Duck! Me? – Development & Beta Testing

[BigEd]

Glad you got to this point, Jeremy. It's always impressive to finish a project - modulo, as you note, user testing.

I wonder if there's a way to organise a mass running of text adventures, perhaps on a Saturday afternoon as an online event? Or is it the case that rather a lot of hours need to go into a solution? In which case perhaps a series of weekly challenges?

As we have two flavours of ABUG running on a three-week cycle, there's space for a third ABUG in between.

Just a thought!

[EdwardianDuck]

Realistically I just gave up worrying about it, rebuilt it with the latest tools, played through it once and tagged it as a release. Time to move on.

While the idea of a mass adventure playing session might be fun, the first problem I think you'll hit is getting anyone to join in. When I used to attend the developer meetings there was considerable initial interest in the fact that I was writing a game, but not so much in terms of playing it. Or at least that was the impression I got.

Time and getting bogged down in a game are likely issues. The test walkthrough for my game is 315 moves and that ignores all the examining, exploration and optional things you can do. I don't actually know how long it would take someone to play through from scratch working it all out as they go along. For example...

I solved Moonbase Escape version 1 in about 4 hours, but didn't get the full score. There's less to do in this game.
The rather brutal (4 mazes and everything is out to kill you) Kingdom of Hamil took weeks.
The first two games in the Dan Diamond trilogy took a couple of weekends each, the third was too annoying and random to finish.

Are you familiar with Clash of the Type-ins? That works well because they have the game's author online and there's an element of guidance. Also they play modern games which seem puzzle light to me.

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

Following on from my earlier observations, the online version at bbcmicro.co.uk has now been "adjusted" in some way that I don't understand and now gives the expected display options.

Nice.

Jeremy

[lurkio]

the online version at bbcmicro.co.uk has now been "adjusted" in some way that I don't understand

The emulated machine has been switched from a Model B to a Master 128. The Master has the requisite RAM to enable the choice of extra screen modes in Ozmoo.

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=4129

[EdwardianDuck]

Thank you, that makes sense. I only own a Master, so I tend leave B2 configured as such.

Jeremy

[Ptolom]

I have been playing the previous Ozmoo version and having a great time. It's not easy is it?
I have two small suggestions if you are interested:

• Gur fanxr fubhyqa'g or qrfpevorq nf vanavzngr jura vg vf bayl fyrrcvat.
• Rngvat n enj bavba cebonoyl fubhyqa'g or "qryvpvbhf"

[EdwardianDuck]

No, it's not easy, but it's not in the Kingdom of Hamil level of toughness either, IMHO.

Both fair points. It took a few minutes to figure out how you were getting the first one. It wasn't something I'd tried. I should probably override the default message in this case. I think the second one is arguable, it is after all a matter of taste!

I'll add these to the (blank) list of things others have reported for a second release at some point.

Glad you're enjoying it.

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

I have two small suggestions if you are interested:

• Gur fanxr fubhyqa'g or qrfpevorq nf vanavzngr jura vg vf bayl fyrrcvat.
• Rngvat n enj bavba cebonoyl fubhyqa'g or "qryvpvbhf"

I've tweaked the responses for both in my local copy. I'd be interested to know exactly what command(s) you were using to get

• Gur fanxr fubhyqa'g or qrfpevorq nf vanavzngr jura vg vf bayl fyrrcvat.

as there seem to be quite a few possibilities and I'm not sure I've trapped them all.

Jeremy

[Ptolom]

I tried the obvious "jnxr fanxr" and also "tvir * gb fanxr", "fnl * gb fanxr" and "xvff fanxr" (Why not?)

[EdwardianDuck]

Thank you, that's helpful. I'd tried 3/4, but had missed one of the obvious ones, but I'd tried the "why not" case!

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

Apropos nothing in particular, I have started on a sequel. Again. I discarded my previous three attempts at a sequel when I couldn't make the plot (even though each had a wafer thin plot mostly made up of tired old tropes) work and/or the scope of project became too large, so no promises at this stage.

Jeremy

[SteveF]

That's great news. I seem to lack the staying power/brainpower to actually finish an adventure, but having bumbled around in the first few rooms of "Duck! Me?" I really liked the style/tone of it. I really would like to find the time to give it a decent play.

[EdwardianDuck]

Update on the sequel. More avian antics picking up from where Duck! Me? ended.

After a week's effort (I've been off work on annual leave), I have a beginning, half a middle (needs fleshing out) an ending and a provisional title. Also an AI called Doreen.

As things stand the game is completable although far from being in a state where anyone else is going to get to see it. It's looking like it will be a bit smaller than Duck! Me? and perhaps a little easier to solve.

It's back to work next week, so progress will necessarily slow down, but at least I have something to flesh out, rather than staring at a half-written game.

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

It turns out that this game is quite buggy, so if you are playing it, please bear this in mind. I'll be digging in to the reported issues when time permits.

