Messages

["Do you sell X tyres/tires"]

If anyone is struggling with the tyre shop (which it sounds like a few are) here's a clue to help:

Spoiler

Check the news articles for any witnesses on the type of car they saw, check with the tyre shops whether anyone has bought tyres for a particular model of car. "Do you sell X tyres/tires" should do it.

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So, I'm guessing you have to say:

(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Spoiler

"Ford Mondeo" and "tyres/tires" in the same sentence? The problem with this is that few people will try this as there is not actually a specific tyre-type for a specific model of car in the real world. All Fords do not have the same tyres. So it's not logical to most people to ask "Do you sell Ford Mondeo tyres?" I would say. This is probably where the problem stems from.

(Ironically...one of my first games also uses the AGS parser system:"The Adventures Of The Black Hand Gang" and I included as many synonyms as I could think of but missed the "tyre"/"tire" spelling differences and had to go back and include it after a player pointed it out...)

Also, I just tried the question at all three shops and it doesn't work at any. They just say "Sorry, I don't understand." What are the actual words the paser checks for?

I might have an idea to help you fix this though:
I think a suitable question to parse for would be: "Have you sold any tires to someone driving/owning a Ford Mondeo?"
Or something like that...But the text input box is not long enough to hold such a question. You would have to make it longer.
People would also ask "Did you sell any tires to the driver/owner of a Ford Mondeo?" and there may be other variations. But I think if you parse for:
sold, sell, tires, tyres, driving, driver, owning, owner, Ford Mondeo
it might work. Of course you may need to also change the staff's replies to fit this adjusted question.
I would also add a feature where if you type "dog" for example the staff says "I don't understand" but if the player types in just "Ford Mondeo" maybe the staff says "I need more information. Could you please speak in complete sentences?" as many players probably assume the parser is not very sophisticated and can only understand single key-words at a time, so they will just input words instead of a sentence containing all the needed words.

Maybe even adding the instruction: "Please speak in complete sentences." at the top of the conversation screen would help a lot.

One more slight point: Every time you hang up from a conversation you have to reopen the browser and search for tyre shops again. Couldn't the phone conv just quit back to the browser with the tyre shops list on it?

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Hope that all made sense and is of some value. Again: I'm not complaining here, as I'm really excited about what you are trying to do with this game, as I'm sure many gamers would be if it was just slightly more accessable.

The tire shop conversation is an interesting subject. Infact:

Spoiler

Originally I intended it to be the actual tyre set 195/55 - however, the parser does not like slashes which threw that idea out the window. I'm surprised as "have you sold/do you sell any ford mondeo tyres" should suffice in the parser. Good suggestion for asking for complete sentences, I'll have a mess around and chances are, will add it in - thanks!

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I'll explore better ways to engage in the conversations in future chapters as the ambiguity of asking an AI questions will always have degree of guess work for keywords...

@Mandle

Spoiler

The motives are a bit of a difficult one to feed in without giving too much away. But you pretty much got it! The location and time of death was based from this bible story http://biblehub.com/niv/mark/5.htm but to curve the difficulty I included 2 farms prior to this, to allow guessing room. Both women's photos are mugshots, so the sinning goes in hand.

I did look at adding a penalty for calling the police, but I found most people would just close and reopen the game again. However, I'm sure I could do something running off the system clock. With the questions, due to the limited content I tried to be forgiving especially as there wasn't significant backstory. My future intentions are definately going to create a longer interview process, balanced with more content.

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If anyone is struggling with the tyre shop (which it sounds like a few are) here's a clue to help:

Spoiler

Check the news articles for any witnesses on the type of car they saw, check with the tyre shops whether anyone has bought tyres for a particular model of car. "Do you sell X tyres/tires" should do it.

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I'm happy to hear the response so far has been positive to this style of gameplay! Next chapter I'll try to deliver a deeper story which should create better connections and ease off second-guessing.

