Chat with me about my game Piracy 2.0.
Sean Huxter
(Hopefully spoiler light, but there MAY be spoilers in here)
I entered Piracy 2.0, which was a complete revamp of a BASIC game I wrote in
1985 on my Commodore 64. Using Inform, I was able to give it a full Infocom
treatment, and was happy to do so.
Many people consider the Infocom-style passe, but I still love it, and was
satisfied to have created a game that resembled those games in some way.
I was happy to read a lot of the reviews that seemed not to mind the
somewhat dated concept of space piracy. See, I came to the IF Comp this
year. My first year. I admit I have played games of the past years, but not
that many, and have never played another space piracy game.
And since my original was written in 1985, I think I may actually have
beaten most people to the punch, but this new, 2008 game sufferes somewhat
from being "done before". It's kind of like the "Lord of the Rings" movies
being considered "done" because of so many imitators and people doing
similar things since the books were written. But the original still holds
up.
My goal for entering the competition was to hopefully finish in the top
half, this being my very first INFORM (6.0, by the way) effort, and the
first time I've tried coding an IF game since 1987 or so, when I tried to
recode my PIRACY game for the Commodore 128 to take advantage of its extra
memory. (My original was dangerously close to running out of BASIC memory
space, and didn't feel meaty enough.) but never finished the project.
I certainly had no illusions of winning. Truly, I hoped to get people to
play it and enjoy it.
I was happy to see reviewers like Emily Short, Inky and Dan Shiovitz place
it in their short lists, or their "Highly Recommended" categories. Thanks
for that. I think my favorite review was "mybloglovesme", which was quite
exuberant, and made my day.
I'm particularly grateful for people who included bugs in their review,
which I have logged and will attempt to fix for a post-comp release.
I already fixed the "feelies" map which I originally released with too much
information on it, thanks to an early review which pointed out that I had
actually released a version that was a working copy, complete with hidden
items listed. Ooops.
And I didn't know I should include those graphic images WITH the game. Duly
noted for future.
(Note: There are still plenty of Purple DataCube "feelies" available for the
cost of shiping should anyone want one.)
Mostly, I'm glad some people gave the game a second chance after discovering
the ">Walkthrough" command, which was added rather hastily at the last
minute because Stephen e-mailed the authors with various recommendations for
our submissions, and I wasn't aware a "walkthrough" command was commonplace.
When informed it was, I put it in, thinking it WAS commonplace - enough that
people would at least think to try it out as a command. And still many
people were not aware it was there. I didn't make it terribly explicit
because I thought it WAS so commonplace. Like "help" or "about" or "undo".
I didn't think I had to call attention to it, nor did I think it necessary
to include a Walkthrough.txt file WITH the game. Chalk up another rookie
mistake.
And who knew so many reviewers would use "X me" as a test-bed of throughness
of implementation. Rookie mistake number three. Now I know.
And yes, now that I think on it, it would have been a great opportunity to
piggyback that to the >health or >status command, so when you ">x me" you
would get a status report as well as a physical description of yourself.
One stupid bug had to do with crew identity - one discovered object refers
to a particular crew member, which I had coded months before I actually
coded the crew roster, and the name of my First Officer gets confused,
because the letter purported to be from one crewmember, but that crewmember
was incorrectly named in the Ship's Crew list.
Random encounters. I really have no idea what people have against them. Most
games (and yes, this is a game) have random encounters with baddies, and I
felt that this one needed that as a sense of urgency and danger. I really am
not fond of games that give poeple an absolute clear path to victory without
the possibility of death or set-back. I put in several methods to alleviate
any injuries you get, but if you get too many, you're gonna die. But I'm
pretty tolerant with it. I give you four chances to lower your damage, and
the actual battles are fairly fair, probability-wise. And I have no problems
with that.
The one proplem I hadn't anticpated was the ability to UNDO commands. As a
newbie to INFORM, it came as a somewhat pleasant surprise to me that you
could actually "UNDO" a bad command. However, it sort of made my random
pirate encounters moot, since you could simply undo them... I really wish I
had the ability to disable undo for attack commands and random encounters
But I also learned that random encounters were just not the cup of tea for a
lot of players.
