Piecing an Environment Together

I’ve been looking through some old Nancy Drew game files (one of my favorite pastimes) and I am amazed at how our games were built together.

The environments are created, cameras are set up in the space, and then those cameras save the spots in the environments as still images. So when you click to go forward, the programmed game will tell the screen to load the next image, simulating the experience of you taking the next step.

One interesting environment is the Forrest Maze in Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake. Spoiler! It is not (in creation mode) really a maze. It is a single square grid with several cameras set up, and the memorable objects (like that one rock, that downed tree, the yellow t-shirt, the stump, etc.) are turned on and off (invisible/visible). So we turned on a few objects, took the pictures of the navigation, then turned them off and turned other parts on.

Once all of the parts of the map are created, we pieced the images together to create a maze using code. You click to turn, and voila! The yellow t-shirt is at the intersection!

We have a birthday to celebrate!

-Little Jackalope