introduction and here's my game

[The_Loafing_Coyote]

Greetings Hugos.

First, a brief introduction:

My first experience with IF was Zork 1 on an Apple IIe. I've been hooked ever since.

When I learned, years ago, that it was possible to create my own interactive fiction, my response was similar to yours; manic enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, creating a fully functioning, interactive world that is engaging, fun and provides thousands of intelligent responses to typed commands isn't as easy as it sounds. I've spent most of my interactive life as the player and not the builder.

Eventually real life took over and IF was forgotten.

Recently I was drawn back into the world of IF, after an extended leave of absence, by the prospect of a Hugo comp. Hugo is my IF of choice so the obvious thing to do was write one.
I finished a mini-Hugo game but wasn't certain how to submit it. Clearly I didn't do it correctly. My mistake. If anyone's interested, my game can be found in the public folder of my Dropbox here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11102009/clock.hex

Please be as kind and brutal as you like. I've decided to write a full-fledged game eventually, so I need to improve in all areas; writing, coding, story. This forum looks like a good place to do that.

I've registered my user name and am waiting for account activation. I look forward to seeing you here.

Jason McWright, aka "Loafingcoyote"

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Hi Jason! Sorry for not being clear on how to submit it. I'm actually supposed to go out for the evening, but I will update my blog post when I return and let everyone know that your game is a part of the comp!

Thanks for joining up, and I can't wait to give it a try!

-- Robb

[Bainespal]

Your game is brilliant! I think it could definitely place in the top third in the annual fall IF Comp.

I'm stuck right now, but I'm making a transcript that I'll show you eventually. Thanks for joining us!

[The_Loafing_Coyote]

Your game is brilliant! I think it could definitely place in the top third in the annual fall IF Comp.

I'm stuck right now, but I'm making a transcript that I'll show you eventually. Thanks for joining us!

Wow, thanks, that's very generous.

A transcript would be great. It's not beta tested so I'm sure there are a world of errors to be corrected. I don't know what they are yet since just looking at the code right now makes me feel ill. I don't recommend taking such a large bite with so little time to chew.

[Roody_Yogurt]

Welcome to joltcountry! I will be sure to write my thoughts on your game in the other thread with the others. I took the chance to look you up; I had pretty much forgotten that there was a Hugo Dino Comp entrant back in the day. I replayed it to refresh my memory. Funny how both games have moments of dark humor. Very enjoyable.

Again, welcome to the group! Oh, also, I'm not sure what state the sign-up system is in these days, and ICJ may have skimmed over the part where you were waiting for your confirmation e-mail. Maybe drop a line to his twitter account or something (icecreamjonsey).

[The_Loafing_Coyote]

Welcome to joltcountry! I will be sure to write my thoughts on your game in the other thread with the others. I took the chance to look you up; I had pretty much forgotten that there was a Hugo Dino Comp entrant back in the day. I replayed it to refresh my memory. Funny how both games have moments of dark humor. Very enjoyable.

Hello! Congratulations, you found the prize at the bottom of the cereal box. I wrote that Dino Comp entry right after discovering Hugo. It's not surprising that you don't remember my silly little game since that comp had some very strong entries. My favorite from that comp, "A Dino's Night Out", by Aris Katsaris, still resonates strongly with me today. I think about the mechanics used in that game every time I sit down to write IF.

Again, welcome to the group! Oh, also, I'm not sure what state the sign-up system is in these days, and ICJ may have skimmed over the part where you were waiting for your confirmation e-mail. Maybe drop a line to his twitter account or something (icecreamjonsey).

I'll do this. My account hasn't been activated yet but I just assumed everyone was distracted by Hugo mania!
I'm almost finished with the games myself and look forward to writing something up tomorrow.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Ah, thanks. We had a flood of spammers and I forgot I had set the system to require admin approval. Your account should be ready now!

[Tdarcos]

Please be as kind and brutal as you like.

The red on black text was completely unreadable, I had to go in and change it, and I have normal eyesight; I shudder what someone who has trouble seeing would make of it. Which is another issue, doing a color change is not retroactive, it only applies to text written after the change is made.

I note that it does change color after the opening scene, and I suppose the red-on-black text is to indicate something special, but it's still extremely hard to read.

<s>At "entryway," it says there are a bunch of poitraits there. Trying x poitraits says that you don't have to use the word "poitraits" there, but using x pictures does work; I think you need to have "poitraits" added as an adverb in addition to "pictures".</s>
My bad, I was misspelling "portraits".

I have a bit of a low threshold of boredom, I'm in the house and having gone to all the rooms I can find, I'm more-or-less stuck. I can't open the oak door, the console doesn't do anything (I can't turn it on no matter which of the four positions I put the two switches at), and I don't see anyplace else to go.

I can't start the automaton either; the gear block in the wooden box doesn't help here and I don't think the others would.

More later as I've played some more.

[RetroRomper]

More later as I've played some more.

A minor request: would it be possible to review and offer feedback on a product / game after we've finished it?

[pinback]

TDR:

You are aware that you're posting this on a board with at least three or four other people who completed the game just fine, and were also able to read the "unreadable" text?

You are aware that you're the worst text adventure player ever? So, like, if you're stuck, it's probably not the game's fault? I think we established that with the CZK debacle.

