Posted August 02, 2020 by SETOOK
Hi, I'm Took! This is my first game ever!
It's been a crazy learning curve for me. I'm used to writing stories but I've never made a game before.
Things that went well:
I'm happy with the story I've told. I'll probably come back and touch it up every so often, but for now I'm happy with it.
It was a good introduction to game making and coding. I've loved the process (even when it was incredibly frustrating). It was exciting seeing which ways I could weave my story so the player can have a bit more freedom in the text-base sphere. I wanted to make the exploration feel as natural as I could, and give the player the freedom to explore as many possibilities as they could.
In terms of my writing, I am someone who leans heavily into character interactions and conversations to reveal story beats. I've always struggled to describe environments... this is probably the best way of conquering that weakness! This project pushed me to actually take the time to describe the environment and how the character moves within this space. I found I really enjoyed writing the room descriptions... I'm sure when you play you'll be able to tell my favourite rooms to write for.
It's certainly been a lesson in 'show don't tell'. Do tell me if I've managed to hit the beats with you.
Things that went meh:
I chose to use QUEST...
I sort of wish I never chose to use this programme. Maybe most of my grief with the programme came from being an absolute novice, but it did make me lose the will to live at several points.
It was easy to use in terms of inputting a story, but every single aspect of bringing it to the internet has been a massive pain in the arse. Maybe it's because I'm a colossal dumb ass , but I had literally no way of uploading it other than putting it up through the Textadventures site as it was the only one that accepted ASL files. If anyone can advise how the heck I can convert the file to something more palatable I'd be very grateful.
I am aware of the issue with textadventures in that sometimes it doesn't like to 1) Load, 2) follow page links 3) work. I'm a writer, I haven't a clue how to fix that. If anyone knows better, please put me out of my misery.
Also, LOL at my piss poor attempt at loading a door code. I was just happy the player could actually input something into the game. I tried my best... maybe I'll get better with the next run?