I only played the first version during the Comp. Now that I’ve just played the second one, it does seem like a good single-problem type game. Reaching the secret showdown at the end makes for a decent puzzle, and I like the interface, deliberately reminiscent of old-school IF. The secret ending moves the game more toward being a self-contained (though small) game instead of being simply a teaser, which is how it seemed to me when I played it for the Comp.
Two observations:
I was trying to figure out how to drop the medkit. The lack of an option to drop the medkit (unless I missed that option) doesn’t seem like a very good way to lock the player into one set path.
When I figured out how to jump out the window with both the revolver and the Uzzi, all the zombies got killed immediately when I chose to shoot them. I only saw the RPG element at the end in the YouTube video. Though I did try to punch the horde to death once, before I turned on the secrets.
So, this makes two meta-puzzles in this year’s competition. I had no idea about the existence of the other one, but I thought Emilian was probably the author of this game. And he did well. [emote]:)[/emote]
Dead Hotel was never meant to be a teaser. It was a completed and self-contained game indeed, although some people felt it was too short.
I didn’t add a drop function for items this time, like I did in my previous games, because I felt it would make no sense in this adventure game. I wanted to encourage players to a) carefully plan beforehand which items to take and which to leave and b) try to replay the game with a different inventory configuration.
Well, you can’t punch/kick the entire horde of 11 zombies and expect to win without firing weapons. You can only retreat in such case.
Here is how you do it:
But if you carry both weapons, the Uzi and the Revolver, you can kill them all and win. The number of zombies being killed with both weapons varies randomly after you fire all ammo at them. Sometimes you kill all 11, sometimes 9-10. The remaining number of zombies have to be fought against without weapons in order to win. But you can always retreat in any of the cases and still win the game too, but with lower score.
MS Windows, homebrew CYOA system, retro-look, weird english. Wasn’t hard to guess who programmed and wrote this one, was it. [emote];)[/emote]