Barn Dilemma

Started by Abada, Sun 13/07/2008 00:11:56

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Abada

Here is my first completed game. It is a short puzzle heavy escape the room style game. It has no music because I am no good at making music :(

It features a Lucasart interface that took me longer than I would like to think about to complete.

Please keep in mind this was origionaly designed as a technical experiment until I decided to make it into a full game.

The zip file comes with a readme with all required information.

Story

As a mage pupil you have recently brought on the wrath of your teacher by accidentally setting his lab on fire and nearly summoning a demon into the house. As punishment you are forced to stay inside a barn for a week with
only a bucket of water to survive from. Being an impatient student, you simply want to escape the weird place.

Download Here




Play_Pretend

Congrats on making your first game.  I found a small bug in there -

Spoiler
When you hang the rope over the overhang, if you click the End of Rope and Use it with the overhang again, he'll walk back over and go through the sequence of picking up the rope that's no longer on the floor.
[close]

Also, I was curious -

Spoiler
Is the main character a paintover of Guybrush Threepwood?
[close]

egamer

The game looks interesting.  I haven't finished it, but I've played it as far as
Spoiler
finding the spellbook and figuring out which ingredients to use.
[close]

I have one comment, though:  I've never played Lucas Arts games, so I've never used a Lucas Arts interface.  But I don't like the interface in your game as much as the standard Sierra interface.  The Sierra interface is more convenient to use, first, because you can right-click through the cursors, and, second, becuase it is easier to try an inventory item on more than one thing.  In your interface, to try an inventory item on more than one thing you have to click on "Use," click on the inventory item, and then click on the room each time you want to try to use the time.  In the standard Sierra interface you only have to go through that once, as the inventory cursor persists.  The same is true for the other cursors.  In your interface, the cursor reverts to "Walk" each time you use it.  Also. I like the graphic cursors better then the crosshairs with text at the bottom of the screen.

But overall it looks like a good first game.

Abada

Thanks for spotting the bug Visitor, I have uploaded a new version 1.1 that solves it and some other bugs I found with the GUI. There are probably a few bugs dotted around still.

No it is not a direct paintover, but I did use some inspiration from Guybrush mainly the feet animation and talking. I hope to make a completly unique set of characters for the next project.

egamer I understand your point of view, just depends what type of interface one likes. Yes in the Lucasart games it would allways go back to walk mode after an interaction. Also most of them had a crosshair instead of the graphic cursor. Horses for courses.

Thanks for the postitive feedback.

neon

Played a few minutes. For non-english people it's very hard to read, because the text changes very fast. Would be a good idea to add a text speed slider or just let the text change a bit slower.

Baro

Quote from: egamer on Sun 13/07/2008 18:35:44
I have one comment, though:  I've never played Lucas Arts games, so I've never used a Lucas Arts interface.  But I don't like the interface in your game as much as the standard Sierra interface.  The Sierra interface is more convenient to use, first, because you can right-click through the cursors, and, second, becuase it is easier to try an inventory item on more than one thing.  In your interface, to try an inventory item on more than one thing you have to click on "Use," click on the inventory item, and then click on the room each time you want to try to use the time.  In the standard Sierra interface you only have to go through that once, as the inventory cursor persists.  The same is true for the other cursors.  In your interface, the cursor reverts to "Walk" each time you use it.  Also. I like the graphic cursors better then the crosshairs with text at the bottom of the screen.
The LucasArts interface is like that (in old games, from Full Throttle the thing starts to change), because they didn't use different cursors for each mode, they rather treat the actions as a automatic text box, being default ALWAYS the default action if you try to use "nothing" or after finishing doing something.

Something that most LucasArts games had was quick access to the actions through keyboard. Pressing U for Use and that sort of things. I don't know if this game has it (haven't played it, honestly) but it's a good thing to be aware of.

egamer

Quote from: Baro on Tue 15/07/2008 09:42:31
Something that most LucasArts games had was quick access to the actions through keyboard. Pressing U for Use and that sort of things. I don't know if this game has it (haven't played it, honestly) but it's a good thing to be aware of.

I just tried them.  The only keyboard shortcuts that work are the Sierra ones, e.g. F5 to save the game, F7 to restore, etc.  The Lucas Arts ones don't seem to work.  That would be a nice addition to the game, though.

Leon

#7
I'm playing this one now. Nice game. It takes a bit to get used to the controls but after a while it's ok. Some things are not really clear though:

Spoiler
When you've mixed the ingredients for light and put the bottle in the attic, you're supposed to apply with fire according to the book. But opening the bottle and using the alcohol on it does the trick? I've searched very long for this solution.
Nevermind. Reading can be very difficult at some times..  :-\ It says clearly with air not fire...
[close]

Found a bug? I'm in the attic reading a book. The exit button doesn't work so I'm stuck looking at a closed book. Any suggestions other than starting all over again?

Nevermind this one as well... I crashed the game. Using anything on the book causes:

Error: run_text_script1: error -6 running function 'repeatedly_execute':
Error: Null pointer referenced
in "ActiveText.asc", line 601
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paolo

Quote from: neon on Mon 14/07/2008 06:37:30
Played a few minutes. For non-english people it's very hard to read, because the text changes very fast. Would be a good idea to add a text speed slider or just let the text change a bit slower.


neon,

Sometimes even we English-speakers find that the text goes by too quickly! I sometimes found that the French text went by too quickly in Dread Mac Farlane, so I played the game in a window rather than full screen (which I usually prefer to do anyway) and clicked on the desktop each time there was a lot of text to read - this has the effect of pausing the game.

Leon

It's not possible to get beyond the point of exiting the book in your inventory  >:(.  And it's needed to complete the game.
I've found a workaround though!

The author luckilly left debug mode on so there you are. I suggest you start reading the book near the Decrypto 900. You can then press CTRL-X and select 6 - Room 3. You're back in the room, with the book closed and without the crash but with the needed info.
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