spell next to the 'Summon Demon' spell, just in case..."
If you go further along the line of being brilliant and in charge of all these goons, then minions might have basic AI (which can be tweaked in dialog between fights) but if you want them to do something particularly clever in a battle you have to spend your round yelling commands.
"No, backstab the hobgoblin! The hobgoblin!"
Instead of having to memorise all spells, you can cast spells from your spellbook - at least, those with a reasonable casting time that don't require a zillion components or anything. However, this is awkward, occupies both your hands, and limits your ability to defend yourself or see trouble coming, so you probably need someone to cover you. As well as reading a spell aloud being slower than casting from memory, there's also the time required to flip through pages in your spellbook trying to find the right spell.
Which in a computer game situation could lend itself to a game in which you play the wizard, the rest of your party is your hired minions that you order around, and turning spellbook pages takes a round, so the strategy of how you've organised your spellbook before the fight is relevant.
"A wraith? Dammit, why didn't I put a bookmark in front of the On Matters Of Undead section?"
"... note to self, next time put the 'Banish Demon' spell next to the 'Summon Demon' spell, just in case..."
If you go further along the line of being brilliant and in charge of all these goons, then minions might have basic AI (which can be tweaked in dialog between fights) but if you want them to do something particularly clever in a battle you have to spend your round yelling commands.
"No, backstab the hobgoblin! The hobgoblin!"
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
Nod or shake
vague game idea that might be fun or might be too much of a pain...
Imagine playing something like The Little Mermaid (not Disney's version) - you're stranded in a new world, you can't speak to anyone, you have enemies trying to discredit you, and you're trying to accomplish some task, whether it be romance or something else.
As an adventure game, you can go around picking up objects, combining them, and showing them to people. You can also communicate in sign, except of course that you don't know sign at first and you have to pick up new symbols as the game progresses by interacting with other people, who will eventually show you ways to refer to different things.
So at first pretty much all you can manage is 'yes' or 'no' but slowly you develop a more complex vocabulary.
Could even use real sign language for an educational bonus, if you had sufficiently good animation.
Imagine playing something like The Little Mermaid (not Disney's version) - you're stranded in a new world, you can't speak to anyone, you have enemies trying to discredit you, and you're trying to accomplish some task, whether it be romance or something else.
As an adventure game, you can go around picking up objects, combining them, and showing them to people. You can also communicate in sign, except of course that you don't know sign at first and you have to pick up new symbols as the game progresses by interacting with other people, who will eventually show you ways to refer to different things.
So at first pretty much all you can manage is 'yes' or 'no' but slowly you develop a more complex vocabulary.
Could even use real sign language for an educational bonus, if you had sufficiently good animation.
Friday, 31 May 2013
Our Darker Purpose
(almost wrote that as 'our darker purple') Did I mention I'm a sucker for dark graphics?
Sunday, 17 March 2013
gee thanks google
Searches related to "magical diary":
... noooooooo.......
On a happier note, I do actually have someone working on some new test sprites! It might EVENTUALLY get underway!
magical diary walkthrough
magical diary review
magical diary download
magical diary sequel
magical diary wolf hall
secret of the magic crystals
... noooooooo.......
On a happier note, I do actually have someone working on some new test sprites! It might EVENTUALLY get underway!
Saturday, 16 March 2013
video killed the radio star
Inspired by a certain LP forum, thinking of "The Movies" and thinking of people squeeing over anime romance... what about a management sim in which you are running a music video production studio?
The obvious comparison is Star Project, but in this case, you're not creating a star, you're creating the background that stars come in and use. You're hiring backup dancers, building sets, preparing makeup and costumes, etc. You have limited interaction with the REAL stars, who mostly diva in and complain about stuff, but your individual studio members (all random/custom, no set plots) can develop complex procedural relationships over time, and the current state of their relationships affects how they work together. It can slow down your production schedule if your dancers are off snogging in the changing room... or if your makeup artist hates her ex so much that she carries out sabotage...
Like The Movies, you're mostly trying to keep your studio afloat and raise your reputation, while producing little video sequences that you can save and watch. Add features to allow players to sync their own songs to videos, and I think people would have fun with it...
