Post by Garry Francis in Ask For Playtesters Here

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I am really enjoying this game. Very eerie feel. Love the glow around the text (custom script I believe), but probably not enough contrast between foreground and background in status bar, making it a bit hard to read. I also love that the colouring of the treasures match their descriptions. I haven't finished yet, but here's some feedback so far:

In first room, I didn't understand "Oversized to go through the door". I think you mean "Too big to go through the door".

"Nobody was here for ages" should be "Nobody has been here for ages".

"Water dribble from the tap" should be "Water dribbles from the tap".

In Australia, we call a faucet a tap. As you refer to it as a tap when you examine it, you should provide tap as a synonym for faucet.

When you GET WATER, it says "Not here", but when you DRINK WATER, you get poisoned. How can you get poisoned by something that's not there? Suggest changing first message to something like "Trickles through your fingers." or "No container."

Suggest "How to take the entire sewer?" should be "Want to take the entire sewer?" or "Can't take the entire sewer."

Re crowbar, "...scribbled" should be "...scribbled on it".

In Captain's cabin, it didn't understand BLOW DUST, WIPE DUST, CLEAN TABLE, WIPE TABLE, WASH TABLE, RUB TABLE, DUST TABLE and so on. "No power supplied" could be just "No power".

Consider overriding HELP, as system help is more than 6 words.

If you have one key, you should be able to EXAMINE KEY, USE KEY and so on, but when you have two or more keys, you get the messy disambiguation menu. You can EXAMINE VIOLET KEY, USE BLUE KEY and so on, but that requires three words, which is against the spirit of the jam rules. Consider allowing adjectives, such as EXAMINE VIOLET, USE BLUE and so on.

If you try to go north from northeast corner, it says to use employee key. If I say USE BLUE KEY (which should not require disambiguation, I get:
1. BLUE KEY 2. ORANGE KEY
1. BLUE KEY 2. ORANGE KEY

(note duplication), but I also had the violet key and it wasn't given as an option. This may be an Adventuron issue.

"You opened the pilots module" should be "You opened the pilot's module".

Could not EXAMINE anything on the control desk in pilot's module and did not understand things like PRESS BUTTONS, PUSH BUTTONS, FLIP SWITCHES, TURN SWITCHES, SWITCH SWITCHES, WATCH SCREENS, SIT CHAIR and so on.

The sentences that tell you you need a certain type of key should end with a full stop.

GUM should be synonym for PACK.

When you EXAMINE WINDOW in canteen, shouldn't "start" be "stars"?

"handheld computer" should be "hand-held computer".

SELECT NORTHEAST: "pilots module" should be "pilot's module".

When SELECTing directions in the smartlet, SELECT WEST ends in a full stop, but the others don't.

When entering CYAN in the smartlet, "manger's cabin" should be "manager's cabin".

Loved the gratuitous self promotion with SYSTEM. Yes, I checked it out! You are very talented.

More later if I find any further issues.

Adventuron4 years ago (3 edits)

For disambiguation for certain objects in relation to custom verbs, (a while back) I added a temporary disambiguation command.

As this command starts with "experimental_" it will be replaced with a better command in a later version, but this should theoretically dig you out of a hole at the moment. Please note that this command is "undocumented" and subject to change (as are all experimental_ attributes or commands). I won't remove it though without a better replacement (for example, there is no way to distinguish between people, animals and things right now).

It's not 100% guaranteed to work right now, but feel free to try it out. It should theoretically take into account any adjectives the player provides so that the shortlist is a shortlist with respect to the adjective. If there are two or more matches for the noun or adjective/noun for the subject that follows the verb, then a choices list will be provided, and the player can select one. I will probably improve this too in the future, so that the author can specify if the game can select any object if the noun/adjective is the same (e.g. treating 5 instances of coin interchangeably).

Usually better not to add a trailing : else {} at the bottom of this block, as Adventuron will naturally fall through to the natural "not here" message without one.

UPDATE: Documented this a bit better here.

: match "use key" {
   : mask {
      : experimental_disambiguate "carried"; // categories are carried, worn, unworn, beside, present
   }
   // Check against object id here "blue_key"
   : if (s1() == "blue_key") {
      // Do Blue key action
   }
   // Check against object id here "violet_key"
   : else_if (s1() == "violet_key") {
      // Do violet key action
   }
   // Continue for all keys
}

Garry Francis4 years ago

I finished it! I liked what happened when the power was back on. I also liked the little end game. There's a lot of rich detail, but by the time I'd finished, I realised there was a lot of repetition, but there wasn't really that many puzzles. Incidentally, I was using version 0.1.18. Here then are some more comments:

When you USE BLUE at southwest corner, "managers' module" (possessive of plural managers) should be "manager's module" (possessive of single manager).

When you EXAMINE any of the keys, there is no full stop at the end of the sentence.

Can't EAT GUM or CHEW GUM.

