Starship Poseidon(Update 1.06)

[Dualnames]

Since HHGTG is taking a little less time from me I decided to go and make a game.
So I present you thy:


-Warning- Adult Material- Please Behave-

The game contains FPS styled sequences, and the control method is similar to Space Quest 0. It's a short game, so it should take you around 2-3 hours maximum. The game is about Catron, a soldier of the 4th military unit of Uranus, that finds himself in the middle of a terrible event in the Starship Poseidon. The game has nothing to do with Poseidon 14, an older AGS project, and/or Space Quest. Instead it was inspired whilst playing Alien 3 for SNES and the idea was later developed   while watching soap operas. Hope you enjoy it.



Entirely created by James Spanos.

Download(3.6MB):HERE

Version 1.06

-Fixed Savegame system bugs.
-Zombies are now easier to kill.
-Fixed sound staying there.(Thanks Leon)
-Fixed restart game process(Thanks Leon)
-Added ability to be able to look at your weapon(laser/smg), so you can read the instructions again.(Thanks Leon)
-ENTER skips speech. Nothing else.(Thanks Leon)


So I'm actually planning to add Starship some voice, so till now TwinMoon has filled up the position as the zombie in the hall, and I hope that the rest two roles will be packed. One of which is female(Kyara).

[Twerty]

Hrm. Well, I just played through it, and I can't honestly say it took me more than about 15 minutes. The graphics are fairly good, I can't say TOO much there.

But the gameplay seems a bit poorly designed. Take the engine room, for example. There's only one option in there that won't get you killed, then you go into another room, grab a gun, and immedietly are put in 'combat mode'. It seems odd that you would explain the mechianics for a lasersaw, which is used only once, on an 'enemy' that does not move or fight back, yet now you get a gun and realise that you have to click on the enemies, when the mouse hasn't been used so far in combat situations, only for window options. On top of that, the area that counts as a hit on either of the two enemies seems very limited, and there is no indication that you even hit them until they're dead. And if you die in that sequence, by the way, the game crashes.

In addition to the combat, the parser is similarly very limited. If you type 'look' and anything that isn't recognized (and literally about maybe 10 words are), it will default to the multi-window description of whatever room your standing in, instead of 'Huh?' or 'What are you trying to look at?'.

All in all, the game seems like a good effort, but it needs more polish (i.e. general gameplay and mechanics, more objects, better parser). And where it doesn't need more polish, it never really needed it (i.e. Lasersaw tutorial, including a manual and even including commands never useful in the game, i.e. talk/discuss, use, walk [there's arrow keys!], close).

[The Suitor]

Nice work DN. I've always liked your style.

[Dualnames]

Twerty:
I'm glad it just took you that long.. I can beta-test it thoroughly in less than 10. Now to answer your post. First thanks a lot for giving this a try, it's very small and it's intented to be that way. For the immediately put into combat mode.. well.. not not exactly there's a narration before. However, yes I do agree it's sudden. Too sudden. As for the lasersaw, well, it was supposed to be used elsewhere, but well it doesn't but anyway the tutorial clarifies all things. However, yes there's no tutorial for the gun. You said the game crashes? Can you try and it and tell me the exact error that would be really appreciated. As for the parser, well, the only part that makes it to seem as poorly designed is that thing. I've put some effort on the parser and made sure it doesn't seem that way. I've faced the thing with look and you can notice that it's the only command that you don;t get a response like : Can't do that ecc. As for the usefulness of the commands, it really doesn't matter that much, I'd rather allow the player to do anything if he feels like it.

As for the walk , yeah, lol, but don't mess with a boring guy..Anyway, I'd love to fix that bug and when I re-upload the version without the bug, I promise that I'll try and fix all those stuff.

The Suitor: Thanks a lot.


EDIT: Wondering how was the music?

[Dualnames]

Ok, special thanks to Twerty for giving such a nice feedback, and I'm returning the love back..

