02-15-2023, 02:06 PM
My apologies for not getting back to this yesterday, I had a RL crisis to handle.
A warning to anyone trying out the game!
As one of my friends tested the game, he stumbled over a joke that I put in, and I learned
it's just going to be very confusing for the player and serve as an unintentional red herring.
The first time you try to "get" something that doesn't exist, the game puts it in your inventory
anyway. Which can be really amusing if you type something like "get flamethrower" on a whim
and the game says "You got the flamethrower." No idea why it didn't occur to me that someone
would set this off when earnestly trying to get something that seems get-able but isn't.
My friend ended up with a fake key. So I'm taking that joke out in the next version!
@luke:
I'd be open to trying a different font, or even letting the player choose their own font.
In the latter case, I'd have to implement automatic line breaks, right now I'm doing all line
breaks by hand. Wouldn't be hard to do, it's a choice I may make later. I haven't messed with
fonts very much in QB64, apart from my own pixelart font system.
@madscijr:
[Send source code]
For now, I'm writing everything in-line, as you can see in my text adventure tutorial video,
because it's so easy and allows me to focus on the writing and level design. I do see some kind
of encryption as possible later, but with the game unfinished, it will really get in my way.
@mnrvovrfc
See above, your idea is one way to do encryption, yeah. Cboyu hlad ne dvie fnidf oe real ii L nfse anncee.
(read every other letter)
"Everybody else would be turned off or choose not to download."
Really? That wouldn't be my reaction at all, I think that might just be you. And again, I have
to refer back to track record - all other projects I've posted have been via source code, this is
a special case and I can see people in this thread are appreciating that.
It's very clear by now that this kind of game does not interest you. That's fine, and I know text
adventures can be a hard sell. It's not even my main project, just a fun thing I'm doing on the side.
But I think people who are open to giving games like this a chance are going to experience
some cool moments along the way! I have a lot of fun surprises in store, many of which
are yet to come in later chapters.
@madscijr:
"If someone is dead set on seeing the solution"
Yes, I agree, currently the solutions are in plain text, and what I'm concerned about isn't
someone who is dead set on seeing the solution, I'm concerned about someone who gets tempted
by frustration at being a bit stuck, gives in, and regrets it. If the source code wasn't so
easy to read right now, I'd have already posted it.
Your idea of a text resource file was my first thought as well, with an encryption algorithm
in the middle to make opening the text file not be a spoiler. I could choose any of a thousand
encryptions for this, and then all the code would still be present, just not the PRINT contents.
I'm also using abstraction constants which are a bit transparent, so I'd just replace those with
their values in-line as well - replace flag(i_sh_keyring) with flag(12), for example.
A warning to anyone trying out the game!
As one of my friends tested the game, he stumbled over a joke that I put in, and I learned
it's just going to be very confusing for the player and serve as an unintentional red herring.
The first time you try to "get" something that doesn't exist, the game puts it in your inventory
anyway. Which can be really amusing if you type something like "get flamethrower" on a whim
and the game says "You got the flamethrower." No idea why it didn't occur to me that someone
would set this off when earnestly trying to get something that seems get-able but isn't.
My friend ended up with a fake key. So I'm taking that joke out in the next version!
@luke:
I'd be open to trying a different font, or even letting the player choose their own font.
In the latter case, I'd have to implement automatic line breaks, right now I'm doing all line
breaks by hand. Wouldn't be hard to do, it's a choice I may make later. I haven't messed with
fonts very much in QB64, apart from my own pixelart font system.
@madscijr:
[Send source code]
For now, I'm writing everything in-line, as you can see in my text adventure tutorial video,
because it's so easy and allows me to focus on the writing and level design. I do see some kind
of encryption as possible later, but with the game unfinished, it will really get in my way.
@mnrvovrfc
See above, your idea is one way to do encryption, yeah. Cboyu hlad ne dvie fnidf oe real ii L nfse anncee.
(read every other letter)
"Everybody else would be turned off or choose not to download."
Really? That wouldn't be my reaction at all, I think that might just be you. And again, I have
to refer back to track record - all other projects I've posted have been via source code, this is
a special case and I can see people in this thread are appreciating that.
It's very clear by now that this kind of game does not interest you. That's fine, and I know text
adventures can be a hard sell. It's not even my main project, just a fun thing I'm doing on the side.
But I think people who are open to giving games like this a chance are going to experience
some cool moments along the way! I have a lot of fun surprises in store, many of which
are yet to come in later chapters.
@madscijr:
"If someone is dead set on seeing the solution"
Yes, I agree, currently the solutions are in plain text, and what I'm concerned about isn't
someone who is dead set on seeing the solution, I'm concerned about someone who gets tempted
by frustration at being a bit stuck, gives in, and regrets it. If the source code wasn't so
easy to read right now, I'd have already posted it.
Your idea of a text resource file was my first thought as well, with an encryption algorithm
in the middle to make opening the text file not be a spoiler. I could choose any of a thousand
encryptions for this, and then all the code would still be present, just not the PRINT contents.
I'm also using abstraction constants which are a bit transparent, so I'd just replace those with
their values in-line as well - replace flag(i_sh_keyring) with flag(12), for example.