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[Zaru]

Hi guys and girls.
I'm a big fan of RPG games, although mostly the older, more complicated ones. Although Interplay's Stonekeep belongs to simplistic games of this genre, I found it a great fun and one of the best RPGs I had ever pleasure to play. That is mostly because of the great cinematic adventure with Wahooka, fairy songs (Wahooka, Wahooka, Wahooka...! ) and cool dwarves, but also because of one awesome game functionality... The Journal (yeah, written with caps). It contained a brief description of found items with no detailed information (like "+1 to attack and damage" or "replenishes 1d5 HP", or stuff like that found in D&D games) which you could alter and write thy own description of that particular dagger or potion. But most importantly, The Journal allowed you to write down your own adventures. Last time I played Stonekeep, I remember writing down a huge 273 page diary on my journey from the very beginning, down to the deepest parts of the keep. All this accompanied by the marvelous creaky sound of a quill drawing every letter I pressed on my keyboard (I think Interplay used three or even four different quill sound samples for that). This was really awesome. I've spent half of the game time scribbling many notes and I really, really enjoyed it.

You might wonder why I'm telling you all this stuff. Well, the explanation is simpler than you think. I'm looking for RPG games with an interactive journal. I know that Realms of Arkania: Star Trail has one (in a much less immersive way). But apart of that particular title? Personally (and sadly) I don't think there are any. But really, could it be possible there are completely no other games that offer this? Even on the present market?

[twillight]

Originally Posted by Zaru

You might wonder why I'm telling you all this stuff. Well, the explanation is simpler than you think. I'm looking for RPG games with an interactive journal. Could it be possible there are completely no other games that offer this? Even on the present market?

Well, why not just use an editor if you don't like ingame texts?

Personally I prefer the texts officially come with games, because they come from other people's mind. (I only like to change the protagonist's background story if it has otherway no corellation to the actual game; fine example for this is Baldur's Gate. Not that I'd go deep, most of the time I end up with the official text's porno-version)

[Zaru]

Originally Posted by twillight

Well, why not just use an editor if you don't like ingame texts?

Personally I prefer the texts officially come with games, because they come from other people's mind. (I only like to change the protagonist's background story if it has otherway no corellation to the actual game; fine example for this is Baldur's Gate. Not that I'd go deep, most of the time I end up with the official text's porno-version)

Heh. Using an external editor? "Well that's not it. Bring me the hydrospanners!". Han aside, I really hate the journal entries the devs are givin' us. I mean, what's their point? Ooh, I know! Console crowd! They ain't got a keyboard, or do they?

[Zaru]

A complete lack of response means that I kinda was right when I felt there were no other games with that kind of mighty and powerful journal. Soon we'll have our home keyboards reduced to WASD with Fire1 and Fire2 keys. But on the other hand, we're back to the roots when we only needed a single digital joy to control the whole game, although I don't quite buy it. ZX and C64 were cool when I was a kid. But now? Nah... Except of periodic nostalgia waves that strike me from time to time to boot up my olde ZX+. No.
Still, if the game complexity in time occurred to be a sinusoidal function, then perhaps we (or I, in particular) will be saved in a few years when the good, old and serous industry will be back. Bringing up The Times when book writers wrote the game screenplay and not the lead programmer or even better - some "htis will bee teh godd gamz" guys. (Everyone: Yay!)

[twillight]

The lack of replys more probably means those who visited this post know not about that kind of game - that's all.

About the joystick-scenario: I don't think it'd ever be atrend again to have controlls only the 4 directions and 1 action button.

I'd also say story writers better not write the codes. Why? Because writing codes is a very different thing. It'd be VERY rare to be able to do both, especially with a modern engine.
But if you want that kind of experience, I'd go for shareware/freeware games, like things done with RPGMaker, or some Flashplayer-games.

[Zaru]

I think you misunderstood me, @twilight. I'm not saying the novel writers should write code, but a storyline with all its twists. This would also provide some well defined characters and dialogue, instead of what we know from generic games like Oblivion or Fallout 3 for example. It doesn't matter whether the game engine is modern or old, as you have put it. It's all about people doing things they are most proficient with.

[Smiling Spectre]

Well, I cannot remember much of "Journal" games, but I am almost sure that Spiderweb games have it. "Almost" because I stopped to test it about at time of second Geneforge (and I haven't money to buy it), but Geneforge 1 and 2 and first two Avernums had it.

[Zaru]

Ah, I recall countless hours spent on Avernum. A great game it is. I actually finished the first part and even purchased the second. But playing two such enormous games one after another was too much for me and after guiding my little, brave heroes down the underground stream I had to make a short break for Doom or whatever other shit, to cool my brainz out. A break that turned out to be a long, long one. I tried to pick the game up several years later, but sadly, I've already forgotten at that time what happened in the previous part and remembering that time eater, I found out that I did not have enough strength to go through the whole storyline for the second time. In future, perhaps...

Hey, didn't Anvil of Dawn have user interactive journal?
Heh, I've just remembered that the demo of Anvil of Dawn, Stonekeep and a teaser of Metal Lords were on the same PC Gamer cover CD.
That naughty nostalgia...