From what I've played so far, your puzzles need me to figure out what you were thinking more than trying to logically solve the mystery. Here are some of my spoiler-filled thought processes while playing:

Spoiler

• Reaching the front page of The Daily Redpress is overly complicated, requiring either a search for "Redpress" or clicking on one of the non-existent other sections of the site and pressing back. Why not just let me click News or the logo?
  
• Father Matthew is used instead of Father Matthews at least once, at the start of the article on The Daily Redpress.
  
• The dates of his visits seemed inconsistent to me? His site seems to imply his first two Redfield visits were on 20 Jan and 25 March, being in Paris on 10 March. Whereas the article says his third visit to Redfield will be on 10 March.
  
• I'm not 100% sure the dates match the 2014 calendar year? Since some articles don't mention what day of the week it is, but only mention a day of the week in the article, it's hard for me to match dates.
  
• I couldn't find anything more about the impersonation incident, and I felt like there should be further information somewhere.
  
• Linking two events because those are the only two news subjects on a website was too detached from reality for me.
  
• Similarly, a surreal process of elimination mindset seems to show up a lot. There are only three pig farms, and two have been used already, so clearly the third is next? Is there something I'm missing there?
  
• Searching for "maps" isn't very intuitive, especially since locations like "East Redfield", "Redfield Community Centre", "Love Street" and "Quackfit" turn up nothing. An actual tab would probably better convey the feature existed, I'd have had no idea if not for your screenshot.
  
• I was stuck for a long time because I typically spell "tyres" as "tires".
  
• After calling tyre shops, I couldn't work out what to type. I tried numerous keywords, but the questions seem like what I type should be structured like a conversation. So many possibilities... I hit a wall here and couldn't get any further.
  

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Sorry that most of that feedback was critical. Conceptually this is very interesting, but the investigation genre is a tough one to make user-friendly, and you seem to want it to be hard anyway. Have you played Her Story? I feel like it provides a good example of the sort of sacrifices you might have to make to the experience/linearity of your discovery process in order for the experience to be more enjoyable than frustrating. In this case, it operates more like a database than a traditional story, so a few overly clever or lucky players might figure out the solution much quicker than is ideal, but I feel like it's worth it.

Cheers for the feedback. No need to apologize, I prefer constructive criticism. I've made a few changes based on your feedback, added synonyms etc as well as a few more web pages.

Spoiler

I've also added the News as a clickable hotspot now on the Redpress website so that should help accessibility. As well as adding a note about Maps on the kadabra site.
That date thing was a pretty critical typo. Should have been April. Amended that now too - no clue how I missed that!
The farm thing is actually an obscure reference to a bible verse. Based on the timings of death it was a clue to the quote. Trying to vary the difficulty of clues was my intention to stop it from becoming too frustrating.

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Interesting concept... guess finding the download link is also part of the puzzle...

Aha well played! Added download link to the bottom of the thread

[Description]

Description
This concept was based on my experiences with the hobby of web sleuthing. There are no hints or prompts, just a search engine and your brain.
However, I would recommend typing in "News" to get started.

You will have to analyse news articles, evidence and using maps as well as making a few phone calls to build your case and the assailant to justice. It's no easy task but a different approach to playing and solving puzzles.






Where do I save?
Your pen-and-paper are your saving tool. The game world never changes so you can quit and start at your own pace. Keeping your own personal notes are needed to win the game.

This is currently a concept game with only one chapter. If reception is positive I will definitely be looking into adding more chapters in future!

DOWNLOAD LINK

Hi All,

I've been working on a text parser project and have run into an issue with the ROL command. In principal the text parser is working as intended, but not the way I want it.

Here is the current code:

GLOBAL Script

Code: ags

if (Parser.SaidUnknownWord()) 
  { 
    Display("Not recognized.", Parser.SaidUnknownWord()); 
  }
else 
 { 
   CallRoomScript(1); 
 }

ROOM Script

Code: ags

function on_call (int reason) {
if (Parser.Said("press rol")) {
    gParser.Visible = false; 
    cEgo.ChangeRoom(3);
  }
else 
{
    NoMatch(); //if none of above matched player's input, NoMatch() function is called.
}
  }

Currently it will only process "press" or "press rol" ONLY if the ROL part is a word in the text parser dictionary(press button etc).

