Forgotten Files by LDJam user 321333
EDIT 4/14/25 Hello, the post jam update is now live on my itch.io page, linked below!
There's now a lot more content in the alternate endings, as well as achievements and general polish, especially in the places people requested! I've very pleased with how it turned out, let me know what you think! (or, you can still download the compo version from the itch page or from this site, if you'd prefer)
Thanks again for everyone who has played and left comments so far. I am still checking this page and playing games regularly, so if you still need ratings or want feedback, play and leave feedback for me, and I will do the same :heart:
Cheers,
Oter
Hello Ludum Dare!
About ten hours ago I decided to start learning ChoiceScript on a whim. Ten minutes into the tutorial I thought, "Gee, my LD sense is tingling, I wonder when the next one is?"
It's now!
Here's my little text-based game made in ChoiceScript. Very easy to pick up, though I knew better than to try and add bells and whistles while working under such a time constraint, so unfortunately no audio or visuals :(
Still, a fun Sunday!
If you want to play, great. Feedback is welcome, especially if you've worked in ChoiceScript before and know what it does well/poorly beyond a simple and thrown together project like this. Otherwise, go play and rate someone else's game! They probably worked way harder than I did this time around and deserve your attention more than I do!
Disclaimer: This game requires modest brain power and you may find it frustrating. It is also text based.
Source Code and the index.html in the downloadable zip file
As usual the embed is having a fit, so you can find it on my itch.io page, linked below (some things never change and that's why I love LD, so glad I made it this time)
| Play Here! | https://otergen.itch.io/forgotten-files |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/forgotten-files |
Ratings
| Given | 38🗳️ | 77🗨️ |
If I read that right you did this in 10 hours? Nice!
I like a good text adventure/puzzle and this was fun. My only real gripe would be maybe the presentation could have been a bit more interesting. After losing a couple times I realized you can't enter some information unless you find that information during that run. I was copying and pasting notes into notepad lol what can I say maybe I was trying a bit too hard.
Nice job one the game!
@dingbat Yeah, I was wondering if anyone would anyone would run into that snag. I thought about taking out the check but figured it was unlikely for anyone to need to restart after hitting it (and I ran out of time tbh). Still, if I do anything more with this game I'll fix that or try to add a better checkpoint system to avoid tedious clicking for something you already know :thumbsup:
Cheers!
And Justine, yeah I was worried my wording might be misleading, sorry about that. I had intended for a whole branch to the game if you didn't install it. Essentially piecing through all the files you would see on the path *with* antivirus so that you could see the gist of the good ending and hopefully want to play again and achieve it. But alas, time.
(And don't get me started on my plans for the Clippy boss battle, also fully scrapped for time... maybe I'll have to pick this game up again and give it more love, since you all keep blowing me away with the positive feedback <3 )
I don't know if my login is broken but I can't rate this for some reason.
And I set the rating to casual mode (as in, I opted out of getting ratings) because I made it so casually compared to my usual Ludum Dare routine of fretting, prepping during final voting, and working hard with little sleep all weekend. I thought opting out would drive people to go play other games that had been fully developed amid blood, sweat, and tears but it looks like that wasn't the case :shrug: (but I do really appreciate everyone who has played and left feedback, it warms my heart to have such unexpected positivity around my little lark of a game).
BTW: Pin code should be 123456 haha:)
And thanks for the feedback regarding the restart process. I had to add the post-battle restart manually, rather than doing it the "proper" way, so I had never considered it would be better than the default because no variables are reset. I guess in most ChoiceScript games, restarting means resetting choice driven stats, so it would make more sense than it does here. I'll change it tomorrow!
EDIT: I just played through a couple of times and got the boss fight achievement on both, so if it is bugged, it's not totally bugged. There are a lot of possible paths, though, so it's possible you missed the ways to unlock it.
I do want to echo others here that going back to some clues I missed in the beginning would've been helpful. I also want to add that my favorite adventure games growing up are ones that give the player multiple branching paths to go forward with the game/story, even if all those paths end up going in the same place. This game sorta felt like one straight line towards the end of the game instead of that freedom of choice.
But hey, for about 10 hours of work, I think it's great! I hope to see more from you in the future, especially if it's within the realm of puzzle/adventure games!
To go more into your feedback Alex, I agree that games like this more often offer actual choices, so this was probably more puzzle game than interactive fiction or text-based adventure game. There were branches after unlocking the computer, but they weren't obvious to the player, and in the original version especially, they were more of alternate endings than alternate gameplay. It feels weird to self promote, but my previous LD entry, Postcards, was much more in this branching style if you're interested, though it was cozy choose-your-own-adventure and not a puzzle game.