Post by Sanjuro in Comments on 'Time Trip'

Treasure Hunt Jam (Text Only) » Community

Viewing post in Comments on 'Time Trip'

(hoping that this time my computer will not shutdown unexpectedly while writing this)

Hi, sorry if I answer just now. I am amazed of your patience and I'm very sorry for all the problems and issues you have encountered. The time we had was very limited, as our knowledge of text-based games and of Adventuron itself were. I'll proceed to answer your questions and fix the issues.
-If I type CREDITS I can see my own ones, am I missing something?
-I right-aligned the quoted responses in order to clearly distinguish them from the system messages, almost in a chat-like fashion. I didn't find them particularly hard to read honestly, but if the feeling is shared by others I'll proceed to change the alignment.
-I can examine the leaves both in my inventory and when they're on the ground (even after dropping them in some other place).
-I purposefully used EXAMINE and TALK as synonyms, even though I knew it was wrong. I was afraid that the player would not be able to understand out of the blue that he/she could talk to the animals, and given the lack of other ideas and the time to create a proper tutorial I opted for this.
-Is there a way to create a disambiguation menu or is it just an ad-hoc match entry?
-The Bank Room in general was just a bait, but it ended up being a mess. I even considered not including it altogether. I had many problems with understanding how Adventuron handles names composed by more than one word, since sometimes they seemed to work fine, while some others it just didn't recognize the commands. I couldn't find anything in the documentation, so I had to scrap most of the names with two words or more (all the animals had a proper name originally) and keep only the important one, hoping that they would have worked properly. What's the deal with them?
I reworked it a bit, now it should be a bit more clear in general, but I still haven't found a way to make two-words-names work properly.
-For the Okapi thing, I am failing to understand what's the problem. I handle the question with the ask_string operator, then check the player's answer and give an adequate response. Is this a wrong approach?
-I ended up removing the dust, it was just part of some scrapped things I wanted to insert just to create a more vivid ambient, to create more atmosphere. It didn't make sense for that to be the only object or scenery of this kind.

CHANGES in version 0.1.1:
-The game now runs in its own window.
-All (?) the sentences end with a full stop.
-HELP command overridden with a (temporary and not very explicative) personal one.
-Corrected the random dialogues using the "cycle" statement.
-Added a proper response to WAKE SLOTH.
-Fixed the multiple spawning of the mask on the altar and of the exslowsive.
-Added PRAY and ASK FORGIVENESS to the possible answers in that situation (there was no cruel logic behind it, just me not realizing what could have been some common answers to that question).
-Added a proper response to CLOSE CHEST, GET CHEST, EXAMINE CHEST.
-The messages in the chests are now described as "carved", so there's no ambiguity in how to pick them, since they're not needed.
-Fixed the EXAMINE CHEST response after opening them.
-Added proper response to SMELL LEAVES and SMELL FLOWER.
-Fixed the GIVE MASK issue.
-Changed "The Shaman enters the tree" with "The Shaman climbs the tree".
-Fixed the south block in Riverside.
-Fixed the EXAMINE on the time portals.
-Deleted (Past) from the locations descriptions. (They were there just for debug purpose, I thought I had removed them all)
-Fixed various typos.
-Added "giraffe" as a synonym for "merchant".
-The exslowsive now gives a hint if used in the wrong place, and it can't be recovered after being placed in the right spot.
-Added a proper response to OPEN MOUTH.
-Removed the DUST.

Garry Francis5 years ago

Hey, no need to apologise. I'm just wearing my tester's hat and trying to help you improve your game so that other players (and judges) will enjoy it more .

Re CREDITS, I meant that you could write something a little more user friendly and specific to your game. Don't just rely on the system credits. See mine (ABOUT, CREDITS or INFO) as an example. I used stagger to account for mobile, as this is the only command that provides a long response. (A long response for credits is allowed in the jam rules.)

