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The Pity of Thieves's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Depth | #4 | 2.041 | 2.500 |
| Gameplay | #4 | 1.633 | 2.000 |
| Story and affinity with the theme | #5 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #5 | 1.633 | 2.000 |
| Soundtrack | #6 | 0.816 | 1.000 |
| Graphics | #6 | 1.225 | 1.500 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Well, what else can I say... it's such a surprising entry that I think that all of us who have played have been thrown off by it, hahaha.
I can see that it has a lot of work and as has already been said, it can be difficult to understand, but it must be recognized that the concept is original.
Congratulations on finishing on time and creating something... different! 👏
Thank you very much! That means a lot to me :-)
As some of the other comments have mentioned, I couldn't figure out how to start the game. But luckily the link works great. I see that you used the arrow symbol in the game, but I'm not sure what game you based it on yet! Also It would be helpful to know which direction I last came from (I kept running in circles :D). You also have a cool feature where you can travel to a location just by typing its name. I couldn't remember the locations word for word though! Maybe a list on the side somewhere could help?
All in all I thought it was a cool experience! I think the storytelling and art style worked well together and it had an aura of mystery. It reminds me of "A Dark Room" but you also have a nifty feature at the bottom of the screen. Text based games seem to give players only a few options, usually in the form of buttons, but instead your game has a search bar type feature and it lets players have more freedom
Thank you for playing!
This is my first real text adventure and it was difficult to guess how big to make the map and what the connectivity should be. Sorry you got a bit lost :-)
I do think that using the web like this gives more opportunities for a nice interface, compared with some of the older IF systems.
I'm sorry but I'm currently completely lost at what I can do in this "game". Even though I can only congratulate you for your submission, and for your programming skills, I have to admit on the other hand that having to install Python and going through various issues didn't encourage me a lot (I tried and spent an hour on it but it's obviously above my skills - but I'm a graphics creator, not a programmer). Apologies for not doing more with your game or engine (I have no idea what it is exactly!). I won't rate your game, to avoid giving a low rate to something that might in fact be a true gem. I'll let the public votes and eventually the Judges later decide for me! All that being said, congrats for the effort and big thanks for your participation to the jam! You can be proud! Whatever people may think or say, you have created a game from scratch in 3 weeks, and it's great!
You can try the game at this link: http://109.74.199.86
Thanks! I did see the link, but focused on the description and how to install Python, then I forgot. I failed to use the file provided with the Download button... I think that the explanation about Python should be in a Readme file with the game file, or in a devlog. And that the URL should be more obvious, and not in the middle of all the text ^^
Anyway today i used the URL to play Pity of Thieves. The concept is interesting and the game is well done. I like how the texts appear, fade, and the fact that we can progress in the story with commands. It looks more complete than some of the other text adventures I could play in the past, but I haven't played a lot of them.
I walked a lot in the town, continued to the south and south west, past a bridge, a forest, and got stuck at the confluent of two rivers. I see that it is easy to get lost (and the rotative symbol of the jam appears ^^ Where am I?), the world is vast and you have to be careful to the directions you take. Happily I took notes on paper, and could draw a quick map that helped me.
However I ended to be stuck in the main quest. Naill gave me a Briony for Freda. I wandered for quite a long time without meeting anyone else. When I finally came back and found Freda ( she was very near from where we met Naill actually), she tells me that I can enter the house. However she keeps telling me that I can enter if I don't steal anything, but I couldn't find what to do, and couldn't talk to her. I tried to give her the flower. I could open the inventory and saw the Briony in it, but didn't find the command to give it to Freda.
Maybe I will try again later. The game is rich and looks interesting, the story is well written. Well done! I'm sure I would find what to do by typing help, but I have to find the good command to use with the inventory. Anyway it was an interesting experience! Much better then installing Python yesterday :D
Cyber, that's great, thank you for coming back to have another go!
I'm really glad you got so far. It ought to be possible to say 'give the Briony to Freda'. Maybe you did that but the game didn't report what happened next.
At the end of the Jam I ran out of time and had some family commitments so unfortunately the 'win condition' isn't as obvious as it could be.
I tried 'give Briony', 'talk Freda', 'Freda Briony', 'give flower', etc. But didn't try something so obivous as give the Briony to Freda XD
Will give a third try sooner or later ^^
Thank you Icehouse. It's fair to say that my focus was shared between the game and development of the library which supports it.
I think right now the game is a decent demo for Balladeer. And it's also a work-in-progress which I might continue with. Since it's on Github, it's there for others to tinker with, too.
EDIT: This was a reply to Icehouse's post above, but for some reason it keeps appearing down here.
So, if I understand correctly, you have created a Python library to help design text games? Something original in itself, but which seems very complex to set up. Fortunately, your example (clearly specified in the description of your game, by following the link http://109.74.199.86/) allows to appreciate its effectiveness, while offering a game that meets the basic criteria of the game jam, that is to say "New Beginnings" and the expected graphic symbol (which one meets quickly as soon as one really tries the game a little bit). I would have appreciated a clarification as to the old game used as a reference, unless it is more a general reference to text games of the 80s / 90s (do not hesitate to indicate it on the game presentation page). So I will continue to wander through the strange world of your demo. Thank you to you for this original submission.
Hi Yazorius,
Yes, this is the first real text adventure I've made with my Python library which is called Balladeer.
It's not a great title for a game, but the original inspiration was the CYOA book City of Thieves. Of course, the characters are different and there's no combat. So that's where the similarity ends :-D
It's great to read you say you'll be exploring more. That really gives me motivation to continue in this direction!
I honestly don't think I can even rate that. It's not a game, but an engine and it doesn't even use the mandatory symbol because it can't, it's text-only.
Hi Cyber,
Thanks for taking a look. The symbol does appear (and there are some other illustrations too) but I guess I didn't make it easy enough to find :-)