Announcing: Cryptic

[DystopianRhetoric]

Cryptic is an idea for an adventure game which is hopefully rather unused at the moment.

Essentially play revolves around computer systems and the internet (which means, due to knowing astonishingly little about either, you get lots of fake "pop culture-hacker" type situations). You play a computer AI, released onto a system for reasons that your memory doesn't go into and play progresses from there, with lots of cheesy conspiracies and the like.

Being an AI, the idea of inventory has to be somewhat different. Rather than finding and collecting objects as such, you collect supplementary programmes, memory modules and pieces of data and interact with other things based on these.

Just finishing off with some screens, these are currently rather rough... they are badly scaled and much too large in terms of file size... but they should give a reasonable view of what the game will be like. Sort of. I guess (there's no visible character because I felt that giving the character a physical form would be rather redundant)

http://www.bratch.co.uk/coven/cryptic1.jpg

http://www.bratch.co.uk/coven/cryptic2.jpg

[Darth Mandarb]

I'm rather confused here ...

Is this an AGS game?  I see, in one of the screenies, the name Ego as the login name but the resolution of the images isn't an AGS resolution.

Are those in-game screenshots?  You play the game on an internet forum?

I have to say, the idea sounds intrigueing ... kind of like Tron, but with a different twist.  Can you provide a little more information about what's in the screenshots?

[DystopianRhetoric]

I'm rather confused here ...

Is this an AGS game?  I see, in one of the screenies, the name Ego as the login name but the resolution of the images isn't an AGS resolution.

Are those in-game screenshots?  You play the game on an internet forum?

I have to say, the idea sounds intrigueing ... kind of like Tron, but with a different twist.  Can you provide a little more information about what's in the screenshots?

Yes, it is an AGS game, the reason the resolutions are messed up is since the GUI isn't finalised per se, and there is no central character, those are just background stills that haven't been properly resized. Reading the stickies more thoroughly I should have imported them into the engine and taken screenshots, but it seemed more efficient to post up the backgrounds since there isn't a heck of a lot more to those particular scenes, scripting and interactions aside.

As for the game's setting, yes some of the game is set in an internet forum. Most isn't... but that is a part of it.

[BlackMan890]

Looks promising, althought i am not getting how Forums site is doing there

i hope you finish the demo soon, so i can play it

[Vince Twelve]

This sounds great.  It reminds me of "Uplink: Hacker Elite" which was a title in which you play a hacker and the only interface you use is the hacker's computer interface, so you get to feel like you're actually hacking into banks and transfering large amounts of money or stealing confidential files from major corporations.  Here's the website:

http://www.introversion.co.uk/

There's a playable demo on there that might help you get some ideas.  It's a really fun and addicting game with some ideas similar to your own:  Overarching conspiracy, collect programs, send/recieve messages, etc.

[DystopianRhetoric]

This sounds great.Ã,  It reminds me of "Uplink: Hacker Elite" which was a title in which you play a hacker and the only interface you use is the hacker's computer interface, so you get to feel like you're actually hacking into banks and transfering large amounts of money or stealing confidential files from major corporations.Ã,  Here's the website:

http://www.introversion.co.uk/

There's a playable demo on there that might help you get some ideas.Ã,  It's a really fun and addicting game with some ideas similar to your own:Ã,  Overarching conspiracy, collect programs, send/recieve messages, etc.

Yeah, played it, love it. One of the major influences behind this project.

[Vince Twelve]

Excellent.  I'm really looking forward to seeing your vision of what it's like to be an Artificially Intelligent program that exists only in cyberspace.  This is not a character that has been often covered.  Especially not as the main character.

How did it gain self-awareness?  What motivates it?  What does it see?  Can it feel emotions?

If you'd like a bit of reference, there is a very interesting character, Jane, in Orson Scott Card's Ender series of books.  She's not in the first one but becomes major in the second book on.  She is an intelligent being that was born in the network connecting all the computers on countless planets.  I've never read a character like her.

Good luck.

[The Book]

Nice idea... it brings to mind "Mind forever voyaging" by Meretzky.