How It All Hangs Together

A game is built out of many flexible building blocks.

By "many" I mean unlimited. Or at least, limited only by the capacity of your computer's memory.

Locations

Locations are all of the places within a game that the player can go to or travel through. They form the landscape of the game. They can be anything and everything from windswept moors to broom cupboards, or from Post Offices to pyramids. In fact, they can be - literally - any combination of any types of place that you can imagine.

They're the setting for the action that takes place in the game.

Directions

Locations are joined to one another by directions of travel. If you leave one location heading West and arrive at another location, retracing your steps back East will return you to your starting location. But locations don't have to be sewn together in a strictly linear way.

Moving from one location to another might be as simple as leaving one room and entering another. Or it might take you into a portal that hyper-jumps you to a location far from where you started.

Objects

Objects are one type of thing that you can interact with in a game. Items can be anything: garments, weapons, money, magic wands - whatever is needed to move the game play forward and to make the game engaging.

Objects are often used to solve problems.

Problems

Problems are the challenges and obstacles the player must overcome in order to move through the game and to eventually succeed.

Some problems only require knowledge or an action to solve them. If you spot a lever, all you need to do is pull the lever. To open a combination lock requires you to have figured out what the combination is.

Other problems might require you to have an object. There might be a locked door or locked chest. You're going to have to find the appropriate key to open it. The object is a requirement for the problem.

Other problems might need you to have solved a different problem before you can solve this one. If you need to turn the light on, perhaps you must already have found and started the electrical generator. So a problem can be a requirement too.

A problem can have as many requirements as the game author decides, and they can be any mix of objects and problems.

Clues

Clues give players hints. There may or may not be a clue for the item they're stuck on, but if there is, and if they request it, they are given a hint. Receiving a hint takes points off the final score and time off the remaining game duration. Games are played against the clock!

Set Dressings

A set dressing is something in the background of the game - not necessarily related to the game play - that you want to flesh out. You can provide a description for anything that is mentioned in the description of a location. Doing so provides depth and texture to the game, and allows you to provide layers of detail. Detail makes for an engaging experience, and it makes the passage of the player through the game more fulfilling.

Detailed Descriptions

Detailed descriptions are the sections of extended narrative that provide descriptions to objects, locations, problems, and set dressings.

Sound Effects

The solution of a problem or the transition from one location to another can be accompanied by sound effects. They can be used to add tension, drama, or humour. They can also be used to dreaw the player's attention to something. If they cross a bridge and the bridge collapses behind them, it tells them there's no way back by that route.

Images

TAF can display an image of items in the game, if that is required.

I don't like this feature! But TAF can do it, for better or worse.