Great game. Witty, clever, funny. The writing is nothing short of outstanding.
I wrote a review on IFDB: Deck the Halls, Gieves - Details (ifdb.org)
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Deck the Halls, Gieves's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #4 | 3.933 | 4.154 |
| Fun | #8 | 3.423 | 3.615 |
| Overall Enjoyment (not an average) | #9 | 3.423 | 3.615 |
| Interactivity | #9 | 3.205 | 3.385 |
| Puzzles | #9 | 3.496 | 3.692 |
| Graphics | #10 | 2.476 | 2.615 |
| Beginners Tutorial (Optional) | #10 | 2.913 | 3.077 |
| Christmas Spirit | #12 | 2.913 | 3.077 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Development Time
Approximately 70-80 hours (Just over 3 weeks in real time)
Native Language
English
Comments
Being French, I have absolutely no familiarity with Wodehouse, and the style made the text a bit difficult to read, but I have to say I enjoyed the story and the mood!
I also appreciated the efforts you’ve gone to increase the accessibility: highlighting the directions is really nice when there is some much text, the complete hints are helpful, and disabling the slang is a nice idea (although I played with the slang and it did not trouble me that much).
The puzzles, even if logical, were a bit difficult, though.
Often, you have to type an action with an object that doesn’t exit; for example, you have to UNSCREW HOOK, but X HOOK does nothing, so I just thought the hook wasn’t implemented therefore I didn’t try to unscrew it.
The hints were sometimes misleading. For example, one of them says that you “have a closer look at the tip of the cane”, but X TIP doesn’t work. But that didn’t happen often and overall the progressive hints were very helpful.
Having a single illustration for each region made it a bit difficult to navigate, but I found that each of them summarised very well the entirety of each region.
Still, despite those flaws, I loved having a game that was more linear and narrative than the others, and without elves nor reindeers. ;) (That’s too bad I couldn’t appreciate the Wodehousian style since I have no familiarity with him.)
Submitted
The Solstice Sovereigns of the NorthI enjoyed this one. I liked the self-contained parts of the game, and I loved the atmosphere - I've never read Wodehouse but of course am familiar with the premise of Jeeves and Wooster, and it was a really interesting choice for a Christmas game.
I didn't find the puzzles too hard or need to check the hints until the very last action with the pocket square, as I couldn't quite guess the right verb there. I thought they were very well implemented and just the right difficulty level (though the hint system is very welcome as I think it's a necessity in a modern adventure).
There only being one graphic for a range of locations took a bit of getting used to, but I think on the whole it actually suited the game better.
Good game length too. Probably one of my favourites so far in this jam!
Submitted
Day of the SleighThis is a very well-written game! The mood has been really nailed, and the characters have fun personalities. The hinting system is pretty well done too, that's nice.
It seems the 'hard' elements could be improved with some polish.
The shared graphics make it a bit confusing to navigate, e.g. you see a store but you can't enter it because it's not the right location.
While interacting with the objects, you could hint a tad better at their use. For instance you have a shaving kit in your suitcase. It sounds a lot like a useful prop. But you can't get it or examine it. In the end, you can't use it. The simplest way to make it work without effort would be to remove it. Otherwise, upon inspection/get display a message "I'm already shaven, so there's no other use I can find to this".
Another way is that when you try interacting with an object, say "screw cane", it just tells you "I don't know how to do that". It would help at that point to say "Maybe I could find a way upon closer inspection of the cane?". Especially as for me, since the hook is a screw and not a bolt you don't need the cane to be threaded, as screws are self-threading.
You definitely need feedback to get those right (this is something we also learned).
Overall, it's very enjoyable, and very refreshing to get that good old book feel for a change.
The post-mortem was also quite enjoyable, it's an interesting look into the process and the other ideas are also very interesting.
Submitted
Feathery ChristmasI had some spare time today, so I've added a hint system to the game for those who are getting stuck; I've had mentions from a few people, not only comments here on itch.io. Just like most authors, I didn't think that my puzzles were that hard, but of course I already know the solutions! :)
Type HINT at the prompt to get your first hint, and also some instructions on how to use the hint system. The hints are revealed one stage at a time, as you ask for them, and still don't ever give the out-and-out solution (but they do come pretty close to it).