Definitely not working on this myself, just an idea. Maybe I just want to see everyone in fishnets, torn clothes, and wild 80s hair.
The obvious comparison is Star Project, but in this case, you're not creating a star, you're creating the background that stars come in and use. You're hiring backup dancers, building sets, preparing makeup and costumes, etc. You have limited interaction with the REAL stars, who mostly diva in and complain about stuff, but your individual studio members (all random/custom, no set plots) can develop complex procedural relationships over time, and the current state of their relationships affects how they work together. It can slow down your production schedule if your dancers are off snogging in the changing room... or if your makeup artist hates her ex so much that she carries out sabotage...
Like The Movies, you're mostly trying to keep your studio afloat and raise your reputation, while producing little video sequences that you can save and watch. Add features to allow players to sync their own songs to videos, and I think people would have fun with it...
Definitely not working on this myself, just an idea. Maybe I just want to see everyone in fishnets, torn clothes, and wild 80s hair.
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
once they're hooked you can change the rules
Pondering game mechanics for RPGs I will never write.
So, you start off as PUNY FIRST LEVEL SCUM struggling your way through deadly dungeons. Only there are these wonderful magic potions you can use which temporarily boost your effective level. And they stack. Take a few of these and suddenly you're super-powered and can slaughter the opposition.
Of course, they have limited duration... and while you're boosted, you don't earn XP.
But that's okay! You don't need XP when you've got power potions! As long as you can kill stuff fast enough to earn enough gold to buy more potions, everything is fine!
... until you get later in the game and somebody achieves a stranglehold on the power potion supply. Now, if you want more, you're going to have to work for us... or else you're going to find yourself in big trouble up against the monsters in the current level of the game.
Sure, it'll get eyerolls as an obvious drug metaphor, but the point is that it ties in gameplay mechanics and story consequences without having to railroad or make a huge ooga-booga moral posture about it. And it doesn't have to be a drug metaphor - ANY sort of reliance comes with weaknesses. Your DRM could turn on you. Your publisher could drop you. Your job could fire you. Windows could release a new OS that doesn't allow games to run.
If you've planned ahead, carefully balanced your resources, and not relied too heavily on the power potions, you may have levelled up for real and still have a supply handy to take on the final boss.
If you've planned ahead, the company layoffs hopefully won't leave you at a complete loose end.
If you're relying on one thing only, then all anyone has to do to control you is to control that one thing.
So, you start off as PUNY FIRST LEVEL SCUM struggling your way through deadly dungeons. Only there are these wonderful magic potions you can use which temporarily boost your effective level. And they stack. Take a few of these and suddenly you're super-powered and can slaughter the opposition.
Of course, they have limited duration... and while you're boosted, you don't earn XP.
But that's okay! You don't need XP when you've got power potions! As long as you can kill stuff fast enough to earn enough gold to buy more potions, everything is fine!
... until you get later in the game and somebody achieves a stranglehold on the power potion supply. Now, if you want more, you're going to have to work for us... or else you're going to find yourself in big trouble up against the monsters in the current level of the game.
Sure, it'll get eyerolls as an obvious drug metaphor, but the point is that it ties in gameplay mechanics and story consequences without having to railroad or make a huge ooga-booga moral posture about it. And it doesn't have to be a drug metaphor - ANY sort of reliance comes with weaknesses. Your DRM could turn on you. Your publisher could drop you. Your job could fire you. Windows could release a new OS that doesn't allow games to run.
If you've planned ahead, carefully balanced your resources, and not relied too heavily on the power potions, you may have levelled up for real and still have a supply handy to take on the final boss.
If you've planned ahead, the company layoffs hopefully won't leave you at a complete loose end.
If you're relying on one thing only, then all anyone has to do to control you is to control that one thing.
Sunday, 21 October 2012
stop raidin my tombs!
Idea for a game that is not the right genre for me to be any good at making it -
You are a native of a culture that is currently being invaded by "explorers" (adventurers, whathaveyou). They have taken you captive and are forcing you to help them explore the Ancient Secret Ruined Temple in search of treasure, because you can read the language and work all the complicated locks and traps to get them to the gold. But you don't like these jerks, so as you go along you're doing your best to set off all the traps in a way that will whittle down the numbers of your captors.