Version 1.01:
-Fixed a parser glitch, with look around(thanks Twerty)
-Fixed a bug concerning when you died.(thanks Twerty)
-Fixed combat starting out immediately and not having a tutorial.(thanks Twerty)
-Added an indication/narration when both zombies are killed.
-Added an indication GUI that shows current target health bar.(thanks Twerty)
-Now credits finish in 1 minute or you can click/key and skip them.

[Huw Dawson]

The game is about Catron, a soldier of the 4th military unit of Uranus

Hur hur hur... 

I'll check the game out.

- Huw

[Makeout Patrol]

So I played through it (the patched version, that is), and I thought it was decent, but I agree with Twerty; it still needs a good deal of polish. I thought the graphics and the music were both quite good. My experience was kind of hampered by some bug issues and some control/playability issues.

Here are the bugs I found (in version 1.1):

-The intro video doesn't play - I get an error telling me that the file does not exist or is an unsupported format. The path it gives is ./lg.wmv, and that video is there, so I guess it must be the format. Or maybe the file needs to be somewhere else; I have no idea.
-Some of the time (but not all of the time) the screenshot that is saved has the save GUI on it
-When you open the load screen, there is often a savegame with no name selected, rather than my first savegame. Deleting it does nothing.
-I don't know whether this counts as a bug, but it should probably be fixed either way: at least one of the verbs you list in the manual - take - does not work in the game. Twerty noted that there were a number of verbs that aren't necessary, but "take" doesn't even work in context: I typed "take gun," and the game didn't recognize it. I had to type "get gun" instead.

Spoiler

-It is possible to kill the two zombies in such a fashion as to block the path to the door you need to go through. I'd suggest in a game like this with keyboard movement that they should not block player movement, especially once they're dead.
-When you type "open door" in the room with the two zombies, the message box says, "Which door? The left one or the right one?" This message stays up and cannot be dismissed. Once it went away eventually, but once I had to close the game to get rid of it.

[close]

Some other suggestions and notes that I'd make (some of these are more my personal preference, but I figure I might as well let you know what I think, because I know I love feedback):
-You either need go get rid of the pauses in the conversations or have some sort of graphic indication that I'm watching a cutscene or that I'm not in control again yet. Almost every time there was a pause, I thought that I was back in control, so I'd start typing a command; lo and behold, it was just a pause in a cutscene, and now I'd missed six lines of dialog or narration by typing "talk g."
-Controlling movement felt clunky and obtuse. The fact that my legs were jetpacks looked pretty cool, but it took a little bit of experimenting to figure out where my "feet" in game terms were. The walkable areas seemed a bit restrictive - I felt like I should be able to walk a lot closer to the walls, frankly. Additionally, I didn't feel like the character responded to my key presses well enough - that might be an AGS engine thing, or it might even be because I'm playing it in OS X using Crossover. If other people felt the same way, though, I would suggest changing the control scheme to be like the early Space Quest games, where you tapped an arrow key to start moving and tapped it again to stop (although I'm not sure how this would work with the combat).

Spoiler

-It took me some experimenting to figure out that I needed to use the mouse to kill the zombies. This needs to be said outright, maybe when you pick up the gun; I assumed that I controlled it using the space bar, because that is what I'd been told to do with the laser.
-Most of the length in this game seems to come from "puzzles" in which the solution is to go into a room that you have no apparent reason to go to. I was stuck for a bit because the narration told me to go to the bridge, but I couldn't figure out what to do there. I was stuck again later because I had no reason to go back into the room that I got the gun in. There's nothing wrong with short games; I don't think there would be anything wrong with signposting these a little bit more obviously.
-This might be controversial, but the ending left me pretty wound up. First was the dialog section; I really couldn't see any correlation between what I said and what happened afterward. Then I got the "good" ending, which... well, I don't know what to say. It's your game, and you can end it the way you want, but to me it didn't fit with the rest of the game. I figure that it was meant to be funny, but to me I'd been playing a (admittedly dark-humored) lighthearted game, and then all of a sudden I'm putting my gun in strangers' mouths with no provocation.

