You can't just drop a sequel tease like that unless you're planning to really do a second one. I'd buy it, to be honest. I wasn't even a King's Quest fan, but there's just something hypnotic about those stairs...
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Thanks! Unfortunately, my focus is kind of eclectic. I really wanted to finish this, but my brain just decided it didn't want to. X3 I'm glad people are still finding it even now.
Lately, most of my writing has been in a more traditional format, on AO3. If fanfic interests you at all, you can find that here. https://archiveofourown.org/users/Circe_the_Hex_Witch/works
That said, I definitely still have an interest in erotic IF...mostly it's the mechanical structure of these games that I'm inexperienced with, and I've never really liked the typical style of IF puzzle that much, which probably shows a lot in my approach. I'd happily take recommendations if you have any, since I'm still decidedly a newbie to this type of work.
One feature I might ask that past a certain number of resets, lower-tier imps start to become automated. It gets to a point where you have to click the upgrade button a whole whole lot, and on top of that, the game usually feels like it can make some measure of progress while I'm AFK, except right after a demon reset when I have to sit there and do a bunch of upgrades for like fifteen minutes or else production is just massively underpowered till I get around to it.
I found that making sure to spend energy while doing other stuff worked out pretty well. You never reach a point where the game grinds to a halt due to lack of raw mana. But it's understandable if that feels kind of slow. I would guess that in future versions there will be other ways to get waste, because right now getting a Worm C is basically impossible.
This is a neat little game. I thought I wouldn't finish it because it was a bit bland, but I started to get kind of hooked by the extra mechanics and abilities, and my curiosity about the narrative. It certainly took a much darker turn than I expected, and I honestly would've been really interested if the game had leaned into that more.
I also really enjoyed reading your thoughts about the game's development! I can see the thought you're putting into how different mechanics influence the player and their experience, and I think that's really cool.
I'm glad to hear it. Making the game accessible while assuming as little knowledge as possible about interactive fiction on the part of the player was a big challenge here, and there are definitely some stumbling blocks I still need to work through, but I'm so pleased that people were mostly able to figure things out.
Haha. I don't really have any art to put into the game, or the means to create it, unfortunately.
The rest system was actually not too bad, as its effect is fairly constrained to the puzzle set pieces. You can see how it's implemented if you dig into the source code I posted as a separate file.
As far as the energy and the puzzles in general, right now I'm in a place where I realized that each puzzle is giving me a big meaty chunk of stuff to write, which I spend more time on than the puzzles themselves, so there probably aren't going to be very many or very complicated. An interesting lesson from this game is that this particular type of puzzle doesn't lend itself well to building up towards large, complex designs in IF, if only because it would be quite difficult to keep up with the level of detail you'd want to see in an interactive fiction game.
Edit: I probably should also note that the resemblance to Hadean Lands isn't coincidental. I was looking for inspiration for more "system-like" puzzles, which are fairly rare in interactive fiction, so I re-played the game to help give me ideas for my design.
Yes, I understand. Programming Inform 7 games is something of a usability challenge. To be honest, I stuck with it anyway because I'm absolutely enamored with its world modeling system, so I'm probably going to stick with it for the forseeable future. I know it's not going to be to everyone's tastes.
That said, if there were particular commands that you had trouble figuring out, or commands you think really should've worked but didn't, I'm always up for feedback on that.
That might be helpful. This kind of guiding process is subtle and hard to get right, except with playtesting probably. Mostly the problem I had was that I would see things in the world and not really be sure how I should interact with them or why I wanted to. It's possible I missed something important, I'm not sure.
It looks kind of neat, but I couldn't quite figure out what I was supposed to be doing, or if I had any control over what was going on with Liam. I collected a star thing, but I wasn't sure what it was? I think it could use a bit more direction. Also, I found the mouse control kind of awkward, as well.