Tropic of Capricorn.

[Andail]

This is a relatively short game, featuring a young diplomate sent to solve some problems on one of the admiral's ship.
It features some language-based puzzles as well as some more traditional ag-puzzles and hopefully a laugh or two.



Visit download page here.

Unpack all the files into one folder, then open 'capricorn.exe'.

[marlamoe]

Great little game.  I enjoyed it but;

Spoiler

After you go up the rope ladder and get the message, if you go up again, there is no way to exit that I could find.

[close]

[Andail]

Thanks a lot! That bug should now be fixed.

[sthomannch]

Relly a nice demo, congratulation. I only had one problem: The text is rather difficult to read due to the font. For the poems, I could at least guess what you were writing in the dialogues. Other sentences were really garbled. Of course, this also makes a puzzle, but you didn't mean it ? :-)

[m0ds]

Andail, the game is ____. I have _______ solving the puzzles and the __________ are very well done too. Some of the English _____ are very easy, they seem extremely easy compared to the normal dialogue of the ____. All in all great stuff dude! Keep it up

tasks     animations     enjoyed     nice     hero

[Nikolas]

Mark,

If you didn't have different sizes in the spaces provided, I would have plenty of trouble to work out which word goes where.

Andail:

A very nice attempt which needs to be lengthen

I'll be using it with my sons, once they start reading...

[FrancoFranchi]

That was a pretty fun demo.  The only problem I had with it was the annoying number of hotspots which meant nothing and the dreadful response "Let's do something more important". 

Also, there is a misspelling of "cannon" as "canon" that should be fixed.  Would like to play the full game though

[Canardo]

A nice piece of work, if only too easy. Nevertheless, you should really try and complete the game since I for one had great time playing it! My only gripe along the extremely low difficulty(if aimed at kids, then I think it would be just fine.) is the same thing Franco wrote above, the very high number of non-meaning hotspots with the same annoying generic message. But if I remember correctly, the game was pretty rushed so all your sins are forgiven

Two thumbs up!

[markbilly]

Hotspots annoying, and I got stuck because I clicked too quick and didn't read what the sailor said to me. Now, all I can do is type in the box, yet I haven't the first clue what to write because I didn't see what he said. I suggest you add a "say that again please" dialogue option with the text box.

Apart from that, very good.

[Andail]

Thanks guys
About difficulty: The target audience is Swedish school kids at varying ages. It's not meant to be challenging for an experienced ag-player, nor for native English speakers.
About length: The observation sessions won't last more than 45 minutes (during which the test subjects will be video-taped), so there's no point in making it much longer. Even though playing the game straight through prolly won't take more than minutes for veterans like you, having to look up words in a dictionary will add to that time.
About generic responses: The entire game (backgrounds, animations and scripts) was put together within roughly 3 weeks, so everything is extremely rushed. I also wanted to have lots of hotspots to increase the vocabulary feedback. Of course, having lots of named hotspots without being able to interact with them is annoying. I still tried to vary the responses, but apparently not well enough

Markbilly, yes, some puzzles lack 'repeat'-functions; on the other hand you should be able to type 'exit' and start over the conversation.  If I get the time, I'll improve that aspect.

[Domino]

Checked this out last night. I really love the graphics. Didn't play too long, but so far Andail, i really like it.

[markbilly]

Markbilly, yes, some puzzles lack 'repeat'-functions; on the other hand you should be able to type 'exit' and start over the conversation.  If I get the time, I'll improve that aspect.

Even if this feature is advertised, then this would improve it. You see I didn't realise you could do that.

[Nikolas]

It does say at the begining of every dialogue, or even while waiting for your answer I believe...

Either way you have a valid point!

[Peder 🚀]

Neat, I liked this alot!

Really well done!

[Nostradamus]

Nice little game, the story was basic but interesting enough, the characters were cool, the SCI style graphics (except more colorful) looked good. The language puzzles were an interesting innovation.
One thing that was really bad is all the hotspots with the generic "this is an ordinary X" and "let's do something else" responses. If you can't think of interesting and\or witty things to write when looking and interacting with those hotspots, don't make them hotspots at all. It's just annoying clicking all those hotspots to get generic messages. I understand it's intended for kids to learn english vocabulary but they would still learn better if there were better responses, and kids don't have long attention span and tiring them out with the same kind of generic reponses to hotspots could take their attention of the game.
Also, you must make clear in your post in this announcement thread that this is a DEMO. You never said a word about it and the player finds out it's a demo with a message in the final second of the game. You even categorized it as medium in the AGS website database.
I'll be glad to see more games from you of that style, I just hope you take those suggestions to consideration.

[Andail]

Thanks for your feedback.

Update:
* The game is now sorted under short games
* It doesn't say demo in the game
* Most of the unimportant hot-spots have been removed.

Edit:
Soundtrack hasn't been on my mind so far since the game sessions are meant to be recorded and there must thus be no sound, but I guess I could still add a soundtrack for you guys and simply mute it during the observations.
So if anyone is willing to whip up a nifty midi-track, let me know! Mods, I'm looking your way.

PS:
Also, I haven't taken the opportunity to thank SSH for tip on how to design one of the puzzles. So cheers, mate

[Peder 🚀]

Indeed a soundtrack would of been nice

That would also for sure make me play the game again even though I would still play it again now without any sound.

[rockeh]

Nice game -- it's actually satisfying to see an adventure that doesn't feature pirates, magic etc. Great graphics, too \m/

I did spot a bug, though:

Spoiler

I have the painted parrot in my inventory, but when talking to the pipe next to the first mate, I still get a reply.

[close]

[Trish]

This is a great game so far, but when I hit tab while playing the game (i was trying to find the save/load screen) the game froze up= basically a big grey window came up- like an inventory window with half my character (lengthwise) at the right side and the two sword icons on the bottom along with a candelabra. I can't get out of it- I have to quit the game altogether.

[Guest]

Cute game. One comment

Spoiler

I wouldn't put the message so close to the painted parrot in the inventory as it seems their both together already.

[close]