Indie Interview: Mike Rubin pt 2
This is Part 2 of the interview posted yesterday with Mike Rubin. Mike was gracious enough to answer some questions about his "3D Interactive Fiction" project, Vespers 3D.

You can read part 1 by clicking HERE.

Rampant Coyote: When you move from a more abstract representation of a world to a more concrete one, those kinds of things are bound to come up. I've heard similar things from experienced "Pen and Paper" RPG designers moving to computer games. And even from doing conversions of board games to computer games.

I would imagine that you aren't the first one to think of pairing up Interactive Fiction with a 3D environment. Do you know of anyone else who has succeeded? If not, why do you think they failed? If so, what are you doing that's different (other than telling a different story)?

Mike Rubin: Well, I can't say I'm completely familiar with all of the different attempts that have been made in the recent past with respect to graphical adventure games. But I'm pretty sure that nobody else has taken the approach of incorporating this much text into the game. The text in traditional IF performs many functions; it is descriptive, narrative, informative, aesthetic; and of course it is used for interaction. Is there no role for that in a graphical adventure game? I think there certainly is. Perhaps not in the descriptive sense (that would probably be redundant), but certainly in its other roles. And I don't know of any real-time 3D games where a text parser is used for command entry. So in that sense I don't know of other games which have really tried to incorporate interactive fiction per se.

I think people will always point to the Myst series as the best-known implementation, and they did use real-time 3D in their later efforts. Some people really liked those, but I have not played them all. Our story is different, yes, but I also think we will differ in how we tell the story and how the player experiences it.


Rampant Coyote: How do you think the Interactive Fiction community will respond to a real-time 3D I.F. game? Do you worry they'll cry out for your blood for polluting their beloved text with something that looks like a First-Person Shooter? Or is this something that the community has already been asking for?

Mike Rubin: It's a fascinating discussion to me, and on one hand I'm eager to see the reaction and on the other I'm dreading it. I'm sure there are people in both camps, although I couldn't really tell you which outnumbers the other. I've spent some time lurking in groups like rec.arts.interactive.fiction and there have been dicsussions in the past about making 3D adaptations of IF, but most were met with strong skepticism. I think there are definitely some IF people who would like to see this, but there are probably a lot who will reject it. There are, after all, hard feelings still lingering towards people like Roberta Williams (of Sierra On-Line) for initiating the demise of the text adventure game when the first graphical adventures came along.

One thing that I think will lead to some indifference is that 3DIF is much less accessible to the individual developer than text IF. Most text games can be developed by a single person over a relatively short period of time, and with some of the new tools like Inform 7, very little programming skills or knowledge is needed. I think that's one of the things that binds the IF community together; it's not a commercial enterprise, it's a group of like-minded individuals working on their own projects and helping each other out and playing each other's games -- and they're all free. A 3DIF game takes a group of people with different sets of skills, some cash, and a lot of time. When the community gets their hands on this I'm sure one of the first reactions will be, "can I do this with my game, too?" The answer will probably turn many of them off because it's very different from traditional IF.

I think some parts of the community are really looking for something new to spice up the IF world, and I hope this fills that role. But it's hard to say if it will.


Rampant Coyote: Do you think that Vespers 3D will help expand Interactive Fiction to a new audience? What kind of market do you expect to find for a game like this?

Mike Rubin: The IF community always seems to be looking for ways to expand their audience, and if this project can do that, I would be happy about it. I don't suspect that will necessarily be the case, but you never know. What I would like to see is people trying Vespers3D, and then trying the original text version to see how they compare. If that happens, I'm sure there will be a number of people who find they like the text version better, and perhaps they will be inspired to try other text games as well. I'm considering distributing the text version and its IF interpreter with the game, along with some information to direct players to online repositories where they can try other IF games. I think that might be an interesting tact and something of an offering to the IF community, since I'm still really an IF enthusiast at heart.

I'm not sure what kind of market we will find, but I'm certain there is a market for it. I think Myst showed that you can be very successful with games that are slower paced and focus more on creative problem solving rather than fast-twitch reaction times. But Myst succeeded for a number of reasons that don't necessarily apply to our project, so it's hard to say. I think it will definitely be a niche product, but I also think people will appreciate it for what it offers.

Rampant Coyote: Do you have any projections for when Vespers 3D will be complete? Is Vespers 3D a commercial project? How will you be distributing it?

Mike Rubin: I would like to be able to project that, but I really don't know. We're still at a very early stage, and a lot will depend on finding additional help for some areas of development.