As mentioned by Chris, I am impressed by the amount of text in game, and the quality of the editing (I didn't find many spelling mistakes!)
Also, I am one to skip text. I hit skip dialogue all too often in almost every game I've played. However, this does bring me back into the nostalgic era of text adventures, and after playing it for a while, I started to read everything in the game.
It was a fun read, and I was engaged in the story. It was fun for me to solve! ^_^
Submitted
Present QuestI haven't progressed very far in this - it has a sort of 'pick it up and put it down again over a couple of weeks' feel to it (retro in itself), rather that racing through it in an hour or two like many of the other entries in the jam, so I'll come back to it but give you my thoughts now.
This is certainly the wordiest thing I've seen done in Adventuron since, well, my game - and the style is not a million miles away from my own. So naturally, I'm predisposed to love it - particularly as it is written in third person, which I prefer.
You descriptions are wonderfully verbose and characterful and the Wodehousianisms sound pretty authentic to me. I'm not actually a fan of Wodehouse - I find the style a bit wearing in print - but it works very well in a game like this. I'm impressed that you doubled up the effort to provide a non-Wodehousian version (that must have taken a bit of extra work), which reads like a SparkNote translation of the original; I'm sure many players will appreciate it.
The whole thing has a very 80s-era feel to it: partly because of the style and the retro font that you've used and partly because of the puzzles: they are old-school hard and I'm not the most adept puzzle-solver (my aspirations to be so usually fall foul of my patience when confronted with something not fairly easily solvable). Some specific in-game hints and/or a walkthrough would help greatly here I think. I made a game without either and then quickly went back and added both when it became apparent that it was proving to be too hard and impatient players were getting stuck immediately, which is more or less my experience here. I'll persevere, but in-game help would be a relief.
In terms of implementation, it's been very thoroughly proofed and there are no typos that I've spotted. No real bugs either, although there are a few non-implemented objects that I've noticed produce contradictory 'it wasn't there' responses on an attempt to GET them (the jars and tins at the grocer's, the clothes in the wardrobe). I also had a sticky moment in the bookshop where I could find the book but not buy it - the ability to do either one or both of those is supposed to be triggered by the encounter with the charity collector, I think, but I don't think I'd met him yet when this happened. Another thing to note is that your location graphic in the first scenes is a bit confusing as, for example, the police post is depicted to the east (right) but that is where the bookshop is in the first location where the graphic is displayed. I get that the pictures are more decorative than illustrative but I wonder if there is a way of making it a bit clearer that the picture doesn't depict your immediate view (I'm not certain how - perhaps a legend 'Whitherley Village Square c.1926' or something). Something to consider in any case.
All in all then, I do like this a lot but it feels like it will take a while to crack (just like in the old days). Accessibility in text games is a big consideration these days, so I understand, so I'm not sure how it will fare on that score (of course, I'm deliberately overlooking the possibility that I'm just being thick), but otherwise it is an original and excellently written game so I'd say it's well worth the effort to persevere with it.
Thanks for your feedback! Yes, there are a fair few failings in my game that I know of, that I didn't get around to fixing before I ran out of time. I'm fixing some of the smaller ones as I go along, hoping that not too many people are playing my game yet, but some things like the limited number of location graphics are probably not going to be a part of that. Adding a caption as you suggest may be a good compromise. I'll be writing a post-mortem in the next day or two and posting it to my 'blog, which will probably talk about several points like this.
The bookshop bug is one that I think I caught and patched just before I read your comment, so now hopefully Bartie won't find the book at all until he's met the collector. The "missing" scenery items might remain so unless/until I do a revised version after judging has finished, because as much as they break immersion, I don't think that they heavily impact the overall flow of the game.
I've also just added a hint system, which may help you if you're still stuck. Just type HINT at the prompt to see how it works!
I'll do a proper write-up of this game when (if) I've finished it, but at this precise moment I am quite stuck and need a hint to progress.
How do I break into a crown to get change for the charity collector? I can't buy anything at the grocer's, Gieves is nowhere to be seen and the policeman is no help. I can't do anything with the fountain either (I thought I might find a coin in there). Help!
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