[close]

So there's my feedback; you can take what you like and ignore it altogether if you'd prefer. I did really like the graphics, and the sound was good, too. I see the beginnings of a really interesting story here, if you felt like extending the game a bit (although I'm not sure if that's in your plans or not). With a bit more work, I think you could have the beginning of a really good game here, and as it stands it's really a good effort. Congrats!

[Leon]

Well, graphics and sound/music are great. It creates a nice atmosphere. But overall the game left me with a disappointed feeling.

There are a lot of opportunities in the game. Enough doors to make something of it, enough objects to interact with. Yet there's only one door that does work, only two objects you can interact with and further no explanation whatsoever. During the announcement in the first room after the escape there's an endless list of rooms summed up, yet only two to go to.

I disliked the fact that using a door meant either end of game or advance to the next room. No warning, no indication, just like that. Funny fact: when you "CLOSE DOOR" you get ejected as well.
In the room with the debris and the gun: after you picked up the gun and you look around, you say you can still see the gun standing (?).

When you enter that room after the FPS, there no way back. You can only read. Can't use the interpreter (only speeds up conversation which makes it unreadable) and can't use load/save etc.

And like said by Makeout, the conversation choices don't make sense. There's obviously a difference between "Ah..oh...eh...how..*sigh*" and "My name is ... so...y....".   Well. I didn't get it. And the abrupt switch from looking at a sexy female to the hostile gun-in-mouth solution was unexpected and in my opinion didn't contribute to the game.

I think the way the game is build it has a lot of potential, but then it needs a lot of work on the interpreter and the interaction with objects. As a concept-demo it is nice start.


btw, I don't seem to get past a score of 80. Is the FPS part related to the score or am I just missing an essential part of the game?

[Dualnames]

The long awaited reply:

Oh, well.. first of all the main theme of your two posts guys seems to have left me surprised. And it seems that for the very first game of mine people say that the graphics are good, the atmo is good, but your story..eh..aw..sucks. At least the way its told.

First of all, I do agree. Second of all I accept ALL feedback and I thank thy for that.
I'll update the game as soon as possible fixing/changing everything you sort of posted.

So what i'll fix: First I'll make more notice on the fact that well, instead of saying a list of rooms, I'll just say something else, like you could go to those room , if it wasn't for that explosion sort of thing. And i will also inform the player not to open any door. And remove the line about you must go to the bridge. Will also remove close door.

As for when you enter the room after the FPS that's supposed to be a cutscene..but well, I'll fix all cutscenes and make them more obvious. And I'll re-arrange the conversation choices. It seems that the good ending sucked..so I'll remove that. As for the score of 80, after you exit the first room and you see that cutscene with the ship blown up, you should talk to the zombie..of if you've done you probably have missed the bad ending..sort of. I'll re-arrange the dialogs and the endings.

Spoiler

in the meantime if you play this again, on the conversation, select the first, then the one answer that doesn't matter and then the can i see an identification

[close]

-The intro video doesn't play - I get an error telling me that the file does not exist or is an unsupported format. The path it gives is ./lg.wmv, and that video is there, so I guess it must be the format. Or maybe the file needs to be somewhere else; I have no idea.

Weird, I had no problem with that..anyway.

-Some of the time (but not all of the time) the screenshot that is saved has the save GUI on it

Yep, noticed that I'll fix it up

-When you open the load screen, there is often a savegame with no name selected, rather than my first savegame. Deleting it does nothing.

I'll fix this up too.

-I don't know whether this counts as a bug, but it should probably be fixed either way: at least one of the verbs you list in the manual - take - does not work in the game. Twerty noted that there were a number of verbs that aren't necessary, but "take" doesn't even work in context: I typed "take gun," and the game didn't recognize it. I had to type "get gun" instead.

I'll add take as a pick up command verb then.