Perhaps next time, if I do opt to write another game with baddies, that they
will be specific encounters, pre-programmed to occur at specific places or
under specific circumstances.
One person that I'm aware of actually noted that you can slow down the
intensity of the pirates' patrols if you trick them into thinking you hadn't
escaped the Brig after all. This was coded by me, and I thought very few
people would actually do it, with a very real possibility of NO ONE ever
noticing that. But someone did. It's times when someone discovers one of the
tiny things like that that made me feel better about my entry. (Spoiler -
if, after you break out of the Freezer, and Whitehall sends his troops to
check on you in the brig, you actually go back INTO the brig, a pirate looks
in on you and sees you still there. After that, the pirate patrols nearly
stop until they encounter you again.)
A lot of people thought the beginning wordy, and one or two reviewers
suggested it would have made a better prologue, and I agree completely, but
thought that writing a rail mini-game to start off with would have been less
"interactive" considering no matter what the Captain did during that opening
would inevitably lead to the shp's capture and the murder of the crew,
though I did think it would have been nice to actually meet your crew,
interact with them a bit before they were all killed - giving the player
more of an emotional investment in the characters and the game even before
it really got started. I hoped the crew roster would provide some of that
empathy, knowing that each of the people you're reading about were brutally
murdered by the pirate captain.
Not many comments on what the "dust" was, though one or two reviewers said
they never did find out what it was supposed to mean. If you got through to
a certain point before the end, it's spelled out for you. And again, some
people thought it was too cliche', and again, I partially agree. Anyone who
knows his/her Star Trek would probably get it right away. But I thought it
made for a nice little "reveal" near the end.
Sorry. No space parrots or eye-patches, though I did toy with the idea of
giving Whitehall a targeting eye-piece that resembled one. I thought better
of it after having seen "The Pirate Planet" (Douglas Adams Doctor Who
episode) so many times.
And I'm not sure I regret not putting in a single "Arrrrr...."
As for the tome-like end-text, since the entire aim of the game is to score
what you did during your attempt to redeem yourself as captain and get your
ship home to safety, and that every action you did counts for something,
that you needed a detailed score list at the end. If you didn't do certain
things, or did certain things, it would end more badly for you, and you
could end up in complete disgrace. But a perfect ending exonerated you
completely from wrong-doing.
I also didn't want to create a "skinner box" where every correct move was
rewarded with a score increase, for two reasons: Some things DECREASED your
score, and that would have been strange, or better, things you OMITTED to do
decreased your score. It didn't work well as an on-going tally like most
games have.
It really is a game of judgment. Ultimately, your score is based on what you
did or didn't do throughout play, and I didn't necessarily want to make it
obvious what each step was. I hoped the story itself made it fairly obvious.
And the tally at the end makes them much more obvious - so on re-play, you
had a far better idea of what not to forget, or not to do.
Hints are given here and there, what with emergency procedures listed out
for you in the computers, and interacting with poor, doomed crewmember
Haliday gave you some insight as well. Sadly, you can't help him. He's too
far gone. Many people tried to use the Bioinjector on him, but alas, it was
not to be. I should code in a good response for the attempt, though.
But there are many interactions with him that I'm guessing a lot of players
wouldn't attempt because they aren't obvious. Like if you type: ">haliday,
how are you?" you get a decent response. Or ">haliday, what happened?" and
">haliday, how are you doing?" each have sensible responses. He reacts to
more than just showing him or giving him things, though that's the easiest
and most obvious interactions to code in INFORM 6.0.
Anyway, the past six weeks have been fun, and I appreciate everyone who
played, and especially everyone who reviewed the game publicly, whether they
liked it or not.
I was happy to participate, and look forward to the results.
Sean.
Emily Short
wrote:
> Random encounters. I really have no idea what people have against them. Most
> games (and yes, this is a game) have random encounters with baddies,
A lot of games in general do; most IF games do not.