[Tdarcos]

TDR:

You are aware that you're posting this on a board with at least three or four other people who completed the game just fine, and were also able to read the "unreadable" text?

I really don't give a fuck what you think, red on black text is extremely hard to read and if you think differently it's evidence you're wrong, always have been wrong and always will be wrong, and the universe knows this "beyond a shadow of a doubt and to an absolute certainty," and nothing you can ever say will change it.

You are aware that you're the worst text adventure player ever? So, like, if you're stuck, it's probably not the game's fault? I think we established that with the CZK debacle.

Just because some people can finish the game okay does not mean that it is not difficult for other people. Millions of people thought the sun revolved around the moon and that the earth was flat. Didn't make them right, either. Some people notice different things easier than others. I mean, there are lots of things.

Star Wars has something like more than 100 continuity errors; I've seen video showing some of them. One guy did a whole list of continuity errors in "The Matrix" like one where Trinity shoots an agent in the side of the head to save Neo, but the guy falls onto his back! (Neat trick!) Just because most people don't notice them doesn't mean they're not there.

[youtube][/youtube]

I think a certain way. Other people think differently. I don't have the same kinds of environmental clues as other people and thus some thing might not be in the range of my ken. If I'm stuck, I'm stuck, and criticizing me because I can't figure out his problem the same way he wrote it is a "blame the victim" mode of operation.

Any of you ever played Quake III Arena? I have, and even on the easiest setting the son-of-a-bitch AI characters are on the minimum at the level of Nintendo Hard difficulty as the Barons in Doom or possibly the Cyberdemon; they're extremely difficult. For some people they might not be.

[Roody_Yogurt]

Tdarcos, you might want to play non-multimedia Hugo games on the interpreter Gargoyle (http://ccxvii.net/gargoyle/), as that will ignore whatever colors the author has intended.

Personally, I liked the red-on-black.

[Flack]

I think I just found a solution to all of my problems ...

[Roody_Yogurt]

Loafing Coyote, I see now that you sent your submission to the roody.yogurt gmail address I set up for the comp, which I probably advised people to send their games to. I checked it a couple times early on, but I wasn't good about it and never set up any kind of e-mail forwarding. My apologies for adding to your Hugo Comp difficulties!

[loafingcoyote]

Your account should be ready now!

Thanks, this BBS is great!

Loafing Coyote, I see now that you sent your submission to the roody.yogurt gmail address I set up for the comp, which I probably advised people to send their games to. I checked it a couple times early on, but I wasn't good about it and never set up any kind of e-mail forwarding. My apologies for adding to your Hugo Comp difficulties!

Hey, no problem at all. I just assumed my email was sucked up by a spam filter. I should have known something was up when I didn't get a reply.

[pinback]

Really happy to have you here, Mr. Coyote! Just remember, we may engage in some good-natured ribbing from time to time, but we're all friends here, and none of it is ever meant seriously. (Except for messages from me, directed at Tdarcos. Those are serious. But that's it!)

[loafingcoyote]

Please be as kind and brutal as you like.

The red on black text was completely unreadable, I had to go in and change it, and I have normal eyesight; I shudder what someone who has trouble seeing would make of it. Which is another issue, doing a color change is not retroactive, it only applies to text written after the change is made.

I can't complain since this is exactly what I asked for. Thank you for your input.

I made the incorrect assumption that since I could read the red text on black background on my computer then everyone could read it on theirs as well. I really like the effect so, instead of taking it out completely, I might do the following at the beginning of the game:

How would you like your text displayed?

(1) always optimized for maximum readability
(2) occasionally dark and sinister

If the player chose the first option then the opening text and cut scenes could still be distinguished from the main game by different size or type of font, as opposed to color.

I have a bit of a low threshold of boredom, I'm in the house and having gone to all the rooms I can find, I'm more-or-less stuck. I can't open the oak door, the console doesn't do anything (I can't turn it on no matter which of the four positions I put the two switches at), and I don't see anyplace else to go.

I can't start the automaton either; the gear block in the wooden box doesn't help here and I don't think the others would.

From what I've seen here and elsewhere this game is a bit too hard, especially for a mini-comp game. The original purpose of the cut scenes was to provide an adaptive hint system. It would track the game state and determine if the player was struggling. If so, the cut scenes would provide increasingly explicit hints. This would be very simple considering the linear nature of the game and I already had it all mapped out. Sadly, the time that would have been dedicated to this was used squashing a game killing bug.

Now I have two more items for my version 2 to-do list. Thanks!

Really happy to have you here, Mr. Coyote! Just remember, we may engage in some good-natured ribbing from time to time, but we're all friends here, and none of it is ever meant seriously.

Thank you. Yes, I've noticed the kidding that goes on around here and the results are often hilarious!

[Roody_Yogurt]

Personally, I'm fine with the level of difficulty in the game. I mean, I did need pinback's help with putting-the-message together (I was reading the bit that is 'green' as 'then' and couldn't account for the unexpected number of colors mentioned), but the confusion in the decrypting can just be considered part of the puzzle.

I would just throw a description on the desk, add a little more to some of the sparse room descriptions just to reassure the player enough attention has been given to this part of the game, and I'd call you good to go!

That's just my opinion, of course. No matter what, it's a very strong game.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I also like any thread that begins with, "Greetings, Hugos."