Spoiler

-It is possible to kill the two zombies in such a fashion as to block the path to the door you need to go through. I'd suggest in a game like this with keyboard movement that they should not block player movement, especially once they're dead.
-When you type "open door" in the room with the two zombies, the message box says, "Which door? The left one or the right one?" This message stays up and cannot be dismissed. Once it went away eventually, but once I had to close the game to get rid of it.

I noticed that it might happen but well, you got it so, I'll fix it up. I'll fix the next bug too.

[close]

-You either need go get rid of the pauses in the conversations or have some sort of graphic indication that I'm watching a cutscene or that I'm not in control again yet. Almost every time there was a pause, I thought that I was back in control, so I'd start typing a command; lo and behold, it was just a pause in a cutscene, and now I'd missed six lines of dialog or narration by typing "talk g."

I sort of thought that might happen..Ok, I'll fix this up, thanks for reporting

-Controlling movement felt clunky and obtuse. The fact that my legs were jetpacks looked pretty cool, but it took a little bit of experimenting to figure out where my "feet" in game terms were. The walkable areas seemed a bit restrictive - I felt like I should be able to walk a lot closer to the walls, frankly. Additionally, I didn't feel like the character responded to my key presses well enough - that might be an AGS engine thing, or it might even be because I'm playing it in OS X using Crossover. If other people felt the same way, though, I would suggest changing the control scheme to be like the early Space Quest games, where you tapped an arrow key to start moving and tapped it again to stop (although I'm not sure how this would work with the combat).

I'll add a gui that you can change the control method. And I'll increase the walkable areas..

-It took me some experimenting to figure out that I needed to use the mouse to kill the zombies. This needs to be said outright, maybe when you pick up the gun; I assumed that I controlled it using the space bar, because that is what I'd been told to do with the laser.

This is told when you enter room..but well, I;ll have it noted when you pick the gun instead. Sounds better


-Most of the length in this game seems to come from "puzzles" in which the solution is to go into a room that you have no apparent reason to go to. I was stuck for a bit because the narration told me to go to the bridge, but I couldn't figure out what to do there. I was stuck again later because I had no reason to go back into the room that I got the gun in. There's nothing wrong with short games; I don't think there would be anything wrong with signposting these a little bit more obviously.

You;re right about that, so yeah, well it's short anyway, rather be too short than too bad.


-This might be controversial, but the ending left me pretty wound up. First was the dialog section; I really couldn't see any correlation between what I said and what happened afterward. Then I got the "good" ending, which... well, I don't know what to say. It's your game, and you can end it the way you want, but to me it didn't fit with the rest of the game. I figure that it was meant to be funny, but to me I'd been playing a (admittedly dark-humored) lighthearted game, and then all of a sudden I'm putting my gun in strangers' mouths with no provocation.

It seemed a little too dark for my tastes as well, so well, I'll keep the "bad' ending or just re-arrange this one.
[/spoiler]

So there's my feedback; you can take what you like and ignore it altogether if you'd prefer. I did really like the graphics, and the sound was good, too. I see the beginnings of a really interesting story here, if you felt like extending the game a bit (although I'm not sure if that's in your plans or not). With a bit more work, I think you could have the beginning of a really good game here, and as it stands it's really a good effort. Congrats!

Thanks a lot..really appreciated.

[Dualnames]

And in case some thought I wouldn't take feedback seriously..I've updated the game within an hour. Okay more but well

Version 1.02

-Now proper warning is given about closed doors. (Thanks Leon and Makeout Patrol)
-Fixed Save System. (Thanks Leon and Makeout Patrol)
-Fixed some verbs (Thanks Twerty, Makeout Patrol and Leon)
-Fixed zombie block glitch (Thanks Makeout Patrol)
-Fixed open door bug. (Thanks Makeout Patrol)
-Fixed cut scene/pauses glitch/bug (Thanks Makeout Patrol and Leon)
-Now you can select between keyboard modes, press and tap (Thanks Makeout Patrol)
-Now you get a tip on how to use the gun when you get it (Thanks Makeout Patrol)
-Signposted getting back to where you got the gun (Thanks Makeout Patrol)
-Changed ending from two to one.
-Increased Walkable areas size(Thanks Makeout Patrol)

Hopefully, everything should be fine now...