This has actually been the subject of a fair amount of discussion over
the years. As you noted, the UNDO command makes it easy to take back
random events that don't go well; that means that a player confronted
with randomized combat will often use UNDO in order to grind through
combats to success. This approach is boring (for which he will blame
the author) but since it's an available way to win, he'll use it.
For the author, another possibility is to turn off the UNDO
capability, but that annoys players in other ways, because it tends to
penalize for all kinds of other dumb mistakes one can make while
playing.
This problem (and possible solutions) get discussed at some length in
this old thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction/browse_frm/thread/8765176cbc6e41b8
and there have been recently some interesting experiments with
different ways of setting up randomized combat in IF so as to increase
the gameplay aspect of it and reduce the inclination to UNDO.
Personally, I didn't have a lot of trouble (and didn't UNDO a lot)
because I was able to go back and get healed as necessary. I also did
do the sneaking-back-to-the-brig thing early in the game (and I was
impressed that was implemented!) but they pretty soon realized that I
was out again, so it didn't protect me for long.
That said:
> I really wish I
> had the ability to disable undo for attack commands and random encounters
This is possible. The extensions I know of to handle it are Inform 7
rather than Inform 6 extensions, but you might be able to look at them
and borrow their techniques.
> I also didn't want to create a "skinner box" where every correct move was
> rewarded with a score increase, for two reasons: Some things DECREASED your
> score, and that would have been strange, or better, things you OMITTED to do
> decreased your score. It didn't work well as an on-going tally like most
> games have.
This is a feature of the game that I really liked: it felt like I
needed to understand the whole system of the ship and then use it to
my advantage, rather than solving a sequence of pre-constructed
puzzles.
> But there are many interactions with him that I'm guessing a lot of players
> wouldn't attempt because they aren't obvious. Like if you type: ">haliday,
> how are you?" you get a decent response. Or ">haliday, what happened?" and
> ">haliday, how are you doing?" each have sensible responses. He reacts to
> more than just showing him or giving him things, though that's the easiest
> and most obvious interactions to code in INFORM 6.0.
Yeah, this kind of conversation is so rare in IF (because it's open-
ended and the author can't possibly handle every phrase you throw at
the NPC) that most seasoned players won't try it unless you lay some
hints in that direction.
George Shannon
On Nov 16, 12:48 pm, "Sean Huxter" <sean.hux...@SPAMverizon.net>
wrote:
> Not many comments on what the "dust" was, though one or two reviewers said
> they never did find out what it was supposed to mean. If you got through to
> a certain point before the end, it's spelled out for you. And again, some
> people thought it was too cliche', and again, I partially agree. Anyone who
> knows his/her Star Trek would probably get it right away. But I thought it
> made for a nice little "reveal" near the end.
I didn't get this. Was it metal chaff from grenades intended to block
laser fire?
Bob
> Hi Sean! Cool game, I had fun!
Me too. I only managed to play 10 games this year, but Pirates was the
top ranking one. I especially liked the Infocom touch it had. If you
like these kinds of games, I recommend "Splashdown" from some years
ago, which I found fabulous. I didn't finish your game in the three
and something hours I played it (rated it after two hours, of course),
but I definitly will play it some more someday in the future.
> I didn't get this. Was it metal chaff from grenades intended to block
> laser fire?
I'm not sure I got it, either. I thought it would be the remains of
the crew members, since I didn't find their bodies anywhere.
Bob
Reiko
wrote:
> the ">Walkthrough" command, which was added rather hastily at the last
> minute because Stephen e-mailed the authors with various recommendations for
> our submissions, and I wasn't aware a "walkthrough" command was commonplace.
> When informed it was, I put it in, thinking it WAS commonplace - enough that
> people would at least think to try it out as a command. And still many
> people were not aware it was there. I didn't make it terribly explicit
> because I thought it WAS so commonplace. Like "help" or "about" or "undo".