So you're snaking along with this chain of adventurers behind you, trying to lead them into death traps. Sort of like a reverse Lemmings - once they figure out something is dangerous the rest of them will avoid it, so you have to catch them by surprise!
(Testing another blog-posting tool, let's see if this works.)
You are a native of a culture that is currently being invaded by "explorers" (adventurers, whathaveyou). They have taken you captive and are forcing you to help them explore the Ancient Secret Ruined Temple in search of treasure, because you can read the language and work all the complicated locks and traps to get them to the gold. But you don't like these jerks, so as you go along you're doing your best to set off all the traps in a way that will whittle down the numbers of your captors.
So you're snaking along with this chain of adventurers behind you, trying to lead them into death traps. Sort of like a reverse Lemmings - once they figure out something is dangerous the rest of them will avoid it, so you have to catch them by surprise!
(Testing another blog-posting tool, let's see if this works.)
Saturday, 29 September 2012
oh god not this interface again
i'm going to have to look for modification addons because the new blogger is so ugly, aren't I?
anyway, did anyone ever make a proper female version of Leisure Suit Larry? No, I don't mean Passionate Patti.
I mean a game where you're a Plain Jane and kind of a loser, but you're plucky and determined and SURE that SOMEWHERE there is a hot guy who will really appreciate you, and you'll go to any lengths to find him. Every guy you meet throws obstacles in your path, so you're going on increasingly improbable escapades to get their attention and get shot down again, and by the end of the story you have become an unlikely heroine (and of course, accidentally landed pretty much in the lap of Mr Right.)
... I have this mental image of the poor bedraggled heroine crawling through ventilation shafts, smeared with dirt, wrench in teeth, trying to reach and disarm the bomb that her LAST failed date (who turned out to be an EVIL SPY) told her about before tying her up (she escaped, obviously), and this leading her to collapse at the feet of the sexy secret agent boyfriend option...
anyway, did anyone ever make a proper female version of Leisure Suit Larry? No, I don't mean Passionate Patti.
I mean a game where you're a Plain Jane and kind of a loser, but you're plucky and determined and SURE that SOMEWHERE there is a hot guy who will really appreciate you, and you'll go to any lengths to find him. Every guy you meet throws obstacles in your path, so you're going on increasingly improbable escapades to get their attention and get shot down again, and by the end of the story you have become an unlikely heroine (and of course, accidentally landed pretty much in the lap of Mr Right.)
... I have this mental image of the poor bedraggled heroine crawling through ventilation shafts, smeared with dirt, wrench in teeth, trying to reach and disarm the bomb that her LAST failed date (who turned out to be an EVIL SPY) told her about before tying her up (she escaped, obviously), and this leading her to collapse at the feet of the sexy secret agent boyfriend option...
Friday, 21 September 2012
spaaaaaaaace
desire to make something geeky and crunchy to hide from all these words I'm having to write: overwhelming!
actual practical use of roguelike space dungeons: very little!
actual practical use of roguelike space dungeons: very little!
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
corporate takeover from hell
Plot bunny I'm not likely to pursue - a story set in a game design company. Your bosses have just completely screwed you over, selling the company to a new owner and forcing you to lose your benefits and take a massive paycut. There's office politics and romance going on, and everyone's very edgy and whispering behind your back. But at you go along you realise that there are worse things at work than your project being turned into an adware vehicle... because this is actually a lovecraftian horror story and your new owner has PLANS.
RPG meandering
So, in our large stack of game plans we may never finish, I've had Spiky looking at the feasibility of trying to do something like an old Baldur's Gate style RPG. Don't get your hopes up, it may never happen.
This game would have a defined set of characters available in your party although you would have some options to tweak them as you leveled up. For various reasons I don't want a mage class. There will be magic, but I'm currently envisioning it as ITEM based and something that everyone can use. This may be a bad idea, as it's making it harder to figure out my character types. Concepts being played with so far:
The Hunter - Ranged-weapon specialist with a mechanical bent. Starts with a rifle (this setting is punky enough for guns, but not handguns) May choose to use bows later because they're more quiet. Can track, pick locks, set and remove traps. Cannot move with stealth, but can hide in position and wait for something to walk up and BOOM headshot.
