[Game] Overrwyrld

[David Kempe]

Hi all; haven't posted here before but I just started using PuzzleScript last week.

I just finished creating an adventure puzzle game (my first game ever!) that I'm calling Overrwyrld (I'm spelling it this way in homage to Michael Brough's Corrypt, which along with the original Zelda and Atari's Adventure were my main sources of inspiration). Mechanically it's pretty simple, but I've sent it around to a few friends and gamers I know who enjoy exploration-based games and they seemed to like it, so I figured I'd post it here to see what other people think.

Here's a link to the game (current build is v1.4): http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=db18e9a97a6c35907501

Best regards,

Dave

@kempedavid

www.stayingsquareinma.wordpress.com

[Alan Hazelden]

Pretty neat!

It feels weird that the abilities replace rather than combine, but that's not necessarily a problem. It's not clear if it's possible to get stuck and need to start from the beginning.

Also feels weird that there's no way to tell which objects are pushable/burnable/etc. and which aren't. Feels needlessly inconsistent.

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[David Kempe]

Thank you for playing! I spent a lot of time and testing to ensure it's possible to complete the game without getting stuck, so hopefully no worries there (unless worrying heightens the anticipation, I guess... then worry away and revel in the reassurances that await you!).

Minor spoilers for the game as a followup to your other comments:

About 3/4 of the way through the game you'll get all abilities back. Stacking the abilities to have them all active at once throughout the entirety of the game would've meant that players would do more things without really intending to do them. 

Also, for burnable "trees" (green) and pushable "rocks" (orange), making them immediately stand out would eliminate the challenge of finding them. That said, it's not complete anarchy; I made it a design rule to always include one pushable rock whenever there are rocks on screen, and always include one burnable tree when there are trees on screen. It's my variation on Zelda's secret caves where there is only one per panel; except I made it a little friendlier to never included any instances where a tree or rock panel is devoid of any interactivity. I also do give a subtle clue for the rocks; once the rock has been pushed, the combined pattern of all the rocks on screen is rotationally symmetrical.

End spoilers

[Stephen Lavelle]

I tried playing it, wandered around for a bit, and couldn't figure out how to do anything (movement speed felt a bit ponderous).  Aaah I wonder what I'm missing...

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[Chris Pickel]

After playing for a while I felt like most of my time was spent on pointless repetition: try climbing every wall on the size of a screen, try each tree to see which one I can burn, walk on every square to see which one opens up a wall, etc. There wasn’t really any time when I thought, “Oh, now that I have ability X I can go back and do Y!” which is what I would hope for in a game like this.

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[David Kempe]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for giving it a shot at least. So far the people I've shone it to were able to complete in about 45 minutes on average, but I admit establishing your bearings so early on can be a daunting investment. I don't know, personally I always liked how you could go just about anywhere right from the start of the original Zelda, but I don't know, if it proves a barrier to entry, maybe I'll start locking down parts of the overworld at least for the intro portion.

key_repeat_interval I ended up doubling after feedback from playtesting when people would sort of speed through panels too quickly without noticing what was there. It was at 10, and now at 20; maybe I should split the difference at 15 then.

[David Kempe]

Hi Chris, Thanks for Playing! 

Maybe I should revisit the wall-climbing tutorial area; I had hoped to show that only walls that are 1 square in length can be walked through; and that they can only be walked through going up or down. As a soft testing ground for players, I placed the powerup inside a wall spiral with walls of various lengths to show what the player can and can't climb through. In terms of trying to climb every wall elsewhere in the game though; there really aren't too many rooms that you either haven't been to before by the time you get the powerup, or aren't able to access just by walking there anyway. Recognizing how the game is grid-based is an important part of interpreting what to do. In terms of tree burning, the forest area isn't too big either, although I would suggest there was also a slight clue in the level design for the tree that leads to the powerup - it's a similar thought process behind the tree that leads to level 7 in the LOZ 2nd quest. For the powerup that opens up walls, there's also a recurring context clue in the level design for where to stand; I'm not so sadistic to force an entirely random occurrence on people; even my tolerance for exploration has limits! 

