UNCREATION - A new text mystery adventure!

[johannhowitzer]

"Most things are built with a purpose in mind.  If made well, they serve their purpose
until they wear out, and are discarded or replaced.  I've spent my life building things,
sometimes successfully, sometimes I had to give up and start again.  You can't let yourself
be discouraged by failure; after all, in failure we learn the most.

But this time is different.  Some failures can be set aside, others must be atoned for.
I just hope I'm not too late..."

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In UNCREATION, you'll use a simple, focused set of text commands to explore intriguing
locations and try to piece together what's happening.  The classic shortcomings of text
adventure games lie in the overwhelming complexity of human language, and the need for
obscure solutions to make progress.  Here, the options available to you are limited
greatly, so the focus can shift onto taking in your environment, and making sense of
information.

Great care has been taken to make sure the places you'll explore will not be overwhelming.
You should not need to make maps of locations unless you personally find it helpful,
there are no mazes.


Download here!


Currently, the prologue and first chapter are completed!  The second chapter is fully designed
and is in the process of being added to the game, and the third chapter is on the drawing
board.

I have done some testing myself, and it all seems to be working correctly!  Please check
this game out, and if so inclined, give me your feedback, let me know if you find any bugs
or problems, and enjoy!

If you're on the fence about trying this, check out the screenshots below before downloading,
to get an idea of what you're in for.  There are no spoilers.

[PhilOfPerth]

Looks interesting. You're right about the need for simplification of commands in this type of program; guessing the correct phrase to try is one of their biggest off-putters.

However, the download link you provided doesn't seem to work (for me anyway). I get a message "The transfer you requested has been deleted". Is it still current?

[johannhowitzer]

Thanks for letting me know about the dead link; seems that site's uploads default to expiring in a couple hours.  I've refreshed the link and set the expiration much longer, should work now!

[johannhowitzer]

Okay, had another person tell me about broken link for a second time, so I just threw it up on my google drive.  The link should work permanently now.

[mnrvovrfc]

Thank you for this. But I don't mean to offend when I say the following.

I was going to say I wouldn't go near a site named like "file-dot-eye-oh" which might as well be a shrouded address like "bit-dot-lie". In my previous log-in I wrote it but then escaped, thought it was unfair.

Now I could get into the other site that you chose to download your program. However some people are a bit touchy about downloading an executable file, and not everybody is on Windows, and not everybody using Linux has Wine. I'm not in the mood to install a virus scanner on any OS and I speak for other people who might be more insulting about this. At least you decided not to involve the EXE into a ZIP file like is too often the case with someone who wants to celebrate how many times "my stuff" was downloaded.

This is not a recommendation for you to show off the source code or any other part of it. But there are doubts about your using QB64(PE) for all of it or at least half of it. Because somebody else could join this forum and do the same thing you did.

One of the moderators could reveal: What is the best way for a person to prove the executable was created with QB64(PE), without having to show anything about the inner workings?

I didn't hide the above commentary into "spoiler" button because it's only a critical opinion, nothing to be upset about.

[johannhowitzer]

I had typed up some other stuff, but I realized it all really boiled down to one point: I'm not new here.  I've been around for years.  If you're very interested in playing this, I can send you the source code in a message, but posting it publicly would just be posting a walkthrough to my own game.

[madscijr]

In UNCREATION, you'll use a simple, focused set of text commands to explore intriguing
locations and try to piece together what's happening.  

Thanks for sharing - however the link is only to an EXE file. 
If you make the source code available, I'd love to give it a look!

[mnrvovrfc]

johannhowitzer

In the past I have done exactly what you did. I wrote some programs in Purebasic to process text files, but was unwilling to offer the source code. It was rather simple stuff to figure out. But I offered the EXE files for download thinking it was good enough. It might have been wasted energy, because I didn't know back then that there was a lot of worry about viruses and a lot of hatred being unleashed toward Windows installers. I should have posted the source code but wasn't sure if it could compile in the freeware version of Purebasic, which always had a limit on the number of source-code lines. I wasn't sure if it would work although, as I've already said, it was rather simple stuff related to what SMcNeill took to a new level here with a lot of libraries and helpful hints.

The programs focused on adjusting project files for Giada, an interesting sample audio sequencer that is fun for messing around because it allows triggering sounds with keyboard keys. The project file format is text and some fields have to be specifically filled in. Giving the link to those who are interested:

https://github.com/monocasual/giada

Times have changed very much from where any COM file was gladly accepted even if it printed a few messages and it went as far as the "free BSD games" that I noticed came with Slackware LOL.

In my previous post on this thread, I might have come across as ignorant or rude. But I only wanted to explain where I was coming from.

[johannhowitzer]

I think I was mostly deflated yesterday - this week was really rough, and I was excited to finally show this game, so to have it received thus... it didn't offend, it just took all the wind out of my sails, I guess.

I can certainly understand people's reluctance with EXE files, but I'm struggling to think of a way to post source that doesn't give away every puzzle in the game.

[bplus]

Sounds like a job for encryption.