Text Adventures - When authors pretend to be programmers and visa versa

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VivaLa Eeveelution: Apr 3, 2011

I've grown to love-hate the series, but it's not easy reading. There's a moment where your S�per driver refuses to pick you up after seeing you and your sister are Ani-Powered (and you're avian - there's a gang, you see) and it's supposed to be serious but you're a chicken at the time and your speech is littered with clucking because of it.

Just

Just imagine that playing out on a TV screen

With serious background music and dramatic lighting

A slow pan to up the emotional tension

And the discriminated parties are a giant waddling clucking chicken and a wheelchair-using jellyfish named Jelly Kelly

It's a crime that this is just a text game.

(Take a shot when someone uses the catch-all futurespeak swear word 'slugger'.)

# ? Apr 9, 2016 10:58

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 21:28

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

^^^ You're absolutely right. It'd be some kind of ultra absurd art if you were to adapt any of them into any other medium.

The Deviations posted:

(Take a shot when someone uses the catch-all futurespeak swear word 'slugger'.)

you fool, they'll be loving dead by half way through the first adventure

But to be serious, part of the reason why I dislike the series is because it is trying to be progressive by marking off a check list of things and taking them to an absurd extreme. It's a series where, in the Hero Project, half a dozen characters bring the plot to a screeching halt so they can hold a long argument about the importance of using correct gender pronouns and getting gender right. At the same time, it's a series where a character named Processor is defined repeatedly not by her status as a super-intelligent AI who helps the most powerful superhero group in the world but by her massive 'rack'. Her rack - a play on 'server rack' and a term for breasts, of course - is consistently mentioned whenever she appears to the extent that I know nothing else about her beyond that fact.

I think the series goes for 'tongue in cheek' but it just wraps around to flat out stupid. Whenever it deals with any sort of social issue, it reads like someone who had only digested that info through the Internet and hasn't read a single book or academic article on the topic.

I understand that it's important to be gender-inclusive but you kind of assume that comes with treating the matter appropriately. But I feel presenting the player with the six following options isn't treating it appropriately.

I'm female.
I'm male.
I was assigned male at birth, but am truly female.
I was assigned female at birth, but am truly male.
I was born with intersex characteristics.
I don't subscribe to any gender categories.

My first thought when seeing that is 'Does any of this actually affect the story?' I feel like if you're getting that detailed then it'd probably be best to write something that dealt with it more in-depth as opposed to what feels like bolting it on to your young adult superhero story series where the most indepth it gets is whether your love interest is a man or woman and which hot celebrity do they look like.

Of course, I'm the kind of person who thinks that if my choice of gender doesn't affect the story, you might as well just give me a male or female or anything else and tell a drat good story as opposed to giving me a choice that might weaken it.

I don't know. I find it odd that a series that tries to earn points for being super-inclusive defines so many characters purely by their physical appearance, particularly by whether they're masculine or feminine, attractive or not attractive. It's kind of the same issue I have with Overwatch, where their big muscular woman character still has a very pretty face and pink hair. It feels forced and fake, like being 'progressive' but still making them attractive to typical male standards of beauty.

Sinteres posted:

Is this a case where the sequels are much worse than the original? I played the first game tonight out of curiosity and didn't think it was too bad. I mean nobody's going to mistake it for subtle or anything, but it didn't seem as bad as the dire warnings. The new game sounds loving terrible though.

Absolutely. The first is bad and reads like a first draft but it shows some promise there and a fair bit of novelty. You would assume that any later installments would be a substantial improvement. They're not. In a lot of ways, they get worse.

The first game does have some ridiculous 'choices' though. Like when you say you're going to infiltrate a supervillain lair... so you walk in through the front door in your superhero outfit.

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Apr 9, 2016

# ? Apr 9, 2016 12:51

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

If nothing else, this review is hilarious. Thanks for the sufferin!

# ? Apr 9, 2016 18:18

VivaLa Eeveelution: Apr 3, 2011

Update: The PC has since become a bee, an owl, and is now a tardigrade. Furries are weird, man.

The reality show bullshit is still bullshit no matter how much the PC calls it out for being bullshit (just like the last time we went through this bullshit), and the sister's favourite drink is SlugGlug which, given the vernacular of the 'verse...

yaaaaaaaaas Tarana Rain's back don't gently caress her up

Ugh, so are The Bear and Scoundrel.

Wait, several characters seem to have forgotten to take their daily stupid pills and are scrutinising the whole hero/fame relationship. Sergi's trying, guys, he's trying, but can he stick the landing?