[Anna Anthropy]

i was really enjoying this until i got stuck (as far as i can tell) after getting the burn ability. there's a screen with a line of trees and i assume one of them is burnable, but i couldn't find it, or else i don't understand how burning works.

otherwise i like having the one burnable / movable object be non-obvious, but for a player that hasn't played legend of zelda it might feel like abilities are inconsistent / broken.

[David Kempe]

Hi Anna, Glad you were having fun until this part at least! That's a fair point that some mechanics may be foreign to non-loz players. The burn ability is pretty much a copy of how the candle works in that game, in that it always burns two squares away from the player; or in Puzzlescript terms, [ > player |  | burnable tree ].  I tried to set this up in that burning demo area by putting stuff in between the player and the burnable tree (water, another tree).

What really might help clarify is if I could get an animation of the flame traveling the 2 squares; so that the burnable tree doesn't just disappear. Is there a way to set like a timer on an object for it to spawn, move one square, move another square, and disappear without the player making any other movements? (Sorry, again, only been working with PuzzleScript for a week)

[David Kempe]

...at the risk of not playing it cool, Redder was one of the games that got me interested in freeware (the other was within a deep forest), and I'm a little starstruck here.

[Alan Hazelden]

The "again" keyword lets you trigger game turns without the player being able to move. See http://www.puzzlescript.net/Documentation/rules.html

Actually that reminds me that I would have liked the swimming to show an animation of moving every tile, rather than teleporting me. "again" can also be used to do that.

On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 9:44 PM, David Kempe <dmk...@gmail.com> wrote:

...at the risk of not playing it cool, Redder was one of the games that got me interested in freeware (the other was within a deep forest), and I'm a little starstruck here.

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[Hand-E-Food]

That was a beautifully designed world.  I can clearly see the inspiration from Corrypt.  However, I would not have played it without the map.  There was just too much hidden stuff to hunt.  Once I had the map showing the secrets, I really enjoyed the puzzles in the game.

[Anna Anthropy]

yeah, there were a few puzzles that involved manipulating off-screen stuff. i haven't finished it yet, but i have gotten (what i presume is) the last power-up.

i would definitely not have figured out the tree thing without your message and without checking the map. it's not intuitive and i don't remember it working that way in zelda! i guess the fire appears in front of you and then travels forward? without the visual reference of the moving flame, it's hard to get that.

i was down with the unmarked movable blocks / burnable trees at first but now that i have to manually switch through all of the abilities, one at a time, until i find the one i want to use, it takes a lot more time to check whether a tree is THE burnable tree or THE movable rock. i wonder if some of them could be condensed so there are less to cycle through? "jump" and "swim" don't seem like they'd conflict with each other at all. neither dig nor ? seem like you'd ever want them to not be active.

i'm glad you liked redder! i think it's a pretty alright game, but it feels like it was made by a different person.

[Stephen Lavelle]

tried again, for about 10 minutes - I found a push ability but couldn't find anything I could push. hmm.

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[David Kempe]

Thanks so much for the continued feedback everyone! Thanks also Alan for noting the "again" mechanic; I had completely misinterpreted the purpose of that in the instructions, and will see what I can do to incorporate it properly.

A few things to note that I'm weighing and considering at the moment as I am taking much of this seriously (this gets long; sorry)

Visible flame path to trees - Actually, nothing to consider here; it'll be in the next update as I need to find some way to communicate what's happening other than just wizard-zapping the tree into oblivion. But yeah, that's how it worked in Zelda (I probably say that too much at this point?). It's only relevant as a puzzle mechanic once in the entire game though; it's how you open level 7 in the second quest, where you're required to burn a tree by passing the flame through another tree to reach it.

Visible Swimming - Had I known to use "again" I would've added this from the start, but as I continued creating the map I started thinking about what sort of surprise I could create as a result of the insta-swim and something interesting kinda evolved out of it. So without giving a whole lot away, there's a particular swim route that takes the player through an entire panel being none the wiser; that panel is an end game panel with actions for multiple items, and all the end-game sections of the game end up spending some time there. As the player would pass through here shortly after the swim mechanic is acquired, they'd see the panel and likely be pretty aware they're getting all their powers back fairly early into the game. I don't know, is the surprise of retrieving all the items again worth spoiling too early for the more visually pleasing swim? Probably an odd design philosophy question, but I'm not sure which benefits the experience more. Or maybe I'm overthinking this and people might actually be more intrigued to see the wacky panel as they sail right past it?

