Cataclysm of Chaos V9 (Text Adventure)

[lordpalandus]

I'll have to try to reproduce it to fix it, but I have a fairly good idea what is going on. I'll try doing precisely what you did to produce it.

It appears that instead of spawning a monster, it puts you in battle with your Spellbook. After a battle, the code that checks for a visible enemy defaults to Spellbook, which is intentional as it allows you to cast noncombat spells after combat and prevents other combat-related functionality from occurring when you aren't in combat. Somehow, the game has gotten confused and considers your Spellbook an enemy, which is why you can't kill it... as it technically doesn't have a health meter.

It probably has something to do with my attempts at trying to turn off spell recasting in my refactor of V5, so I'll check the spell code for the issue.

EDIT: Couldn't reproduce it, and didn't find anything in my spellcasting system. However, did find a few logic errors in my melee combat system, related to objects that could have caused your issue, that I fixed, so hopefully that will solve that issue.

EDIT2: The message "You find a stairwell leading down, and thus can enter the sewers from here." Only appears when the ExplorationScript is triggered on a floor that is 0 or less OR 13 or more; its the default message for a switch statement. So, that implies that the "room" was generated on floor 0, in the Capital City, which it shouldn't.

EDIT3: It appears to be an error in the Ascend code, as it performs the Exploration Script at all times after ascending a floor, and as you'd be on floor 0, it would produce the default message and then as it skipped room generation, it would have used the room description from the previous room, and see the spellbook as an enemy. Will now be fully fixed!
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Wasp Hive; wasps keep stinging. Yeah, it was a bit rushed, so I'll look over it some more. I'll reword the trap encounter, as you are right it doesn't really work at all.

EDIT: Rewrote a lot of the text, and reread it, and it mostly sounds fine to me. Love to hear your opinion on the reworded encounter!

---

"begin" needs to be verbose, as that is a command and doesn't work if not verbatim.

I agree that it is a bit verbose, but as I did try that route before and it didn't pan out, it is a necessary evil. I'll look into restructuring the character creation screen, so that its quicker to generate a new character for those that have done it before and slower for those who haven't.

EDIT: Modified character creation to be very fast for returning players. Just type in your race, and then your name, and the game will automatically put you into the game proper. If you need to make a more informed decision or want to go through the old system, just type "new" for new player. Should address the majority of the issues you brought up Hooman. Hopefully!

[Hooman]

Very clever how you rewrote character creation. Since the character class is a small finite set of options, you can easily add an extra option for help.

I like choosing a race before deciding on a name. Maybe I want to choose a name based on the race I select, which makes more sense to do when you already know what races you can select.


The timed random events are a bit annoying. It kind of interrupts play at random intervals. It's also way way too frequent. Good for testing, but bad for gameplay. It's impossible to read a long wall of text without random events adding to it. The text itself is generally fun and playful. The only one I didn't like was the ball of dung that randomly rolls in and out. Why? How odd. The other ones add nicely to the mood of the game. I would suggest decreasing the frequency, by at least a factor of 10, and see how that works out. I'm still wondering if it might be better to slip such text in between commands, rather than at timed intervals. Especially if the text is just for mood, and doesn't actually cause any events you can interact with.

[lordpalandus]

Thank you.

Yes, the timed ambience does need improvements to it. The idea behind it is that in many games, with sound, you often have little bits of ambient sound effects, or visual effects to add to the immersion. As I currently lack a sound designer and not sure that adding sound to a text-adventure would be a good idea in the first place, I settled for a timer-based ambience related event.

I agree that they do interrupt play at random intervals, but thus far haven't figured out a better way to do it. Maybe the moment after you kill a monster. Or maybe after you finish investigating something. Its something I do want; ambience that is, rather than annoying text popups.

With the ambience I wanted to go with a few that were purely visual ambience, purely auditory and some that are a bit of both. I'll admit that I was kind of grasping for ideas on the sixth ambience event for the sewers, the ball of shit, but wanted to have a sixth, and thus, that hopefully explains that. Also, there is a beetle of some kind that makes a home out of a ball of manure, and figured it'd fit right in with a sewer and the usual stuff found in a sewer.

Well, as the frequency is one per 30 seconds, a factor of ten would imply 5 minutes. That seems a bit long to me, personally. Though if I were to be able to eschew with the timer altogether, and go with specific intervals where a random ambience would occur, that would be more ideal imo.

Well, technically, three of the events for each section DO cause an interaction with the player. There is an ambience event where a tarantula and a scorpion battles it out. Most of the time, it will be harmless. However, if you have Arachnophobia, then you get a unique interaction (as they are both arachnids) depending on if you are in combat or not; if you are in combat, they freak you out and you drop your guard and the enemy gets a free hit on you. Though, I'm thinking myself that that might not be a great mechanic in of itself... especially with interactions with when the player has Haste active and should get another attack in before the monster can retaliate.