It's not uncommon, but it's not so common as to be obvious without
notice. As in, unless I'm really flailing, I don't generally try it as
a command unless it's listed as being possible in the ABOUT file or
HELP or whatever. I'll always try HELP, but if WALKTHROUGH works, it
should be noted in the HELP response in some way. You'll notice in my
review (which I'm going to post along with the others for the comp
fairly soon) that I got stuck probably pretty early on and docked you
for no walkthrough. No hard feelings, but if I can't find the silly
thing, it's the same thing as if there isn't one. I did like what I
saw, though, so I didn't rate the game down other than that.
> I didn't think I had to call attention to it, nor did I think it necessary
> to include a Walkthrough.txt file WITH the game. Chalk up another rookie
> mistake.
Unless you like playing games with people's heads about walkthroughs
(*cough*DavidWhyld*cough), if you've got one, put it in a file. *nod*
> And who knew so many reviewers would use "X me" as a test-bed of throughness
> of implementation. Rookie mistake number three. Now I know.
Oh yes, I do that too. I used to use "xyzzy" as a secondary test, but
I gave up on that this year because so many of the early games in my
random listing didn't have anything interesting to say, or maybe
nothing to say at all. (Come on, it's so classic, at least recognize
the command...)
> And yes, now that I think on it, it would have been a great opportunity to
> piggyback that to the >health or >status command, so when you ">x me" you
> would get a status report as well as a physical description of yourself.
Yes, I think one other game in the comp actually did this, and it
worked really well (Berrost's Challenge?).
> Random encounters. I really have no idea what people have against them. Most
> games (and yes, this is a game) have random encounters with baddies, and I
> felt that this one needed that as a sense of urgency and danger. I really am
> not fond of games that give poeple an absolute clear path to victory without
> the possibility of death or set-back. I put in several methods to alleviate
> any injuries you get, but if you get too many, you're gonna die. But I'm
> pretty tolerant with it. I give you four chances to lower your damage, and
> the actual battles are fairly fair, probability-wise. And I have no problems
> with that.
This particular implementation of the random encounters felt
exceptionally like the dwarves throwing axes in classic Adventure,
except for the fact that you don't instantly die if you take damage. I
suppose that fits the era this game came from, but if you're making an
updated version for 2008, I'm not sure it works so well anymore.
<snip>
> One person that I'm aware of actually noted that you can slow down the
> intensity of the pirates' patrols if you trick them into thinking you hadn't
> escaped the Brig after all. This was coded by me, and I thought very few
> people would actually do it, with a very real possibility of NO ONE ever
> noticing that. But someone did. It's times when someone discovers one of the
> tiny things like that that made me feel better about my entry. (Spoiler -
> if, after you break out of the Freezer, and Whitehall sends his troops to
> check on you in the brig, you actually go back INTO the brig, a pirate looks
> in on you and sees you still there. After that, the pirate patrols nearly
> stop until they encounter you again.)
Yes! I actually did this too! One of the few things I figured out.
Actually, I thought I was screwed if I *didn't* do it. I only
encountered one pirate fight on the way to the bridge (and then
getting stuck), so I didn't notice if it didn't actually help too
much.
<snip>
> Not many comments on what the "dust" was, though one or two reviewers said
> they never did find out what it was supposed to mean. If you got through to
> a certain point before the end, it's spelled out for you. And again, some
> people thought it was too cliche', and again, I partially agree. Anyone who
> knows his/her Star Trek would probably get it right away. But I thought it
> made for a nice little "reveal" near the end.
I just thought it was dust from all the fighting and damage the ship
was taking. I didn't think too much about it, really. I'll definitely
have to go back in and find out.
<snip>
> But there are many interactions with him that I'm guessing a lot of players
> wouldn't attempt because they aren't obvious. Like if you type: ">haliday,
> how are you?" you get a decent response. Or ">haliday, what happened?" and
> ">haliday, how are you doing?" each have sensible responses. He reacts to
> more than just showing him or giving him things, though that's the easiest
> and most obvious interactions to code in INFORM 6.0.
Yeah, free-form questions like that usually don't work in IF, so
people don't usually try them. I certainly didn't. But I wasn't
particularly disappointed with the responses I got from him either.