Map - So, I'm torn here; I love games where I'm forced to make my own map, and I built it as a game I'd want to play myself. Offering a complete map also does ruin one particular puzzle - the panel where you obtain the "?" power. Recognizing the map as a grid of panels, players may be able to spot an anomaly from the map they create for themselves; in the bottom left corner there's a 3x3 grid of panels and they can walk in all but the center one (hopefully) making that unreachable panel suspicious. I like the mystery that can provide, and don't know how to show that on a map without giving it away. That said, I understand some guidance may be appreciated without resorting to hacking. What if I bulldoze a panel close to the start and turn that into some sort of map room making a rudimentary map out of a set of floor tiles? I'd still keep things vague but it'll provide a pulled back view of what the map generally looks like, and where the player's currently standing to get some bearings and can always be returned to for further reference. The little plus signs you collect, I also don't know if I'd want to give them away entirely; there's already the thing at the central area to hint that there's 10 of them are left out there ( I have a series of relays hooked up that check them off as you pick them up), and I also made the decision to never hide them from view in panels (I felt like hiding one of them under a rock or tree would've been too mean), so if you can get into the panel, you can see that the plus sign is there and have something to shoot for.

Combining actions - I do understand the cycle complaint, although to combine I'd have to find a way to comfortably familiarize the player with new character sprites, and what sprites now do what actions; it's a lot to introduce all at once instead of relying on what's already familiar. Hmm, maybe I can try combining the designs and colors of the sprites, but that might present some awkward bleeding effects and it could be a nightmare for colorblind gamers like myself. Still; it might make for better gameplay if I could get it down to 3. I don't know; something to think about. I can say there are instances where I want both Dig and ? to be a decision and not constantly active (for ? there's a partially hidden question mark formation split between two panels, and for Dig, there's a panel where the player arrives when standing on the warp and will need to figure out the way forward is under their feet - kinda cruel, but in fairness, I did make sure to allow the player access to see this panel in advance from the other side so they could observe the warp from afar). On the plus side, when it comes to end game challenges, Trees are only heavily featured at the one that starts in the forest area (I assume that's the one you'd been to Anna). The others, they're either minimal in appearance (one scenario only has two trees right next to each other), or they're clustered together without need for rapid-fire toggling. Also rocks always carry the hint of completing the rotational symmetry pattern in-panel to suggest what rock can be pushed.

[Alan Hazelden]

So, I didn't get to the part of the game where you get all your powers back, but I didn't feel that the different sprites for different powers helped me at all.

I think I'd be totally happy if you didn't change appearance at all, and when you get all the powers they are all automatically on without needing to be cycled through.

Regarding the "hidden" room you swim through: my gut instinct is that you're overthinking this and that people won't see it and go "oh well *obviously* I'm going to get my powers back". It's neat that if you're drawing a map this might throw you for a bit, but probably not so neat that it's worth sacrificing smoother movement?

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[David Kempe]

Thanks, Alan. The different sprites can be used as both a clue for what object they interact with due to color coding, and as a means of separation for the cycle once they're all available (I designed them to mimic a 1-6 die, with a 7th as the ? power).

 

I don't think I'd want everything to just remain active at that point though, as I feel the remaining gameplay is more rewarding by reintroducing the powerups as active decisions rather than passive occurences (otherwise it'd just stay feeling like a game of wandering around and touching all the walls). (Plus, the all-active God-mode is already the reward for finding all 10 plus signs). The way I can see breaking down the cycle though would be to split them into 3 groups; Jump/Swim/Climb, Push/Burn, and Dig/? since they're functionally similar.

 

Also, I had another thought about supplying a map; instead of a passive map room I could have it fill for panels as you visit them; it'll take a lot of objects and some funky codes to get around the character limit of the legend, but I think it's possible. That approach I like as it's not giving away anything you haven't already encountered, but still referencing it in-game for players like a piece of virtual graph paper still staying true to my original intent.

 

I'm right in thinking there's no way to assign sprite designs to a list of objects without a lot of copy/paste, right? Nothing like a reverse of grouping objects by properties within the legend?

