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First off, this game is absolutely amazing! I had so much fun playing it, and it definitely has a lot of replayablity. There's so much to do, and I especially love the procedural aspects of it. 

I've actually made a few procedural games similar to this, but never finished them. I spent a while in choicescript, but eventually migrated to javascript so I could do more complex things. But 4x4 is definitely better than the games I made, in terms of actual playability. I looked at the raw html code, and there's over 70k lines of code in this, which is absolutely insane.

I have three suggestions for this:

One: Coral City is incredibly complicated. I had no clue how to escape, and that's with me mapping out every location and where it leads. I eventually ran out of health potions and had to go back to my old save, in which I never entered Coral City. 

(This was the little map I made: 

EDIT: Turns out my map was actually incorrect. I don't know how that happened, but it did lol. So don't use this as a reference.

Broken Piere: (West: Ampitheater) (East: NA) (Norht: Broken Statue) (N/A)
Ampitheater: (East: N/A) (South: Flooded House) (West: Tower Island) (North: Tower Island)
Flooded House: (West: Merfolk Statue) (East: Broken Statue) (North: Broken Pier) (South: N/A)
Merfolk Statue: (West: Ampitheater (Norht: Broken Pier) (South: Flooded House) (East: N/A)
Tower Island: (North: Ampitheater) (West: 3 Arches) (South: N/A) (East: Ampitheatre)
3 Arches: (North Ampitheater) (West: Tower Island) (East: N/A) (South: Tower Island)
Broken Statue: (South: Coral Hut) (East: N/A) (West: N/A) (North: Flooded House)
Coral Hut: (North: N/A) (South: Broken Statue) (East: Broken Statue) (West: Broken Statue)

As you can see, they all lead to each other, and none of them lead out of Coral City. And I traveled to each location and couldn't find anything that would help me escape.

Two: Allies should fight with you, not only when you tell them to attack. Right now, allies work similar to another weapon, which takes away from the immersion. Also, it would be cool if enemies could group together and didn't have to fight alone. I feel like this would massively improve the combat system. The way I would implement this is: 

Each fighter has a dedicated speed value. And if you don't want to add that, just go off their combat level. Whoever has the highest speed attacks first, they attack the weakest enemy. It continues like this. When it's the player's turn, they can choose whom they attack, and then the attack type. I have some code for a system like this, but I've never coded in Twine, so it wouldn't transfer. But if you wanted, I could share it, if it makes this any easier to understand.

Three: When I finished the main quest, it ended the game and didn't let me continue playing. This is probably good for encouraging more playthroughs. But if you finish the main quest early, you're cut off from much of the content. So, in my opinion, it would be better if the main quest didn't end the game.

Keep in mind that these are all suggestions that I think would be better, and that others may or may not agree with me. I hope you keep updating this, because it's actually amazing and has so much potential! Thanks!

Thank you for your kind comment and feedback!

I'm sorry to say that, but right now I have no plans for further updating the game. This is partially because I feel it's complete (previous updates were all things I had planned for the original release, which didn't make it in back then because of time constraints of IfComp), and partially because the game grew so big Twine editor cannot handle it any more. You noticed how long the code is - this is also because it's poorly optimised (I learned many functions as I worked on the game, and didn't learn some useful stuff until later, which would help clean and optimise the code). Right now, adding more stuff to the game would basically require rewriting and improving everything, and I rather make new games based on what I learned from this one. I don't categoricallty exclude the posibility of making a "remaster" of Archipelago one day, and then I'll certainly add new content, but this is all preliminary ideas now.

As for Coral City: it is intended to be difficult, as it's an optional dungeon, and the only puzzle-like one. That's why there is an autosave before you enter and no autosaves in the dungeon - so that you can easily reload if you get stuck. A hint for exploring the City, if you want to return there: pay attention to how long the current carries you each time. It helps figure out where you end up. For full solution, there is this excellent map a player made a while back, which explains everything: https://intfiction.org/t/trizbort-or-other-maps-for-ifcomp-2021/53008/10

Cheers,

Agat

Thanks! If you ever make something similar to Archipelago, I'll definitely play it!