[Khris]

I gave this a go and IMO it still suffers from bad gameplay.
The parser text is practically non-readable: dark blue, narrow text with a black outline...?

What this game needs is a beta test by somebody else than you, because that's what a beta test is about, presenting the game to a player who doesn't know the game inside out.
Some of the mentioned issues should never have made it past the alpha test anyway.

Sorry for being harsh.

[Dualnames]

No need to apologise at all. I'm planning to re-update this extending it a very little. I've actually changed some stuff, including well, that. Thanks for posting it though. Version 1.03 probably final will be out tomorrow.

Edit:Plus, no , I don;t think you're too harsh. You just found out the gameplay suffers some serious things, and frankly it does. So that's why I sat on my PC and did a rework on some things.

[Dualnames]

1.03 is up. This will hopefully be as close to final as possible..I hope.
So what's changed?

Version 1.03
-I've changed the ending, a little bit, so now you get to fight more zombies
-Mouse is not visible while on dialog or when you open the save/load gui.
-Also you can skip which door message by pressing any key.
-Sort of made sure that if you skip lines with mouse you can't skip cutscenes.
accidentally. They can be skipped via Escape.
-Also to avoid that, display msgs are now skipped only by you.
-Can't believe I missed that but well when you look around you no more see the gun
(if you pick it up). (Thanks Leon).
-Also added a sort of indication that well, red lighted doors, mean that there's a hull
breach behind them.
-Changed text interpreter colour.

[Leon]

Wow! You put a lot of effort in this one! Good work.

I like the way you get the info about the rooms and the doors. Good description of what to expect brought in a way that doesn't sound demanding or forced. Way to go!

But as you continue to do your job, I do mine :-)

- I can't choose 640x400 anymore. Since my screen resolution is very high (1280x1024), I'm looking at a miniature and am sure going to miss some details.
- In the room on the left, saying CLOSE DOOR gives: You open the door with a lot of effort... What? I'd expect: The door IS closed! (And you should keep it that way!!).
- LOOK ROOM after the escape gives you at some point: There's a probability that, well... etc. This is shown twice...
- In the dialog next to that: around the galaxy, so YOU (missing) might ...
- Talking to the zombie: Give me a brake ---> break.
- Further in that conversation: No, don't stay where you are. --> I'm pretty sure you meant: No, don't, stay where you are.
- I have to fight that zombie. The text that followed went too fast to read. Playing it a second time, the text was still there even after the fight...
- Entering the next room on the right for the second time, leaving the first time: and since they're mental --> their mental.
- Something strange:-  I went to the room with the two zombies first, chose to leave, looked at and fought the single zombie and now I want to visit the two again, it's immediate Game Over... .?  Some testing: returning after you chose to leave first results in immediate Game Over....?

Why is this 3-way option? After I killed the zombies I have to open the doors by interpreter so why not the first time? Why not let the player look around and decide to leave, use a door or fight? Since leaving and fighting result in death the first time, the use of such dialog is close to none.

There's an additional zombie-fight now. But there's nowhere to save than before entering the 'room on the right'. Quite a stretch so I have to go through all dialogs again... :-(

[saluk]

I struggled through this, I'm sorry to say it is spotty. 

Graphics - Excellent!  You definitely have some skills.  Environments are interesting to look at, the textboxes fit the theme very well, and characters had style too.

Gameplay - parsers are OK if they are either very conventional or very smart.  Since very smart is incredibly hard, conventional is best.  I had to read the manual to find out I had to "look around" rather than just "look".  I expect "look" to look around, and "look [something]" or "look at [something]" to print a description of the item, or tell me that the item is not there.  If there is a door, I want "look door" "look hallway" "look opening" etc to alias to the door.  I want to be able to "look wall" and have it say "on the wall you see a door" or some such.  Make the environment explorable through text.  In this game, the parser absolutely failed.  I think you would have been better off with point and click, honestly.  The action segment I didn't mind, but a way to toggle it on and off so that the shooting could intersperse with regular gameplay, would be better.  If there were a longer and better game to put such a system in of course.  By the way, the shooting was really buggy: I would click and their health wouldnt go down, but then I clicked at other times and it worked ok; and often I found my character was unable to move.  But the system itself, if not buggy could possibly work in a larger better game. 

