Comments on "Goblin Decathlon"

A topic by auraes created Mar 12, 2020 Views: 285 Replies: 28

Viewing posts 1 to 9

It's an original and very enjoyable game.

I got six out of ten medals, but now I'm stuck because I don't know how to make or get the bouncier shoes (the game is quite simple though).

Some remarks :
When you talk to the coach, the first menu "Want advice? Yes/No" may be too much.
I always get the same message "... now!" when I read the book.
When I try to climb the apple tree, I get the message "not understood."

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Thanks for the comments! I'll take those on board and make a few tweaks.

You need to find something outside the stadium to make the bouncier shoes.

auraes4 years ago

If you're talking about the springs, I found them but I don't know how to use them... (English is not my language, and I can block stupidly on the use of a verb or simple way of doing things).

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Try 'attach'.

auraes4 years ago

Thank you. I tried: wear, insert, tie, fix, place but not attach!

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Book issue solved, version 0.1.1 now up. Thanks again!

auraes4 years ago

I finished the game!

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Well done :D

AdventuronHost4 years ago

I'm kind of struggling in the game. I have lots of items, but haven't won an event yet. I have the log, which I thought I might be able to sharpen using the big sharpener. I have the ice cream. Which I thought I could give to the official that had the electric fan (as he seems to be hot). I have the spring, which I assume is to help in the high jump, except it doesn't. Nothing wrong with the game, but something wrong with my brain.

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

You're not the first person who's tried to sharpen the log. I might add a response for that in the next update!

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

I've been looking forward to this one, because Dee and I are the only two authors that have entered all three Adventuron game jams. Dee writes really good games, but, oh dear, I was disappointed by this one.

I played version 0.1.1.

I didn't like the font because there's insufficent spacing (technically leading) between lines. This makes it very hard to read. Fortunately, this is only noticeable in the intro and win messages. Either change the font, use lower case or see if there's a setting in Adventuron that allows you to increase the spacing between lines. (I think there is.)

It has a nice colour scheme and separator, but I would say that because I'm an Aussie and green and gold are our national colours.

"Rival" should be a synonym for "goblin" in the warmup area.

You should be able to refer to the gold and silver coins as "gold" and "silver" respectively, to avoid the awkward Adventuron disambiguation menu every time you refer to them as "coin". Even if you cheat and use three-word input (such as EXAMINE SILVER COIN), you still get the disambiguation menu, implying that the adjective is not included in the object ID.

Being a goblin, I thought I might be able to PAY or BRIBE OFFICIAL. Not so. Little did I know that there would turn out to be so many officials.

"Icecream" (one word) on menu and in object description, but "ice cream" (two words) in response when you buy it. I think it should be the latter.

EXAMINE HURDLES says "Official-looking goblin." I don't think that's right!

When you attach or remove springs, shoes are removed. They should remain worn if previously worn.

There weren't really any major bugs, but I found this game really repetitive and tedious to play. There are ten events with one official at each and a couple of others in the changing rooms. You have to TALK OFFICIAL to enter an event, then type 1, then TALK OFFICIAL again if it's a draw, then TALK OFFICIAL again when you think you've got everything you need to retry, then type 1, then TALK OFFICIAL again if you didn't have the right things or you forgot to wear something, then TALK OFFICIAL again to retry again, then type 1 and so on ad infinitum. And you have to repeat this for all 10 events, plus TALK OFFICIAL to get some directions in the changing rooms. God knows how many times I typed TALK OFFICIAL, but it must have been several hundred. Please, please, please just let me enter RUN or JUMP or THROW JAVELIN or whatever I need to do to compete.

When you compete and it's a dead heat, you have to TALK OFFICIAL twice before you can compete again, even if you've done other things in the meantime. First TALK is to get him to tell you that it was a heat. Second TALK is to start again.

Unfortunately, I headed north from the start and basically travelled anti-clockwise around the events. I did not discover the coach until I had tried competing (and failed) in every single event. It was only then that I discovered the coach had hints for all events, but this was another painful exercise. TALK COACH, type YES, get menu, select 1. TALK COACH, type YES, get menu, select 2. TALK COACH, type YES, get menu, select 3. And so on up to 10. I hate menued input systems at the best of times, but this one was a real pain. And I had to keep extensive notes to remember which hint related to which event.

