Andrew Schultz release topic (starting 10/2024) ... latest: Why Pout post-comp release

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Well, this one never took off, and I didn’t want to bump it.

But after so much feature creep has indefinitely postponed some previous post-comp releases, I released Why Pout version 2 on itch.io.

There isn’t much change from the final edit in IFComp, except, well, a hint item.

The sly size-slice eyes, which simply tell the number of letters in each word you need, as well as if you can successfully perform an action, or if it is necessary.

It was much less involved than the one for my rhyme games. I thought of it 6 hours before the deadline. Programming it took more time than I thought away from the comp.

There may be a release 3 (two stray bonus points in the optional room) and maybe a release 4 (which may be rolled into 3). Viv Dunstan made the excellent suggestion to track good guesses, or one word right. This would require a rejig of my big table.

However, it might be worth it for my tentative ParserComp 2025 entry.

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Release 3 was sent to IFArchive and itch.io on October 23. It includes two bonus points as well as trivial typo fixing.

Release 4 is in the works, where each pair of friendly NPCs tals to each other in in-world-friendly phrases. (There were a bunch of ideas I couldn’t fit into puzzles.) Maybe it will be out by mid-November. I don’t want to add too many features per release.

Release 5 has framework code which works, but it will take a while to test. Plus I don’t want to bug the folks at IFArchive every few days. It will track where you’ve guessed one word right with THINK.

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Today I submitted Why Pout release 5 to itch and ifarchive. Not trying to do too much with a release seems to work well.

Release 4, as noted above, added dialogue/chatter between friends as they join up.

tricky code stuff for balanced quasi-random stuff

There were two random tables, one for before you got everyone (friend 2 talks to friend 1, then 3 with 2 then 1, and so forth, with minimal shuffling) then another once you got necessary companions. I wanted to make who spoke up when be relatively equitable but still random. So for the second table I had, say friends 1 and 8 talk, then 2/7 then 3/6 then 4/5. I had 7 such quadrants.

The source is here: why-pout/Why Pout Random Text.i7x at main · andrewschultz/why-pout · GitHub

@alyshkalia was a big help in pushing release 5 through by virtue of finding a runtime bug in release 4! It happened in release mode and not debug mode, because I forgot to unmark some “not for release” code.

So I sharpened up my test procedure so I could test a release build with the simple version of Zarf’s script (a wait for any key can freeze it.)

Release 5 was due to a really good suggestion by @vivdunstan which seemed reallly prohibitive until I broke it down.

What THINK does for the 2nd puzzle and in general

TWO MOPS or THE MAPS would give a “you had one word right.” Both of them would give you “you are close to putting thins together–you may’ve had everything right at different times.” And TOO MAPS or TOO MOPS gives slightly different levels of achievement. Basically there are four flags for each puzzle: first-word-similar, first-word-exact, second-word-similar, second-word-exact. And the game gives different output for each unsolved puzzle based on which flags are set.

I tuned up the random dialogue as well, writing annoying test cases that felt awful crunching through but great once they were written. I also looked through my notes to add flavor text and more random dialogue.

All this and I haven’t really looked at transcripts for other more involved bugs. But since I can run tests quicker, all that should be more expedient now.

Release 6 will have a few quality-of-life features in addition to a look through the transcripts. It’s here: Issues · andrewschultz/why-pout · GitHub

Putting out smaller releases with fewer features seems to have worked well for getting through old projects. I may try it more often & I recommend it to others.

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