This was a bit of a 'nick of time' submission! Realised about two days ago that the project I'd been working on was getting too unwieldy and I was never going to get it finished in time...so threw together a short prequel game this weekend. Might still have a few bugs but I think I've caught most things now!
Looking forward to playing everyone else's submissions now (and getting a bit of sleep).
Just completed the game, pretty impressive for a first adventure game. It understood most inputs I tried, but it didn't understand FILL BUCKET. It was also a bit random when the fire started (I couldn't see anything to explain why it started), but it was a nicely coded in-game event. The part at the lake was genuinely terrifying. 10 / 10 for trauma. I liked the writing quite a bit too, it had a lot of character.
The graphics were - well - they were a bit of a workaround, but bending jam rules is part of the fun.
I scored 34 / 100, so I wonder what I missed.
Thanks for the feedback! There is a hint earlier on as to why the fire starts, but maybe I should have made it more obvious.
Yes, the graphics were very last-minute! I'm hoping to release another version with better ones at some point.
The score is a bit of fun - you can win the game with a low score, but there are various things you can do differently to change it.
I just finished 'The Cave of Hoarding'. (I played it on my phone while travelling to and from work on the train.) I got 69/100, so I'm going to have to replay it to work out where the missing points are. It would have been nice to have an indication of when the score went up...or at least a SCORE command.
When I first started this game, I didn't think I was going to like it because it starts in a modern-day car park that seemed out of keeping with The Cave of Magic theme, but it turned out to be quite a nice game. I didn't feel comfortable helping out a mobster though, and I was sorry to lose Mandy. Is it possible to save her?
Given that this was a last-minute submission, you've done really well. The writing is good and I don't recall seeing any obvious bugs. The handling of the car could have been better, but that's about my only complaint. Good work.
Hi Dee. I just replayed the game and made sure I saved Mandy this time around, but my score was much lower (34 rather than 69), so I got penalised for saving her. Any chance of giving a rundown on how the scoring works?
Incidentally, after re-reading this thread, I just tweaked to the cause of the fire. It was when Mandy discarded her cigarette butt in the bush, right?
Basically, there are three possibilities with Mandy, but it seems that nobody's found the third yet (or at least nobody's mentioned it if they have!) The first is if you never encounter the troll, and so the boss gives you each a share of the payment at the end. The second is if Mandy gets killed by the troll, so you get the whole payment (and hence a better score). The third is if Mandy gets caught by the troll and you manage to save her before it's too late.
The game is perfectly winnable with a low score, and I'd say it's (deliberately) pretty difficult to get max points, so it's more for fun than anything else! Things you might want to play around with include the rucksack, the coin and the pickaxe.
And yes, if Mandy makes it past the lake, it's her cigarette butt that causes the fire. If she doesn't, it's because you go through her rucksack and carelessly toss aside the contents, including a magnifying glass that sets fire to the grass - but a few people have mentioned they were confused by that, so again it's maybe something I need to make clearer.
