How To Write Adventure Games by Peter Killworth

[iamaran]

Is a pdf available anywhere? I've looked in the usual places.
Thanks.

[tautology]

I have the physical book, so if one can't be found I can scan it (though I don't want to do this if somebody else already has).

[AndyGarton]

Oddly enough I was searching for this book yesterday too, no joy with finding a PDF though.

(I did find a copy for 20 quid somewhere, better than the Amazon 100 quid "offers", but still a bit rich for me!)

[jonb]

Not the same book but I have one for the ST that deals with programming adventure games in BASIC.

I imagine they are much the same.. 3 dimensional arrays for the rooms, etc etc..

[AndyGarton]

Nah, Killworth is a legend, this book is to adventures what "Creative Assembler" is to arcade games

[jonb]

Hmmm, well in that case, here's hoping a PDF turns up!

[tautology]

I didn't think it was that good, and did disagree with him on bits. I'll have a go at scanning it: it's 128 pages and the spin is a bit solid so it looks like I'll have to scan each page separately.

Although... £20 you say

[tautology]

Bugger, scrub that. Having actually looked at my bookshelf, I've got my books mixed up: I've got the one from Peter Watt.

Damnit. Sorry.

[iamaran]

I think I had the Watt one too, back in the day...
Thanks all, so far.

[Dave_E]

This book is on Chris Dewhurst's totally excellent 55 BBC Micro books CD. I'll get around to reviewing it on Acorn Electron World soon. Meanwhile you could track down a copy of the CD through the Drag N Drop website. It costs £12.95 but you get 55 amazing quality re-mastered PDFs of classic BBC/Electron titles.

[Dave_E]

Hmmm, and actually if you want a scanned version of it, it is *of course* included with the other *120* Acorn Electron books on the double-DVD set from Acorn Electron World which you can buy by simply clicking here

[Dave Footitt]

I've just found this in my pile of stuff, I was going to put it on eBay but I've started reading it and it's not that bad really. Not really one for the text adventure but it's quite a comforting read

[richardtoohey]

I found a lot of typos in the PDF version, so the scan on the Acorn World DVD is more coherent.

Or if you can afford it, why not do both - there's lots of other goodies in both sources.

[davidb]

This book has just appeared in another thread.

[iamaran]

Thanks for the tips all.

[JonnyPencils]

Old thread I know but I've found a very good scanned PDF version of this book.

http://www.mocagh.org/softguide/writeadventuregames.pdf

Took me quite a while to find it!

[lurkio]

Old thread I know but I've found a very good scanned PDF version of this book. http://www.mocagh.org/softguide/writeadventuregames.pdf Took me quite a while to find it!

Thanks, JonnyPencils! That's quite a find. This book is a classic in its field, despite the fact that Mr Killworth had a nice line in Schadenfreude (or perhaps because of that!):

The longer we can keep the player convinced he has the solution, the more frustrated he will be when he finds out that he does not have it (and the more he'll appreciate his efforts when he finds the real solution).

A nice puzzle – can we frustrate the player further, when he solves it? Yes indeed.

Jumping over a drop always worries players, and worry is a key ingredient of Adventure games. But to lull the player into a false feeling of confidence let's allow him to make the jump successfully. Only when jumping with the gladius (or pilum, come to that) will he miss his hold and fall into the abyss.

Finally, let's make the plank break underneath the player just as he gets to the cavern, thus blocking his return. There will be another way out, even if we haven't thought of it yet, but creating a little honest worry in the player's mind never comes amiss!

[iamaran]

Old thread I know

It's never too late!

Took me quite a while to find it!

Thank you very much.

[lurkio]

The games from the book are now on bbcmicro.co.uk:

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php?search= ... 29&on_C=on

[CHRISJJ]

Lovely book, but I did think a more accurate title would have been "How I Write Adventures Games"

But having already changed the title of one of Peter's creations (Brand X to Philosopher's Quest) I wasn't about to mess with another...

Chris (former Acornsoft Publications Editor)