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A jam submission

TOWNView game page

The only first-person ASCII game ever made, TOWN is a mini-adventure in which you solve riddles to advance.
Submitted by Paracortex — 33 days, 8 hours before the deadline
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TOWN's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#73.5003.500
Overall#83.3333.333
Audio#81.5001.500
Gameplay#93.3333.333

Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

I like the ASCII first person graphics (and nice detail with the shadows) but couldn't figure out a single riddle :-P. Are the hints in the gameworld? I tried to enter most places but only one was open and was empty. Also tried 'search' all over the place but couldn't seem to find anything.

Developer

First off, my apologies for the late reply. I had submitted this game completely on a lark after reading a Reddit post and simply forgot all about it!  As for the riddles, no, there are no hints, sorry. I can spoil them for you if you wish. The locked doors are the locations of the subsequent Oracles, each of offering the next riddle in a fixed order. The search function only actually does anything after all the riddles have been solved. 

In short, it’s an unsatisfactory game because it’s incomplete. It was a proof of concept work that I finished just in time for ASCII art’s funeral, lol. I had planned on making it procedurally generated, or at least I believed at the time I could pull it off. As it was, I hand-crafted each and every frame (over 400, IIRC)  using an old ASCII art drawing program called TheDraw. 

Anyway, thanks seriously for your interest and play test!  I honestly did not expect a single response, let alone four. Making me think I should work on it again, a quarter century later, lol. 

Submitted

Nice use of textmode for a dungeon crawler style movement, I need to play this a bit more, maybe found 1 or 2 riddles but left it somewhere. But it's nice and easy to play so far.

Developer

Thank you!  It’s very basic, and really just a proof of concept. It is, however, complete, and can be finished (by gaining the key to the gate out of Town).

Submitted

I would have loved a game like this in 1995.  I have a huge soft spot for ASCII graphics, and playing this took me back in time.  I liked the riddles, and admittedly I didn't know the answers off the bat.  I kept waiting for some sort of combat, however, and the buildings in the middle of town were more for atmosphere than gameplay it seems.  I want this game to be so much more!

Developer

Thank you so much!  It was intended to be “so much more” back when I designed and wrote it, a quarter century ago. Alas, it was already dated whwn I finished this proof of concept, and I never went on to make it what I envisioned, a procedurally generated first-person ASCII adventure game. 

Submitted

1995?

Developer

Yes!  Actually last millennium. I used a DOS program called TheDraw to make the frames.