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Moonshot's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme interpretation | #111 | 3.263 | 3.263 |
| Gameplay | #152 | 2.895 | 2.895 |
| Innovation | #171 | 2.789 | 2.789 |
| Overall | #190 | 2.842 | 2.842 |
| Audio | #384 | 1.368 | 1.368 |
| Graphics | #395 | 1.737 | 1.737 |
Ranked from 19 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/cashpipeplusplus/moonshot
Theme interpretation
We created a text-based adventure game about the Apollo 11 moon landing, and how it was or wasn't real.
You play as a NASA intern in the 1960s, working on the Apollo 11 project. Everything goes very well, and you have no difficulties at all.
See tips on the game page if you don't know what to do.
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Comments
Really cool game! I love the concept, well written and immersive story. At the moment I just could get 2 things of the checklist but I will continue playing. I really wanted to comfort the crying engineer but I couldn’t :(
Well done!
Aww, that's a good idea! Our friends who play-tested early came up with other verbs to try for that. The latest version of the game (on GitHub) supports "apologize", "sorry", "apologize to engineer", and "console engineer". In the current itch-hosted version, at least "sorry" should work. I've filed an issue to add "hug" to a future release: https://github.com/cashpipeplusplus/moonshot/issues/8
For now, we're not updating the itch-embedded version until after voting, to try to keep things fair. But we have continued making improvements to the source and to the auto-updating GitHub-hosted version. Thanks for the idea, and thanks for playing!
That sounds great! thanks for considering my input! Again good job!
Really a good and Innovative game i would say for the GameJam. I never tried text based games. The responses sometimes were funny. AI was written well and Map and Easy mode were the key i would say or else i would never know what to do. Great game !!!
Hey, thanks for saying so! We are glad those features made this older style of game more accessible.
Heh- that was well written; hints of Pratchett/Adams in my eyes :)
I appreciated easy mode (as I have little to no experience with games like this) but I’d have loved some more quality of life improvements like auto-complete (my spelling really isn’t very good)!
I hear you! Autocomplete would be nice, but sadly, it's really far outside of what this engine offers. To compensate, we tried to provide aliases for things that we thought would be misspelled. For example, we have this line in the source:
I'm glad you enjoyed it, though. I can't think of a higher complement than being anywhere in the same universe as Pratchett/Adams!
Haven't played a text adventure in years so this was a fun flashback! I got stuck after letting out the aardvark though - Dr von Braun was pretty upset with me :(
Haha! Nice! That guy loves his aardvarks.
I'm glad you were able to find the key. I watched some of my play-testing friends give up on that.
Thanks for leaving a comment!
I do tend to enjoy text-based adventures and this game was no exception. Very funny writing throughout. I got "the basic ending" on my first run-through, and I had a save from before I went to the sound stage but after I left the director's office. I don't think that was far back enough to change my fate, unfortunately. I haven't gone for any other proper endings yet but I did do a quick reset just to experience that first-room death. Great submission!
Nice! I'm glad you liked it. The alternate endings rely on an alternate solution to "get rocket equations", in case you're looking to try again. :-)
I like your game, too! The intro was priceless.
That was fun!
I never played this type of game before so it was a little hard to know what to do at the beginning, but I got it fast enough to enjoy it.
As improvements, I would have love to have a map, because I was always so confused about where I was, and where I had to go. And some sounds. I felt lonely without it :)
Ah, a map would be helpful. Inform (the engine/language used) has a way to generate maps, but the output was really bad, IMO. But it wouldn't be hard to make our own. There aren't that many rooms.
I wanted to add background music. In an earlier revision of the source, I had a TODO comment about it, and the web interpreter supports it, but ultimately, we ran out of time. I spent some time digging up classical music recordings with free licenses, but ultimately gave up on that to save more time for the story. We finished the plot the night before the deadline, and I was fixing last-minute bugs the morning of. :-)
Thanks for the feedback!
Yeah, i know that feeling, we finished an important feature of our own game less than 1 hour before submit! ;)
I can't update the itch version, sadly, but I published an update to the GitHub version which includes a map. In the new version you can get this link in-game by typing "map". Hope this is helpful!
https://cashpipeplusplus.github.io/moonshot/Map.svg
First interactive fiction for me, easy mode and hints were very helpful, otherwise I would've got nowhere. Great writing! Maybe an autocomplete function for commands would be useful, similar to pressing tab in a console?
I'm glad the hints helped! We didn't want it to be difficult for the wrong reasons, so it's gratifying to hear.
That's a great idea about tab completion! I wonder if the web interface (called Vorple IF) could be extended in this way.
Thanks for the feedback!
I liked that you had an easy way to view the command list, as this isn't always clear in these types of games, and being about to scroll up fully also helped when forgetting details! I do think finding a way to add more to the graphics would be nice, but I still enjoyed it.
I'm glad that those features were helpful. We definitely wanted to avoid the classic frustrations of these types of games. Thanks for your feedback!
BTW, loved your golf game. :-)
Ah, thanks a lot! :D
This was a fun text adventure with a lot of humor! I got the "poisoned Furtwangler with a salad" ending (:
Congrats! And thanks for your kind words!
i really like this. like other people have said i haven't played a ton of text adventures, but i still enjoyed this one. i went through the source code, and as reflected in your game, there was a ton of work put into this. the writing was clever and humorous and there's a full cast of characters. great work.
Thank you so much! We had a lot of fun making it, and it's gratifying to hear that you spent some time reading the code after you finished playing. You got to see the full script. :-)
I had a nice time with it! This game jam has been my first introduction to playing text adventures. I enjoyed the dialogue and especially the tapir. I greatly appreciate the hints in the game!
Thanks for the kind words! Text adventures were all the rage when I got my first computer in 1991. "We had three colors on the screen, and we were grateful!" You don't see these games so much these days, but I think HTML & CSS have greatly improved the experience. :-)
Gameplay: I havent played a game like this before so it took me a bit to know what to say.
Graphics: The visuals were ok.
Audio: Some sound could be nice, like calming music
Innovation: It was fine.
Theme: It works fine.
Overall: It was ok. I dont play these types of games often so someone else might have more fun with this game.
Thanks for the feedback. We know this style of game isn't very common any more, but we hope folks will find it enjoyable.
The game starts with hints to try to introduce people who aren't familiar with the genre, and I just added some tips to the game page, as well.