~Reiko
Sean Huxter
"Reiko" <tel...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:52570696-8c59-461c...@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
No, I totally agree with your stance on this. I implemented the Walkthrough
at the suggestion of the moderator, but didn't include it in the fore-text,
nor in the About command, which was just due to haste. You're right. If you
can't find it, it's not really there. The first post-comp release will
definitely refer to it. I also didn't know I should include it with the
game, so I didn't. Yeah, I actually had to inform several people privately
that the command existed, and thankfully, some of them went back and tried
again, for which I am grateful.
>> I didn't think I had to call attention to it, nor did I think it
>> necessary
>> to include a Walkthrough.txt file WITH the game. Chalk up another rookie
>> mistake.
>
> Unless you like playing games with people's heads about walkthroughs
> (*cough*DavidWhyld*cough), if you've got one, put it in a file. *nod*
Yup. Lesson learned. The hard way.
>> And who knew so many reviewers would use "X me" as a test-bed of
>> throughness
>> of implementation. Rookie mistake number three. Now I know.
>
> Oh yes, I do that too. I used to use "xyzzy" as a secondary test, but
> I gave up on that this year because so many of the early games in my
> random listing didn't have anything interesting to say, or maybe
> nothing to say at all. (Come on, it's so classic, at least recognize
> the command...)
My xyzzy and plugh commands were short and simple, and were unchanged from
when the story was more of a humorous story. The two responses are simply:
"Dude!" and "Yeah!" I wish I had done a little more, and something more in
keeping with the revised mood of the game.
>> And yes, now that I think on it, it would have been a great opportunity
>> to
>> piggyback that to the >health or >status command, so when you ">x me" you
>> would get a status report as well as a physical description of yourself.
>
> Yes, I think one other game in the comp actually did this, and it
> worked really well (Berrost's Challenge?).
Yup. Going to add that for the post-comp release.
>> Random encounters. I really have no idea what people have against them.
>> Most
>> games (and yes, this is a game) have random encounters with baddies, and
>> I
>> felt that this one needed that as a sense of urgency and danger. I really
>> am
>> not fond of games that give poeple an absolute clear path to victory
>> without
>> the possibility of death or set-back. I put in several methods to
>> alleviate
>> any injuries you get, but if you get too many, you're gonna die. But I'm
>> pretty tolerant with it. I give you four chances to lower your damage,
>> and
>> the actual battles are fairly fair, probability-wise. And I have no
>> problems
>> with that.
>
> This particular implementation of the random encounters felt
> exceptionally like the dwarves throwing axes in classic Adventure,
> except for the fact that you don't instantly die if you take damage. I
> suppose that fits the era this game came from, but if you're making an
> updated version for 2008, I'm not sure it works so well anymore.
I hear ya. I got that a lot. Not sure what to do about it for this game,
though. Will likely have to leave it like it is without having to do a total
re-write.
> <snip>
>
>> One person that I'm aware of actually noted that you can slow down the
>> intensity of the pirates' patrols if you trick them into thinking you
>> hadn't
>> escaped the Brig after all. This was coded by me, and I thought very few
>> people would actually do it, with a very real possibility of NO ONE ever
>> noticing that. But someone did. It's times when someone discovers one of
>> the
>> tiny things like that that made me feel better about my entry. (Spoiler -
>> if, after you break out of the Freezer, and Whitehall sends his troops to
>> check on you in the brig, you actually go back INTO the brig, a pirate
>> looks
>> in on you and sees you still there. After that, the pirate patrols nearly
>> stop until they encounter you again.)
>
> Yes! I actually did this too! One of the few things I figured out.
> Actually, I thought I was screwed if I *didn't* do it. I only
> encountered one pirate fight on the way to the bridge (and then
> getting stuck), so I didn't notice if it didn't actually help too
> much.
The pirates' probability increases by multples depending on various events.
Sneaking back into the brig brings it back down to about zero, though, so
you're clear for a while. Other things, however, like trying to destroy the
ship or otherwise use the computer's commands, will alert the pirates again,
and the multiple will increase. (But not as much as if you DIDN'T go back to
the brig in time.)