I'm sorry if this sounds negative, because you had a really interesting idea with some interesting puzzles. None of them were particularly hard, especially once I had discovered the areas to the north, west, and especially south of the warmup area. I know you were short of time and this may have had an impact on the game. If you've got time after the jame, do you think you could revisit it?

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Thanks for your feedback Garry, and I'm sorry you were disappointed. I'll have a look at the things you flagged up (some of them I was sure I had fixed during playtesting, but I'll have another look).

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Have prepared version 2.1.0 now - it's ready to release, but I will wait for permission from Adventuron before updating as the changes could be considered more than just tweaking.

Font/sentences/walls of text - I have taken this on board and used \n to break up the text in the intro. (I had already done this for the ending - did you still find the text hard to read?)

What verb(s) did you use where 'rival' didn't work in the warmup area? I had coded the synonym manually rather than doing a straightforward alias because there are lots of goblins and I didn't want the player to be able to 'talk rival' successfully in the presence of a different goblin.

With the coins - the adjectives are included in the object IDs (silver_coin and gold_coin) so I'm not sure why 'examine silver coin' etc. isn't working. I've coded 'examine silver' and 'examine gold' in manually for the new version (had already done that for 'give').

Ice cream - I was sure I had decided on 'icecream' to avoid a response of longer than six words, but I can't find such a response now! Have changed all instances in text to 'ice cream'.

Hurdles response - this was due to an issue with the object IDs for the officials. Fixed for the new version.

Shoes remaining worn/unworn when springs attached/removed - have fixed this for the new version.

With the 'dead heat' messages, this was because I was unsure if players would understand why the official had seemingly not declared a result after an event took place. After feedback from a playtester, I had already reprogrammed this so that the message isn't triggered if you've left the event and returned. I have now reprogrammed again so that it only happens the first time you fail an event, but I'm a little concerned that players will now be confused about what's going on when the official shakes their head. As such, I've now added responses for the additional command 'ask official' so that players can still get clarification about the dead heat if necessary.

For the new version, I have now removed all the rigmarole around talking to the officials, as I hear your concerns about it being repetitive. Like with the 'dead heat' messages, I had included those aspects so that players would be sure what was going on. Again, I'd be keen to hear what other people think about possible player confusion here.

I have also now removed the first yes/no question from the coach hint system. I had maybe got overly attached to that because the 'no' response had made one of my playtesters laugh.

Hope this mitigates a few of your concerns.

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Regarding 'rival' vs 'goblin', I think I only tried EXAMINE. That was enough to tell me that 'goblin' wasn't understood in this context, so I used 'rival' from that point on. I did a lot of TALK RIVAL to get all his teasing responses.

AdventuronHost4 years ago

Updating is permitted, but i suspect some of the judges have already seen the game. It might be worth waiting until after the jam for an update.

Be aware that existing saved games may introduce bugs into a game that was updated to use new variables. If the update is pure logic, with no new variables, then there should not be any bugs introduced by a hotfix.

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

That's fine - I think I will wait till after the jam.

Garry FrancisSubmitted4 years ago

Can you let us know when you post the new version, as I'm looking forward to giving it another go?

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Will do!

Verdant TomeSubmitted4 years ago

This was a fun adventure. Once I had explored all the locations, talked to everyone, and gotten the gist of how events were to be won, most solutions fell into place. The only thing that tripped me up a little was that I used the springs before trying some of the events, but it didn't take me too long to realise that the springs needed to come off again!

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Version 2.1.0 now up.

AdventuronHost4 years ago

Hi Dee,

If you have time, check out the following documentation for adding dynamic multiple choices (new commands now available in beta 31):

https://adventuron.io/docs/tut/index.html#MultipleChoice

Might work well for Goblin Decathlon.

Chris

Dee CookeSubmitted4 years ago

Thanks Chris! I'll have a play with that later.

auraes4 years ago (1 edit)

You must examine the tree before you can take the apple, but there may be a message other than "NOT HERE" if you have not yet examined it?

PATH
LOG, APPLE TREE
?Get apple
Not here.

This is not the common use, but it could be interesting to be able to examine the name of the place where we are: ?X CAVE, TUNNEL, PODUIM etc.
(Garry does it, and it's kind of nice.)

I have a small problem while inputting, a graphic line is missing in the character display. Everything returns to normal after validating the input: