Honestly I wouldn't expect you to, and I don't know how I would feel if you did implement anything like that. I'm glad it recognized "kiss" as a verb, though. Either of those would not fit with the tone of the game so far. Not that I wouldn't try no matter the case, but I think you're making the right call here.



See also my first reaction:


Like, in case it wasn't clear from that post, I really was panicking that first time. On some level I was consciously aware that the game wouldn't move forward until/unless I entered a command, but I was so worried about making the wrong choice and failing I was in legitimate stress. And that speaks volumes to your ability here. I hope it didn't sound like I didn't actually like the game.

You could pretty much all be game testers, you know? You guys have the right state of mind.

I actually went out of my way to take my time in that first section, and I believe (though I might be misremembering) that I actively tried to kill him.

What can I say? I'm not saint.


Well, if you could hook me up for something like that (provided it doesn't require much, you know, actual skill), I'd give it a shot. I've always thought that would be kind of fun.

I have literally spent years of my life watching, reading, and listening to reviews, commentaries, analysis, and general commentaries on various media of my interest, a majority of it ending up being about video game design (I am a big fan and follower of the well-known critics TotalBiscuit, Jim Sterling, and Yahtzee Croshaw). There are some games (such as Shovel Knight and Undertale) where I've spent at least half as many hours watching review and analysis videos as I've spent actually playing the game.

So, yeah, I've picked up a lot of that over the years.

Then there's the 6 years I've been around here acting as an editor for the M:EM...

If you'll indulge my own narcissism for a moment, I've actually toyed with the idea for a long while of getting into the video game reviewing scene simply because of how much I've been able to parrot over the years. I even tried setting up my own googlebloggerblog for that purpose, but I ended up having the same exact problem with that as I have had for virtually all my writing endeavors for the M:EM -- which is to say, I have a serious problem in actually finishing anything I start. Not to mention being seriously unhappy with the results afterwards (and the fact that several of what I did finish writing are years old at this point and are kind of embarrassingly ill-informed).

Alright! I lost track of the page of the shop talk thread where this was linked. Now I'll check it out for sure.
Edit- oh wait, that's a double post. My browser actually saved the text in the tab... after I submitted it? Did I hit the back button at some point? Is my laptop haunted by the ghosts of posts past? Ah man, it's almost Christmas; I bet that's it.

Do you think you'll be visited, in turn, by each of the 8346 posts you have up to this point? Or do you think they'll just sort of elect a few spokesposts to speak for the lot of them? Also, do you think they'll include the posts from when you were a Zombie, or just let those lie?

The Weight of a Soul (4 December 2016)

I've decided to post my game builds here as they become ready for release. One, because it's good for feedback and bug reports; two, because this game is shaping up to be a hell of a lot longer than I expected, so I'm buckling in for the long haul. (For perspective, there's 52k lines of code in the current build and around 26k lines of story text, and I'm not even twenty percent through the game. On the upside, I expect to be able to work a lot faster once I finish my army service.)

In the 4 December build, you can play up to halfway through Day One, the first act of the story. I implemented some of the commands you folks tried out, as well as some quality-of-life features like defaulting to >LOOK when no command is inputted. As always, you can find a list of commands in the help menu.

In this build, I'm also rolling out >JOURNAL, >CHARACTERS, and >HINTS, which can be consulted for what you're supposed to be doing, who you've met, and hints for puzzles, respectively. These can be accessed directly or from the help menu.

If you don't want to play through the surgery again, you can type >SKIP SURGERY. Typing >SKIP TO DAY ONE will fast forward to the point where the previous demo ended. Typing >SKIP TO ERRANDS skips a short puzzle at the start of Day One.

As usual, I'd love to hear any feedback, criticism, or bug reports. Please enjoy.

[Nothing to see here, I wrote something stupid; I'll edit once I'll have actual thoughts on the demo]

Oops, I must not have flagged that part of the code for release. Unfortunately I'm in camp again and can't make changes at the moment, but I'll try to have that fixed by Thursday.

