Hello, if someone wants to test this little game about a duck mother with 5 treasures you can try here : https://rigachupe.itch.io/doodley
Please let me know if you tried commands that you think could work but didn't.
Viewing post in Ask For Playtesters Here
I have started playing Doodley the Duck and am enjoying it so far, but it is very frustrating. Here are some initial comments:
Great title, but I think you should include the title in the title screen.
The goal is to find your five ducklings but there are only four shown in the title screen. Any chance of adding another one?
Nice colour scheme.
Make sure all sentences end with a full stop. Avoid exclamation marks unless it really is an exclamation. Don't use multiple exclamation marks, e.g. "Danger danger!!!" could be "Danger! Danger!".
"anymore" should be "any more", i.e. two words.
You should override HELP, as the system help exceeds the six-word limit.
Consider overriding CREDITS, as well. The system credits can still be accessed using *CREDITS.
HUNT is a pretty obscure verb to use. I don't see ducks as hunters, but hunted. Perhaps give a hint to use it.
"doggo" should be synonym for "dog".
"pig" and "pork" should be synonyms for "piggy".
A "pig house" is normally called a "pig sty".
X HOLES: "hidding" should be "hiding".
If you CATCH CATERPILLAR when hands are full, it tells you your hands are full, then gets it anyway and drops it in the room. In this case, the response is inappropriate. You can then CATCH CATERPILLAR again and the same thing happens, but you only end up with one caterpillar, not two. Whereas, if you've got a caterpillar in your inventory, it says you've got one already.
Doesn't understand a lot of common verbs such as PRESS (synonym for PUSH), MOVE, SHOW, SMELL (particularly relevant in this game), THROW, TICKLE (because there is a feather) and so on.
"To risky, wait..." should be "Too risky, wait..."
If I understand this correctly, "*bush piips hungrilly*" should be "*bush peeps hungrily*" and "Very far piips" should be "Very far peeps".
"buggers" should be "boogers".
I get the impression that this is like 5 mini adventures and there is one duckling in each area. It seems like you need one type of food for eack duckling (I might be wrong about this), but there are no clues as to which food is required for which duckling, so it becomes a matter of trial and error. There also appears to be a number of red herrings, but I might be wrong about that too.
The hunger, thirst and sleep aspects are a real pain. The timing between getting hungry, thirsty etc. is far too short and you spend all your time just trying to stay alive with no spare time to look for the ducklings. Needless to say, I very quickly got fed up with this and played with this turned off. When I've solved it, I might come back and turn this back on again, but consider making the times more generous, remove it altogether or integrate it into the game. It's certainly not fair if you need to eat the food to stay alive when the same food is required for your ducklings.
Incidentally, I've only rescued Lui so far, but I have a hunch about at least three of the others.
Thank you for testing and the grammar corrections. The grammar is really a weak spot. :-).
Look closer at the screen. There are 4 ducklings, but you still find 5 treasures on it. It is not hidden in the screen, it is fully visible.
Added HELP command that shows hints in various places or situations. Try use it when you are really frustrated and can not progress. It is closer to a spoiler than a hint i quess.
MOVE, SHOW are used as verbs for buttons you think? Never seen it in that situation. Maybe i don't understand what you mean?
Each duckling has a specific trauma that must be solved by quessing the word. Food is required only on one duckling which you found. I can point out that the game tries to show some sort of love based solution to that kind of trauma for each duckling.
Thanks. That explains a lot.
Re SHOW, it can be used to show an object to another character to get their reaction. Just a suggestion.
Re MOVE, this can be used to try to move an object. It can be synonymous with PULL and PUSH, but these are normally treated differently, as you've done. If it's not needed, perhaps provide a suggestion such as "Try PUSH or PULL".
I worked out the 5th treasure in the title screen and have now got it. Very tricky. However, I'd suggest using ME, MYSELF and DOODLEY as synonyms for SELF.
I see that you've done an update, but you forgot to update the version. It's still 1.0.2.
I think you might have broken something. You can no longer go SOUTH from the horse stable. Can you check this? I can no longer get to piggy.
Thank you i make some changes as you suggested. I also tested the SOUTH direction from horse stable and it is working. Did you played from restored game state? Maybe something in the engine is not working good when there are changes in code i quess. But i did not change anything in location connections hmmm.
It could be that. I'll start again. I've now got 4 treasures. I'm stuck at the spider. I feel like I need to get the candy from the old female, as that's the only thing that's sweet. I can't dig manure, do anything with young female or the horse and the flies. I'm not sure if piggy is useful, but I wanted to give him the corn. I'll try that after I restart.
In the meantime, here's some more comments:
X NAIL: It holds dog's chain.
X CHAIN: Not here.
GET CHAIN: Not here.
PULL CHAIN: Dog is now free! [Huh? How can I PULL a chain that I can't get and can't see?]
"dog chasses" should be "dog chases".
"Hui is scared strongly" should be "Hui is very scared".
On initial entry to manure pile, after dung beetle disappears, something's missing. It says, "CLOUDS, , MANURE", i.e. double comma (possibly related to the save game state as you suggested above?)
"anytime" should be "any time".
If you quack at roses after rescuing Lui, it still says "*Bush peeps hungrily*".
X THORNS: Pointy and dangerous.
GET THORNS: Not here. [Should say "Too pointy." or something similar.]
"Dui shakes from fears" should be "... fear".
HELP hasn't been overridden at farm.
Also, there's still a few sentences without a full stop at the end. Perhaps do a quick search of your print statements and check that they all have terminating punctuation.You were right about restarting. There is no longer a problem going south from the stable or a blank object at the manure pile. This means I was now able to get the dung beetle, but the spider did not want any of the three treats that I'd found. I needed that candy, but there was no way that the old female was going to give it to me. Then I discovered that you had a solution on the game page.
WARNING! Spoilers ahead.
SNATCH FEMALE. Give me a break. I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years! I don't even know what it means. Perhaps you meant STEAL CANDY or something like that. Also, SPANK DOLAN is pretty obscure. Are there any synonyms? SPANK is not a word we'd be likely to use in Australia. I think I tried HIT, SLAP, WHACK and a few others.
I really liked the concept behind this game, but the random events, the food/drink/sleep issue, the lack of in-game hints, the repetitive nature of some of the puzzles and the guess-the-verb issues really let it down. Despite that, I'm looking forward to your next game.
Anyway, a couple of final grammatical issues:
"Wof wof" should be "Woof woof".
"Here is he" (when Dolan appears) should be "Here he is".
I still think SNATCH, even with synonyms is a bit mean, as you only have one move to do it, so no time for experimenting. I still think you should STEAL candy.
Regarding SPANK, can you add SLAP and SMACK as synonyms, and maybe a few others like WHACK, SCOLD and so on. A thesaurus always comes in handly when looking for synonyms. Only use the common ones, though.