Oh my God. Just read it in order.
Tdarcos wrote: Subject: Opinion of Cryptozookeeper after 45 minutes: Unplayable
Yeah, as soon as I saw the music part was 300 meg I understood. Then
I had to turn off the music as it was too jarring.
I found the interface annoying because it starts up, and like "XYZZY",
nothing happens! Then I try a key and the main menu appears.
Attached is a transcript, I gave up after 45 minutes because I had
tried everything I could think of and the game was stalled at that
point, I had no idea what to try next.
So at this point I have to rate the game worse than 'sucks' and call
it unplayable. Sorry. I might try it again since I know some of what
to do.
ICJ wrote:This is AFTER I told him about >think about and >talk about.
Tdarcos wrote: Considering how I got frustrated with the game, the Something Awful forums would be the appropriate place to discuss it!
Anyway, if you can fix some of the bugs and have the game give more hints I'll be happy to try it again. Please don't think I'm being rude, I'm being harsh because if you're going to release an adventure game I expect it to at least come up to the level of Original Adventure. I played OA and Dungeon and Zork and I never got that kind of frustrated as yours did. Also it kept playing the same goddamn song all the time!
Tdarcos wrote: Subject: Cryptozookeeper: It's still garbage
This game badly needs some fixing, I went through it for a couple of minutes, tried your suggestions and I get stuck again. I am ready to declare this thing garbage. It badly needs improvement in the command structure, parser and the way it handles input. I am not really hard on games, but this game is very hard on me, and I do not like it.
I'm only being harsh on it because it fails to rise to the level of what we can expect from an IF game. I suspect someone who didn't really like IF as much as I do would have abandoned it much faster.
Your transcript is attached.
ICJ wrote: Er, well...
When you start the game, it says "new players, please type "about"
for conversation conventions. You never typed "about" but if you did,
you'd see it say the following:
"The conversational model in this game is based on topics. ";
"To see a list of currently available topics for a given character,
type >think about character.";
"Words will appear in color throughout the game, and these words will
appear as valid topics to the characters that said them, and sometimes
others."
"It is not possible to get the game in an unwinnable state for any
dramatic length of time. "HELP" offers further details ongame
mechanics and color options.]"
In addition, if you haven't talked to the guard after five turns or
so, it says "[To get a list of conversational topics for the guard,
try >think about guard.]"
In addition, the "Help" menu mentions that you need to use >think
about and >talk about to progress the game.
In addition, the valid keywords are in purple.
In addition, I mentioned on JC and an e-mail that ">think about
character" gives you the list of valid conversational topics.
In addition, I mentioned in an e-mail yesterday that ">think about
character" gives you the list of valid conversational topics.
Since your e-mail yesterday, I made another addition to the game, so
that when you type Help and choose "Introduction," it also mentions
think about / talk about. That's not in the build you have now, but
future players will have it. So I do appreciate your feedback on that!
But I mean, help me out here. I don't know how else to communicate
that the game expects you to talk to people, and if you are not sure
what is valid, type >think about igor.
Tdarcos wrote:I am playing this game the way I've played every other adventure game / interactive fiction style game. As I see it, it's so hard deterministic it might as well be watching a movie. I'm at the start of the game and it's a forced move inside the building. I've never seen that before, I play adventure or dungeon or zork, it has a few places you can go, and eventually you run out of things to see and end up inside the house.Pinback wrote:
PAUL: I'm sure Jonsey appreciates your efforts to help him test his game, but you don't appear to even be reading what he's telling you. The entire conversational system (which is CORE to the game) is based on the verb "think" to find a list of topics. Robb has told you this either directly via email, or in the game itself at least a half dozen times, and you STILL REFUSE TO TYPE "THINK", which either means:
1. You are intentionally being obnoxious, and/or have some sort of axe to grind.
2. You are just blindly ignoring both what Robb and the game itself has told you multiple, MULTIPLE times.
Either way, this doesn't look good, and your harsh critical tone is embarrassing and laughable, given that you don't appear to have given even the slightest effort to work with the game or Robb the way that it was intended.
Now. Let's just wipe the slate clean and give this another go, shall we??
A new transcript is included. I've gotten trapped again. But I got further along. This afternoon looks lovely and quite warm, I'm going to go take my clothes down to the laundry, I need to do so, it's the first time I've been able to do so since Christmas. [Ed note: email dated April 7] This will give you time to look this over and tell me what's wrong.
I'm used to playing an IF game the way I've played every other. The game needs to make it explicit if it expects me to play it in a different method than every other game of this genre I've ever played.
ICJ wrote: You are doing great, Paul! You just need to search Nunez. You'll find a remote control, and then you can "turn on television" and the game will take it from there.
Thank you once again!!!
Tdarcos wrote: Another try, this is ridiculous, I'm in the game for 4 turns and it murders me.
This game is garbage; it's bogus and this sort of behavior is unacceptable.
Here's another transcript.
ICJ wrote: So, you got eaten by a dog.
What if you could give the dog something else to eat?
Like raw hamburgers or crepes the width of small spaceships.
Jesus Christ.
