The Secret of Hutton Church of England Grammar School: Special Edition.

[Privateer Puddin']

The Secret of Hutton Church of England Grammar School: Special, not made in 5 days, Edition!

Featuring new and improved graphics, animation, music and a lot of fixes!

Screenshots





Download: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=1305

Thanks to everyone who helped me finally finish this.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Hell yeah!  Good job, custard!

[Calin Leafshade]

I find games like this so quaint. Love the graphics.

*goes to play*

[LRH]

Yay! Loved the first. Will play soon and return some feedback.

[xenogia]

I quickly looked at it last night, and nostalgia came flooding back.  Something I will sit down play in my spare time this week.

[SuperDre]

Just played it, very funny...

[Stupot]

Quite enjoyable little game... I managed to finish with only 28/40 points :-(  I might have another little play and try to find the extra points.

I do think the parser could do with a bit of extra intelligence - Just little things to make it more natural - For example:

Spoiler

'painting', should accept 'picture' aswell.
'use bench' should accept 'sit (down)(on bench)'
'look at plaque' should accept 'read plaque'
'bookshelf' should accept 'shelf'
There were others but they were a bit more nit-picky

[close]

I also spotted a bug:

Spoiler

If you are at the very fore of the screen in either the leftmost or rightmost section of the school and then try to walk into the middle section, you get stuck and have to restart.

[close]

But I loved:

Spoiler

Getting a point for typing 'fuck'... everybody does it

[close]

[Privateer Puddin']

Something I did to practice SCI stuff for OROW

[Alun]

OK, been a long time since I was here at this forum, so I decided what better way to initiate my return than to play whatever game is at the top of the Completed Game Announcements and comment on it.  (Well, this game was at the top of the Completed Game Announcements when I decided this; it isn't now.  Though I guess after I post this comment it will be again, at least for a while.)

Anyway... shorter than I expected, but well done, for what it was.  I'm with Stupot on several counts, though, including the count that I apparently missed some points; I too finished with 28 out of 40.  But I'd agree about the parser; there were some times that I knew what I needed to do, but was stuck for a while trying to figure out how to do it.  Which usually ended up requiring the verb

Spoiler

"put"... there seemed to be a bit of an overreliance on that.  In particular, to me it was extremely counterintuitive to type
"put match on painting" (maybe there was another phrasing that worked, but if so it was apparently even more counterintuitive for me).  I tried "strike match", "light match", "burn painting", "light painting", "set painting on fire", "start fire", and possibly other combinations before finally hitting on the one that worked.  For that matter, even before that, "put petrol on rag" wasn't the first phrasing that came to mind, either, though it didn't leave me stuck as long.  I tried "soak rag in petrol" and "pour petrol on rag" before finally getting that.  And then at the end of the game, "throw broom at chandelier", "use broom", "use broom on chandelier", and "break chandelier" all came to mind before "put broom on chandelier".

[close]

Maybe this verb should be mentioned in the instructions along with "look" and "use" as one of the most common interactions.  Actually, that would help a lot... I probably would have hit upon the right phrasings a lot sooner had that verb been mentioned in the instructions like that.

Oh... one more thing... it seems odd that

Spoiler

"put rag on painting" produces the response "You don't have a rag" when, in fact, you do -- it's just covered in gas.  Granted, this one didn't really cause me much problem; I just typed "put petrol soaked rag on painting" and of course that worked just fine.  Still, the response seems inappropriate; it seems that just "put rag on painting" ought to work.

[close]

One puzzle I was stuck on for a while, but appreciated once I got it, was

Spoiler

listening at the doors to identify the cult leader.  Reread the instructions, noticed the part about listening, realized what I should do

[close]

.  Though, as it turned out, this puzzle was optional... was that intentional?  Even if you skip this, you can still

Spoiler

burn the painting and flush out the cult leader, even without knowing who it is.  (I was curious what would happen if you burned the painting first, so I replayed the game to try it.)

[close]

Guess this isn't really a problem; you do finish with a lower score if you don't do that, after all.  Just wondering if it was meant to be possible.

Also, one minor bug; doesn't really affect gameplay much, but

Spoiler

after the rag is soaked in petrol the dry rag reappears among the things in the closet

[close]

.

Okay, after all the commands I wished were implemented, there were a few that I appreciated were... well, to the extent that they elicited a response, anyway.  Particularly,

Spoiler

make bed and open window

[close]

... eh, there were probably others, but those are the two I remember.  So good job on adding a bit of color that way.  (Though, considering the janitor spent the whole game carrying a broom, I couldn't help but type "sweep" to see what would happen, and was disappointed that that wasn't implemented.)

Anyway, I think this post may have been dwelling too much on the negative... sorry about that.  Just pointing out where I think there may be room for improvement in the parser (or at least in the instructions to make it clear what verbs the parser is likely to recognize).  Still, it was a fun game, tricky but not overly difficult (well, except maybe for those last twelve points? ); well done.  And, while imitating the older AGI art style may not really something I'm into, I thought you did a good job of it.  Overall, well done.

[Privateer Puddin']

Just a quick reply since I'm on my lunch break!

OK, been a long time since I was here at this forum, so I decided what better way to initiate my return than to play whatever game is at the top of the Completed Game Announcements and comment on it.  (Well, this game was at the top of the Completed Game Announcements when I decided this; it isn't now.  Though I guess after I post this comment it will be again, at least for a while.)

