Post by Adventuron in My entry: The Solstice Sovereigns of the North

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Congratulations. Finishing is a great achievement in itself.

I had a quick look at this and I feel it is very charming indeed. I really like the palette, and the aesthetic, and the weirdness,

Two small comments based on a very short play.

In the intro this sentence is very confusing:

"If you don't do what they won't by tomorrow, each night of the year will become the longest night of the year."

Secondly, I loved opening the trunk and the graphic changing, but after opening the trunk I felt like I wanted to close it again. It's really nothing, but I love interactivity where the graphic changes in front of the player, if it's not much work, maybe make it so the trunk can be closed again?

Natrium7294 years ago

Thanks!

For your first point: I guess it’s the “they” that’s confusing? The Sovereigns aren’t gendered (hence “sovereign” and not “king” or “queen”), so it’s a singular “they”, referring to the Summer Solstice Sovereign (that don’t want to awake the Winter one). But I understand how it can be confusing, especially since the sentence is quite vague (“do what they won’t”). I’ll try to reformulate.

For your second point: I thought about it, but Adventuron doesn’t seem to have containers, or at least they are not documented, so I would have to track everything myself (and a topic on intfiction.org implies it’s a pain) and I’m lazy.

What if the player closes the trunk without taking what’s inside? I’d have to destroy the contents a recreate it when the trunk is reopened.

What if the player takes the contents, drops it right away, then closes the trunk? I’d have to track if the contents were taken to know if I should destroy it.

And then if the player can open and close the trunk, then it’s possible they’ll try to put things inside it, and so on.

So I just decided to say “hey, no need to close it anymore, move along”, so that the player knows they’re done with the trunk and can now leave it alone.

Garry Francis4 years ago

On the first point, I haven't played the game, so I don't know the context, but I think it should be either:

"If you don't do what they want by tomorrow, each night of the year will become the longest night of the year."

"If you don't do what they won't do themselves by tomorrow, each night of the year will become the longest night of the year."

On the second point, there are various ways to handle this. For example, see the tin box in 'Seeker of Magic' for the simple approach. This is similar to what you are trying to achieve. (You will see some more sophisticated containers in 'Santa's Trainee Elf' once it's published.) Chris' point was that you should be able to close the trunk and update the graphic. For examples of this, see the various doors in 'The Witch's Apprentice'.

Natrium7294 years ago

The second sentence is what I mean. I’ll see how it goes in context. Thanks!

Chris’ point was that you should be able to close the trunk and update the graphic.

Yes, but as I said, I create a object when the trunk is opened, and if the player don’t take it and close the trunk, I’ll have to destroy the object I created when the trunk was opened (and recreate it when it’s opened again). And since players are players, one of them will assume that if you can freely close and open the trunk, you can also have other logical interactions, such as putting things inside, and so on.

However, if I say “You don’t need to close the trunk”, then I signal that the player is done with the trunk and can move to something else. It saves me some trouble. (Really, I don’t think now is the time to mess with containers.)

I agree it would be better if you could close the trunk and the graphic was updated (and that’s what I would’ve done with Inform), but I’ll just let it be.

itch.io

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