The Gymnast - This is the one who can sneak and scout without being detected. Can jump over small obstacles, or the heads of enemies, giving her terrain-covering powers no one else has. Is a melee fighter who prefers small, light weapons and speed attacks. Knowledge of anatomy gives her special attacks to temporarily disable enemies as well as damage (trip, hamstring). Can also enter dodge mode and make herself harder to hit.
The Amazon - The strength-based melee fighter with a little bit of beserker. Uses heavier weapons. Can charge at enemies and knock them back. Also has a range of special powers I can't describe because spoilers, but just assume this is your power hitter.
The Cheerleader - This is one of the character types I'm not so clear on. Intent is to be a leader/buffer type character who can boost the powers of her teammates. If this is turn-based, she can pass her action points to others, which is a big deal. If it's not turn-based it's a little more confusing how to make her sufficiently useful. Not sure what her own personal combat powers should look like either. A search suggests there is a cheerleader class in one of the Disgaea games, maybe I should look there.
The Oracle - This was not an original party member, but I was looking at Sinister Design's comments on tactical combat which claimed that four just isn't enough for a party. So this is a 'maybe' character who I'm still having trouble with the usefulness of. It's NOT a wizard, but a Psionics/Divination class. She can Detect stuff. Find traps, spot invisible/stealthy monsters, locate nearest X (monster, rest point, exit?), determine remaining health of enemies, etc. Has a special attack along the lines of True Strike to allow her to do massive damage. Can tag an individual monster and get a bonus against it because she's sensing what it will do next. Can enter Counterattack mode and get a free hit against anything that hits her (predicting the openings they'll leave).
Are these sufficiently differentiated and understandable?
This game would have a defined set of characters available in your party although you would have some options to tweak them as you leveled up. For various reasons I don't want a mage class. There will be magic, but I'm currently envisioning it as ITEM based and something that everyone can use. This may be a bad idea, as it's making it harder to figure out my character types. Concepts being played with so far:
The Hunter - Ranged-weapon specialist with a mechanical bent. Starts with a rifle (this setting is punky enough for guns, but not handguns) May choose to use bows later because they're more quiet. Can track, pick locks, set and remove traps. Cannot move with stealth, but can hide in position and wait for something to walk up and BOOM headshot.
The Gymnast - This is the one who can sneak and scout without being detected. Can jump over small obstacles, or the heads of enemies, giving her terrain-covering powers no one else has. Is a melee fighter who prefers small, light weapons and speed attacks. Knowledge of anatomy gives her special attacks to temporarily disable enemies as well as damage (trip, hamstring). Can also enter dodge mode and make herself harder to hit.
The Amazon - The strength-based melee fighter with a little bit of beserker. Uses heavier weapons. Can charge at enemies and knock them back. Also has a range of special powers I can't describe because spoilers, but just assume this is your power hitter.
The Cheerleader - This is one of the character types I'm not so clear on. Intent is to be a leader/buffer type character who can boost the powers of her teammates. If this is turn-based, she can pass her action points to others, which is a big deal. If it's not turn-based it's a little more confusing how to make her sufficiently useful. Not sure what her own personal combat powers should look like either. A search suggests there is a cheerleader class in one of the Disgaea games, maybe I should look there.
The Oracle - This was not an original party member, but I was looking at Sinister Design's comments on tactical combat which claimed that four just isn't enough for a party. So this is a 'maybe' character who I'm still having trouble with the usefulness of. It's NOT a wizard, but a Psionics/Divination class. She can Detect stuff. Find traps, spot invisible/stealthy monsters, locate nearest X (monster, rest point, exit?), determine remaining health of enemies, etc. Has a special attack along the lines of True Strike to allow her to do massive damage. Can tag an individual monster and get a bonus against it because she's sensing what it will do next. Can enter Counterattack mode and get a free hit against anything that hits her (predicting the openings they'll leave).
