itch.io

V fhccbfr vg'f abg cebira gung vg jnf vzzrqvngryl orsber, ohg Naavr'f erznex gb Bfjnyq (n fgenatre gb ure), "Bu — V'z fb fbeel. V fjrne, vg jnfa'g zr — vg jnf Gbal — V gbyq uvz abg gb!" fgebatyl vzcyvrf gung Naavr jnf gnyxvat gb Gbal va gur nggvp va gur cerivbhf fprar.

I don't think it was "broken" to brute force one of four options, but I've updated it to minimize brute force.  You might enjoy viewing the source code of the HTML to read the entire walkthrough at once. There's now just a few instances of brute forcing (one of two possibilities, never one of four).

Jr qba'g arrq gb jnvg nf yngr nf 21-YV gb svaq 02-YV. 08-RQ yvaxf gb 03-NG, juvpu yvaxf gb 02-NG, juvpu cebirf gung Gbal jnfa'g va gur Yvivat ebbz, tvivat hf 02-YV. Sebz gur svefg thrffrq svyr 04-FG, V guvax gur cngu gb 02-YV vf: 05-QV, 06-FG, 04-OV, 03-XV, 01-OV, 05-XV, 06-RQ, 07-RQ, 08-RQ, 03-NG, 02-NG.

I wrote hints for this game. More than a walkthrough. You copy and paste your list of words into the page, and the hint system will figure out the very next word that you need to find, providing gradual hints to help you figure out just the next part.

I wrote hints for this game. More than a walkthrough. You copy and paste your list of files into the page, and the hint system will figure out the very next file that you need to find, then provide gradual hints to help you figure out the file’s name.

I also have a spoilerific question, in rot13. 

Jul qvqa'g Gbal qvr va Npg V? Vg frrzf yvxr ur fubhyq unir qvrq fubegyl nsgre ur gbhpurq gur obk pbagnvavat gur cbpxrg jngpu va 04.

Ur’q qrsvavgryl zrg Ehcreg orsber gur fgneg bs Gbal'f fprar va 01. (“Ur’f byq rabhtu gung ur jba’g abgvpr vg naljnl.”) Ur gbhpurq gur obk ntnva va 04 *orpnhfr* vg unq gur anzr “Ehcreg Tnyyrl” ba vg, nf ur rkcynvaf gb Naavr ng 05 va gur nggvp. Fb jul qvqa'g gbhpuvat gur obk xvyy Gbal? Fubhyqa'g gur obk unir orra nf qrnqyl nf gur yvfg bs anzrf?

I posted a review of the game on IFDB. https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=lh35qwlfvxl2h7yd&review=67158

I'm going to re-post the review here. The review argues that the game is unfinished, and unplayably buggy.

In this game, you can fight a wolf or a bear. During the tutorial, you fight the wolf, and then the bear. You can't defeat the bear in the tutorial, so you must run (or lose the fight).

At that point, the game lets you "nap" in one of two locations, the field or the forest. If you nap in the field, you have a random chance of meeting a trader. If you nap in the forest, well, the game is then supposed to give you a random chance of meeting a trader or fighting a wolf or bear, but, in fact, you'll only meet a trader.

This game is distributed as Python source code, allowing me to read the code to debug it.

The problem lies in the "random_events" function in Handler.py. It computes a max value "a" (for example, a=9), then computes a random value "b" from 0 to "a", as if rolling a die with 9 sides. The game then never uses the random variable "b", but instead uses the variable "a", as if the player had always rolled the maximum value on the die. As a result, the player only ever meets the trader, regardless of whether you nap in the field or forest.

This was all preventable if the author had followed common-sense guidelines, such as the IFComp guidelines for authors. https://ifcomp.org/about/guidelines

The guidelines there say to playtest your game and to credit your beta testers. But the "credits" command (which only works when you're not in combat or trading) credits only the author, and no beta testers. I think that if anyone had beta tested this game, they would have discovered this bug, and the author would have fixed it before now.

Furthermore, the guidelines recommend against submitting games written in Inform or TADS, and not to implement your own parser implementation in Python. Distributing the game as Python made it unnecessarily difficult to play.

Finally, upon reviewing the code, I see that there's no way to "win" the game. Even if the randomizer bug is fixed, at best, you might fight the bear, drink a few health potions, and win the fight, but you just get a few more units of meat, bone, and fang from winning. The more experience points you earn, the higher your "level" is, but leveling up doesn't do anything.

There should be a way to win the game. Perhaps the game might end saying "you win!" when you defeat the bear. Ideally, there would even be some kind of story, giving me a reason to fight wolves and bears.

I think this game is down. It's trying to load images etc. from darkglowbook dot com, but that site is down.

I provided an "Invisiclues" hint guide here: https://intfiction.org/t/the-party-line-invisiclues-hints/52886