I would like to announce the demo release of ‘Becoming Alan Smedwick’, an upcoming text adventure game I hope to release fully in the next month or so. Here is the obligatory blurb:
It’s just another dreary day in suburbia until you find yourself locked outside your modest home wearing nothing but a towel in the presence of your enigmatic neighbour Alan Smedwick. However, not all is amiss; a great adventure unfolds before you as you navigate life in a typical British town on a wild quest to regain your decency and ultimately access to your front door. An irreverent shame simulator for your home computer!
Being an 80s kid, I encountered text adventures all the time, but I never really understood or enjoyed one until I played the rather hilarious ‘Hampstead’ on the ZX Spectrum. Additionally, I was always curious about the Magnetic Scrolls game ‘Fish!’ - having seen a review in Your Sinclair - but it wasn’t until earlier this year that I watched a 15 hour playthrough on You Tube, and came to appreciate what a witty and well thought out game it was. Having recently been made redundant from my game dev job, I finally had the time to sit down and work on the text adventure that had long been brewing in my mind’s eye, and therefore, I present ‘Alan’ for your pleasure and enjoyment!
The game is unashamedly ‘old-school’, written in a custom engine as an attempt to evoke the old Magnetic Scrolls interface, especially the way their games handled displaying the location graphics. The current demo build is for PC, but I’ve written it in a way such that porting to other platforms should be relatively straightforward. Let me know if you would like to see it on a particular platform.
This is quite nice. I liked the graphics. And it worked well, bearing in mind this is a demo in a new system. With the parser, it would be nice to have “it” working, otherwise there weren’t many problems. A few extra verbs needed perhaps. I liked the comedy style. I didn’t get further than the cemetery. A few missing scenery objects should be added before final. x bird has \n\n left in.
Thank you for the feedback, I’ve now implemented the ‘it’ command in v0.21 and added tons of new room fluff as you recommended. Most nouns per room now have some sort of description (unless they are extremely redundant).
Yes, I used AI to create the room images. Unfortunately visual art is a skill I don’t possess, and with a budget of zero, I resorted to consulting our robot overlords. Having developed the engine and gameplay code, and composed and recorded the theme music, I hope there’ s enough human value there to satisfy.
I played v21 and got to the end of the demo this time. A few extra comments;
The system comes up full screen and this is a bit annoying. I think it should be windowed by default with a full-screen option. There should also be a settings to mute the keyclick sound.
A number of areas have implied content that isn’t recognised. For example there is no “bath” or “shower” in the bathroom. Also there are no “cars” in the car park.
I thought you should be able to “knock on the door” of the pigeon lady’s house.
The pictures actually look like converted photos to me, rather than totally AI generated.
I has hoping to get into the hospital (and use the note), but that’s where the demo ended.
