I write text adventure games in Python using standard modules as well as my own. The upside is that there are no limitations on how I design my systems and quests. The downside is that I still have not found an efficient way to port them to systems other than the Windows command console, although mobile versions would be desirable. Even on my own computer, EXE files created with the pyinstaller
module are frequently flagged as potential malware, which is not an option when shipping the game to players.
Perhaps running them on this very website would be the best way for cross-platform support. After all, I use my own wrappers around standard Python functions such as input()
or print()
, so the number of classes I would need to change when upgrading the UI would be down to just one. But then there is the issue of security and where to store the saved games.
On the other hand, why not upgrade the text adventures with static images, turning them into graphic novels? Would it be worth the extra effort or only distract from the simplicity of the genre, thereby also shifting my focus from coding and writing to managing the overall aesthetics? I would not rule it out, but I am certain that it would require a collaboration with at least one other game designer or artist.