About
I've always liked text adventures. So I decided to build one.
Everything runs on words. No graphics, no animations to lean on. If the room description isn't good enough, the room just isn't there. You have to write it.
This isn't the first one I've made, either. Back in college I wrote a small text adventure in Java for a class. Console app. No UI. Just a Scanner reading input in a loop. Funny enough, the story was almost the same as this one: you wake up from cryosleep on a ship called the Andromeda. An asteroid took out the power. You have to fix the reactor and get moving again before you're out of time.
Signal Lost is that same idea, just a lot more built out this time around.
Below is the actual starting room from the old Java project. It's the cryochamber, the same beat as waking up in the crew berth here. Back then you picked a number off a list to do anything.
public ArrayList<String> getDescription(Model model) {
ArrayList<String> Description = new ArrayList<String>();
Description.add("You are standing in the middle of the cryochamber...");
Description.add("All of your crews lifepods are still inactive...");
Description.add("You are the only one able to fix this problem...");
return Description;
}
public String[] generateMenu(Model model) {
String [] menu = {"Save", "Look at Pods", "Exit to Central Hub"};
super.choices = menu.length;
return menu;
}In Signal Lost that same moment looks like this instead: examine console, open hatch, north. You just type what you want to do.
"I couldn't figure out how to loop create with a rotating variable thus I had to do it manually."
— an actual comment from the old Java project
I couldn't figure out how to build a loop back then. Now I've built a full parser, a room graph with locked doors and branching state, and three different endings. Same guy, just a lot more mileage.