Thoughts?

EDIT:

Uploaded hotfix 3. Makes the ambience system trigger in two circumstances; room generation and monster death. This means it won't be on a timer anymore and if you get a phobia event, then the monster gets a free attack, at the start of the encounter, rather than break other functionality. Hope this solves some of the annoyances with the ambience system!

[Hooman]

The idea behind it is that in many games, with sound, you often have little bits of ambient sound effects, or visual effects to add to the immersion. As I currently lack a sound designer and not sure that adding sound to a text-adventure would be a good idea in the first place, I settled for a timer-based ambience related event.

Very interesting explanation. Indeed, it could be odd to have sound in a text-adventure. Though now you've got me wondering if it could work.

I agree that they do interrupt play at random intervals, but thus far haven't figured out a better way to do it. Maybe the moment after you kill a monster. Or maybe after you finish investigating something. Its something I do want; ambience that is, rather than annoying text popups.

Yes, I would expect text to be randomly inserted between existing actions and events, without displaying at odd times through a timer.

Well, as the frequency is one per 30 seconds, a factor of ten would imply 5 minutes.

That sounds about right to me.

Though if I were to be able to eschew with the timer altogether, and go with specific intervals where a random ambience would occur, that would be more ideal imo.

Yes, I think it might work better if the events appeared at specific hook points.

Well, technically, three of the events for each section DO cause an interaction with the player. There is an ambience event where a tarantula and a scorpion battles it out. Most of the time, it will be harmless. However, if you have Arachnophobia, then you get a unique interaction (as they are both arachnids) depending on if you are in combat or not; if you are in combat, they freak you out and you drop your guard and the enemy gets a free hit on you. Though, I'm thinking myself that that might not be a great mechanic in of itself... especially with interactions with when the player has Haste active and should get another attack in before the monster can retaliate.

It seems your game mechanics are more involved than I expected. Though I have to wonder, is arachnophobia something that is acquired through play? It seems odd that a player might develop a weakness from playing, rather than grow stronger. If acquired, is there a way to get rid of it? Or does the player start with phobias that must be overcome?

Uploaded hotfix 3. Makes the ambience system trigger in two circumstances; room generation and monster death. This means it won't be on a timer anymore and if you get a phobia event, then the monster gets a free attack, at the start of the encounter, rather than break other functionality. Hope this solves some of the annoyances with the ambience system!

I will be looking forward to trying out the update.

[lordpalandus]

Well, my text adventure is a GUI-less turn-based RPG, so conceivably sounds could be introduced to it. There is code in Quest to allow inputting pictures and sound into the game.

Phobias are acquired in one of two ways; 1) trigger a trap at least 3 times [ie Spider Web trap] or 2) die to a creature and second wind. You can get rid of phobias by drinking the expensive and highly useful Elixir of Ambrosia [costs 1000 SS per, and fully heals all HP and MP, and will clear any phobias you have].

I do intend to have an ingame Manual that will explain the mechanics of the game, as things are very involved under the hood. I'm sure there are mechanics I've implemented that players don't know of. For example, if you use a shield, with spikes, your damage output will quickly outpace your melee weapon. However, if you miss with your shield bash, or even hit, you lose your dodge, protection and spell resistance bonuses from your shield for that round. I'll look into implementing the manual once I've fully figured out all the mechanics.

[lordpalandus]

Released V7 of CoC. Links updated.

I'm finding my motivation levels are receding with this project. Part of it is that the systems I'm dealing with introduce a lot of annoying writers block. The other part of it, is the perception of lack of interest in the project.

I do notice that on the Quest Forum webpage that the numbers of online plays and downloads goes up, but I rarely get any actual feedback. Does that mean that people are enjoying it and don't have anything to report. Or that they hit a specific issue, and don't bother reporting it. Or that their impression of the project isn't sufficient to warrant a comment. I don't know. However, what I do know is that, without feedback, I don't know if the changes or additions I'm putting in are things players like or if the balance is fully right. For me, I find that my changes are making the game both more engaging and challenging, and more immersive, but it would be nice to be told if I'm doing something wrong or doing something right and I don't know how to encourage those who are playing it to give feedback.

Without feedback, its hard to keep myself motivated, particularly when I feel like abandoning it and returning to UE4. Its just really hard some times, and I do want to complete the project; I've come this far, so why not. Its just that keeping oneself motivated for long periods without feedback of any kind, is challenging. Anywho, enough of a rant for today.

Hope you enjoy V7!

[Vagabond]

lordpalandus,

I wouldn't be too worried about the lack of feedback. It is a lot of work to provide feedback and most people will not. If your game continues to get downloaded, then you are probably doing something right. You can't tell how long they spend playing it can you?

On that note, I've been meaning to try it out again. I should be able to make time either this week or on the weekend to give it another spin. I'll create a Quest account too so I can save my progress and let you know how it goes.

