57 is the loneliest number

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Jizaboz
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Jizaboz »

pinback wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:29 am
Jizaboz wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 9:02 pm
Hugella wrote: Why isn't it in the IFDB, sir?
I dunno! I guess I just never added it because it's just a demo.
I believe he meant Overbrook, SIR.
I got lost in quotes
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

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SIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
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Hugella
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Hugella »

ed. note: After writing the slight missive below, I realized I know nothing about reviewing games. I don't have an inner Jason Dyer, who also has gotten me sidetracked with this dang https://bluerenga.blog/tag/ferret/?order=ASC]Ferret bullshit. It's been awhile since I played parser-based IF on the regular, so I hope any readers of this thread will smile patiently as I re-learn the old skills and hopefully learn new ones.

---

SPUR

1995, by Kent Tessman

---

This one started with a bang and got me right back into that olde-timey IF saddle As an aside, it strikes me as amusing that, back in the 90s and 2000s, Infocom, et al, were what you meant when you referred to 'old school' IF, but now it refers to those young guns like Kent Tessman who were cranking out IF languages like Hugo and games like Spur.
Roody_Yogurt wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:05 am As far as "East of Eastwood" goes, every time I play it, enough time has passed that I have forgotten how to beat it, but I think the answer involves the fact that the badge is so shiny.
<INTERMISSION>

EAST OF EASTWOOD, take XX.

.....nope, still stuck.

</END>

Every game should include a help section entitled "WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON". It was a tiny piece of great (and helpful) writing, likely seldom-seen, and I appreciated the effort.

Spur has a small map that feels teeming with people. I spent a few hours here, on a map with something like 15 locations. I was stuck for a long time in an empty lot with a not very fair old-school puzzle. Nobody's character is particularly well-fleshed out, Spur itself is a Potemkin village,with none of that later pretentious fanciness, like ensuring all the verbs and senses and atmosphere are all accounted for; regardless, I liked the feel of the the game - compact but full, mostly discoverable without too much aggravation, and with a definite cinematic slant. The tone is just right. Broad strokes with just enough detail to hang your cloak of darkness on.

It felt sort of rushed and railroady in the 3rd act, but overall, Spur's a nice little well-built number.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Yay, Spur!

This is the greatest thread on the internet right now. Thank you, Hugella!
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Roody_Yogurt »

Hugella wrote: Thu Dec 22, 2022 4:55 pm <INTERMISSION>

EAST OF EASTWOOD, take XX.

.....nope, still stuck.

</END>
So, I replayed this last night just to remind myself how to get through it. I will answer some questions.

How to move past the bandit
(which you already figured out)
I was going to do spoiler text here, but now I don't see any way to do spoiler text. Has this always been unavailable?

So yeah, to get past the bandit, one has to >SHOW POCKETS TO BANDIT. Interestingly, I thought that I would had to drop my holster (and gun) to walk past him, but no, he just completely ignores it unless you take the gun out. This is useful later.

OK, I have the badge. Now what.
Finding the right verb for this part is tricky. REFLECT SUN WITH BADGE doesn't work, but POINT BADGE AT SUN does. (I never looked at the help text so I don't know if it recommends using POINT at any point)

I tried to shoot the guy but I was too slow.
You can't just >GET GUN. You have to think like a gunslinger.

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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Hugella »

Roody_Yogurt wrote: Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:09 pm You can't just >GET GUN. You have to think like a gunslinger.
I have, thus far, spent more time cumulatively on EAST OF EASTWOOD than all the other games combined. I was actually looking up things like 'gunslinging slang/terminology/etc'[1] like I was Matthew Broderick trying to find WOPRs password in War Games. This is stupid. Even after all your help it still took me a number of tries to guess the damn verb.
SCR-20221223-ltl.png
Now there's a walkthrough for effing EAST OF EASTWOOD, the first in 27 years!

I'm also mildly curious about what the various ranks are, but I'm too annoyed to find out more right now. (One take is "SCREEN IDOL".)

[1] I did find a charming lexicon of Western slang, which taught me terms like 'shut yer cock holster', which alas, were unimplemented in EAST OF EASTWOOD.
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Roody_Yogurt »

It was all worth it, though! Right??? Even though that ending really gives no satisfaction and the lack of accepted rephrasings is extremely frustrating, there is still a place in my heart for that game. Sceptrequest is better, though.

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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Hugella »

I got a PS5 for Christmas, but instead of even hooking it up, spent the afternoon (and randomly throughout the week) mucking around with

DOWN

1997, Kent Tessman

---

I'm very conflicted about Down. On the one hand, this is my second KT game (not counting Tetris) and I really like his writing. I like the ideas of his games, the way he has of evoking a particular setting, a mood, a genre convention. In the case of Down, I felt like I needed to hurry hurry hurry. (I'm looking forward to getting to Distress by Sidney Merk, as I remember how effectively it created a similar edge of panic in me.)