EXAMINE PHOTO says six persons, but uses seven colours. Shouldn't it say seven persons, as there are seven keys belonging to seven people?

In diary, "8/18 Willam turn the AI." should be "8/18 William turned the AI." I assume "AI" is artificial intelligence. Is that relevant to the game?

When reading diary, consider giving all messages in sequence, as that's how you would read it in real life, or use cycle (see sections 9.11.1-2 in tutorial). I must have read the bloody thing over 100 times to get all 18 messages.

When going north from northwest corner, it says "Need captain key". (Missing full stop at end of sentence.) If you then say USE RED KEY when you haven't got it or any other key, even if you have got it, it says "Door is already open", but door is NOT open. In my case, the west door was open, but I don't know if that's relevant.

"Activation successfull" should be "Activation successful".

Anyway, nice game. I hope you do some more.

Now, onto the next game. Aren't game jams fun?

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámi4 years ago

Oh, so many comments in two posts. I will try to answer all at once a little later. But anyway, thanks for playing the game!

P.S. How did you manage to get through the game without talking to AI?)

Garry Francis4 years ago

No need to answer comments. Just accept or reject as you see fit.

I took extensive notes and will write up a solution later. I wasn't aware of any AI and I didn't talk to anyone, as there was no one to talk to. Maybe I did something related to AI without being aware of it. Perhaps give me a hint as to where the AI was (location or object?) and I'll see how I worked around it. Is it an issue if I did it "incorrectly"?

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámi4 years ago

Probably, you deactivated security before using the terminal in the Captain's Cabin. And if so, you probably missed the trap scene and related puzzle. AI is one form of interaction with the Captain's Terminal. It starts with command "RUN AI".

Garry Francis4 years ago (1 edit)

I think I might have missed security. Smartlet tells me security is east of the north-east corner. When I transfer my map from little bits of paper to a big piece of paper, I can see that there is a pattern and I am possibly missing one room where security should be. Smartlet also tells me a security code and security key for security. The latter looks like a regular expression. I didn't use these. I opened the grille and found the orange key, but I don't think I used it anywhere. Should I have used it at the north-east corner? There was no exit indicated to the east.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámi4 years ago

Yeah, security module is hidden and locked with orange key. Thats the idea. In the original way a player should not find a security module just by inspecting the station. Probably security module should not be mentioned in the smartlet. But then it become not so logical. I have to think what I can do with this.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámi4 years ago

At first - just a HUGE thank you for such a detailed feedback. All messages and typos will be corrected. And I'm incredibly impressed that you found Easter eggs. Seriously, I'm REALLY impressed)

I'm not very good at creating gameplay, but I'm trying to tell a good story. That's why not so many puzzles. And I have very very little experience in gamedev.

About commands like "USE BLUE". As I remember from English lessons, "blue" is the adjective, and can't be used as noun. Maybe I'm wrong, will check it.

Station team is six people, seventh key is belong to the guest. The guest just is not on the photo, because no guest is not an employee.

About the diary. Another huge thanks, missed the "cycle" section in docs and got lot of pain implementing the diary.

Jams are fun, when you have time to make and play =) Really, huge thanks for every tip. Will work hard tomorrow to improve everything.

Garry Francis4 years ago

Interesting. I wasn't aware that I had found any Easter eggs, just normal stuff. Any hints as to what they were? I did get killed a few times, but was able to rollback. Thanks for including that.

You're right about adjectives, but this is a common technique that has been used since the old days of text adventures with two-word input. For example, if you have a gold key, a silver key and a brass key, you would use EXAMINE GOLD, GET SILVER and DROP BRASS. In Adventuron, if the noun is unique, you can define the adjective as a synonym in the vocabulary table. If the noun is not unique (as in the key example above), you can just use :match "get adjective" without having to define the adjective as an object. Alternatively, you can set all the adjectives as synonyms for the noun and in your tests, use something like this:

: match "get key" {
   : if (original_noun1() == "gold") {
      // Do something with gold key
   }
   : else_if (original_noun1() == "silver") {
      // Do something  with silver key
   }
   : else_if (original_noun1() == "bronze") {
      // Do something  with bronze key
   }
   : else {
      : print "Which one?";
   }
}

If you want to be smart, there's actually more to it than this, but this is meant to give the general idea.

You can also try the new experimental disambiguation that Adventuron mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but I haven't tried that.

Thanks for pointing out the reason for six people in the photo. Of course, it makes sense once it's pointed out to you.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámi4 years ago

No hints about easter eggs in the game. The one you found is not the only one included. There are several others.

Garry Francis4 years ago

I meant a hint about which one I found. I may have found others, as well, as I was pretty thorough. Not thorough enough to find the AI, though.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámi4 years ago

I just realized that player can open portal (use PSTART command) without deactivating security. This is really giant bug, should fix it as soon as possible. Thank you!

itch.io

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