Heh, me thinks you need a better way to play something upon your return

Anyway... shorter than I expected, but well done, for what it was.  I'm with Stupot on several counts, though, including the count that I apparently missed some points; I too finished with 28 out of 40.  But I'd agree about the parser; there were some times that I knew what I needed to do, but was stuck for a while trying to figure out how to do it.  Which usually ended up requiring the verb

Spoiler

"put"... there seemed to be a bit of an overreliance on that.  In particular, to me it was extremely counterintuitive to type
"put match on painting" (maybe there was another phrasing that worked, but if so it was apparently even more counterintuitive for me).  I tried "strike match", "light match", "burn painting", "light painting", "set painting on fire", "start fire", and possibly other combinations before finally hitting on the one that worked.  For that matter, even before that, "put petrol on rag" wasn't the first phrasing that came to mind, either, though it didn't leave me stuck as long.  I tried "soak rag in petrol" and "pour petrol on rag" before finally getting that.  And then at the end of the game, "throw broom at chandelier", "use broom", "use broom on chandelier", and "break chandelier" all came to mind before "put broom on chandelier".

[close]

Maybe this verb should be mentioned in the instructions along with "look" and "use" as one of the most common interactions.  Actually, that would help a lot... I probably would have hit upon the right phrasings a lot sooner had that verb been mentioned in the instructions like that.

Oh... one more thing... it seems odd that

Spoiler

"put rag on painting" produces the response "You don't have a rag" when, in fact, you do -- it's just covered in gas.  Granted, this one didn't really cause me much problem; I just typed "put petrol soaked rag on painting" and of course that worked just fine.  Still, the response seems inappropriate; it seems that just "put rag on painting" ought to work.

[close]

Wow, put? Not a word I would have thought of, most of the time it's Use, but I guess it's a synonym set up, don't have AGS to check.

Spoiler

Certainly with the broom puzzle, you can throw the broom, not sure on the exact command, but I would have thought it was throw broom at light/chandellier, but again you can do Use.

[close]

One puzzle I was stuck on for a while, but appreciated once I got it, was

Spoiler

listening at the doors to identify the cult leader.  Reread the instructions, noticed the part about listening, realized what I should do

[close]

.  Though, as it turned out, this puzzle was optional... was that intentional?  Even if you skip this, you can still

Spoiler

burn the painting and flush out the cult leader, even without knowing who it is.  (I was curious what would happen if you burned the painting first, so I replayed the game to try it.)

[close]

Guess this isn't really a problem; you do finish with a lower score if you don't do that, after all.  Just wondering if it was meant to be possible.

Also, one minor bug; doesn't really affect gameplay much, but

Spoiler

after the rag is soaked in petrol the dry rag reappears among the things in the closet

[close]

.

Okay, after all the commands I wished were implemented, there were a few that I appreciated were... well, to the extent that they elicited a response, anyway.  Particularly,

Spoiler

make bed and open window

[close]

... eh, there were probably others, but those are the two I remember.  So good job on adding a bit of color that way.  (Though, considering the janitor spent the whole game carrying a broom, I couldn't help but type "sweep" to see what would happen, and was disappointed that that wasn't implemented.)

The reason he had the broom the entire game was that it'd crash if at any point the player had no inventory items, so we thought we'd give him a broom. Only while actually making the game we thought to use it in that puzzle.

Anyway, I think this post may have been dwelling too much on the negative... sorry about that.  Just pointing out where I think there may be room for improvement in the parser (or at least in the instructions to make it clear what verbs the parser is likely to recognize).  Still, it was a fun game, tricky but not overly difficult (well, except maybe for those last twelve points? ); well done.  And, while imitating the older AGI art style may not really something I'm into, I thought you did a good job of it.  Overall, well done.

Thanks for your comments, don't worry about negativity, I fully expect it from my first finished game! Points wise, some are random injokes which would be impossible to get for pretty much everybody.

[Alun]

Spoiler

Wow, put? Not a word I would have thought of, most of the time it's Use, but I guess it's a synonym set up, don't have AGS to check.  Certainly with the broom puzzle, you can throw the broom, not sure on the exact command, but I would have thought it was throw broom at light/chandellier, but again you can do Use.

[close]

Spoiler

Whoops... okay, I feel stupid now; uh, disregard most of my previous comment, I guess.  I had in fact tried, for example, "use match", but apparently not "use match on painting"... I'm not sure then why the totally counterintuitive "put match on painting" occurred to me before that.  Actually, maybe it's because "use match" yielded the response "I don't understand..." which misled me into thinking I needed to use a different verb entirely; maybe if the response had been something like "I'm not sure what to use it on" it would have pointed me in the right direction.  Or maybe it's just been too long since I've played a game with an AGI-style parser...

And yes, you're right, "throw broom at chandelier" does in fact work.  I could have sworn I'd tried that, but apparently not.  I guess after I'd managed to get by with "put" in the past when it didn't seem like it should fit, I figured I'd go ahead and try it one more time.

[close]

[forest_guru]

Could someone reupload this? The download link doesn't work anymore

[Leon]

You can find a copy on my download page.

[Privateer Puddin']

Thanks Leon, my site got infected so we took everything down to make sure it was clean, back soon!

[arj0n]

Is they original version still available?

[Peder 🚀]

@Arj0n if the author doesn't have a copy I MIGHT have one somewhere... I will go through my external drive now . Will take further convo through PM .

[Leon]

Of course it is.. ;-)

[arj0n]

And thnx