Nope, it's just that I ran the wrong launcher, the code seems to work, sorry.

Edit: the day one looks good! I appreciated the random events a lot, particularly the glass thopter one: being an artifact lover and a long-time Affinity player I nearly squeed when that line came up

The city feels great, it has cute moments and cool sections juxtaposed with outright creepy ones (the doomed block, for example); it was nice to meet Marid's friend, grounding the character a bit more, and the mirror tower sure looked posh. I'm sure I missed a lot of hidden lines and items, but I enjoyed playing a lot nonetheless. Thank you for sharing!

This realization has happened on literally every single game project I have ever worked on.

Congratulations, CKY -- you are officially a dev.

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

Day one: getting lost in town.

May have found a typo:


(I can't get very far at the moment but I'll let you know as I dig further into it.)

Good catch, thanks.

You can think of the map as a central ring with branches off the inside and outside. You start in the northwest section, while the grand forum is in the northeast and Riggertown is in the southwest. Unfortunately, the NW-SW part of the ring is blocked, so you'll have to go the long clockwise way around.

If the map is too daunting, don't forget that you can GO TO <location>; e.g. >GO TO CLINIC or >GO TO WEST STREET. Additionally, the finished game will come with a map in image form.

The Weight of a Soul (27 December 2016)

Changelog

• 27/12/2016: Day One now playable up to Cadaver Walk. Also did some under-the-hood functionality tweaks, did an editing pass on responses to various commands, and fixed a lot of bugs. Seriously, tons of them.

This update is a lot shorter than the previous one in terms of playtime, because December has been a busy and rather unproductive month, what with the holidays, and a trip to Macau, and falling ill afterward. It was also made significantly more difficult thanks to a certain NPC's complex branching dialogue tree (you'll know which NPC). Still, I'm quite happy with how my progress for the month turned out.

If you've already played the previous build, you can type >SKIP TO CENSOR to skip past all of the gameplay up to that point. As usual, comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.

... yep, not much point in downloading it. I did not realize that it was run in-browser.

If there's only one response in the list, should pressing enter just choose it automatically?
Perhaps the start of the newest text entry could be distinguished by a line or something? When a large block of text with options pops up, it isn't immediately obvious where it begins.
Maybe the game should recognize tlak (person) without putting "to" in the middle? The lazy will be appreciative.

Who are you to decide if I'm "that friendly with Dr Cavala"? What about free love man? Wait, the pigeons too?
... anybody watching a text adventure character would gather some pretty strange impressions.

"From here, you can go up to your dormitory, visit the public house to the west, or exit the building to the south."
I think "go up" should work here. Maybe "go home".

I think it's a text game requirement that the prompt "Die" get a unique response.

I'll look into hosting options.


This wouldn't be difficult to implement, but it's a difference of one keystroke, and consistency is important in a parser game like this. I feel comfortable leaving it as is.


The issue is that the transcript is now crisscrossed with lines, which is awkward. You raise a valid concern, but I'm not sure if the minor convenience outweighs the clunkiness.


Actually, I went one better. If you look at the in-game list of commands, you'll find >T is a shortcut for >TALK TO. I'll throw in your suggestion though because why not. Likewise for >DIE.


As far as I know, >GO UP works in the Dormitory Block. >GO HOME doesn't work, but I guess I could make that a synonym for >GO TO MARID'S DORM, which does (to a degree; it still won't let you if you haven't yet gone there in the course of the game).

Oh, no -- sorry to hear that you were sick, CKY. I hope you're feeling better!

I was thinking that the line would vanish/move when new text is written. Although that may be difficult to accomplish in your game engine. ... would it be considered a"game engine"?

I like the conceit that I'm revealing words further down the page. The line interferes with that. I suppose an alternative workaround would be to highlight the most recently printed text, like by bolding it, but that has its own presentation problems; and animations aren't an option, because of the IDE I'm working in. I guess this is one of those quibbles that I'll just have to live with.


Oh, it was nothing. I was more peeved at not being able to write than anything else. Thanks for the concern, though.