I hope you to continue working on CoC to completion. Even if the project doesn't take off in large numbers of downloads, there will be a sense of achievement by finishing a game, which you have wanted to do for a long time. 

It is common to feel defeated in the middle of the project. So much left to finish and it gets harder to keep adding to the project because your code needs constantly cleaned. Perhaps you could take a hard look at remaining uncompleted tasks and try to drop as many of them as possible while still being able to call the game completed. Try to keep feature creep down by not adding new features, etc. Feature creep can really kill a game by making the production drive out too long.

Anyways, I'd say try to hang in there and complete it! I'm enjoying seeing the progress you have made this far.

-Brett

[lordpalandus]

I suppose that is true. Also true that good feedback takes effort, and I even fail at times to provide good feedback myself when testing other people's work.

I haven't seen anything that tells me how long people have played it; just shows total number of online plays and downloads.

Okay, thanks!

That is true enough as well.

Yes, I have found that feature creep has been the bane of my existence lately, and there are a few things that are sort of trying to creep in... may not be necessary features, but yah. I think I'll take your advice and for the time being drop them.

Thanks, I appreciate it!

EDIT: Modified the main page. The features listed are crucial and will be implemented into the game proper, hopefully in each of the listed release windows. I am working on a large feature creep list of features that I could implement if I was motivated to do so, but aren't crucial to the game. All of my gameplay systems do work properly and are functional/practical. They may not be super immersive, or provide the information in a less than eye-pleasing way, but they work and do their job sufficiently well. I'd like to spruce up the combat and spruce up the ambience system, but these will take a significant amount of development time to do, and I am just feeling right now like getting the crucial stuff done, and have a complete game while my motivation to create it lasts.

[Hooman]

I'm quite interested in this project. I especially like the regular updates you've given on the progress.

Vagabond is right in that it can be difficult to give good feedback.

It's also quite likely that feedback won't come according to your release schedule, but according to the lives of the people giving the feedback. Not hearing anything back may have far more to do with the other people than with your project.

As you've noted, the numbers are going up, so that is a very good sign. If the feedback isn't coming with it, then perhaps that can be the next challenge. Is there a way to build feedback into the game? Is there something players can do in game that would result in feedback to you? Or maybe an option or a link to feedback, and perhaps encouragement by stating you're actively looking for feedback, and read everything.

Maybe you would find the idea of adding "analytics" into the game interesting. There can be ways of adding to a code base to send usage statistics to your server, which you can use to infer how people are finding your game. Things like how long they play. Do they quit after one fight, or play the game through to the end. Is there one particular scenario that causes a large portion of people to quit? Do people struggle with the interface and get lots of error messages? In some cases, there is software that can actually record the mouse and keyboard input, and play it back as if watching a video of the person using an app. All ways of learning a lot about users and their interactions with an app, without burdening them with providing specific feedback.


Also, for the record, I kind of thought your game was basically feature complete. I figured you were just adding optional extras at this point. I sort of had it in my mind that V7 would be the last release.

Maybe your lack of motivation to continue is that the game really is finished? Or it could just be that last 10% stretch, that takes 50% of development time.

[lordpalandus]

I'm happy someone other than Vagabond, Zenaire and myself are interested in it

Yes Vagabond is right about that. Its even harder if a player is used to being attacked by the developer... which is a common occurrence with indie titles unfortunately. Like, the last three titles I tried giving constructive criticism for on Steam, I got attacked by the developer for posting my observations.

I hadn't thought about that.

I might be able to do something of the sort, without being too intrusive on immersion. I'll look into it.

Even I could figure out how to build analytics into it, that would be a massive amount of feature creep. I'm trying to reduce the amount of the feature creep XD.

Uhh, no, its not feature complete. There is 25-30% of the game left to do. Still left to do:
1. Tier 8 and Tier 9 spells.
2. Section 5 (Abyss), Section 6 (Abyssal Fortress), and Section 7 (Final Boss). Each section (excluding Section 7) has three floors, 20 enemies, entire room generation scripts, three interactables, 6 ambience events, 1-2 new phobias/1-2 new enemy types, 5 new journal entries, 4 new artifact entries, 3 new boss artifacts, and of course the boss themselves.
3. Section 2,3,4 Artifact Entries
4. Section 3,4 Journal Entries
5. Monster Descriptions
6. Game Ending, Game Credits, and Scoring System

So, yeah, there is still a number of critical features necessary to produce the correct immersive experience. Lore is semi-optional, which is why I keep delaying it, but the other stuff is critical to the game design. I do want the lore in the game as I find I like games more with lots of interesting side-stories, hidden lore, and backgrounds on various things, particularly how the artifacts themselves came to reside in this place.