But. Beyond the first puzzle, this was terribly clued. Lots of verb-guessing, reading the author's mind, and general not-sure-what-to-do-isms. On the one hand, I could also complain about the relative barrenness of the map; very little is implemented. And yet, as in Spur, KT manages to convey a lot with a little. So I can picture myself (YOU) in the tiny map, the black smoke rising in the late afternoon air, the people huddled in their little groups of misery.

What I can't do is interact with all of that very much. This is a static piece, regardless of the finale. Having sat with it for a week, it feels like an outline, almost, rather than a complete game. EAST OF EASTWOOD's frustrating pieces make sense in retrospect (and is also not a complete game).

There's a disjointedness in Down's puzzles and set scenes - both in terms of logic and implementation - which hasn't resolved over time. There's a hole in the center of it al, an emptiness; I almost feel like I'm watching ghosts relive the scene of their demise.

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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Hugella »

A brief intermission:


THE CHICKEN'S DILEMMA

1998, Jason Dyer

"This is an entry in Adam Cadre’s “chicken-contest.”

---

I mean, not much to say here. It's basically a one (or two)-room logic puzzle. Appreciated the Postscript.

Best chicken joke I know (and likely of the Tdarcos school of 'humor'):

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
...
The chicken, because it had to get laid before the egg could!

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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Roody_Yogurt »

Hugella wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 8:34 am I got a PS5 for Christmas, but instead of even hooking it up, spent the afternoon (and randomly throughout the week) mucking around with

DOWN

1997, Kent Tessman
As both a coding exercise and a way of testing my "Roodylib" add-on Hugo library, I have downloaded all available Hugo game source on the IF Archive and updated them to use Roodylib. In some cases, I also fix some bugs I notice or add a feature.

Anyhow, ever since your Down review, I have been meaning to compare my Roodylib-ized Down source with the original to see if I had many any notes. Kent's games often have little things in the source that are easy to miss in the game itself. For example, the sheriff's office in Spur is much more coded than one would expect from the little time the average player spends there.

Well, I finally got around to comparing the Down code, and no, other than a couple of functionality tweaks, I didn't really see any interesting tidbits. I vaguely remember being impressed that the NPCs were more implemented than I had realized, but yeah, I agree with your review.

I've been bad at all of Kent's games and have had to cheat for every one. I think I resented Spur the least for it, because what I still did figure out was satisfying and it was just really enjoyable roaming around that world for a while. Still, all of his games have some really nice and memorable moments.

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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Roody_Yogurt »

Hugella wrote: Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:48 pm SCR-20221218-mog.png
Geez, it's been two years since this thread already. Anyhow, ever since this little review, I thought it'd be a nice challenge to myself to make a version of this game that accepts some additional commands (well, mainly system commands like SAVE, RESTORE, UNDO, and QUIT... mainly because I never really understand how to play this game well and freak out a little when it doesn't allow me to quit). I gave up on the idea fairly quickly at the time, but recently, I've been looking at Hugo code again and when the first thing I wanted to solve wasn't the big problem I thought it'd be, I moved back to this idea.

Anyhow, I uploaded the compiled game and code to:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P9rvvr ... drive_link

I mean, it literally is just the same game except with those aforementioned commands, although I also made sure that it didn't allow inputting negative numbers and such. Also, in some places, I used the text descriptions of the original C code and in some places I used Robb's text. There's really no rhyme or reason to it.

If someone compiles it themselves, they will need Roodylib.

I don't plan to upload it to the IF Archive so it will just be available here.

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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Roody_Yogurt »

Um, since it didn't show the graphic in my quote, this previous post was about Robb's port of Hammurabi.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Whoa! Hey! Thanks! Whoa!

Where is the best place to get the right version of RoodyLib to compile this?

Are you OK if I compile it and look at it and upload it to the archive? It should have the best version.
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Also. We miss you, Hugella :(
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Re: 57 is the loneliest number

Post by Roody_Yogurt »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Mar 19, 2024 8:51 pm Whoa! Hey! Thanks! Whoa!

Where is the best place to get the right version of RoodyLib to compile this?

Are you OK if I compile it and look at it and upload it to the archive? It should have the best version.
The latest version of Roodylib can be found here (and possibly on the IF archive):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_4ZX ... XBraDg0VGM

If you do upload it to the IF Archive, feel free to add the title and credits and stuff from your version and any other changes you want to make.

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