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Rite of the Druid (Browser Version)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #1 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
| Graphics | #1 | 4.889 | 4.889 |
| Overall Enjoyment (Not an average of other scores) | #3 | 3.889 | 3.889 |
| Puzzles | #3 | 3.556 | 3.556 |
| Accessibility | #5 | 2.889 | 2.889 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Graphics Editor Used
Photoshop
Time (Creating Graphics)
Ages!
Prior Programming Experience
BASIC
Native Language
English
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Comments
Got till the end and enjoyed it. Stuck only on some places because of the unusual multiple words combination (a.k.a the empty fluid into well for example). The graphics is top notch quality. I liked the druids theme and the trippy atmosphere in each screen.
Thanks. I'm hoping the Spectrum Next version is more forgiving due to the more limited parser, and I've added extra inputs to it for less verb guessing.
Gorgeous game! Wonderful variety of backgrounds. The writing really works to set the mood. Dreamy. Well done!
I got there in the end. Nice game, great graphics. I have to agree I found it a bit frustrating trying to figure out a couple of the verbs, but overall this was really enjoyable.
What Can I do with the rusty metal?
I can't help you; I got stuck and didn't do much.
Did you find silver coins and snake skin that Garry's talking about?
Not yet!! I supose that coins and skin come later...
You'll need to get to the place where the coins are before you can do anything with the rusty metal. Have you been down the cliff yet?
Yes. I already have the large bird's egg...
There is a thread in the Telegram group that will help. Or ask for a hint there, if you can't find it.
You need access to the barrow, so you need to figure out what to do with the egg first.
When you unlock and open the door of the pyramid, the text displayed is "OK", which is a bit sketchy and breaks the atmosphere.
In the clearing, there's an extra "a" in the description of the stone:
>X STONE
"Between the two stones at either side is a [a] shallow bowl carved from granite."
Finished! A very magical adventure, only spoiled slightly by a couple of tricky word blocks.
Lovely-looking game. I didn't find any bugs or issues with it other than what Christopher and Garry have already mentioned. Some of the commands were really hard to guess!
I loved the different paths at the end - going to go back and try them all.
I was really enjoying this game (really nice graphics and nice descriptions), but now I'm stumped.
I have the silver coins, snake skin, shells and small cauldron that I can fill with green acid or rainbow-coloured fluid. I can't work out how or where to use any of these items. I need a disc to insert in the mechanism near the volcano, a way to open the door at the base of the mountain and a key to enter the pyramid. I'm also sure that I need to do something with the well at the base of the mountain, the deep pit at the volcano and get the scorpion in the desert. There's also a horned ram, an owl and a noble stag that may have some relevance at some point.
I've been trying brute force with every verb I can think of with every item in every room, but all to no avail. Can you give me a hint, please?Fill the cauldron with the rainbow fluid. Take a look at the mountain door, the shape on it is a hint to what the well is for.
I'm afraid that doesn't help me. The key nouns here appear to be cauldron, fluid, well and door. I've been trying to pour the fluid from the cauldron into the well in order to (hopefully) melt the ice. I've tried every combination of enter, pour, empty, fill, put, place, insert and use with all those nouns plus a number of other verbs that aren't understood. Am I on the right track? This is definitely a guess-the-verb issue.
Yes you're right - I will add additional verbs and update in the future. There are several ways of doing it (but not enough), try FILL WELL WITH FLUID.
Sorry. Didn't see your reply. I used EMPTY CAULDRON INTO WELL. I had tried multi-word input elsewhere and it didn't seem to work, so I was assuming it only understood two-word input all the time.
It's a bit of a tightrope as I was making it compatible with DAAD for Spectrum Next...which does use two word (meaning some commands on the can work when they really shouldn't). I'm still learning what can and can't be done with it, this is my first try at using Adventuron.
I've finished it now. On the Telegram group, I said that I loved it at the start and hated it about halfway through and loved it again by the end. The graphics are brilliant and the descriptions are really well written. You've done a great job for a first attempt at Adventuron.
I took extensive notes so that I can write up a solution later. I think I only noted one major bug (the one Christopher Merriner mentioned),a couple of questionable things in the end game and a few spelling errors. As I struggled with guess-the-verb issues, that part could really be improved. I'll get some suggestions to you in the next couple of days, maybe on the forum.
Thanks for the feedback. The browser version is a lot more fussy than the Next version and I didn't fully account for that (all my playtesters were on the Next which is the intended destination). Aside from the verb issues, how did you feel about the length, structure and puzzles? This is really the first proper text adventure I've made and struggled to think up interesting puzzles for it!
The whole thing was very psychedelic. It reminded me of a famous episode of The Simpsons, where Homer ate some really strong chilli that gave him hallucinations.
Length and structure were just right. You had a nice number of barriers to prevent progress and every time you got past one of those barriers, it was a real thrill to see the graphics for the newly discovered location.
The puzzles were somewhat old school. Wander around, find objects, then work out what to do with them. It was pretty much one object per puzzle with not much depth. The connection between the object and the puzzle wasn't always obvious or intuitive. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but when you have to resort to trial and error, it sort of takes the pleasure away. There were a few exceptions. For example, the strange mechanism was quite good, as there were multiple elements to the final solution of the puzzle and it revealed something quite unexpected.
I found the end game a bit confusing. I didn't really understand what the animals were telling me. That may have been intentional. I need to replay it to try giving different things to different animals. (I think I know which animal will react to which "treasure".) I was expecting to have to give something to each of the animals, but when I went back to try, most of them had disappeared after talking to them.
Apart from the brute force slog in the middle of the game, I really enjoyed it and hope you write some more. Technically, it was very well written. I would not have guessed that it's your first Adventuron game.
Thank you. This is all good to know and will help when I plan future adventures.
With regards to the animals, they do hint at what they require (The stag hints at leadership and lineage, therefore the 'Pharaoh mask', the Owl speaks of silver discs 'silver coins' and the Scorpion speaks of coloured glass 'coloured gems'). These are the only 3 'treasures' in the game.
That was exactly what I suspected. I had used the owl.
Incidentally, can you add UNDO. To do this, just add the following:
game_settings {The first allows you to undo the previous move.rewind_enabled = true
rollback_enabled = true
}
The second allows you to undo after a lose_game statement. In this case, Adventuron asks whether you want to rollback.
I'm a little confused by this - these comments suggest the animals talk to you, but I've tried TALK TO [ANIMAL] and generally get a response indicating that I've been largely ignored! I'd also tried giving the gems to the scorpion (Jewelled scorpion? Worth a try...) to no avail.
Might also be worth pointing out that the readme suggests typing 'HELP' will give some hints about verbs, but this doesn't work - at least on the Next version.
Hello Sunteam,
You should be able to use noun2_is "yournoun" in 8-bit (DAAD compatible) mode. Please let me know if it doesn't work.
You should be using adventuron.io/beta (at time of posting) as this has the latest mapping fixes.
Chris
I cracked it. It took me hours. It turns out that it needs multi-word input.
I'm enjoying playing this. The strange emptiness of the setting (no other people, just a few curious animals watching your progress), combined with the excellent graphics make it feel very tranquil and magical. I think I've progressed quite far, although I'm now stuck. I'll wait to see what others make of it before asking for a hint!
A couple of technical things that you could polish up:
- There is no take or drop message (I'm primed by other games to expect one)
- Trying to get something that is obviously there from the description and/or graphics (eg bowl, sarcophagus) produces 'you can't find it', which seems odd. You could replace it with 'that can't be taken' or something similar.
- There is a bug with the shells. If you find them and take them and then go back and do the thing again, they disappear from your inventory and reappear in the location! I think you need to add something like:
: if (has_not_created "shells") {
: create "shells" ;
}
: else {
: print "You find nothing." ;
}
to fix that.
Those are the only problems that I've spotted. Other than that: good work!
Thanks, I will mark these for a future update (I'm not sure yet how to change the get message in Adventuron)
You can access the system messages and change them (it's in the manual) but the issue with get/drop (for me, it might not bother others) is that there is no message at all.
Hi Sunteam,
If you want to enable get/drop messages, please disable the "redescribe = auto_beta" at the top of your game. That will make your game show get and drop messages, but it won't auto redescribe the location as the state of the game changes.
The get and drop messages are deemed to be redundant is auto redescribe mode, and this is a design choice of the (beta) version of auto-redescribe. Disabling auto redescribe will make it behave more like a QUILL / PAW / DAAD style adventure game.
Chris