King's Quest III+ (call for testers)

[iron_man]

Radiant, check your email.
The 'package' is ready 
I am sending it to you now.

[NightQuest]

hey dood this look Awsome cant wait to play it (im not gonna beta, ruins it)

[Athirwen]

I love the original King's Quest series, I still play them now and again. Must say I'm looking forward to playing this one, keep up the good work it'll be really worth it when you finish it. Good luck!

[Radiant]

Hi there,

Dreammaster -> the pouch is very easy to get, I'm surprised you don't have it yet. The other ingredients you mention aren't actually available yet. The answer to the cat would indeed be the milk or the fish, except that I haven't coded that yet. I must say you're very good at puzzling these out.

ironman -> Done, and thanks.

Thanks for the support folks!

[MrColossal]

Finally, I will actually expand the intro to show Alexander's kidnapping. Did you know that the original KQ3 was ill-received at first because people didn't get the link to the other KQ games?

May I ask why?

Isn't a part of the game learning who Gwydion is? Not knowing who you are or why you're the slave of a wizard?

[edmundito]

I think it's really cool that you if you're playing the game and all of the sudden you understand who you are and realize that it was connected to the King's Quest story... instead of knowing who you are at first and then finding out who you are, again? (Ironically, the game I'm working on you know about the player before the player knows about who he really is. Maybe I should change it. Hmm.... but the important part in my game is that the story told is not quite right, and you eventually find out that he... Oh, I said too much. )

I haven't played KQIII and now I'm spoiled. Thanks a lot, MrColasshole.

Also, Greedo Han Solo shoots first! (Edit: Damn you, George. You made me say the wrong thing!!!  )

[iron_man]

But now this does not matter. There are no surprises.
Even my grandma knows who the gwydion is 

[lightman]

[Edit, clip]

Netmonkey: Yes, George Lucas is full of filthy, Sith mind tricks. Only releasing the "special" editions on DVD is kind of asking people to bootleg.

[deltamatrix]

If I can find a way to eliminate the 3 bears, I'll let you know. Thing is, it doesn't have to be poisoned porridge. Killing Manannan can be done in an entirely different way.

The trouble with this game is that its confusing for people like me who have played the original. I assume that the puzzles are kinda the same even though they ain't.

It took me ages to figure out how to avoid drinking the poison drink. If you haven't done so already, you should extend the time before you get zapped in that scene.

The game should probably be more different. You have added to the original but don't seem to have CHANGED original stuff dramaticly.
I think its the graphics. They are the same layout which mixed up this game with the old one 4 me and the fact that all the puzzles aren't possible to solve yet merely adds to my confusio ergo I think you should have programmed ALL puzzles in llewedor first before you released public betas.

[Blackthorne]

Finally, I will actually expand the intro to show Alexander's kidnapping. Did you know that the original KQ3 was ill-received at first because people didn't get the link to the other KQ games?

May I ask why?

Isn't a part of the game learning who Gwydion is? Not knowing who you are or why you're the slave of a wizard?

Agreed.  Not knowing your Graham's son is important to the story.

I know most that will play this ALREADY know, but I'm sure there will be plenty of newcomers playing it for the first time.

Bt

[iron_man]

Perhaps Radiant you should provide a working walkthrough of the beta to the testers to help them accelerate the testing process.

[dreammaster]

Blackthorne519, remember that as it stands, there is already a sequence near the start of the game with the mirror that explicitly spells out who you are anyway. An introduction that spells it out won't therefore make much difference. Personally, I'm in favour of it - it would help differentiate the remake from the original.

iron_man, part of the fun of beta testing is trying out any old thing to try and figure out what works and what doesn't. Having a complete walkthrough might allow some bugs to slip through because you might not try some combinations you would have otherwise. If you have real problems solving a puzzle, you can always ask for a hint on the AGDI thread.

[iron_man]

agree. The only difference is that with the walkthrough you know how far you can go in the game. So you do not spend time trying to continue in the game while the real logic has not been implemented by the programmer.

[fluxmaster]

This post may contain spoilers, but since it appears that everyone else is further along in the game than I am, I don't think that anyone will much care.

I have made it past the bandits, but I'm not sure that I did so legitimately.  No matter how much I ran I could not outrun the bandit after a few screens, so I tried teleporting to the top of the mountain.  Surely enough, the bandit would follow me to the top of the mountain.  But if I teleported to the top of the mountain and immediately went to the wizard's study, the wizard would repremand me for not bringing firewood.  The theme music for running from the bandit kept playing, so I figured I wasn't out of the woods yet.  I teleported back down the mountain and walked around from screen to screen.  The theme music kept playing, but after several screens it stopped playing, so I guess that I had shaken off the bandit at that point.  I don't know whether that was the correct solution or not.