Are these sufficiently differentiated and understandable?
Saturday, 21 July 2012
Games I want to play but do not currently have the time to write
Space Hulk Explorer Roguelike: You play a salvager who finds randomly-generated huge spaceships floating around, and you go through them looking for loot. Different skills for different classes (including different abilities to identify the weird stuff you turn up) and your score in the end is based on the value of what you bring back to your shuttle and how long you were gone. If you live.
All-Girl Dungeon Crawl: A yuri game not needing to waste much time with things like plot and explanation! You're an all-girl gang of dungeon divers, you go kill things and take their stuff,when you set up camp to rest you go into dialog mode and then you can argue over loot-splitting and romance people.
All-Girl Dungeon Crawl: A yuri game not needing to waste much time with things like plot and explanation! You're an all-girl gang of dungeon divers, you go kill things and take their stuff,when you set up camp to rest you go into dialog mode and then you can argue over loot-splitting and romance people.
Monday, 2 July 2012
what a tweeest
A story where the Crazy Antagonist appears to have an unbelievably impossible ability to predict everything that the party is going to do and keep screwing you up, because it turns out in the end that the *antagonist* was caught in a GroundhogDayLoop. All this madness you're going through for the first time, they've been able to perfect in order to guide you to the true goal!
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
i ain't afraid of no ghost
So looks like someone is attempting to make a hidden object / RPG combo (for the ipad, so I can't actually play it.)
I had a vague idea for how to mix up the super-fancy-shiny-arty Hidden Object game style popular in casual portals and a proper RPG once. To get the standard cluttered house full of junk, it was to be about GHOSTBUSTING. You frantically search for objects invested with ectoplasm or whatever in order to help you defeat the spooks.
Obviously never going to do it though, so feel free to play with that.
I had a vague idea for how to mix up the super-fancy-shiny-arty Hidden Object game style popular in casual portals and a proper RPG once. To get the standard cluttered house full of junk, it was to be about GHOSTBUSTING. You frantically search for objects invested with ectoplasm or whatever in order to help you defeat the spooks.
Obviously never going to do it though, so feel free to play with that.
notes dump
Since I think it's highly unlikely I'm ever actually going to work on this, a handful of notes originally written down for the Experimental RPG About Fighting Cthulhu With The Power Of Rock
---
Your stats:
Volume (affects how powerful your skills are)
Health (duh)
Resistance (absorbing damage)
Dancing (dodging)
Tone (accuracy)
Things the vocalist can do: (tank)
Taunt a monster for attention
Attack a monster
Get in front of an ally to protect them
Heal self
Reflect attack (advanced tactic)
Start a summon by hand-clapping (advanced tactic)
Things the guitar can do: (dps)
Attack = Strum (different rhythms indicating different kinds of attacks?)
Big Attack = Riff (different riffs indicating different kinds of attacks) Must complete measure without interruption or it's lost
Increasing Damage = Sustain (damage it does keeps going up over time but if interrupted you're dead air until the end)
Area Damage = Whammy (Must be already sustaining, but spreads the damage out over a group instead of focusing on one target)
Clear Ailments = Slide
Things the bass can do: (heal/support)
Group Regeneration = Steady Pulse
Boost Volume = Amp Up
Boost Tone = Build Tension
Boost Dancing = Back Beat
Heal Team Member = Release Tension
Weak Attack = Rumble
Group Resist = Subwoofer
---
Your stats:
Volume (affects how powerful your skills are)
Health (duh)
Resistance (absorbing damage)
Dancing (dodging)
Tone (accuracy)
Things the vocalist can do: (tank)
Taunt a monster for attention
Attack a monster
Get in front of an ally to protect them
Heal self
Reflect attack (advanced tactic)
Start a summon by hand-clapping (advanced tactic)
Things the guitar can do: (dps)
Attack = Strum (different rhythms indicating different kinds of attacks?)