EDIT: No.

VivaLa Eeveelution fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Apr 10, 2016

# ? Apr 10, 2016 05:23

neongrey: Feb 28, 2007; Plaguing your posts with incidental music.

Milky Moor posted:

I understand that it's important to be gender-inclusive but you kind of assume that comes with treating the matter appropriately. But I feel presenting the player with the six following options isn't treating it appropriately.

I'm female.
I'm male.
I was assigned male at birth, but am truly female.
I was assigned female at birth, but am truly male.
I was born with intersex characteristics.
I don't subscribe to any gender categories.

The thing is, and while I feel like this is really sloppy handling of it, there are a lot of people out there for whom having it be an option and then having it not be a big deal is kind of significant. So to have a game where you can go 'my particular circumstances are reflected in a non-negative way' feels nice. The fact that this game does it entirely as a mad lib is lousy and I'm not inclined to give it much credit for that, but there are enough people out there desperate enough for literally any representation at all that I won't hold it against the game for trying. There's enough to hold against the game without having to go to that.

# ? Apr 10, 2016 05:50

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

neongrey posted:

The thing is, and while I feel like this is really sloppy handling of it, there are a lot of people out there for whom having it be an option and then having it not be a big deal is kind of significant. So to have a game where you can go 'my particular circumstances are reflected in a non-negative way' feels nice. The fact that this game does it entirely as a mad lib is lousy and I'm not inclined to give it much credit for that, but there are enough people out there desperate enough for literally any representation at all that I won't hold it against the game for trying. There's enough to hold against the game without having to go to that.

I know, and I agree, honestly.

I'm usually torn between whether to give credit for trying when it comes to media. Do we award points for ticking boxes or should we expect a more deeper understanding if a game is going to explore things like that? If I was particularly cynical, I'd say it's just a pure marketing tool.

But it's not a series where, despite those choices, I'd be comfortable calling it progressive or particularly deft in its handling of sex and gender (instead of having the big rack female servant AI, surely you could have that character be uninhibited by traditional gender roles - but that'd be harder to write, I guess). So, it feels like it essentially comes down to 'It's good that this option exists, I guess'.

The Deviations posted:

Update: The PC has since become a bee, an owl, and is now a tardigrade. Furries are weird, man.

The reality show bullshit is still bullshit no matter how much the PC calls it out for being bullshit (just like the last time we went through this bullshit), and the sister's favourite drink is SlugGlug which, given the vernacular of the 'verse...

yaaaaaaaaas Tarana Rain's back don't gently caress her up

Ugh, so are The Bear and Scoundrel.

Wait, several characters seem to have forgotten to take their daily stupid pills and are scrutinising the whole hero/fame relationship. Sergi's trying, guys, he's trying, but can he stick the landing?

EDIT: No.

Details, man!

# ? Apr 10, 2016 06:05

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Played through A Study in Steampunk. It's quite good.

# ? Apr 10, 2016 15:47

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

The Deviations posted:

EDIT: No.

# ? Apr 10, 2016 23:26

Dr Kool-AIDS: Mar 26, 2004

Did anyone play Sergi's other book, Versus? I'm enjoying the opinions on the trainwreck of his other games, so I'm curious if anybody has any thoughts on that one and if it escapes any of the problems in them or is more of the same.

# ? Apr 11, 2016 01:32

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Sinteres posted:

Did anyone play Sergi's other book, Versus? I'm enjoying the opinions on the trainwreck of his other games, so I'm curious if anybody has any thoughts on that one and if it escapes any of the problems in them or is more of the same.

I haven't played it, so, let's find out, shall we? From the Steam store...

"Empress Vaccus's desire to kill is so potent that nothing can exist alongside it. Except perhaps the lingering craving for Priscan enamel and tooth roots..."

So I guess the antagonist likes eating teeth? :confused:

Pay-to-win DLC, too.

# ? Apr 11, 2016 03:52

Wolpertinger: Feb 16, 2011

Megazver posted:

Played through A Study in Steampunk. It's quite good.

This was really surprisingly entertaining.

spiralling into despair after your lover dies, in a moment of weakness eat the life of a mugger, becoming a light-eater that starts hunting down criminals in the slums and eating their souls, becoming a serial killer who loses control of his addiction and starts killing random innocent hobos and beggars and is then hunted down and killed by his own lover, who it turns out had faked his own death, in a tearful standoff made for quite the ending :unsmigghh:

Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Apr 11, 2016

# ? Apr 11, 2016 14:08

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

My one playthrough so far didn't exactly go that way.