After the wizard locked me in the bedroom I went to sleep, and after I woke up the door appeared to be unlocked.  This seemed strange; I'm not sure whether that was intended or not.

I went to the wizards bedroom to fetch the key from the top of the closet.  Every time the floor would creak I clicked on the system button, then clicked on play.  That got me past the creaky floor boards.  Apparently clicking on system then on play caused the game to overlook the creaking event.  I doubt that that was the correct solution, but it worked.  Then I teleported to get out of the wizard's bedroom.  Again, probably not the correct solution, but it worked.

I then retrieved all the stuff from under my bed, fetched the magic wand, and returned to the basement, where I am now.  At this point I don't appear to have sufficient ingreedients to do any of the spells.  I assume that I am supposed to be making spells at this point, but it is not possible to descend the mountain at night to fetch more ingredients, and the game is not supposed to have any dead ends, so I'm at a loss as to what to do at this point.

[Radiant]

MrColossal -> probably, but I kind of assumed that by now, every knew already (lots of people have played another KQ game, and most of them include the story in the readme - even KQ2v does). Also I feel there should be a reason why Gwydion chooses that particular time to defeat Manannan and make a break for Daventry. In the original you don't even have to visit the oracle.
It's a good point though, I'll think of a way around it.

Deltamatrix -> you are right. The problem, however, is that my graphics skills are non-existent. If I had access to a couple of good room/animation artists, I would be able to modify the room structure to a bigger extent (note that I'm already doing some additions, particularly in Daventry).

IronMan -> Nope, won't do that. However feel free to ask hints. It is very important to me to find out if the puzzles are fair, and what people would try to get past them. I agree with Dreamm here. I've tried to make clear in all demos how far you could go (the current beta plainly states it when you get there)

Fluxmaster -> teleporting is not the way to beat the bandits. Because of the way AGS implements following, they will also follow you through a teleport.
Interesting point with the floorboard problem.

Spoiler

Note that the trick there is simply waiting between creaks, so that may be exactly what you did

[close]

What you mention is not a dead end. I figure that at a certain point, the game will just have to loop a certain number of event until Gwydion has enough ingredients. So you should go to sleep and get more stuff on the next day (note that this doesn't work in the current demo, but that's the idea). You could have gotten the ingredients earlier though.

[fluxmaster]

Okay, so the following is a bug:  (I didn't specify coordinates, but I suppose I could provide them if you need them.)

If you run enough screens from the bandit, you will shake him eventually.  However, I did this using teleporting, so I don't know whether it will work without teleporting.

Regarding the solution you sent me in a PM, I actually tried that a couple of times, but it didn't work.  That's why I don't like the idea of a puzzle within an arcade sequence (unless the player is permitted to set the difficulty level to "easy"), because it's possible to guess the correct solution to the puzzle but still fail because the arcade sequence itself is difficult.

[dreammaster]

And may I add, if you can at least make the transform into cat spell and get rid of Manannan, then you can search the countryside at your leasure for the rest of the ingredients.

PS: I've got a pretty good idea what the private package was (AGDI forum), so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the next beta. 8)

[iron_man]

PS: I've got a pretty good idea what the private package was (AGDI forum), so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the next beta. 8)

I visited AGDI and i just figured out what you meant dreammaster

I am afraid that it is not what you have in mind :(Ã,  Besides, the poll results were so depressing, that the idea was abandoned!

The package was a code component written in C.Radiant asked me if i still have it. He wanted it and i sent it to him.

[fluxmaster]

I think I've discovered a new bug, since I don't think anyone else has reported it yet:

While in the laboratory trying to make the "Brew up a Storm" spell, I click on inventory to read the Principia Mathematica.Ã,  In some cases, the game will not let me exit inventory at this point, and it doesn't let me log the error.Ã,  It doesn't always happen, and I don't remember exactly what I did to make it happen, but I think that I may have clicked the eye on some of the symbols on the page.

While making the "Storm" spell, if I put the dried mud into the mixing bowl with no water, the message still says that it dissolves in the water.

If I try to put in a spoonful of mud, it says that I don't have a spoon, even though the mud is held in a spoon.

I have the three ingreedients that I need for that spell.Ã,  It appears that the three ingreedients must be added in the order indicated, but regardless of what amounts I use, it doesn't accept the mud.Ã,  Do I need to understand the mathematical symbols to get past this point in the game?

[dreammaster]

Damn, and I had such high hopes. On a side note, I agree with Fluxmaster that there seems to be something wrong with the Brewing a Storm spell. According to the symbols of the spell, after heating the mixture you're meant to put in a pinch of mud. But doing so causes the spell to fail.