Beneath the surface by siondream

[raw]
made by siondream for LD29 (COMPO)
Beneath the surface is a traditional text adventure.
It accepts commands in the form "verb object".
Example: "take key".

Feedback

smbe19
27. Apr 2014 路 23:16 UTC
The game crashes at startup...
http://pastebin.com/g4AtLwve
馃帳 siondream
28. Apr 2014 路 06:28 UTC
Thanks for reporting, can you try it again? It was a shader issue. It might be to do with the graphics card... It works fine on mine but I think I fixed it.
mariscal
28. Apr 2014 路 21:34 UTC
Love the style and music! Got stuck with that light coming from the break... I thought I could use it to distract the wolf.. but nope... we want a hint button! :D
Rick Hoppmann
28. Apr 2014 路 22:57 UTC
Got stuck at the same part as mariscal.
It was so earlier in the game the mood couldn't really build up.

The cave was described rather well, I had immediately a picture of it in my head. The concept of the game is well known and as far as I played there isn't anything new to it. The theme is included but not in a special way.

All in all it may have great potential, but it really needs a mechanic to prevent getting stuck (e.g. show all available verbs).
spartangeek
29. Apr 2014 路 23:25 UTC
nice style and music but I got stuck for too long as well :(
GreatBigJerk
29. Apr 2014 路 23:25 UTC
I do like me some text adventures, but I couldn't figure out what to do in the second area. It would be good to have more descriptive feedback on what you're doing or doing wrong.
mjau
01. May 2014 路 22:54 UTC
Couldn't figure out what to do in the second room. It doesn't help that the parser doesn't distinguish between words it doesn't understand and things you can't do, and it's pretty strict in what words it accepts in each situation..

examine door - you cannot do that!
look at door - you cannot do that!
look door - (description of door)
look rock - you cannot do that!
push rock - (pushes rock)

So if i'd tried to "look rock" before "look door", how would i know that "look" was a real command, but used on an object that didn't support it? It makes it hard to learn the vocabulary of the game. Maybe i'm trying to do the right thing and just using the wrong words, or maybe i'm on the wrong track entirely and should try something else. Who knows?

I know, it's limited how smart you can make a language parser in a weekend. Just distinguishing between "not understood" and "understood but can't do that" would help, though.. Also, if you look up input words in a table of synonyms, that could also remove words like "at" if you don't need those. Little things like that help a lot.

Anyway, the presentation's neat. The typewriter effect, little touches like the sliding text at the start and the way the border pulses a little (you can imagine holding a candle in a cave).. sets the mood =). I like the music, too.
soy_yuma
04. May 2014 路 22:29 UTC
It looks extremely promising, but I got stuck in the same place :-(
Dark Arts and Sciences
13. May 2014 路 05:57 UTC
If you're stuck, try "enter break" and "exit room".

Also, there's a typo in the crate room, the command is "look create" where it should be "look crate".