Broken Legs -- follow-up
Sarah
time entering the competition and, indeed, my first full-length work
of IF, so I was pleasantly surprised to place so high -- second place!
-- First, and most importantly, there will be a post-comp release
shortly. I hope to get it out by the end of the year. It'll correct a
lot of the issues many of you brought up, namely:
---- Cluing. I promise there is some in there! Unfortunately, it
appears to have been done in a scattershot, hamfisted, sporadic way.
Part of it is probably due to my trying to shoehorn a wannabe-
accretive game into a 2-hour time limit; part of it is probably due to
my inexperience with design. If it's any comfort, the beta version was
even worse. Hopefully the post-comp version will be a bit better.
------ In particular: Practice room doors, at least the ones I'm
familiar with, have windows inside them. People usually put sheet
music over these windows to signal that the room is occupied.
---- The hint system was put off until the last minute -- debugging
took a lot more time than I bargained for -- so what you're looking at
is a rough draft of a rough draft. Considering the cluing problems
that already exist, this is... a problem. This will definitely be
fixed in the post-comp release.
------ One thing that didn't work at all, due to one of those bugs
that creep in during what are supposed to be purely cosmetic fixes:
Phoning your dad is... very broken. Very, very broken. As in, asking
about anything that is not one of the 15 or so topic words reveals the
guts of the code. Needless to say, this is fixed in the post-comp
release.
That said:
-- One reviewer said he managed to get the game into a state where it
cannot be finished. This shouldn't be possible. Unless there's a bug
-- there may well be -- you should always be able to, if not win, at
least reach an ending.
Thanks, again! I appreciate all the reviews, learned a lot and hope to
see you all again in 2010.
Peter Pears
reacted to your game.
I know very, very well the sort of situation you describe in Broken
Legs. I know the atmosphere, the tension. You have replicated
flawlessly the most visceral and competitive part of the whole process
of "performing" - before one can be a star, one has to either be best
than his peers... or suck the least... or cheat the most.
But it was a curious thing - I couldn't bring myself to play any more
than a little part of your game. You succeeded in making the PC so
unpleasant, so blind in her ambition, so altogether stupid and imature
in some respects (alto/mezzo/soprano/belter? Grow up, kid)... I
couldn't help her ruin everybody else's chance. :) Even if she did
just have a bad day.
So it's funny that your game should grab me this way - it was too
realistic for me to enjoy playing it, considering the PC, the goal and
the circumstances. But I guess that's a compliment to you. :)
Sarah
week where I couldn't stand to look at the thing, literally getting
physically ill and thinking "What am I doing? It is socially
irresponsible to release this person into the world!" It could have
been beta testing, but still.
Jim Aikin
>
> But it was a curious thing - I couldn't bring myself to play any more
> than a little part of your game. You succeeded in making the PC so
> unpleasant, so blind in her ambition, so altogether stupid and imature
> in some respects (alto/mezzo/soprano/belter? Grow up, kid)... I
> couldn't help her ruin everybody else's chance. :)
FWIW, I thought it was hilarious. I mean, it's satire, right -- and good
satire always cuts close to the quick.
--JA
Conrad
> Peter Pears wrote:
>
> > But it was a curious thing - I couldn't bring myself to play any more
> > than a little part of your game. You succeeded in making the PC so
> > unpleasant, so blind in her ambition, so altogether stupid and imature
> > in some respects (alto/mezzo/soprano/belter? Grow up, kid)... I
> > couldn't help her ruin everybody else's chance. :)
I'm with Jim on this one. The PC so reminded me of Lucifer from
_Paradise Lost_, with her petty ego-driven evil, that it really worked
for me. A valley-girl image of the Evil One -- quite a trip.
I was interested to see how the ending would play out; whether she'd
have an epiphany or just wallow in her visciousness. Hard to say
which would be worse for her. In fact, I was into it enough that I
didn't resort to the walkthrough to finish it, so I'll be looking
forward to the post-Comp release.
Conrad.
Peter Pears
> On Nov 17, 8:09 pm, Jim Aikin <midigur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Peter Pears wrote:
>
> > > But it was a curious thing - I couldn't bring myself to play any more
> > > than a little part of your game. You succeeded in making the PC so
> > > unpleasant, so blind in her ambition, so altogether stupid and imature
> > > in some respects (alto/mezzo/soprano/belter? Grow up, kid)... I
> > > couldn't help her ruin everybody else's chance. :)
>
> I'm with Jim on this one. The PC so reminded me of Lucifer from
> _Paradise Lost_, with her petty ego-driven evil, that it really worked
> for me. A valley-girl image of the Evil One -- quite a trip.
I usually kinda like perverse PCs, too. I suppose this time it cut too
close to my actual real life. I have no patience or sympathy for such
people, and I have to deal with them many times (although most are
just plain stupid and overambitious, without the perversity). If it
weren't for that, I'd probably have had a lot of fun with it as well.
Ah well - "Varicella" will be the test, I guess.
Reiko
> On Nov 17, 8:09 pm, Jim Aikin <midigur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Peter Pears wrote:
>
> > > But it was a curious thing - I couldn't bring myself to play any more
> > > than a little part of your game. You succeeded in making the PC so
> > > unpleasant, so blind in her ambition, so altogether stupid and imature
> > > in some respects (alto/mezzo/soprano/belter? Grow up, kid)... I
> > > couldn't help her ruin everybody else's chance. :)
>
> I'm with Jim on this one. The PC so reminded me of Lucifer from
> _Paradise Lost_, with her petty ego-driven evil, that it really worked
> for me. A valley-girl image of the Evil One -- quite a trip.
I didn't get time enough to play more than a few of the comp games
this year, so I didn't submit any scores. But I've got to agree with
Peter here. The effect was so well-done that on its technical merits
of atmosphere and writing I would have scored this very high, and it
deserved its second-place win for that, I'm sure, but *as a game*, I
just couldn't stomach playing it for very long. I used the hints to
get part way in and then couldn't bear to take the actions that would
actually win the game, so I just saw the losing ending and then quit.
If I ever post reviews of the ones I did get to, you'd see that I
didn't score it that high because part of my scoring incorporates how
much fun it is to play. If you're enough of an egocentric person to
identify with the PC, you might have fun with it, but I personally
couldn't.
In short, my advice for the OP: write another game - you've certainly
got the writing talent and capability with the system to pull it off.
Just choose someone more likeable for the PC next time. Who knows, you
might get first place that way. :)
~Reiko
Conrad
>
> If you're enough of an egocentric person to
> identify with the PC, you might have fun with it, but I personally
> couldn't.
An interesting, if psycho, analysis of the reason it came in second!
C.