International conference on Intelligent Systems, Data Mining and Information Technology (ICIDIT’2014), April 21-22, 2014 Bangkok (Thailand) A New Multiplayer Environment for Creating Adventure Games David Gouveia, and Carlos Vaz de Carvalho interactions were handled outside the game, on the web Abstract—Nostalgia Studio is an extension of project SELEAG platform. whose goal was to evaluate the use of serious games for learning Although Time Mesh was originally meant to be played history and social relations with an extensible multiplayer online autonomously by students in their free times, the game also game based on collaboration and social interaction. The game that ended up being tested and used in a classroom context, and has was developed was a graphic adventure game known as Time Mesh which managed to achieve very positive results, but due to technical already been played by over 1.000 different users across constraints, some of the initial goals could not be explored in depth. several European countries, often as part of school activities. This article presents the first results of the implementation of this In general, results have been positive in terms of children game editor and engine. enjoyment. Nostalgia Studio is an extension of project SELEAG and Keywords—adventure games, game engine, game editor, game- solves the technical constraints of that environment. This based learning. article presents the first results of the implementation of this game editor and engine. I. INTRODUCTION HE Project SELEAG—Serious Learning Games—was an II. ADVENTURE GAMES TEuropean project created to evaluate the use of serious Video games can be categorized under a multitude of games for learning history, culture and social relations, genres, such as action, adventure, role-playing, simulation, or through the implementation of an extensible, online, multi- strategy, depending on their gameplay and interaction styles. language, multi-player, collaborative and social game This work focuses entirely on adventure games, so it makes platform. The project counted with the collaboration of seven sense to start by providing some insight into that genre. different partners and resulted in the creation of a point-and- There are some elements that can be found in the majority click adventure game called Time Mesh [1,2]. of adventure games [3]: Time Mesh tells the story of a child who stumbles upon a • They are usually built around a narrative... time machine, and uses it to travel back in time in order to • ...in which the player participates by assuming the role of correct certain events in history that have occurred differently a very small subset of its characters. from what we know. Most of the game is based on actual • They are usually driven by puzzle solving rather than by a historical facts, and covers three different time periods: the age physical effort... of discoveries, the industrial revolution, and the Second World • ...and rely mostly on exploration... War. It would have been interesting to allow more scenarios • besides these three to be added to the game, but with the ...object manipulation... • technology in which the game was created, this was not …or dialogue. possible without significant resources and training. Some of these elements make adventure games significantly The game was created using an Adobe Flash based game different from other genres: engine which allowed it be played directly from within most • Action - Instead of relying on the player's reflexes like web browsers. The game was integrated into a webpage that most action games, adventure games rely on reasoning required users to register and create teams in order to and logical thinking, which results in a more relaxed collaborate with each other. Collaboration with other teams experience. was necessary because there were two versions of each game • Strategy - Although strategy games also rely on logical scenario, and knowledge from one version was required to thinking, they usually require the player to control a large advance in the other. However, the game itself had no amount of units, such as an army or entire nation, while knowledge about the existence of the other team, and all adventure games focus on the main character(s) in the narrative. David Gouveia is with Virtual Campus Lda (e-mail: • Role-playing - While both genres have a lot in common, [email protected]). adventure games are deterministic in nature and follow a Carlos Vaz de Carvalho is with GILT – Graphics, Interaction and Learning Technologies R&D group of the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (e- fixed path, while role-playing games have a statistical mail: [email protected]). background which introduces randomness and variation. http://dx.doi.org/10.15242/IIE.E0414081 82 International conference on Intelligent Systems, Data Mining and Information Technology (ICIDIT’2014), April 21-22, 2014 Bangkok (Thailand) They also lack the management components usually few branching choices in the game. But unlike most adventure present in role-playing games (e.g. party management, games, visual novels usually have multiple story paths and skill management) [4]. multiple endings, and player choices have a strong effect in the outcome of the game. Since adventure games place a lot of emphasis on story, it is common for them to draw inspiration from other narrative- III. GRAPHIC ADVENTURE GAME ENGINES based media - such as literature and film - and to encompass a A game engine is a software system designed to assist in the wide variety of themes, from comedy to horror, or fantasy to creation and development of video games. This is usually science-fiction. On the subject of action games, there are some accomplished by providing tools and reusable components that adventure games that incorporate action sequences into their would otherwise need to be implemented by the development gameplay, but they are always treated independently (e.g. as teams. Some game engines, such as Game Maker, are very mini-games) and remain secondary to the narrative and generic and flexible in order to be useful for different game puzzles. On the other hand, if a game has some adventure genres (e.g. platform games, simulation games, first-person elements but the gameplay is all action based, it is usually shooters). Other game engines, such as the ones described in categorized under the sub-genre of action games known as the the following sections, are designed for a specific game genre action-adventure, which will not be covered here. and usually provide most of the gameplay constructs required Based on the traits described so far, it is also easy to for that type of game, at the cost of abandoning the flexibility understand why there has not been much effort put into needed to create something different from that pattern. creating adventure games with a multiplayer online While many games are still built from scratch or with component. Most multiplayer online games rely on the game’s custom game engines, an increasing number of game progression being flexible, and allowing a large number of development studios make use of game engines that have been players to interact simultaneously. In an adventure game, developed externally. This allows costs to be reduced where the entire story progression has been fixed from the dramatically and for teams to concentrate on creating actual start, and the number of controllable characters in the plot is game content. Even when game engines are developed limited, multiplayer game design becomes a lot more internally, they are usually reused in future projects, so the challenging. But on the other hand, puzzle solving and benefits are the same. Some game engines such as the UDK or exploration are both elements that would benefit from the CryENGINE bring the technologies that power some of the cooperation in a multiplayer environment, at least on a limited most advanced games to the masses, while others such as scale. Unity3D are very simple to use and provide a very attractive Like almost every other genre in existence, the adventure platform for students, hobbyists and indie game developers to game genre has a few sub-genres with distinctive features. The create their projects. most common distinction is made between text adventure Finally we have those game engines that have been tailored games and graphic adventure games. Text adventure games do for a specific game genre. Due to these constraints, it is not have any graphics, so they rely entirely on text to present possible to find game engines in this category that require no the narrative and to receive player input. Text adventure games programming experience from the user, allowing people from are also frequently known by the synonym, interactive fiction. all areas to create their own games. For example, two popular Graphic adventure games, on the other hand, provide a visual game engines in this category are M.U.G.E.N (for the creation representation of the world, and can employ a few different of 2D fighting games) and RPG Maker (for the creation of tile- control schemes for player interaction. The most common based role-playing games). control scheme for a graphic adventure game is the use of a Adventure Game Studio (AGS) was first released in 1997 as pointing device (e.g. the mouse) or a touch screen interface, an MS-DOS program called "Adventure Creator". It was and games using that approach are known as point-and-click developed by British programmer Chris Jones, and highly adventure games. The ratio between narrative and puzzles can inspired by Sierra On-Line's graphic adventure games, as the vary widely from game to game, resulting in very distinct first version of the engine was built specifically for low experiences. Some adventure games place most of their resolution, keyboard-controlled adventure games.