# ? Apr 11, 2016 15:20

Wolpertinger: Feb 16, 2011

Megazver posted:

My one playthrough so far didn't exactly go that way.

Heh, yeah, you sort of have to go out of your way a little bit for that, but once you start doing it the game gives you one chance to stop and seek help, then reasonable options start becoming greyed out and unselectable as you spiral into insanity.

# ? Apr 11, 2016 23:48

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Rock Paper Shotgun reviewed the PC versions of Sorcery! 1&2.

Megazver fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Apr 12, 2016

# ? Apr 12, 2016 21:37

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Megazver posted:

Rock Paper Shotgun reviewed the PC versions of Sorcery! 1&2.

And then, the third one. Check this review out.

# ? Apr 14, 2016 21:44

potatocubed: Jul 26, 2012; *rathian noises*

I'm pretty certain I've defended Inform's documentation here before, but now I've gone back to actually using it I've changed my mind. :suicide101:

For example, here's my current situation and the solution I've come up with:

I want the player to be able to stand in the bathroom and fill a bucket with water from the taps. The command is 'FILL BUCKET WITH WATER'.

The bucket's all set up. Standard container, works just fine.

'Filling with' is also set up as a new verb. Again, works just fine.

But you can't fill the bucket with water, because nothing called 'water' exists anywhere in the world, so when you type the command Inform just rejects it out of hand. This is important, because it does so before it checks the filling with rules so I can't even intercept it and create my desired end result. You can check this by running your story in Inform and typing RULES ON as a special command. Trying to interact with things that aren't present doesn't trigger any rules at all -- it just straight fails.

So I make an item called 'some water' and stash it Nowhere. Turns out that Inform also rejects noun-oriented commands out of hand if the object isn't in the same location.

So I put the water in the bathroom. Now you can fill the bucket with it, but you can also see it in room item listings.

So I make it scenery. Which means you can still interact with it - 'X WATER' in the bathroom lets you look at the water - but at least it's not listed so people might not think to do that. Except now it can't move to the bucket because you can't put scenery in a container. You also can't have two objects with the same name, so I can't have water-the-object and water-the-scenery, which would otherwise solve this problem (in conjunction with some instead rules). I could work around this with the printed name instruction, but that produces its own oddities.

So I spend an hour last night loving around with rulebooks, trying to create an item which exists only as a placeholder name so the god drat interaction rules will fire. No joy.

Then today, I hit upon the answer!

While the player is in the bathroom, Inform treats any reference to the word "water" as "taps". :pseudo:

The taps are scenery already, and trying to fill the bucket with them triggers the filling with rules -- so I can intercept that call and move the water object into the bucket. This also means that FILL BUCKET WITH TAPS will also fill the bucket with water, which is a very minor side benefit of this arcane setup.

I'm sure there's a better way of doing this, probably using rulebooks somehow, but hosed if I know what it is.

# ? Apr 15, 2016 13:35

Twerkteam Pizza: Sep 26, 2015; Grimey Drawer

potatocubed posted:

I'm pretty certain I've defended Inform's documentation here before, but now I've gone back to actually using it I've changed my mind.

For example, here's my current situation and the solution I've come up with:

I want the player to be able to stand in the bathroom and fill a bucket with water from the taps. The command is 'FILL BUCKET WITH WATER'.

The bucket's all set up. Standard container, works just fine.

'Filling with' is also set up as a new verb. Again, works just fine.

But you can't fill the bucket with water, because nothing called 'water' exists anywhere in the world, so when you type the command Inform just rejects it out of hand. This is important, because it does so before it checks the filling with rules so I can't even intercept it and create my desired end result. You can check this by running your story in Inform and typing RULES ON as a special command. Trying to interact with things that aren't present doesn't trigger any rules at all -- it just straight fails.

So I make an item called 'some water' and stash it Nowhere. Turns out that Inform also rejects noun-oriented commands out of hand if the object isn't in the same location.

So I put the water in the bathroom. Now you can fill the bucket with it, but you can also see it in room item listings.

So I make it scenery. Which means you can still interact with it - 'X WATER' in the bathroom lets you look at the water - but at least it's not listed so people might not think to do that. Except now it can't move to the bucket because you can't put scenery in a container. You also can't have two objects with the same name, so I can't have water-the-object and water-the-scenery, which would otherwise solve this problem (in conjunction with some instead rules). I could work around this with the printed name instruction, but that produces its own oddities.