No, I'd say my lack of motivation is because creating a new section, is like a 25 step process (creating a spell tier is about a 12 step process), and is extremely error prone, and I hate hunting for logic errors. Like yesterday, when I was trying to figure out why the game was spewing TONS of line breaks for no apparent reason... ugghhhh... so I'm going to try today to figure out why its spewing linebreaks everywhere for Hotfix 1.

EDIT: Released Hotfix 1. Solved some of the UI issues. I don't know what is causing the triple linebreak issue in certain places. If I remove the only linebreak in that area of the code, it causes all the code to bunch up, but if I leave the linebreak there, then sometimes it triple linebreaks and sometimes only single linebreaks. VERY frustrating. I don't know what is going on and honestly, I've spent about 3-4 hours in total trying to figure it out and its an overall minor thing (I think) so I'll try and figure it out later, but I've spent way too much time on it right now and I don't know what to do to solve it.

[Hooman]

Its even harder if a player is used to being attacked by the developer... which is a common occurrence with indie titles unfortunately. Like, the last three titles I tried giving constructive criticism for on Steam, I got attacked by the developer for posting my observations.

Ugh, yes. I can definitely understand that. I suppose that stems from developers feeling like they're being attacked when they receive criticism. It's quite natural to get defensive or attack back. It's very tempting to believe the code you wrote is amazing, and can be very hard to hear that it's not. I've certainly felt that in the past.

Even I could figure out how to build analytics into it, that would be a massive amount of feature creep. I'm trying to reduce the amount of the feature creep XD.

Good point. Though I would suggest experimenting with an existing analytics library if possible. I'm not too sure what's out there, or if it would be appropriate to use on the hosting provided by the Quest Engine people. I believe some are simple to setup and use, basically creating an account on their website, generating a key, and referencing their script from your site with the key they gave you. Though I really lack details on the specifics, and what kind of data would be collected.

Sounds like you have a pretty good road map for what is left to do. I suppose if you wanted something feature complete early, you could design the game end screens first, then deepen how far into the game you must go to trigger them.

No, I'd say my lack of motivation is because creating a new section, is like a 25 step process (creating a spell tier is about a 12 step process), and is extremely error prone, and I hate hunting for logic errors.

Hmm, sounds like there is some underlying problem here that can be attacked. Perhaps it's worth putting some thought into why so many steps are required, and if there is a way to reduce that. That does sound like an awful lot of steps, and I can see what that would be daunting.

Ideally, it would be awesome if you could add new monsters or levels to the dungeon in one small self contained data section, and have the game automatically pick up the new data and extend to include it. Though you'd need the right support code to manage such a feat. That's not easy when starting out. It takes a while to move from logic driven code to data driven code. I'm kind of thinking pair programming session here.

[Hooman]

Ok, I've created an account and started playing around with the online editor.

I noticed extra blank lines in my tests. They were caused by the line breaks around conditional text. For example:

Code: [Select]

{once:Once upon a time}

Always displayed text goes here

This is fine the first time in the room, and displays as expected. But the second time you look at the room, there will be a couple blank lines before the always displayed text. Instead, you can try this:

Code: [Select]

{once:Once upon a time

}Always displayed text goes here

If it's your first time, you'll see the conditional line, a blank line, and then the usual text. If it's your second time, it will start right at the usual text, without any blank lines preceding it.

Looks a bit ugly, I know, but it allows you to control those blank lines.


Edit: Also just noticed the page for the online version of your game includes a download link. Looks like you don't need external hosting for your game. It's on the right side: "Plays 55", "downloads 28"

Edit2: Instead of bolding command text, you can set it as command text. This allows the player to either type or click the command. Very handy. =)

Code: [Select]

Would you like some {command:help}?

[lordpalandus]

I actually don't use that way of putting text on the screen.

Text is either a message, that posts under certain conditions, or is stored in a temporary variable.

ie player.TempText = "black fox jumped over the fence"

print expression = "The "+player.TempText+"."

So that to the player it would show up as = The black fox jumped over the fence.

Most of my linebreaks occur because I manually put them in. Either as a blank print message, or as </br>. I do notice that occasionally the program inserts it's own line breaks in, but I don't know what controls those line breaks. Its possible that my code is interacting with it in some odd way, that produces some of my double and triple linebreak issues.

EDIT: Didn't know of the clickable interface command; will need to look into that. Though most of the bolded text is actually the string used in a switch statement to determine the case to be used.

[Vagabond]

lordpalandus,

I took some time to play CoC V7 today. Well done Sir!

If anyone else is interested in the game, here is a sample of the great text involved:

You enter a hexagonal-shaped room. It's brick walls are stained brown, by years of fecal matter. It's ceiling has partially caved in, yet no light from above filters in. It's floors are covered in the dessicated, webbed remains of many critters. A large spider (web), with a sizeable spider in it, is attached to several walls. The (corpse) of an adventurer that met a grisly demise, is slumped against a wall. You discover a Stairwell leading down, allowing you to (descend) to the next floor here.

