For a couple of reasons. The main one is that I can’t enter it in IFComp because I am one the helpers and I can’t enter it in Spring Thing because I run it. In the smaller comps, it’s long enough that playing it would detract from the other entrants, and I don’t want to squish on other people’s toes. Also, I don’t want people to feel pressured to finish it quickly. It will make it less popular but for this game I’m less looking for awards and plays and more looking to please 5-10 specific people (people who really liked big long games like Muldoon Legacy or Curses and want more experiences like that). After this I’ll go back to making smaller comp friendly games.
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I think you’re absolutely right in releasing NGUHD on its own. A mammoth game like this needs to be savoured in its own time, on its own conditions.
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It still will be an awesome game, and I doubt the reviews would ever be on the lower end of the scale, because it’s been finely created with a range of things for people to play and continually fun.
To add, it is very large and (as @rovarsson says) would lose some of the feel by entering into a comp. It makes it feel more sure and steady by entering without a competition. (Not saying anything particular at that, but MHO.)
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What do the different colours stand for on the map? Is the any meaning to them?
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Inform lets you make “regions” so that you can have background objects like the ceiling in multiple rooms, or restrict action to certain rooms.
I made each dimension a region as well as Tempe original ship. Some of the dimensions have subregions (like a really big cavern in a cave that’s multiple rooms).
Inform automatically makes the region colors on the map, although you can adjust them. The black region color is one I’ve never seen before, because I usually don’t use that many regions.
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What map are you looking at?
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This one probaby.
Edit: Couldn’t put a spoiler blur to the actual map, just follow the link from the quote for mathbrush’s original post with the map.
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Dimension 7 is ready for testing! This one is the animals/zoo dimension. It’s not as serious as the last one (you have to catch a water snake who found a rocket pack) but I tried to make animal details accurate, so if there are any fans of animals who want to factcheck my details on polar bear diet or deer velvet that could be helpful. Otherwise I’d love to have a couple of people look through this for bugs and typos.
The tone is a bit all over the place too if anyone wants to criticize that (maybe in transcript form if they hate parsers). But I’ll take whoever and whatever is available!
Edit: This one is a bit faster since I’ve been working full-time on this over the summer, roughly 40 hours a week. I’ll probably only be able to get one more in before summer’s over, and then the last two will be slower.
Editedit: Even without cover art, the file is now 4.12 mb and is too large to upload to the forums, so I’ll be using github links or email for downloads.
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I’m looking for testers for dimension 8: World monuments
This is the last of the normal dimensions. The other 2 dimensions will be weird and a bit harder to test.
This dimension can be the first thing you encounter in the game, so testing it won’t spoil the rest of the game.
It uses several of the most complicated examples in the Inform 7 adaptation, heavily adapted, including sinking gas monitored on a grid, a complex money system with several denominations, melting objects, and semi-realistic fire. It also has several physics simulations, topology, and an enemies-to-lovers manga based on physics.
The setting is a waste dump in space with a bunch of floating islands, each containing a world monument such as Stonehenge.
I think people would like to test this if:
1-They’re really into the inner workings of Inform and want to pick it apart, or
2-They enjoy physics simulations
3-They like vertical games (it’s oriented up/down)
4-They like urban exploration.
I know IFComp season is approaching. I’d be happy to trade testing your game in return for testing this dimension.
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I’d love to, but we just moved into our house and don’t have internet set up yet for the computer…
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Congratulations on the new house! Hope you enjoy it and take your time settling in!
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If you email me the file, I may be able to download later on…
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Thanks to reports that have been coming in. This has been a pretty bad section; lots of stuff was deeply broken. In the last few days, I’ve added numerical indicators to how fast the spanish armada is spinning, fixed the monitor of the great gate not showing how many field spikes were left, hopefully made it easier to put coins in the telescope in the statue of liberty, fixed a bug where ripping a panel off a wall didn’t rip it off the wall, and (hopfeully) made the sydney opera house slightly more entertaining to destroy. If you’ve been testing and got stuck, it was probably due to one of these pretty awful bugs. The walkthrough works fine in all versions; most of the bugs just allowed players to skip sections or caused them to miss crucial info.
I appreciate everyone who’s helped so far; while I should work hard not to release bugs myself, it’s so great that testers are catching this now and not when it goes out into public. I’m sure these ‘fixes’ have caused new problems, but I will continue to do playthroughs on my own and with testers until most seem squashed.
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I have time and motivation to playtest another chapter. You can send me the file and some pointers on what to pay special attention to in a PM if you want someone (me) to have a second look at this section.
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I have an odd request: I could use someone who feels like they are at least fairly adept at analyzing or criticizing short-form fiction to look over a scene. I’ve been criticized in the past for my attempts at achieving emotional depth, and I have a scene that while not integral to the plot has a complicated mixture of emotions and explores a serious situation. More particularly (mild spoiler) it’s the violent accidental death of a stranger you’ve never met, but who knows you. It’s less than a page’s worth of text, but I’d be interested in some quick overarching feedback. I’m not shooting for any strong emotion, but would like to avoid corniness or overused tropes. If anyone feels like glancing over it and shooting off their overall impressions, let me know!
Edit: I have been contacted. Thanks!
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I’ve finished the 9th dimension, which technically requires beating all the dimensions I’ve made so far to finish, but which (with testing commands) can be done by itself in a normal amount of time.
This was one of the larger areas; at 29690 words, it’s the third largest area, and could become the 2nd largest depending on how much testers find necessary to add. However, much of that extra content just comes from the large number of extra room and scenery. Ironically, this is meant to be a ‘one room game’ area, but it has over 20 rooms total for various reasons.
My guess is that I won’t be able to find testers for this until after IFComp starts and probably when it ends, but I thought I’d just throw it out there. If you’re already busy testing ifcomp games I wouldn’t offer here (like Max, John, Rovarsson, etc.) and if you’re an author frantically working on your game I wouldn’t want you test either. But if an author is basically done and wants to swap testing, I’d be happy to! Or if someone isn’t involved in IFComp and wants to test.
If not, I’ll see you all when things settle down with IFComp! Till then, it’s time to work on the finale, and then on the beginning.
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Just wanted to pop in here for a quick message: I’m still very interested in testers, but I respect the competition and believe it should get reviews first. So my plan is to not ask for more testers until I’ve finished reviewing all the games I plan on reviewing, and then I’ll peek back in here. The comp has been incredibly fun so far so I hope everyone is enjoying games of their preferred types!
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Hi, I’m interested in testing for your game. I’m a (somewhat) new IF player, so I might offer some insights different from the veterans that have played for longer than I have. Let me know if you’d like me to help out.
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