So I spend an hour last night loving around with rulebooks, trying to create an item which exists only as a placeholder name so the god drat interaction rules will fire. No joy.

Then today, I hit upon the answer!

While the player is in the bathroom, Inform treats any reference to the word "water" as "taps". The taps are scenery already, and trying to fill the bucket with them triggers the filling with rules -- so I can intercept that call and move the water object into the bucket. This also means that FILL BUCKET WITH TAPS will also fill the bucket with water, which is a very minor side benefit of this arcane setup.

I'm sure there's a better way of doing this, probably using rulebooks somehow, but hosed if I know what it is.

...Bad.

# ? Apr 17, 2016 21:42

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

potatocubed posted:

So I make it scenery. Which means you can still interact with it - 'X WATER' in the bathroom lets you look at the water - but at least it's not listed so people might not think to do that. Except now it can't move to the bucket because you can't put scenery in a container. You also can't have two objects with the same name, so I can't have water-the-object and water-the-scenery, which would otherwise solve this problem (in conjunction with some instead rules). I could work around this with the printed name instruction, but that produces its own oddities.

You can't have two objects with the same object name, but you can have several objects that can be referred to by the same word. Like this:

"The dummyWater is scenery in the bathroom. Understand "water" as the dummyWater.

The water is a thing.

Instead of filling the bucket with the dummyWater:
remove the dummyWater from play;
now the water is in the bucket."

Since the two waters should never be in scope at the same time, there is no parser ambiguity.

You can also make an object "undescribed", which prevents it from being mentioned without making it scenery, if that helps

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Apr 17, 2016

# ? Apr 17, 2016 21:50

potatocubed: Jul 26, 2012; *rathian noises*

SimonChris posted:

You can't have two objects with the same object name, but you can have several objects that can be referred to by the same word. Like this:

Aha! I knew there had to be a way of doing it I wasn't aware of, thank you.

# ? Apr 17, 2016 21:59

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

Twerkteam Pizza posted:

...Bad.

I'm trying to remember the hoops I had to go through to do something simple like keep track of the number of times a player did something and then give a different room description for each value. I do remember trying different things like attempting to just make multiple rooms to ferry the player through or using some sort of clock/timing function? All I really remember is that it was a spectacular failure.

# ? Apr 17, 2016 22:06

isak terrible: Apr 19, 2016

Sup, is this the place to hang out if you're making twines and are interested in IF in general?

# ? Apr 19, 2016 20:50

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Sure.

Although if you want an actual IF community, as opposed to a bunch of goons who are interested in IF, you might want to check out some other IF communities.

# ? Apr 19, 2016 20:52

isak terrible: Apr 19, 2016

I don't know where to look for those, though. Also, goons who like IF sound like a pretty good community, because goons are a known quantity and other IF-likers aren't.

# ? Apr 19, 2016 20:54

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

http://www.intfiction.org/forum/

https://twinery.org/forum/

https://euphoria.io/room/if/

http://ifmud.port4000.com/

# ? Apr 19, 2016 21:00

isak terrible: Apr 19, 2016

Ah, cheers!

# ? Apr 19, 2016 21:19

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

That said, if you've got a project you're working on, by all means tell us all about it.

# ? Apr 20, 2016 08:09

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

Andrew Plotkin isn't sure what to charge for Hadean Lands on Steam, and wants our comments and opinions.

# ? Apr 22, 2016 02:31

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Adventure Time references Twine in a recent episode:

# ? Apr 24, 2016 21:22

potatocubed: Jul 26, 2012; *rathian noises*

In case people other than me were waiting for this, Inkle have written a something that lets you plug ink right into Unity, and a sample game that shows you how it all goes together. I'd have given it all a test drive, but I'm at work and IT would frown on me trying to install Unity on my PC.

http://www.inklestudios.com/ink/

# ? Apr 26, 2016 11:02

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Potsticker posted:

I'm trying to remember the hoops I had to go through to do something simple like keep track of the number of times a player did something and then give a different room description for each value. I do remember trying different things like attempting to just make multiple rooms to ferry the player through or using some sort of clock/timing function? All I really remember is that it was a spectacular failure.

Doing one specific thing?

code:

The jump count is a number that varies.

After jumping:
	increment the jump count;
	continue the action.

Trampoline is a room. "[if jump count is 0]Nothing happens.[otherwise if jump count is 1]This happens.[otherwise if jump count is 2]That happens.[otherwise if jump count is 3]Those happen.[otherwise]Everything happened.[end if]"

# ? Apr 28, 2016 22:17

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

Well, I went to check to see if I could find the code on dropbox for specifics and almost couldn't find it.