[Hand-E-Food]

For me, the main reason I wanted a map was to find which boulders and trees could be affected.  Beyond that, I'd be happy to record my own map.  The hole-in-the-map puzzle is perfect as is.

I really think some visual queue should be given.  Perhaps a pit or rails behind boulders that can move?  Perhaps a slightly different coloured tree that can be burnt?  You say you don't want the action power to be a "touching all the walls" affair, but that's what the push and burn powers are already.

The room in which you acquire the climb power could explain its rules better by having a layout similar to the following.  It requires a vertical climb to get out, and encourages non-essential horizontal climbs which are, of course, impossible.

###########

.##.6..#.##

###@####@.#

@###....#.#

######....#

#########.#

#...#...#.#

..#...#...#

###########

I think the action power is fine as is.  It can take some effort to cycle through to the right action, but if you have a plan it's alright.

The legend has no character limit.  You're welcome to use Unicode characters which can allow for 16000+ tiles.  The only way to reuse sprites is to have a layer for sprites and layer for each property.  You can put mutually exclusive properties on the same layer.  That way you can legends like:

================

COLLISIONLAYERS

================

Background

Trigger2

PushLeft, MagicRelay

Wall, Rock

=======

LEGEND

=======

a = Rock and PushLeft and Trigger2

& = Wall and MagicRelay

This is a great adventure game and I'd love to see it become intuitive and well as a great puzzler.

[David Kempe]

I like your design for the 6 room (also thank you for taking the time to ensure no "@" overlap with other panels, I appreciate the attention to detail!), although one of the things I liked about the spiral was I felt it also emphasized the usefulness of the powerup by taking an otherwise long route in and providing a shortcut out. What would you think of the following:

###########

.#...6#...#

##@####.#@#

@###....###

####.######

####......#

#...#####.#

..#.......#

###########

This one requires one vertical descent; incentivizes others instead of the longer walk around, and still encourages horizontal movement at the top (now to a square still being used, rather than an empty square present just to be deceiving) and at the bottom by the exit.

[Hand-E-Food]

Yes, that's a much nicer design!

[David Kempe]

Thanks all for your great feedback so far; I'm happy to say that I've reworked a few things in the game so it's a little less burdensome, and (I think) a little more fun!

I also found out how to use the GitHub URL properly, so now I have a more permanent URL for the game:

OVERRWYRLD - v1.5 http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=52dd371d0b74fe1789f8

NEW FEATURES:

- Faster walking speed

- revised burning and climbing tutorials using forced interactions

- signpost hint system for interpreting the more complex mechanics

- fixed rock-pushing code to require character to push rocks in a specific direction (instead of just be moving)

- swimming animation replaces "insta-swim" (it doubled the number of instructions, but it's worth it!)

- visible flame path for Burn! ability to show the 2-away rule in action

- burned trees now leave a stump on the ground to show progress

- reduced the level of random trees in the forest to make burnable points of interest a bit clearer

- All burnable trees and All pushable rocks now have a purpose ultimately tied to the level design (no more random "Why would that tree burn?" moments that go unresolved)

- Required gameplay now features every panel (previously a few could be skipped)

- Revised endgame for extended time with puzzles involving all abilities active at once (minor room tweaks across the map as well to allow this)

-... I also threw in a secret and an easter egg. :)

I'm really happy with the changes, so I hope people enjoy the game! Thanks!

[Stephen Lavelle]

why does the room with the push ability not have anything pushable in it? 

[Stephen Lavelle]

Ok, made more progress. I don't understand how burning works, why i can burn some trees and not others.

[David Kempe]

Sound like you've progressed past push, but just to say, that there was a pushable block in that 1st room; there's a pushable block whenever there's a set of them on screen.

There was a hint sign in the area you pick up burn that I'd hoped would've communicated there's only one burnable tree whenever trees are present.

[bluegun...@gmail.com]

So about trees; perhaps I've been thinking about it wrong. I was against visual cues on the burnable trees since changes to a 4x4 sprite are pretty noticeable (I tried things like cutting holes and adding slightly repositioned berries) and I'm against doing things like minor discolorations (colorblind). But this was presupposing TWO sprites would exist; the burnable one and the nonburnable one.

