On
the Kalman Kando Technical College (which gave a three-year instruction)
I took entrance examinations three times, and had an undergraduate
relationship for more than six years (between 1991 and 1997).
It succeeded in such a way that my first entrance examination
failed (I reached only one point less than the official
score), then in the next year already succeeded (but they took
me only to the electrical engineer line, where I first started,
then postponed a term), and finally I ran against it again (they
took me to the informatics line). I endeavoured „periodically”
stretching out my residence there the most (by several further
term-postponements… and other tricks likewise), and in the meantime
combining business with pleasure: on the one hand – as I reached
a school achievement good enough – I usually got some money scholarship,
and on the other hand I had also got some considerable sparetime.
(As a matter of curiosity: for seven years I was called up to
the recruiting committee for starting my regular military service
every year, but I succeeded in averting it every year… After the
diploma they finally caught me anyway of course.)
I
mostly spent those above-mentioned years with game development.
(See the other articles of games!) Having run out of
my postponing possibilities, I got done with the last few semesters
together, then finally, of course, had got to graduate. Yet I
also neatly found my way to turn this event to the advantage of
my most important passion again: I decided to write my thesis
about it. (See my particular publishing called Making Text
Adventure Games.) The most of the work within concentrated
around programming the game A babó (The Hobbit). (For
more than half a year, while I shaped a peculiar, own rhythm of
life for myself: I was living then in 48-hour days, that was spending
exactly and orderly my every second night with sleeping.)
This
is an Interactive Fiction (or, as the household word
in our parts, a text adventure game) adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s
classical novel The Hobbit. (The word babó used
in the title is one of the literary translations in Hungarian
for the hobbit word.) It had been known world-wide already
by the Melbourne House version long before, that is one
of the foundation-stones of the entire genre. (From the beginning
of the eighties, it was released for several computer machine
types. It was one of the most popular and known adventure games.)
The original game (as well as the book) was one of the most determinative
basic experiences for me, too. Among other causes, that’s why
I chose this one.
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The
room descriptions and other chapters were partly directly drawn
upon some texts from the book (in the excellent translation by
Tibor Szobotka, and published by the Cicero Publishings, for the
hundredth anniversary of the birthday of the author in 1992),
partly mixed with my own texts. The plot and the main structure
of events freely follow some of the Melbourne House adaptated
version. However, I did not remain faithful to them; I had already
found that very old game too simple, and obsolete, thus I strived
for a much higher technical level instead.
Firstly,
I had got to write a Hungarian parser, that was more
difficult than an English one. (The parser is the interpeter part
of the program, and the Hungarian grammar is pretty much
more complicated to handle in this respect than the English.)
Furthermore, the old adaptation only contained the single figures
of Bilbo and Thorin; I put all the thirteen dwarf characters into
mine. Eventually just the latter was the other cause of my choice:
that rare several-hero character of the novel made it suitable
for my purposes. Namely, my original intention was to build a
system being able to handle several different playing characters
at the same time. This effort was an organic further development
of the conception of The Galleon (A gálya): you could
control two characters there so far. Nevertheless you might merely
switch between these two, while in the case of A babó
all characters are running fully realtime, and really in parallel
in space.
With
a graphical screen divided into four windows, freely placing any
of the fourteen heroes into each, you can simultaneously follow
the progressing of events from their own different points of view:
whatever you do by whichever of them, you may see that both through
an inner and an outer eye (or more). (And the other characters
you left alone are automatically controlled by the computer.)
Every other (non-player) character in game – at least in a partial,
condition-dependent and qualified way – may also be influenced
and manipulated: you can say anything to them to do it instead
of you. (But of course it is not wholly guaranteed that they will
really do it every time…) Moreover, they are always doing something
by themselves, too, so each running of the program must be a bit
different; the course of the game never stays the same, nor entirely
calculable.