[EdwardianDuck]

I've removed the downloads pending bug resolution.

[EdwardianDuck]

I've just uploaded beta 17 to the top post. SSD image + .z5 file (zipped) as usual. Following the somewhat disastrous release 1, I have reverted this to beta status. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more testers involved. There are a number of minor changes arising from a review and some recommendations, mostly concerning things being undervalued. The two major problems were:

• It was possible to bypass a couple of major tasks and still trigger the endgame. That was a bug I introduced when I tried to flesh the game out a bit. Of course, as soon as someone pointed this out, the error was staring me in the face, silently gloating at my incompetence.

• Depending on how you played the game, it was possible to exceed one of PunyInform's default capacity limits. This has been increased significantly. I didn't encounter this because I know what to do and when objects can be discarded, so I wasn't seeing the issue. Because of this, beta 17 has runtime errors left on. Please let me know if you see any such errors.

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

I've uploaded beta 18 to the top post as usual. Changes from the previous beta are:

• Built and tested (not necessarily exhaustively, I have a script for this, but it's based on my personal walkthrough) using the latest Acorn Ozmoo port (Ozmoo 11.39, Acorn alpha 44).

• Minor cosmetic text changes, grammar and removal of one spurious message.

• Additional clues and more information than what was in the mess that was release 1.

ZIP file contains .Z3 and .Z5 builds as well for use on other interpreters. Note that if you play the .Z3 version, additional disambiguation between objects is required in at least one (avoidable) situation due to .Z3 only considering the first 6 characters of a word (9 in .Z5).

The .Z5 build has UNDO enabled, but the one built as a .SSD image does not as this seems not to be implemented in Ozmoo (UNDO returns a stock message).

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

According to this post my game was reviewed in ZZAP! 64 #11. The game isn't currently available (or at least not anywhere I have control, buggy old versions may be floating around the Internet somewhere) because of bugs in the released version and I'm not actively working on updating it, so I guess this is of historical interest only. I haven't read the review myself, not having purchased the magazine, so I don't know what was said. Based on the bugs and my own opinion of it, I doubt it was a glowing review.

I pulled the public betas for this and the sequel following confusion over the sequel's status in the wider IF community resulting in an unfinished beta somehow being eligible to be voted on in some sort of award process. Thankfully that got stopped before voting started. Apparently releasing a public beta is the same as a formal release of a game under some circumstances. Or something. I'm not really sure.

[hoglet]

I haven't read the review myself, not having purchased the magazine, so I don't know what was said. Based on the bugs and my own opinion of it, I doubt it was a glowing review.

Au contraire, it was a very glowing review.

I'll attach it here in case you do want to read it.

Dave

[EdwardianDuck]

Thank you. I'm genuinely surprised by how positive that was.

Jeremy

[lurkio]

Thank you. I'm genuinely surprised by how positive that was.

Congrats!

[BigEd]

"unreservedly recommend" - praise indeed - congratulations!

[hoglet]

I pulled the public betas for this and the sequel following confusion over the sequel's status in the wider IF community resulting in an unfinished beta somehow being eligible to be voted on in some sort of award process. Thankfully that got stopped before voting started. Apparently releasing a public beta is the same as a formal release of a game under some circumstances. Or something. I'm not really sure.

Is there any chance you will re-instate Beta 18?

After reading the review I would really like to try it out, and see if it will run on the Atom.

Dave

[EdwardianDuck]

Dave,

PM sent. Let me know if the attachment survives.

Jeremy

[hoglet]

PM sent. Let me know if the attachment survives.

Yes it did, thanks!

[EdwardianDuck]

In theory I'm still working on this, back porting fixes from the sequel based on figuring out better ways of doing things. Also leveraging the way cheap scenery was enhanced in the last couple of PunyInform releases. I expect there will be further beta versions in due course, but I'm not sure when or how I'll make them available.

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

Completely unimportant, but this page http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=4129 asserts it doesn't work in JSBEEB. Does anyone know what the problem is? I'm wondering if whoever noticed this hit one of the known issues.

Jeremy

[lurkio]

Completely unimportant, but this page http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=4129 asserts it doesn't work in JSBEEB. Does anyone know what the problem is? I'm wondering if whoever noticed this hit one of the known issues.

It was me. I didn’t hit any issues. That’s just generic text that appears whenever we decide to display the yellowish “Play Anyway” button rather than the standard blue “Play” button. However, on reflection I think that the “Play Anyway” button is misleading in this case so I’ve reverted to “Play”.

[EdwardianDuck]

Great, that makes sense, thank you. Now I just need to muster up the energy to slog through the code yet again and get a working release out. And finish the sequel. And the sequel to the sequel.

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

I'm still flogging this particular dead horse. I've found a number of errors and non/under implemented features this week, including a bug whhere the player can make the game impossible to complete using only 12 moves. Reviewing every object and location in the game is tedious and taking rather too long.