A pack of regular sized sewer rats, leaves the room, squeaking in terror!

You encounter a quick, Giant Mantis! It looks like a oversized preying mantis. It is covered in smooth, olive green carapace. One of it's right back legs are missing.

This is the text generated for the first room of the dungeon (sewers) I explored. Unfortunately, I was killed by said giant Mantis. (My character, Dave the Wizard died of bloodloss after the mantis crunched him in one of its mandibles. Fortunately, Dave saved his honor by mortally wounding the Mantis by zapping it with electricity before the crunch. Too bad Dave thought a pair of Robes was sufficient protection to fight giant, predatory insects. So ends another adventurer's life.)


I noticed some grammar/spelling issues and a couple of minor logic issues in my short play. Nothing blocking the enjoyment of the game so far.

While reviewing the journal entries, I noticed a typo in the first line below. Should read Thus, the sovereign lord...

I wanted to keep reviewing the storyline, so I first typed in Empire of the fallen. Then I tried typing old king, but the game wouldn't let me review the topic. It would be nice at this point, if I could continue reviewing the other subtopics if that makes since.

Thus, they sovereign of the land put out a call to adventurers to enter the sewer system, stop whatever is causing the creatures to come out and those that succeed will be granted a generous reward, knighthood, and a title to a large chunk of land! Thus, hundreds of adventurers have flocked to the Old Empire's Capital City, the promise of a generous reward on their mind, compelling them to enter. Unfortunately, none have returned and although the army is able to hold off the current creatures coming out, if something isn't done soon, they will be overcome.


Would you like to know more about a specific topic? Topics currently available are = (empire of the fallen), (old king), and (rebels); any other input cancels.

The Empire of the Fallen, was given such namesake, as many of it's nobles dabbled in demonic magic, or made pacts with demonkind, and thus they willingly traded their souls for greater power. The Fallen, were quite dangerous in their own right, but also commanded a variety of powerful demons to do their bidding, such as the lowly imp to serve as their messengers or the more powerful balors to serve as their personal champions.

You are consistently using it's incorrectly. Below should read "Its ceiling has...", "Its floors are covered", and "its right back legs". It's should only be used when representing compound it is, not when using its as a possessive pronoun. Your use of it's / its seems to be incorrect in a lot of the writing.

You enter a hexagonal-shaped room. It's brick walls are stained brown, by years of fecal matter. It's ceiling has partially caved in, yet no light from above filters in. It's floors are covered in the dessicated, webbed remains of many critters. A large spider (web), with a sizeable spider in it, is attached to several walls. The (corpse) of an adventurer that met a grisly demise, is slumped against a wall. You discover a Stairwell leading down, allowing you to (descend) to the next floor here.

A pack of regular sized sewer rats, leaves the room, squeaking in terror!

You encounter a quick, Giant Mantis! It looks like a oversized preying mantis. It is covered in smooth, olive green carapace. One of it's right back legs are missing.

When I died, the game listed that I was dead twice. I assume this is a simple script mistake and should just be listed one time?

The Giant Mantis is heavily wounded.
You suffer 5 bleeding damage and have 4 rounds remaining.

You took too much damage and succumbed to your wounds. You are dead!

You took too much damage and succumbed to your wounds. You are dead!

Okay, so I'll try to play it again in the near future and hopefully have a bit more luck. Rumor is that Dave had an older brother who journeyed with him to the celestial city. He will have to venture forth as well when all his money is spent in the tavern.

[lordpalandus]

Thanks!

I oopsed with it's as I mistakenly assumed that it was the possessive. I'll have it fixed for hotfix 2 of V7.

I'll check through the lore for grammar and spelling too. Thanks for pointing those out.

I'll find out why you couldn't read "old king"

That double death issue is a problem with my round mechanics system and how ending the game works. I'm looking into a solution for it for hotfix 2.

I'm also planning to reduce early game difficulty as, even I am finding it hard to keep heroes alive. Or give more potions. Or create a curing potion to remove lesser debuffs.

Overall, thanks for playing and for the great feedback!

[Hooman]

Ahh yes, English is somewhat inconsistent with the rules concerning possessives and "its"/"it's".

I was just reading through the quoted text and found myself thinking a "handsome reward" might be better than a "generous reward". I mean, after all, the sovereign is asking a big task here. He wants an adventurer to go forth to near certain death into the unknowns of a dungeon that nobody has returned from, alone, and which his entire army is unwilling to deal with. Further, the creatures coming from this place are expected to eventually overrun his entire army which is currently keeping it in check. Doesn't sound like anyone is being "generous" here. There's a big task at hand, and that sovereign expects results. Plus, he's not paying all the ineffective fools that die in their misguided attempts and fail to accomplish anything. If anything, he might even be cheap.


Though yes, as Vagabond seems to be pointing out, the language is often quite entertaining, and does a very good job of setting the mood. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the artistry in some of the descriptions.