Big Attack = Riff (different riffs indicating different kinds of attacks) Must complete measure without interruption or it's lost
Increasing Damage = Sustain (damage it does keeps going up over time but if interrupted you're dead air until the end)
Area Damage = Whammy (Must be already sustaining, but spreads the damage out over a group instead of focusing on one target)
Clear Ailments = Slide
Things the bass can do: (heal/support)
Group Regeneration = Steady Pulse
Boost Volume = Amp Up
Boost Tone = Build Tension
Boost Dancing = Back Beat
Heal Team Member = Release Tension
Weak Attack = Rumble
Group Resist = Subwoofer
Monday, 25 June 2012
and then there were none
Things I don't have time to write: A murder mystery in which most of the cast is trying to kill most of the cast, and the plot branches insanely based on which ones of them you've managed to intercept at which stages (because if you stop Person A from dying, they might kill Person B later, and that might mean Person B doesn't kill Person C...)
It's the combination of the months I've been following the Dangan Ronpa Let's Play, plus reminiscing about the Colonel's Bequest and how the ending really let down the complication they'd been building until that point, and finding Jisei/Kansei much too short and simple for my plotting tastes.
I like snowballing catastrophe.
It's the combination of the months I've been following the Dangan Ronpa Let's Play, plus reminiscing about the Colonel's Bequest and how the ending really let down the complication they'd been building until that point, and finding Jisei/Kansei much too short and simple for my plotting tastes.
I like snowballing catastrophe.
Friday, 18 May 2012
bad brain! stop doing that!
(fragments of random conversation, restructured to remove chat details)
Maybe you process stress as gloom. So while I'm GOING CRAZEEEEEEEE you just form little black clouds.
Little black ships. Big black ships. Then they eat the sky.
... must not try to design a game out of that.
Why not? ... aside from the fact that TOO MANY GAMES TO MAKE
The image in my mind is no the image in your mind, I don't think, but it is WEIRD and has potential for WEIRD USES. Gloomy people walking through city skyscraper streets with their emotions manifesting as little black battleships around their heads, engaged in some sort of ongoing war This is a neat visual but #%@ if I know how to make use of it in anything.
... I suppose you could have a 3d walkaround mode where you SEE people trapped in their glooms, and then you enter retro shooter mode to defeat their psyches?
ACK STOP DESIGNING GAMES
Maybe you process stress as gloom. So while I'm GOING CRAZEEEEEEEE you just form little black clouds.
Little black ships. Big black ships. Then they eat the sky.
... must not try to design a game out of that.
Why not? ... aside from the fact that TOO MANY GAMES TO MAKE
The image in my mind is no the image in your mind, I don't think, but it is WEIRD and has potential for WEIRD USES. Gloomy people walking through city skyscraper streets with their emotions manifesting as little black battleships around their heads, engaged in some sort of ongoing war This is a neat visual but #%@ if I know how to make use of it in anything.
... I suppose you could have a 3d walkaround mode where you SEE people trapped in their glooms, and then you enter retro shooter mode to defeat their psyches?
ACK STOP DESIGNING GAMES
Thursday, 26 April 2012
If I were the sort of person who organises game conference experiences
There's an article on the BBC about a guy who's 'invented' a camera that, instead of printing a picture, prints a little description of whatever you just took a picture of.
Of course, we don't actually have that technology yet - it's really sending the photo to amazon's Mechanical Turk, where a human is describing the picture and sending that information back. (A spot-on perfect use for mechanical turk really!)
What interested me, though, was how much the sample description sounded like something you would encounter in an old text adventure. The 'inventor' seems to see this as a downside, wanting to coach people to put a little more humanity into their descriptions. I don't - think of the opportunities! You could set up *real world* text adventures, with players in helmet cameras able to see only a text description of what they were 'looking' at, but the freedom to look and move in all directions... well, carefully.
Of course, we don't actually have that technology yet - it's really sending the photo to amazon's Mechanical Turk, where a human is describing the picture and sending that information back. (A spot-on perfect use for mechanical turk really!)
What interested me, though, was how much the sample description sounded like something you would encounter in an old text adventure. The 'inventor' seems to see this as a downside, wanting to coach people to put a little more humanity into their descriptions. I don't - think of the opportunities! You could set up *real world* text adventures, with players in helmet cameras able to see only a text description of what they were 'looking' at, but the freedom to look and move in all directions... well, carefully.
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