Nope. I imagine it's probably quite impossible to do that anyway, but there's no extra reward for accomplishing such an absurd feat!

I may come back to this now that I"m out of a personal design dead-end sorta. I'm suuure there are better ways for me to go about this entrapment! It's no fun past the first couple times, so it isn't really very replay-enjoyable

I agree, not levels you earn or progress through, I'm thinking more or less free access to different places with distinct differences so you don't feel the grind of the same generator over and over.

Hehehe those pushing struggles. Really good story.

Iirc you can't really escape disasters.  It's not a hard timer to keep you exiting a screen before it's up, it's a timer to more generally add pressure. The timer sticks around between screens, I think.

But still, the social dynamic of disasters could stand to be sharpened a bit :)

(Oh! And to answer one of your questions: the three dots machine activates every other machine on its floor.)

oh, v quick comment on the disasters: they're meant to be unavoidable in some cases, acting as a hard timer that doesn't look like a hard timer. i've got to think a bit harder about the design in this particular case... well, in a lot of areas of the game, but i feel genuinely rejuvenated by your post!

my next game that i think exists in similar design space is a card game that must be ready by the 11th of may, so please look forward to that. and maybe i'll find some time to spice up IC afterwards -- with your suggestions as well as whatever i learn from this other thing :3

omfg! thanks for playing w ur brothers and leaving this incredible play-by-play feedback. i need to dig into it on another day but jst wanted to say something immediately because i have a tendency to put things off.

working on a new project that is sort of building off these same themes & i'm super excited you've mentioned the "personalities" derived from character motivations.

i'm also very interested that you've mentioned longevity -- it's not something i gave a lot of thought to! i didn't design it for a group of people to play through a bunch of times, but it's definitely something worth thinking about esp. if i'm going to put a thing onto itch.io or some other platform where i'm asking for someone to Invest In It.

again tysm for the social play-by-play and for putting your heart(s) into my video game <3 i love the idea of different levels -- that sounds very doable and rich space for new social constructs, mechanical learning, etc! and i do need to put some bleepy bloopies or something in.

I cracked. Figured I'd rather solve the problem in a way I wasn't happy with than... not solve the problem at all...

I can always change my mind later!

And I'll learn more about the world this way.

I'm charging money for it!

oh! what interesting timing.

i've been thinking lately, like this past week! about how to relate to the process of releasing things. i'm no closer to a solution, but still. interesting timing.

when i get home, figuring it out will go on my to-do list. no promises regarding how long it will take 😬 but in terms of priority, it's up there. ish.

oh awesome O: i'll try it out, thx for the tip

I made two pico-8 games. Is there an easy way to submit those to itch.io?

help! i'm trying to hide that 'fullscreen' button

post-mortem part 2: it was called 1st dragon because there was always a possibility for a second interation, another try. it's not ready, but lessons for 2nd dragon:

- empower players to do more without my involvement, because i'm lazy

- schedule my involvement but make it valuable, because i'm not actually lazy, i'm just bad at time management. if i set aside some time i'll spend it more intentionally and i'll maybe be able to not worry so much every other second of the day

- more prompts for action. the most active part of the game was when i asked ppl to envision different HOMES; ofc part of that was because it was right at the beginning of the game, but i think it was also because it was the only part of the game with a clear directive

- more surprises, more follow-through, more interesting outcomes. (food was a pretty boring problem because there was no choice involved, and once solved it was like "ok, food's solved, uh, ok")

It makes me... really sad, but also validated, to hear that you've been building in a vacuum and don't share much. I guess I've felt much the same way, and have been working on ways to dig myself (and by extension & necessity, others!) out of this hole. So far all the communities I've been exposed to seem to be focused on the 'indie' identity, which imo has gravitated away from just sharing creative stuff and having fun together.

Kill your dying and cannibalize their parts! Good luck with your dead projects. Thanks for your response. <3

to everyone who participated: genuinely, thank you so much and i appreciate each & every contribution.

i had big hopes & weird plans for 1st dragon, and i think i ... stretched them out too much. i'm thinking about doing something like this again but on a much smaller scale, built to last a week, tops. i apologize deeply for overscoping, for overestimating how long my attention (and your attentions!) might last. but i think if i did this again, i would make a better plan, and i would be able to actually make it... a full experience, from start to finish, with better tools in place for accepting creative inputs and rewarding them more deeply.

i hope everyone had a good time >.<

sorry sorry i haven't responded with the stairs!

i feel like 1st dragon has slowed down and i haven't been as excited about it, i wrote up a post-mortem over here: https://itch.io/t/327319/1st-dragon-social-community-post-mortem

i don't think i want to GM something over a long period of time, and i wish i'd designed this to be more evenly collaborative.

also: activity dwindled and my mind wandered to new ideas.

ahh

sooo, i made this forum thinking about social spaces, and i think the experiment is actually kinda done. i had some ideas for 1st dragon and i'm really (really) happy with everyone posting there but i don't think it's something i have the fire to keep going myself. I DID THIS LAST TIME TOO T___T

i wish i'd made the game able to go on without me? i realized i'm looking for social spaces and specifically i'm interested in ones where i and others share our art. to some degree this is what some tabletop roleplaying games are - everyone is sharing in the art of storytelling. i was drawing inspiration from that but i think i really missed the mark, making something with an authoritative server and a noninteractive client, the "World Viewer for 1st Dragon".

rather than build a game to contain such a community it seemed better to make a community for playing little games, and i believe that now more than before. i think probably what i want to do is make (or find) an indie games community that i want to be a part of.

i noticed how the forum mostly was quiet withouts prompts to get involved.

i learned a bunch.

i'll be back.

Although one such project has already started and it will still take [10 replies], you may now start a [COMMUNICATE] project that takes [only 5 replies] to complete thanks to BrandLibel's close study of communication with other species.

This is not limited to things that appear to be alive; indeed, you can [COMMUNICATE] with absolutely anything.

You might not learn much, depending on the subject.

Oh yes!! This is super cool, I remember reading about this a very long time ago.

I wonder if it's still something they're doing? Actively?

We can really get the lay of the land out here.

From this high outpost, we can see the world within 2 tiles...

When you post in this thread, please provide an 18x18 sprite for a single as-yet-unsprited item from the list below. After 8 posts, no more unclaimed spaces will exist, and I'll lock the thread.

1. The Outpost's Legs
2. Clear-Cut Woods
3. Valley Of Small Mushrooms
4. An Immense Mountain
5. Suspicious Watering Hole
6. Suspicious Regular Hole
7. Suspicious Bushes & Trees
8. Suspicious Chickens

(your sprites don't have to be beautiful, it's ok!)

wowow i can click on stuff

Working on this! Now I've https'd all my websites, but not the 1st dragon server, haha

Does this work... on Android? http://garbage.droqen.com/1st-dragon/

The biggest issue I foresee is I don't really do anything about touch... and I don't think touch emulates a mouse cursor position?

Let me know!

Does this work? http://garbage.droqen.com/1st-dragon/

There's been an update to the WORLD VIEWER APPLICATION, but still no HTML5 build -- itch is https and won't let me access my lowly non-https server ;_;

The library has been built! Feel free to [STUDY] Anything you like in the library. [only 5 replies required], but specify in the text: "only 5 replies because I'm studying in the library".

Project complete.

The moist mushroom farm has been planted. They're glowing and dancing curiously, but nobody's had any ill effects from eating them!

There's enough food for everyone, as long as you don't eat too much.