If I swap the CallRoomScript and Display commands around it will work fine but ONLY if "press" has a word after it (E.G. "press rubber dingy rapids"). I have tried using an || operator for "press" and "press rol" but no luck. Same problem if I try to do it in a separate IF command.

I want the script set up so I can type "press (anything)" and it will run through the same command regardless of it being in the dictionary or not.

I am sure it's something simple I'm missing, but after spending several hours trying to debug this..I am struggling now.

Any thoughts appreciated!

Version 1.4 is here!


Fixes


- Fixed bug where Crowley would execute a sequence mean't for when Bobby first appeared.

- Tweaked a few ingame mechanics. (More specifically being now able to use ladders and being able to use the box in the freezer room aswell as being able to walk up them)

- Now you can also USE the pentagram aswell as the book in the attic.


Download here:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=download&game=1287

(I also named it V1.4 from the suggestion)

Thanks guys for all the feedback, I really do appriciate it.

- Toimia

Hey man can you post a walkthrough for the good ending? Want to have a comprehensive list with me...  

Thanks

Upon searching online I found someone has already written a walkthrough for it (Whoever you are you're awesome  )

***SPOILERS!***

I know I need the blue book from the library, but can't seem to get Crowley to pick any of them up!  I've tried going on a pixel hunt for the right one, but to no avail - which particular blue book am I looking for?

Spoiler

Bottom row, around the middle. Heres a picture to help if you're still stuck http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/6008/72689217.jpg

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I enjoyed this game, and since your looking for feedback, I'll offer some up.

Hmmmm..... Let me sum this up.  The game shows promise, but you need more of YOUR ideas in it.

Thanks for the long and detailed feeback; I initially wanted to use a tried and tested formula to create my first serious AGS project and as a base for a potential series - Which will feature much more originality. As for the plot holes you mentioned I was aware of how quite alot of things didn't seem to fit Crowley's persona as I was finalizing the interaction dialogue with objects and hotspots. Unfortunately I considered the task of reworking his character, the plot and the dialogue so late into the devlopment too hard without scraping some if not most of the stuff I just mentioned; And as you've seen I do have plans for a sequel so I didn't want to give too much infomation away about Crowley in just the first game.

Thanks again to everyone who's playing it and taking time out to give me well thought, constructive replies.  

First i'd just like to say thanks again for everyones feedback, Every opinions been noted and i'll do my best to address the issues.

I want to play, but please fix the descriptions. Horror games (or any game) shouldn't treat the player like they're an idiot

Minor issue: When the zombie first chases you, clicking away the text quicker makes a serious difference in terms of his distance to the player when one gains back control of the game.

Please be aware that them responses aren't for specific objects but rather the generic responses to insure that every hotspot and object has dialogue rather then nothing, I didn't mean to treat the player like an idiot.

As for the zombie creature, I was aware that clicking the text would make a serious difference to the distance when play-testing it. I left it in purely to make it easier to escape if the player found it too difficult to click fast enough. (E.g playing on a trackpad)

I'd rework the "I'd rather open it than look at it" type comments to be something informative and descriptive. For instance, when looking at the cabinet you could say "It's a large mahogany cabinet, the door is slightly ajar". That tells the player that it can and probably should be opened.

The same with the paper on the table, I looked at it and it said something like "It obvious what it is" and I was like, uh. I don't know what it is by looking at the graphic. Easily fixed and more immersive if you put "It's paper, with some writing. I should have a closer look."

Remove any and all generic responses if you can. With a small game like this, it should be easy to control every object interaction.

As I said above, i'll make sure to remove all generic responses and re-word the current ones to make it more immersive.

Is there a way to survive the end ?

Spoiler

Use the bloody tissue in the holy water, then go to the attic and use the book when Bobby's standing on the hexagram.

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Hmmm, same problem for me I guess.