Re quotes, the natural response is for your eyes to move down to the next line immediately after entering a command. I found it a bit jarring when there was nothing there, but your peripheral vision indicates there's something to the right, so your eyes move to the right. (This is a human factors engineering thing. You might not have noticed it yourself, as you knew what to expect. The staggered display on text messaging is quite different, as the two conversations overlap quite a lot and the eyes don't have to travel as far on the small screen of a mobile phone.) If you want the quoted text to look different, you could use a different colour. Anyway, this was just an observation of something I found quite annoying. It's entirely up to you whether you change it or not.

Re leaves, you're right. That was fixed in 0.1.0. Either I was mistaken or I'd noted it in an earlier version.

Re disambiguation menu, if you have two objects with object IDs of red_key and blue_key and both objects are in scope at the same time and you try to (say) EXAMINE KEY or GET KEY, then Adventuron will automatically provide the disambiguation menu for you. You don't have to do anything special other than ensure that the object IDs include the appropriate adjective. Better disambiguation techniques are now available I believe, but I haven't used them yet. You can avoid the disambiguation menu with two-word input by allowing the player to refer to the adjective, e.g. EXAMINE RED, GET BLUE. You just need to account for this in your tests, especially match statements. The code can get a bit messy, so test thoroughly.

Re the Okapi issue, I think it's the ask_string that's causing the problem. I noticed this in a couple of games. What happens is if you use ask_string, it asks you a question and you are expected to answer that question. If you don't realise you have to answer the question and just play on, it can get in a real mess. I thought it was a rhetorical question and pressed the up arrow to repeat the previous command. (I had got into the habbit of doing this a lot in your game to see whether responses were consistent or random.) When you press the up arrow when Adventuron is expecting an answer to an ask_string question, it does NOT repeat the previous command. A similar thing happens if you don't answer with a number after a disambiguation menu. Adam Sommerfield just demonstrated this quite unknowingly in his review of 'Opposite Edge of Slumber' on YouTube. He had to terminate the playing session because he thought he'd crashed the game.

Thanks for doing all the updates. I'm sure it will be a lot better now. Will I be able to find that last treasure now?

Sanjuro5 years ago

I hear you about the quotes, the original idea included using different colors too, so maybe I'll stick to that if I have time.

For the ask_string thing, is there a way to approach it or there's no better solution?

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the last treasure. I'll give you a hint: have you tried using the fishing rod?

Garry Francis5 years ago

Regarding the Okapi, the first time I played I examined the Okapi and he asked me a question. I thought it was a rhetorical question, meaning it wasn't expecting an answer. I examined the graveyard and got a response that sort of made sense, but I didn't realise it was actually telling me that my answer was wrong. I went round and round in circles for a little while trying to answer the question. Even when I knew the answer, I couldn't get it to accept the answer because I hadn't re-examined the Okapi. If it was me, I would do it something like this:

Talk to the Okapi and he asks you the question. Answer the question by just giving the answer (as though it was a verb) or using SAY <answer>. If the answer is wrong when you haven't used a verb, it will just give the normal "Not understood." response. If you use SAY and the answer is wrong, give the response you're giving now. If the answer is right, do what you do now when the answer is right. You can optionally set a flag when you initially talk to the Okapi so that you know he's asked you the question. For an example of this, see the handling of the magic word in my first Adventuron game, 'Seeker of Magic'.

Regarding the fishing rod, yes, I did try it, but maybe I didn't find the right verb. I'll try again. Thanks.

Garry Francis5 years ago

I have tried every single verb I can think of with the mouth, ivy and rod and I'll be buggered if I can get anything to work in the truth room. This is clearly a read-the-author's-mind problem. You're going to have to give me a verb to use.

Sanjuro5 years ago

Thanks for the feedback on the Okapi question, I'll handle it as soon as I can!

For the rod, it's not a verb issue. Have you encountered a lake among the various places of the past?

Garry Francis5 years ago

I thought of that as soon as I clicked Submit. It was after 1:00 a.m. so I didn't have time to try. I'll give it a try shortly. Thanks for the help. The game is playing much better now.

itch.io

Viewing post in Comments on 'Time Trip'