Has anyone started yet? Sticky

A topic by Garry Francis created Jan 31, 2020 Views: 468 Replies: 34

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The community forum has been very quiet, so I thought I'd share my progress.

I'm really having a lot of fun with this one. The two-word restriction is a real challenge! I've worked out the storyline, worked out the treasures and worked out the puzzles for how to get the treasures. The objects in the puzzles determined the various locations. All I had to do was work out how the locations were positioned with respect to one another. Now I'm not very good at drawing original maps, so I did a bit of Googling related to the theme and I've now drawn up a nice little map using Trizbort. Things are now falling into place. I'm about to write a walkthrough and start coding.

So, how's everyone else getting along? Without giving any spoilers, please share your progress. If you're having any problems in the design or the coding, please ask for help, as there are plenty of experts on the forum that can help you. Don't be shy, especially if you're a newbie.

Tobias V. Langhoff4 years ago

This will be my first IF/text adventure (if I finish it, that is), so I've been reading up on the genre and how to design such games. I have played some, but that must have been as a kid over 20 years ago...

I've started planning some puzzles (which will probably be mediocre) and structure, but it'll be hard to tell a coherent story with the restrictions. The two word restriction isn't that bad, but six words for responses and messages is tough! It doesn't really give room for much more story than TWO has. I'll have to see if there'll be a story at all.

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Telling a story in the restricted format is tricky, but I think it can still be done. Don't forget that you are allowed three sentences for the introduction and there are no restrictions on your itch.io page. As the story develops, you can reveal things in your responses. I'm using the super-restrictive two-word responses, but you can use up to six words.

Tobias V. Langhoff4 years ago

Yeah, it's not impossible, but certainly tricky. I feel like the three sentences in the introduction aren't really "story", but "setting". Maybe I'm thinking too much in terms of "plot" though. We'll see what I manage to squeeze out.

PapaQuarkSubmitted4 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Great idea for a thread Garry!

I have started. I came up with a plot that I'm happy with and planned out the rooms in a spreadsheet. Now getting the feel for the game in adventuron and started implementing a coulpe of the puzzles I came up with. Initially the two word limit was actually helpful because setting up the rooms and puzzles was super fast.

I have one big challenge though - Most of my puzzles are based on crafting the treasures and since combining stuff is a little tricky with the verb noun format and the two word limit I need to be a little creative.

Tobias idea of making use of the treasures themself was a great idea so I'll share one idea that I came up with.

I want to let the player know what the treasure items are but I don't want to list them. Therfore I will hint them in the examine reponses of other objects. For example: APPLE... GOLDEN APPLE WOULD BE BETTER

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

When combining things, use verbs like TIE, COMBINE, ATTACH, JOIN, INSERT or whatever's appropriate. Allow for synonyms.

Supposing you wanted to glue a broken handle to a jug to repair a broken treasure. Three objects are involved, but you can only use one noun. The other two can be implied. You can say something like GLUE HANDLE, then your tests will check that you've got some glue ("NO GLUE", if you don't have the super glue) and that you've got something to glue it to ("TO WHAT?", if you've got the super glue, but you don't have the jug). Don't forget to allow for alternatives like REPAIR JUG ("WHAT WITH?", if you don't have the handle) or ("NO GLUE" if you've got the handle, but you don't have the super glue). Give careful thought to the order in which you do the tests.

Now, suppose you need to build something from parts. Use verbs like MAKE, BUILD and CONSTRUCT followed by the thing you need to build, e.g. MAKE RADIO, then check that you have all the parts required. If a part is missing, say so, e.g. "TRANSISTOR MISSING", and that gives you a hint as to what other objects you need.

Your last example with the apple should work well. If using the even more restrictive two-word responses, EXAMINE APPLE: Golden better.

PapaQuarkSubmitted4 years ago

Thank you! That was really helpful. Im having so much fun with the puzzles.

AdventuronHost4 years ago

Anything you define as a treasure receives a default EXAMINE handler that says "TREASURE!" if the player examines the object. Setting treasure="true" on an object will give it the examine message by default. If you want a different default treasure message, then feel free to customise the system_messages{} section inside the theme.

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Which system message?

AdventuronHost4 years ago (1 edit)

system_messages {
   treasure_message              = RICH STUFF!
   all_treasures_found_win_game  = YOUR END GAME MESSAGE HERE, UP TO THREE SENTENCES !!!
}

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Thank you.

DethmunkSubmitted4 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Yep I'm well underway with my adventure. Almost all the locations mapped out and the puzzles. Adventuron is a great editor to use, so easy to iterate and try stuff out on the fly. Really enjoying it. Can't wait to finish the Jam and may be think about creating a bigger proper adventure with graphics etc. ;)

Plus one for Trizbort.... great little mapping tool. Real simple to use and lets you plan stuff out.

DethmunkSubmitted4 years ago (2 edits) (+1)

As for story telling, I wouldn't get hung up on that too much. Hopefully I have an interesting setting, but the story is sort of implied (the player can 'fill in the blanks or make up their own backstory'), but its not essential to the game itself, which is more about exploring and making progress into the adventure. Some great adventures are just crazy abstract game worlds. Just an interesting premise and you're left to solve great puzzles and mess about in that world. :)

AdventuronHost4 years ago

Absolutely, just because text adventures use words as their primary means of conveying information, it doesn't follow that those words need to convey a story. Looking forward to seeing the puzzle boxes that entrants have in store. Also looking forward to seeing how entrants bend the rules if they really want to tell a story at the same time :-)

PapaQuarkSubmitted4 years ago

I have one simpel question. Do I name my object ICE BOX or ICEBOX or ICE-BOX?

