Now that the comp is over, I’m polishing up the post-comp release of Stormrider with a new batch of bugfixes and improvements. I noted down a bunch of them from reviews during the comp, and a few people have also send me PMs about it, which are very much appreciated.
But inspired by the thread about Vambrace of Destiny, I want to put out a call for any specific issues you encountered during the comp.
A couple things already on the list:
More general ambiance and flavor text around the ship, especially in the areas where you can see the sky outside
Trying to HIDE with the wrong preposition currently gives a misleading response (e.g. HIDE UNDER BARRELS when the game wants HIDE ON BARRELS should tell you that you’re using the wrong preposition, not that hiding there isn’t possible)
A way to interact with Kiang (to a limited extent), and to access the port walk; you won’t be able to reach the brig, but it’ll give me room for some more character-focused narration, to contrast with the alienation of the ship
Some text in the ending that hints at what remains to be solved, if there are tasks unfinished on the tablet
Things I won’t be adding:
More explicit explanation to the ending. I’ll talk about this more in the postmortem, but I specifically don’t want there to be an ending where you gain the ability to communicate with everyone; no matter what happens, nobody is willing and able to explain it all to Zagin, so anything they want to learn more about they have to investigate on their own. I’m not sure if that choice accomplished what I wanted it to, narratively, but right or wrong I’m sticking to it.
Thank you to everyone who played, and especially to everyone who wrote reviews! This was a great first IFComp and I’m very happy to have placed in the top half!
The one issue I found in the comp release is that the game can be put into a possible unwinning state by hiding under the desk prior of Ishme’s returning to his room (Ishme keep working on her desk, and obviously exiting from under the desk literally under her nose is a so bad situation, requiring RESTORE…)
Oh no, does that make it unwinnable? The intended behavior is that she yells at you and throws you out of the cabin, but doesn’t actually do anything to permanently block the puzzle—you can lure her out again by doing the same thing as before.
Actually I have restored, after all, back then I still have 1½ hr. of judging time… so, I supposed that I was a potentially unwinnable/game over situation (hence the “possible” in my prior post)
I think I would have liked a little more at the end about how you have to covertly hide things when the crew approaches, especially when you’re in the crawlspace and have or are in the same room room as the murder weapon and the guy that goes through the crawlspace comes by. I may be misremembering, so I can replay if that’s too vague, but I remember ‘oh no I’m gonna get caught!’, but it didn’t seem to mention anything. Near the beginning, it mentions how you have to hide some things from others’ view, so something like that at the end would add some impact I think. (apologies if it was already there and I didn’t notice!)