[lordpalandus]

But how is a reward, the male equivalent of pretty However, I'll change the word to something else regardless!

Well one of the things I'd like to do, time permitting, is to spruce up the combat a bit more. It does a serviceable job, and is very practical, providing all the necessary information the player needs to make decisions, but it isn't very immersive. However, with the load of other features on my list to do, I have it on my feature creep list. If I get through my mountain of complex work that I already have before end of November, then I'll look into doing it, but as it is, it may have to wait until after game completion.

Well I am happy that people are enjoying the effort I went into making text descriptive and immersive!

EDIT: Managed to hopefully solve the double round issue that Vagabond pointed out, so that is good.

[Hooman]

A "dapper" reward?

Came across this while looking up synonyms for "handsome":

Word Origin & History
handsome c.1400, handsom "easy to handle, ready at hand," from hand (n.) + -some. Sense extended to "fair size, considerable" (1577), then "having fine form, good-looking" (1590). Meaning "generous" (in handsome reward, etc.) first recorded 1690.

I didn't know about that history. That first meaning actually makes sense.


Oh, and I edited a post a couple days ago, right when you were posting. In case you missed it:
Instead of bolding command text, you can set it as command text. This allows the player to either type or click the command. Very handy. =)

Code: [Select]

Would you like some {command:help}?

[Vagabond]

lordpalandus,

Let me know when the version with your hotfix is posted on the UK textadventure site and I'll give it another try. Figured I might as well wait until then as opposed to playing the current version.

-Brett

[lordpalandus]

Sure thing Vagabond. I'm hoping to have it out tonight (Oct 27th). Just going to fix up the typos and try to address the haste spell linebreaks and coding. The other annoying issues that the code was suffering from has been addressed.

----

How about a "lavish" reward? That sounds like a good word to me.

Interesting history on the word handsome. I wonder then why it eventually got applied to men who look pretty/beautiful. Unless the definition of "easy to handle, ready at hand" is applied to pretty men?

I didn't miss that. I mentioned it in an edit on my post, that was a reply to your post. XD It is good to know though.

----

EDIT:

1. Got distracted by a Wolfenstein 2 Colossus playthrough; not sure I'll play it, as its more of the same of The New Order, but I do like watching someone else play it.
2. Old King entry should now work.
3. Changed generous reward to lavish reward.
4. Removed rebels entry as apparently I've not done it yet.
5. Turns out I did the wrong possessive for each section. There is 24 entries, at least, for each section. As most players haven't even gotten to Section 3 yet, I'll just do Section 1 and 2s "it's"
6. A few of the journal entries and lore entries don't sound quite right to me, but I can figure out what is wrong. Take a read, and give suggestions on them if you like.
7. Haste will break the flow of recast/reattack, but will allow you to perform whatever kind of combat action you like without fear of retaliation until you stop getting extra turns. I'll look into addressing it so that it doesn't break the flow of recast/reattack, for a future patch. For now, I'll only bother with the linebreaks to avoid text jumbling up.
8. Will get the linebreaks and it's done and should still make it for tonight release.

[lordpalandus]

Uploaded Hotfix 2. Fixes UI issues, typos, and logic errors. All in the changelog, attached the first post.

EDIT: Appears the {command:help} doesn't work in my attack again or cast spell again systems, which is where I'd want to use them. Breaks the logic, which is unfortunate.

[Vagabond]

lordpalandus,

I spent some time playing CoC again. I logged into textadvetures.co.uk in order to use the save function. Unfortunately, something seems to have gone wrong and I was unable to restore my game, so I didn't make it as far as I would have liked.

Played as a Human again. Figured out the spellcasting system in depth and it felt natural.

At one point I was trying to purchase training sessions at a shrine. I tried to buy more than I had money for and got the following message.

A bout of training provides 100 XP for 100 soul shards.
How many bouts of training do you want to have; please enter a number?

"You don't have enough soul shards. You only have " + player.SoulShards + " soul shards. You need " + (Satchel.TempValue * 100) + " soul shards!
"

Do you want to continue training? (yes) or (no)

I noticed my character was picking up the level 7 spells on the first level of the sewers. Is this intentional? Typically I see the value of items increase as you go lower into the dungeon. Although there isn't anything necessarily wrong with getting the better stuff early. I was using major rejuvenation in the first level of the sewers which basically ensured I couldn't run out of magic points.

Are the compass and objects tab needed for future use in the game? If not, I would recommend considering replacing them with a tab that shows current buffs on the player and their turns until expiring. That would keep me from having to dig through the menu system just to see how long until I need to recast haste or rejuvenation or what not.

