Difference between revisions of "Adventure"

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=== Interviews / Articles ===
 
=== Interviews / Articles ===

Latest revision as of 18:30, 22 June 2021

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Adventure
Adventure-title.gif

Release type: Incomplete
Release date: 1995
Levels: 5
Author: Alan Caudel
Website: DummyDuck.com
Related games: Scurvy the Squirrel

Though unfinished, as with many of Alan Caudel's games, Adventure is a significant and wonderfully lateral use of RSD's tools, that helps to stretch the boundary of what is possible within RSD Game-Maker.

Inspired by the likes of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, Caudel devised a game that outwardly consists of nothing but animated background tiles. The character, the actual map exit, and any mechanical threats are rendered invisible, because -- and here is the big, important leap that Adventure makes -- as far as the player is concerned, all that really matters is perception.

AdventureSprite3.gif

Here everything works on a timer. The mechanics are all gravity, solid sides, and instant fatal reduction of hit points. If the player hits the right key at the right time, the character invisibly bumps to the next safe leg of the track or to the map's exit tile. If the player fails the reflex test, the tiles will swoop the character into an invisible threat, forcing death and a retry of the level.

This is an outre and weirdly simple use of the available tools -- and that's okay. Brilliant, even. Because if the player's input results in the expected feedback, the actual mechanisms that record that input and trigger that feedback, and the way in which they work, are irrelevant except to the extent that they facilitate the expected interaction.

Slaying dark dragons in Adventure

The implications here are huge. Process this disconnect, and RSD's tools and engine start to explode with possibility. Workarounds are already standard protocol with Game-Maker. There are lots of things that you can't overtly, literally do -- so users are accustomed to finding creative ways to make things happen anyway, or to revise their plans according to what they can do. To make that leap, that the available mechanics hold no meaning in and of themselves and their significance lies only in the narrative that results from how you apply them, is to incalculably elevate Game-Maker's usefulness as an expressive toolset.

Opening up this world of miracle hackery also just plain makes Game-Maker more fun to use. Like the best NES games, just about anything may now be possible if you're just clever enough and you look at things the right way.

So. Way to go, Alan. Welcome to the next level.

Story[edit]

N/A

Instructions[edit]

Quickly press the appropriate key when an object or path begins to flash yellow. The correct key depends on context; if the danger demands that the adventurer move to the right to avoid disaster, then the player should tap the right arrow. Likewise for the other three cardinal directions. If the danger is immediate and demands a special action, then the space bar or Enter serves as an action button.

AdventureSprite2.gif

Think quickly and act wisely!

Credits[edit]

Game designed by Alan Caudel.

Availability[edit]

Prior to this archive's online presence, this game is not known to be publicly available.

Archive History[edit]

On February 28, 2012, Alan Caudel tracked down a copy of Adventure and sent it along for inclusion.

Links[edit]

AdventureSprite1.gif

Interviews / Articles[edit]

Misc. Links[edit]

Downloads[edit]