Whether or not Vespers3D will be a commercial product was and continues to be a topic of considerable debate amongst our team. Originally, we planned on producing only part of Vespers; the text game takes place over three days, and we considered producing only the first day as our proof-of-concept prototype. But I think we all agree now that it will have a much greater impact as a complete game. That said, it will require a significantly greater investment to do the whole thing, which complicates matters. I'd still like to do the whole thing and release it for free, but only if that's feasible and if we believe it will help us with a future (commerical) game.

As for distribution, we haven't really discussed that yet, and of course it will depend heavily upon the decision above.


Rampant Coyote: So what other games have inspired you? Any indie games?

Mike Rubin: All indie games inspire me. Any individual or small group who can start and finish a game deserves a great deal of credit, and that includes IF authors. But I'm more inspired by those games that try to do something new and different, which is really what the indie game dev community is all about...doing the things that the big game companies won't take risks on. I wasn't really part of the indie community until I got involved with the Torque Game Engine, and now I've met some pretty inspiring people. Two games that were recently completed using TGE are "Minions of Mirth" and "Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa", and it was pretty cool to watch them progress through to completion. WT:VA was a finalist at SlamDance last year, and now you can find it on store shelves at places like Best Buy, which is just amazing to think about. I can't imagine how it would feel to walk into a Best Buy and see Vespers3D sitting on a shelf.


Rampant Coyote: What are you most proud of in Vespers 3D?

Mike Rubin: I'm pretty darn proud of the text parser, which is a form of punishment I wouldn't wish on anyone. Text parsers in IF games may seem pretty simplistic, but there is an incredible amount of complexity to them. The funny thing is that they have evolved to handle some pretty complex commands -- but the reality is that the vast majority of commands they handle are still simple one or two word phrases. But the expectation now is that a good parser should be able to handle those difficult phrases, so the bar has been raised and people will expect your parser to live up to that standard. I think ours for the most part will.

But really the thing I'm most proud of is that we've made it this far. Indie game projects are kind of like fish eggs; thousands are laid but only a handful survive to adulthood. We're not anywhere near the end, but we've reached something of a milestone this month. There's a tangible sense that the concept will work and the team we have is good enough and committed enough to pull it off. It feels like we have passed the point of no return, so to speak.


Rampant Coyote: Incidentally, two of the few games I actually "finished" in the Commodore 64 days as a budding wannabe game programmer were text adventures, and I remember all the effort I put into the text parser, and how proud I was of it. They still weren't quite up to Infocom standards, but I felt I could take on the Scott Adams adventures pretty handily.

So, getting even more technical for a moment here: What made you decide to use the Torque Game Engine for Vesper 3D? Is this your first project in Torque? What has been your experience with Torque so far?


Mike Rubin: I chose Torque because I wanted an engine that was inexpensive, cross-platform, simple to license, and came with full access to the code. I also wanted one with a simple scripting language. Torque fit those criteria well, although one or two others did as well. I looked for a long time at Unity, which was appealing because I'm predominantly a Mac user. I chose to go with Torque mostly because of the great community there, which seemed a bit more established than Unity's. People at GarageGames.com have been really helpful and there are just an incredible number of resources there to help make your game better. This is my first project in Torque, and it's amazing to think about how much I know now compared to when I started last fall. And it's just as amazing to think of all that I still don't know.

Working with Torque is one of those experiences that is hard to characterize. It's probably in some small way similar to raising a child; it's incredibly difficult and when you start out you have no idea what to do or how to do it, and you spend a lot of time struggling. But every now and then you stop and look at what you've accomplished, and you realize you've actually enjoyed it all and you're really proud of what you've been able to do.

But then again, I don't have kids, so I can't say. (At least that's what all my friends with kids tell me.)


Rampant Coyote: I'm still fussing with my first Torque project myself. I know I get a little embarassed by some of the earlier code I did --- it seems like after a point you quit kicking and screaming at the engine and things just start to "click."

So, is there anything else you'd like to mention here?

Mike Rubin: Just that any project like this is almost never attributable to just one person. I owe a lot to Jason, N.R., Jon Jorajuria (our sound designer) and a few others for all of their help and their skills, and for making this project both attainable and a lot of fun. And I should really be thanking my wife for not kicking me out when I spend far too much time coding on my spare time.


Once again, thank you, Mike, for this interview!

(Click Here For Part 1)

Labels: Adventure Games, Interviews, Torque

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