Interstingly enough I noticed every room that I entered had an initial bad guy and some sort of 'risky' thing to attempt to manipulate. You could consider coding it so that sometimes you enter a room that actually has nothing interesting in it, or sometimes doesn't have a monster but has something interesting, or maybe ocassionaly a bland vanilla room. I don't necessarily think what you are doing is wrong, it would just add some more variety and belivieability (maybe?) to the game. I'm assuming there would be some pretty boring sections in a sewer with nothing in them. Again, this is sort of feature creep and the game works currently, so not sure you want to go that route?

Keep up the good work.

On another major release I'll try to find some time to give you some more testing. I'll also download the entire engine so that I can save it and give you some feedback on later gameplay!

Have you thought about how you want to distribute the game? Are you going to need to bundle the quest engine in an installer with your actual game script? If so, have you picked out an installer? I'm guessing if you didn't charge for it you could just leave it posted on the textadventures website for people to download and play.

-Brett

[Hooman]

I noticed my character was picking up the level 7 spells on the first level of the sewers.

I also noticed this and thought it was a bit odd. You can get overpowered quite quickly by random chance. I was thinking perhaps the max level of the spell could be set to the current level of the sewer.

Are the compass and objects tab needed for future use in the game? If not, I would recommend considering replacing them with a tab that shows current buffs on the player and their turns until expiring. That would keep me from having to dig through the menu system just to see how long until I need to recast haste or rejuvenation or what not.

That would be awesome. I noticed in the Quest design interface, there is a way to disable the compass. I have no idea how you'd add a new tab though. Would definitely be nice to easily see some of those stats.

Interstingly enough I noticed every room that I entered had an initial bad guy and some sort of 'risky' thing to attempt to manipulate. You could consider coding it so that sometimes you enter a room that actually has nothing interesting in it, or sometimes doesn't have a monster but has something interesting, or maybe ocassionaly a bland vanilla room.

Yes, I also thought the loot was a bit too common. Your point about rooms without monsters also makes sense.


Vagabond, you just nailed a bunch of stuff I was becoming blind to.


Edit: Funny thought concerning room loot. Random rewards can make something more addicting. If you want people to play your game more, don't reward them every time! 

[lordpalandus]

@Vagabond:

Thanks for the feedback!

Looks like that message was sent to print msg rather than print expression. I don't know why the game engine sometimes resets those to regular print messages. I know its resetting them as I have deliberately set then to expression and then double checked they are set to expression, and somehow get set back to print message. So, if you had say 596 SS and it cost 600 SS for the training, the message that should have posted would have been:

"You don't have enough soul shards. You only have 596 soul shards. You need 600 soul shards!" // I won't be fixing it though, as I've modified the training system in general, so that you can spend invididual shards instead of in 100 SS batches.

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I have considered trying to modify the spellbook dropping code to limit more powerful spells to later sections. Just haven't gotten around to it, with other more priority things on development.

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I have wanted to remove the compass/objects tab I just don't know how. I've also wanted to replace them with something more useful too!

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I could make it so that there is a chance to have an empty room, with no monster in it.

You are just getting lucky with room investigatables. There is a chance to get no wall curios and no floor curios and a rarer chance to have neither. There is a 1:4 chance to get no wall or floor curio, and a 1:16 chance (I think if I'm doing probability right) for neither. I've encountered neither on a few occasions, but more often one is missing and the other has something.

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As for distribution, I figured I would have a final release that would be publically available, such as on TextAdventure.UK (or w/e its called), and available for free. It would be feature complete, with a start, middle, and ending to it, so it would be a complete game. Then, I'd look to try to get on Steam Greenlight with it, and if it was Greenlit, I'd put it up on Early Access.

Why? Well, I figured that if people were interested, I would add additional content to the game, to make the Steam version different from the freely available version. Things like more monsters, more investigatables, more lore, more immersive elements, a bunch of features on my feature creep list, and special rooms (unique rooms with unique encounters in them).

The reasons I'm not going to put an unfinished game on Early Access, but rather have a complete game that I'll add to is because:
1. I have no degree in Computer Science; most successful developers on EA do.
2. I have no game industry experience; most successful developers on EA do.
3. This is my first game; most first games don't sell or most first games aren't very good.
4. I have very little programming / program development experience; most successful developers on EA do.
5. A lot of crummy games on EA / Greenlight have soured relations between users and developers, and I don't want to get lumped into that group, that often puts up unfinished crap, takes peoples money and runs.

So, I want to provide a good impression that tells users that I'm out to make a quality game that I can stand by and be proud of and that I'm not trying to swindle them of their hard earned cash. So, if they had a complete game to try for free, then they'd know that I'm not like the other bad apples on EA. In theory. I'd want to do it on EA, so that if there was sufficient monetary interest, then I could gauge how much extra content to produce, before moving on to UE4 again.