This is a Mastermind-type puzzle where you have to figure out the correct "code" via superpower usage. I have no idea if this code runs or not. I've trimmed and snipped a bit so this isn't so long

code:

firstPower is a number variable;
secondPower is a number variable;
thirdPower is a number variable;
fourthPower is a number variable;
status is a number variable;
numberCorrect is a number variable;

When play begins:
 	now the firstPower is 1;
 	now the secondPower is a random number between 1 and 4;
 	now the thirdPower is a random number between 1 and 4;
 	now the fourthPower is a random number between 1 and 4;
	now status is 0;
	now numberCorrect is 0;

Section 2 - Introduction

When play begins:
	say "[bold type]Introduction[line break]";
	say "[roman type]snip. [line break][line break]";

Section 3 - Challenge Room

Challenge Room is a room. The player is in the Challenge Room; Challenge Room is private;


Understand "restart/restore/quit" as "[meta-command]";
Understand "strength/punch/superstrength/1/one" as "[str-power]";
Understand "heat/lazers/heatvision/eyelazers/2/two" as "[eye-power]";
Understand "fly/flight/flying/3/three" as "[fly-power]";
Understand "x-ray/xray/supervision/x-rayvision/xrayvision/4/Four" as "[ray-power]";


After reading a command while status is 0:
	now status is 1;
	if the player's command matches "[meta-command]":
		make no decision;
	otherwise if the player's command matches "[str-power]":
		if the firstPower is 1:
			say "Succeeded!";
			increase numberCorrect by 1;
		otherwise:
			say "Failed!";
		[say "[italic type](Super Strength)[line break]";]
		[follow the strSucced1 rule;]
		rule succeeds;
	otherwise if the player's command matches "[eye-power]":
		if the firstPower is 2:
			say "Succeeded!";
			increase numberCorrect by 1;
		otherwise:
			say "Failed!";
		[follow the strSucced1 rule;]
		rule succeeds;
	otherwise if the player's command matches "[fly-power]":
		if the firstPower is 3:
			say "Succeeded!";
			increase numberCorrect by 1;
		otherwise:
			say "Failed!";
		[follow the strSucced1 rule;]
		rule succeeds;
	otherwise if the player's command matches "[ray-power]":
		if the firstPower is 4:
			say "Succeeded!";
			increase numberCorrect by 1;
		otherwise:
			say "Failed!";
		[follow the strSucced1 rule;]
		rule succeeds;
	otherwise:
		say "Pick a Power to Use[line break]";
		now status is 0;
		reject the player's command;
		rule fails;

This last part here is ridiculous, since for some reason I couldn't figure out how to more gracefully detect how many chances the player had left so this code is repeated for each value of status. And then at the end it either moves the player into a room for the victory text or a different one for failure.

# ? Apr 28, 2016 22:39

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Potsticker posted:

Well, I went to check to see if I could find the code on dropbox for specifics and almost couldn't find it.

This is a Mastermind-type puzzle where you have to figure out the correct "code" via superpower usage. I have no idea if this code runs or not. I've trimmed and snipped a bit so this isn't so long

This last part here is ridiculous, since for some reason I couldn't figure out how to more gracefully detect how many chances the player had left so this code is repeated for each value of status. And then at the end it either moves the player into a room for the victory text or a different one for failure.

Um. Yeah, any* time you feel the need to end-run around the parser, you know you're heading down the wrong path in I7.

You probably want to model the superpowers as their own class of value (think enums from other languages). And then you would define a new kind of action for using them.

The rest of this is setting up the Mastermind implementation and limiting the actions in this room to only using superpowers. (Actions out-of-world like save and restore are automatically excluded from such rules, so (unless you break the parser...) you don't need to special-case them yourself.)

code:

Section 1 - Definitions

A superpower is a kind of value.
The superpowers are str-power, eye-power, fly-power, ray-power.

Understand "strength/punch/superstrength/1/one" as str-power.
Understand "heat/lazers/heatvision/eyelazers/2/two" as eye-power.
Understand "fly/flight/flying/3/three" as fly-power.
Understand "x-ray/xray/supervision/x-rayvision/xrayvision/4/Four" as ray-power.

Using power is an action applying to one value. 
Understand "use [a superpower]" as using power. Understand "[a superpower]" as using power.
	

Section 2 - Introduction

When play begins:
	say "[bold type]Introduction[line break]";
	say "[roman type]snip. [line break][line break]".