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The
general way of interpreting is similar to the parser-variations
applied in my former games (e. g. A gálya and Az
Alvilág Ura), that is a single imperative sentence (the Hungarian
grammar uses imperative mood; e. g. OPEN THE DOOR means NYISD
KI AZ AJTÓT), the unnecessary elements of which may usually be
omitted (NYISD AJTÓT – OPEN DOOR), however, there must not be
any uninterpretable component in it. (Whatever the program does
not understand, it promptly complains, and does not execute anything
until you fix that. The only exception if you SAY something to
another; in such a case the interpretation truly happens at the
other person, and you do not get a direct report about it. These
may even be embedded into each other recursively, e. g. MONDD
MEG ÓINNAK, HOGY MONDJA MEG GLÓINNAK, HOGY NYISSA KI AZ AJTÓT
– that is shortly: SAY OIN TO SAY GLOIN TO OPEN THE DOOR.) If
your sentence is still defective (NYISD – OPEN), then the program
asks you expedient questions about it („What do you want to open?”),
which you only must give the answers to (AJTÓT – DOOR). Naturally
you can only refer to such things that are actually reachable
for you, and the system examines this right before anything else.
(If there is no door within the range, you get a message like
„You can’t see any door.” exclusively, instantly, before anything
else would happen.) You may link together several single sentences,
too, by using commas or other signs (e. g. the word ÉS – AND).
And so forth: all of these are the general characteristics
of an advanced and intelligent parser; this is just the same level,
where the best creations of the IF game-world had already come
to. (With the difference that Hungarian is an inflexional, agglutinative
language, while English is not, therefore it is a considerably
harder job to do the same. Another important and interesting issue
of the inflexion is the nearly absolutely free and variable order
of the Hungarian words within a sentence, that is fairly fixed
in English.)
Nevertheless
an IF not only consists of a text input (and a few answers to
that), but also there is a built-up background-world behind, that
must be imagined somehow through that. A kind of simulation: let
us say that world-simulation. The idea of layering is
being used in this context: that means in what depth and subtlety
you succeed in rendering the texture of this world. It is forming
out of the conjugate effects of several factors and applied tools
(of which more anon; but not here), and I strived to shape it
the most advanced, too. For example: each and every place or thing
is closely examinable, or searchable, and may contain any further,
hidden other objects else embedded in any depth at will – recursively
again. A key-motive of the plot, the magic ring even enriches
that with another special dimension in the present case: yonder
certain invisibility by means of which a player on the one hand
disappears from the others, and on the other hand sees more of
them. (E. g. the program shows him the objects carried by the
others, too, that would be hidden otherwise – moreover, he may
even take them unobserved etc.) As well as a very flexible and
non-linear course of the plot, that was also part of
the original game indeed.
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The
program was written in MS-DOS environment, x86 Assembly (using
a MASM Assembler compiler). (The Assembly level optimization was
unconditionally needed because of the relatively weak hardwares
of the age: programming on an average 486 machine, it was not
too possible to reach the above results without this, also counting
there the graphical screen usage, and the independent, parallel
monitoring of the four windows in realtime.) Although it usually
works under Windows, too; but not always. (A main problem is that
the Hungarian keyboard set is „stuck” on a Hungarian Windows version,
so it either must be set to English, or the program itself; on
an English Windows that is no problem. But another is that the
program would like to use the Scroll Lock key, that the Windows
won’t let to be set, so you must set manually, too.)
Or,
another possibility for running under Windows (or further operating
systems) is to do it not in native mode, but through a so-called
DOS
Box
emulating environment instead. (And another final note: there
is only Hungarian version of the game; no English, of course.)
Robert
Olessak (2011)
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My
Games (1987-2001) /5. |
09/01/2011 |
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Chapter
5: The Hobbit |
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My
Games (1987-2001) |
09/01/2011 |
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My
personal confessions about the development of my games |
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Making
Text Adventure Games |
08/28/2011 |
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My
thesis from 1997, written at the college, now published
in an article |
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Game(s)
Over… |
09/01/2011 |
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A
picture collection of my games and some others (200
pictures) |
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A
babó (The Hobbit) |
08/28/2011 |
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Download
the game (1.1 MB) |
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A
babó (description, Hungarian) (PDF) |
11/01/2011 |
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The
description of the game (only in Hungarian!)
(0.1 MB) |
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A
babó (solution, Hungarian) (PDF) |
11/01/2011 |
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The
solution of the game (only in Hungarian!) (0.1
MB) |
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A
babó (The Hobbit) (IFDB) |
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The
IFDB page (Interactive Fiction Database) |
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A
babó (onlinekönyv.info, PDF) |
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The
Hungarian translation of the book by Szobotka downloadable
in PDF |
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The
Hobbit: Animated (YouTube) |
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The
1977 animated cartoon adaptation (full movie on YouTube) |
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PC
Games |
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