What if I added a visual cue to the burnable tree by adding different visual cues to all the trees and the unique tree in the panel ends up being the burnable one? Namely, I'm thinking about nicking one of the 4 corners on every tree, and the one that doesn't have a visible match ends up being burnable? That way there is a way for players to pinpoint the tree with certainty rather than ballpark assumptions, turning the trees into a combined visual puzzle.

Curious if people think that approach may be worthwhile, or if the uniform trees aren't too much of a burden.

On Wednesday, July 1, 2015 at 7:15:28 AM UTC-4, David Kempe wrote:

[iczuba...@gmail.com]

I got stuck here (bug, maybe?):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1pKwH1lXFfpaUNwNUFPbENYYjg/view?usp=sharing

I finished the previous version, and I'm liking this new one so far.

[Alan Hazelden]

So, I think that the problem people are having isn't so much "I don't know how to tell which trees are burnable" but more "I don't get why some trees are burnable and others aren't".

It doesn't feel like this restriction makes sense in the context of the world.

[iczuba...@gmail.com]

>
>
> I got stuck here (bug, maybe?):
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1pKwH1lXFfpaUNwNUFPbENYYjg/view?usp=sharing
>
> I finished the previous version, and I'm liking this new one so far.

Stuck again:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1pKwH1lXFfpbU1LY192dWFhNTA/view?usp=sharing

Apparently, the swimming mechanics fail when trying to swim against a solid block (Player -> Water -> Solid).

[David Kempe]

Thanks for catching that; the bug must've happened when I changed the properties of the water to allow the swimming animation. Fixed in the current version (now v.1.51)

OVERRWYRLD - v1.51 http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=52dd371d0b74fe1789f8

I also changed the trees to allow for the burnable tree to be the irregularity among all the trees on the panel. With this and the rotational symmetry hint, now both rocks and trees have some visual hint to help identify them. For theme purposes I've also updated the text hint to justify why some trees burn and not others.

Also, Stephen's comment about the push room encouraged me to move the hint sign there instead of the next room down.

[Zeigfreid Okugawa]

It does make sense in the context of the source material, though!

I think maybe you (the author) are letting the source material be too much of a burden on your game. Zelda sometimes required the player to try burning every tree on the screen, but often this was optional. Players could make it through the game with minimal burn-spamming, but in addition Zelda's huge popularity meant that strategy guides and maps existed for the curious. In Overrwyrld, you've promoted this somewhat frustrating and obscure activity to the level of core gameplay, perhaps because it so clearly pays homage to the original.

My suggestion is: get rid of the areas where the screen is flooded with trees. Let tree burning be easy and somewhat obvious, in the same way the stone pushing puzzles are. Then you can use this new liberty to add some secret areas to your game that only the burn-spammiest will be able to find. (also, was there no fire animation? I don't remember there being a fire animation...). Then, in order to recover some of that homage-ness, why not implement some non-interactable decorations? A few 2x2 ugly withered old trees, maybe some gravestones... things that will remind people of the world you are trying to evoke. Does that make sense?

[Zeigfreid Okugawa]

I just played the most recent version (1.1 at the time of this writing). I really like the way the trees look with the corners missing! Such a simple change, but totally lovely.

[David Kempe]

Thanks; was your original comment in relation to the original URL in the first post? I ask since you mention the lack of a fire animation which has since been added in. I don't want the game to be riddled with random burn-spamming secrets; as it stands right now there is a reason for burning every possible burnable tree on the map. In fact, there's now only one burnable tree that is optional, and that's where I hid the easter egg.

My homages at this point outside of some item equivalents are mostly limited to the starting panel, and the panel up and to the right from there (incidentally, the burnable tree in the LOZ equivalent panel is the burnable one here as well). I figure those two may be solid enough to effectively get the reference across so I can focus on my own layouts. I wouldn't want to add in anything that's completely decorative either. Everything in the game has some level of program logic to it; even the things you can't interact with, you would be able to if the layout were different, and I aim to keep it that way.

Also; general update. I just added a couple more bug fixes and also made it so the bomb explodes if fire touches it (seemed to make sense) and am now on version 1.52. 

OVERRWYRLD - v1.52 http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=52dd371d0b74fe1789f8