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I played this in a group setting and that was really fun! I enjoyed that it is a treasure hunt style game. Those are classic and fun.

The project file for making Cloak of Darkness is now available to download, load, study, and play test.

Look at the world map, the object menu, and the game rules. Look up each part of a rule in the documentation to understand what it is doing. Think in terms of a game engine. The engine processes all rules in visual order. If the Event type is a "Rule" that rule can only be called by other rules.

Look up each part of a rule in the documentation and read what it does. Ask questions.

Roger Firth’s original micro‑spec

• The Foyer of the Opera House is where the game begins. This empty room has doors to the south and west. There is nobody else around. - Notice the starting location in the initial game settings. Click Edit to see that it is the Foyer of the Opera House
• The Bar lies south of the Foyer, and is initially unlit. Trying to do anything other than return northwards results in a warning message about disturbing things in the dark.  - Notice on the World Map that the Bar is to south of the Foyer. See how it is connected in the navigation editor. See that it is marked dark in the room description editor.
• On the wall of the Cloakroom, to the west of the Foyer, is fixed a small brass hook. Taking an inventory of possessions reveals that the player is wearing a black velvet cloak which, upon examination, is found to be light-absorbent. The player can drop the cloak on the floor of the Cloakroom or, better, put it on the hook.  - Notice this room is to the East. Notice that there is a brass hook object in the object table that is located here and is stationary.
• Returning to the Bar without the cloak reveals that the room is now lit. A message is scratched in the sawdust on the floor. The message reads either "You have won" or "You have lost", depending on how much it was disturbed by the player while the room was dark. The act of reading the message ends the game. And that's all there is to it... - Notice that the cloak is in the object table and it is a wearable item. Look up the wearable item action class in the vocabulary and see what actions are available.

Notice that the rules deal with state transitions and events. Turn on debugging in the initial game settings to see the events get handled and displayed.

Notice how winning and losing are happening in rules 12 and 13 and how those rules get processed. Explore winning in a different way than earning a point and passing the winning game threshold. Try just setting the "Win" outcome instead to see that it can happen other ways.

Please download and try again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for the report. I'll get that fixed.

I'd like to play it through until the end but I think part of the puzzle is figuring out the controls. Maybe it helps to know that I didn't know what is a "thumby" device.

I don't really understand how to play it and found myself getting frustrated. I'm not familiar with this style of parser play. It looks really impressive and the controls and sounds are neat. Congratulations on such a game.

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Really fun, exciting, and engaging. Lot's of fun!!!

That was a fun and enjoyable adventure. I played it over the course of two days and won in 247 moves with one death before save, then two save points, and one restore. Now I want to get the book that is talked about in the game page that was written by a coauthor of the game.

I'm stuck at the moat and hopefully will figure it out. I've gotten all the things I think I need for the area but haven't figured out the workings.

It is very enjoyable so far. Has that classic text adventure feel to it.

edit - I won!

Another person seemed to be flummoxed by the reliefs. Just an FYI, you can use "press the jaguar relief". When you use "relief" it must ask you to disambiguate because their are four nearly identically named objects in that location. That is just a facet of the engine. Ramen really was meant to be helpful as this was designed for an absolute beginner. I wanted to guide the player through all the puzzles without much frustration.

Thank you very much for the feedback. Admittedly this game started out as a POC for different aspects of the underlying text engine. I completely see how the puzzles can seem the way you described. If you give the hard mode a shot the only difference is that the first door is locked and there is a new area to explore which has its own puzzle, completely different than the others, to find that key. Regarding the water, it can be necessary if you go wandering around in the desert. Water is in the game but you have to find it and a kind of secret location with its own mini-narrative. It was fun writing Ramens dialogue, that was the best part for me.

You got the bonus! Very nice. 

I don't know what I meant. It is definitely a typo. I meant 'etched' and not sure how that word got there. It was very early in the morning when I made that update to add the description and I went too fast obviously. I'm sure there is more of that...

edit - Please feel free to rate it in the contest it is submitted to if you haven't. Thanks!

Thanks! That really helps a lot!

Seems like basic directions like N,S,E,W do not work. I have to type out 'go north'. For a beginners game that is a lot of cognitive load especially given that the exit directions are listed in the text as 'North' or 'South' but those actions do not work. They need to be prepended with go. Also when I say 'take the book' it doesn't pick it up. When I am talking to iris when I press enter it tells me to finish reading first.

I'm having a lot of trouble in the opening area. I've tried walking N, S, E, W. I've tried climbing the trees, vines, thicket. I've looked at my compass. I'm going to hold off on my rating until I better understand how to play this.

Thank you so much for this feedback. I added a description for the archway to the campground. The desert is an inhospitable place in the game,

In Nightmare Planet 2025 you play a starship pilot escorting Princess Aurora to the planet Zen for a political marriage you secretly dread. A meteor storm forces a crash landing on an uncharted world, Aurora vanishes, and your powerless ship leaves you stranded. Your mission: explore the hostile landscape, rescue Aurora, and recover the power crystal that can get you home.

Hi all. I'm new to all of this and I submitted my entry.