Text Adventure using Derby (Cloudscape) Database

Game Play & Game Design
#1

Hi all,

I’ve been playing around with the embedded Java database system known as Derby and it struck me that it might be a good way to store the structural information for a text based adventure (ie a database table containing room data, item data etc etc). It needn’t be just text as Derby can handle images too. I was considering writing a nice GUI using Swing that could access the information within the database and present it to the user in ana attractive way.

I can see many advantages to using a database to store this type of information particularly as Derby has a small footprint and can be embedded in the final Java application (ie nice easy deployment).

I just wondered what people thought of this idea and whether anyone had tried something like this using Derby. More importantly I’d be interested to hear your opinions on whether people would still play such a game in this age of 3D graphics. I certainly think a text based adventure could still prove popular on mobile platforms.

What do you think?

#2

Text adventures on mobiles? With the bad text resolution, evily small screens… I don’t think it’d work too well. Those SMS games only work because its short bits of text every now and again. Staring at the screen reading lots of descriptive text then tapping in “take apple” on a mobile doesn’t appeal to me one bit.

However, Text Adventures are cool, I’d been expecting them to make a come back for lunch time entertainment for a while.

As to using a database, sure… why not. Writing a Text Adventure engine is pretty simple (I should think most people have done it once or twice, for me lots of times). Actually populating it out with an adventure, now that takes some time… :slight_smile:

Kev

#3

Practically all MUD’s - and hence these days all new text adventures - use databases, so yes it is a good idea.