The part with the choice to fight or escape felt a bit ugly.  Why have a new interface when you can use the old?  It would have been better if earlier you learned the command to take out your saw, and then just use typed commands to handle the situation.  The player types "use saw" and they try to fight the zombies but the zombies win.  The player types "open left door" etc.  Choosing something off of a menu made it feel like a choose your own adventure story.  If the rest of the game had been like that it would be one thing, but having so many different interfaces made things disjointed, especially when it was SO SHORT that things are always switching up on the player.

Story - since the gameplay basically amounts to "type correct sentence to continue story" I really hoped the story would be interesting.  Unfortunately I was disappointed here.  The story made little sense, jumping from one "set piece" to another with no real connection.  The intro makes it seem something significant is going to happen and the main character is going to be a hero; however, he apparently causes the worse of the destruction, and doesn't come across as a hero at all.  The bit at the end made no real sense either (and it didn't make sense in a BAD way, not the good way of trying to figure out what it really meant).  Why does he want to screw the chick and kill her???  That part didn't feel like it fit at all with the previous part with the zombies.  You need to have more connectiveness in your writing in your next game.  Also, you need to build up characters.  Give them a personality instead of just being some anybody with a weird name.  Having a weird name is fine, but think of who they are and how they would react to situations. 

And don't just try and quickly implement or fix everything people are saying as they say them.  You need to take some time to process things.  I think that there is no saving this game (sorry, it's just what I think).  Your best bet would be to either start over, or move on to your next game.  With your art and programming skills, I look forward to it!  What you need is: a more coherent plot, that flows together; a longer game (the plot length would have been OK if there had been puzzles to lengthen the game) - 5 minutes long just feels like a waste; drop the parser, unless you are going to really improve it; give the player choices to make and things to do - even little details like allowing them to examine a painting on a wall can make it feel like they are playing a game rather than being dragged along by the designer; and more effort.

Take some time to really plan out the story and the gameplay before you program it, this will help immensely.  Once you program something, it makes it very hard to change.  Put as much effort or more into the story and designing puzzles as you do the graphics and I'm sure you will get a better response. 

This is a GREAT first effort, and you were really ambitious in trying a lot of new things.  That really says something!  You were able to make new things, and though they didn't all turn out that great, you managed to finish the project.  Many people aren't even able to finish a project, so it's a good thing, even if the results are less than perfect.  Be a little more conservative in your next effort, making sure that you make design choices based on what is good for the game and what you can implement really well, rather than just what might be interesting to program or fun/funny to put in.  I can't wait for the even better second project!

[Khris]

- I can't choose 640x400 anymore. Since my screen resolution is very high (1280x1024), I'm looking at a miniature and am sure going to miss some details.

In winsetup, choose DirectDraw5 mode, then the x3 filter.
(Changing the resolution instead of using a filter is bad anyway, thus that option was removed recently.)


EDIT: It was removed recently from AGS, so DN must've used a newer AGS version for 1.3.

[Leon]

Thanks. That was then very recently because in v1.2 it wasn't a problem. 
Learning every day...

[Dualnames]

Well, it seems that well, this one needs some fixing. I "hired" some beta testers and well, they came up with notes and stuff. So well, that's why we present you 1.04 version.

Version 1.04
-Now instead of Lucas Arts speech/they all have Sierra style. Added portraits animations.
-Improved last fight.
-Added graphical indication when the player doesn't have control.(Thanks Makeout Patrol)
-Now enemy death animation is not blocking.
-Fixed some region lighting/tinting issues.
-Added autosave just before battle so now you don't have to go through all that trouble.(Thanks Leon)
-Fixed close door thing.(Thanks Leon)
-Fixed some spelling and grammar errors.(Thanks Leon)
-Fixed dialog fight system a little bit.