My plan is that if I earn $5,000 in net profit from it on EA, then I'll add in all of my content that I'd like to add, but that I don't think I can get in beforehand before late November release date. As the reasons above (#1-5) I think that getting $5,000 is a reasonable goal to push towards considering my lacking in several areas. If I make less than $5,000, then I'll release some of the content I would like to, then move on. If I make nothing at all (to less than $100), within say the first week of it, then I'd remove the game from EA and move on to UE4. So, basically, for those that don't want to pay, they will have a complete game to play and I'll have learned valuable experience from it. If there is interest then the steam/paid version will have extra features that the free one doesn't. And if there is no interest, whatsoever, then I'll just move on to better things. I think there might be some interest in it, but its hard to say if people would want to pay for a text-adventure type of game or not.

I'm trying for a November release because trying to sell anything in December is hard as nails... hell trying to sell in November is hard enough. If I don't make it for a November release, then I'd have to wait until at least March, to try selling it, as people won't likely have the free money floating around to pay for games.

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@Hooman:

Where in the quest design interface does it talk about removing parts of the interface, such as the compass? Knowing where to look for the information would help me a lot!

With looting, I had intended to modify it so you find rarer loot less, just haven't gotten around to it.

Well, with random rewards I try not to. There are different loot lists, based on risk level. Interactables can give no loot, small loot, moderate loot with a trap, and extreme loot. Getting the trap can be quite nasty, and thus I want there to be lots of loot if you get lucky and get no trap, but if you do get a trap, you'll feel it. 

[Hooman]

Where in the quest design interface does it talk about removing parts of the interface, such as the compass? Knowing where to look for the information would help me a lot!

Using the web interface, navigating the tree on the left: "Objects -> Game"
Then the "Interface" tab on the right, check "Turn off compass"


Sounds like you're starting to worry about things that are still many steps ahead. I'm reminded of advice I've read about marketing and sales. You want to always remember who you're developing for, and making sure you produce a game they would enjoy (which actually falls under marketing).  Think of that step more like market research, done up front. This is in contrast to the common post-finishing practice of "polishing a turd", which is what many people assume marketing is. The advice I've read is that you very much need to worry about marketing, in terms of making sure you're producing something that people want and is of value for people who are willing and able to pay, and not worry so much about pricing and advertising, which can be done later towards the end.


Oh, and the most addictive point for random rewards, is supposedly at about 50%. Hence, try to give a reward about half the time. Maybe 50% no reward, 25% one reward, 25% two rewards? Or, this may be easier and closer to how you do it: If each reward is rolled independently, about 30% chance of each reward. That means there is a 70% chance of not getting each reward, so 0.7*0.7 = 0.489 = 49% chance of not getting either reward. Hence 49% no reward, 51% 1-2 rewards. To further break that down, there is 0.3*0.3 = 0.09 = 9% chance of getting two rewards. Hence at 30% chance for each of 2 possible rewards, you can expect 49% chance of no reward, 42% chance of 1 reward, 9% chance of 2 rewards. That sounds like an appropriate distribution to me.


These sorts of problems lend well to a discussion of statistics and probability distributions. As a small example, consider the different distributions between 1 die roll, and the sum of 2 dice rolls. With 1 die, the distribution is uniform, evenly weighted among all outcomes. With the sum of 2 or more dice, the distribution tends towards central values. Assuming 6 sided dice:
2 = 1 + 1  (1/6 * 1/6 = 1/36 = 2.8%)
3 = 2 + 1, or 1 + 2  (2/36 = 5.6%)
4 = 1 + 3, 2 + 2, 3 + 1  (3/36 = 8.3%)
5 = 1 + 4, 2 + 3, 3 + 2, 4 + 1  (4/36 = 11.1%)
6 = 1 + 5, 2 + 4, 3 + 3, 4 + 2, 5 + 1  (5/36 = 13.9%)
7 = 1 + 6, 2 + 5, 3 + 4, 4 + 3, 5 + 2, 6 + 1  (6/36 = 16.7%)
8 = 2 + 6, 3 + 5, 4 + 4, 5 + 3, 6 + 2  (5/36 = 13.9%)
9 = 3 + 6, 4 + 5, 5 + 4, 6 + 3  (4/36 = 11.1%)
10 = 4 + 6, 5 + 5, 6 + 4  (3/36 = 8.3%)
11 = 5 + 6, 6 + 5  (2/36 = 5.6%)
12 = 6 + 6  (1/36 = 2.8%)

Clearly the density of outcomes is not equal. This is very different than rolling a mythical fair 11-sided die with numbers from 2-12. Such a fair die would produce each outcome with about and equal 1/11 = 9.09% probability.

Taking this example one step further, consider the example where the sum of the two dice is the amount of damage done in an attack to a monster that has X HP. What is the chance to 1-hit kill the monster? That is, the probability that the sum of two die is >= X. For X = 5, the answer would be 30/36 = 83.3%. This problems represents a cumulative distribution function, or sum over the probability density function.


Perhaps a bit much for now now, but learning a little introductory statistics can help you craft the probabilities of outcomes that you want.