> <snip>
>
>> Not many comments on what the "dust" was, though one or two reviewers
>> said
>> they never did find out what it was supposed to mean. If you got through
>> to
>> a certain point before the end, it's spelled out for you. And again, some
>> people thought it was too cliche', and again, I partially agree. Anyone
>> who
>> knows his/her Star Trek would probably get it right away. But I thought
>> it
>> made for a nice little "reveal" near the end.
>
> I just thought it was dust from all the fighting and damage the ship
> was taking. I didn't think too much about it, really. I'll definitely
> have to go back in and find out.
Haliday alludes to it a bit too. He's awfully horrified at what happened to
the crew. Yes, if you get to a certain part, the dust's nature is revealed
quite vividly.
> <snip>
>
>> But there are many interactions with him that I'm guessing a lot of
>> players
>> wouldn't attempt because they aren't obvious. Like if you type:
>> ">haliday,
>> how are you?" you get a decent response. Or ">haliday, what happened?"
>> and
>> ">haliday, how are you doing?" each have sensible responses. He reacts to
>> more than just showing him or giving him things, though that's the
>> easiest
>> and most obvious interactions to code in INFORM 6.0.
>
> Yeah, free-form questions like that usually don't work in IF, so
> people don't usually try them. I certainly didn't. But I wasn't
> particularly disappointed with the responses I got from him either.
I was going to add them in as a "amusing" add-on, but I wasn't sure the
responses were THAT notable, so I didn't. Perhaps I will.
> ~Reiko
Thanks for playing!
Sean.
George Shannon
wrote:
> Random encounters. I really have no idea what people have against them. Most
> games (and yes, this is a game) have random encounters with baddies, and I
> felt that this one needed that as a sense of urgency and danger. I really am
> not fond of games that give poeple an absolute clear path to victory without
> the possibility of death or set-back. I put in several methods to alleviate
> any injuries you get, but if you get too many, you're gonna die. But I'm
> pretty tolerant with it. I give you four chances to lower your damage, and
> the actual battles are fairly fair, probability-wise. And I have no problems
> with that.
I feel like I should comment on this, cause I think I know where
you're coming from. Yeah, some games do have random battles. But
they serve a purpose (level grinding, loot, etc.) on those games, and
you don't have one. The only thing they contribute is a chance to die
and have to reload. That, in itself, isn't fun.
I realize you can respond and say you might as well solve the game for
the player, but I didn't want to have to deal with the battles most of
the times they came up - I'm thinking about something else, gonna go
fiddle with the laser cannons or something, and instead have to trade
pot-shots with nameless pirates. IF is singular in this, in that the
player is expected to be typing what he wants to do, rather than
wandering around a generalized overland map where random encounters
are more reasonable. The random battles in your game yank me away
from what I want to do.
My suggestion: decrease the chance of pirate encounters when the
player is entering a room he's already been to, and increase it a bit
in cases where the player is entering a room he HASN'T been to. Of
course you're going to encounter dangerous things when you're
exploring - that's pretty much expected. You're not jerking the
player around so much in that case.
Sean Huxter
"Bob" <soen...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4e6e97ca-1682-4dfd...@k36g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
Bob
First, I didn't write the game specifically to be in THIS competition, but
the more I coded, the more I realized that it COULD be completed in two
hours, but most likely only if you "got it" fairly early. Otherwise, I knew
the risk that many players might take more than two hours. And that's
accpetable. I took that risk. Luckily a lot of people managed to finish it
in the time limit given, but some did not, and I can't say I blame them. I'm
not sure I could do it in under 2 hours if I came at it cold... unless I
really knew where the game was going at an early stage.
Thanks for playing! I appreciate it! And thanks for ranking it so high!
As for the dust, when you separate the bridge, the nature of the dust is
more or less spelled out for you in an action sequence involving Whitehall
and the traitorous crew member.
Sean.
Sean Huxter
Just in case anyone wants to see the Feelies available, or read up on my
thoughts during development, or see some documentation.
Sean.
"Sean Huxter" <sean....@SPAMverizon.net> wrote in message
news:E1ZTk.879$4g5...@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...