Thanks for the feedback. The browser version is a lot more fussy than the Next version and I didn't fully account for that (all my playtesters were on the Next which is the intended destination). Aside from the verb issues, how did you feel about the length, structure and puzzles? This is really the first proper text adventure I've made and struggled to think up interesting puzzles for it!
Viewing post in Rite of the Druid (Browser Version) jam comments
The whole thing was very psychedelic. It reminded me of a famous episode of The Simpsons, where Homer ate some really strong chilli that gave him hallucinations.
Length and structure were just right. You had a nice number of barriers to prevent progress and every time you got past one of those barriers, it was a real thrill to see the graphics for the newly discovered location.
The puzzles were somewhat old school. Wander around, find objects, then work out what to do with them. It was pretty much one object per puzzle with not much depth. The connection between the object and the puzzle wasn't always obvious or intuitive. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but when you have to resort to trial and error, it sort of takes the pleasure away. There were a few exceptions. For example, the strange mechanism was quite good, as there were multiple elements to the final solution of the puzzle and it revealed something quite unexpected.
I found the end game a bit confusing. I didn't really understand what the animals were telling me. That may have been intentional. I need to replay it to try giving different things to different animals. (I think I know which animal will react to which "treasure".) I was expecting to have to give something to each of the animals, but when I went back to try, most of them had disappeared after talking to them.
Apart from the brute force slog in the middle of the game, I really enjoyed it and hope you write some more. Technically, it was very well written. I would not have guessed that it's your first Adventuron game.
Thank you. This is all good to know and will help when I plan future adventures.
With regards to the animals, they do hint at what they require (The stag hints at leadership and lineage, therefore the 'Pharaoh mask', the Owl speaks of silver discs 'silver coins' and the Scorpion speaks of coloured glass 'coloured gems'). These are the only 3 'treasures' in the game.
That was exactly what I suspected. I had used the owl.
Incidentally, can you add UNDO. To do this, just add the following:
game_settings {
rewind_enabled = true
rollback_enabled = true
}The first allows you to undo the previous move. The second allows you to undo after a lose_game statement. In this case, Adventuron asks whether you want to rollback.
I'm a little confused by this - these comments suggest the animals talk to you, but I've tried TALK TO [ANIMAL] and generally get a response indicating that I've been largely ignored! I'd also tried giving the gems to the scorpion (Jewelled scorpion? Worth a try...) to no avail.
Might also be worth pointing out that the readme suggests typing 'HELP' will give some hints about verbs, but this doesn't work - at least on the Next version.