Section 3 - Challenge Room

Challenge Room is a room. [It is private.]

Instead of doing anything other than looking or using power when the location is Challenge Room:
	say "Pick a Power to Use."

The challenge list is a list of superpowers that varies.

When play begins:
	now the challenge list is the list of all superpowers;
	sort the challenge list in random order;
	say the challenge list.
	
The success count is initially 0.

Instead of using power when the location is Challenge Room:
	if the superpower understood is entry (success count + 1) of the challenge list:
		say "Succeeded!";
		increment success count;
		if success count is 4:
			end the story finally saying "You win!";
	otherwise:
		say "Failed!";
		now the success count is 0.

Now you can write rules like "Report using power eye-power:" and so on.

*_{Well, almost any time. Maybe not if it involves running regex on the user's command or replacing the parser with a choice-based menu system, say. But then there are probably extensions to handle that for you.}

Fuschia tude fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Apr 29, 2016

# ? Apr 29, 2016 00:50

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

Yeah, I shouldn't have been using Inform for that sort of game at all, but my friend was only familiar with it and he wanted to collaborate with him doing most of the writing. It was doomed to fail.

But, it looks like here:

code:


When play begins:
	now the challenge list is the list of all superpowers;
	sort the challenge list in random order;
	say the challenge list.

Is only going to make a "code" where each power can only be the solution once each. Unless I'm misunderstanding how it works?

# ? Apr 29, 2016 01:42

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Potsticker posted:

Yeah, I shouldn't have been using Inform for that sort of game at all, but my friend was only familiar with it and he wanted to collaborate with him doing most of the writing. It was doomed to fail.

But, it looks like here:
code:
When play begins:
	now the challenge list is the list of all superpowers;
	sort the challenge list in random order;
	say the challenge list.
Is only going to make a "code" where each power can only be the solution once each. Unless I'm misunderstanding how it works?

No, that's right. It's been like twenty years since I've played Mastermind, I forgot how it works :v:

So, to allow duplicate powers:

code:

When play begins:
	repeat with x running from 1 to 4:
		add a random superpower to the challenge list;
	say the challenge list.

# ? Apr 29, 2016 05:25

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

This year's XYZZY finalists.

# ? May 1, 2016 19:50

Twerkteam Pizza: Sep 26, 2015; Grimey Drawer

Megazver posted:

This year's XYZZY finalists.

I honestly think Birdland deserves best game, but Midnight Swordfight was fun for the 10 minutes time I had to play it today

# ? May 2, 2016 05:15

Sundae: Dec 1, 2005

Twerkteam Pizza posted:

I honestly think Birdland deserves best game, but Midnight Swordfight was fun for the 10 minutes time I had to play it today

Birdland was fantastic. Wonderfully silly and fun to read, and it made my night going through it.

I also liked what was tried with the art implementation in Secret Agent Cinder, but the overall implementation came out a little subpar. I also appreciate that the author didn't make the mistake of having failures send you all the way back to the beginning again.

# ? May 3, 2016 17:41

wit: Jul 26, 2011

I thought it was a nice touch that The Talos Principle: The Road to Gehenna included a little BBS with cute CYOAs minigames though I've only watched voidburger's LP of it so far. Nicely written from the perspective of trapped robots who write about the real world like we write fantasy based only on the patchy milton archive of humanity. They did a little of that with Milton in the original game, but it was just philosophical babble for the most part so a swing and a miss for me. But this time it has a little forum of mod sassing robots who don't go anywhere other than the confines of the room containing their terminal so contains silly humor trying to figure out things humans did like crapping and eating for fuel.

In other news, there's something really jarring for me about inform 7 being a language written in broken English in which your story is full English but the commands are all in smashed to hell English. Its like 3 different layers of English all fighting for attention at once. Does it just *click* after a while?

wit fucked around with this message at 13:35 on May 28, 2016

# ? May 28, 2016 13:32

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Birdland just won six Xyzzy Awards - Best Game, Best Writing, Best PC, Best NPCs, Best Individual NPC and Best Story.

Just played through it, it's p. good.

# ? May 29, 2016 12:23

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 21:28

John F Bennett: Jan 30, 2013; I always wear my wedding ring. It's my trademark.

But isn't that just a CYOA game? Or do those also count as text adventures these days?

It just seems more of a writers' product than a game. I'm sure it's good, though, and I'm probably just old.

# ? May 29, 2016 17:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Text Adventures - When authors pretend to be programmers and visa versa

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