Spoiler

used tissue in water, then placed book, spoke ritual when monster was inside the hexagram, but it failed.

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What did I miss?

btw: Was stuck inside the fridge and almost gone mad. Why do I have to walk up the box but use an archway???  

Spoiler

Are you sure you havent opened an old save which didnt have the tissue in the water? i've checked and so long as you've used it in the water once you've placed the book on the stand and done the use command on it when Bobby's in the hexagram then it should all work fine, check to make sure that the normal or bloody tissue isnt in your inventory and if it isn't then PM me your save and i'll look into it.

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As for the fridge puzzle I thought using a box would be too obvious  
Just for simplicity though i'll also include the use command to work the same way as manually walking up them does in the next version.

- Toimia

Still stuck near the end I suppose

Spoiler

Placed bok and once he enters the circle I used the book,
but to no avail. Still get killed

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Spoiler

Have you used the bloody tissue in the sacred water?, if you don't put it in the water then the ritual will fail

Hopefully thats helped 

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Still stuck:

Spoiler

Placed blood soaked paper in water,
it then disappears.
Placed book on stand, inevitably get killed

What am I missing?
Still no use for the quill ....

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Spoiler

Interact with the book once Bobby walks onto the pentagram.

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Nice game despite the few flaws mentioned here already!

However, now i am really stuck :

Spoiler

Placed book from library on book stand,
no escape afterwards.
Haven't used the quill yet ,  tried it on all blood stains

Help please !

Spoiler

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Spoiler

Try interacting with the book from the libary when its in your inventory  , as for the bloodstains, check your inventory for something more...absorbent than a quill.

Spoiler

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Version 1.3 is now out! fixing all the bugs said and a few other nice features download it here.
I've also added a change log to the game page so you can see whats new.

Once again thanks guys for giving me positive and constructive feedback rather than "It's shit lol".

Spoiler

Second floor? Oh boy, I must have to do something else first... I don't know about the second floor or how to get there. Basically, I've just escaped from the freezer and put the first symbol in the gold frame.

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Spoiler

To get back in the house you need something to break the door open, try the shed

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Seems to be heavily 5DAS inspired, yes...
Especially the player character and the house's layout in some areas, the ambient sounds randomly playing.
Still playing it though, pretty neat so far. I'll edit this when I'm done.

Right now I'm really stuck,

Spoiler

I got the symbol and put it in the gold thingie, now I can't find the other symbol...or whatever I'm supposed to do next...I'll keep trying in the meantime.

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Spoiler

Try the second floor, it's somewhere in a frame. 

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I also played a bit and even if I'm stuck (but I think I will find out by myself), I found some things that could be improved:

- Is the name of the game Deity or Diety? (look at the title screen)
- it's calendar, not Caldender
- when opening the cupboard in the TV room, the game character is standing before the object, so it can't be reached. I guess this happens with any object inside of other objects.
- The walk speed is very slow, especially for such a long corridor
- The walk sound is very annoying when playing with headphones. Maybe something softer would be better. Sounds like he's wearing Cowboy boots in the bathroom.
- The walk sound for moving up and down is twice as fast as walking from left to right.
- Like mentioned above, some ojects don't respond to actions. This especially would be nice when examining items in the inventory.


Apart from that, the graphics look very nice and the plot is interesting. I will play on when I have the time this evening and give you more feedback. All in all, nice work for a first project, but consider to have beta testers for your next game. It's always a surprise when a new game comes unexpected out of the nothing, but it's even nicer when it's bug-free. ;-)

Thanks for giving such a detailed response, Originally it was called Diety but when I told people their first reaction was "You spelt Deity wrong." So I changed it all to Deity, but I must've missed the title screen out 

As for the walk speed and sound i'll play about with them and see what sounds best and i'll get working on the next version right away.

I loved your youtube videos and infact it was how i learned how to use AGS, i'd gladly by a hard copy of the book considering i've learnt much more from your free youtube videos than most paid books/video tutorials i've used in the past.