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Adventuring Underground
Issue 5

By Rob Merritt

Adventuring Underground is a weekly feature that will cover the burgeoning community of shareware and freeware adventure games available on the Internet.

The Creator's Toolbox

Part five of Adventure Game 101 is delayed until next week so that I can review the new Twilight Software Adventure Game Engine.

The release of a new game creation product is always a big occasion in the hobbyist game-making community. With each program released, we hope that finally someone has answered our prayers and delivered a product that will give life to our games. This week I am looking at Twilight Software's Adventure Game Engine, or AGE for short. AGE is the latest program to enter into the game creation genre. Its claim to fame, and the reason why we are interested in it, is that it can be used to create adventure games. Specifically, AGE is a tool to create first-person adventure games like Myst and Return to Zork. Is AGE the answer to our prayers?

AGE does get the most important aspect of a game creation tool right. It is very simple to use. Far too many game creation programs require the user to learn a script language that is equal in difficulty to C++ or require the use of a graphics editor that is a bear to use. While AGE does require scripts in text files to run the user's game, the script language is very straightforward and very simplistic. In continuing with its simplistic design, AGE uses .BMP and .AVI files directly, so the user can employ any program he or she wishes to generate graphics. Another aspect AGE got right is its choice of platform. It runs on Win95/98 with DirectX 5. The last thing the world needs is another game creation tool for DOS or some other dead or dying platform. So far, things are looking great for Twilight Software's Adventure Game Engine.

However, after getting three really important features right, AGE fumbles the ball for the rest of the game.

AGE's greatest strength is also a weakness. While it's great that AGE uses text files and standard graphic formats, it does nothing to protect them. These files are just sitting in the game's directory tree with no encryption. Someone could alter your game, or worse, steal parts of it and claim that it is his or her own. While this is true of many other game creation programs, with AGE the person doesn't even have to own a copy of AGE to rip the game maker off.

Another strength that turns into a weakness is AGE's simplicity. It is wonderful that Twilight Software created a tool that anyone can use. It appears that in order to do this, Twilight Software sacrificed flexibility. All you can do is use inventory items, go places, and talk to people. Even Myst was deeper. The games that people can create with AGE are about on par with the first hypertext games such as Cyan's Manhole. Good games can still be created with AGE, but most creators will want a more able tool.

From its web site, "Twilight Software's Adventure Game Engine is a cutting edge system for delivering fantastic adventure experiences." While AGE appears to be a decent game creation tool, it is hardly cutting-edge. The games it can create are simplistic and haven't been cutting-edge since the mid-1980s. AGE's technology isn't cutting-edge, either. Reading standard file formats and displaying graphics at 640 x 480 in 16-bit color, while a good thing, is not exactly new, let alone on the cutting edge. Even in the realm of game creation tools, AGE's "cutting-edge" technology has been used by other tools for five years or more.

One would think that a simple to use but extremely limited game creation tool would be appropriately priced. However, Twilight Software has taken the extremely high road with licensing fees. The lowest tier is the "hobbyist evaluation," costing $49.95 US. With that license, hobbyist game makers can create games with only seven objects and 25 variables, games have to be freeware, and an annoying tag will be shown each time the game is started. In order to create sellable games with a large inventory and large number of variables, the licensing fee is almost $2,000 US!

For those prices, most people would expect something that is rock-solid. This isn't the case with Twilight Software's AGE. The sample game supplied to Just Adventure + was very buggy. On the eight computers I ran the sample game on, three of them blue-screened, two would drop out of the program with an exception error, and all of them had significant graphical errors. These would drive most people crazy, or at the very least detract from the enjoyment of any game.

Twilight Software's Adventure Game Engine is a nice effort. There is a lot of potential in the AGE product. If Twilight Software adds depth, fixes bugs, and reevaluates its licensing fee structure, the AGE engine will be one creation tool to watch. Until then, you would be better off buying a product such as Multimedia Fusion Express.

To learn more about Twilight Software's Adventure Game Engine, visit its web site.

Featured Game of the Week: Twilight Software's Sample Game

Why take my word for it? Download a sample game created with Twilight Software's Adventure Game Engine. This should give you a good idea as to whether you want to use AGE for your games. The sample game is around 10 megabytes in size and takes only a few minutes to finish playing. After you finish playing it, take a look at the subdirectories of the game. Looking through the text files and bitmaps will give you a feel for how easy it will be to use AGE.