The PBM Player: The Original Graphical User Interface (GUI)

[GrimFinger]

I agree with your sentiments. Imagination is at the core of all PBM experiences; however I disagree with the observation that GUIs are irrelevant today.

I didn't say that GUIs are irrelevant, today. An interface - how players interface with the environment of the game - is always important. However, much effort is often expended on graphical user interfaces, but the games often end up all the poorer for it.

VGA Planets.nu - Here we have a complete remake of an old PBM game using modern web technologies. Personally, I think the UI is beautiful. I don't know if it is or will be successful, but I think it has a good chance -- as with all the PBMs I'm listing -- of succeeding.

I used to love playing VGA Planets as a BBS door game, back during the heyday of computer bulletin board systems. I first encountered the game on a BBS in California, and talked a local BBS Sysop into setting it up to run as a door game on his BBS, the first instance of VGA Planets running as a door game local to my area back in the day, to my knowledge.

When VGA Planets moved to a Windows client, I immediately hated it. I bought it, but then ceased playing it. The difference? The interface.

Thanks for the link to this site taking a new approach to VGA Planets. I had not visited it, before, I don't think.

First, I am not of the Old Guard, rather I am a member of the new generation of gamers who grew up with video games. To us a 'game' is synonymous with 'video game.' It is my peers and those younger than me who make up the "potential user base numbering in the millions." PBMs lack two fundamental features that we associate with 'games': 1. instant feedback 2. a graphical component. MUDs lack a GUI, but offer instant feedback. PBMs do neither. From our perspective if it doesn't have those, it isn't a game (even board games have limited visuals), and as soon as we realize that we stop listening and move on. You cannot convince us to come and stay in sufficiently large numbers if you lack both of those features. Admittedly, this is an unfortunate flaw of my generation, but it isn't going to change any time soon.

I grew up with video games, too, from Pong to Pac Man to Donkey Kong to the Atari to the Nintendo to the Sega Genesis. I have nothing against great graphics in games. Many games that have great graphics suck, though. Likewise, interface issues sink many games. I would argue that the focus upon interface development should be upon making the interface intuitive, even at the expense of graphics.

Also, I do not agree with the stereotype of instant feedback and graphical component being necessary for the current - or even future - generations of gamers. Far from being obsolete, the surface of text based gaming environments has only been scratched, thus far. One of the primary appeals of something that current generations affectionately refer to as "texting" is the entertainment value that inheres in that medium.

Grimfinger is correct. PBM didn't decline, because of the lack of a GUI. It declined because it failed to attract new players. 10 or 15 years ago modern gamers didn't have this primal need for visuals, and that is when they should have been given the opium of PBM. However, today, PBM will continue to decline if it doesn't attract new players, and it cannot attract new players unless it (1) acquires a GUI, or (2) sacrifices depth and imagination for instant feedback. Which is more important?

Suffice it to say that I don't agree. I don't agree with your basic premise from the point of inception.

I think that PBM declined for a number of different reasons, but I wouldn't include a supposed "primal need for visuals" as being one of those reasons.

As far as "instant feedback" is concerned, I certainly wouldn't consider that to be a prime requisite for a game of either the current generation - or of future generations - to be successful and popular.