The first one is probably correct but the middle one makes for simple input?

AdventuronHost4 years ago

I'd go with single word ICEBOX.

You could create an alias in the vocabulary section BOX too. Then if the player types BOX, then Adventuron handles it as ICEBOX so you don't have to duplicate your command handlers.

######################################
#  Vocabulary                        #
######################################
vocabulary {
   : noun {
      aliases = [icebox, box ]
   }
}

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámiSubmitted4 years ago

Btw, I can't find a documentation for "aliases". How to implement aliases for several words?

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago (1 edit)

There are two different formats you can use. Using a verb as an example:

vocabulary {
   : verb {
      aliases = [talk, speak]
   }
   : verb {
      aliases = [lie, crouch]
   }
}

vocabulary {
   : verb / aliases = [talk, speak]
   : verb / aliases = [lie, crouch]
}

The second format is more concise. For nouns, just replace "verb" with "noun".

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámiSubmitted4 years ago

Thanks, but I forgot to ask the question :D I mean I want define several different synonims, like [talk, speak] and [lie, crouch], foe example. How can I do it?

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

I have amended the original example so that you can see how to do multiple synonyms. I hope this makes it a bit clearer.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámiSubmitted4 years ago

Thanks a lot! I tried something similar, but it didn’t work out for me. I’ll try your recipe.

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago (1 edit)

This problem comes up a lot. It depends on whether it's an adjective followed by a noun (1st case), a compound noun (3rd case) or either of the two that has morphed into a single word through popular usage. So, it's entirely up to you.

A quick bit of Googling seems to indicate that "icebox" is more common in the US and "ice box" is more common in Australia. If you have any other boxes in the game, then you might be better off with "icebox" to avoid the need for disambiguation. If you don't have any other boxes, then you can use "ice box", but allow "icebox" and "ice-box" as synonyms for "box" in the vocabulary{} block.

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Oh, man. Major problem. It looks like Adventuron doesn't fully support hyphenated nouns, like "ice-box". You can define an object description with a hyphenated noun and you can define a synonym with a hyphenated noun, but you can't use hyphens in the object id or a match statement. It looks like the workaround is to define the object with the correct object description, but use an abbreviated object id. Define a synonym with the abbreviated and full name and use the abbreviated word in the match statement.

PapaQuarkSubmitted4 years ago

Thanx Garry you are like a marvellous Interactive fiction dictionary. I think I will streer clear of hyphens for now and use one word objects unless it becomes to much of an eyesore. The vocabulary section was a good top as well. I had forgotten about that since it was not in the sample code.

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

I've got a hyphenated noun in mine and I think I've got it working properly, so there's no need to avoid it completely.

PapaQuarkSubmitted4 years ago

I could make a larger game but Im quite happy with the scope for this little adventure. All puzzles are now solvable and Im moving in to the polish phase.

Tweak the puzzles
Add additional acceptable commands
Test the game for bugs and weird behaviour

Should I add anything else to my list?

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Same here. As of last night, I can do a complete playthrough.

Don't forget title screen and read up on itch.io submission requirements and resources required to spiffy up your game page.

PapaQuarkSubmitted4 years ago

Great job Garry! Thank you for the tip regarding the icho page.

Bastian4 years ago

I too am near finishing my game. There is a question though. When do we switch the projects from draft to public. After the jam?

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

You have to make them public before the final submission date so that the judges, the other jam members and the general public can play them.

What a few of us did in the first jam was to make it private with a password and invite testers to test it and provide comments via this forum. It's probably okay to provide the password in the forum, as only people interested in the jam are likely to read it. Do this as early as you can, so that people have sufficient time to test your game, provide comments to you and you can address the comments before the final submission date. Remember that the most likely testers are probably working on their own games as well, so they may have limited time.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámiSubmitted4 years ago

It's interesting, that we can do testing. Could you please provide more information. Because for the moment I'd find only two friends who are not very good at text adventures, so I'm interested in testers)

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Just ask for testers on the forum when you're ready. I'm sure you'll get a few volunteers. I'm happy to help out. If all goes well, I should be available in about a week.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámiSubmitted4 years ago

Great. I have couple bugs to fix and then probably will make a post.

Dark Blue MonkeySubmitted4 years ago

The two word restriction meant I had to do a lot of refactoring to make things work. Originally I had the game designed as a dungeon escape game, but I just couldn't explain the situations in a meaningful enough way, so decided to switch to a narrative / traditional adventure.

The funny thing is... After coding in two words for a whole day, I couldn't stop thinking in two-words... "Make Coffee" I'd think to myself, "Go Down", as I walked downstairs "Open Door" as I opened the lounge door, "Fill Kettle" .. and so on. Then I was imagining the parser responding "Kettle full!", "Kettle boiled!"... I had to read a magazine article to snap myself out of it. XD

I am going insane aren't I?

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago(+1)

No. That's normal.

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Treasure Hunt Jam (Text Only)

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