So I'm actually planning to add Starship some voice, so till now Twinmoon has filled up the position as the zombie in the hall, and I hope that the rest two roles will be packed. One of which is female(Kyara).

Now responding:

Wow! You put a lot of effort in this one! Good work.

I like the way you get the info about the rooms and the doors. Good description of what to expect brought in a way that doesn't sound demanding or forced. Way to go!

But as you continue to do your job, I do mine :-)

First well, thanks for your comments, and I've already implemented what you said. Not totally but at least those I agreed with(mostly all of them). As for the resolution Starship is packed with 3.1 Final. Probably I packed previous versions with 3.1 release candidate 2/1.

Saluk:

Graphics -This is actually the first game I'm getting compliments about graphics. Thanks.

Gameplay - I'm thinking that point and click, would indeed fit the game better. As for look command, well, it usually found as look around or look, but people commented that look wouldn't really suit the game. See previous comments.

This game was designed as micro duration. I'm sorry for that. Well, despite its size it really bothered me with some issues. As for the selections well, I consider them more user friendly.

Story -   The intro makes it seem something significant is going to happen and the main character is going to be a hero; however, he apparently causes the worse of the destruction, and doesn't come across as a hero at all.

That;s the point. The game is more of a concept demo sort. I just wanted to see if people around would appreciate some things and apparently they do. So I'm probably going to return to point and click and create a medium length game, but this time with less or at least more easy to handle action sequences.

Concerning the bit about the chick, you probably played a previous version for I removed that.

I think that there is no saving this game (sorry, it's just what I think). 

I think there's saving.. just type save in the parser or load or restore.

Your best bet would be to either start over, or move on to your next game. 

My best bet would be to start the sequel or a sort of restart of the story. Which I'm writting.


making sure that you make design choices based on what is good for the game and what you can implement really well, rather than just what might be interesting to program or fun/funny to put in.

Agreed. I totally agree with that.

[/quote]

[Leon]

Gameplay - I'm thinking that point and click, would indeed fit the game better.

I don't agree. I liked the combination of the cursor control, giving you a bit of a platformer feeling, combined with the parser, the nostalgic and the fps, the action. But turning to the point-and-click thing, I'm concerned it will be 'just-another' of those (no offense). This was just what made it unique. I think there should be more games parser based, giving you more sense of freedom (if done right of course) than to 'just click' on your screen.

I think there's saving.. just type save in the parser or load or restore.

Then there's the schizofrenic system. Through menus at first, through parser next. (The same with the menu/dialog of the room change). Try to stick to one system. Point&Click: menu, Parser: interpreter.

I'm curious what will come out of this :-)

[Dualnames]

Well, I'm mostly a weird guy.. and I barely make my mind on something(that should explain the versions(4) within a week).
Parser was selected as it would seem more fun to program and it was something I've never done before. I've allowed things to work both ways, just to enable a sense of freedom(sort of), however yes, indeed the dialog system sort of messes things up. And the use of mouse and not does the same thing. Maybe I should have mouse for movement and a parser for typing interactions. Anyway, IF there's gonna be a sequel to this, I'll make sure you get a little bit of it before...so you can tell me what should be better. As for the FPS sequences, I actually played Space Quest 0: Replicated and it inspired me of the idea. That mostly explains some things...

However you pointed it out:
Menus: Mouse on
Fight: Mouse on(except on zombie one)
Interaction: Parser/mouse off.

That sort of messes things up, because the game is very short.
However, I'm planning IF I find the idea cool to develop to fix things up with the sequel. And just make this as good as possible.. So an offer..would it really change things if..the controls were all keyboard? If it does, I'll sort of make it so.

EDIT: However, well it's weird of how it would be done..I can yes indeed add keyboard support to menus, but I can't really change the combat smg fight..can I?